Part 7 (1/2)

FRANCIS II., CHARLES IX., HENRY III., AND HENRY IV.

The history of France, from the death of Francis I. to the accession of Henry IV. is virtually the history of religious contentions and persecutions, and of those civil wars which grew out of them. The Huguenotic contest, then, is a great historical subject, and will be presented in connection with the history of France, until the death of Henry IV., the greatest of the French monarchs, and long the ill.u.s.trious head of the Protestant party.

The reform doctrines first began to spread in France during the reign of Francis I. As early as 1523, he became a persecutor, and burned many at the stake, among whom the descendants of the Waldenses were the most numerous. In 1540, sentence was p.r.o.nounced against them by the parliament of Aix. Their doctrines were the same in substance as those of the Swiss reformers.

While this persecution was raging, John Calvin fled from France to Ferrara, from which city he proceeded to Geneva. This was in the year 1536, when his theological career commenced by the publication of his Inst.i.tutes, which were dedicated to Francis I., one of the most masterly theological works ever written, although compended from the writings of Augustine. The Inst.i.tutes of Calvin, the great text-book of the Swiss and French reformers, were distasteful to the French king, and he gave fresh order for the persecution of the Protestants.

Notwithstanding the hostility of Francis, the new doctrines spread, and were embraced by some of the most distinguished of the French n.o.bility. The violence of persecution was not much arrested during the reign of Henry II., and, through the influence of the Cardinal of Lorraine, the inquisition was established in the kingdom.

[Sidenote: Catharine de Medicis.]

The wife of Henry II. was the celebrated Catharine de Medicis; and she was bitterly opposed to the reform doctrines, and incited her husband to the most cruel atrocities. Francis II. continued the persecution, and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the ruler of the nation.

The power of the queen mother was much increased when Francis II.

died, and when his brother, Charles IX., a boy of nine years of age, succeeded to the French crown. She exercised her power by the most unsparing religious persecution recorded in the history of modern Europe. There had been some hope that Protestantism would be established in France; but it did not succeed, owing to the violence of the persecution. It made, however, a desperate struggle before it was overcome.

At the head of the Catholic party were the queen regent, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise, his brother, and the Constable Montmorency. They had the support of the priesthood, of the Spaniards, and a great majority of the nation.

The Protestants were headed by the King of Navarre, father of Henry IV., the Prince of Conde, his brother, and Admiral Coligny; and they had the sympathy of the university, the parliaments, and the Protestants of Germany and England.

[Sidenote: Civil War in France.]

Between these parties a struggle lasted for forty years, with various success. Persecution provoked resistance, but resistance did not lead to liberty. Civil war in France did not secure the object sought.

Still the Protestants had hope, and, as they could always a.s.semble a large army, they maintained their ground. Their conduct was not marked by the religious earnestness which characterized the Puritans, or by the same strength of religious principle. Moreover, political motives were mingled with religious. The contest was a struggle for the ascendency of rival chiefs, as well as for the establishment of reformed doctrines. The Bourbons hated the Guises, and the Guises resolved to destroy the Bourbons. In the course of their rivalry and warfare, the Duke of Guise was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the King of Navarre, as well as the Prince of Conde, were killed.

Charles IX. was fourteen years of age when the young king of Navarre,--at that time sixteen years of age,--and his cousin, the Prince of Conde, became the acknowledged heads of the Protestant party. Their education was learned in the camp and the field of battle.

Charles IX., under the influence of his hateful mother, finding that civil war only destroyed the resources of the country, without weakening the Protestants, made peace, but formed a plan for their extermination by treachery. In order to cover his designs he gave his sister, Margaret de Valois, in marriage to the King of Navarre, first prince of the blood, then nineteen years of age. Admiral Coligny was invited to Paris, and treated with distinguished courtesy.

[Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew.]

It was during the festivities which succeeded the marriage of the King of Navarre that Coligny was murdered, and the signal for the horrid slaughter of St. Bartholomew was given. At midnight, August 23, 1572, the great bell at the Hotel de Ville began to toll; torches were placed in the windows, chains were drawn across the streets, and armed bodies collected around the hotels. The doors of the houses were broken open, and neither age, condition, nor s.e.x was spared, of such as were not distinguished by a white cross in the hat. The ma.s.sacre at Paris was followed by one equally brutal in the provinces. Seventy thousand people were slain in cold blood. The King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde only escaped in consequence of their relations.h.i.+p with the king, and by renouncing the Protestant religion.

Most of the European courts expressed their detestation of this foulest crime in the history of religious bigotry; but the pope went in grand procession to his cathedral, and ordered a _Te Deum_ to be sung in commemoration of an event which steeped his cause in infamy to the end of time.

The Protestants, though nearly exterminated, again rallied, and the King of Navarre and his cousin the Prince of Conde escaped, renounced the religion which had been forced on them by fear of death, and prosecuted a b.l.o.o.d.y civil war, with the firm resolution of never abandoning it until religious liberty was guarantied.

Meanwhile, Charles IX. died, as it was supposed, by poison. His last hours were wretched, and his remorse for the ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew filled his soul with agony. He beheld spectres, and dreamed horrid dreams; his imagination constantly saw heaps of livid bodies, and his ears were a.s.sailed with imaginary groans. He became melancholy and ferocious, while his kingdom became the prey of factions and insurrections. But he was a timid and irresolute king, and was but the tool of his infamous mother, the grand patroness of a.s.sa.s.sins, against whom, on his death bed, he cautioned the king of Navarre.

[Sidenote: Henry III.--Henry IV.]

He was succeeded by his brother, the King of Poland, under the t.i.tle of Henry III. The persecutions of the Huguenots were renewed, and the old scenes of treachery, a.s.sa.s.sination, and war were acted over again.

The cause of religion was lost sight of in the labyrinth of contentions, jealousies, and plots. Intrigues and factions were endless. Nearly all the leaders, on both sides, perished by the sword or the dagger. The Prince of Conde, the Duke of Guise, and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, were a.s.sa.s.sinated. Shortly after, died the chief mover of all the troubles, Catharine de Medicis, a woman of talents and persuasive eloquence, but of most unprincipled ambition, perfidious, cruel, and dissolute. She encouraged the licentiousness of the court, and even the worst vices of her sons, that she might make them subservient to her designs. All her pa.s.sions were subordinate to her calculations of policy, and every womanly virtue was suppressed by the desire of wielding a government which she usurped.

Henry III. soon followed her to the grave, being, in turn, a.s.sa.s.sinated by a religious fanatic. His death (1589) secured the throne to the king of Navarre, who took the t.i.tle of Henry IV.

Henry IV., the first of the Bourbon line, was descended from Robert, the sixth son of St. Louis, who had married the daughter and heiress of John of Burgundy and Agnes of Bourbon. He was thirty-six years of age when he became king, and had pa.s.sed through great experiences and many sorrows. Thus far he had contended for Protestant opinions, and was the acknowledged leader of the Protestant party in France. But a life of contention and bloodshed, and the new career opened to him as king of France, cooled his religious ardor, and he did not hesitate to accept the condition which the French n.o.bles imposed, before they would take the oaths of allegiance. This was, that he should abjure Protestantism. ”My kingdom,” said he, ”is well worth a ma.s.s.” It will be ever laid to his reproach, by the Protestants, that he renounced his religion for worldly elevation. Nor is it easy to exculpate him on the highest principles of moral integrity. But there were many palliations for his conduct, which it is not now easy to appreciate.

It is well known that the ill.u.s.trious Sully, his prime minister, and, through life, a zealous Protestant, approved of his course. It was certainly clear that, without becoming a Catholic, he never could peaceably enjoy his crown, and France would be rent, for another generation, by those civil wars which none lamented more than Henry himself. Besides, four fifths of the population were Catholics, and the Protestants could not reasonably expect to gain the ascendency.

All they could expect was religious toleration, and this Henry was willing to grant. It should also be considered that the king, though he professed the reform doctrines, was never what may be called a religious man, being devoted to pleasure, and to schemes of ambition.