Volume I Part 51 (1/2)

[Footnote 883: Ibid., _ubi supra_; La Planche, 349; De Thou, ii. 782.]

[Footnote 884: La Planche, _ubi supra_. An a.s.sembly of notables was, as the term imports, a body consisting, not of representatives of the three orders, regularly summoned under the forms observed in the holding of the States General, but of the most prominent men of the kingdom, arbitrarily selected and invited by the crown to act as its advisers on some extraordinary emergency. ”Telles a.s.semblees,” says Agrippa d'Aubigne, ”ont este appelees _pet.i.ts estats_.” Hist. univ., i. 96.]

[Footnote 885: ”This house is both beautiful and larger than any I had before seen in France or England. I may resemble the state thereof to the honour of Hampton Court, which as it pa.s.seth Fontainebleau with the great hall and chambers, so is it inferior in outward beauty and uniformity,” etc. The Journey of the Queen's Amba.s.sadors to Rome, Anno 1555, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 67.]

[Footnote 886: Charles Maximilian, now a boy of ten, was the successor of Francis, known as Charles the Ninth. Edward Alexander, Duke of Alencon, had his name changed in 1565 to Henry, and became Duke of Anjou. He was at this time not quite nine years of age. He was subsequently king, under the t.i.tle of Henry the Third. Hercules became Francis of Alencon in 1565, and was the only one of the brothers that never ascended the throne. He was now a little over six years old.]

[Footnote 887: La Place, 53; La Planche, 350, 351; De Thou, ii. 706; Mem. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 8; Davila, 29. Minor discrepancies between these accounts need not be noted.]

[Footnote 888: ”As if,” says Calvin to Bullinger, ”finding himself at his wits' end, he had called in a consultation of state doctors.”

(Bonnet, iv. 135.)]

[Footnote 889: ”Deux requestes de la part des Fideles de France, qui desirent viure selon la reformation de l'Euangile, donnees pour presenter au Conseil tenu a Fontainebleau au mois d'Aoust, M.D.LX.”

Recueil des choses memorables faites et pa.s.sees pour le faict de la Religion et estat de ce Royaume, depuis la mort du Roy Henry II. iusques au commencement des troubles. _Sine loco_, 1565, vol. i. 614-619.]

[Footnote 890: La Place, 54, 55, and La Planche, 351, are, as usual in this reign, our best authorities in reference to Coligny's address and the presentation of the pet.i.tion; see also Hist. eccles., i. 173, 174; De Thou, ii. 797; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 8; Davila, bk. ii., p. 30. La Place and Jean de Serres, De statu, etc., i. 96 (who are followed by De Thou, etc.), seem to be more correct in a.s.signing the address to the _second_ session, than La Planche, the Hist. eccles., etc., who place it at the very commencement of the _first_. Calvin, in a letter to Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 135) describes the scene in the same manner as La Place. Vita Gasparis Colinii (1575), 27, etc.; Vie de Coligny (Cologne, 1686), p. 213, etc. Mr. Browning (Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 29) erroneously attributes the authors.h.i.+p of the last mentioned work to Francis Hotman (who died in 1590); whereas the author wrote after Maimbourg and Varillas, whose statements he controverts.

(Pref., p. ii., and p. 86.) Hotman, as noticed elsewhere, was the author of the preceding and much more authentic book.]

[Footnote 891: Not, however, precisely in the ranks of the clergy.

Marillac was a layman, whose success in negotiation had been rewarded with the archiepiscopal see of Vienne. In his youth he had been suspected of composing an apology for a ”Lutheran” burned at the stake in Paris; and he died broken-hearted, seeing the ruin to which both church and state were tending, two months after the a.s.sembly of Fontainebleau. La Place, 72, 73; La Planche, 360, 361. Neither was Montluc of Valence a clergyman. Paris, Negotiations sous Francois II., Notice, p. x.x.xvii.]

[Footnote 892: It was not unfrequently recommended, as a species of panacea for the evils in the church, that the bishops should all be sent off to their dioceses. An edict to that effect had recently been promulgated, and it was supposed that the parish curates would soon be directed to follow their example. (Languet, ii. 68.) ”What else will result from this I know not,” quietly adds the sensible diplomatist, ”but that they will betray their ignorance and baseness, and that the contempt and hatred already entertained for them by the people will be augmented.” Elsewhere, in expressing the same view of the absurdity of the order, he gives this unflattering description of the prelates: ”c.u.m plerique sint plane indocti et praeterea luxu, libidinibus, et aliis sceleribus perditissimi,” etc. (Ibid., ii. 73.)]

[Footnote 893: ”Autant de deux escus que les banquiers avoyent envoyes a Rome, autant de cures nous avoyent-ils renvoyes,” adds Montluc. La Place, 56.]

[Footnote 894: The harangue of Montluc is contained word for word, though with erroneous date, in the Recueil des choses memorables (1565), pp. 286-305; also in La Place, 55-58; Mem. de Conde, 557-562. Summary in De Thou, ii. 797-800; Jean de Serres, De statu rel. et reip. (1571), i.

99-106.]

[Footnote 895: ”Et qu'en tout evenement nous ne voulons perir pour luy complaire.” La Place, 60; La Planche, 354.]

[Footnote 896: ”Et sur ce, ne fault espargner les Italiens qui occupent la troisiesme partie des benefices du royaume, ont pensions infinies, succent nostre sang comme sangsues,” etc. La Place and La Planche, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 897: La Place, 64; La Planche, 359. Both historians give the speech _verbatim_. J. de Serres, i. 106-126; Letter of Calvin to Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560, _ubi supra_; Hist. eccles., i. 174-178. Would that these words of wholesome advice and sound philosophy had not been left unheeded by royalty and _n.o.blesse_! The course of politic humanity to which they pointed might have saved a monarch his head, the n.o.blesse countless lives and the loss of large possessions, and France a b.l.o.o.d.y revolution.]

[Footnote 898: La Planche, 361; La Place, 66; De Thou, ii. 802; Mem. de Castelnau, liv. ii. c. 8; Hist. eccles., i. 178; Jean de Serres, i.

127.]

[Footnote 899: La Planche, 361, 362; La Place, 67. The latter and J. de Serres, i. 129, are certainly wrong in attributing this pa.s.sionate menace to the Cardinal of Lorraine. De Thou, ii. 802; Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 8.]

[Footnote 900: La Planche, etc., _ubi supra_. Calvin to Bullinger, Oct.

1, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 136).]

[Footnote 901: La Planche, 362, 363; La Place, 67; J. de Serres, De statu rel. et reip., i. 128-131; De Thou, ii. 802, 803. After seeing the head instigator of persecution, still gory with the blood of the recent slaughter, a.s.sume with such effrontery the language of pity and toleration, we may be prepared for his duplicity at the interview of Saverne. The compiler of the Hist. eccles. (i, 179) explains the consent of the Guises to the convocation of the estates by supposing them to have hoped by this measure not merely to take away the excuse of their opponents, but, by obtaining a majority, to secure the declaration of Navarre and Conde as rebels, whether they came or declined to appear.

Calvin (letter to Bullinger, _ubi supra_, p. 137) gives the same view.

So does Barbaro: ”Forse non tanto per volonta che s'avesse d'esseguirle quanto per adomentare gli risvegliati, et guadagnar, come si fece.” The Pope and Philip violently opposed the plan ”perche ne l'uno ne l'altro sapeva il secreto.” ”By the plan of the council, ... they succeeded in feeding with vain hopes (dar pasto) those who sought to make innovations in the faith.” Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 524, etc.]

[Footnote 902: La Planche, 363, 364; La Place, 68; De Thou, ii. 803 (liv. xxv). Cf. the edict in full _apud_ Negociations sous Francois II., 486-490; also a letter of Francis in which he explains his course to Philip II., ib. 490-497.]

[Footnote 903: The cardinal had, however, made a somewhat similar discourse, just about six months before, to Throkmorton, much to the good knight's disgust. He had expressed a recognition of the faults prevalent in the church, and pretended to be desirous of reforming it in an orderly manner. ”I am not so ignorant,” he said, ”nor so led with errors that reigne, as the world judgeth.” He declared himself in favor of a general council, and spoke with satisfaction of an edict just despatched to Scotland, ”to surcease the punishment of men for religion.” ”And of this purpose,” adds the amba.s.sador with pardonable sarcasm, ”he made suche an oration as it were long to write, _evon as thoughe he had bene hired by the Protestants to defend their cause earnestly_!” Despatch to the queen, Feb. 27, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 337, 338.]