THE TOUR OF THE PROVINCES (Continued). THE INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS UPON FRANCE. THE AFFAIR OF MEAUX
From the field of Philip II’s empty victory the court resumed its pilgrimage, crossing the Loire and traversing Guyenne which was “in good repose,” visiting AngoulÊme, Cognac, Saintes, La Rochelle, and Niort en route to Nantes. The country was the veritable dominion of Calvinism in France, but as yet the Huguenots let their hopes belie their fears.[984] The progress through the western provinces was purposely slow, for Catherine still hoped against hope that Fourquevaux, who had succeeded St. Sulpice at the Spanish court, might persuade Philip II to think more favorably of her matrimonial schemes,[985] until finally, late in December, the bitter truth came out; only the younger daughter of the Hapsburgs might marry a Valois, even though he was king of France. The queen mother had been weighed in the balance by Catholic-Hapsburg Europe and had been found wanting. Then it was that Catherine turned her eyes toward eastern Europe in the hope of finding in Poland a recompense for the fondled and despicable Henry of Valois. Strange are the vicissitudes of history! The effect of Philip II’s resolution was to put a mountebank on the throne of Poland and cast Marguerite of Valois into the arms of the son of Jeanne d’Albret.[986]
Long before this time, however, Spain had begun to be impatient for the fulfilment of the compact of Bayonne. But procrastination was Catherine’s trump suit. She averred that the plague was too prevalent to make it safe for the court to return to Paris until winter,[987] and when the cold weather diminished the danger from that source, pleaded the poverty and famine of the realm as an excuse.[988] It was an excuse the validity of which was everywhere manifest. France truly had been in the dire pangs of hunger and intense cold during the celebrated winter of 1564-65.[989] Claude Haton, the priest-historian of Provins, who was a close observer of meteorological phenomena has given a graphic description of this season.
The winter at its commencement in November [he says] was very mild and was so until December 20, the vigil of St. Thomas the apostle, without either cold or frost in the mornings. The rain was so warm that it was thought that the winter would be mild and open, but on the vigil of St. Thomas there came a great cold, accompanied in the morning by a cold rain, which by midday turned into snow, and which fell all the rest of the day in so great abundance that the earth, which was very wet, was covered on the morrow to the depth of a foot, king’s measure, and more, with snow. With this snow came a northeast wind, which froze everything under a coating of thick ice. This cold continued down to the last day of December. The ice was so thick that a man could cross the river without breaking through. The snow lay so heavy upon the fields that in the open places the drifts were as high as a man. After the snow-storm had passed the cold redoubled, so that even the best clad suffered whenever they went out doors. There was not a house in the village where the water did not freeze, if it was not set close by the fire; and I do not exaggerate when I say that in many good and well-built houses wine froze before the great chimney, though the latter was heaped up with wood. I saw in many houses iron pots suspended above the fire with icicles hanging over the edge. Every night and morning when the people got up there was frost upon the coverlet, from the evaporation of the bodies of the sleepers. There was not a wine-cellar where the wine did not freeze in the casks, unless care was taken to keep charcoal fires burning there. In some wine-cellars it was necessary to close every aperture in order to prevent the wine from freezing. It frequently froze so hard that it was necessary to pierce the bung-hole with a red hot poker in order to draw it out. On the night of the 23-24 December, as also on Christmas night, the ice was so heavy upon the trees that the boughs were broken. These things had not been seen in France since the year 1480.[990] The greatest cold was on the day of the feast of the Innocents (December 28). Many men who were exposed died in the roads. The crests of cocks and poultry were frozen and fell off some days afterwards, and many were found dead under their roosts. The sheep also died.
Early in January the ice began to melt. It grew uncommonly warm for the season, so that fire became unnecessary. On the day following the edict of the king, about noon, a soft warm rain began to fall, which caused the snow to vanish rapidly. This lasted for five days, so that the earth was covered with water. And then came a second cold for three entire weeks, until the 28th of the month, and snow with a high wind came, which drove the snow everywhere and piled it in great drifts. The winter grain was frozen in the furrows. God knows how much the poor people who had no wood suffered. Most of them stayed in bed night and day without getting up except to eat once in twenty-four hours. The poor of Paris and others who had no means, were compelled to burn their furniture. Those who had made no provision for the winter, chiefly of wood, were compelled to purchase at high prices, for it was not possible to do carting because of the condition of the roads; in many cases, moreover, the bridges were destroyed. When the thaw came, the high waters penetrated houses and churches in Provins to the depth of three, four, and even five feet, washing out the very dead in the cemetery.[991] At Paris the flood damaged the Pont-au-Change and caused many houses to topple. Vine-growers found themselves in great difficulty. Those who were wise cut their vines back to the root, in order that they might sprout better again, and were repaid for so doing, for they were the only ones that bore.
The spring was fair and mild, so that barley and oats were sown. Yet much ground lay bare because in the fields sown with winter wheat the roots were all killed, so that no grain grew. The walnut trees seemed to be dead through all the month of April and half of May, for they did not put forth their buds. Pear and apple trees bore a few blossoms. In some places there were plums and cherries, but not everywhere.[992]
The winter was just as bad in Gascony, Provence, and Languedoc. On the day of the Feast of St. John the Baptist (June 24) it snowed![993] Even the poor people were compelled to build fires, though they could not afford the fuel. The vines throughout central France were so badly injured that not a third part of the crop remained. The grain likewise was destroyed. Water courses were swollen and overflowed their banks, and in the meadows of the Seine people had to take care lest they be drowned. As a result of the cold spring, the harvest of 1565 failed over almost all the realm to such an extent that it was necessary to abolish the tolls between provinces and to permit free trade in grain. Paris imported wheat from Champagne, Picardy, Anjou, Lower Brittany, Burgundy, and Auvergne, the least stricken of the provinces.[994] The Parlement of Paris passed an ordinance forbidding speculation in foodstuffs and compelled those possessed of a surplus of grain to throw what was not needed for their own necessity upon the market.[995] A measure (boisseau) of wheat, from January to April cost from 12-15 sous (= 1½ pecks at from 36 to 45 cents), and after April the price rose every week until harvest time, to the sum of 25 sous tournois (approximately 75 cents). Wheat was very dear in Paris and throughout all Brie, the Ile-de-France, Valois, Soissonais, and Picardy; less so in Champagne, Burgundy, and Lorraine, where there was rye and barley enough for the people. The stock starved because the grain was consumed by the people. Many people went over into Champagne in order to purchase rye and barley to make bread with until the harvest came. Fortunately grain was plentiful in Champagne, and wheat fell to 7 and 6 sous per measure (from 19 to 22 cents), and corn in like proportion after the harvest. Because of the hard times which they had experienced, many accumulated great stores in the expectation that in a short time there would again be a dearth.
Wine was very dear until the vintage. In the months of August and September before the grapes were gathered, it was not possible to purchase wine by the cup at taverns, even for silver; it was with great difficulty that sufficient wine was procurable for church service. But after the vintage the price dropped to 14 livres tournois ($8.70) la queue du creu, whereas it had been as high as 80 before ($49.60).[996]
As so often appears elsewhere in history, the economic distress and strain of poverty was followed by psychological manifestations of a religio-sociological sort, among the lower and poor classes. In 1565, in the villages of Champagne and Brie and especially in the bailiwicks of Sens, Melun, Montereau, Nogent, Troyes, ChÂlons, Rheims, Epernay, ChÂteau-Thierry, Meaux, and Provins, the belief spread among the peasantry that in honor of the Virgin they ought to refrain from working in the fields on Saturday after midday, and that this Saturday rest had been formally ordered by the Virgin in revelations and apparitions. A young girl of Charly-sur-Marne, near Epernay, boasted of having received these confidences, and showed miraculous signs of her mission. But the cardinal of Lorraine caused her to be arrested and questioned, and she was burned alive as a witch.[997]
Instead of going to Paris, the court passed the winter at Moulins in Bourbonnais,[998] where the famine was most slightly felt. By this time the expectations of the Catholics and the fears of the Huguenots were beginning to bear their bitter fruit, and in the state of public tension every incident was magnified. At Angers, in November, the Rohans, having forbidden Catholic worship upon their domains, the King had had to compel them to reinstate it by threatening to dispossess them of their chÂteaux; at Blois the cardinal Bourbon reproached the queen mother for suffering the edict to be violated by permitting the queen of Navarre and the prince of CondÉ to maintain court-preachers in their entourage. The Catholics of Dijon demanded that in future Calvinist ministers be forbidden to attend the last hours of the dying, a petition which the cardinal of Lorraine supported in order to make the chancellor L’HÔpital commit himself. The answer of the latter sustained the edict’s grant of the right of selection in the matter of religion. Of greater anxiety still was the influx of Huguenots into the town of Moulins, Montgomery among the rest, who for the first time since the fatal tournament of June 30, 1559, looked upon the court.[999]
The memory of the conspiracy of Amboise haunted the queen like a specter, and was the more vivid because of the rapprochement between the leaders of the Huguenots and the Montmorencys, who had met together at Paris in November at the marriage of the amorous prince of CondÉ to Mlle. de Longueville. The incident was sharp enough to strike fire between the Catholic-Guisard and the Huguenot-Montmorency party. For when the papal nuncio indignantly demanded the cardinal of Beauvais’ renunciation of the purple, the constable bluffly said: “I am a papist. But if the Pope and his agents still seek to trouble the kingdom, my sword will be Huguenot. My nephew will never renounce his dignity. The edict gives him the right to it.” It is no wonder Catherine de Medici was anxious to hear of the report of these words at Madrid and what Philip II would say.[1000] The interdiction of the Protestant worship at Moulins on January 9, 1566, on the very day that Coligny returned from the wedding festivities, was her own reply.
The very next day she guarded against new fire being struck between the factions by compelling at least outward reconciliation between the admiral and the cardinal of Lorraine. On January 10, 1566, in the presence of the court, she addressed the cardinal, saying that the repose of the kingdom was destroyed by private quarrels and especially by two of his, the one with the marshal Montmorency, the other with the admiral for the murder of the duke of Guise.[1001] At the same time the queen mother, in order to preserve peace between the rivals, hit upon the novel scheme of lodging the cardinal and the admiral in the same house, so that each had to use the same stairway in order to reach his apartments, telling both that each was keeper of the other, and that if either of them experienced any injury it would be imputed to the other.[1002] The cardinal of Lorraine, for fear of losing all his influence, accepted the situation (he did not stir from the side of the queen),[1003] and was compelled to abide by the situation telle quelle, as Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Cecil.[1004] But nothing could mollify the anger of the constable against the Guises, and when the duke of Guise at length came to court in February, Montmorency left it forthwith.[1005]
While the factional feeling thus grew more embittered, serious and noble effort was yet made to carry out the demands of the States-General of Orleans and Pontoise—demands which were principles of the political Huguenots. This programme was supported by the queen mother, who seems in this way to have sought to placate the fears of the Huguenots for their faith. The year 1566 is notable for the fact that greater recognition was then accorded the political demands of the Huguenots than at any time hitherto, so that large progress was made in the betterment of the administrative system of France.
The King in his address to the council said that at his accession he had wanted to travel through all the provinces desolated by the late civil wars, in order to hear the complaints of his subjects and to remedy conditions in the best manner possible; that it was for this cause that he had convoked the assembly and so enjoined them, in virtue of the royal authority, to apply themselves diligently to affairs.
Then the chancellor spoke: after dwelling upon the general evils of the state, he asserted that the root of all the evils was the bad administration of justice; that the King had become convinced of this in the course of the tour of the provinces; that for himself he could not refrain from calling things by their right name and from speaking as he thought; that those who were appointed to administer justice were guilty of great excesses; that these evils had increased owing to the impunity and the license which obtained.
I do not deny [he added] that there are too many laws and ordinances in France and that the multitude of the laws and the number of the judges is the cause of much unnecessary and tyrannical litigation. But it is no less true that when new evils arise there is a necessity of new remedies, and that when the ancient laws have been abrogated either by inobservance or by license, it is necessary to make new ones in order to cure current evils and to arrest the course of public calamity. The public welfare requires new legislation. If the new laws are not observed, on account of the venality and avarice of the ministers of justice, they must be punished severely and these public pests who fatten upon the blood of a miserable people must be driven from office. Superfluous offices, moreover, must be abolished and the ruinous multiplication of legal causes stopped.
The justice of the last charge was particularly manifest. Since the time of Francis I it had been the practice of the crown to sell offices and even to create them for purposes of revenue only.
The chancellor further asserted that the King could not suffer those who had not the right to make laws to attribute to themselves the power to interpret them; he proposed to diminish the excessive number of the courts, and raised the question whether the demands of justice would not be better met if the Parlement ceased to be so sedentary and became ambulatory instead—a suggestion which, it is interesting to observe, found a partial realization in the seventeenth century in the establishment of the Grands Jours d’Auvergne. He insinuated that it was advisable to subject the judges to censure and to compel them to render account of the manner in which they exercised their office, and that it might be better to establish judges for two or three years than to permit the holding of office in perpetuity.
After longer deliberation, in February, 1566, the famous ordinance of Moulins was framed. It contained eighty-six articles, and dealt radically with the evils of the time and imposed drastic reform, especially in the administration of justice.
This act declared the royal domain inalienable, limited and regulated the right of remonstrances of parlement, organized circuits of inspection by magistrates especially appointed to go throughout the realm, instituted certain changes in the judicial administration, and pledged the word of the crown to appoint capable and honest magistrates.[1006]
It profoundly modified both the public and private law of France. In the former sphere the ordinance strengthened the legislative power of the crown by laying down the principle that the King’s ordinances must be observed in spite of remonstrances on the part of the parlements, and even if the latter refused to register them; the maÎtres des requÊtes were enjoined to punish severely any infraction or failure to observe the ordinances. The powers of the governors in the provinces were much reduced; they were forbidden to exercise the right of pardon, to levy taxes, or to institute fairs and markets. The judicial power of the great villes was almost entirely suppressed. The communal judges were deprived of all civil jurisdiction and retained cognizance only of petty offenses; at the same time, the attempt was made to restrain seigneurial jurisdiction. The right of written proof was recognized in cases involving 100 livres or more.[1007] No less than 1,500 superfluous offices, treasurerships, secretaryships, etc., were abolished. In the matter of religion some of the articles were a confirmation of the edict of 1563. Another article abolished entirely all confraternities, and prohibited the formation of all leagues.[1008]
The financial administration came in for a most searching investigation. The flaunting arrogance of some of the King’s treasurers is remarkable. Numbers of them had had houses, and even chÂteaux which rivaled the King’s own in elegance, the means to purchase and furnish which they had secured by plundering the people and robbing the government. One treasurer—among four who were hanged at Montfaucon—was found to owe the crown over three million livres.[1009]
The young duke of Guise, who had refused to be a party to the farcical reconciliation between his house and the ChÂtillons soon found means to leave the court. In May the duke of Nemours and the duchess of Guise were married at St. Maur-des-Fosses. It was a match which sowed dragon’s teeth once more. For Nemours forsook his wife, who was a Rohan, having induced the Pope to nullify the marriage. The Huguenots murmured indignantly against the insult done the Rohan clan whose powerful family influence was now joined with the ChÂtillons and Montmorencys.[1010]
Catherine de Medici was not the ruler to govern France with a firm yet facile hand under the circumstances that existed in 1566. Irrespective of foreign influences, which we shall presently come to, the economic distress[1011] of the country, the rivalry of the great houses, and the religious acrimony prevailing made a combination of forces that needed another sort of ruler to reconcile them—a ruler such as Henry of Navarre was to be. The queen mother, while a woman of force, was so deficient in sincerity that no one could have confidence in her; so jealous of power that she would brook no other control of the King, whose sovereignty she confounded with her maternal oversight of him, making no distinction between Charles IX the ruler and Charles IX the son. Catherine time and again marred or ruined the progress she had made with the aid of one party’s support by her own envious fear of that party’s predominance. Her “bridge policy,”[1012] instead of uniting France, kept it divided. To maintain the balance of power—an immemorial Italian policy—her Italian nature resorted to duplicity and deception continually. Accordingly, suspicion prevailed at court and suspicion prevailed in the provinces, the more so in the latter because of the Huguenots’ uncertainty about what was done at Bayonne, and doubt as to Philip II’s course. Men were doubtful of their neighbors; towns were fearful of other nearby towns. “All the way of my coming hither,” reported Sir Thomas Hoby, the new English ambassador to France, “I found the strong towns marvelously jealous of strangers, insomuch that only by the sound of a bell they discovered a number of horsemen or footmen before they come; but also, after they are entered they have an eye to them.”[1013]
When the court finally moved to Paris, the great nobles came thither with such numerous trains[1014] that the queen sent four companies of the King’s guard ahead of his coming, and ordered the marshal Montmorency to require the retirement from the city of all those who were not of the ordinary household of each nobleman and gentleman. In vain the marshal, anxious to protect his party against the Guisards, resisted the order and complained that the queen was interfering with his authority. The King ordered Lansac and De la Garde to accomplish what Montmorency was unwilling to do.
If choice must be made as to who were the worst offenders in this respect, the greater blame lies with the Protestants. It was not only impolitic, it was insolent on their part to permit Montgomery to swagger around Paris as he did, “booted and spurred with all his men.”[1015] Apparently the queen had not the daring to compel his withdrawal, as she did that of the Guises’ recruiting sergeant, Roggendorf.[1016] Her policy for the time being was to favor the ChÂtillon-Montmorency faction.[1017] Backed by the joint support of the admiral and the constable, the queen accordingly undertook to bring certain unsettled or indefinite matters of religion and the church to a conclusion. On May 31, 1566, Charles IX sent a series of articles to the cardinal Bourbon for consideration by the clergy of Paris, then sitting at St. Germain des PrÈs. Two of these had to do with the baptism of infants where one of the parents was a Catholic, and the maintenance of Protestants schools. Three concerned church temporalities, namely, the redemption of the fourth part of the temporals of the church, given to the King during the late civil war; the subsidy which was to expire in eighteen months; and the preparation of an edict defining the privileges and jurisdiction of the church. The residue of the articles dealt with infractions of the Edict of Amboise, such as restraint of preaching according to the edict, and the molestation of former Protestants who had returned to the church of Rome by the Huguenots. By an awkward coincidence, the sending of these articles exactly coincided with the arrival of the papal legate in Paris, who came to request the promulgation of the decrees of Trent in conformity with the agreement made with the cardinal de Santa Croce at Bayonne.[1018]
Catherine de Medici’s policy at this time was that of the political Huguenots. She hoped that the question of religion would settle itself with time, and to divert attention from that issue, and also because there was great need of it, she energetically continued the administrative and economic reforms begun at Moulins. L’HÔpital began so searching an investigation of the conduct of the King’s treasurers that some of them were hanged and others banished. The constable was of service here, although his notorious avarice tarnished the honesty of his work.[1019] Yet there was peril even in a policy so just and so much needed by France. Sooner or later such a course would unearth the dishonesty of bigger thieves than the small collectors of the revenue who, in many cases undoubtedly suffered for the peculation of their superiors. The administration was full of “grafters” such as St. AndrÉ had been, who would not scruple to conceal their thievery behind the smoke of another civil war. The queen mother knew this only too well from former experience, not being unaware of the fact that one of the causes of “the late unpleasantness” was the demand of the estates that the Guises should make an accounting and be forced to disgorge their ill-gotten gains. The government resorted to various devices to raise money and an imposition was laid upon inn-keepers. The most singular expedient, though, was the offer of a Genoese syndicate to pay the King a lump sum for the privilege of taxing dowry gifts and for a license to endure eight years to levy a crown on every first-born infant, and after, for every boy born into a family five sous, and for every girl babe, three sous.[1020] This preposterous measure actually passed the council, and was only prevented from becoming law by the good sense of the Parlement.[1021]
But the events happening in the Netherlands were of greater importance to France at this time than anything within her borders. From the beginning of the insurrection there the Huguenots had recognized the important bearing of that struggle upon their own movement, and as the shadow of Philip II fell in greater length each year across France, the interest of the French Protestants in the rebellion of the Low Countries increased.[1022] As Huguenot preachers in Flanders sowed the double seed of Calvinism and revolt, so Protestant preachers exiled from the Low Countries sought refuge in France.[1023] This intercourse became a formidable historical issue by 1566. The issue was understood from the beginning by all parties concerned, and Philip II and his ministers were determined to profit by the lesson of France and to prevent similar trouble by crushing all opposition in the bud. The Turkish attack upon Malta[1024] had been very favorable to the Protestant cause, and the raising of the siege in September, 1565, probably influenced the King of Spain in his resolution to extirpate heresy in the Low Countries.[1025] The Flemish government suspected William of Orange who by July was openly allied with the Gueux[1026] and his brother, Louis of Nassau, of direct intercourse with CondÉ and Coligny,[1027] and sent Montigny—the faithless member of the patriotic quartette composed of Orange, Egmont, Hoorne, and himself—to Paris in the spring to pick up information.[1028] The fear lest Montgomery might come to Flanders, which Granvella had once laughed at, by the summer of 1566 had some basis of reality, although the braggadocio character of this adventurer discounted alarm.[1029]
Knowledge of the solidarity existing between his revolted subjects in Flanders and the Huguenots[1030] which Montluc had warned Philip of even two years before,[1031] coupled with information concerning the dealings of Louis of Nassau with Protestant Germany[1032] and France, stirred the Spanish King’s habitual indecision into action. He sounded Charles IX as to the possibility of sending Spanish troops directly across France to the Low Countries and asked him to restrain his subjects from coming thither with arms,[1033] crowds of whom went to Flanders disguised as merchants.[1034] Simultaneously Margaret of Parma begged the Emperor to take the same course.[1035] But the government of France could not have honored Philip II’s request, even if it had been so minded, without risking an immediate rising of the Huguenots. As a matter of fact, it had no desire to do so. The resentment felt by France toward Spain on account of past scores at Trent, Rome, and in Switzerland, was now all eclipsed in her rancor because of the massacre by the Spaniards of her ill-fated colony in Florida in September, 1565.[1036]
Alexander VI’s bull had divided the western hemisphere between the Spanish and the Portuguese. Florida belonged to Spain. France had built Fort Caroline on Spanish territory. As peace existed in 1565, France argued that the massacre by Menendez was a violation of international law. To this Spain replied that Florida belonged to her by discovery and as all treaties between Spain and France were silent as to any change of ownership, there really had been no such change in law. Consequently the French settlers were intruders and heretics to boot. The answer was crushing, Fourquevaux was heavily handicapped, for he could not openly espouse the cause of Frenchmen who were heretics. Before news of the massacre reached France, Philip II, knowing the facts, inquired if the French expedition had been commanded or sanctioned by the French King. The only answer possible was a negative. An affirmative answer would have been tantamount to a declaration of war. “Then the incident is closed,” was the Spanish reply. This was followed by a demand that Coligny, under whose sanction the expedition had sailed, should be punished.
France was likewise at odds with the Emperor. The reason for this is to be found in the strong attitude the empire had lately taken on the question of Metz.[1037] Understanding of this question entails a glance backward. In 1564 the baron Bolwiller, a native of upper Alsace, but at that time bailiff of the Emperor in the grand bailiwick of Haguenau, revived the plan he had conceived in 1558, of recovering Metz by a surprise.[1038] Bolwiller represented that no time was to be lost if France was to be prevented from fixing her hold upon the Three Bishoprics forever. Philip II favored the enterprise and offered 20,000 sous cash, and the assignment of 8,000 Écus annual revenue of the territory, “pour celluy ou ceulx qui’lz luy rendroyent la ville du dict Metz.”[1039] For with Metz in the hands of the Hapsburgs once more, the chain of provinces connecting the Netherlands with Spain through mid-Europe would have been practically complete, lying as Metz, Toul, and Verdun did, between Franche-ComtÉ and Luxembourg.[1040] This was at the time when CondÉ was recreant to his people and was dallying with the widow of the marshal St. AndrÉ, and the idea was conceived and abandoned of buying the prince over and bribing him to betray Metz to Spain.[1041] Spain, however, in order to avoid a rupture with France wished to conceal her own participation in the plot to recover Metz, and urged the Emperor Maximilian to undertake the venture.[1042] The plot was to tempt Metz to revolt against France by offering to convert it into a free imperial city, it being expected that the Lutherans in the city would support the movement.[1043] The alertness of the French government, however, foiled the project’s being undertaken in April. In August Bolwiller renewed his plan, alleging to Chantonnay that the people of Metz were ready to provide 20,000 Écus, and that there were arms in plenty stored in secret. He urged prompt action now for the French government had begun the erection of a citadel in the city.[1044]
By this time Philip II was so anxious to see France despoiled of Metz and so impatient at Maximilian’s delay, that it was even considered advisable by some to take advantage of the check given the Turks at Malta and have the Emperor make peace with them in order to have his hands free in the Three Bishoprics.[1045] As for himself, Philip II dared not make an overt move against France, lest in the event of war with Spain, Charles IX appeal to the Huguenots, with the result that Protestantism would profit by the diversion.[1046]
But meanwhile things in Metz had got beyond control of either Spain or the empire. The Calvinists in both France and the Netherlands had been quick to see the advantage afforded, for the former by gaining possession of the territory could connect France and the Palatinate, thus aiding themselves and their coreligionists at one and the same time, since by so doing the land route of Spain through Central Europe, via Milan, BesanÇon, and Luxembourg, would be cut in half. Matters came to a head in May and June, 1565, in what is known as the “Cardinal’s War.” On May 5 the Emperor Maximilian had issued a decree affirming his suzerainty over Metz, Toul, and Verdun. The cardinal of Lorraine at once recognized the validity of this decree, which was equivalent to treason to France. Thereupon, in the name of Charles IX Salzedo an ex-Spaniard[1047] and leader of the French party in Metz assumed the title of governor of Metz and appealed to the French King for support against the cardinal. The issue was really one between France and Spain. The Guises naturally supported the cardinal. The “war” which followed was not formidable, although the issue as stake was of great importance. But the cardinal soon discovered that discretion was the better part of valor and yielded to the King, more especially as neither Philip II nor Maximilian raised a hand for fear of betraying themselves, for the cardinal feared that if he resisted longer Charles IX would refuse to pardon his treasonable conduct. He was not unaware of the fact—he did not even deny it—that it was known that he had been in treasonable communication with Bolwiller and the archbishop of TrÈves.[1048]
If Charles IX and the queen mother had known the full extent of the cardinal of Lorraine’s treasonable conduct at this time they might not have been so lenient toward him. For he was guilty not only of treasonable intercourse with the empire, but directly with Spain also. The one supremely important result of this petty war over Metz is that at this time the cardinal—and with him the whole Guise house—began those secret negotiations with Philip of Spain which culminated in the establishment of the Holy League. Shortly after the end of his ignominious war around Metz, burning with anger and shame, the cardinal sent a secret agent to Franche ComtÉ, who found Granvella at Beaudencourt in July, 1565, to whom he recited the cardinal’s grievances, saying that owing to the death of his brother the duke of Guise and the insolence of the marshal Montmorency, he had no hope in the justice of Charles IX. The agent then went on to point out the great danger threatening Catholic Europe by reason of what had recently happened at Metz, and, speaking for the cardinal of Lorraine, expressed the wish that Philip II would enter into a league with the house of Guise, the duke of Montpensier—Alva’s convert at Bayonne—and certain others for the protection of the Catholic faith in France and the overthrow of the ChÂtillons, the prince of CondÉ, “Madame de VendÔme,” and other Huguenots. This formidable overture was made under the seal of secrecy. The cautious Granvella listened but refrained from committing his master to the proposition.[1049] Again, Philip II hesitated to implicate himself so directly in French affairs, as the cardinal of Lorraine urged, just as he had hesitated the year before with Montluc, and while he waited events in the Low Countries went from bad to worse.
In August, 1566, a furious outburst of iconoclasm swept through the churches of Flanders.
Commencing at St. Omer, the contagion rapidly spread, and in a fortnight 400 churches were sacked in Flanders alone, while in Antwerp the cathedral was stripped of all its treasures. Images, relics, shrines, paintings, manuscripts, and books shared a common fate.[1050]
The event stirred Philip to action. He determined to send the duke of Alva to Flanders to repress things with an iron hand.[1051]
On November 18, 1566, the duke of Alva formally requested the French ambassador at Madrid to secure Charles IX’s permission for a Spanish army to cross France.
The remedy has become little by little so difficult [said the duke] that deeds not words and remonstrances, are now necessary. Having exhausted all good and gracious means to reduce things in the Low Countries, the King is constrained, to his great regret, to have recourse to force. Public assemblies, preaching, the bearing of arms, and violence prevail in the land and the King’s ministers amount to nothing.
The duke then outlined the plan. Ten thousand new Spanish recruits under three ensigns were to be sent to Luxembourg, Naples, Sardinia, and Sicily to take the places of as many veteran troops there, for the King was unwilling to use Italian infantry. A thousand heavy-armed footmen and three or four hundred mounted arquebusiers, all Spanish, were to be drawn from Milan, the most loyal of Spain’s Italian dependencies. An indefinite number of reiters and other mercenaries could be had for the asking. These troops would proceed to the Netherlands through Savoy by way of Val d’Aoste or Mt. Cenis, MontmÉlian, ChambÉry, and La Bresse, into Franche ComtÉ and Lorraine, unless—and this was the crux of Alva’s interview with Fourquevaux—the winter season made it impossible to traverse the mountain passes, in which case His Catholic Majesty desired leave of France to take them by sea to Marseilles or Toulon and thence to march them northward up the RhÔne to La Bresse and so reach Franche ComtÉ.
No one knew better than Alva the formidable nature of this proposition to France and he used all his artifice to conceal its danger, dwelling on the mutual connection between the Huguenot and the Flemish movement and the benefit that France would derive from the crushing of the rebellion in the Low Countries. Fourquevaux in reply declared that the Huguenots would fly to arms again, if a Spanish army should enter France, to which the duke rejoined that the presence of a Spanish army would so overawe them that they would not dare to do so. The ambassador then inquired whether the Emperor could support Philip, seeing that he was engaged in a war with the Turks[1052] and was incapable of raising funds in his behalf. Alva told him that the German princes would perceive that the Flemings were merely rebels and that “no prince or soldier in Germany, even were he a Lutheran, would refuse to take the pay of Spain.”[1053] But Fourquevaux refused to be convinced by Alva’s smooth words. He had information that Spain was borrowing ships from Malta, Genoa, and the papacy and Savoy and warned Charles IX to strengthen the garrisons in Languedoc and Provence.[1054]
This information threw the court of France into great excitement. Catherine de Medici declared that the heretics would take up arms immediately, under such circumstances.[1055] The King wrote to Fourquevaux on December 24 not to spare any efforts to penetrate the designs of Spain.[1056] Sixteen thousand troops were sent into the Lyonnais at once.[1057] The marshal Vieilleville returned to Metz.[1058] The government began the erection of a great citadel in Verdun and to fortify the frontier against Luxembourg.[1059] D’Andelot was sent to Switzerland to make new enrolments.[1060] An agent was sent into Normandy with instructions to pass along the coast and take the names of master-mariners and sailors.[1061] The queen of Navarre began to mobilize forces in BÉarn.[1062] All this time the duke of Alva kept endeavoring to quiet French alarm by reiterating that he would use all means in his power to avoid troubling France and that the army destined for Flanders, now increased by 1,500 light horse composed of Spaniards, Italians, and Albanians, would go by the valley of the RhÔne only as a last recourse.[1063]
Finally, in the middle of February, the duke of Alva’s preparations were made. Don Juan de Acuna, who had been sent to Savoy to make arrangements with the duke for the transit of the Spanish army, returned, after having made a satisfactory settlement. The army was to go through Savoy, via the Mt. Cenis and ChambÉry, cross the RhÔne at Yenne, and so proceed to BesanÇon in Franche ComtÉ, where it was to be joined by German contingents. This averted the danger threatening Languedoc and DauphinÉ, but threw it upon French Burgundy and Champagne.[1064] It was a roundabout route for the Spanish troops in the Milanais, but it was impossible to send them directly through Switzerland by way of the Grisons, Constance, Basel, and Strasburg without inflaming these localities; above all, Geneva would thereby have been menaced, and any movement imperiling that city would have fired the entire Calvinist world.[1065]
In the face of common peril Bern, Freiburg, and Valais concluded a defensive league on February 20, while Basel and Zurich took up arms with French approval. Fear of a joint attack of Spain and Savoy upon Geneva prevailed throughout Switzerland, which was divided into two camps, the five cantons of the center favoring designs upon Geneva and the Vaud. Spain aimed to profit by the impression produced by the passage of her troops close to the Swiss frontier to force certain military advantages and dispossess France from the exceptional situation she had lately secured in the Alps. The western cantons were offered cheap salt from Franche ComtÉ, and those of the center grain from the Milanais. The duke of Lorraine also offered salt at a low price from his duchy. As a result Bern found herself deserted by western Switzerland and apparently single-handed about to be called upon to protect Geneva from Spanish attack. Perhaps if Spain had been certain of the support of Savoy at this juncture, this might have happened, but the duke of Savoy was content to profit by the fear of the Bernois to compel them to restore the three bailiwicks which they had formerly agreed to do in the treaty of Lausanne, October 30, 1564, but had delayed to fulfil. Charles IX himself advised Bern to yield in this particular and in August the settlement with the duke of Savoy was made.[1066]
All that Philip now requested of France was leave for French subjects to provide the army with supplies in its course. Again Fourquevaux urged his sovereign to be cautious; the fact that France was just recovering from a year of famine and could ill spare sustenance for others was not so important as the necessity of avoiding every occasion of civil war.[1067]
On May 10, 1567, the duke of Alva sailed from Cartagena and arrived at Genoa on May 27. St. Ambroise at the foot of the Alps was the point where his munitions and provisions were concentrated. Here on June 2 the duke had a grand review of his troops. There were 19 ensigns (3,230 men), from Naples, under the command of Alonzo de Uloa; 10 ensigns from Sicily (1,620 men) under command of Julian Romero; 10 ensigns of Lombard troops (2,200 men) under command of Don Sancho de Londono; 10 Sardinian ensigns with four companies of recruits in addition (1,728 men) under command of Don Gonzalo de Bracamonte, making a total of 49 ensigns of Spanish infantry (8,778 men). The duke’s cavalry was composed of five companies of Spanish light horse and three Italian and two Albanian companies and two companies of Spanish arquebusiers on horseback, in all 1,200 horses.[1068] On the march a company of 15 musketeers was placed between each ensign. This was the first instance in modern warfare when muskets were used in the field. Hitherto this weapon had been so enormously heavy that it was used in siege work only, balanced upon a triangle of wood or iron.[1069]
The route lay via Alessandria de la Paille, St. Ambroise, Aosta, Turin, the Mont Cenis, St. Jean de Maurienne, and the valley of the Arve through Savoy. In spite of his small array it was necessary to divide the army into three parts, the advance guard, the “battle,” and the rear guard. The “battle” each day occupied the place abandoned by the advance guard and was itself in turn replaced by the rear guard, the three divisions of the army marching one day apart. The duke of Alva commanded the advance guard, his son Don Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo the “battle;” while the rear guard was under the command of the Italian, Ciappin-Vitelli, Marquis of Cetona formally in the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The army thus divided occupied fourteen days in traversing Savoy. It was a long and toilsome journey through a wild and mountainous country, where the difficulties of the march were increased by constant dread of famine. In many places the country was completely sterile. In Burgundy the march was easier and twelve days brought the army via DÔle and Gray to Fonteney near Toul, whence twelve days more brought Alva by Thionville to Luxembourg (July 29), where he was joined by new forces.[1070]
In spite of the length of the march and the hardships of it, the duke retained his traditional iron discipline and the soldiers were not allowed to forage upon the country or to break ranks.[1071]
On August 12, 1567, the duke of Alva entered Brussels. General terror prevailed in the Low Countries upon his arrival. The Prince of Orange left the land. Count Egmont, naÏvely declaring that he had done nothing wrong, remained; his friend Hoorne imitated his example. Alva at once sent away all the Flemish soldiers and quartered the city with the new troops. In order to facilitate his policy the duke created a special tribunal, not composed of lawyers “because they would not condemn without proofs.” This was the famous Council of Troubles which the people called the “Council of Blood.” The members of it held no commissions from the King, but were the simple agents of the duke of Alva. The most celebrated of them was a certain Vargas, a criminal himself, against whom action had been suspended in return for his infamous services.
If the policy of the Spanish government in Flanders took a new and different form with the coming of Alva, the revolution there was no less changed. The cardinal Granvella some months before this time had written to Philip II: “It is a general rule, in matters of state, that popular enterprises, if they do not terminate in the first outburst, generally vanish in smoke if the remedy for them be applied before they have time to follow up the movement.”[1072] He added that contemporary history afforded some striking examples of the truth of this observation. But the provinces he had lately governed were not of this category. For it is clear that a change had taken place in the nature of the Flemish revolt in the years 1565-67. The revolution by this time had passed through the earlier stages of defiance and rebellion and developed an organization with a definite, set purpose before it. The formation of the Gueux was the clearest manifestation of this change. In its inception this famous group was an aristocratic body, composed solely of nobles, and the Spanish government had little fear then of its becoming a popular association.[1073] Granvella saw the similarity of the Gueux to the Huguenot association formed at Orleans in 1562, but he did not anticipate the popular nature it was soon to develop.[1074]
He was soon disillusioned. What was believed by the Spanish government to be a somewhat close political and aristocratic combination of nobles before long became a popular confederation of congregations having a religious propaganda, as well as a political purpose.[1075] Despite this change, however, Philip’s minister did not yet believe the Gueux to be formidable. As Alva had declared at Bayonne that all that was necessary to destroy the Huguenot party in France was to kill the “big fish,” so he now believed that if the leaders of the Gueux were cut off, their movement would die too.[1076] But Alva soon discovered that the Gueux were hardly ever weakened by the detachment of certain of the nobles either by bribery or intimidation.[1077] By the time of his arrival, under Brederode’s able leadership, the Calvinists of the Flemish provinces had worked out a scheme of union in which every congregation was at once a parish, a rating precinct, a military hundred, and a political unit. Antwerp, whose population was so large and so cosmopolitan that police scrutiny could be easily evaded, and from which it was easy to make one’s escape, was the capital of the association, as Orleans first, and later La Rochelle, was for the Huguenots.[1078]
The Flemish government was soon alive to the necessity of breaking the power of this confederation.[1079] Membership in the confederation, if proved, was heavily punished. The retirement of the prince of Orange from the land was believed by the government to be due to a prudent effort to avoid being so compromised. It was certainly true of Brederode. But Egmont and Hoorne remained, declaring they had done nothing, and renewed their oath of allegiance to the King.[1080] Nevertheless Granvella sarcastically quoted Lycurgus that neutrals were more odious than enemies. “After the towns have been cleared out,” wrote the provost Morillon, “it will be time to attack the garden in order to destroy the weeds and roots there,” and Spain’s agent at Amsterdam at the same time wrote: “God may pardon those who are the cause of one and the other league; but I assure you, unless I am much mistaken, that those who have made others to dance, have some other purpose than we know. Time will discover it.”[1081]
EXECUTION OF EGMONT AND HOORNE
IN THE MARKET SQUARE AT BRUSSELS
Original copper plate by Franz Hogenberg.
This somewhat long dissertation upon the nature and development of the confederation formed by Philip’s II revolted subjects in Flanders is not a digression beside the mark. The number of Huguenots to be found in the Low Countries in 1566-67, intriguing with their coreligionists against Spain was very great. The duke of Bouillon and the prince of Porcien were the most prominent of these.[1082] In the aggregate the number was so great and their participation so serious a matter for the government, that the maintenance of the frontier against the French was urged upon Alva as the first necessity, immediately after his arrival at Brussels.[1083] France for her own part began to erect a citadel at Verdun and to strengthen the Picard frontier, whose towns received new troops in June, and when word came that there were German troops in Luxembourg awaiting Alva’s arrival, D’Andelot was sent to the frontier of Champagne with 6,000 Swiss which the government had levied.[1084] This action ruffled Philip II’s temper, for to him it was flaunting his failure to break the alliance of the Swiss with France in his very face. His ambassador in France protested energetically and charged the queen with duplicity.[1085] At Madrid the nuncio inquired with curiosity of Fourquevaux, in what spirit Philip II—who had had an audience with the ambassador the day before—received the news of France’s activities in Switzerland. “I told him,” wrote the ambassador to Charles IX, “that it was the usage and custom of great kings and princes whenever they saw their neighbors arming, to assure themselves also of their realms and states.”[1086] Calais was a double source of anxiety, first because Spain, in pursuance of Alva’s recommendation, had not been content with fortifying Gravelines, but had actually built a fort of earth only five paces from the turnpike which marked the French limit; secondly, because at this embarrassing time Elizabeth of England had conceived the thought of reviving the English claim to Calais.[1087] With the purpose of fathoming her son-in-law’s designs Catherine sent the younger L’Aubespine to Madrid.[1088] War with Spain was already on the lips of some in France.[1089]
In spite of the wisdom of these military precautions on the part of the French crown, the Huguenots grew alarmed lest there was a movement on foot to repress the edict.[1090] There was designed intention in the unadmirable conduct of the prince of CondÉ, and perhaps some in that of Coligny too. The prince craved chief command of the army, and a war with Spain was in a direct line with his aspirations. He had been well treated since the peace of Amboise, having been given the government of Picardy and the county of Rotrou, which was erected into a duchy under the name of Enghien-le-FranÇois. But his appetite for power was insatiable. In July, after angry speech with the King, CondÉ had retired from court, and was followed by the admiral, who gave out that he had discovered “some practice that wholly tended to his confusion.”[1091]
It was small politics. In this time of external danger from the furtive designs of Philip II and the blustering enmity of England, the honorable course of every subject of France was to stand by the King and the nation. The Huguenot leaders compromised the cause at large by indulging their personal vanity, their petty spite, their pique at such an hour. Friction there was, disagreement there was over the interpretation and the working of certain parts of the edict of Amboise. The Catholics, for example, complained that the intention of the edict was evaded by the Huguenots, asserting that in cases where the right of preaching was permitted to all barons and high justiciars only for themselves and their tenants, and for others of lower degree for their household only, congregational worship was held under cover thereof.[1092]
The bigotry of Paris and its vicinity, though, was the worst source of disaffection. In the city district captains were chosen by the populace to watch against Protestant activity—the nucleus of the famous Sixteen (Seize) of Paris in 1589-94. It would have been the height of political inexpediency, under such circumstances, to have tried to enforce the letter of the edict in the Ile-de-France. The July amendment of the edict of Amboise prohibiting exercise of Protestant worship throughout the Ile-de-France except in such places as should be licensed by the King, and the further one prohibiting Protestants from filling public offices in the cities,[1093] I believe was framed for the purpose of avoiding conflict and not with any reactionary purpose. It is certainly of significance that the liberal chancellor L’HÔpital favored them.[1094] Patience and experience would have worked out the solution of such difficulties as these. It was criminal in the prince of CondÉ to fan the ashes of the late civil war into flame once more. For in this tense state the prince deliberately exaggerated and misrepresented things for his own purpose and a spark from Flanders—Alva’s arrest of the counts Egmont and Hoorne on September 9—kindled France into flame again.
The arrival of the news in France unfortunately coincided with the session of two synods of the Huguenots, one at ChÂtillon-sur-Loing, the other at ValÉry.[1095] Dismay prevailed in them. The preachers cried out that the arrest of Egmont and Hoorne[1096] was the proof of a secret alliance between Spain and France for the overthrow of Calvinism. The truth of Bayonne was out at last! Coligny’s iron will might still have kept them in order, however, if in the midst of this excitement word had not also come that 6,000 Swiss whom Charles IX had enrolled to cover the French frontier against the duke of Alva had entered France. The double news was too much for the excited minds of the Huguenots. The admiral and the prince who had failed to perceive the true policy of France in Switzerland, in desperation turned to the constable for a word of truth and comfort. But the old Montmorency, who desired to have his son, the marshal Montmorency, succeed him in the office of constable[1097] (which the prince of CondÉ coveted for himself), roughly rejoined: “The Swiss have their pay; don’t you expect them to be used?”[1098] The words were brutally and thoughtlessly said. They merely imported anger. The Huguenots interpreted them to mean that they were to be overcome by military force, and Protestantism coerced, if not extinguished. The synod of the Huguenots at ValÉry[1099] resolved upon war. The conference was held in the admiral’s chÂteau at ChÂtillon under the outward guise of a banquet. There were present the prince of CondÉ, La Rochefoucault, the cardinal of ChÂtillon, D’Andelot, Bricquemault, Teligny, Mouy, Montgomery, and other nobles of mark, besides some Huguenot ministers. The conference lasted the entire week, at the end of which it was resolved that all the Huguenots in France should be notified in every bailliage and sÉnÉschaussÉe, by the deacons and other officers of their congregation; that they should be called upon to furnish money according to the means which they had, for the payment of reiters from Germany, which the count palatine of the Rhine was to levy; and that all the young men of the religion capable of bearing arms were to be enrolled for military service.[1100]
The plan was as bold as it was simple. It was to gain possession of the King’s person by a sudden coup de main, for which purpose a force of 1,500 horse was to be brought secretly to ValÉry. The court at this time was residing at the ChÂteau de Monceaux near Meaux, and was without more than nominal military protection.[1101] On the evening of September 24, the queen learned of the rendezvous at Rosay-en-Brie. A midnight council was called. The Swiss, who had reached ChÂteau Thierry, were hastily summoned. The Lorraine party and the duke of Nemours advised immediate return to Paris. The chancellor and Montmorency endeavored to persuade the King against so doing.[1102] The former pointed out that to go to Paris would be for the King to commit himself to the most bigoted of his subjects and destroy the possibility of an amicable settlement, while the constable argued that Meaux was a fortified city capable of withstanding a siege, and that to leave it might be to court defeat in the open country. In the dilemma the Swiss colonel Pfiffer cast the die.
“May it please your Majesty,” cried he, “to entrust your person and that of the queen mother to the valor and fidelity of the Swiss. We are 6,000 men, and with the points of our pikes we will open a path wide enough for you to pass through the army of your enemies.”[1103]
“Enough,” Charles rejoined. “I would rather die free with you than live a captive among rebels.”[1104]
The return to Paris began at four o’clock in the morning. “When the Swiss arrived at Meaux,” wrote Correro, “I vow they were the most villainous looking gang I have ever seen. Yet in battle array they were admirable. Three times they turned upon the enemy and lowering their pikes charged upon them like savage dogs in serried ranks and in good order, without one being a pace in advance of another. Thus the King was able with his suite to get to Paris.”[1105] He reached the Louvre that night, travel-worn, hot, famished, and so angry that his fierce disposition never lost the memory of that humiliation.[1106]
The affair of Meaux came like a thunder-clap to most of France. The suddenness of the Huguenot action and the all but complete success of it astonished men. “This movement,” wrote the Venetian ambassador, “of which several thousand men had knowledge, was conducted with such precaution that nothing leaked out until it was all but an accomplished fact. This could not possibly have been done without the perfect intelligence that exists among the Huguenots, and is a striking manifestation of their organization throughout the realm.”[1107]
In the light of this judgment, it remains to describe the Huguenot form of government.
The ecclesiastical—and political unit—of French Calvinism was the congregation. Congregations were grouped “according to number and convenience” into colloquies or classes which met from two to four times each year, the division being made by the authority of the provincial synod.[1108] In church matters, no church had any primacy or jurisdiction over another, nor one province over another.[1109] Ministers brought with them to local classes or provincial synods one or two elders chosen out of their consistories.[1110] Elders who were deputies of churches had an equal power of voting with the pastors.[1111] The authority of a provincial synod was subordinate to that of the national synod,[1112] and whatever had been decreed by provincial synods for the government of the churches in their province had to be brought before the national synod.[1113] The grand lines of division followed the historic provincial divisions of France, but smaller provinces and parts of the larger ones, as Guyenne and Languedoc, were associated together. The national synod of 1559 divided France into sixteen Protestant provinces, as follows: (1) The Ile-de-France, Chartrain, Picardy, Champagne and Brie; (2) Normandy; (3) Brittany; (4) Orleans, Blesois, Dunois, Nivernais, Berry, Bourbonnais, and La Marche; (5) Touraine, Anjou, Loudunois, Maine, VendÔme, and Perche; (6) Upper and Lower Poitou; (7) Saintonge, Aunis, La Rochelle, and Angoumois; (8) Lower Guyenne, PÉrigord, Gascony, and Limousin; (9) Upper and Lower Vivarais, together with Velay, and Le ForÊt; (10) Lower Languedoc, including NÎmes, Montpellier, and Beziers; (11) Upper Languedoc, Upper Guyenne, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Quercy, Rouergue, Armagnac, and Upper Auvergne; (12) Burgundy, Lyonnais, Beaujolais, Bresse, Lower Auvergne, and Gex; (13) Provence; (14) DauphinÉ and Orange; (15) BÉarn; (16) the Cevennes and GÉvaudan.[1114]
This administrative partition, however, did not remain fixed. Some provinces, like Brittany, had so few Protestants in them, that the Huguenots therein could not stand alone, and the first civil war brought out the weakness of this system. Accordingly, in 1563, the map of France was partitioned anew, and the former sixteen “provinces” were reduced to nine. Some of the changes made are interesting. For example, the Chartrain was cut off from the Ile-de-France and attached to the “province” of Orleans, manifestly in the endeavor to keep a connecting link between Normandy and the Loire country. Brittany was strengthened by the annexation of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine which formerly constituted an independent “province,” which obviously drew it into closer connection with the stronger Calvinistic provinces. The “province” of Upper and Lower Poitou was combined with Saintonge, Aunis, and Angoumois, thus knitting together all the country watered by the Charente, the Clain, and lesser streams. Burgundy, Lyonnais, Beaujolais, Bresse, Lower Auvergne, and Gex absorbed the small Huguenot province composed of Vivarais, Velay, and Le ForÊt. But the most interesting consolidation was in the south of France. Formerly Upper Languedoc, in which were NÎmes, Montpellier, and Beziers; Lower Languedoc, comprising Upper Guyenne, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Quercy, Rouergue, Armagnac, and Upper Auvergne; Provence; DauphinÉ, and Cevennes-GÉvaudan had each formed separate “provinces.” But in 1563 this immense territory was all united to form the great Huguenot province of Languedoc. The only ancient provinces which remained unchanged in 1563 were Normandy,[1115] BÉarn, and Lower Guyenne, with PÉrigord and Limousin.
The Huguenot ecclesiastical organization and its political organization were one and the same. The congregations, the “colloquia,” the synods, constituted both taxation units and military cadres.[1116] The strength of the Huguenot organization, however, before the massacre of St. Bartholomew, I believe has been exaggerated, except in Guyenne where, in the vicinity of NÉrac especially, Montluc early came in contact with a powerful combination of the Huguenots.[1117] The strong elements in the Protestant organization were its simplicity and the vigilance of all, from provincial chiefs to simple pastors, who made up for scarcity of numbers by the most zealous activity.[1118] “If our priests,” wrote the Venetian Correro in 1569, “were half so energetic, of a certainty Christianity would not be in danger in this country.”[1119] It was not until after 1572 that the Huguenot organization reached a high point of military and political development, when a solid federation of the Reformed churches was formed at Milhaud in 1574, with rating precincts, military hundreds and civil jurisdictions.[1120]
Exactly as the early organization of the Huguenots has been overemphasized, so has the republican nature of the early Huguenot movement been exaggerated. Apart from whatever religious motives may have actuated them, the Protestant nobles were influenced by political ambition; the bourgeoisie by the hope of administrative and economic reform; the masses by the general spirit of discontent. The Huguenots did not present a united front until after St. Bartholomew, when the fusion of the political Huguenots with the Politiques reduced the “religious” Huguenots to a left-wing minority. Before 1572 the political ideas of the Reformed, if not still inchoate, were not harmonized into one homogeneous cause, backed up by a compact and highly organized political system. Individual political theorists or fanatic devotees, of course, were to be found in the Huguenot ranks, but there was no systematic political philosophy to guide their conduct before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. It was this catastrophe that crystallized Huguenot opinion and organized combination on a large scale.[1121] In Guyenne, alone, where, as has been said, the Huguenot organization was most completely developed at an early date, does any clear republican idea seem to have early obtained.[1122]
