Page images
PDF
EPUB

represented by the Constable de Montmorenci, the Duke of Guise, and the Maréchal de St. André, who are known as the triumvirate, held possession of Paris and the king's person. As Catherine disliked all authority except her own, she feared and hated these nobles; to check their power she encouraged the Hugonots, at the head of whom were Anthony, king of Navarre, the father of Henry IV., his brother the Prince of Condé, and the Admiral Coligny. These generally seemed Catherine's favourites, except when they were in arms against the king, yet this was the party afterwards massacred by her orders. In order therefore to gain a true view of the times, we must consider Catherine as vacillating in her intentions, the creature of those around her, always wishing to advance her own power, but never hesitating to take the advice of the most depraved religionist who should promise her her object, even by the most unworthy means. Let us recollect that the Roman Catholic Church had not been idle in its opposition to Luther; a vast and irresponsible power had now been created, ready to espouse the cause of Rome, and bound to advance the spiritual empire of the Church by every art, whether lawful or unlawful. Ignatius Loyola had received the sanction of the Pope for the incorporation of the Jesuits in 1543. Now the secret influence of their crafty policy, in which the end sanctifies the means, and all things expedient are considered lawful, had already begun to exert its influence upon the councils of nations. The Cardinal of Lorraine, brother to the Duke of Guise, had returned from the Council of Trent with a full determination to uphold Catholicism; the duke was the first warrior of his day, and though so ignorant that he swore a New Testament could be worth nothing because it was only a year printed, and our Lord died 1500 years ago, yet, as he said himself, he understood the trade of chopping off heads, and that was enough to give him the greatest influence in a barbarous age. With these men, the near relations of Francis II. and his beautiful bride (the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots), nothing was more easy than to obtain the ascendant over a weak-minded and delicate boy of thirteen. Francis had attained his legal majority at that age when some children are almost too young for a public school. The duke's habits of business were such, that he seldom commanded his officers to do what could be done by himself; he was in the habit of examining the enemy's fortifications with his own eyes, attending to the most minute details, and then sitting up during the whole night to write his own despatches: one of his officers inquiring for him at the siege of Thronville, was told that he was writing; he replied by cursing his writings, and added, "What a pity he was not brought up to

be a clerk!"

"Well, Montluc," said the duke, overhearing him, "do you think I am the right stuff to make a clerk?" and then, coming out of his tent, he gave his orders with his customary decision and authority. He was killed by Poltrot, an assassin, at the siege of Orleans, in 1563. While the Duke of Guise was the pope's temporal agent, his brother the cardinal was no less useful in spiritual matters: like his brother, he had great talents for business, and was besides an excellent courtier and a fluent speaker. He spared no expense to have the earliest intelligence from all parts of Christendom; and thus, by his paid agents, he enacted the part which Eugène Sue attributes to the superior of the Jesuits: he organized a sort of spiritual police, who could inform him of the secret intentions, as well as the actions of men ; and of course, as a cardinal, he was bound to wield this power in the service of the pope. Though learned, eloquent, and polite, the cardinal was essentially vicious; he was a persecuting bigot without the excuse of religious zeal. A Roman Catholic writer tells us, that he used his religion chiefly as a means to build up his greatness: he often spoke highly of the confession of Augsburg, and at times almost preached it to please the Germans; his own party accused him of extreme haughtiness in prosperity; and when he once spoke more graciously than usual to some of the young ladies of the court, one of them replied, flippantly enough, but with some truth, "Pray, Monsieur le Cardinal, what reverse of fortune has befallen you that you condescend to speak to us?"

The cardinal, though outwardly a strict member of the Church ⚫of Rome, was equally anxious for the independence of the French Church. At the Council of Trent (says Ranké1) he demanded the cup for the laity, the administration of the Sacraments in the vulgar tongue, the accompaniment of the mass with instruction and preaching, and permission to sing psalms in French in full congregation; besides, in conjunction with the other French bishops, he maintained the authority of a council as above the pope. In these matters, however, he was over-ruled; the Spaniards did not concur in his demands, and the Italian bishops gave the pope an overwhelming preponderance. Lorraine seems to have considered himself bound by the decision of the council, and was all his life a most unrelenting persecutor. Two years before, he had revived a confession of faith which had been used in the reign of Francis I.; he induced the king to issue an order that any person who should refuse to sign it should be deprived of all offices, and burnt alive without further trial. He also added a declaration, that all persons who should sign the confession should

1 Page 85.

solemnly engage to pursue all recusants as public criminals, without regard to their nearest relations. The chancellor was bound to require the signature of the officers of state; the bishops were to present it to the inferior clergy; the curés were obliged to carry it from house to house; and the Queens were enjoined to require the signatures of their respective households. This scheme the cardinal called his rat-trap. Supported by his rank, his connexions, his brother's authority, and his own secret intelligence, we can easily imagine how dangerous an opponent the cardinal must have been to the Hugonots, and how powerful a rivalry he must have presented to the views and ambition of Catherine de Medicis.

The colleagues of the Duke of Guise in the triumvirate were Montmorenci, generally known as the Constable, and the Maréchal St. André. The former, like the duke, was a warrior, with little idea of religion. He was scrupulously exact in saying his prayers; but, like those of William of Deloraine, they seem to have partaken of the nature of a border foray. His soldiers used to say, "The Lord deliver us from the pater-nosters of Monsieur le Connétable!" He would turn about between his beads, and say, "Hang such a one for disobedience!" "Burn three villages on yonder hill!" "Let another be run through the pikes!". He was inferior to the Duke of Guise in talent; but by a gravity of manner, and a certain degree of reserve, he could often, like Solomon's fool, pass for a wise man by holding his tongue. He was killed at the age of seventy-nine, at the battle of St. Denys, where he commanded the king's army; after several successful charges, his squadron of cavalry was routed by the Prince de Condé, and having received several wounds, he was retiring from the field, when a Scottish adventurer, Robert Stewart, levelled his piece, and Montmorenci exclaimed, "I am the constable !" "Therefore," said Stewart, "I present you with this." Though severely wounded, the courageous old man dashed the broken hilt of his sword into the face of his adversary with so much force that he broke several of his teeth, and felled him to the ground. The constable's wound proved mortal; a priest was sent for, but the old man told him not to molest him, as it would be a vile and unworthy thing if he had lived for nearly eighty years without learning to die for half an hour. This anecdote proves that zeal for a cause, loyalty to a king, and the desire of military glory, were his ruling principles, rather than any preference of his own religion above Protestantism, or any mistaken zeal in thinking that he was doing God service by the extirpation of heresy.

The constable and the Duke of Guise had long been jealous of each other; each thought himself entitled to be prime minister,

and each looked upon the other as a dangerous rival. After the death of Francis II., the Maréchal de St. André undertook to reconcile these differences, and seems to have been admitted to the triumvirate as a sort of mediator between the two contending parties. At Easter, 1561, the constable and the duke, by St. André's advice, partook together of the sacrament, and dined at the same table. St. André did not long survive his union with these great men, as he was killed the next year at the battle of Dreux: he seems to have had a presentiment of his approaching end; on the morning of the battle, he came to the tent of the Duke of Guise much dejected, and seeing the duke's confessor going out, he said, "that the duke was much happier than himself in having heard mass that day, as a preparation for what might occur." He hated Catherine de Medicis, and said on one occasion, that the best thing he could do for France would be to throw her into the sea in a sack; and he might probably have fulfilled his purpose, had it not been for the opposition of the Duke of Guise.

The Chancellor de L'Hôpital was the man of the highest principle_and_most liberal views among the Roman Catholic party. Brantôme calls him the Cato of his age, and compares him with Sir Thomas More. He upheld the divine right of kings in its strongest sense, yet made more advances towards toleration and liberty of conscience than any of his fellow ministers; but the sentiments of a single individual, however noble and enlightened, were easily overborne by a host of persecuting courtiers; and the pope offered Charles 100,000 crowns of Church property, if he would "only confine the chancellor within four walls." De L'Hôpital was suspected of being a Hugonot at heart, though he never showed any tendency to their doctrines; and some of the Romanists were heard to say, "The Lord deliver us from the chancellor's mass !"

At the head of all these various powers, Charles IX.found himself the nominal King of France, at the age of eleven years, with the expectation of obtaining his legal majority at thirteen. Few princes received a worse education in childhood; and few kings have ever been called upon to rule a more corrupt court even in the prime of manhood. His early education was entrusted to Du Perron, from whom, among other accomplishments, he learned to swear outrageously; "not like a gentleman," says Brantôme, who occasionally lets fall an oath, "but like a catchpole, when he seizes his victim." To this habit of profane swearing we may attribute the disregard of solemn engagements, and the tendency to break his faith which characterized the life of Charles. He was less dissipated and more inclined to manly amusements than might have been expected from his circumstances; but his temper

was violent, and he was easily led by his mother and her associates: he ought to be considered rather as the instrument of a party, than their leader; and as he only lived to the age of twenty-five, we cannot suppose that his authority was much felt, or that he is the person really responsible for the atrocities committed in his name.

66

While the destinies of France seemed to fluctuate between the two contending parties, a foreigner appeared upon the scene, who was the real mover of the greatest enormities, and the evil genius of Catherine; we mean the Duke of Alva. Till long after the death of Francis II., the queen seemed undecided between two opinions; she appeared to balance Condé against Guise, and Beza against Lorraine; but circumstances, in an evil hour for France, brought her under the influence of the dark, designing, treacherous, and bloodthirsty Spaniard, who seemed, like some brilliant but poisonous serpent, to fascinate his victim to the destruction of her principles and the perversion of her conscience. Elizabeth, the daughter of Catherine, had been engaged to Don Carlos of Spain, but had afterwards married his father Philip II. The court of France, with Catherine at its head, visited the court of Spain at Bayonne, in the month of June, 1565. Here was a grand opportunity for the display of all the pomp and splendour in which Catherine so much delighted. The queen travelled from town to town, accompanied by forty or fifty of her young ladies, mounted on beautiful haquenées with splendid trappings. "To imagine these scenes," says Brantôme, one must have seen this lovely troop, one more richly and bravely attired than another shining in those magnificent assemblies, like stars in the clear azure of heaven; for the queen expected them to appear in full dress, though she herself was attired as a widow, and in silk of the gravest colours; still she was elegant and enchanting, ever appearing the queen of all; she rode with extreme grace, the ladies following with plumes floating in the air, so that Virgil when he describes Queen Dido going to the chace has never imagined any thing comparable to Queen Catherine and her attendants." This graphic writer minutely describes the beauties of the court, but gives the highest praise to Margaret of Valois, the future queen of Henry IV. The brilliant cavalcade arrived at Bayonne, and was entertained by Elizabeth and the Duke of Alva. The king of Spain was absent, but Alva attended, ostensibly for the purpose of presenting the order of the Golden Fleece to Charles IX., but really with the intention of establishing a secret influence over the mind of Catherine, and with the determination to induce her to renew in France the persecutions of the late reign, and to imitate the cruelty which Philip had countenanced in England, and which he himself afterwards devised

« PreviousContinue »