Volume I Part 56 (2/2)
[Footnote 974: De la Place, 76.]
[Footnote 975: ”De consentir que une femme veuve, une estrangere et Italienne domine, non-seulement il luy tourneroit a grand deshonneur, mais a un tel prejudice de la couronne, qu'il en seroit blasme a jamais.” Calvin to the ministers of Paris, Lettres fr., ii. 346.]
[Footnote 976: Commentarii del regno di Francia, probably written early in 1562, in Tommaseo, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 552-554.]
[Footnote 977: Calvin, who read his contemporaries thoroughly, wrote to Bullinger (May 24, 1561): ”Rex Navarrae non minus segnis aut flexibilis quam hactenus liberalis est promissor; nulla fides, nulla constantia, etsi enim videtur interdum non modo viriles igniculos jacere, sed luculentam flammam spargere, mox evanescit. Hoc quando subinde accidit non aliter est metuendus quam praevaricator forensis. Adde quod totus est venereus,” etc. Baum, vol. ii., App., 32.]
[Footnote 978: Letter of Francis Hotman, Strasbourg, December 31, 1560, to the King of Navarre, Bulletin, ix. (1860) 32.]
[Footnote 979: ”En quoy il fault que je vous dye que le roy de Navarre, qui est le premier, et auquel les lois du royaume donnent beaucoup d'avantage, s'est si doulcement et franchement porte a mon endroict, que j'ay grande occasion de m'en contenter, s'estant du tout mis entre mes mains et despouille du pouvoir et d'auctorite soubz mon bon plaisir....
Je l'ay tellement gaigne, que je fais et dispose de luy tout ainsy qu'il me plaist.” Letter of Catharine to the Bishop of Limoges, December 19, 1560, _ap._ Negociations relat. au regne de Fr. II., p. 786, 787.]
[Footnote 980: ”Encore que je souy contraynte d'avoyr le roy de Navarre aupres de moy, d'aultent que le louys de set royaume le portet ynsin, quant le roy ayst en bas ayage, que les prinse du sanc souyt aupres de la mere; si ne fault-y qu'il entre en neule doulte, car y m'e si aubeysant et n'a neul comendement que seluy que je luy permes.” The fact that this letter was written by Catharine's own hand well accounts for the spelling. Negociations, etc., 791.]
[Footnote 981: Memoires de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 2. In July, 1561, the salaries of the officers of the Parliament of Paris were in arrears for nearly a year and a half. Memoires de Conde (Edit. Michaud et Poujoulat), 579.]
[Footnote 982: ”Che certo non pu piu.” Relaz. di Giovanne Michele, _ap._ Tommaseo, Relations des Amb. Ven., i. 408.]
[Footnote 983: And yet--such are the inconsistencies of human character--this queen, whose nature was a singular compound of timidity, hypocrisy, licentiousness, malice, superst.i.tion, and atheism, would seem at times to have felt the need of the a.s.sistance of a higher power. If Catharine was not dissembling even in her most confidential letters to her daughter, it was in some such frame of mind that she recommended Isabella to pray to G.o.d for protection against the misfortunes that had befallen her mother. The letter is so interesting that I must lay the most characteristic pa.s.sage under the reader's eye. The date is unfortunately lost. It was written soon after Charles's accession: ”Pour se, ma fille, m'amye, recommende-vous bien a Dyeu, car vous m'aves veue ausi contente come vous, ne pensent jeames avoyr aultre tryboulatyon que de n'estre ases aymaye a mon gre du roy vostre pere, qui m'onoret pluls que je ne merites, mes je l'ayme tant que je aves tousjour peur, come vous saves fayrement ases: et Dyeu me l'a haulte, et ne se contente de sela, m'a haulte vostre frere que je ayme come vous saves, et m'a laysee aveque troys enfans petys, et en heun reaume (un royaume) tout dyvyse, n'y ayent heum seul a qui je me puise du tout fyer, qui n'aye quelque pasion partycoulyere.” G.o.d alone, she goes on to say, can maintain her happiness, etc. Negociations, etc., 781, 782.]
[Footnote 984: ”C'est folie d'esperer paix, repos et amitie entre les personnes qui sont de diverses religions.... Deux Francois et Anglois qui sont d'une mesme religion, ont plus d'affection et d'amitie entre eux que deux citoyens d'une mesme ville, subjects a un mesme seigneur, qui seroyent de diverses religions.” La Place, p. 85; Histoire eccles., i. 264.]
[Footnote 985: Yet the Huguenots, more enlightened than the chancellor, while not renouncing the notion that the civil magistrate is bound to maintain the true religion, justly censured L'Hospital's statements as refuted by the experience of the greater part of the world. ”Disaient davantage, qu'a la verite, puisqu'il n'y a qu'une vraye religion a laquelle tous, pet.i.te et grands, doivent viser, le magistrat doit sur toutes choses pourvoir a ce qu'elle seule soit avouee et gardee aux pays de sa sujettion; mais ils niaient que de la il fallut conclure qu'amitie aucune ni paix ne put etre entre sujets de diverses religions, se pouvant verifier le contraire tant par raisons peremptoires, que par experience du temps pa.s.se et present en la plupart du monde.” Histoire eccles., i. 268.]
[Footnote 986: ”Ostons ces mots diaboliques, noms de parts, factions et seditions; _lutheriens_, _huguenauds_, _papistes_; ne changeons le nom de _chrestien_.” La Place, p. 87.]
[Footnote 987: The chancellor's address is given _in extenso_ in Pierre de la Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et republique pp.
80-88; and in the Histoire eccles. des egl. ref., i. 257-268. De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 3-7. ”Habuit longam orationem Cancellarius,” says Beza, ”in qua initio quidem pulchre multa de antiquo regni statu disseruit, sed mox _aulic.u.m suum ingenium_ prodidit.” Letter to Bullinger, Jan. 22, 1561, Baum, Theod. Beza, ii. App., 19. Prof. Baum has shown (vol. ii., p. 159, note) that this last a.s.sertion is fully borne out by portions of the speech, even when viewed quite independently of the impatience naturally felt by a Huguenot when an enlightened statesman undertook to sail a middle course where justice was so evidently on one side. I refer, for instance, to that extraordinary pa.s.sage in which L'Hospital speaks of the treatment to which the Protestants had hitherto been subjected as _so gentle_, ”qu'il semble plus correction paternelle que punition. Il n'y a eu ni portes forcees, ny murailles de villes abbattues, ni maisons bruslees, ny privileges ostes aux villes, commes les princes voisins ont faict de nostre temps en pareils troubles et seditions.” La Place, _ubi supra_, p. 87. See other points specified in Histoire eccles., _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 988: La Place, 88.]
[Footnote 989: Ib., 79; Hist. eccles., i. 269, 270; Beza to Bullinger, Jan. 22, 1561, _ubi supra_: ”quam ipsius audaciam c.u.m n.o.bilitas et plebs magno c.u.m fremitu repulisset, indignatus ille ne suae quidem Ecclesiae patrocinium suscipere voluit.”]
[Footnote 990: This was on the 1st day of Jan., 1561: ”Habuerunt hi singuli suas orationes publice, sedente rege et delecto ipsius concilio, Calendis Januarii.” Letter of Beza, _ubi supra_, p. 20.]
[Footnote 991: All previous legislation appears to have proved fruitless. ”Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” It was all in vain to endeavor to confine the gay and aspiring ecclesiastics to the provinces, so long as promotion was only to be found at Paris and worldly pleasures in the large cities. An edict of 1557, enjoining residence, Haton tells us, had little effect.
It was obeyed only by the poorest and most obscure of the curates, and by them only for a short time. The great were not able to observe it, if they would. How could they? They could not have told on which benefice to reside, for they held many. ”Ung homme seul tenoit un archevesche, un evesche et trois abbayes tout ensemble; ung aultre deux ou trois cures, avec aultant de prieurez, le tout par permission et dispense du pape....
_Et pour ce ne scavoient auquel desditz benefices ilz debvoient resider._” Mem. de Claude Haton, i. 91.]
[Footnote 992: La Place, Commentaries, 89-93; De Thou, iii. (liv.
xxvii.) 8-10, Hist. eccles., i. 277-279.]
[Footnote 993: La Place, Commentaires, 89; De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 8-10; Hist. eccles., i. 277, 279. None of these authors give more than a very imperfect sketch of L'Ange's harangue. Beza, in the letter more than once referred to above, says: ”n.o.bilitatem ferunt valde fort.i.ter et libere locutam, sed plebs imprimis graviter et copiose disseruit de rerum omnium perturbatione, de intolerabili quorundam potentia, etc....
adeo ut omnes audientes valde permoverit.” Baum, Theod. Beza, ii., App., 20, 21.]
[Footnote 994: ”Quasi noyes de telles trop frequentes inondations des infectees lagunes de Geneve.” The mention of the heretical capital requires an apology on the part of our pious orator, and he adds in Latin, after the fas.h.i.+on of other parts of his mongrel address: ”Desplicet aures vestras et os meum fda.s.se vocabulo tam probroso, sed ex ecclesiarum praescripto cogor.” La Place, 101.]
[Footnote 995: ”Encores, Sire, vous supplierons-nous tres-humblement pour ce tant bon et tant obeissant peuple francois, duquel Dieu (vostre pere et le leur aussi) vous a faict seigneur et roy; prenez en pitie, sire, et soublevez un peu les charges que des long temps ils portent patiemment. Pour Dieu, sire, ne permettez que ce tiers pied de vostre throne soit aucunement foule, meurtry ny brise.” La Place, 108.]
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