Perplexity of the ruling family

As the summer advanced the perplexities of the Guises increased. Every

day there were new alarms. The English ambassador, not able to conceal

his satisfaction at the perplexity of his queen's covert enemies, wrote

to Cecil: "If I should discourse particularly unto you what these men

have done since my last letters ... you would think me as fond in

observing their doings as they mad in variable executing. But you may

see what force fear hath that occasioned such variety.... They be in

such security, as no man knoweth overnight where the king will lodge.

Tomorrow from all parts they have such news as doth greatly perplex

them. Every day new advertisements of new stirs, as of late again in

Dauphiny, in Anjou, in Provence; and to make up their mouths, the king

being in the skirts of Normandy, at Rouen, upon Corpus Christi Day,

there was somewhat to do about the solemn procession, so as there was

many slain in both parts. But at length the churchmen had the worse, and

for an advantage, the order is by the king commanded, that the priests

for their outrage shall be grievously punished. What judge you when the

Cardinal of Lorraine is constrained to command to punish the clergy, and

such as do find fault with others' insolence,


¹ La Planche, 305; La Place, 38; De Thou, ii. 776; Davila,

p. 29. I cannot refrain from inserting La Planche's worthy estimate of

his course and its results: "Car pour certain, encores que s'il eust

prins un court chemin pour s'opposer virilement au mal, il seroit plus à

louer, et Dieu, peut-estre, eust bény sa Constance, si est-ce qu'autant

qu'on en peut juger, luy seul, par ses modérés déportemens a esté

l'instrument duquel Dieu s'est servy pour retenir plusieurs flots

impétueux, où fussent submergés tous les François." Ubi supra.

contemning the reverent usage to the holy procession!"¹
Montbrun in the Comtât Venaissin. Universal commotion.

New commotions had indeed arisen in the south-east, where Montbrun, a

nephew of Cardinal Tournon, the inquisitor-general, had entered the

small domain of the Pope, the Comtât Venaissin, as a Huguenot

leader.² Condé had dexterously escaped the snares laid for him, and

had taken refuge with his brother, Navarre.³ Their spies reported to

the Guises a state of universal commotion; and deputies from all parts

of France rehearsed in the ears of the Bourbon princes the story of the

usurpations of the Guises and the Protestant grievances, and urged them,

by every consideration of honor and safety, to undertake to redress

them.⁴ The Guises had for some time been pressing the King of Spain

and the Pope to forward the convening of a universal council, without

which all would go to ruin.⁵ In view of the great apathy displayed

both by Philip and by Pius--perhaps, also, with the secret hope of

enticing Navarre and Condé to come within their reach⁶ --they

consented to the plan which Catharine de' Medici, at the suggestion of

L'Hospital and Coligny, now advocated, of summoning a council of

notables to devise measures for allaying the existing excitement.⁷

printed in Wright, Queen Elizabeth, i. 32, 33.

and reproduced verbatim by La Planche (318-338), is a very complete

summary of the views of the Huguenots at this juncture.

⁵ Letter of Cardinal Lorraine to the Bishop of Limoges,

French ambassador to Philip the Second, July 28, 1560. The council "we

hold to be the sole and only remedy for our ills," is the minister's

language. Although the state of affairs was better than it had been, yet

"so many persons were imbued with these opinions, that it was not

possible to find out on whom reliance could be placed." Négociations

sous François II., 442-444.

⁶ Ibid., ubi supra; La Planche, 349; De Thou, ii. 782.

⁷ La Planche, ubi supra. An assembly of notables was, as

the term imports, a body consisting, not of representatives of the three

orders, regularly summoned under the forms observed in the holding of

the States General, but of the most prominent men of the kingdom,

arbitrarily selected and invited by the crown to act as its advisers on

some extraordinary emergency. "Telles assemblées," says Agrippa

d'Aubigné, "ont esté appelées petits estats." Hist. univ., i. 96.

Assembly of notables at Fontainebleau, August 21, 1560.

On the twenty-first of August this celebrated assembly was convened by

royal letters in the stately palace at Fontainebleau.¹ Antoine of

Navarre and the Prince of Condé declined, on specious pretexts, the

king's invitation. Constable Montmorency accepted it, but came with a

formidable escort of eight hundred attendants. His three nephews, the

Châtillons, followed his example, and shared his protection. At the

appointed hour a brilliant company was gathered in the spacious

apartments of the queen mother. On either side of the king's throne sat

Mary of Scots, and Catharine de' Medici, and the young princes--Charles

Maximilian, Duke of Orleans, Edward Alexander, and Hercules.² Four

cardinals, in their purple--Bourbon, Lorraine, Guise, and Châtillon--sat

below. Next to these were placed the Duke of Guise, as

lieutenant-general of the kingdom; the Duke of Montmorency, as

constable; L'Hospital, as chancellor; Marshals St. André and Brissac;

Admiral Coligny; Marillac, Archbishop of Vienne; Morvilliers, Bishop of

Orleans; Montluc, Bishop of Valence; and the other members of the privy

council. In front of these, the members of the Order of St. Michael, and

the rest of the notables, occupied lower benches.³

Chancellor L'Hospital's speech.

The session opened with brief speeches delivered by Francis and

before seen in France or England. I may resemble the state thereof to

the honour of Hampton Court, which as it passeth Fontainebleau with the

great hall and chambers, so is it inferior in outward beauty and

uniformity," etc. The Journey of the Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno

1555, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 67.

of Francis, known as Charles the Ninth. Edward Alexander, Duke of

Alençon, had his name changed in 1565 to Henry, and became Duke of

Anjou. He was at this time not quite nine years of age. He was

subsequently king, under the title of Henry the Third. Hercules became

Francis of Alençon in 1565, and was the only one of the brothers that

never ascended the throne. He was now a little over six years old.

³ La Place, 53; La Planche, 350, 351; De Thou, ii. 706;

Mém. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 8; Davila, 29. Minor discrepancies between

these accounts need not be noted.

convocation, but referring their auditors to the chancellor and to the king's

malady to a bodily disease,¹ pronouncing the cure to be easy, if

only the cause could be detected. He closed by assigning a somewhat

singular reason for summoning but two of the three orders of the state.

The presence of the people, he said, was in no wise necessary,

inasmuch as the king's sole object was to relieve the third estate.

Because, forsooth, the poor people--bowed down to the earth with taxes

and burdens, which the noblesse would not touch with one of their

fingers--was the party chiefly interested in the results of the present

deliberations, it was quite unessential that its complaints or requests

should be heard! The Duke of Guise and his brother, the cardinal, next

laid before the assembly an account of their administration of the army

and finances; and the first day's session ended with the pleasant

announcement that the royal revenues annually fell short of the regular

expenses by the sum--very considerable for those days--of two and

one-half millions of livres.

When next the notables met, two days later, the king formally proposed a

free discussion of the subject in hand. The youngest member of the privy

council was about to speak, when Gaspard de Coligny arose, and,

advancing to the throne, twice bowed humbly to the king. By the royal

orders, he said, he had lately visited Normandy and investigated the

origin of the recent commotions. He had satisfied himself that they were

owing to no ill-will felt toward the crown; but only to the extreme and

illegal violence with which the inhabitants had been treated for

religion's sake. He had, therefore, believed it to be his duty to listen

to the requests of the persecuted, who offered to prove that their

doctrines were conformable to the Holy Scriptures and to the traditions

of the primitive church, and to take charge of the two petitions which

they had drawn up and addressed to his Majesty and the

his wits' end, he had called in a consultation of state doctors."

(Bonnet, iv. 135.)

queen mother. They were without signatures; for these could not be

The petitions,1 addressed, one to the king, the other to the queen

mother, purported to come from "the faithful Christians scattered in

various parts of the kingdom." They set forth the severity of the

persecutions the Huguenots had undergone, and were yet undergoing, for

attempting to live according to the purity of God's word, and their

supreme desire to have their doctrine subjected to examination, that it

might be seen to be neither seditious nor heretical. The suppliants

begged for an intermission of the cruel measures which had stained all

France with blood. They professed an unswerving allegiance, as in duty

bound, to the king whom God had called to the throne. And of that king

they prayed that the occasion of so many calumnies, invented against

them by reason of the secret and nocturnal meetings to which they had

been driven by the prohibition of open assemblies, might be removed; and

that, with the permission to meet publicly for the celebration of divine

rites, houses for worship might also be granted to them.[890]

Religion et estat de ce Royaume, depuis la mort du Roy Henry II. iusques

au commencement des troubles. Sine loco, 1565, vol. i. 614-619.

² La Place, 54, 55, and La Planche, 351, are, as usual in this reign, our best authorities
in reference to Coligny's address and the presentation of the petition; see also Hist. ecclés.,
i. 173, 174; De Thou, ii. 797; Castelnau, liv. ii., c. 8; Davila, bk. ii., p. 30. La

Place and Jean de Serres, De statu, etc., i. 96 (who are followed by De

Thou, etc.), seem to be more correct in assigning the address to the

second session, than La Planche, the Hist. ecclés., etc., who place it

at the very commencement of the first. Calvin, in a letter to

Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560 (Bonnet, iv. 135) describes the scene in the

same manner as La Place. Vita Gasparis Colinii (1575), 27, etc.; Vie de

Coligny (Cologne, 1686), p. 213, etc. Mr. Browning (Hist. of the

Huguenots, i. 29) erroneously attributes the authorship of the last

mentioned work to Francis Hotman (who died in 1590); whereas the author

It was a perilous step for the admiral to take. By his advocacy of

toleration he incurred liability to the extreme penalties that had been

inflicted upon others for utterances much less courageous. But the very

boldness of the movement secured his safety where more timid counsels

might have brought him ruin. Besides, it was not safe to attack so

gallant a warrior, and the nephew of the powerful constable. Yet the

audible murmurs of the opposite party announced their ill-will.
Speech of Montluc, Bishop of Valence. The remedy prescribed.

The fearlessness of the admiral, however, kindled to a brighter flame

the courage of others. Strange as it may appear, toleration and reform

found their warmest and most uncompromising advocates on the episcopal

bench.[891] Montluc, Bishop of Valence, drew a startling contrast

between the means that had been taken to propagate the new doctrines,

and those by which the attempt had been made to eradicate them. For

thirty years, three or four hundred ministers of irreproachable morals,

indomitable courage, and notable diligence in the study of the Holy

Scriptures, had been attracting disciples by the sweet name of Jesus

continually upon their lips, and had easily gained over a people that

were as sheep without a shepherd. Meanwhile, popes had been engrossed in

war and in sowing discord between princes; the ministers of justice had

made use of the severe enactments of the kings against heresy

wrote after Maimbourg and Varillas, whose statements he controverts.

(Pref., p. ii., and p. 86.) Hotman, as noticed elsewhere, was the author

of the preceding and much more authentic book.

Marillac was a layman, whose success in negotiation had been rewarded

with the archiepiscopal see of Vienne. In his youth he had been

suspected of composing an apology for a "Lutheran" burned at the stake

in Paris; and he died broken-hearted, seeing the ruin to which both

church and state were tending, two months after the Assembly of

Fontainebleau. La Place, 72, 73; La Planche, 360, 361. Neither was

Montluc of Valence a clergyman. Paris, Négotiations sous François II.,

Notice, p. xxxvii.

to enrich themselves and their friends; and bishops, instead of showing

indulging in scandalous excesses, while the fire was kindling in their

dioceses.¹ The inferior clergy, who bought their curacies at Rome,

added ignorance to avarice.² The ecclesiastical office became odious

and contemptible when prelates conferred benefices on their barbers,

cooks, and footmen. What must be done to avert the just anger of God?

Let the king, in the first place, see that God's name be no longer

blasphemed as heretofore. Let God's Word be published and expounded. Let

there be daily sermons in the palace, to stop the mouths of those who

assert that, near the king, God is never spoken of. Let the singing of

psalms take the place of the foolish songs sung by the maids of the

queens; for to prohibit the singing of psalms, which the Fathers extol,

would be to give the seditious a good pretext for saying that the war

was waged not against men, but against God, inasmuch as the publication

and the hearing of His praises were not tolerated. A second remedy was

to be found in a universal council, or, if the sovereign pontiff

continued to refuse so just a demand, in a national council, to which

the most learned of the new sect should be offered safe access. As to punishments,

panacea for the evils in the church, that the bishops should all be sent

off to their dioceses. An edict to that effect had recently been

promulgated, and it was supposed that the parish curates would soon be

directed to follow their example. (Languet, ii. 68.) "What else will

result from this I know not," quietly adds the sensible diplomatist,

"but that they will betray their ignorance and baseness, and that the

contempt and hatred already entertained for them by the people will be

augmented." Elsewhere, in expressing the same view of the absurdity of

the order, he gives this unflattering description of the prelates: "cum

plerique sint plane indocti et præterea luxu, libidinibus, et aliis

sceleribus perditissimi," etc. (Ibid., ii. 73.)

showed that three hundred and eighteen bishops at

the Council of Nice, one hundred and fifty at Constantinople, and six

hundred and thirty at Chalcedon, refused to employ other weapons,

against the worst of convicted heretics, than the word of God. Montluc

closed his eloquent discourse by opposing the proposition to grant the

right of public assembly, because of the dangers to which it might lead;

but advocated a wise discrimination in the punishment of offenders,

according to their respective numbers and apparent motives.¹
Address of Archbishop Marillac.

The Archbishop of Vienne, the virtuous Marillac, an elegant and

effective orator, made a still more cogent speech. He regarded the

General Council as the best remedy for present dissensions; but it was

in vain to expect one, since, between the Pope, the emperor, the kings,

and the Lutherans, the right time, place, and method of holding it could

never be agreed upon by all; and France was like a man desperately ill,

whose fever admitted of no delay that a physician might be called in

from a distance. Hence, the usual resort to a national council, in spite

of the Pope's discontent, was imperative. France could not afford to

die in order to please his Holiness.² Meanwhile, the prelates must

be obliged to reside in their dioceses; nor must the Italians, those

leeches that absorbed one-third of all the benefices and an infinite

number of pensions, be exempted from the operation of the general

rule.³ Would paid troops be permitted thus to absent themselves from

their posts in the hour of danger? Simony must be abolished at once, as

a token of sincerity in the desire to reform the church. Otherwise Christ
would come down and drive his unworthy servants from His church, as He
once drove the money-changers from the temple. Especially must churchmen


¹ The harangue of Montluc is contained word for word,

though with erroneous date, in the Recueil des choses mémorables (1565),

pp. 286-305; also in La Place, 55-58; Mém. de Condé, 557-562. Summary in

De Thou, ii. 797-800; Jean de Serres, De statu rel. et reip. (1571), i. 99-106.

complaire." La Place, 60; La Planche, 354.

la troisiesme partie des bénéfices du royaume, ont pensions infinies,

succent nostre sang comme sangsues," etc. La Place and La Planche, ubi supra.

repent with fasting, and take up the word of God, which is a

sword, "whereas, at present," said the speaker, "we have only the

scabbard--in mitres and croziers, in rochets and tiaras." Everything

that tended to disturb the public tranquillity, whether from seditious

leaders, or from equally seditious zealots, must be repressed.

Nor was the advice given by Marillac for securing the continued

obedience of the people less sound. He regarded the assembling of the

States General as indispensable, in view of the great debts and burdens

of the people. He warned the king's counsellors lest the people,

accustomed to have its complaints of grievances unattended to, should

begin to lose the hope of relief, and lest the proverbial promptness and

gentleness which the French nation had always shown in meeting the

king's necessities should be so badly met and so frequently offended as

at last to turn into rage and despair.¹

Such was "the learned, wise, and Christian harangue," as the chronicler

well styles it, of "an old man eloquent," whom, like another Isocrates,

"the dishonest victory" of his country's real enemies was destined to

"kill with report." The profound impression it made was deepened by the

speech of Admiral Coligny, whose turn it was, on the next day (the

twenty-fourth of August), to announce his sentiments, he declared

himself ready to pledge life and all he held most dear, that the hatred

of the people was in no wise directed against the king, but against his

ministers, whom he loudly blamed for surrounding their master with a

guard, as though he needed this protection against his loyal subjects.

Supporting the proposition of the Archbishop of Vienne for assembling

the States General, the admiral advocated, in addition, the immediate


¹ La Place, 64; La Planche, 359. Both historians give the

speech verbatim. J. de Serres, i. 106-126; Letter of Calvin to

Bullinger, Oct. 1, 1560, ubi supra; Hist. ecclés., i. 174-178. Would

that these words of wholesome advice and sound philosophy had not been

left unheeded by royalty and noblesse! The course of politic humanity

to which they pointed might have saved a monarch his head, the noblesse

countless lives and the loss of large possessions, and France a bloody revolution.

dismissal of the guard, in order to remove all jealousy between king and

people, and the discontinuance of persecution, until such time as a

council--general or national--might be assembled. Meanwhile, he advised

that the requests of the reformed, whose petitions he had presented, be

granted; that the Protestants be allowed to assemble for the purpose of

praying to God, hearing the preaching of His word, and celebrating the

holy sacraments. If houses of worship were given them in every place,

and the judges were instructed to see to the maintenance of the peace,

he felt confident that the kingdom would at once become quiet and the

subjects be satisfied.¹