Volume I Part 36 (1/2)

[Footnote 543: Pasquier, an impartial writer, but somewhat given to panegyric, paints a very flattering portrait of Guise, in a letter written after the death of the duke: ”Il fut seigneur fort debonnaire, bien emparle tant en particulier qu'en public, vaillant et magnanime, prompt a la main,” etc. uvres choisies, ii. 258.]

[Footnote 544: ”Le due de Guyse, grand chef de guerre, et capitaine capable de servir sa patrie, si l'ambition de son frere ne l'eust prevenu et empoisonne. Aussi a-il dict plusieurs fois de luy: Cest homme enfin nous perdra.” De l'Aubespine, Hist. part., iii. 286.]

[Footnote 545: ”Di dir poche volte il vero. Poco veredico, di natura duplice ed avara, non meno nel suo particolare che nelle cose del re.”

Suriano regards the cardinal as without a rival in this particular: ”Che di saper dissimulare non ha pari al mondo.” Tommaseo, i. 526.]

[Footnote 546: Not to speak of the property he obtained by dispossessing the rightful owners, he received, by favor of Diana, on the death of his uncle, Cardinal John, the benefices the latter had enjoyed, with all his personal wealth. Charles now had 300,000 livres of income; but he never thought of paying off his uncle's enormous debts: ”Laissa toutes les debtes d'iceluy, qui estoyent immenses, a ses creanciers, _pour y succeder par droit de bangueroute!_” De l'Aubespine, iii. 281. The papal envoy, Cardinal Prospero di Santa Croce, combines the traits of ambition, avarice, and hypocrisy in his portrait of his colleague in the sacred consistory, and makes little of his learning: ”Carolus a Lotharingia ... juvenis _non illiteratus_, ac ingenio versuto et callido, _maxime ambitioni et avaritiae dedito_, quae vitia _religionis ac sanctimoniae simulatione obtegere conabatur_.” Prosperi Santacrucii de Civilibus Galliae dissensionibus commentariorum libri tres (Martene et Durand Amplissima Collectio), v. 1438. After these delineations of his character by not unfriendly pens, it is scarcely surprising that a caustic contemporary pamphlet--_Le livre des marchands_ (1565)--should describe him as ”ce cardinal si avare, et si ambitieux de nature, que l'avarice et l'ambition mise dedans des balances, elles demeureroyent egalles entre deux fers.” (Ed. Pantheon, p. 423.)]

[Footnote 547: ”Non credo fosse in quel regno desiderata alcuna cosa piu che la sua morte.” Relaz. di Gio. Michiel, Tommaseo, i. 440. I have united the accounts of two amba.s.sadors, Soranzo and Michiel, the first belonging to 1558, the other to 1561. Both are contained in Tommaseo's edit. of the Relations Venitiens.]

[Footnote 548: Werke, viii. 141.]

[Footnote 549: Brantome, uvres (Ed. of Fr. Hist. Soc.), iv. 275, etc.]

[Footnote 550: ”Et seroit a desirer que ceste femme et le cardinal n'eussent jamais este; car ces deux seuls out este les flamesches de nos malheurs.” De l'Aubespine, iii. 286. The reader will, after this, make little account of the extravagant panegyric by the Father Alby (inserted by Migne in his Dict. des Card., s. v. Lorraine); yet he may be amused at the precise contradiction between the estimate of the cardinal's political services made by this ecclesiastic and that of the practical statesman given above. He seems to the priest born for the good of others: ”ayant pour cela merite de la posterite toutes les louanges d'un homme ne pour le bien des autres, et le t.i.tre meme de cardinal de France, qui lui fut donne par quelques ecrivains de son temps.” This blundering eulogist makes him to have been a.s.signed by Francis I. as counsellor of his son.]

[Footnote 551: Brantome, Hommes ill.u.s.tres (uvres, viii. 63).]

[Footnote 552: Mem. de Vieilleville, i. 179.]

[Footnote 553: La Planche, 205.]

[Footnote 554: Mem. de Vieilleville, i. 186-189.]

[Footnote 555: ”Pour du tout s'a.s.seurer, ils se jetterent du commencement au party de ceste femme; et specialement le cardinal, _qui estoit des plus parfaicts en l'art de courtiser_. Comme tel _il se gehenna_ tellement par l'es.p.a.ce de pres de deux ans, que ne tenant point de table pour sa personne, _il disnoit a la table de Madame_; ainsi estoit-elle appellee par la Royne mesme.” L'Aubespine, Hist.

particuliere, iii. 281.]

[Footnote 556: ”Ne pouvant doresenavant estre aultre mon interest que le vostre. De quoy Dieu soit loue,” etc. Letter of the Card. of Lorraine, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., ix. (1860), 216.]

[Footnote 557: De Thou, i. 496. Henry was a _religious_ prince also, according to Dandolo. The amba.s.sador's standard, however, was not a very severe one: ”Sua maesta si dimostra religiosa, _non cavalca la domenica, almen la mattina_.” Relaz. Venete, ii. 173.]

[Footnote 558: Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., i, 43, 44.]

[Footnote 559: Une chambre speciale composee de ”dix ou douze conseillers des plus scavants et des plus zeles, pour connoistre du faict d'heresie, sans qu'elle pust vacquer a d'autres affaires.” Reg.

secr., 17 avril, 1545; Floquet, Hist. du. parl. de Normandie, ii. 241.]

[Footnote 560: In the preamble to the edict of Paris issued two years later, Henry rehea.r.s.es the ordinance and its motives: ”Et pour ceste cause des nostre nouvel avenement a la couronne, voulans a l'exemple et imitation de feu nostredit seigneur et pere, travailler et prester la main a purger et nettoier nostre royaume d'une telle peste, nous aurions pour plus grande et prompte expedition desdites matieres et procez sur le fait desdites heresies, erreurs et fausses doctrines ordonne et estably _une chambre particuliere en nostre parlement a Paris, pour seulement vaquer ausdites expeditions, sans se divertir a autres actes_.” Isambert, xiii. 136. Cf. Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 516.]

[Footnote 561: Martin, Hist. de France, ix. 516.]

[Footnote 562: Edict of Fontainebleau, Dec. 11, 1547. Isambert, xiii.

37, 38.]

[Footnote 563: A singular ill.u.s.tration of this device is given in a letter recently discovered. In 1542 a printer, to secure for his edition of the Protestant liturgy and psalter a more ready entrance into Roman Catholic cities, added the whimsical imprint: ”_Printed in Rome, with privilege of the Pope_”!--Naturally enough, this very circ.u.mstance aroused suspicion at the gates of Metz, and 600 copies were stopped. The ultimate fate of the books is unknown. Letter of Peter Alexander, May 25, 1542, Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Calvini Opera, vi. p. xv. A single copy of this _Roman_ edition has recently come to light. It proves to be the earliest edition thus far discovered of Calvin's Strasbourg Liturgy, the prototype of his Geneva Liturgy. O. Douen, Clement Marot et le Psautier huguenot (Paris, 1878), i. 334-339; and farther on in note at the close of this chapter.]

[Footnote 564: Crespin, fols. 152-155. De Thou (i. 446) mistakes the date of the sentence of the Parliament of Paris, March 3, 1548 (1547 Old Style), for that of the execution. The awkward old French practice of making the year begin with _Easter_, instead of January 1st, has in this, as in many other instances, led to great confusion, even in the minds of those who were perfectly familiar with the custom. The ”Histoire ecclesiastique,” for instance, places the execution of Brugiere in the reign of Francis I., whereas it belongs to the first year of the reign of his son. So does White, Ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew, p. 19.]

[Footnote 565: Crespin, fol. 156.]