The religious wars of France, from the accession of Henry the Second, to the peace of Vervins

Preface

The sixteenth century is one of the most glorious in the annals of the human race. It is one of the grand epochs of reform, in which truth and civilization achieved decisive victories: it is the cradle in which the infant form of civil and religious liberty was rocked. Whatever freedom obtains in modern times may be traced to this interesting era, when the sovereignty of the people, and the right of private judgment, in matters of opinion, were first proclaimed. In the great struggle between the principles of the Reformation and the ecclesiastical supremacy of Rome, France played a distinguished part ; and though she failed to emancipate herself from the tyranny of the Vatican, she retired from the contest without dishonour. Nearly forty years of resistance proved the sincerity of the Protestant party : they perished on the scaffold and the field with the heroism of martyrs. Their opponents displayed equal courage and fortitude, and regarded death as the passport to paradise. During nearly the last half of the sixteenth century,

VI PREFACE.

civil war was waged throughout the whole of this fine kingdom, devastating its fields, destroying its cities, exhausting its wealth, and decimating its population. Of these religious contests this volume attempts to narrate the history.

The two most voluminous writers, on this period of the French annals are De Thou and Davila, and they are the most minute in details. Their facts are in very few points dissimilar ; but in tracing events to their causes, they seldom agree. De Thou, the son and grandson of a president of the parliament of Paris, was imbued with the severe maxims of the magistracy, and detested all courtiers. He was enamoured of judicial forms, even to bigotry ; and without making any allowance for the heated temper of men, in the troubled times of which he wrote, he condemns, without mercy, princes and ministers, generals and prelates, whenever they overstep the strict letter of the law. He lived and died in the Roman Catholic faith, and his style has never been surpassed for gravity, energy, purity, and method.

Davila was an Italian, one of the numerous adventurers who flocked to Paris, after the marriage of Catharine of Medicis with Henry II. He has been accused of leaning to the court party, but a careful study of his work compels us to dissent from this criticism. That he wrote with a bias, may be admitted ; but where is the historian to whom the same censure,

PREFACE. Vll

in some qualified form, may not be applied ? To be totally impartial, in the rigid sense of the phrase, seems impossible. The descriptive style of Davila is masterly. Battles, popular tumults, negociations, and intrigues, he depicts in glowing colours; and the fidelity of his topographical sketches must be acknowledged by any modern traveller, who has read his work.

To enumerate the poems, memoirs, biographies, collections of letters, and other documents, which relate to the Religious Wars of France, and to the principal actors who played a distinguished part in that memorable struggle, would occupy an inconvenient space. Our leading guides have been De Thou and Davila, in the general arrangement of our subject ; other authors are cited in the text and notes, to supply their deficiencies, or combat their opinions.

In the present state of religious excitement, when the Roman Catholics are straining every nerve to make converts, and a section of the Church of England claims for itself the apostolical succession, it seems desirable that the Huguenots of France should be made known to the Non-Conformists of England. Our object, therefore, has been to condense into as small a compass as possible, all the facts which illustrate the rise, progress, and fall of the Protestant party in France, from the accession of Henry II. to the peace of Vervins, avoiding all long details of bat-

Vlll PREFACE.

ties, but carefully explaining their causes and results. The moral lesson sought to be conveyed is the sinfulness and the uselessness of persecution for religious opinion. This volume is addressed rather to the young than to the old, — to those whose minds are yet open to conviction, rather than to the prejudiced or the exclusive. It professes to teach mutual forbearance, and to inculcate a respect for the rights of conscience. In laying bare the detestable machinations of Jesuitism, our object has been, not to heap animadversion on the past, but to warn present and future generations to shun the vices of their predecessors : —

Seneca.

Contents

INTRODUCTION.— Page 1.

Sketch of the court of Francis I. — Calvin's " Christian Institutions." First appearance of the Jesuits in France — Declaration of D'Andelot— Death of Henry II.

REIGN OF FRANCIS II.— Page 15.

Introduction

The doctrines of the Reformation were introduced into France at the commencement of the sixteenth century, during the reign of Francis I. In 1519, two years after Luther had openly denied the infallibility of the church of Rome, the faculty of theology at Paris denounced the new opinions ; and, in 1521, the Sorbonne published their famous condemnation of the Lutheran heresy. These very censures defeated the object of those who pronounced them, for they attracted public attention ; and persons of the hio-hest station in the realm became

o

curious to examine and weigh the merits of a cones

troversy to which those celebrated seminaries of theological learning had attached so much importance. It is manifest, from the most authentic records, that so early as the year 1523, there were, in several of the provinces of France, great numbers of the nobility and gentry who had embraced the reformed doctrines, and even some of the episcopal order. 1

Many circumstances contributed to the successful

1 Mosheim. Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. p. 87.

* INTRODUCTION.

reception of the new opinions in France. Francis I. having no fixed principles of religion, and regarding modes of faith with almost equal indifference,' treated Lutheranism as a question of policy. His hatred of Charles V. of Spain induced him to favour the Protestants of Germany, and this motive also prompted him to act with toleration towards their brethren in France, such indulgence powerfully aiding his ambitious views. However, when he did not require these foreign services, he hesitated not to persecute his subjects; and he is reported to have said, that " if he thought the blood in his own arm was tainted with the Lutheran heresy, he would order it to be cut off; and further, that he would not spare even his own children, if they entertained sentiments contrary to those of the church of Rome." 1 In 1529 he sanctioned the execution of Louis Berquin, a gentleman of Artois, who, though frequently admonished and pardoned, persisted in preaching the new doctrines, for which he was burned alive in the Place de Greve at Paris. But notwithstanding this act of severity, the general conduct of Francis was humane and conciliatory; and his warm attachment to his sister, Margaret of Yalois, Queen of Navarre, (who openly avowed Protestantism, and gloried in being its defender,) made him turn a deaf ear to the murmurs and remonstrances of the Catholic party. Brantome relates, that the constable, Anne de Montmo^ renci, conversing with the king on the most effectual mode of extirpating heresy, made no scruple of saying, " that his majesty should begin with the court

1 Hist, de la Naissance et du Progres de THer^sie, par Flor de Remond, cited by Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 89, in notis.

and his own relations/' naming the queen, his sister, as one of the most dangerous ; to which Francis replied, " Speak no more of her; she loves me too well not to believe what I believe, nor will she ever adopt a creed incompatible with the dignity and safety of my throne." 1

It was during the reign of Francis I. that women first acquired that ascendency at court, which, in subsequent reigns, enabled them to nominate ministers of state, bishops, judges, and marshals. This monarch, fond of gallantry and intrigue, thought that the charms and gentleness of the fair sex would soften the manners of his courtiers, who had hitherto known no other glory than that of arms. To give additional brilliancy to his court, he drew thither the most wealthy of the prelates, who gradually neglected the spiritual concerns of their dioceses. From their order the excessive luxury and elegant refinements of the higher circles of French society originated. Men of letters, wits, and poets were also specially honoured with the royal favour. Such were the guests who crowded the palaces of Francis, attracted by the love of pleasure, by avarice, and by ambition.

The object of the women was to win the regards of the king, of his favourite ministers, and of all who possessed credit and influence. Chastity soon ceased to be a virtue, and female honour was bartered for the privilege of bestowing honours and pensions. The functions of government passed from the hands of the monarch : his ministers exercised but a nomi-

1 Brantome, Vie de Margueritte.

B 2

INTRODUCTION.

nal authority ; the wives and daughters of the nobles swayed the sceptre in turn, each retaining it so long as her beauty, talents, or intrigues commanded an ascendency.

The gaieties and dissipations of the court soon produced their demoralizing effects on the prelates. Their wealth enabled them to give sumptuous entertainments, in which the vanity of the women had full scope for display. Their manners were more polished than those of the other courtiers, and secured to them more decided advantages. They had also the reputation of being more enlightened, and their female admirers used this as an argument to solicit for them a share in political administration. Their ambition was not satisfied with ecclesiastical power ; they aspired to be ministers of state, and they succeeded in their wishes.

The conduct of the wits and poets, who thronged the saloons of the palace, increased the corruption of the age. They lowered the moral standard of the court circles by their nauseating flatteries, their unchaste songs, and their profane epigrams. They soon made themselves of importance to the ladies, by praising the beauty of some favourite and satirizing her rivals : their talents were put up to sale, and purchased by the highest bidder ; their verses conferred genius and taste on their patrons, though nature might have denied them common sense. This mixture of women, bishops, wits, and military, formed what was deemed a brilliant and gallant court. The courtiers were divided into two factions, which respectively obeyed as their leaders the Duchess D'Etampes, mistress of Francis I., and Diana of Poitiers, mistress of his eldest son, Henry the Dauphin.

The Lutherans prided themselves on the austerity of their manners, the purity of their lives, and their indifference to worldly pleasure. The self-denial of their pastors, contrasted with the dissolute levities of the prelates, furnished a theme for popular declamation, and the preachers thundered against the vices of the church. Their sermons pleased the masses, who believed that they saw truth where they saw morality. The absence of the prelates from their dioceses still further operated in favour of the reformers, as the inferior ranks of the Catholic clergy, disheartened by the abandonment of their chiefs, struggled with feebler efforts against the new doctrines. Thus the Huguenot 1 party gradually increased in numbers and influence, and, encouraged by the success of their brethren in the Protestant provinces of Germany, threatened to subvert the established religion in France.

The bishops, though immersed in the pleasures of

1 Some etymologists suppose this term derived from Huguon, a word used in Touraine, to signify persons who walk at night through the streets ; and as the first Protestants, like the first Christians, may have chosen that season for their religious assemblies, the nickname of Huguenot may, naturally enough, have been applied to them by their enemies Others are of opinion that it was derived from a French and faulty pronunciation of the German word eidgnoffen, which signifies confederates, and had been originally the name of that valiant part of the city of Geneva which entered into an alliance with the Swiss cantons, in order to maintain their liberties against the tyrannical attempts of Charles III., Duke of Savoy. These confederates were called Egnotes ; and thence, very probably, was derived the word Huguenot, now under consideration. The Count V liars, in a letter written to the King of France from the province of Langue-

O INTRODUCTION.

the court, were too clear-sighted not to perceive the precipice on which they stood ; and though they had sanctioned the aid furnished by Francis to the Germans, in order that their rebellions might weaken the political power of Charles V., they were not disposed to tolerate the same opinions in reference to France, lest their ascendancy should despoil them of their revenues, as it had already despoiled the bishops of Germany. It was the dread of these consequences that urged them to insist on the sanguinary measures they proposed for the extirpation of heresy; admonishing Francis that the maintenance of the old faith in its integrity, would be a full atonement for all the sins he had committed, or might afterwards commit. Such was the policy of the courtier prelates ; and the influence they possessed over the king may be judged of from the following passage from the historian Daniel, who thus paints his character. " Notwithstanding," says Daniel, " the passion of love to which this prince too greatly abandoned himself, he always preserved a great fund of religion, as well from a true piety as a wise policy : he took all the precautions possible to prevent noveldoc, where he was lieutenant-general, and dated the 11th of November, 1 560, calls the riotous Calvinists of the Cevennes, Huguenots ; and this is the first time that the term is found in the registers of that province, applied to the Protestants. (Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 368, in notis.) These people were called Huguenots, because the first conventicles they held in the city of Tours (where that belief first took strength and increased) were in certain cellars under-ground, near Hugo's Gate, from whence they were by the vulgar sort called Huguenots ; and in Flanders, because they went in the habits of Mendicants, they were called Geux. — Davilla. Hist, des Guerres Civiles de la France, p. 20. folio.

INTRODUCTION.

ties in religion being introduced into the kingdom ; be gave terrible examples of severity." 1 On tbis extraordinary passage, the Abbe de Condillac makes the following just remarks : —

" If there be no religion," says Condillac, " without faith in dogmas, faith in dogmas does not constitute the whole of religion : the complete fulfilment of the duties of our station is an essential part of it. Consequently, to praise the piety of sovereigns who violate their duties, is to prostitute religion in order to flatter the vices of the great. Now, without speaking of the amours of Francis, — of those amours which, according to Pere Daniel, did not prevent him from being truly pious, — he may be reproached with devoting to pleasure the time that he owed to the cares of government. His want of economy, his magnificence and his festivals, impoverished his finances ; for so little order was observed, that no account was kept of the expenditure. He was then reduced to the necessity of surcharging the people with taxes to carry on his wars ; — and what wars ! were they undertaken for the advantage or protection of the state ? No ; it is a false glory which takes up arms without any combination for success, or any foresight of the result. What remained to him ? — victories and defeats, conquests quickly lost, a prison, a disgraceful treaty, a ruined kingdom. Such is the account which this religious prince might have given of his reign. He believed in certain dogmas, and burned those who did not believe in them ; such is the sum total of his great fund of religion, — such was his true piety. It is not said that he fulfilled all 1 Daniel, A la Fin de la Vie de Francois Premier.

the duties of a king ; it is only said that he gave terrible examples of severity; and yet this writer (Daniel) has the assurance to say, that he took all the precautions possible to prevent the introduction of heresy into his states. Saint Louis would have found others in the purity of his own morals. Such, however, is the morality with which the minds of princes are poisoned." l

The great apostle of the French reformers was John Calvin, a Frenchman by birth, being a native of Noyon in Picardy, where he was born on the 1 Oth of July, 1509. His doctrines, particularly that on the eucharist, were adopted with great zeal by the Queen of Navarre. His name acquired a wonderful popularity after the publication of his " Christian Institutions," which, in 1536, he boldly dedicated to Francis I. This work became a standard of faith and discipline, and gave a fixedness and unity to the preachers of the reformed doctrine. The Faculty of Theology at Paris drew up an answer, in which they minutely detailed the Catholic system of orthodoxy, and the two parties joined issue on these respective documents; but Calvin triumphed, and Francis, urged by the prelates, gave permission, in 1545, to exterminate the heretics by the sword.

The Baron D'Oppeda was charged with the execution of this sanguinary mandate. He was first president of the parliament of Aix, a man of violent passions and the most furious bigotry. He revived against the Waldenses, assembled in the valleys of the Alps on the side of Provence, a decree of that

1 Hist. Mod. t. 13, p. 101. Ouvres Completes de Condillac. Edition 1823.

parliament, which had been passed five years before, but which had not been enforced. " All was horrible and cruel in the sentence pronounced against them," says the historian De Thou ; and all was still more horrible and more cruel in its execution. Twenty-two villages were burned or plundered, with an inhumanity of which the history of the most barbarous people scarcely affords an example. The unfortunate inhabitants, surprised during the night, and pursued from rock to rock by the light of the fires which consumed their dwellings, only avoided one ambuscade to fall into another : the piteous cries of old men, of women, and children, far from softening the hearts of the soldiery, as mad with rage as their chiefs, only served to indicate the track of the fugitives, and mark the hiding-places to which the assassins carried their fury. 1

All the historians agree, that on this occasion the orders of Francis were most cruelly exceeded ; and many add that the king, on his death-bed, commanded his son to inflict the severest punishment on the guilty perpetrators of these merciless atrocities. The severity inflicted, far from checking the progress of the Reformation, only inspired its professors with additional energy. They died on the scaffold and amidst the flames, with the heroism of martyrs ; and the examples of courage and devotedness thus manifested were deemed proofs of the righteousness of their cause. Hitherto the Calvinists had only ventured to assemble at night to celebrate the services of their religion ; now they dared to meet in open

1 De Thouj torn. i.

day : they even erected a church in the heart of Paris; and the principal cities in the provinces quickly imitated the example of the capital.

Henry II. was tainted with a more persecuting spirit than his father, Francis I. He kindled fires for the heretics in Paris, Lyons, Angers, Blois, and Bordeaux ; but each fresh persecution swelled the ranks of the reformers. In this reign the Jesuits commenced their machinations under the protection of the Cardinal of Lorraine, who in 1550 procured letters patent from Henry II., by which they were permitted to build an establishment in Paris. When the letters were presented to the parliament for registry, the procureur-general strongly opposed their reception, and the act of legalization was suspended in consequence of his remonstrances : but in 1552 the Jesuits obtained new letters patent, which contained a peremptory order to register the first. The procureur-general, however, persisted in his opposition, and the matter remained undecided for two years longer. On the 3rd of August, 1544, the parliament decided that, before the question was definitively settled, the letters of the king and the papal bulls, which the Jesuits had obtained, should be referred to the Bishop of Paris and the Dean of the Faculty of Theology. The bishop, whose name was Eustace de Bellay, did not hesitate to declare " that the bulls of Paul III. and Julius III. contained several articles which were contrary to reason, and which could not be toleratedor received in the Christian religion ; that they in whose favour they were made, arrogating to themselves the title of ' Company of Jesus/ which could only be applied with propriety to the universal church, of which Jesus Christ was the head, seemed to wish to constitute themselves that church : moreover, as the principal object they proposed to themselves was the conversion of the Mahometans, it would be better to give them a house on the frontier of the Turkish empire than in Paris, which was so distant from Constantinople. " The answer of the Faculty of Theology was not more favourable. That body, by an unanimous vote, declared the new society " dangerous to the holy faith, calculated to disturb the peace of the church, and more fitted to destroy than to edify."

These two replies annihilated all the hopes of the Jesuits during the reign of Henry II. though they plotted in the dark, and waited their time. They retired to that quarter of the metropolis called Saint Germain, where they pretended to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the laws ; and where, under the protection of the prior of the abbey of Saint Germain, they carried on their baneful intrigues.

In 1557 a popular tumult broke out in Paris, which showed how numerous the reformers had become ; and what was more significant of the spirit of the times, it proved that, among their partizans, families of the highest rank and consideration were included. In the following year an event occurred, w T hich put beyond all doubt the extent and influence of the Huguenot confederacy. Francis De Coligny, lord of Andelot, and of the illustrious house of Chatillon, was denounced to the king, as having embraced the heresy of Calvin. D' Andelot was a colonel in the French infantry, and had a high military reputation ; nor did the courage he had shown in the field forsake

INTRODUCTION.

him when summoned to the presence of his sovereign, the arbiter of his fortunes and even of his life. When questioned as to his creed, he fearlessly made this noble answer : " Sire, in matters of religion I can use no disguise, nor vainly attempt to deceive God. Dispose as you please of my life, my property, and my appointments ; but my soul, independent of every other sovereign, is only subject to the Creator from whom I received it, and whom alone I ought to obey under present circumstances, as my most powerful master : in a word, I will die rather than go to mass."

The king was roused to fury by this uncompromising defiance, and, in the first burst of his rage, menaced D'Andelot with death ; but he was dissuaded from this extreme act, and commuted the punishment into banishment from the court, with an order that the heretic should not move from his own estate, lest he might corrupt others. This sentence had no moral effect : it was known that many were as guilty as D'Andelot, though few might have as frankly confessed their guilt ; and it seemed partial and ungenerous to make an example of a man who had shown so much honour and daring. The usual effects of persecution followed ; the obnoxious doctrines increased in popularity, and the Calvinists, now secure of the support of D'Andelot, and hoping that all the members of his powerful family would imitate his example, fearlessly assembled in large numbers at the Pre-aux-Clercs, situate in the modern faubourg Saint Germain^ and, at that time, one of the most frequented promenades in Paris. There they sang the psalms of Marot in the open air : it became the fashion to visit these re -unions ; some of the young courtiers went to ridicule the fanatics, as they were then called ; others repaired thither from mere curiosity ; while Antony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, and, Jane d'Albret, his wife, animated the preachers by their presence, and scarcely disguised their attachment to the new opinions. The Catholic clergy now became seriously alarmed at the impending danger, for heresy had spread from the capital throughout the provinces, infecting the court, the army, the judicial tribunals, and even their own order, many of whom lent a friendly ear to the doctrines of the Reformation, as it released the priests from the restraint of celibacy. They urged the king to draw the sword against the Huguenots, and persuaded him to sign an inglorious peace with Spain, that he might direct the whole power of the crown against his dissenting subjects. The royal vengeance was first levelled against five of the counsellors of the parliament of Paris, who had openly professed the new religion : they were put under arrest : among the number was the famous Anne Du Bouro- of an illustrious family in Auvergne, and nephew of a chancellor of France. The king ordered their trial to take place without delay, particularly that of Du Bourg, saying " that he wished to see him burned before his own eyes."

Nor were these the solitary victims of regal displeasure and ecclesiastical intolerance. Informers were encouraged, by the prospect of reward, to denounce the innocent : a casual or ambiguous phrase was a sufficient warrant for arrest ; suspicion was equivalent to proof: whoever sheltered a reputed

INTRODUCTION.

heretic was deemed to be a participator in his crime ; all confidence between man and man was lost ; even the members of the same family distrusted each other ; all the worst passions of human nature were let loose, and France became an extended dungeon. The inexorable severity of the government threatened the complete extirpation of Calvinism, when an unforeseen event changed the aspect of the times.

On the 25th of June, Henry II. was wounded in the eye by the Count De Montgommeri, captain of the Scotch guard, in a tournament : the injury was so severe that his life was immediately despaired of. He lingered to the 10th of July following, when he expired, leaving four sons, all minors, a queen-mother jealous of ruling and eager to be appointed sole regent, a court divided by factions, and a people disunited by difference of creed. With his sceptre he bequeathed to his posterity the religious wars of France.

REIGN OF FRANCIS II.

Chapter I

Francis II. ascended the throne of France on the 10th of July, 1559, being only sixteen years of age. Notwithstanding his extreme youth, he was already married to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland : their feeble hands were unable to hold the reins of government, and the several factions into which the court w r as divided immediately conspired to seize on the administration of affairs.

During the eleven days that elapsed from that on which the late king was wounded to his death, Anne de Montmorenci, constable of France, the minister and favourite of Henry II., foreseeing that his influence would decline under a new reign, wrote to the princes of the blood royal, Antony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, and the Prince of Conde, who were the next heirs to the throne after Francis and his brothers, urging them to coalesce with him in framing a new government. Montmorenci was able in the cabinet and experienced in the field ; but these qualities were stained by bigotry and intolerance. He had warmly and sincerely advocated the persecution of the Calvinists, — conduct which had gained him the confidence of Henry II. ; and as he had supported Diana of Poitiers, Duchess of Valentinois, against all the private intrigues and open affronts of Catharine di Medicis, the royal consort, his power was almost unbounded. But he had now two enemies to dread, the queen-mother and the family of Guise ; the former sought to avenge herself on the constable for having espoused the party of Diana of Poitiers; the latter were his personal and political rivals, and, as Montmorenci stood in the path of their ambition, they resolved on his ruin.

Francis, Duke of Guise, was one of the most remarkable men of his age. As a soldier, he had distinguished himself by the capture of Calais from the English, and by his defence of Metz against the Spaniards. He possessed, in an eminent degree, most of those external advantages which captivate the multitude — a commanding figure, an expressive physiognomy, a dignified and martial bearing ; while the affability of his manners, the courtesy of his address, and the chivalrous character of his sentiments, rendered him the delight and ornament of the court. He was a sincere and generous friend, but his enmity was stern and bitter ; still, when he had gained the victory, he was merciful and rarely sought revenge.

His ambitious schemes were powerfully supported by his four brothers, each of whom was as eager as himself to share the patronage and emoluments of office. These were Claude, Duke of Aumale ; Louis, Cardinal of Lorraine ; Francis, Grand-Prior of France ; and Rene, Marquis of Elbeuf. The Guises were of the house of Lorraine, which had only established itself in France in the reign of Francis L, so that many looked upon them rather as foreigners than subjects. They were the uncles of Mary Stuart, who ruled her husband Francis I., and the influence of the niece was wholly thrown into the scale of her aspiring relations.