Volume I Part 48 (2/2)

Such was the history of this famous a.s.sembly, in which, for the first time, the Huguenots found a voice; where views were calmly expressed respecting toleration and the necessity of a council, which a year before had been punished with death; where the chief persecutor of the reformed doctrines, carried away by the current, was induced to avow liberal principles.[903] This was progress enough for a single year. The enterprise of Amboise was not all in vain.

[Sidenote: New alarms.]

[Sidenote: Antoine and Conde summoned to court.]

The a.s.sembly of Fontainebleau had not dispersed when the court was thrown into fresh alarm. An agent of the King of Navarre, named La Sague, was discovered almost by accident, who, after delivering letters from his master to various friends in the neighborhood of Paris, was about to return southward with their friendly responses. He had imprudently given a treacherous acquaintance to understand that a formidable uprising was contemplated; and letters found upon his person seemed to bear out the a.s.sertion. The most cruel tortures were resorted to in order to elicit accusations against the Bourbons from suspected persons.[904] Among others, Francois de Vendome, Vidame of Chartres, one of the correspondents, was (on the twenty-seventh of August) thrown into the Bastile.[905] Three days later a messenger was despatched by the king to Antoine of Navarre, requesting him at once to repair to the capital, and to bring with him his brother Conde, against whom the charge had for six months been rife, that he was the head of secret enterprises, set on foot to disturb the peace of the realm.[906] At the same time an urgent request was sent to Philip the Second for a.s.sistance.[907]

[Sidenote: Philip adverse to a national council.]

[Sidenote: Projects to crush all heresy and its abettors.]

Nor was his Catholic Majesty reluctant to grant help--at least on paper.

But he accompanied his promises with advice. In particular, he sent Don Antonio de Toledo to dissuade the French government from holding a national council in Paris for the reformation of religion, as he understood it was proposed to do during the coming winter. This, he represented, would be prejudicial to their joint interests; ”for, should the French alter anything, the King of Spain would be constrained to admit the like in all his countries.” To which it was replied in Francis's name, that ”he would first a.s.semble his three estates, and there propone the matter to see what would be advised for the manner of a calling a general council, not minding _without urgent necessity_ to a.s.semble a council national.” As to the Spanish help, conditioned on the prudence of the French government, the Argus-eyed Throkmorton, who by his paid agents could penetrate into the boudoirs of his fellow-diplomatists and read their most cherished secrets,[908] wrote to Queen Elizabeth that a gentleman had reported to him that he had seen ”at the Pope's nuncio's hands a letter from the nuncio in Spain, wherein the aids were promised, and that the King of Spain had written to the French king that he would not only help him to suppress all heresy, trouble, and rebellion in France, but also join him to cause all such others as will not submit to the See Apostolic to come to order.” In fact, Throkmorton was enabled to say just how many men were to come from Flanders, and how many from Spain, and how many were to enter by way of Narbonne, and how many by way of Navarre. Quick work was to be made of schism, heresy, and rebellion in France. ”This done, and the parties for religion clean overthrown,” added the amba.s.sador, ”these princes have already accorded to convert their power towards England and Geneva, which they take to be the occasioners and causers of all their troubles.”[909]

[Sidenote: Navarre's irresolution embarra.s.ses Montbrun.]

The King of Navarre had, even before the receipt of the royal summons, discovered the mistake he had committed in not listening to the counsel, and copying the example of the constable, who had come to Fontainebleau well attended by retainers. Unhappily, the irresolution into which he now fell led to the loss of a capital opportunity. The levies ordered by Francis in Dauphiny, for the purpose of a.s.sisting the papal legate in expelling Montbrun from the ”Comtat,” enabled the Sieur de Maligny to collect a large Huguenot force without attracting notice. It had been arranged that these troops should be first employed in seizing the important city of Lyons for the King of Navarre. A part of the Huguenot soldiers had, indeed, already been secretly introduced into the city,[910] when letters were received from the irresolute Antoine indefinitely postponing the undertaking. After having for several days deliberated respecting his best course of conduct in these unforeseen circ.u.mstances, Maligny decided to withdraw as quietly as he had come; but a porter, who had caught a glimpse of the arms collected in one of the places of rendezvous, informed the commandant of the city. In the street engagement which ensued the Huguenots were successful, and for several hours held possession of the city from the Rhone to the Saone.

Finding it impossible, however, to collect the whole force to carry out his original design, Maligny retired under cover of the night, and was so fortunate as to suffer little loss.[911]

[Sidenote: The _people_ not discouraged.]

[Sidenote: ”The fas.h.i.+on of Geneva.”]

[Sidenote: Books from Geneva destroyed.]

Maligny's failure disconcerted Montbrun and Mouvans, with whom he had intended to co-operate, but had little effect in repressing the courage of the Huguenot _people_. Of this the royal despatches are the best evidence. Francis wrote to Marshal de Termes that since the a.s.sembly of Fontainebleau there had been public and armed gatherings _in an infinite number of places_, where previously there had been only secret meetings.

In Perigord, Agenois, and Limousin, _an infinite number_ of scandalous acts were daily committed by the seditious, who in most places _lived after the fas.h.i.+on of Geneva_. Such _canaille_ must be ”wiped out.”[912]

A month later those pestilent ”books from Geneva” turn up again. Count de Villars, acting for Constable Montmorency in his province of Languedoc, had burned two mule-loads of very handsomely bound volumes, much to the regret of many of the Catholic troopers, who grudged the devouring flames a sacrifice worth more than a thousand crowns.[913] But he quickly followed up the chronicle of this valiant action with a complaint of his impotence to reduce the sectaries to submission. The Huguenots of Nismes had taken courage, and guarded their gates. So, or even worse, was it of Montpellier[914] and Pezenas. Other cities were about to follow their example.

[Sidenote: Fifteen cities in one province receive ministers.]

[Sidenote: The children learn religion in the Geneva catechism.]

These were but the beginnings of evil. Three days pa.s.sed, and the Lieutenant-Governor of Languedoc sent a special messenger to the king, to inform him of the rapid progress of the contagion. Fifteen of the most considerable cities of the province had openly received ministers.[915] Ten thousand foot and five hundred horse would be needed to reduce them, and, when taken, they must be held by garrisons, and punished by loss of their munic.i.p.al privileges.[916] A fortnight more elapsed. Three or four thousand inhabitants of Nismes had retired in arms to the neighboring Cevennes.[917] When they descended into the plain, a larger number, who had submitted on the approach of the soldiery, would unite with them and form a considerable army. ”Heresy, alas, gains ground daily,” despondingly writes Villars; ”_the children learn religion only in the catechism brought from Geneva; all know it by heart_.” The cause of the evil he seemed to find in the circ.u.mstance--undoubtedly favorable to the Huguenots--that, of twenty-two bishops whose dioceses lay in Languedoc, all but five or six were non-residents.[918]

To all which lamentations the answer came back after the accustomed fas.h.i.+on: ”Slay, hang without respect to the forms of law; send lesser culprits, if preferable, to the galleys.”[919]

In Normandy, too, it began to be impossible for the Huguenots to conceal themselves. At Rouen, in spite of the severe penalties threatened, seven thousand persons gathered in the new market-place, on the twenty-sixth of August, ”singing psalms, and with their preacher in the midst on a chair preaching to them,” while five hundred men with arquebuses stood around the crowd ”to guard them from the Papists.” A few days before, at the opening of the great fair of Jumieges, a friar, according to custom, undertook to deliver a sermon; but the people, not liking his doctrine, ”pulled him out of the pulpit and placed another in his place.”[920]

[Sidenote: Elections for the States General.]

Nor was the courage of the Huguenots less clearly manifested a little later in the elections preparatory to the holding of the States General.

In spite of strict injunctions issued by the Cardinal of Lorraine to the officers in each bailiwick and senechaussee, to prevent the debate of grievances from touching upon the authority of the Guises or that of the Church, and especially to defeat the election of any but undoubted friends of the Roman Church, his friends were successful in neither attempt. The voice of the oppressed people made itself heard in thunder-tones at Blois, at Angers,[921] and elsewhere. Even in Paris--the stronghold of the Roman faith--the reformed ventured, in face of a vast numerical majority against them, to urge in the Hotel-de-Ville the insertion of their remonstrances in the ”cahiers” of the city. Of thirteen provinces, ten addressed such complaints to the States General.[922]

[Sidenote: Clerical demands at Poitiers.]

But the clerical order did not forget its old demands, even where the Tiers etat leaned to toleration. The provincial estates of Poitou, meeting in the Dominican convent of Poitiers, presented a contrast of this kind. The delegates of the people, after listening to the eloquent appeal of an intrepid Huguenot pastor, determined to pet.i.tion the States General for the free exercise of the reformed religion. The representatives of the church made its complaints regarding the ”ravis.h.i.+ng wolves, false preachers, and their adherents, who are to-day in so great numbers that there are not so many true sheep knowing the voice of their shepherds.” The ”mild and holy admonitions” of the church having been thrown away upon these reprobates, the clergy proposed to open a register of all that should neglect to receive the sacrament at Easter, and to attend the church services with regularity. And it made the modest demand that all persons honored with an entry in this book should, as heretics, be deprived of all right to make contracts, that their wills be declared hull and void, and that all their property--in particular all houses in which preaching had been held--be confiscated.

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