Volume I Part 42 (2/2)
[Sidenote: Oppression becomes intolerable.]
[Sidenote: The convocation of the States General.]
The religious grievances thus ran parallel with the political, and could scarcely be distinguished in the great aggregate of the intolerable oppression to which France was subjected. The legislation of which such grave complaint was made, it must be admitted, was sometimes sufficiently whimsical. The resources of the royal treasury, for instance, being inadequate to meet the demands of creditors, it was necessary to silence their importunity. An inhuman decree was accordingly published, enjoining upon all pet.i.tioners who had come to Fontainebleau, where the king was sojourning, to solicit the payment of debts or pensions, to leave the court within twenty-four hours, on pain of the halter! A gallows newly erected in front of the castle was a significant warning as to the serious character of the threat.[803] In order to provide against uprisings such as the violent course taken was well calculated to occasion, the people must be disarmed. Accordingly, an edict was published, within a fortnight after the accession of Francis, strictly forbidding all persons from carrying pistols and other firearms, and the prohibition was more than once repeated during this brief reign.[804] While thus seeking to repress the display of the popular displeasure in acts of violence and sedition, the Guises resolved to prevent the overthrow of their usurped authority by legitimate means. The convocation of the States General was the safety-valve through which, in accordance with a wise provision, the overheated pa.s.sions of the people were wont to find vent. But the a.s.sembling of the representatives of the three orders would be equivalent to signing the death-warrant of the Guises; while to Catharine, the queen mother, it would betoken an equally dreaded termination of long-cherished hopes. Both Catharine and the Guises, therefore, gave out that whoever talked of convening the States was a mortal enemy of the king, and made himself liable to the pains of treason.[805] Every precaution had been taken to make the boiler tight, and to render impossible the escape of the scalding waters and the steam; it only remained to be seen whether the structure was proof against an explosion.
[Sidenote: Calvin and Beza consulted.]
[Sidenote: They dissuade armed resistance.]
[Sidenote: Calvin foresees civil war.]
[Sidenote: More favorable replies.]
Such a catastrophe, indeed, seemed now to be imminent.[806] Among the more restless, especially, there was a manifest preparation for some new enterprise. The correspondence of the reformers reveals the fact that, as early as in the commencement of September, a knotty question had been propounded to the Genevese theologians:[807] ”Is it lawful to make an insurrection against those enemies not only of religion, but of the very state, particularly when, according to law, the king himself possesses no authority on which they can rest their usurpation?” This was an interrogatory often put by those who would gladly have followed the example of a Scaevola, and sacrificed their own lives to purchase freedom for France. ”Hitherto,” notes Beza, ”we have answered that the storm must be overcome by prayer and by patience, and that He will not desert us who lately showed by so wonderful an example (the death of Henry) not only what He can, but what He will do for His church. Until now this advice has been followed.”[808] As the plan for a forcible overthrow of the Guises began to develop under the increasing oppression, and as malcontents from France came to the free city on Lake Leman in greater numbers, Calvin expressed his convictions with more and more distinctness, and endeavored to dissuade the refugees from embarking in so hazardous an undertaking. Its advocates in vain urged that they had received from a prince of the blood (ent.i.tled, by the immemorial custom of the realm, to the first place in the council, in the absence of his brother, the King of Navarre) the promise to present their confession of faith to the young monarch of France, and that thousands would espouse his defence if he were a.s.sailed. The reformer saw more clearly than they the rising of the clouds of civil war portending ruin to his native land. ”Let but a single drop of blood be shed,” said Calvin, ”and streams will flow that must inundate France.”[809] But his prudent advice was unheeded. Other theologians and jurists of France and Germany had been questioned. They replied more favorably, ”It is lawful,” they said, ”to take up arms to repel the violence of the Guises, under the authority of a prince of the blood, and at the solicitation of the estates of France, or the soundest part of them. Having seized the persons of the obnoxious ministers, it will next be proper to a.s.semble the States General, and put them on trial for their flagrant offences.”[810]
[Sidenote: G.o.defroy de la Renaudie.]
[Sidenote: His grounds for revenge.]
An active and energetic man was needed to organize the movement and control it until the proper moment should come for Conde--the ”mute”
head, whose name was for the time to be kept secret--to declare himself.
Such a leader was found in G.o.defroy de Barry, Seigneur de la Renaudie, a gentleman of ancient family in Perigord. The result justified the wisdom of the choice. Besides the discontent animating him in common with the better part of the kingdom, La Renaudie had private wrongs of his own to avenge. Less than a year before the accession of Francis, his brother-in-law, Gaspard de Heu, had been arrested as a pretended agent for bringing about an alliance between the King of Navarre and the Protestant princes of Germany.[811] In the gloomy castle of the Bois de Vincennes a private trial had been held, in which none of the accustomed forms of law were observed. De Heu had been barbarously tortured and secretly despatched.[812] That it was a judicial murder was proved by the extraordinary precautions taken to conceal the procedure from the knowledge of the public, and by the selection of the most lonely place about the castle for the grave into which his official a.s.sa.s.sins hastily thrust the body.[813] La Renaudie held the Cardinal of Lorraine to be the author of the cowardly deed.[814]
[Sidenote: He a.s.sembles the malcontents at Nantes, Feb. 1, 1560.]
[Sidenote: Well-devised plans.]
La Renaudie displayed incredible diligence.[815] In a few days he had travelled over a great part of France, visiting all the most prominent opponents of the Guises, urging the reluctant, a.s.suring the timid, inciting all to a determined effort. On the first of February he a.s.sembled in the city of Nantes a large number of n.o.blemen and of persons belonging to the ”tiers etat,” who claimed to be as complete a representation of the estates of France as the circ.u.mstances of the country would admit. It was a hazardous undertaking; but so prudently did the deputies deport themselves, that, although the Parliament of Brittany was then sitting at Nantes, they were not detected in the crowd of pleaders before the court. After solemnly protesting that the enterprise was directed neither against the majesty of the king and of the princes of the blood, nor against the legitimate estate of the kingdom, the a.s.sembly was intrusted with the secret of the name of the prince by whose authority the arrest of the Guises was to be attempted.
The tenth of March[816] was fixed upon for the execution of the design.
At that date, it was supposed, Francis and his court would be sojourning on the banks of the Loire.[817] Five hundred gentlemen were selected, and placed under the command of ten captains. All were to obey the directions of the ”mute” chief, and his delegate, La Renaudie. Others of the confederates were pledged to prevent the provincial towns from sending a.s.sistance to the Guises. The force thus raised was to be disbanded only when a legitimate government had been re-established, and the usurpers brought to punishment.[818]
[Sidenote: Confidence of the Guises.]
The plan was well devised, and its execution was entrusted to capable hands. The omens, indeed, were favorable. The Cardinal of Lorraine and his brother, intoxicated by the uniform success. .h.i.therto attending their ambitious projects, despised such vague rumors of opposition as reached their ears. The party adverse to their tyranny, composed not only of Protestants and others who sought the best interests of their country, but recruited from the ranks of the restless and of those who had private wrongs to redress, was sure, on the first tidings of its uprising, to secure the active co-operation of many of the most powerful n.o.bles, and possibly might enlist the majority of the population. Rarely has an important secret been so long and so successfully kept. It was deemed little short of a miracle that, in a time of peace, and in a country where the regal authority was so implicitly obeyed, a deliberative a.s.sembly of no mean size had been convened from all the provinces of France, and the Guises had obtained intimations of the conspiracy of their enemies by letters from Germany, Spain, and Italy, before any tidings of it reached the ears of their spies carefully posted in every part of the kingdom. So close a reticence augured ill for the permanence of the present usurpation.[819]
[Sidenote: The plot betrayed.]
But the timidity or treachery of a single person disconcerted all the steps so cautiously taken. The curiosity of Des Avenelles, a lawyer at Paris, in whose house La Renaudie lodged, was excited by the number of the visitors whom his guest attracted. As his host was a Protestant, La Renaudie believed that he risked nothing in making of him a confidant.
But the secret was too valuable, or too dangerous, to be kept, and Des Avenelles secured his safety, as well as a liberal reward, by disclosing it to two dependants of the Guises, by whom it was faithfully reported to their masters.[820] The astounding information was at first received with incredulity, but soon a second witness was obtained. It could no longer be doubted that the blow of the approach of which letters from abroad, and especially from Cardinal Granvelle, in Flanders,[821] had warned them, was about to descend upon their heads.
[Sidenote: The ”Tumult of Amboise.”]
When fuller revelations of the extent of the plot were made, the court in consternation shut itself up in the defences of Amboise. Catharine de' Medici, recalling the warning of the Church of Paris, declared that now she saw that the Protestants were men of their word.[822]
[Sidenote: The Chatillons consulted.]
[Sidenote: Coligny gives Catharine good advice.]
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