Volume I Part 53 (2/2)
To the chancellor was, as usual, entrusted the honorable and responsible duty of laying before the representatives of the three orders the reasons of their present convocation. This office he discharged in a long and learned harangue. If the hearers were treated without stint to that profusion of ancient learning, upon which the orators of the age seem to have rested a great part of their claim to patient attention, they also listened to much that was of more immediate concern to them, respecting the origin of the States General, and the occasions for which they had from time to time been summoned by former kings. L'Hospital announced that the special object of the present meeting was to devise the means of allaying the seditions which had arisen in consequence of religious differences. ”These,” said L'Hospital, ”are the causes of the most serious dissensions. It is folly to hope for peace, rest, and friends.h.i.+p between persons of opposite creeds. A Frenchman and an Englishman holding a common faith will entertain stronger affection for each other than two citizens of the same city who disagree about their theological tenets.”[984] So powerful was still the prejudice of the age with one who was among the first to catch a glimpse of the true principles of religious toleration! That two discordant religions should permanently co-exist in a state, he agreed with most of his contemporaries in regarding as utterly impossible. For how could the adherents of the papacy and the disciples of the new faith conceal their differences under the cloak of a common charity and mutual forbearance?[985]
[Sidenote: Names of factions must be abolished.]
Yet the dawn of more enlightened principles could be detected in a subsequent part of the chancellor's speech. After prescribing a universal council--that panacea which all the state doctors of the day offered for the cure of the ills of the body politic--he advocated the employment, meantime, of persuasion instead of force, of gentleness rather than rigor, of charity and good works, as more effective than the most trenchant of material weapons. And, while he recommended his hearers to pray for the conversion of the erring, he exclaimed: ”Let us remove those diabolical words, names of parties, factions, and seditions--'Lutherans,' 'Huguenots,' and 'Papists'--and let us retain only the name of 'Christians.'”[986] In concluding his address, he did not forget to dwell upon the lamentable condition of the royal finances, thrown into almost inextricable confusion by twelve or thirteen years of continuous war and the expenses attending three magnificent weddings. He begged the estates, while they exposed their grievances, not to fail to provide the king with means for meeting his obligations.[987]
[Sidenote: Effrontery of Cardinal Lorraine.]
[Sidenote: De Rochefort orator for the n.o.blesse.]
[Sidenote: L'Ange for the tiers etat.]
It now devolved upon the deputies to prepare a statement of their grievances, and for this purpose the ”n.o.blesse” retired to the Dominican, the clergy to the Franciscan, and the ”tiers” to the Carmelite convents.[988] The Cardinal of Lorraine had had the effrontery to solicit, through his creatures, the honor of representing the three orders collectively; but the proposition had been rejected with undissembled derision. Loud voices were heard from among the deputies of the people, crying, ”We do not choose to select _him_ to speak for us of whom we intend to offer our complaints!”[989] Three orators were deputed to speak for the three orders.[990] The Sieur de Rochefort, in behalf of the n.o.bles, declared their approval of the government of Catharine, but insisted at some length upon the necessity of conciliating their good will by a studious regard for their privileges. He likened the king to the sun and the ”n.o.blesse” to the moon. Any conflict between the two would produce an eclipse that would darken the entire earth. He denounced the chicanery of the ecclesiastical courts and the non-residence of the priests;[991] and he closed by presenting a pet.i.tion, which was read aloud by one of the secretaries of state, demanding the grant of churches for the use of those n.o.bles who preferred the purer wors.h.i.+p.[992] The Bordalese lawyer, Jean L'Ange, in the name of the people, dwelt chiefly on the three capital vices of the clergy--ignorance, avarice, and luxury,[993] and portrayed very effectively the general disorders, the intolerable tyranny of the Guises, the exhausted state of the public treasury, and the means of restoring the Church to purity of faith and regularity of discipline.
[Sidenote: Arrogant speech of Quintin for the clergy.]
[Sidenote: Presumption in favor of the Catholic Church.]
But it was the clerical delegate, Jean Quintin, that attracted most attention. Standing between the other two orators, he delivered a speech of great length and insufferable arrogance. He admitted that the clergy might need reformation; but the Church with its hierarchy must not be touched--that was the body of Christ. Charles must defend the Church against heresy--against that Gospel falsely and maliciously so called, which consisted in profaning churches, in breaking the sacred images, in the marriage of priests and nuns. He must not suffer the Reformation to affect the articles of faith, the sacraments, traditions, ordinances, or ceremonial. Should any one venture to resuscitate heresies long dead and buried, he begged the king to declare him a champion of heresy and to proceed against him. He insisted on the presumption in favor of the Catholic Church, and demanded the unconditional submission of its opponents. ”They must believe us, without waiting for a council; not we them.” He was warm in his praise of the Emperors Theodosius II. and Valentinian III., who confiscated the goods of heretics, banished them, and deprived them of the right of conveying or receiving property by will. He raised his voice particularly in behalf of Burgundy and of his own diocese of Autun, whose inhabitants ”were well-nigh drowned by the much too frequent inundations of pestilent books from the infected lagoons of Geneva.”[994]
[Sidenote: Temporal interests.]
[Sidenote: Sad straits of the clergy.]
[Sidenote: A word for the down-trodden people.]
In the midst of this tirade against the inroads of Calvinism, the prudent doctor of canon law did not, however, altogether lose sight of the temporal concerns of the priesthood. He proffered an urgent request for the restoration of canonical elections, laying the growth of heresy altogether to the account of the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction by the Concordat in 1517. The sanction being re-established, ”the detestable and d.a.m.nable sects, the execrable and accursed heresies of to-day” would incontinently flee from the church. If he painted the portrait of the prelate elected by the suffrages of his diocese in somewhat too nattering colors, he certainly gave a vivid picture of the sad straits to which the clergy were reduced by the imposition of the repeated t.i.thes on their revenues, now become customary. Ma.s.ses were unsaid, churches had been stripped of their ornaments. Missals and chalices even had, in some places, been sold at auction to meet the exorbitant demands of royal officers. It was to be feared that, if Christian kings continued to lay sacerdotal possessions under contribution, the Queen of the South would rise up in judgment with this generation, and would condemn it. Lest, however, this commination should not prove terrible enough, the examples of Belshazzar and others were judiciously subjoined. On the other hand, Charles was urged to acquire a glory superior to that of Charlemagne, and to earn the surname of _Clerophilus_, or _Maximus_, by freeing the clergy of its burdens. By a very remarkable condescension, after this lofty flight of eloquence, the clerical advocate deigned to utter a short sentence or two in the interest of the ”n.o.blesse,” and even of the poor, down-trodden people--begging the king to lighten the burdens which that so good, so obedient people had long borne patiently, and not to suffer this third foot of the throne to be crushed or broken.[995] When the crown had returned to this course of just action, the Church would pray very devoutly in its behalf, the n.o.bility fight valiantly, _the people obey humbly_. It would be paradise begun on earth.[996]
[Sidenote: The clergy alone makes no progress.]
Thus spoke the chosen delegates of the three orders when summoned into the royal presence for the first time after the lapse of seventy-seven years. The n.o.bility and clergy vied with each other in extolling their own order; the people made little pretension, but had a large budget of grievances demanding redress. Nearly forty years had the Reformation been gaining ground surely and steadily. It had found, at last, recognition more or less explicit in the n.o.blesse and the ”tiers etat.”
But the clergy had made no progress, had learned nothing. The speech of Quintin, their chosen representative, on this critical occasion, was long and tiresome; but, instead of convincing, it only excited shame and disgust.[997]
Indeed, an allusion of his to the favorers of heresy daring to present pet.i.tions in behalf of the Huguenots, who demanded places in which to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, was taken by Admiral Coligny as a personal insult to himself, for which Quintin was compelled to make a public apology.[998]
[Sidenote: Coligny presents a Huguenot pet.i.tion.]
The incredible supineness of Antoine of Navarre prevented the States from demanding with much decision that the regency should be entrusted in the hands of him to whom it belonged of right. For how could enthusiasm be manifested in a matter regarding which the person chiefly interested showed such utter indifference? But the religious demands of the Huguenots were made distinctly known. As expressed in a pet.i.tion presented in their name to the queen mother by the Admiral's hands, these demands were comprehended under three heads: the convocation of a free universal council, which should decide definitely respecting the religious questions in dispute; the immediate liberation of all prisoners whose only crime was of a religious character--even if disguised under the false accusation of sedition; and liberty of a.s.sembling for the purpose of listening to the preaching of G.o.d's word, and for the administration of the sacraments, under such conditions as the royal council might deem necessary for the prevention of disorder.[999] So gracious was Catharine's answer, so brilliant were the signs of promise, that there were those who hoped soon to behold in France a king ”very Christian” in fact no less than in name.[1000]
[Sidenote: The estates prorogued.]
[Sidenote: Meanwhile prosecutions for religion to cease.]
It was, however, no easy matter to grant these reasonable requests. The Roman Catholic party resisted, with all the energy of desperation, the concession of any places for wors.h.i.+p according to the reformed faith.
Catharine was loth to take the decided step of disregarding their remonstrances. It seemed more convenient to avail herself of the representations of the majority of the delegates of the ”tiers etat,”
who regarded it as necessary to apply for new powers from their const.i.tuents, in consequence of the death of the monarch who had summoned them. The estates were accordingly prorogued to meet again at Pontoise on the first of May.[1001] The matter of the ”temples” was adjourned until that time. Meanwhile, in order to conciliate the Huguenots, orders were issued that all prosecutions for religious offences should surcease, and that the prisoners should at once be liberated, with the injunction to live in a Catholic fas.h.i.+on for the future.[1002] This concession, poor as it was, met with opposition on the part of the Parisian parliament, and was only registered--after more than a month's refusal--because of the king's express desire.[1003] But it was far from satisfying the Protestants; for, in answer to their very first demand, they were referred to the Council of Trent, which the pontiff had recently ordered to rea.s.semble at the coming Easter. Such a convocation--neither convened in a place of safe access, nor consisting of the proper persons to represent Christendom, nor under free conditions[1004]--could not be recognized by the Huguenots of France as a competent tribunal to act in the final adjudication of their cause.
They must refuse to appear either at Trent or at the a.s.sembly of French prelates, to be held as a preliminary to their proceeding to the universal council, in accordance with the resolutions of the notables at Fontainebleau.[1005]
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