Volume I Part 59 (2/2)
[Footnote 1103: ”Eo deventum est ut necesse fuerit nos parenti Reginae testari statim discessuros nisi n.o.bis adversus hostium audaciam caveretur.” Beza, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 1104: Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 1105: Not unreasonably did the queen mother allege--and none knew it better than she--that even written engagements derive their chief value from the good faith of those that make them: ”Que il estoit malaise mesmes avec l'escripture d'empescher de decevoir celuy qui ha intention de tromper.” La Place, 157.]
[Footnote 1106: ”Sans rien chercher que la gloire de Dieu, de laquelle elle estimoit qu'ils fussent studieux et amateurs.” La Place, 157.
Compare the letter of Catharine to the Bp. of Rennes, Sept. 14, 1561, _apud_ Le Laboureur, Add. to Castelnau, i, 733.]
[Footnote 1107: Beza to Calvin, Sept. 12, 1561, _ubi supra_; La Place, 157; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 314.]
CHAPTER XII.
THE COLLOQUY OF POISSY AND THE EDICT OF JANUARY.
[Sidenote: The Huguenot ministers and delegates.]
On Tuesday, the ninth of September, 1561, the long-expected conference was to be opened. That morning, at ten o'clock, a procession of ministers and delegates of the Reformed churches left St.
Germain-en-Laye on horseback for the village of Poissy. The ministers, twelve in number, were men of note: Theodore de Beze, or Beza, with whom the reader is already well acquainted; Augustin Marlorat, a native of Lorraine, formerly a monk, but now famous in the Protestant ranks, and the leading pastor in Rouen, a man over fifty years of age; Francois de Saint Paul, a learned theologian and the founder of the churches of Montelimart, a delegate from Provence; Jean Raymond Merlin, professor of Hebrew at Geneva, and chaplain of Admiral Coligny; Jean Malot, pastor at Paris; Francois de Morel, who had presided in the First National Synod of 1559, and had recently been given to the d.u.c.h.ess Renee of Ferrara, as her private chaplain; Nicholas Folion, surnamed La Vallee, a former doctor of the Sorbonne, now pastor at Orleans; Claude de la Boissiere, of Saintes; Jean Bouquin, of Oleron; Jean Virel; Jean de la Tour, a patriarch of nearly seventy years; and Nicholas des Gallars, who, after having been a prominent preacher at Geneva and Paris, had for the past two years ministered to the large congregation of French refugees in London. It was a body of Huguenot theologians unsurpa.s.sed for ability by any others within the kingdom.[1108]
So high ran the excitement of the populace, stirred up by frequent appeals to the worst pa.s.sions in the human breast, and by highly-colored accounts of the boldness with which the ”new doctrines” had for weeks been preached within the precincts of the court, that serious apprehension was entertained lest Beza and his companions might be a.s.saulted by the way.[1109] The peaceable ministers of religion were, therefore, accompanied by a strong escort of one hundred mounted archers of the royal guard. After a ride of less than half an hour, they reached the nuns' convent, in which the prelates had been holding their sessions.
[Sidenote: a.s.sembly in the nuns' refectory.]
[Sidenote: The prelates.]
Meantime, an august and imposing a.s.sembly was gathered in the s.p.a.cious conventual refectory.[1110] On an elevated seat, upon the dais at its farther extremity, was the king, on whose youthful shoulders rested the crus.h.i.+ng weight of the government of a kingdom rent by discordant sentiments and selfish factions, and already upon the verge of an open civil war. Near him sat his wily mother--that ”merchant's daughter”
whose plebeian origin the first Christian baron of France had pointed out with ill-disguised contempt, but whose plans and purposes had now acquired such world-wide importance that grave diplomats and shrewd churchmen esteemed the difficult riddle of her sphinx-like countenance and character a worthy subject of prolonged study. Not far from their royal brother, were two children: the elder, a boy of ten years, Edward Alexander, a few years later to appear on the pages of history under the altered name of Henry the Third, the last Valois King of France; the younger, a girl of nine--that Margaret of Valois and Navarre, whose nuptials have attained a celebrity as wide as the earth and as lasting as the records of religious dissensions. Antoine and Louis of Bourbon, brothers by blood but not in character; Jeanne d'Albret, heiress of Navarre, more queenly at heart than many a sovereign with dominions far exceeding the contracted territory of Bearn; the princes representing more distant branches of the royal stock, and the members of the council of state, completed the group. On two long benches, running along the opposite sides of the hall, the prelates were arranged according to their dignities. Tournon, Lorraine, and Chatillon, each in full cardinal's robes, faced their brethren of the Papal Consistory, Armagnac, Bourbon, and Guise, while a long row of archbishops and bishops filled out the line on either side. Altogether, forty or fifty prelates, with numerous attendant theologians and members of the superior clergy, regular and secular, had been marshalled to oppose the little band of reformers.[1111]
It was an array of pomp and power, of ecclesiastical place and wealth and ambition, of traditional and hereditary n.o.bility, of all that an ancient and powerful church could muster to meet the attack of fresh and vigorous thought, the inroad of moral and religious reforms, the irrepressible conflict of a faith based solely upon a written revelation. The external promise of victory was all on the side of the prelates. Yet, strange to say, the engagement that was about to take place was none of their seeking. With the exception of the Cardinal of Lorraine, they were well-nigh unanimous in reprobating a venture from which they apprehended only disaster. Perhaps even Lorraine now repented his presumption, and felt less a.s.sured of his dialectic skill since he had tried the mettle of his Genevese antagonist. Rarely has battle been forced upon an army after a greater number of fruitless attempts to avoid it than those made by the French ecclesiastics, backed by the alternate solicitations and menaces of Pius the Fourth, and Philip of Spain. Such reluctance was ominous.
On the other side, the feeling of the reformers was, indeed, confidence in the excellence of the cause they represented, but confidence not unmingled with anxiety.
[Sidenote: Diffidence of Beza.]
A letter written by Beza only a few days before affords us a glimpse of the secret apprehensions of the Protestants. ”If Martyr come in time,”
he wrote Calvin, ”that is, if he greatly hasten, his arrival will refresh us exceedingly. We shall have to do with veteran sophists, and, although we be confident that the simple truth of the Word will prove victorious, yet it is not in the power of every man instantly to resolve their artifices and allege the sayings of the Fathers. Moreover, it will be necessary for us to make such answers that we shall not seem, to the circle of princes and others that stand by, to be seeking to evade the question. In short, when I contemplate these difficulties, I become exceedingly anxious, and much do I deplore our fault in neglecting the excellent instruments which G.o.d has given us, and thus in a manner appearing to tempt His goodness. Meanwhile, however, we have resolved not to retreat, and we trust in Him who has promised us a wisdom which the world cannot resist.... Direct us, my father, like children by your counsels in your absence from us, since you cannot be present with us.
For, simple children I daily see and feel that we are, from whose mouth I hope that our wonderful Lord will perfect the praise of His wisdom.”[1112]
[Sidenote: L'Hospital explains the objects in view.]
The king opened the conference with a few words before the Protestants were admitted,[1113] and then called upon the chancellor to explain more fully the objects of the gathering. Hereupon Michel de L'Hospital, seating himself, by Charles's direction, on a stool at the king's right hand, set forth at considerable length the religious dissensions which had fallen upon France, and the ineffectual measures to which the king and his predecessors had from time to time resorted. Severity and mildness had proved equally futile. Dangerous division had crept in. He begged the a.s.sembled prelates to heal this disease of the body politic, to appease the anger of G.o.d visibly resting upon the kingdom by every means in their power; especially to reform any abuses contrary to G.o.d's word and the ordinances of the apostles, which the sloth or ignorance of the clergy might have introduced, and thus remove every excuse which their enemies might possess for slandering them and disturbing the peace of the country. As the chief cause of sedition was diversity of religious opinion, Charles had acceded to the advice of two previous a.s.semblies, and had granted a safe-conduct to the ministers of the new sect, hoping that an amicable conference with them would be productive of great advantage. He, therefore, prayed the company to receive them as a father receives his children, and to take pains to instruct them.
Then, at all events, it could not be said, as had so often been said in the past, that the dissenters had been condemned without a hearing.
Minutes of the proceedings carefully made and disseminated through the kingdom would prove that the doctrine they professed had been refuted, not by violence or authority, but by cogent reasoning. Charles would continue to be the protector of the Gallican Church.[1114]
<script>