CHAP. VI.] DEATH OF POPE PIUS IV. 177 of the Hugonots, either by fair means or by foul. The somewhat homely illustration by which Alva enforced his advice-mieux vaut une tête de saumon que dix mille têtes de grenouilles—was overheard by young Henry of Béarn, whom Catherine, charmed by the lad's vivacity and wit, kept about her person; and he afterwards reported the words to his mother, Jeanne d'Albret. The views of Alva were supported by some part of the French court, as the Duke de Montpensier, the Cardinal of Guise, Blaise de Monluc and others; but it is a mistake to suppose that they were acceded to by Catherine and the young King. The Queenmother even refused to put down the Calvinist preachings near the frontiers of Spain, and the French and Spanish courts parted with a degree of coldness. The Protestant chiefs nevertheless suspected that a secret league had been concluded; and they rerenewed on their side their relations with England, Germany, and the malcontents of the Netherlands. The long progress of the French court lasted nearly two years, and was not concluded till December 1565. On the 9th of that month Pope Pius IV. had expired; a pontiff who at all events was sincere in his religion. The most memorable act of his pontificate is the close of the Council of Trent. His catechism, modelled on the decrees of that Council, is remarkable for the beauty of its Latinity, and contains many passages which even a Protestant may read with interest. He was succeeded on the Papal throne by Michel Ghislieri, Cardinal of Alessandria and Grand-Inquisitor, who assumed the title of Pius V. His election was chiefly due to Pius IV.'s nephew, Cardinal Borromeo, the indefatigable bishop of Milan, who enjoyed almost as great a reputation for sanctity as Ghislieri himself. Ghislieri was born of poor parents at Bosco, near Alessandria in 1504, and entered a Dominican convent at the age of fourteen. He came to Rome on foot, a destitute friar; and in fifteen years successively rose to be a bishop, a cardinal, and the head of the Inquisition. Austere in his manners, averse to nepotism, the enemy of all vices and abuses, Pius V. pursued the internal reforms commenced under the influence of Cardinal Borromeo. But his piety was sombre and fanatical; as a Pope he was the beau-idéal of the Ultramontanists, who called him Saint Pius V.; and indeed he was eventually canonised by Pope Clement XI. in 1712, and the 1st of May appointed for his worship. Although good-tempered and simple "One head of salmon is worth 10,000 heads of frogs." It was computed that in the course VOL. II. N of his life Borromeo had consecrated 300 altars, each consecration demanding a space of eight hours. 178 CHARACTER AND VIEWS OF PIUS V. [BOOK III. in his habits, Pius V. had a strong consciousness of his religious merits. Convinced that he had himself walked in the right path, he was intemperate and inflexible towards those who opposed his views, could brook no contradiction, and was never known to mitigate the sentence of a criminal. He not only renewed the publication of the Bull in Coena Domini, of which sovereigns had often complained, but even added new clauses of increased severity. Under his pontificate terror reigned through Italy. The researches of the Inquisition were carried back for twenty years; the prisons of Rome sufficed not for the number of the accused, so that it was necessary to build new ones; every day beheld executions either by the cord, the axe, or the flames. Thus may a mistaken piety become one of the most terrible scourges of humanity. A temperament like that of Pius.V. is incompatible with that love of art and literature which distinguished a Leo X. Pius sentenced to the stake, as heretics, three of the most distinguished literary men of Italy: Zanetti of Padua, Pietro Carnesecchi of Florence, and Annius Palearius of Milan, who had likened the Inquisition to the poniard of the assassin. The chief objects of the policy of Pius V. were to oppose the Turkish power, to subvert the Protestant reformation, and to annihilate its adherents. It was impossible that such a pontiff should comprehend or tolerate the tortuous and temporising policy of Catherine de' Medici; and he trembled with rage and indignation when he learnt the precautions with which she treated the Hugonot leaders, and especially the apostate Cardinal of Châtillon.8 By the advice of L'Hôpital, an Assembly of Notables was summoned at Moulins in January 1566, with the alleged object of remedying the complaints received by the King during his progress. There were, however, some other subjects of more private nature to be considered; the arrangement of a quarrel which had recently exploded with great violence between the Cardinal of Lorraine and Marshal Montmorenci, and especially the settlement of the proceedings instituted by the Guises against Admiral Coligni for the alleged murder of the Duke. The first of these affairs was arranged without much difficulty; the other was of more importance. On the 29th of January, Coligni having sworn an oath before the sq. ' McCrie, Reformation in Italy, p. 272. translation of them by De Potter, Brussels, s The letters of Pius V. were collected by Goubau, secretary of the Spanish Embassy at Rome, under Philip IV., and published by him in the original Latin, Antwerp, 1640. There is a French 1827. The life of Pius V. has been written from authentic materials by Girolamo Catena, secretary of the Consulta of Pope Sixtus V., to whom he dedicated his work. There is also a life by Gabutius. CHAP. VI.] ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES AT MOULINS. 179 King in Council that he was neither the author nor the accomplice of the assassination, and challenged to mortal combat whoever should assert the contrary, the Council unanimously declared him innocent, and the Cardinal of Lorraine and the widow of the duke gave him the kiss of peace. But Guise's son, the young Duke Henry, had abstained from appearing at Moulins; while his uncle, the Duke d'Aumale, who arrived late, manifested so violent an animosity against the Châtillons that the Queen was obliged to dismiss both parties from court; and thus the termination of an assembly intended to promote peace evidently threatened a renewal of war. It was, however, distinguished by some great legal reforms introduced by L'Hôpital and published the following month under the title of the "Grande ordonnance de Moulins," which, together with the previous Edict of Villars Cotteretz, formed one of the bases of of French legislation down to the time of the Revolution. It was plain that both parties were preparing for another struggle. Physical force preponderated on the side of the Catholics, who had organised themselves into confréries, or brotherhoods; and in the riots which frequently occurred they commonly had the advantage. The Jesuits had now obtained a footing in France. In 1564 they had succeeded in matriculating themselves at the University of Paris, and had established their College of Clermont (afterwards Louis le Grand) in the Rue St. Jacques, under the title of the College of the Society of Jesus. But the struggle was a hard one. The Sorbonne was opposed to them, and they had to appeal to the Parliament, which influenced by the Catholic leaders at length granted them a provisional authority to teach independently of the University. The permission granted by the court for the Duke of Alva to march through France with his army in the summer of 1567, when on his way to exterminate the Protestants of the Netherlands, tended very much to excite the distrust of the Hugonot leaders. Catherine, although she pretended to entertain suspicions of Alva's designs, secretly sent him supplies. Condé and Coligni, on the other hand, alleging their fears for the safety of France, offered to raise 50,000 men to cut off the Spaniards, but their assistance was of course declined. The suspicion of the Hugonots was augmented by the reception given by Charles IX. to an embassy from some of the German princes, to request that he would faithfully observe the Edict of Pacification, and allow the Gospel to be preached in Paris as well as other places; to which the young King replied by begging the Germans to attend to their own affairs. Soon after Alva's arrival in Flanders, the Hugonot chiefs received secret notice, supposed to 180 HOSTILITIES BETWEEN COURT AND HUGONOTS. Condé [Book III. have been communicated to them by L'Hôpital, that the court of France meant to follow Alva's example, and that the revocation of the Edict of Amboise, the perpetual captivity of Condé, and the death of Coligni had been resolved on. The Prince and the Admiral determined to counteract this plot by one of still greater audacity, to carry off the young King and the whole court from Monceaux in La Brie. Condé seems even to have entertained the hope of seizing the crown. Catherine having learnt the plot two days before the time fixed for its execution, she and the whole court fled how they could to Meaux, where by parleying with the Hugonot leaders she gained time for a body of 6000 Swiss to arrive; and the young King putting himself at their head set off for Paris. and Coligni having only about 500 horse, were not strong enough to attack so large a body but they harassed the royal force with skirmishes, and after Charles IX. had gained the metropolis in safety, took up a position at St. Denys. Here some conferences ensued between Montmorenci and the Hugonots; but the latter, who had succeeded in seizing Orleans, Dieppe, Mâcon, La Charité, Vienne, Valence, Nîmes, and other places, made demands which far exceeded the provisions of the Edict of Amboise, and nothing could be arranged. On the 10th of November 1567 the army of the Catholics, which was four or five times more numerous than that of the Hugonots, although they also had been reinforced, marched out from Paris and deployed in the plain des Vertus. A charge headed by Condé and Coligni threw the Catholics into disorder. The Constable was surrounded and summoned to surrender, and being hard pressed by a Scotchman named Robert Stuart, knocked out three of his teeth with the pommel of his sword, when Stuart is thought to have shot Montmorenci with his pistol. The Constable was rescued, while still alive, by his sons the Marshals Montmorenci and Damville, but expired two days after at the age of seventy-five. His qualities were hardly equal to his renown. Notwithstanding this mishap, the battle was in favour of the Catholics; yet, after retaining possession of the field a few hours, they retired into Paris. Next day the Hugonots marched to the very gates; but as Charles IX. had received reinforcements from the Duke of Alva of 1500 Flemish and Walloon cavalry, and as 8000 Gascons were expected to join the royal army, Condé and Coligni thought it prudent to retire, and marched into Lorraine to meet the German succours conducted by the CountPalatine, John Casimir. The Queen-mother, instead of filling up 9 66 'Depuis cinquante ans, il encombrait l'histoire d'une fausse importance, toujours fatale à son pays."- Michelet, Guerres de Religion, p. 341. CHAP. VI.] EDICT OF LONJUMEAU, 1568. 181 the office of Constable, vacant by the death of Montmorenci, appointed her favourite son the Duke of Anjou, Lieutenant-General of the kingdom. She is said to have loved Anjou as the viper loves the most venomous of its brood. The events of the war which followed are not important enough to arrest our attention. The Queen, to save Chartres, which the Hugonots were besieging, concluded a fresh peace, March 20th 1568, proclaimed in the Edict of Longjumeau on the 23rd, and which for its short duration was also called "la courte paix." The terms were favourable to the Hugonots, and consequently gave great offence at Rome. In fact, however, neither party was "10 sincere, and it was soon evident from the nature of the ordinances published, as well as from a Papal Bull authorising the alienation of ecclesiastical property, provided the proceeds were employed in exterminating the heretics, that the court was meditating a fresh war. The letters of Pius V. at this period to the French and other courts are terrible. They may be summed up in two words: "Kill all you can." Assassinations and massacres took place every day. The Jesuits, whose authority had now come into vogue in France, taught that no faith should be observed towards heretics. Catherine, who felt herself more secure since the King had attained his majority, cared not any longer to court the Hugonot chiefs, and it was currently reported that an attack would be made on that party after the harvest. She would even have seized Condé and Coligni at Noyers in Burgundy, had not Tavannes, the governor of that province, who was to have executed the plot, given the prince a hint of it. He and the Admiral escaped with some difficulty to La Rochelle (September 1st), where they were cordially received by Jeanne d'Albret and the troops assembled round her. The dismissal of L'Hôpital in October seemed to show that Catherine meant not only to draw the sword, but also to throw away the scabbard. The seals were given to Morvilliers, bishop of Orleans; but Birago, a Milanese, had the chief influence in the council after the dismissal of L'Hôpital. The King was abandoned to his directions and those of the Florentine Gondi, who inculcated the principles of the ultramontane tyrants. On the other hand, Condé and the Admiral gathered round them at La Rochelle an army of 20,000 men; and this force and the royal army spent the last months of 1568 in marching about between the Loire and the Garonne, without any result except the violences which both sides committed upon the wretched inhabitants. Severe edicts were 10 See De Potter's transl. p. 14 sqq. |