XXIII. the independence and efficiency of the magistrature. The queen mother had passed through the formidable ordeal of the states'-general, with a certain success, not *Interdiction de Président le Maître. MSS. Bethune, 8930. † Suriano considers the return of the proscribed preachers the great cause of the subsequent increase and outburst of Huguenoterie. a word being breathed against her authority. But on the other hand nothing had been done to relieve her pecuniary distress. This alone threatened her power. She was obliged to curtail the salaries of the court officers, the pensions of functionaries, of judges, and no doubt of dignitaries, which had the effect of rendering all discontented. Her own financial views were to make the clergy pay the public debt, in which scheme she had secured the support of the leading men of the lay estates, and also of the Gallican and Huguenot party. Not being able to await the meeting of delegates, she summoned the provincial estates, beginning with Paris, in March, and besought them to sanction a proposal that the clergy should pay fourteen millions of livres towards the liberation of the royal revenue and domain, and that an increased duty should be imposed on salt and wine without any exemption of classes. The estates, reluctantly assembling, declared the clergy to be well able to pay, but objected to the consumption-duty being levied on the capital. i In these demands, and in the political course she was pursuing, Catherine had every reason to count upon the support of the King of Navarre, whose party was favoured and whose principles were triumphant. But that fickle personage as well as the constable had taken umbrage at the influence which the Duc de Guise seemed personally to wield; and he was also annoyed to perceive that the queen and De l'Hôpital were more careful to make concessions to the Protestant party than to the Protestant chief. King Antoine, therefore, made use of his influence in Paris to procure the election of members for the provincial estates unfavourable to the court. And, after rejecting the queen's proposition, they began to demand that no new council should be appointed, and the King of Navarre have the guardianship of the sovereign. They CHAP. XXIII. XXIII. CHAP. complained loudly of De l'Hôpital.* They menaced the Maréchal de St. André, and the ministers of the late reign, with an inquiry, as to how the great debt had been incurred, a menace which roused a host of enemies. Catherine saw at once the cause of their frowardness, and sought to remove it by conciliating the King of Navarre. He demanded no less than the dismissal of the Duc de Guise from court-and threatened to go away himself, with the Chatillons and the constable, if this were not granted. The queen was in perplexity, but she sent to the constable in the young king's name, begging him not to desert the court. morency obeyed: the secession did not take place, and Navarre was satisfied by the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom, and the promise of being consulted on all important affairs. At the same time the other provincial estates throughout the kingdom were convoked, in the hope of obtaining from them grants of money to meet the exigencies of the state. Mont Catherine, as usual, tried to steer between extremes. She forbade the sale of meat in Lent, but she allowed the Bishop of Valence to preach before the king, which that prelate did without invoking the saints, and with recommendations that the Scriptures should be read and the Psalms sung in the French vernacular. The Guises and the constable affected to be horrified at such doctrines, and, deserting the royal prêche, went together to attend mass performed by a friar for the domestics in the basse-cour of the château. The triumvirate, as the league between Guise, the constable and St. André was called, soon made itself felt. The population of Paris and of several towns rose in insurrection against the Huguenots. They attacked a house Que le Chancelier de l'Hôpital aye à se déporter de l'excessif de son état, &c. MSS. Fontanieu, 298, contains reports of the proceedings in the in the Pré aux Clercs, and in a riot of a similar kind against the Bishop of Beauvais, brother of Coligny, several were killed on both sides (April 1561). Catherine sought to impose silence and peace. The king issued a decree ordering all persons to live catholiquement. This the parliament interpreted after their fashion, and forbade Protestant prêches. But Catherine and De l'Hôpital instantly checked their zeal by issuing letters patent, ordering quarrels and vituperations to cease, forbidding the houses of Protestants to be entered or forced, and setting free all Huguenot prisoners. The parliament refused to register these letters patent, which thus became inoperative in Paris, although they opened the prison doors in a great number of provincial towns.* These acts of tolerance and the policy which suggested them, chiefly springing from the influence of De l'Hôpital, were interrupted by the journey of the king to Rheims in order to his coronation. This flung him and Catherine once more under the power of the Guises, and compelled the latter to modify many of her resolves. She had ordered the clergy to send in an account of their revenues, a command that filled them with no little alarm. The Cardinal of Lorraine obtained a suspension of it. Catherine, with her usual flexibility, seemed to bend to their exigencies, even to the young king's attending the procession of the Fête Dieu, to which she had objected in a solemn letter to the Pope. Fears being entertained of the Protestants interrupting or disturbing the ceremony, Guise himself repaired to Paris to give his personal protection to the principal festivity of his church. The estates, or delegates from the estates, were to assemble on the first day of August, as well as a synod of ecclesiastics to take into consideration the affairs of * De Bèze. СНАР. XXIII. XXIII. CHAP. religion. The triumvirate were not prepared to oppose these meetings, but they objected to the suspension of laws enforcing Catholicism, and allowing such complete tolerance to the Huguenots, which the latter had taken advantage of to seize almost all the churches in the South. The three great magnates were supported by the Spanish envoy* and by the Pope, whilst the King of Navarre, to whom it was adroitly hinted, that the sure way to recover his Spanish kingdom, or an indemnity for it, was to support Catholicism and Spain, began again to hesitate†, and to recommend the confession of Augsburg as preferable to the religious tenets of Calvin.† The new estates of Paris too, though silent as to the queen's requests, were clamorous against tolerance and the Huguenots. The council of state began to waver; the queen and even De l'Hôpital were obliged to fling themselves upon the parliament, and profess a readiness to follow its advice. A meeting was called of the judges, of counsellors and courtiers, mingled. De l'Hôpital in addressing them, did not venture to urge the necessity of tolerance, but, declaring that the devil had embroiled religious convictions, he asked their advice as to the nature of the law, which it was necessary to observe and enforce. As the court and Catherine thus threw themselves at the feet of the Catholic legists, the intolerant grew bold, insisted on banishing and burning; and, in despite of a few protesting voices, a new edict, called that of July, was issued, withdrawing the tolerance promised until the meeting of the estates, and forbidding conventicles altogether. And in order that this law might be summarily and universally executed, jurisdiction in all cases under it was given to the presidial or secondary judges of districts * Chantonnay had never ceased to remonstrate against what he called the chancellor's Interim. + Chantonnay's letters of July 9. Bruslart, and Calvin's letters of August, 1561. |