CHAPTER IX.

THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.

THE Reformation in France never developed into a national movement. Though the Protestants under the stress of persecution consolidated themselves into a powerful and well-organised party, they never formed more than a minority of the nation. The majority, whose attachment to the Catholic Church was stronger than their desire for her reformation, detested the Reformers as schismatics and separatists even more than as heretics. When the Protestant ranks were recruited by the accession of numerous political malcontents, a more worldly leaven pervaded the whole cause; the principle of passive resistance was abandoned, and an appeal to armed force became inevitable. The result was a succession of religious wars, which lasted, though not continuously, for more than thirty years. It was not till the beginning of the seventeenth century that France, once more at peace with herself, was able to work out on her own lines a Counter-Reformation.

Yet at the beginning of the sixteenth century nearly all enlightened men were agreed as to the necessity for Reform. The evils under which the Church in France laboured were those which prevailed elsewhere ; rapacity and worldliness among the Bishops and abbots, ignorance in the inferior clergy, great relaxation of discipline, and, in some cases, positive immorality in the monasteries and nunneries ; and as the result an ever-widening separation between religion and morality. The first of these evils was a favourite topic with the popular preachers of Paris, the Franciscans, Michel Menot and Olivier Maillard, and the Dominican, Guillaume Pépin. On the other hand, the everyday story of the period has more to say about the ignorance of the parish priests and the immorality of the friars. The Franciscans seem to have been especially unpopular. All ranks of the Church alike fell under the lash of Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools and Erasmus' Praise of Folly, both of which were translated into French and widely read.

But the change in the method of appointing Bishops and Abbots from canonical election to nomination by the Crown, which was the chief feature of the Concordat, while it put an end to the noisier forms of scandal in the elections, greatly increased what many regarded as the root of the whole evil, the non-residence and worldly character of the superior clergy. For Francis I found that the patronage of some six hundred bishoprics and abbeys furnished him with a convenient and inexpensive method of providing for his diplomatic service, and of rewarding literary merit. A large number of abbeys were held by laymen, and even Bishops were not always in orders ; pluralism in an aggravated form was common ; the case of Cardinal Jean of Lorraine has been noticed in an earlier chapter ; his brother Cardinal, Jean du Bellay, at one time enjoyed the revenues of five sees and fourteen abbeys. Italians shared largely in the royal patronage, and in 1560 it was estimated that they held one-third of all the benefices in the kingdom. It was this new method of patronage which more than anything paralysed all attempts at reform. It was idle to talk of reform at the bottom when at the top every personal interest was bound up with the existing corruption.

The connexion between the two movements, the Renaissance and the Reformation, was especially close in France. In both alike the same man occupied an almost identical position, standing on a threshold which he never actually crossed. This was Jacques Lefèvre, a native of Etaples in Picardy (Faber Stapulensis). After taking his degree in Arts in the University of Paris, he studied for some time in Italy and then devoted himself to the teaching of Aristotle and mathematics. He was also a busy writer and edited various works, including Latin translations of most of Aristotle's works. Though his Latin was somewhat barbarous and his knowledge of Greek imperfect, his services were warmly recognised by younger scholars, many of whom were his pupils. In the year 1507, when he was about fifty, he abandoned secular learning entirely for theology, and in 1512 published a Latin translation of St Paul's Epistles, with a commentary. The book was remarkable in two ways ; first because a revised version of the Vulgate was printed by the side of the traditional text, and secondly because it anticipated two of the cardinal doctrines of the Lutheran theology. Thus in the commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians Lefèvre asserts that there is no merit in human works without the grace of God ; in that on the Epistle to the Hebrews he denies, though in somewhat less precise language, the doctrine of Transubstantiation, while admitting the Real Presence.

In June, 1523, Lefevre published a revised French translation of the four Gospels, the first instalment of a new translation of the whole Bible, which he had been urged to undertake by Margaret and her mother. The rest of the New Testament followed before the end of the year. Except in a few passages it was nothing more than a revision of Jean de Rély's Bible, itself almost an exact reproduction of the old thirteenth century translation; but its publication did much to spread the knowledge of the New Testament. Though the effect of Luther's writings in France was considerable, the French Reformers showed almost from the first a tendency to base their theology rather on the literary interpretation of the Scriptures than on the specially Lutheran doctrine of Justification by Faith. Moreover, the geographical position of France brought them naturally into closer relations with Bucer and Capito at Strassburg, and with GEcolampadius at Basel, than with Luther at Wittenberg.

For two and a half years the preaching at Meaux went on without molestation and then the storm-clouds began to gather. Already on April 15, 1521, the Faculty of Theology of the Paris University, commonly called the Sorbonne, had formally condemned Luther's writings, and on August 3 of the same year the Parliament of Paris had issued a proclamation that all those who had any of these writings in their possession should deliver them up under penalty of a fine or imprisonment. It was by virtue of this order that on June 16, 1523, the books of Louis de Berquin, a gentleman of Picardy, noted for his learning, were seized, examined, and censured as heretical. On October 15 the Bishop of Meaux, whose sole desire was to reform the Church from within, and who consequently had no sympathy with Luther's attitude of open revolt, issued two synodal decrees : one against the doctrines and books of Luther, and the other against certain heretical opinions which had been preached in his diocese touching prayers for the dead and the invocation of the Saints. The latter decree was probably aimed at Farel, whose fiery and logical mind had carried him further than his companions, and who had left Meaux after only a short sojourn to become the leader of an advanced section of the movement which denied the Real Presence and shewed generally an iconoclastic and uncompromising spirit. The other preachers were still protected by the Bishop in spite of the Paris Parliament. However, in March, 1525, an example was made in the person of a wool-carder, named Jean Leclerc, who having committed a fanatical outrage was whipped and branded, first at Paris and then at Meaux. A few months later he was burnt at Metz for a similar offence.

On March 17 Francis returned from captivity ; and on the very day of his arrival in France he sent an order for the Parliament to suspend all action against Berquin, who after considerable delay was set at liberty. Lefèvre, Roussel, and Arande, who still called themselves members of the Catholic Church, were recalled from exile, and Lefèvre was appointed tutor to the King's third son. In spite of the execution of Jacques Pauvan, one of the Meaux preachers against whom proceedings had been taken with the full approval of the King (August 28, 1526), the hopes of the Reformers began to rise ; and, on the whole, up to the end of 1527 things seemed to be taking a turn in their favour. But on December 16 of that year the King, being in straits for money for the ransom of his sons, summoned an Assembly of Notables ; and, when the representatives of the clergy accompanied their vote of 1,300,000 livres with a request that he would take measures for the repression of Lutheranism, he gave a ready assent.

An outrage on a statue of the Virgin at Paris (May 31, 1528) furnished him with an opportunity of proving his sincerity, and he took part in a magnificent expiatory procession. Not long afterwards Berquin was again brought to trial and found guilty of heresy. Francis left him to his fate, and he was burnt on April 17, 1529. "He might have been the Luther of France," says Theodore Beza, " had Francis been a Frederick of Saxony." Meanwhile an important provincial synod, that of Sens, had been sitting at Paris from February to October of 1528 under the presidency of Cardinal Duprat, the Archbishop of Sens, for the purpose of devising measures for the repression of heresy. Similar synods were held for the provinces of Bourges and Lyons.

The desire of the King for the Pope's friendship led however to a fresh change of religious policy ; and, as the result of the conference with Clement at Marseilles (October 1-November 12, 1533), Francis, while declining to join in a general crusade against the followers of Luther and Zwingli, agreed to take steps for the suppression of heresy in his own kingdom and received from the Pope a Bull for that purpose. An opportunity at once occurred for putting it into force. On November 1 the new Rector of the University of Paris, Nicolas Cop, in his customary Latin oration, enveloped in unmistakable terms the doctrine of Justification by Faith. It soon became known that this discourse had been written for him by a young scholar of Picardy, named Jean Cauvin, or, as he called himself, Calvin. The scandal was great ; and the King on hearing of it immediately wrote to the Parliament enjoining it to proceed diligently against the "accursed heretic Lutheran sect." Within a week fifty Lutherans were in prison ; and an edict was issued that anyone convicted by two witnesses of being a Lutheran should be burned forthwith, " It will be like the Spanish Inquisition " wrote Martin Bucer,

But the King's Catholic fever quickly cooled down. On January 24, 1534, he entered into a secret treaty with the German Protestant Princes ; and when he returned to Paris in the first week of February the persecutions ceased. Evangelical doctrines were again preached in the Louvre. " I see no one round me but old women," was the complaint of a Sorbonne doctor from his pulpit ; " all the men go to the Louvre." In the spring Guillaume du Bellay was sent for the second time on a mission to Germany, with the object of concerting with the German theologians some via media which should effect a reconciliation between the two religious parties. Accordingly he sent a request to Melanchthon to draw up a paper embodying suggestions which might serve as the basis for an oral conference. Melanchthon complied, and du Bellay returned to France with a paper, dated August 1, 1534, in which the various points in dispute were separately discussed and means of arranging them were suggested.

By the middle of November two hundred heretics were said to be in prison ; before the end of the year this number was nearly doubled. By Christmas eight persons had been burned. Early in the following year (1535) the King returned to Paris, and on January 21 took part in a grand expiatory procession. This was followed by a public banquet, at which he made a long speech announcing once more his intention of exterminating heresy from his kingdom. The day of expiation closed with the burning of six more heretics. On January 25 seventy-three Lutherans, who had fled from Paris, were summoned by the town crier to appear before the Courts, or in default to suffer attainder and confiscation of their goods. Among these was the educational reformer, Mathurin Cordier, and the poet, Clément Marot. By May 5 there were nine more executions, making in all twenty-three. But the King was beginning to relent. On the death of the Chancellor, Cardinal Duprat (July 9), Francis appointed in his place Antoine du Bourg, who was favourable to the Reformers. On July 16 he issued an Edict from Coucy announcing that there were to be no further prosecutions except in the case of Sacramentarians and relapsed persons, and that all fugitives who returned and abjured their errors within six months should receive pardon. The reason for this milder attitude was that Francis was still angling for an alliance with the German Protestant Princes, and had renewed the négociations with Melanchthon. By the direction of Guillaume du Bellay, John Sturm, who held at this time a professorship at Paris, wrote both to Melanchthon and Bucer urging them to come to France for the purpose of a conference with the Paris theologians. Melanchthon consented; but the Elector John Frederick of Saxony refused to let him go, and the proposed conference had to be abandoned (August, 1535). At the same time the Sorbonne, to whom Melanchthon's paper of the preceding year had been submitted, expressed its entire disapproval of the project.

Neither the Edict of Coucy, nor a similar Edict, somewhat more liberal, which was issued in May, 1536, had much effect in bringing back the exiles to France. The great majority preferred exile to abjuration. Thus while the cause of Protestantism in France lost in this way many of its most ardent supporters, on the other hand there fell away from it the timid and the interested, those who had no wish "to be burned like red herrings," and those who basked in the sunshine of the royal favour. Moreover the sympathies of moderate men, of men like Guillaume and Jean du Bellay, of Guillaume Budé and François Rabelais, were alienated by the iconoclastic outbursts of the Reformers. They were favourable to a reform of the Church by moderate means, but they were statesmen or humanists, and not theologians. Rabelais' Gargantua, which he must have finished just before the affair of the placards, contains several passages of a distinctly evangelical character. But in his later books we find him " throwing stones into the Protestant garden." Lastly, there was a small group who followed the example of the Queen of Navarre and her ally Gérard Roussel, now Bishop of Oloron, and, while still holding the chief evangelical doctrines, continued members of the Catholic Church and conformed to most of its ceremonial. Though this seemed to Calvin an unworthy compromise, it fairly represented the half-practical, half-mystical character of Margaret's religion and her adherence to a certain phase of the Renaissance.

Thus the affair of the placards and the resulting persecution had made too wide a breach between the two religious parties to admit of its being healed. Partly from the timidity of the leaders and partly from the rashness of the rank and file, the first or Evangelical phase of Protestantism in France had failed to bring about a reform of the Church. In the early part of the year 1536 the man, who had initiated the movement, the aged Lefèvre d'Etaples, died at Nérac. Almost simultaneously there appeared a work which was to inaugurate the second or Calvinistic phase of French Protestantism, Calvin's Christianae religionis tnstitutio (March, 1536). Though little more than a sketch as compared with the form which it finally took, it was in essential points complete. It gave the French Reformers what they so greatly needed, a definite theological system in place of the undogmatic and mainly practical teaching of Lefèvre and Roussel. It gave them a profession of faith which might serve at once to unite their own forces and to prove to their persecutors the righteousness of their cause.

The new war with Charles V, which broke out in April, 1536, left the French King no leisure for the suppression of heresy. But after the truce at Nice and the interview with the Emperor at Aiguës-Mortes (July 14, 1538) Francis began to address himself in earnest to his task. After two partial Edicts, the first addressed to the Parliament of Toulouse (December 16, 1538), and the second to the Parliaments of Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Rouen (June 24, 1539), he issued from Fontainebleau on June 1, 1540, a general Edict of great severity. It introduced a more efficient and rapid procedure for the trial of heretics, which, with a slight modification made by the Edict of Paris (July 23,1543), enlarging the powers of the ecclesiastical Courts, remained in force for the next nine years. On August 29, 1542, another Edict was addressed to the Parliament of Toulouse, followed on the next day by a mandamus to those of Paris, Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, and Rouen. The Parliament of Aix required no such stimulus. Meanwhile the Sorbonne had been engaged in drawing up twenty-six articles in which the true Catholic faith on all the disputed points was set forth. It was their answer to the French translation of the Institutio which Calvin had completed in 1541 from the second and greatly enlarged Latin edition. The articles were ratified by a royal Ordinance of July 23, 1543. The answer of the Parliament of Paris had been of a more material character. On July 1, 1542, it issued a long Edict concerning the supervision of the press, of which the first clause ordered all copies of the Institutio to be given up within twenty-four hours. On February 14, 1544, these were solemnly burnt, with other books, including several printed by Étienne Dolet. This was shortly followed by the publication of the first Index Expurga-torius issued by the Sorbonne, which was registered by the Parliament ten months later,

In this policy of repression the King had the active support of four men ; the Inquisitor-General, Matthieu Ory ; the first President of the Parliament of Paris, Pierre Lizet, soon to become even more notorious as the President of the Chambre Ardente; the Chancellor, Guillaume Poyet, who had succeeded the moderate Antoine du Bourg on November 12,1538 ; and foremost among them, the Cardinal de Tournon, now all powerful with the King, and practically his first minister. Though the Cardinal was a liberal patron of learning and letters, he was a relentless and untiring foe to the new religious doctrines. " He is worth to France an Inquisition in himself," said a contemporary. It is significant also that just at this time Francis lost one of his ablest and most enlightened ministers, and the French Reformers one of their best friends in Guillaume du Bellay, who died in January, 1543.

The Peace of Crépy, September 18, 1544, with its vague provisions for the reunion of religion, and "for the prevention of the extreme danger" which threatened it, boded evil to the Reformers. The next year, 1545, memorable as the year in which the Council of Trent held its first sitting, is also memorable for an act which has left a dark stain on the history of France and the Church, the massacre of the Waldenses of Provence. In 1530 these peaceful followers of Peter Waldo, who dwelt in about thirty villages along the Durance, having heard of the religious doctrines that were being preached in Germany and Switzerland, sent two envoys to some of the leading Reformers to lay before them their own tenets, and to submit to them forty-seven questions on which they were desirous of instruction. They received long answers from Œcolampadius and Rucer, and in consequence held in September, 1532, a conference of their ministers at Angrogne in Piedmont, at which they drew up a confession of faith chiefly based on the replies of the two Reformers. They also agreed to contribute five hundred gold crowns to the printing of the new French translation of the Scriptures which was in contemplation. This affiliation of their sect to the Lutheran heresy naturally attracted the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. Accordingly Jean de Roma, the Inquisitor of the Faith for Provence, who had already begun to exhort the Waldenses to abjure their heresy, set on foot a cruel persecution.

The "Fourteen of Meaux " were not the only victims of the year 1546. Five others had already been burned at Paris, including the scholar and printer Etienne Dolet. Others were burned in the provinces. The next year, 1547, opened with fresh executions ; and on January 14 the mutilation of a statue of the Virgin was expiated by a solemn procession at Paris.

Such was the policy which Francis I began definitely to adopt towards Protestantism after the affair of the placards, and which he put into active execution during the last seven years of his life. How far was it successful ? As we have seen, it drove a large number of persons into exile ; and these consisted chiefly of the better-born and better-educated among the Reformers. It intimidated many into outward conformity with the Church. It prevented all public exercise of the Reformed religion, and all open propaganda. Religious meetings were held by night or in cellars ; doctrines were spread by secret house-to-house teaching, or by treatises concealed amongst the wares of pretended pedlars. On the other hand the frequent executions helped to spread the evil they were meant to repress. The firm courage with which the victims faced death did as much as the purity of their lives to convert others to their faith. Moreover, the influence of the exiles reacted on their old homes. From Geneva and the other Swiss centres of Protestantism missionaries came to evangelise France.

The result was that there was no longer a province in France, except Britanny, in which Protestantism had not acquired a foothold. In all the large towns it had been established at an early date. In Lyons, the most enlightened town of France, the Lutherans were already described in 1524 as "swarming." At Bordeaux, where the first seed had been sown by Farel, the preaching of a Franciscan, Thomas Illyricus, in 1526, had produced a rich harvest ; and the revival in 1532 of the old College of Arts under the name of the College of Guyenne had done much to foster the movement. Rouen was deeply infected in 1531 and thence the contagion spread to other parts of Normandy and to Amiens in Picardy. Orleans became an important centre, partly through the influence of Melchior Wolmar, who lived there from 1528 to the end of 1530. Even at Toulouse, where the University had been founded as a bulwark of orthodoxy, and on the whole had fully maintained its reputation, the new doctrines could not be kept out, and in 1532 Jean de Caturce, a young licentiate of laws, was burned at the stake.

Claude Baduel, an avowed Protestant. At Poitiers one of the professors of theology, Charles de Sainte Marthe, openly taught the new doctrines till, a persecution breaking out in 1537, he had to fly for his life. Protestantism was also rife at Loudun and Fontenay, and before long spread to Niort and La Rochelle. Poitou became th*e stronghold of French Protestantism. Other provinces to which it gained admission at an early date were Dauphiné, where Farel had preached in 1522, and the Vivarais, in which Annonay near the Rhone became an important centre.

As was natural, the water-ways of the great rivers helped to spread the movement. On the Loire there was hardly a town from Le Puy to Angers which it did not reach, while between Orleans and Tours it took a firm hold. It worked up the Sarthe to Le Mans and Alençon, and up the Allier to Moulins and Issoire. It penetrated the Limousin by the Vienne and La Marche by the Creuse. It made its way along the Seine from Rouen to Troyes and along the Yonne to Sens and Auxerre. From Lyons it travelled down the Rhone to Tournon, and up the Saône to Macon and Chalons. At Dijon, the old capital of the duchy of Burgundy, a Lutheran was executed in 1530, and soon afterwards a pastor was sent there from Geneva. Agen on the Garonne formed a connecting link between Bordeaux and Toulouse; Sainte Foy and Bergerac were reached by the Dordogne, and Villeneuve by the Lot. The preaching of Philibert Hamelin at Saintes has been described in a well-known passage by his fellow-Protestant Bernard Palissy ; thence it spread up the Charente to Cognac and Angoulême.

This then was the result of the repressive policy which Francis I had carried out with more or less consistency for ten years. The outward manifestation of Protestantism was indeed kept under, though not without difficulty ; but the work of propagandism went on in secret, until nearly the whole of France was covered with a network of posts which, insignificant enough at present, were ready at a favourable opportunity and with proper organisation to become active centres of a militant Protestantism. But a change was now impending in the government of France. At the end of January, 1547, Francis I was seized with a serious illness, which terminated fatally on the 31st of March. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, under the title of Henry II.

Meanwhile the French government was devising a more powerful engine for the suppression of Protestantism. At the instance of the Cardinal of Lorraine Edicts were drawn up establishing an Inquisition after the Spanish pattern. They were submitted to the Parliament of Paris early in the year 1555, but the Parliament refused to register them, and when Pierre Séguier, one of the presidents à mortier, appeared before the King to justify its action (October 22, 1555) he spoke with such convincing eloquence that the matter was dropped for a time. But in 1557 Henry, finding the existing machinery for the suppression of heresy still insufficient, obtained a papal brief authorising the proposed step. To this was joined a diploma appointing the Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and Châtillon as Inquisitors-General (April 25,1557). As, however, the Parliament refused to recognise it, the brief remained inoperative, and the King had to content himself with a new Edict against heresy which was issued from Compiègne on July 24.

The most active of these converts was d'Andelot. In April, 1558, he visited his wife's large estates in Britanny together with one of the Paris pastors, Gaspard Carmel, and thus helped to spread Protestantism in that remote and conservative province. But soon after his return to Paris he was arrested by the King's order, and confined at Melun for two months. The immediate cause of his arrest was his alleged presence in the Pre-aux-Clercs, where, for five successive evenings (May 13-17), a large concourse of persons of all ranks had assembled to take part in the singing of Marot's Psalms. The psalm-singing was stopped, but it made a considerable stir, for as many as five or six thousand were said to have taken part in it. The Protestants, it was evident, were increasing rapidly in numbers as well as in importance. Calvin, writing on February 24 in this year, says that he had been told by a good authority that there were 300,000 Protestants in France.

In the following year, 1559, another important step was taken. On May 26 the first Synod of the French Protestant Church was opened at Paris. We do not know how many deputies were present, but apparently there were representatives of a considerable proportion of the forty to fifty Churches then constituted, though doubtless in some cases the same deputy represented several Churches. There was also a lay element consisting of elders. The pastor of the Paris Church, François Morel, was chosen as president. The outcome of the Synod, which transacted its business in haste and secrecy, was a scheme of Church government or " Discipline," and a Confession of Faith. The " Discipline," which was based on the principle of the equality of the individual Churches, recognised the already prevailing organisation in each Church, namely the pastor and the consistory of elders and deacons. The election to the consistory being by co-optation, the government was practically an oligarchy. It remained to weld together the various Churches into a united whole. This was done by instituting first an assembly called a Colloquy, which bound together a group of neighbouring Churches, then above this a Provincial Synod, and finally, to crown the edifice, a National Synod.

The Tumult of Amboise, as it was contemptuously called, had been rashly designed and feebly executed. But its barbarous suppression increased the unpopularity of the government and the disorder in the state of the kingdom. In April and May there were frequent disturbances in Dauphiné and Provence. In Dauphiné, where the Bishop of Valence, Jean de Montluc, and the Archbishop of Vienne, Charles de Marillac, were in favour of toleration, the Protestants had an able leader in Montbrun. In Provence Protestantism was spreading rapidly, and, at a conference held at Mérindol on February 15, 1560, sixty Churches were represented. Here also there was an active and resolute leader in the person of Antoine de Mouvans. Meanwhile the hatred of the Guises found vent in numerous pamphlets, one of which has become almost a classic. It was entitled a " Letter sent to the Tiger of France,"" and was written by the distinguished jurist, François Hotman.

Still more important was the attitude of Coligny. At the very opening of the second session he presented a petition from the Protestants, in which, after protesting their loyalty to the King, they begged that the prosecutions might cease and that " temples " might be assigned to them for worship. There were no signatures, but Coligny, when it came to his turn to speak, declared that he could have obtained 50,000 names in Normandy alone. He went on to advocate warmly the proposals of Montluc and Marillac. Thus the wisest statesman in France stood boldly forward as the champion of the Protestants. The assembly broke up on August 25, and on the following day the Estates were summoned for December 10 and an assembly of the clergy for January 20. Meanwhile all prosecutions for simple heresy, apart from sedition, were to cease.

During the short reign of Francis II a great change had been wrought in the character of French Protestantism. Though still purely religious in its aims it had become imbued with a political element. The fact that the natural leaders of the opposition to the Guises were Protestants made this inevitable. It was both an evil and a gain-an evil because it brought into the Protestant ranks men whose only Protestantism consisted in offering the grossest insults to forms of religion consecrated by long usage and deep-rooted in the affections of the people ; a gain, because henceforth Protestantism, powerful in the numbers, quality and organisation of its adherents, and led by men of the highest rank in the kingdom, became a force in the State. To this new condition of things corresponded a new name, that of Huguenot. Its precise origin is uncertain, but recent research has shown that it is at any rate purely French.

The death of Francis II brought the Guise domination to an end. His successor, Charles IX, was only ten years old, and therefore unquestionably a minor. There was no longer the influence of a wife to overshadow that of the mother, and the right to the Regency belonged by custom to the King of Navarre. But just before the late King's death Navarre had renounced, so far as he legally could, this right in favour of Catharine, on condition that his position in the kingdom should be inferior only to hers. It was to Navarre therefore and the Constable, who was at once recalled to Court, that Catharine gave the chief place in her counsels ; and it was upon Navarre that the hopes of the Huguenots were now centred.

In their perplexity the government determined on a conference between the Council and the Parliament of Paris, to consider the means of putting an end to these disturbances. On June 18 the Chancellor opened the proceedings in a clear and impartial speech. The deliberations dragged on from June 23 to July 11. As the result a new Edict, known as the "Edict of July," was issued (registered July 31). All acts and words tending to faction or disturbance were forbidden. Attendance at any assembly at which worship was celebrated otherwise than according to the forms of the Catholic Church was to be punished by imprisonment and confiscation of property. The cognisance of cases of simple heresy was left to the ecclesiastical Courts. If the accused was handed over to the secular arm no penalty higher than banishment could be imposed. Finally it was stated that the Edict was only provisional, pending the decision of either a General or a National Council. In spite of this provisional character the Edict found no favour with either party. Both alike abused and ignored it.

On August 1 the prorogued meeting of the Estates, fixed originally for May, was opened at Pontoise. Only twenty-six deputies were present, thirteen for each of the two lay Estates ; the deputies of the clergy were already in session at Poissy, where the ecclesiastical synod had begun to sit on July 28. It was not till August 27 that the cahiers were presented at a session held at St Germain at which the clerical deputies were also1 present. Both cahiers were remarkable for the boldness of their proposals. They included a total reform of the judicial system, and a transference of a share in the sovereignty to the Estates by making their consent requisite for war or for any new taxation. To meet the financial difficulties three proposals were made. The most thoroughgoing was one made by the Third Estate, that the whole ecclesiastical property of the kingdom should be nationalised, that the clergy should be paid by the State, and that out of the surplus of 72,000,000 livres thus obtained 42,000,000 should be devoted to the liquidation of the public debt. However enlightened this proposal may have been it was neither practical nor opportune. It completed the alienation of the Paris Parliament from civil and religious reform; and it led to an arrangement between the clergy and the Crown. Alarmed by the proposals for their spoliation the clergy offered the Crown a sum of 16,600,000 livres, to be paid in instalments spread over ten years. The offer was accepted.

The chief event of the. first day was Beza's speech, which, both in matter and manner, made a deep impression. The Cardinal of Lorraine replied to it on September 16. Though his speech was contemptuously criticised by his theological opponents, it was skilfully adapted to his purpose of making a favourable impression on the unlearned majority of his audience. Both Coligny and Condé praised it. But even more than Beza's it was the speech of an advocate, and it concluded with a fervid appeal to the young King to remain in the faith of his ancestors. On September 19 Ippolito d'Esté, the Cardinal of Ferrara, who enjoyed the revenues of three French archbishoprics, one bishopric, and eight abbeys, arrived at St Germain in the capacity of legate a latere from Pius IV, with instructions to use his influence to stop the conference. In his numerous suite was Laynez, the successor of Loyola as General of the Jesuit Order, whose college at Paris had been formally legalised by the assembly at Poissy four days before. Whether owing to the efforts of the legate or not, the last two meetings of the Colloquy, which were held on September 24 and 26 with greatly diminished numbers, were wasted in angry and useless discussion. The speech of Laynez on the 26th was especially uncompromising. Catharine however did not despair. She arranged a conference between five of the Protestant ministers and five of the Catholic clergy who favoured reform. Among the Protestants was the famous Peter Martyr, who had arrived at Poissy on the evening of September 9. The delegates met on September 30 and the following day. Having drawn up a formula relating to the sacrament of Holy Communion, they submitted it to the assembly of Bishops, by whom it was straightway rejected (October 9).