The bloody decemvirate. Anxiety for peace

Meanwhile, Henry and his adviser, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who really

little deserved the reproaches showered on them by the Pope, took steps to
encounter the new assaults which the reformed doctrines were making on the
established church in every quarter of the kingdom. If the Parliament of Paris

other hand, regarded his escape from the estrapade as proof positive

that not only Henry, but even the Cardinal of Lorraine, was lukewarm in

the defence of the faith! Read the following misspelt sentences from a

letter of Card. La Bourdaisière, the French envoy to Rome, to the

constable (Feb. 25, 1559), now among the MSS. of the National Library of

Paris. The Pope had sent expressly for the ambassador: "Il me declara

que cestoit pour me dire quil sebayssoit grandement comme sa magesté ne

faysoit autre compte de punyr les hereticques de son Royaume et que

limpunite de monsieur dandelot donnoit une tres mauvayse reputation a

sadicte mageste devant laquelle ledict Sr. dandelot avoit confessé

destre sacramentayre et qui leust (qu 'il l'eût) mené tout droit au

feu comme il meritoit ... que monsieur le cardinal de Lorrayne,

lequel sa Saincteté a fait son Inquisiteur, ne se sauroit excuser quil

nayt grandement failly ayant layssé perdre une si belle occasion dun

exemple si salutayre et qui luy pouvoit porter tant dhonneur et de

reputation, mais quil monstre bien que luy mesme favorise les

hereticques, dautant que lors que ce scandale advynt, il estoit seul

pres du roy, sans que personne luy peust resister ne l'empescher duser

de la puyssance que sadicte Saincteté luy a donnée." Of course, Paul

could not let pass unimproved so fair an opportunity for repeating the

trite warning that subversion of kingdoms and other dire calamities

follow in the train of "mutation of religion." The punishment of

D'Andelot, however, to which he often returned in his conversation, the

Pontiff evidently regarded as a thing to be executed rather than

spoken about, and he therefore begged the French ambassador to write

the letter to the king in his own cipher, and advise him "to let no one

in the world see his letter." Whereupon Card. La Bourdaisière rather

irreverently observes: "Je croy que le bonhomme pense que le roy

dechiffre luy mesme ses lettres!" a supposition singularly absurd in the

case of Henry, who hated business of every kind. La Bourdaisière

conceived it, on the other hand, to be for his own interest to take the

first opportunity to give private information of the entire conversation

to the constable, D'Andelot's uncle, and to advise him that it would go

hard with his nephew, should he fall into Paul's hands ("quil feroit un

mauvais parti sil le tenoit"). Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., i.

(appendix), 607, 608; Bulletin de l'histoire du prot. français, xxvii.

(1878), 103, 104.

began to exhibit reluctance to shed more innocent

blood, it was far otherwise with the decemvirate to whom the three

cardinals had delegated their inquisitorial functions, and whose power

was supreme.¹ But, to the prosecution of the work of exterminating

heresy in France, the continuance of the war with Spain offered

insurmountable obstacles. It diverted the attention of the government

from the multiplication of "Lutheran" churches and communities. It

hampered the court, by compelling it to mitigate its severities, in

consequence of the importunate intercessions of its indispensable

allies, the Protestant princes across the Rhine and the confederated

cantons of Switzerland. Besides, the war had borne no fruit but

disappointment. If Calais had been recovered, St. Quentin and other

strongholds, which were the key to Paris, had been lost. The brilliant

capture of Thionville (on the twenty-second of June, 1558) had been more

than balanced by the disastrous rout of Marshal de Thermes at Gravelines

(on the thirteenth of July).²

The almost uninterrupted hostilities of the last twelve years had not

only exhausted the few thousand crowns which Henry had found in the

treasury at his accession to the throne, but had reduced the French

exchequer to as low an ebb as that of the Spanish king.³ His

antagonist was as anxious as Henry to reduce his expenditures, and

obtain leisure for crushing heresy in the Low Countries and wherever

else it had shown itself in


¹ Letter of Calvin, Aug. 29, 1558, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460.

² De Thou (liv. 20), ii. 568, etc., 576, etc.

³ Prescott, Philip II., i. 268-270, has described the

straits in which Philip found himself in consequence of the deplorable

state of his finances. Henry was compelled to resort to desperate

schemes to procure the necessary funds. As early as February, 1554--a

year before the truce of Vaucelles--he published an edict commanding all

the inhabitants of Paris to send in an account of the silver plate they

possessed. Finding that it amounted to 350,000 livres, he ordered his

officers to take and convert it into money, which he retained, giving

the owners twelve per cent. as interest on the compulsory loan. They

were informed, and were doubtless gratified to learn, that the measure

was not only one of urgency, but also precautionary--lest the necessity

should arise for the seizure of the plate, without compensation, it

may be presumed. Reg. des ordon., apud Félibien, H. de Paris, preuves, v. 287-290.

his vast dominions. Constable Montmorency, too, employed his powerful

The common desire for peace found expression in the appointment of

plenipotentiaries, who met, about the middle of October, in the

monastery of Cercamps, near Cambray. France was represented by

Montmorency, the Cardinal of Lorraine, Marshal St. André, Morvilliers,

Bishop of Orleans, and Claude de l'Aubespine, Secretary of State. The

Duke of Alva, William of Orange, Ruy-Gomez de Silva, the Bishop of

Arras, and Viglius appeared on the part of Philip. England and Savoy

were also represented by their envoys. After preliminary discussions,

the conference adjourned, to meet in February of the succeeding year at

Cateau-Cambrésis.² Here, on the third of April, 1559, was concluded

a treaty of peace that terminated the struggle for ascendancy in which

France and Spain had been engaged, with brief intermissions, ever since

the accession of Francis the First and Charles the Fifth.

So far as France was concerned, it was an inglorious close. By a single

stroke of the pen Henry gave up nearly two hundred places that had been

captured by the French from their enemies during the last thirty years.

In return he received Ham, St. Quentin, and three other strongholds held

by Philip on his northern frontier. All the fruits of many years of war

and an infinite loss of life and treasure³ were surrendered in an

crowns of gold, if we may believe the Mémoires de Vieilleville, ii. 408,

409. "Quod multo sanguine, pecunia incredibili, spatio multorum annorum

Galli acquisierant, uno die magna cum ignominia tradiderunt," says the

papal nuncio, Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. com., 1437. See,

however, Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, Am. tr., p. 127.

long been incorporated in the French dominions. The jurisdictions of two

parliaments of France became foreign territory. The inhabitants of Turin

were left to forget the language they had begun to speak well. The King

of Spain could now come to the very gates of Lyons, which before the

peace had stood, as it were, in the middle of the kingdom, but was now

turned into a border city.¹
Sacrifice of French interests.

Such were the concessions Henry was willing to make for the purpose of

obtaining peace abroad, that he might turn his arms against his own

subjects. Philip, if equally zealous, was certainly too prudent to

exhibit his eagerness so clearly to his opponent. The interests of

France had been sacrificed to the bigotry of her monarch and the

selfishness of his advisers. When the terms of the agreement were made

known, they awakened in every true Frenchman's breast a feeling of shame

and disgust.² Henry himself manifested embarrassment


¹ Mém. de Vieilleville, ubi supra. The text of the treaty

is given in Recueil gén. des anc. lois françaises, xiii. 515, etc., and

in Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v. pt. 1, pp. 34, etc.; the treaty

between France and England, with scrupulous exactness, as usual, in Dr.

P. Forbes, State Papers, i. 68, etc.

² The prevalent sentiment in France is strongly expressed

by Brantôme, by the memoirs of Vieilleville, of Du Villars, of Tavannes,

etc. "La paix honteuse fut dommageable," says Tavannes; "les associez y

furent trahis, les capitaines abandonnez à leurs ennemis, le sang, la

vie de tant de Français negligée, cent cinquante forteresses rendues,

pour tirer de prison un vieillard connestable, et se descharger de deux

filles de France." Mém. de Gaspard de Saulx, seign. de Tavannes, ii.

242. Du Villars represents the Duke of Guise as remonstrating with Henry

for giving up in a moment more than he could have lost in thirty years,

and as offering to guard the least considerable city among the many he

surrendered against all the Spanish troops: "Mettez-moy dedans la pire

ville de celles que vous voulez rendre, je la conserveray plus

glorieusement sur la bresche, etc." (Ed. Petitot, ii. 267, liv. 10). But

the duke's own brother was one of the commissioners; and Soldan affirms

the existence of a letter from Guise to Nevers (of March 27, 1559) in

the National Library, fully establishing that the duke and the cardinal

understood and were pleased with the substance of the treaty (Soldan,

Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 266, note).

when attempting to justify his course.¹ Abroad the improbable tidings

were received with incredulity.²

The treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis contained but one article on the subject

of religion--that which bound the monarchs of Spain and France to put

forth their united exertions for securing a "holy universal council."

But common report had it that the omission of more detailed reference to

the subject lying so near to the heart of both kings was fully

compensated by a secret treaty taken up exclusively with this

subject.³ That treaty was represented as developing a plan which

contemplated nothing less than the entire and violent destruction of

heresy by the united efforts of their Catholic and Very Christian

Majesties. By a single concerted massacre of all dissidents, the whole

of Europe was to be brought back to its allegiance to the see of St.

Peter.⁴ Unfortunately, the secret treaty, if it ever existed, has

never come to light; nor have we the testimony of a single person who

pretends to have seen it, or to be acquainted with its contents. Indeed,

the circumstances of the case seem to render such a

voluisse dicebat, 'quod intelligeret, regnum Franciæ ad heresim

declinare, magnumque in numerum venisse, ita ut, si diutius diferret,

neque ipsius conscientiæ, neque regni tranquillitati prospiceret: ... se

propterea ad quasvis pacis conditiones descendisse, ut regnum hæreticis

ac malis hominibus purgaret.' Hæc ab eo satis frigide et cum pudore

dicebantur." Santa Croce, De civil. Gall. diss. comment., 1437.

² Ibid., ubi supra.

³ "Selon l'article secret de la paix," says Tavannes (Mém., ii. 247, Ed. Petitot),
"les heretiques furent bruslez en France, plus par crainte qu'ils ne suivissent
l'exemple des revoltez d'Allemagne, que pour la religion." But, it may be asked,
was there anything novel in this? It had needed no secret article, for a generation
back, to conduct a "Christaudin" to the flames.

⁴ The English commissioners, Killigrew and Jones, in a

despatch written eight or nine months later, express the current belief

respecting the wide scope of the persecution: "Wheras, upon the making

of the late peace, there was an appoinctement made betwene the late

Pope, the French King, and the King of Spaine, for the joigning of their

forces together for the suppression of religion; it is said, that this

King mindethe shortly to send to this new Pope [Pius IV.], for the

renewing of the same league; th' end wherof was to constraine the rest

of christiendome, being protestants, to receive the Pope's authorité and

his religion; and therupon to call a generall counsaill." Letter from

Blois, January 6, 1559/60, Forbes, State Papers, i. 296.

united effort as the conjectural treaty supposes either Quixotic or

superfluous--Quixotic, if the two monarchs, without the concurrence of

the empire, whose crown had passed from Charles, not to his son Philip,

but to his brother Ferdinand, should institute a scheme for a general

crusade against the professors of the doctrines that had already gained

a firm foothold in one-half of Germany, in Great Britain, and the

Scandinavian lands of Northern Europe; superfluous, if it respected only

the dominions of the high contracting powers. For the purpose of Henry

was no less clearly and repeatedly proclaimed than that of Philip. No

subject of either crown could ignore at whom the first blow would be

struck, after the pressure of the foreign war had been removed.¹

Nor, in the execution of their plans, could either monarch imagine

himself to stand in need of the assistance of his royal brother; for it

was not an open war to be carried on, but as yet a struggle with

persons, numerous without doubt, but, nevertheless, suspected rather

than convicted of heresy, and discovered, for the most part, only by

diligent search.

But, if we have reason to think that the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis was

accompanied by no secret and formal stipulations having reference to a

combined assault upon Protestantism, we at least know that the

negotiations it occasioned gave rise to a singular disclosure of the

policy of Philip the Second in the Netherlands--a policy which he deemed

applicable to Christendom entire. Among the ambassadors of Philip and

the hostages for the execution of the treaty was William of Orange, the

future deliverer of the United Provinces. Henry, supposing that the

nobleman to whom so honorable a trust had been committed enjoyed the

paix en effect pour les royaumes de France et d'Espagne, en apparence de

toute la Chrestienté, glorieuse aux Espagnols, desaventageuse aux

François, redoutable aux Reformez: car comme toutes les difficultez qui

se presenterent au traicté estoient estouffées par le desir de repurger

l'église, ainsi, après la paix establie, les Princes qui par elle

avoient repos du dehors, travaillerent par emulation à qui traitteroit

plus rudement ceux qu'on appeloit Heretiques: et de là nasquit l'ample

subject de 40 ans de guerre monstrueuse." Histoire universelle, liv. i.,

c. xviii. p. 46.

confidence of his master to an equal extent with the Duke of Alva, his

colleague, imprudently broached the subject of the suppression of

heresy. The prince wisely encouraged the misapprehension, in order to

avoid incurring the contempt in which he would have been held had the

discovery been made that Philip had not taken him into his confidence.

Henry, waxing earnest on the theme, revealed the intention of Philip and

Alva to establish in the Netherlands "a worse than Spanish Inquisition."

Thus much the prince himself published to the world.¹ The learned

President De Thou adds that Philip's subsequent design was to join his

arms to those of France, to make a joint attack upon the "new

sectaries."² This is not altogether impossible. But the plan was

general and vague. Its execution was still in the distant future. Its

details were probably but little elaborated. If, outside of the

dominions of the two monarchs, any points of attack were proposed with

distinctness, they were the free city of Strasbourg, the Canton of Berne

with its dependency, the Pays de Vaud--but, above all, Geneva.

That small republic, insignificant in size, but powerful through the

influence of its teachers and the books with which its presses teemed,

was the eyesore of Roman Catholic France. It was the home of French

refugees for religion's sake; and the strictest laws could not check the

stream of money that flowed thither for their support. It was the

nursery of the reformed doctrines; and the death penalty was ineffectual

to cut off intercourse, or to dam up the flood of Calvinistic books

which it poured over the kingdom.


¹ "Mais quand estant en France j'eus entendu de la propre

bouche du Roy Henry, que le Duc d'Alve traictoit des moyens pour

exterminer tous les suspects de la Religion en France, en ce Pays et par

toute la Chrestienté, et que ledit Sieur Roy (qui pensoit, que comme

j'avois esté l'un des commis pour le Traicté de la Paix, avois eu

communication en si grandes affaires, que je fusse aussi de cette

partie) m'eust declaré le fond du Conseil du Roy d'Espaigne et du Duc

d'Alve: pour n'estre envers Sa Majesté en desestime, comme si on m'eust

voulu cacher quelque chose, je respondis en sorte que ledit Sieur Roy ne

perdit point cette opinion, ce qui luy donna occasion de m'en discourir

assés suffisament pour entendre le fonds du project des Inquisiteurs."

Apologie de Guillaume IX., Prince d'Orange, etc., Dec. 13, 1580; apud

Du Mont, Corps diplomatique, v., pt. 1, p. 392.

² De Thou, ii. (liv. xxii.), 653.

Calvin himself and his friends momentarily expected the blow to fall

upon their devoted heads.¹ But the same hand that so often in the

eventful history of Geneva interposed in its behalf, by a signal

occurrence warded off the stroke.
A joint expedition against Geneva proposed by Henry,

but declined by the Duke of Alva.

The apprehensions of the Genevese were well founded. In June, 1559, and

but a few days before the date of Calvin's letter, Philip the Second

made the offer to the French king, through the Duke of Alva, then in

Paris, to aid him in exterminating the Protestants of France. Henry

declined for the moment to avail himself of the assistance, which he

regarded as unnecessary; but he sent the Constable Montmorency to

propose that both monarchs should make a joint expedition against

Geneva, and declared himself ready to employ all his forces in the pious

undertaking. It may surprise us to learn that the prudent duke in turn

rejected the crusade against the Protestant citadel. Even Philip and his

equally bigoted agents could close their ears to the call to become the

instruments in the extirpation of heresy. While they could see neither

reason nor religion in the temporizing policy occasionally manifested by

other Roman Catholic sovereigns in their dealings with Protestant

subjects, Philip and Alva never suffered their hatred of schism to be so

uncompromising as to interfere with what they considered a material

interest of the state. Unfortunately for Philip, the quarrel of Geneva

would inevitably be espoused by the Bernese and the inhabitants of the

other Protestant cantons of Switzerland; and it was certainly

undesirable to provoke the enmity of a powerful body of freemen,

situated in dangerous proximity to the "Franche Comté"--the remnant of

Burgundy still in Spanish hands. It was no less imprudent, in view of

future contingencies, to render still more difficult the passage from

his Catholic Majesty's dominions in Northern Italy to the Netherlands.

So Alva, as he himself reports to his master, rejected the constable's

proposition, contenting himself with a few empty


¹ "De nostre costé nous ne sçavons pas si nous sommes loing

des coups; tant y a que nous sommes menasséz par-dessus tout le

reste." Calvin to the Church of Paris, June 29, 1559. Lettres franç.,

ii. 282, 283. On the next day the author of the threats was mortally

wounded in the tournament.

phrases respecting the great profit that would flow to the cause of God and

Henry had deemed the progress of the reformed doctrines in France so

Formidable² as to dictate the necessity of making peace with Philip,

even upon humiliating terms. But where should he begin the savage work

for which he had made such sacrifices? His spiritual advisers pointed to

the courts of justice, which they accused of being lukewarm, and even

infected with heresy. For years they had been dwelling upon the same

theme. In 1556 the Sorbonne had denounced the parliament itself as

altogether heretical;³ and, although Henry showed


¹ The Duke of Alva gives all the details of this remarkable negotiation in a letter to Philip,
June 26, 1559, now among the Papiers de Simancas, ser. B., Leg. no. 62-140, which M.
Mignet has printed in his valuable series of articles reviewing the Collection of Calvin's

French Letters by M. Bonnet, published in the Journal des Savants, 1857, pp. 171, 172.

unir leurs forces pour une si sainte enterprise." Gaberel, Hist. de l'égl. de Genève, i. 442.

have delivered their confession to the King, that the spiritualty of

Fraunce will do all they can to procure the King, to the utter

subversion of them: for which cause, they say, the spiritualty seemeth

to be so glad of peaxe, for that they may have that so good an occasion

to worke their feate. But," he adds, "on th' other side these men minde,

in case any repressing and subversion of their religion be ment and put

in execution against them, to resist to the deathe." Forbes, State Papers, i. 92.

cucurrisse et tempus ejus eonveniendi aucupatos petiisse curam

inquirendorum Lutheranorum. Quum Rex respondisset: 'Se eam curam Senatui

mandasse, iique respondissent, 'totam curiam Parlamenti Parisienis

inquinatam esse,' iracunde intulisse, 'quid vultis igitur faciam, aut

quid consilii capiam? An ut vos in eorum locum substituam, et

Rempublicam meam administretis?'" Letter of Hotman to Bullinger, Aug.

15, 1556, apud Baum, Theod. Beza, i. 294.

some indignation at the suggestion, and sarcastically asked whether the
theologians aspired to become the supreme judges of the kingdom, it was notorious, two years later, that they had succeeded in sowing in his breast a

general distrust respecting the orthodoxy of the entire body.¹ Nor

was the suspicion groundless. Chosen from among the most highly educated

of French jurisconsults, belonging to a court upon which high

prerogatives had been conferred, holding for life a post of enviable

distinction, and regarded as the supreme guardians of law and equity, it

was in accordance with the very nature of things that the counsellors of

the Parisian parliament should so far participate in the progress of

ideas in the sixteenth century as to begin to look with abhorrence upon

the bloody task imposed on them by the royal edicts. Into what

profession would liberal views gain an earlier admission than that of

the appointed expositors of the rules of right?

Some recent occurrences not only seemed to demonstrate the fact that the

principles of clemency had penetrated into the halls of parliament, but

pointed out the very chamber which was most influenced by them. In the

Tournelle, or criminal chamber of parliament--before which those accused of

like most of the judges that possessed much legal acumen, and all those

that were inclined to tolerant sentiments, was reputed unsound in the

faith. Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, the English ambassador, says of him:

"One of the Presidentes of the court of Parliament, named Siggier, a

verey wise man, and one whome the constable for his judgement dothe

muche stay upon, is noted to be a Protestant, and of the chiefest

setters forward and favorers of the rest of that courte against the

cardinalles." The same accurate observer states that, of the "six score"

counsellors present in the Parliamentary session which Henry attended,

only "one of the Presidentes called Magistri and fourteen others were of

the King and the cardinalles side, and did agree with them and

condescend to the punishment of suche as shuld seme to resist to the

cardinalles orders devised for reformation toching religion: the said

Siggier, Rancongnet, and another President, with the rest of the

counsaillors, were all against the cardinalles. Whereupon it is judged,"

he adds, "that the House of Guise hathe taken this occasion to weaken

the constable: and because they wold not directly begynne with Siggier,

for feare of manifesting their practise, they have founde the meanes to

cause these counsaillors to be taken; supposing, that in th' examination

of them somme mater may be gathered to toche Siggier withall, and therby

to overthrow him." Despatch of June 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 127.

the majority of the counsellors had recently conducted a

trial of four youths, on a charge of "Lutheranism," in so skilful a

manner as to avoid asking any question the answer to which might

compromise the prisoners. And when the bigots insisted on propounding a

crucial inquiry, and elicited a decided expression of Protestant

sentiments, some of the judges showed unmistakable sympathy, and the

chamber, to save appearances in some slight degree, condemned them to

leave the country within a fortnight, instead of instantly confirming

the sentence of death which had been pronounced against three of their

number by the inferior courts.¹ Other "Christaudins" had been sent

to their bishops for trial, although their guilt was patent to all.²

In fine, the Cardinal of Lorraine laid to the account of parliament the

spread of the new doctrines throughout France.³