History of the rise of the huguenots

From the hands of a monarch in the prime of life, the sceptre had passed

into those of a stripling of sixteen, who was unfortunately endowed

neither with his grandfather's intellect nor with his father's vigor of

body; but who inherited the enfeebled mental and physical constitution

which was, perhaps, the result of the excesses of both. Although married

to the beautiful Queen of Scots, some time before his father's reign

came to its tragic conclusion, Francis the Second exhibited few of the

instincts of a man and of a king, and showed himself to be even more of

a minor in intelligence than in years. Content to leave the cares of

government to his favorites, he sought only for repose and pleasure. Yet

in this, as has been the case in more than one other instance, the most

turbulent lot fell to him who would gladly have chosen quiet and sloth.
Fall of the constable's power.

With Henry's last breath, the supremacy of Constable Montmorency in the

councils of state came to an end. In view of the minority of the

successor to the throne, two measures were dictated by the customs of

the realm--the appointment of the nearest prince of royal blood as

regent, and the immediate convocation of the States General to confirm

the selection, and to assign to the regent a competent council of

state.² Unfortunately for the interests of France during the

succeeding half-century, there were powerful personages interested in

opposing this most natural and just arrangement, and there were specious

excuses behind which their ambitious designs might shelter themselves.

The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise, with the queen mother,

maintained that Francis was in all respects competent to rule; that he

had already passed the age at which previous kings had assumed the reins

of government; that the laws had prescribed the time from which the

majority of subjects, not of the monarch,

ceste paix ne se fust faite, qu'il eust bien rembarré les Luthériens en

Allemagne." Mémoires, Petitot ed., ii. 483.

² Davila, Civil Wars of France, p. 6. Hist. du tumulte

d'Amboise, Recueil des choses mémorables, in initio; Mém. de Condé, i. 320.

should be reckoned;¹ that, if too young himself to bear the entire burden
of the administration, he could delegate his authority to those of his own kin

in whom he reposed implicit confidence. There was, therefore, no

necessity for establishing a regency, still less for assembling the

States General--an impolitic step even in the most quiet times, but

fraught with special peril when grave dissensions threaten the kingdom.
Catharine de' Medici assumes an important part.

With the advent of her eldest son to the throne, Catharine de' Medici

first assumed a prominent position, although not an all-controlling

influence at court. During the reign of Francis the First she had

enjoyed little consideration. Her marriage with Henry, in 1533, had

given, as we have seen, little satisfaction to the people, who believed

that her kinsman, Pope Clement the Seventh, had deceived the king; and

Francis himself, disappointed in his ambitious designs by the pontiff's

speedy death, looked upon her with little favor. For several years she

had borne no children, and Henry was urged to put her away on the ground

of barrenness. Nor was she more happy when her prayers had been

answered, and a family of four sons and three daughters blessed her

marriage. Her husband's infatuation respecting Diana of Poitiers

embittered her life when dauphiness, and compelled her as queen to

tolerate the presence of the king's mistress, and pay her an insincere

respect. Excluded from all participation in the control of affairs, she

fawned upon power where her ambitious nature would have sought to rule.

Concealing her chagrin beneath an exterior of contentment, she exhibited, if we

son Charles IX., just after he had declared himself to be of age, admits

the full truth of her opponents' assertion, that Francis II. was a

minor!--"que l'on cognoisse les désordres qui out esté jusques icy par

la minorité du Roy vostre frère, qui empeschoit que l'on ne pouvoit

faire ce que l'on désiroit." Avis donnez par Catherine de Médicis à

Charles IX., pour la police de sa cour, etc., printed in Cimber et

Danjou, Archives curieuses, v. 245-254.

Hypocrisy is the vice of timid natures. Such, we have the authority of a

contemporary, and one who knew her well, for stating the nature of

Catharine was.¹ In her, however, dissimulation was a well-known

family trait, which she possessed in common with her kinsman, Pope Leo

the Tenth, and all her house.² And it must be admitted that the

idiosyncrasy had had a fair chance to develop during the five-and-twenty

years she had spent in France, threatened with repudiation, contemned as

an Italian upstart, suffering the gravest insult at the hands of her

husband, but forced to dissemble, and to hide the pain his neglect gave

her from the eyes of the curious world. Nor was her position altogether

an easy one even now. It is true that her womanly revenge was gratified

by the instant dismissal of the Duchess of Valentinois, who, if she

retained the greater part of her ill-gotten wealth, owed it to the joint

influence of Lorraine and Guise, whose younger brother, the Duke of

Aumale, had married Diana's daughter.³ But her ambitious plan, while

securing the authority of her children, to rule herself, was likely to

be frustrated by the pretensions of the two families of Montmoreney and

Guise, raised by the late monarch to inordinate power in the state, and

by the claim to the regency which Antoine of Bourbon-Vendôme, King of

Navarre, might justly assert. To establish herself in opposition to all

these, her sagacity taught her was impossible. To prevail by allying

herself to the most powerful and those from whom she could extort the

best terms seemed to be the most politic course. Her choice was quickly

made. It was unfortunate for France that her prudence partook more of

the character of low

Duches of Buillon are commaunded, that neither they nor any of theirs

shall resort to the courte.... The yong Frenche Quene hath sent to the

Duches of Valentinoys, to make accompt of the French King's cabenet and

of all his jewels." Throkmorton to Queen, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State

Papers, i. 158, 159.

cunning than of true wisdom, and that, in seeking a temporary
ascendancy, she neglected the true interests of her own children
and of the kingdom they inherited.
Her alliance with the Guises.

In order to prevent the convocation of the States and the appointment of

the King of Navarre as regent, but one course appeared to be open to

Catharine: she must throw herself into the arms of the Guises. Only thus

could she become free from the odious dictation of the constable, under

which she had groaned during her husband's reign. The Guises had had a

narrow escape, it was said; for Henry the Second, having tardily

discovered the insatiable ambition of the Lorraine family, had

definitely made up his mind to banish them from court.¹ Now availing

themselves of the great influence of their niece, Mary Stuart, over her

royal husband, the duke and the cardinal prepared, by a bold stroke, to

become masters of the administration, and made to Catharine such liberal

offers of power that she readily acquiesced in their plans.

Of their formidable rivals, the King of Navarre was at a distance, in

the south. The constable alone was dangerously near. But an immemorial

custom furnished a convenient excuse for setting him aside. The body of

the deceased monarch must lie in state for the forty days previous to

its interment, under protection of a guard of honor selected from among

his most trusty servants. Upon Montmorency, as grand master of the

palace, devolved the chief care of his late Majesty's

entièrement résolu, après avoir achevé ces mariages, et renvoyé les

estrangers, de les déchasser arrière de soy, comme une peste de son

royaume." So Hist. ecclés., liv. iii. I can scarcely agree with De Thou

(ii., 681, liv. xxiii.) in supposing Catharine deceived in the character

of the Guises: "Comme elle ne connoissoit pas encore le caractère de ces

Princes, elle crut qu'ils se soumettroient en tout à ses volontés," etc.

This statement does injustice to the perspicacity of Catharine, who for

so many years had been quietly, but none the less carefully, studying

these courtiers and all others that figured on the stage of French

politics. La Planche, with his usual acumen, makes much of the advantage

which this circumstance conferred upon her (ubi supra): "La royne

mère, italienne, florentine, et de la race des Medicis, et qui plus est,

ayant depuis vingt-deux ans [rather, for twenty-five years] eu tout

loisir de considérer les humeurs et façons de toutes ces gens, regardoit

ce jeu, et sceut si bien empoigner l'occasion, qu'elle gaigna finalement

la partie."

remains.¹ Delighted to have their principal rival so well occupied, the

When the delegates of the parliaments of France came, a few days later,

to congratulate Francis on his accession, and inquired to whom they

should henceforth address themselves, the programme was already fully

arranged. The king had been well drilled in his little speech. He had,

he said, committed the direction of the state to the hands of his two

uncles, and desired the same obedience to be shown to them as to

himself.²

The Cardinal of Lorraine was intrusted with the civil administration and

the finances. His brother became head of the department of war, without

the title, but with the full powers, of constable.³ Of royalty

little was left Francis but the empty name.⁴ There was sober truth

lurking beneath the saucy remark of Brisquet, the court fool, who told

Francis that in the time of his Majesty's father he used to put up at

the "Crescent," but at present he lodged at the "Three Kings!"⁵

affairs." Throkmorton to the Queen, July 18, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 166.

Henry II. say: "Vous sçavez que les estats de connestable, mareschaux et chancelliers de France

flogging. The incident is told in the recently published Journal d'un

curé ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 37. It need scarcely be said that the

Crescent referred to Diana of Poitiers.

Montmorency did, indeed, attempt resistance to the assumption of

absolute authority which the Guises thus appropriated rather than

received from the young monarch. But he was equally unsuccessful in

influencing Francis and the queen mother. The former, when the constable

waited upon him in the Louvre, according to one story, scarcely deigned

to look at him;¹ but, according to a more trustworthy account,

received him with a show of cordiality, and assured him that he would

maintain his sons and his nephews, the Châtillons, in the dignities they

had attained under previous kings; at the same time, however, adding

that, in compassion for the constable's age and long services, he had

determined to relieve him of his onerous charges, and to give him full

liberty to retire to his estates and obtain needful rest and diversion!

Montmorency was too much of a courtier to be taken unawares, and

promptly replied that he had come expressly to beg as a favor what the

king so graciously offered him.² Catharine, to whom he next paid his

respects, was less friendly, and, indeed, told him bluntly that, if she

were to do her duty, he would lose his head for his insolence to her and

her children.³ Meantime Montmorency had fared no better in his

negotiations with Antoine of Bourbon-Vendôme. The latter had not

forgotten the little account made in the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis of

his wife's claim upon Spanish Navarre, and was indisposed to form a

close alliance with the chief negotiator. He preferred, he said, to

stand aloof from a movement intended only to ruin "his cousins of

Guise."<sup>4


1</sup> "Nam cum ... regem de more salutatum venisset ... Lotharingii suasu ne respicere
hominem voluit." Santa Croce, Comment., v. 1439.

² La Planche, 206.

³ In a remark which he was accused of once making to Henry

II., "that he was surprised that the king had no child resembling him,

save his illegitimate, but acknowledged daughter, Diana, married to the

constable's son!" La Planche, 204, 207; De Thou, ii. 685.

respecting the King of Navarre's words and disposition. "Encores que M.

le Connestable luy ayt escript plusieurs lettres, néantmoins il m'a

toujours dict qu'il ne se fieroit jamais de luy, ayant bien cogneu que

ce semblant d'amitié qu'il luy portoit n'estoit que pour l'attirer de

son costé, affin de ruiner ses cousins," etc. Instruction donnée par le

seign. de Montluc à M. de la Tour, 22 juillet, 1559, Mém. de Condé, i.

307; Mém. de Guise, 450.

The prudent old warrior, long since accustomed to the most startling

vicissitudes, determined to bid adieu for a time to the royal court, and

to retire to Chantilly, one of his paternal estates, where, in close

proximity to the capital, he was accustomed to maintain an almost regal

magnificence.¹ So powerful a nobleman, the representative of a

family which, from its antiquity and neighboring greatness, was held in

special esteem by the Parisians, among the wealthiest of whom it boasted

of having two thousand persons its tenants,² could not safely be

attacked. Accordingly, Montmorency, after having faithfully performed

his duty as grand master, and deposited the remains of Henry in the

abbey church of St. Denis, returned home with so numerous and powerful a

retinue, that the king's appeared but small in comparison.³
Decided measures of the new favorites.

The power thus boldly seized by the cardinal and duke was energetically

wielded. The partisans of the constable were at once removed from all

offices of trust, and devoted adherents of the house of Lorraine were

substituted. It was not difficult, if we may believe the historian of

this reign, to bring the parliaments into similar subjection. The system

of venality introduced by Cardinal Duprat had so corrupted the highest

courts of justice that they had lost all traces of their former noble

independence. The sons of usurers sat in places which had been occupied

by the most distinguished jurisconsults of the kingdom, and so debased

the administration


¹ The wealth and power of the Montmorency family were

proverbial; their palaces were among the most magnificent in France. Of

one of them the English ambassadors wrote, four years earlier, a long

description for the benefit of Queen Mary, beginning: "We saw another

house which the said constable had but lately built, called Écouen,

which was praised for the fairest house in France." The Journey of the

Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555 (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 63).

² See the Livre des marchands, Paris, 1565, ascribed to

Louis Regnier de la Planche, the reputed author of the most authentic

history of this reign (Ed. Panthéon litt., 429, 453, et passim).

³ De la Planche, 207.

of law that, in the eye of a contemporary, parliament had become a den of

order to rid the court of the princes of the blood, Condé was sent on a

mission to Flanders, to confirm the peace, and the Prince of

La-Roche-sur-Yon and the Cardinal of Bourbon were deputed to accompany

Princess Elizabeth, Philip's bride, to the Spanish frontier.³
Antoine of Bourbon, King of Navarre. His remissness and pusillanimity.

His desire to be indemnified for Navarre.

Meanwhile the eyes not only of the reformers, who had no more inveterate

enemies than the Guises, but also of the friends of order, whatever

their creed might be, were anxiously directed to Antoine, King of

Navarre. His younger brother, Condé, his cousin, La Roche-sur-Yon, and

other great nobles came to meet him at Vendôme, and set forth the

disastrous consequences not only to them, but to their children and to

the entire kingdom, that would certainly follow the base surrender of

the government into the hands of foreigners.⁴ Earnestly was he

reminded of his undeniable claim to the regency, and entreated to

dispossess the usurpers. Nor did the weak prince openly disregard the

prayers of the ministers and people, who begged him to view his

deliverance from so many perils as intended not merely to advance his

own personal interests, but to secure the welfare of those whose tenets

he had at heart espoused. But, where vigorous and instantaneous action

was requisite, he exhibited only supineness and delay. His manly body

contained a womanish soul.⁵ His intimate counsellors


¹ De la Planche, p. 208.

² Ibid., p. 205, 206; De Thou, ii. 683, whose account, as

in so many other instances during this reign, is almost exclusively

based upon the invaluable history of Regnier de la Planche.

³ La Planche, p. 208; Tumulte d'Amboise, ubi supra;

Languet, Epist. secretæ, ii. p. 2.

muliebrem." J. C. Portanus, Oct. 30, 1559, Languet, Epist. secretæ, ii. 4.

were already in the secret pay of the Guises, and, in return for the large rewards

promised,¹ disclosed every movement and plan of their master, while

they gave him such advice as was calculated to render all his

undertakings abortive.² When, after long hesitation, he at length

left for St. Germain, he advanced slowly and by short stages,

intimidated by the example of the treason of the Constable of Bourbon,

in the reign of Francis the First, of the consequences of which the

agents of his enemies did not fail frequently to remind him, and

apprehensive of the intentions of Philip upon his small principality of

Béarn.³ It is true that at Poitiers, where he was waited upon by a

large deputation of ministers from Paris, Orleans, Tours, and other

principal cities, and urged, by renouncing the mass and openly espousing

the cause of God, to fulfil the expectations of the persecuted faithful,

he returned a favorable reply, and declared that, if he still conformed

to an idolatry which he abhorred, it was in order not to lose the only

means of being serviceable to them. The sturdy men, who admitted no

compromises in matters of conscience, and had for years been exposing

their bodies to the peril of the flames or gibbet, manfully replied

that, if he would find God propitious, he must not endeavor to make his

own terms with Him; and that his own experience of divine protection

ought to prevent him from temporizing.⁴ To Henry Killigrew, who came

to meet him at Vendôme with a friendly message from Queen Elizabeth, he

spoke with more definiteness and volunteered the expression of the most

pious intentions. He declared "that he thought that God had hitherto preserved

council; D'Escars to be made a knight of the order of St. Michael, and

to command fifty men-at-arms. La Planche, 213.

² The Guises did not fail, however, to take precautions

against a surprise. If Throkmorton was well informed, the duke had

"caused two thousand corselets to be laid up in the house of Burbone

(Bourbon), nere to the court, to serve in case of innovacion; if that

any such matter shuld happen upon the arrivall of the King of Navarre."

Desp. of Aug. 8, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 194.

he trusted, had done the like by him, in having preserved him

much as was in him; which he wished might be for the quiet, and setting

forth of God's glory through Christendom (which he minded for his part)

and to the discouragement of such as should stand in contrary."¹ But the hopes