PART 2
RELIGION IN THE PARLEMENTAIRE MENTALITÉ

5
Setting the Problem:
Religious Values

The Parlementaire Religious Tradition

The mystique of the French monarch as the Most Christian King has long been postulated as a major factor in European history, but the corollary mystique of France as the most Christian kingdom was apt to be dismissed as an invention of the propagandists of Philip IV (the Fair) in that king's struggle with Pope Boniface VIII at the opening of the fourteenth century. Not until the appearance of Joseph Strayer's magisterial essay was the equal place of the other elements fully recognized. He points out that "some of this glorification of France dates back to a period long before [Pierre] Dubois wrote" and that Guillaume de Nogaret's assertion, "the kingdom of France was chosen by the Lord and blessed above all other kingdoms of the world," was not unprecedented. Indeed, French believers held that France was the most important part of the church itself. "Any attack on the rights of the king or the independence and integrity of his kingdom was an attack on the faith. Conversely, any steps taken by the king to defend or strengthen his kingdom are for the benefit of Christendom." Nor were these sentiments confined to individuals who were, after all, apologists for a powerful French king. A Dominican monk, Guillaume de Sauqueville, claimed for the French king the lineage of David, thus making him "a type of Christ" and France "a type of the heavenly kingdom." Strayer comments, "Those who heard (rather than read) his sermons might have been a little confused about how close the resemblance was."^[1]

Strayer's object is to show how this pairing of the king and the kingdom as especially Christian enabled the French "to avoid, to a very large degree,

[1] . Strayer, "The Holy Land," 13, 14, 8-9, 10, 14.

any feeling of contradiction between their duties to the church and their duties to the state. . . . Loyalty to France was bound to be loyalty to the church, even if the church occasionally doubted it. . . . In France, the religion of nationalism grew early and easily out of the religion of monarchy."^[2] The essay serves the purposes of this study by showing how the French land, people, and king were believed to owe their unique and superior status to their linkage through the Roman Catholic Church, designated by the words Holy, Chosen , and Christian in the formula. Until the sixteenth century, no other institutionalized form of Christianity existed in western Europe. Heresies sprang up from time to time, but the church of Peter held its own as Holy Mother Church. When an important heresy surfaced in Languedoc, it was suppressed in the early thirteenth century by the combined forces of the papacy and the crown, to the advantage of both; the crown in particular, found in the Albigensian crusade the means finally to dominate that valuable and long-coveted region.

French culture was permeated by Roman Catholicism from its cradle so to speak. In the chaotic generations when Christianity was spreading through the tottering western Roman Empire, especially after the Visigoths had overrun North Africa and sacked the city of Rome itself (410 C.E.), the most vital centers of western Christianity—that is, those that recognized the leadership of Rome—were the monasteries of Gaul, and the most influential figures were Gallic, such as Saint Martin of Tours and Saint Denis.

Then the Franks, no longer contained east of the Rhine frontier, conquered Roman Gaul about 500 C.E. under the leadership of Clovis, who "defended the one true church against the heretic," as Pierre Droit de Gaillard has reminded us. The historical significance of this warrior-king was that, first, he alone of all the barbarian chieftains who were establishing kingdoms on the ruins of the western empire chose adherence to Rome rather than the Arian "heresy," and second, that he imposed this choice on his newly created Frankish kingdom.

The Carolingian family was able to take over the kingship in the middle of the eighth century, as a result of papal gratitude for the rescue of the papal states (not to mention their enlargement) by Pepin III, when he was still only "mayor of the palace" in the Frankish kingdom. This enabled his son, Charlemagne, to rule the most impressive European empire seen since that of Rome, with the active participation of churchmen as administrators and judges for the "emperor," whose title had been bestowed by the pope. In the scramble to succeed to the kingship when Charlemagne's heirs in

[2] . Ibid., 16.

turn lost control of the (West) Frankish kingdom, in the late tenth century, the house of Hugh Capet prevailed over its rivals in no small part because of the backing of the church, symbolized by the holy oil with which the kings of France were anointed for as long as the monarchy endured. The significance of the sacred aspects of Capetian kingship have been well known since the appearance of Marc Bloch's influential study Les Rois thaumaturges .^[3]

Throughout the centuries the rhythm of life for believers—serfs, peasants, townspeople, and elites—followed the church calendar: the daily prayers, the weekly penance and masses, the seasons of fast and feast, the saints associated with every activity, occupation, and place through relics and shrines. The sacraments punctuated human life from baptism, which conferred "provisional membership" in the Christian community immediately upon birth, to the last rites, as an individual passed into the next life, and even beyond the grave, in the masses said for the dead. In an age of faith, an individual cut off from the sacraments was cut off from the human community as surely as were outcasts from the tribe, and powerful kings were brought to their knees by popes placing their kingdoms under the interdict. The church was often influential in shaping public policy, including war aims. War against the Moslem Turks who had conquered the Holy Land were fought under the sign of the cross, crusades. It is worth noting that the crusading movement was predominantly French, with three French kings among the leaders and a greater number of French nobles taking the cross than from all other regions of Europe combined. In the reign of Louis IX (died 1270), what the French call le rayonnement (cultural leadership or sphere of influence) of France extended from the Atlantic to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean—where the kingdoms of the earlier crusaders had been established. Roman Catholicism, in short, was a multifaceted force in French culture, so deeply embedded that abuses in the church in a negative direction, or new spiritual initiatives (heresy) in a positive direction, could not easily be perceived as isolated phenomena to be considered on their own merits, as they might, for instance, in the Germanies or the Netherlands.

The hold of the Roman church was further reinforced in France by the special application of a general European belief that religion was the most important cohesive factor in holding a community or kingdom together. As the concept of the state as such developed in sixteenth-century political theory, the principle of cuius regio eius religio was expressed in a variety

[3] . Marc Bloch, Les Rois thaumaturges (Strasbourg, 1924).

of formulae. In its Latin form the phrase is associated primarily with Martin Luther, who proclaimed it in the 1530s on behalf of the German princes who had adopted his reforms, and with the Peace of Augsburg (1555) when it triumphed. German princes, Lutheran or not, were able to assert independence in religious choice from the emperor. The phrase in itself is confessionally neutral: if the prince was Protestant so was the state. Where Catholicism was very strong, as in France, so was its claim to be the one faith that completed the trilogy un roi, une loi, une foi .

This principle was the underlying presupposition of the parlementaire religious tradition. We shall find mainstream spokesmen in every generation reiterating and elaborating it—as an argument against any degree of religious toleration in the decades when heresy threatened or seemed to threaten, from the 1520s to the 1570s, and later, in the 1590s, as the main basis of the argument that Henri IV should abjure Calvinism and become a Roman Catholic—in order to maintain the traditional unity between church and state, crown and people. It was by then unthinkable for the French people to be other than Roman Catholic; if Henri was to be accepted as king he must follow suit, no matter how strong his legitimate claim under the Salic law.^[4]

If the one faith could be any faith adopted by the legal ruler, Lutheran in Saxony, Anglican in England, and so on, there was one institutional element in the French tradition wholly unique to France: the liberties of the Gallican church. These frequently figured as the issue in parlementaire discussions of religion and in periods of special tension between France and Rome, the Gallican issue absorbed all others. The most admired parlementaire models, like Jean Jouvenal des Ursins in earlier centuries and Thibault Baillet and Christophe de Thou in our period, were those whose reputation rested on the defense of the Gallican liberties (and/or of the Parlement itself); the most hated villains were those like Antoine Duprat, who breached the defenses and imperiled the autonomy of either. Even the kings of France, as individual rulers, were tested by these criteria and when they did not measure up, the Parlement—representing the true king, the other "eternal body"—was duty-bound to remonstrate and to refuse to bow.^[5] The fight over the Concordat of Bologna is the classic case.

[4] . Wolfe, Conversion of Henri IV , esp. 123-125.

[5] . Antoine Duprat, 1463-1535, chancellor, cardinal, chief implementor of the Concordat of Bologna, holder of controversial benefices, and main target of parlementaire hostility; Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies .

These institutionalized traditions overlap: the French church, at one and the same time, exists as the most important part of l'église catholique, apostolique, et romaine , accepting the spiritual direction of the popes, and exists also as a unique national institution whose ecclesiastical administration has always been in French hands and whose authority alone has kept (or regained) the original autonomy of the primitive church.

When we turn from institutional matters to the personal spiritual life of our robins , the evidence is both less abundant and less explicit—after all, they were lawyers, most at ease with the vocabulary and structures of institutions. Yet the chief characteristics of their spiritual life are clear enough. The visible manifestations, their religious behavior, conformed to conventional, conservative, Roman Catholic piety in every respect; with a religious style ranging from "modest"—a word often used with approval in this context—to austere. The latter is infrequent, but admirable if not carried too far. Excess of any kind in expressions of piety is explicitly condemned. La Roche-Flavin gives examples of "ostentations," practices inappropriate to a judge, which include too frequent attendance at mass, prostration during prayers, publicizing one's pilgrimages and, especially, one's acts of charity, even "too much" study of and meditation on scripture.^[6]

The more frequent incidence of such moralizing about religious behavior in the later decades as compared to earlier reflects the unfavorable impression made by the dramatic Counter-Reformation religiosity fashionable in ligueur Paris, specifically by Henri III in the final years of his reign, when the king and members of his court attracted much comment by taking part in processions through the streets of the city, some honoring the exposed Host (this was offensive to conservatives under any circumstances), others dramatizing human sin, the participants barefoot, wearing sackcloth and ashes, and, in the case of flagellants, beating one another.^[7]

The positive content of desirable "modest" behavior was simple conformity to tradition, and the reason for it was the necessity to maintain order in an increasingly disorderly society. Gabriel Naudé was later to write, apropos of religious choice,

que la plus connue est toujours la meilleure, qu'il est dangereux d'y rien changer et peu utile, que ce n'est à un particulier de le faire, et enfin qu'un Royaume Chrétien bien policé ne doit jamais recevoir d'autres nouveautez

[6] . La Roche-Flavin, Treize Livres , bk. VIII, ch. 1.

[7] . On inappropriate religious behavior of Henri III see L'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Brunet, esp. 2:109-114, 148-150, 182-183, and 333-334.

en religion, que celles que les Papes ou Conciles ont accoustumé d'y introduire.^[8]

In private, away from prying eyes, however, one could maintain a degree of isolation which permitted "a certain license," that is, independence of belief. But the façade of "austere and discreet wisdom, studious serenity and irreproachable decency" should never be disturbed.^[9]

Montaigne, who was in many ways atypical, is in this an articulate representative of robin opinion. In Essai no. 22, "De la coutume, et de ne pas changer aisement une loy reçue," he says,

le sage doit au dedans retirer son âme . . . et la tenir en liberté et puissance de juger librement les choses, mais quant au dehors, qu'il doit suivre entièrement des façons et formes reçues. . . . Car, c'est la regle des regles . . .que chacun observe celles du lieu où il est.

He regards it as self-importance and presumption to repudiate accepted beliefs and to establish new ones. The result:

renverser la paix publique et introduire de maux inévitables, et une horrible corruption de moeurs que les guerres civiles rapportent, et mutations de l'état. . . . Me semblant très-inique de vouloir soumettre les constitutions et observances publiques et immobiles, à l'instabilité d'une privée fantasie (la raison n'a qu'une juridiction privée. . . .)^[10]

To the extent that any new ideas, different from the traditional, whether religious, like those of the reformers, or philosophical like those of the "libertines," tempted the typical robin , they reinforced his obligation to maintain control, conserver la façade : "the men attracted by disbelief . . . are those who can least permit themselves to show any signs of it."^[11]

In cases where new ideas had actually taken root, conventional conformity constituted dissimulation of true belief. John Calvin castigated mercilessly those who secretly agreed with him while maintaining a Catholic façade. He called them Nicodemites, after Nicodemus, who came to Jesus

[8] . Pintard, Libertinage , 562-563, citing Gabriel Naudé.

[9] . Ibid., 100-101.

[10] Michel de Montaigne, Essais , ed. E. Courbet and C. Royer (Paris, 1872), "De la coutume," 1:137, 139, 141.

[11] . Pintard, Libertinage , 121.

by night.^[12] A major question to consider in the following chapters arises: of the several religious postures discernible among members of Parlement is there one (or more) that we might label Nicodemite? if so, on what doctrinal grounds? on the basis of what kinds of evidence?

It is never easy and often impossible to be really certain of the doctrinal content of beliefs whose only clear character is their personal, private "inner" nature, as distinct from beliefs expressed externally, in ceremony and ritual. In a singularly important address to the American Historical Association in 1971, William Bouwsma concluded that early modern lawyers, both Catholic and Protestant, shared a preference "for a kind of piety that stressed the spiritual and inward quality of the faith, contrasted it sharply with the world and its ways, and, by emphasizing the incongruity, liberated secular life from direct religious control." They tended to an Augustinian spirituality and were "forced to recognize that the earthly city . . . could at best achieve only a contingent order quite different from that of the heavenly city. . . . For if the lawyer, as secularizer, was in some sense an agent of change, he also represented the need for order and gave expression to the conservative impulses of his age." The role of lawyers in an age of rapidly changing cultural patterns became central, because they were conditioned to the existence of conflicts that could never be entirely eliminated. Solution lay in accommodation. "Their role, in short, was to man the frontiers between the safe and familiar on the one hand, the dangerous and new on the other; between the tolerable and the intolerable; between the conventional world and the chaos beyond it. They constituted a kind of civil militia, whose difficulties were compounded by the fact that the precise location of the frontiers to which they were assigned was rarely clear, and these frontiers were constantly changing. We may well ask what kind of men these were."^[13] This study is one attempt to answer that question, in the limited context of parlementaire mentalité , and the predicament described is precisely that of our robins , when their own religious tradition was faced with the drastic challenges of the sixteenth century.

The "modest" low-key religious attitude prescribed by La Roche-Flavin for aspiring magistrates characterized L'Estoile's reportage of parlementaire behavior. Moreover, he consistently practiced what he preached. Excep-

[12] . Calvin's attitude toward Nicodemism is succinctly expressed in his exchange with the liberal Catholic reformer Jacopo Sadoleto (W. Braun et al., eds., Johannis Calvini opera [Braunschweig, 1863-1900], vol. 5, cols. 386-387, vol. 6, cols. 589-618). See also Élisabeth Labrousse, "Plaidoyer pour le nicodémisme," Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 82 (1987): 259-270.

[13] . Bouwsma, "Lawyers and Early Modern Culture," 312-314.

tional, as previously mentioned, is the extensive statement of his personal religious beliefs during a critical illness in September 1610. He was sixty-four years old. Deeply troubled by suspicions—hardening into accusations—of heresy, he felt compelled to set the record straight, especially to spare his children the stigma. After a lifetime of fiercely guarded silence or indirect allusions to faith even in the Mémoires-Journaux , the stress of speaking out was painful; acute physical suffering and the expectation of imminent death steeled his determination. Once he resolved to speak out, the dam broke. The torrent of words (eleven pages in the Brunet edition) gives the impression of a man in great haste, fearing that he would run out of time or strength before finishing the task.^[14]

The most significant points follow: On Thursday, September 2,

God afflicted me with . . . several infirmities, the least of which would have been enough to kill me had not the hand on high that had always sustained me [intervened] . . . for beside the fever and a great intestinal hemorrhage, my hemorrhoids were on fire, causing difficulty of urinating that tormented me as much or more than all the rest. . . . Believing that God was about to call me, which was also the opinion of all those present, including my doctors, I requested that the last rites . . . be administered by the vicar of St-André who came on Tuesday, the 14th of the month (11:7).

At this meeting there was a long discussion about whether the Eucharist could be administered in both kinds, as L'Estoile wished, or only in one, as was the common practice. L'Estoile could not agree that this was a matter of indifference, "as some leaders of this church tried to make [him] believe."

I have always believed and [still] believe that a good Christian should not be deprived of so great a benefit in the hour when he most needs it because of a corruption of the form; the principal should not be rejected because of an accessory, as those of the Religion do, having entirely abolished the practice [of extreme unction]. [All their arguments] I find vain and futile, serving only to uproot a holy practice in God's church, [one] not contrary to His word but conforming to it, though masked by the abuses and corruption that have slipped in, which it is necessary to remove and reform and restore to correct usage, as all good men, myself the first, hope for, and not to abolish a thing good and holy in itself (11:8).

[14] . L'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Brunet, 11:7-17 (parenthetical cites in this chapter's discussion refer to the Brunet edition).

The discussion was studded with Pierre's citations from the fathers of the church, in Latin, with chapter and verse. There was no meeting of minds. Pierre continues,

The day before, the 13th, wishing to confess and be reconciled [with God] before receiving the sacrament, I requested that a Jacobin, named Père des Landes, who seemed to preach more purely than others, come to visit me. He did so and consoled me greatly. His object was, after chastising my sins and asking me to beg God's forgiveness, to extract from me a declaration that I would die in the faith of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church. There was no difficulty about complying with the first two requirements . . . but as for the third, on which he strongly insisted (remonstrating that to believe everything the Roman Church believed, and that it could not err, was necessary for salvation), I could not yield, seeing that the contrary was apparent on several doctrinal matters; until, overcome by feebleness of body and spirit. . . . I conceded, on condition that he could prove to me that the Roman Church of today conformed in every way to that of the ancient church, of the Apostles and Saint Paul, which preached only Jesus Christ crucified, recognizing no other basis for salvation, in which Roman faith I had always lived and wished to die. He promised me to do so if God restored my health (although I seriously doubt that he could, able as he is). We stopped there and I fear that's where we'll stay (11:9).

L'Estoile writes that he cannot remember some other points discussed, but he does remember the Jacobin speaking of the invocation of saints as an important practice of the church. "To which I responded that I recognized only one maître des requêtes in heaven, Jesus Christ, my savior and sole mediator, and that, miserable sinner that I might be, I was confident that in appealing to Him, . . . I should never be turned away." He appeased the monk somewhat by conceding that the invocation of saints "and even of the dead" was a very ancient custom, "and that I would be glad to be instructed by a good and learned man like him, if he could prove that this was in accord with Holy Scripture, where there is no mention of it, which made it hard for me to believe" (11:10).

He concludes that he would always honor this good monk for his patience and for having kindly put up with his frankness—a frankness occasioned by his conviction that he was on the edge of death ("though God ordained otherwise") and had arrived at that moment when, as Montaigne says in his Essais ,^[15]

[15] . L'Estoile was an ardent admirer of Montaigne, whom he calls his vade mecum in a detailed justification of the Mémoires-Journaux inserted in the middle of the year 1606 (ed. Brunet, 8:225-227); see the full text in the appendix.

it is necessary to speak French and show whatever is good and clean at the bottom of the pot. That is why, if he had not offered me this liberty, I would have taken it, for my nature is such that I will always turn to open dissent rather than to hypocrisy (though God keep me from the one or the other!). I am only annoyed that this good father believes (as he has since said) that I hold mistaken and heretical opinions, discordant with the teachings of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, which I have never intended, except insofar as the disaccord that I have on several points with the latter is in accordance (as I believe that it is) with the word of God, which I will always prefer to the commands and traditions of popes and of men. I learned also that he told my son that I had many heretical books of all sorts that I had avidly read, which was one of the reasons for my maintaining my errors. Upon which I remembered that when I was at my most feeble, the good man spoke to me and exhorted me to get rid of them and not to read them any longer. I know that he did so out of concern for my salvation, but reading them has not—by the grace of God—made me a worse Christian, for I never sought there the solutions to present-day religious controversies; rather I sought it in the writings of the ancient fathers of the church, whom I much prefer to the moderns, and I regret that the time I employed to read the latter was not given instead to the ancients (11:11-12).

But even more important than the church fathers to L'Estoile was Holy Scripture, "for it is the word of the living God, which should be our guide and star to steer by, as it was for the ancient fathers. I value only one book in the world, which is my entire consolation; it is the Bible and the New Testament." He insists that he is a "child of the Roman church," because in it he received the "mark of the children of God," by which God would assuredly recognize him as His own.

I do not, however, overlook how much this [present] church has degenerated from the primitive one, of which one can recognize only the faint traces, even though the foundation (which is the principal thing) has remained. I cannot admit and defend the errors because God forbids it. I will always wholeheartedly embrace its reform, but I will never consent to its dissipation; and even if she is a whore (as the Huguenots say), still she is my mother, to whom the sovereign magistrates must render her purity and original nuptial habits. In the meantime, I will pray God for her amendment, but I will not leave her or depart and join the other, where I find as many faults, in customs and in doctrines, as in this one, and I think that if [the other] had lasted only half as long, it could better be called Deformed than Reformed. . . . I don't say that a good thing couldn't be made out of the two of them, removing from one its excess and adding to the other what it lacks. But three things prevent this: lack of charity, insufficient zeal for the glory of God, and stubbornness, which is the last resort of the ignorant.

I will cling, therefore, to this old trunk (though rotten) of the papacy, in which one finds the church, even though it is not the church (11:13).

To substantiate this opinion, L'Estoile then quotes a Calvinist minister in Geneva and a long passage from Luther's commentary of Galatians. "Thus," he concludes, "according to the testimony of Lutherans and even of Calvinists, one can remain in the Roman Church, corrupt as it is, and still achieve salvation." He remains in the church, because to do otherwise would be to desert the upbringing and education he was given. But, for the sake of those who come after him, he wishes also to register the fact that nothing would have made him leave—or might yet make him leave—the Catholic church more surely than if he had been "constrained to observe certain ceremonies and superstitious practices that are the fashion, as happened during the League, under whose tyranny and constraint [he] often sweated bitterly on this account." Now that all these things are again left to an individual's own judgment, he has resolved to live and die in the Roman Catholic church, in accordance with the final wishes of his deceased father ("a good and most God-fearing man, as everyone knows"), who also desired the reformation of the church but thought no good would come from leaving it. He quotes his father's instructions to his teacher, Matthieu Béroald, a Calvinist who later became a minister in Geneva, and emphasizes that Béroald was forbidden to encourage Pierre (who was twelve years old at the time) to leave the Roman Catholic church but at the same time was told not to bring him up in "its abuses and superstitions."

This last wish of such a good father has always remained and will eternally remain engraved at the bottom of my heart and soul; praying God to grant me the grace to live and die as he did, that is to say, in the faith of the son of God crucified, which was his sole and unique hope, which is mine also, and I desire that it be passed on to my children, so that they will never recognize any purge for their sins but the blood of Jesus Christ, nor accept any reward except that gained for us all by His death and passion (11:14-15).

The account concludes with a moral, as usual with L'Estoile. He had missed all the events in Paris during his illness but considers that he gained more than he lost since "they were all foolishness and wastes of time," and quotes Saint Gregory and, finally, Saint Augustine who, when "regretting many things he wished he had not done in his youth, came to the conclusion that they had been sent to him as a punishment, confessing at the same time that God was just. I say the same, and with this holy person glorify God and cry out my thanks" (11:17).

It is obvious that L'Estoile's intense interest in and profound knowledge of theology and the range of conflicting arguments were greater by far than

laymen generally possessed, even including lawyers in the era of the Wars of Religion, when religious questions were entangled with relations of church and state. We cannot, therefore, postulate such well-formulated religious views on the part of other moderate magistrates, Catholic, but critical of the contemporary church to the extent of compromise on certain beliefs that were not doctrinally central, such as use of the vernacular and discipline of the clergy. We can, however, explore indications in the sources, while emphasizing the sociopolitical factors that underlay the moderates' position and distinguished them from their ultra colleagues, in successive periods from the 1520s to the 1580s.

Challenges to the Tradition

Major elements of the sixteenth-century French Catholic tradition were called in question by the reform movement as soon as it materialized in new institutionalized form, specifically that of John Calvin in the French Reformed Church. Although the first edition of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion , with the dedication to François I and refused by the king, appeared in 1536, it was not until about twenty years later that the new movement came of age as a specific rival to the old church. In the interval the problem of heresy was diffuse—although all forms were labeled "Lutheran." There were several degrees of deviation from orthodoxy in this second quarter of the century. Some dissenters in all classes, not negligible, but difficult to estimate precisely, found the "abuses" of the Roman church offensive, often including among the abuses some well-established practices like the sale of indulgences. A much smaller segment of dissenters moved from talk to action, by violating the rules (for example, eating meat on fast-days), committing blasphemy (very loosely defined), attending unauthorized preaching, possessing forbidden books, and other actions officially condemned by church or state. A narrow scholarly group, surrounding the well known humanist-reformer leaders Guillaume Briçonnet, bishop of Meaux, and Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples constituted the nucleus of evangelical reformers under the protection of Marguerite de Navarre, the king's sister. They challenged the papacy—at least by implication—concerning the intercession of saints and the doctrine of Purgatory, on the grounds that these were not to be found in the Gospels and therefore had been humanly rather than divinely instituted.

In this fluid period at midcentury, to be "suspect" of any of these degrees of unorthodoxy exposed one to persecution and/or prosecution by both the

church and the state—which was embodied in the crown's edicts and the power of the courts, especially the Parlement of Paris. Yet challenges to core Catholic dogma were as yet rare; repudiation of the mass was limited to a scattering of virtually unknown radicals (such as the perpetrators of the placards ) and attacks on the papacy and the sacramental system were generally based on their absence from the New Testament, which was a respectable position in an age whose motto was ad fontes . In general, even where the challenge to Roman doctrines was substantial, French doctrines to replace them were lacking.

Of course, some fully formulated heresies were circulating in Europe before the 1550s; Luther's, adopted by the northern German and Scandinavian states in the 1530s, Anglicanism, the Strasbourg reform, many forms of Anabaptism, and, most important, the Swiss movement of Zwingli in Zurich, followed by other reformers in Bern, Basel, and Geneva, the latter led by Guillaume Farel.^[16] But none of these had much impact in France, not even the movement led by Farel until after he had attracted other Frenchmen to Geneva—notably John Calvin. The "openness" of the second quarter of the century, when all sorts of compromises and accommodations seemed possible, gave way to an increasingly polarized situation, with each side maintaining, Whoever is not with us is against us, and since God is with us, the others are agents of Satan and should be exterminated. Eventually these reciprocal recriminations would produce rival camps, each with its own confessional-political propaganda, fighting civil wars of religion in France and the Netherlands, as had already happened in the Germanies.

For a Frenchman to leave the traditional faith and embrace that of the Reformed Church (Calvinist) entailed not only a new theology, a new morality, a new view of heaven and earth, church and state, and different rituals but also different interpretations of human history and even differences in personal, inner piety. Moreover, the new religion could not serve as the cement of society, as did the old, whose chief champions had been kings of France, since it specifically differentiated the spiritual community (the church) from the secular community. To belong to the former one had to take definite personal initiatives, and the church stood aloof from—above—the latter. The definitions were drawn up and the regulations enforced not by the king and his council, nor by the bishops he had appointed, but by a new single-minded breed of men, who made stringent demands

[16] . Guillaume Farel (1489-1565), most influential of the early French reformers, brought Calvin to Geneva in 1535-36.

on the faithful in every sphere of life and made, significantly, the same demands on lord and serf, rich and poor, men, women, and children—lay and cleric alike.

The new church could be national in that its leaders and language were French, and in that it was confined within national frontiers, but it could not maintain the position of France as the superior member within the universal church—as did the traditional Gallican church. For a Frenchman to leave the old church was, then, to accept a bouleversement of values far beyond the confines of religious belief. For a parlementaire there would be a further disorientation in that the guardianship of the Gallican liberties was a basic function on which the court's existence and prestige depended.

The other new ideology, that of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, began to crystallize in France in the 1560s, but its heyday occurred in the years following 1584, year of the death of the last Valois male after Henri III then reigning, leaving Henri de Bourbon, king of Navarre, first prince of the blood, and leader of the Huguenots as heir presumptive. The raison d'être of the Holy League, led by the Guise-Lorraine family with the support of Spain and the papacy, was to prevent Henri, a heretic, from succeeding to the throne. Since the "heretic" had an indisputable claim under the Salic law and the regular rules of succession, they argued that a more fundamental law required the king to be Catholic, as already mentioned. In the interim, under Henri III, the heretic party survived all attempts to exterminate it, from confiscation of goods and banishment to death-by-fire for individuals and all-out war against the party. In ultra-Catholic eyes the policies of the crown constituted appeasement of the forces of evil, at least, and to the fanatics Henri III was a "tyrant" for tolerating them and especially for the murder of the champions of the true church (the young duke Henri de Guise and his brother the cardinal de Guise, assassinated in the château of Blois on Christmas Eve 1588). In contrast to traditional Gallican Catholicism, the Holy League favored increased papal power over the French church, with a consequent reduction in national autonomy. In political terms, the League was a part of the Spanish attempt to gain European hegemony through championship of the Roman Catholic cause. It was ultramontane in two respects, therefore, looking beyond the Alps to Rome and beyond the Pyrenees to Madrid.

Tridentine Catholicism, in short, posed a brutal and direct challenge to special parlementaire values and concerns. The claim of the League to be defender of the faith ironically compounded the discomfort of Frenchmen already struggling with the desire to preserve the old system but at the same time to allow for needed reforms. Polarization of religious options

created a terrible dilemma for traditional Gallicans, who found less comfort at the hands of their alleged defenders—ligueurs —than those of their heretical enemies.

Parlementaire Response to the Challenges

The robin religious tradition was faced with new challenges, one on each extreme: how would they respond? Of course, responses to ideological challenges are always conditioned by or filtered through factors in the particular historical environment. In sixteenth-century France, the factors through which responses to the reform were filtered contrasted with those of the Germanies, divided into more than three hundred states, and equally with those of Spain, where church and state had united to suppress heresy and eliminate abuses long before the appearance of Martin Luther. The independent Venetians—so reminiscent of our Gallicans—responded differently from the Spanish-ruled kingdom of the two Sicilies.^[17] In England, native traditions of unorthodoxy (Lollardy) and anticlericalism, combined with strong royal leadership, favored a relatively easy institutional break from the old church, leaving unresolved doctrinal differences to plague the country for generations. All French subjects were affected by the interpenetration of Roman Catholicism with the French national culture, and therefore by relations between the crown and the papacy; because of the special linkage between the Parlement and the Gallican church, parlementaires were particularly sensitive to every nuance of tension and every shift in the policy of either the king or the pope, no matter how slight. With the polarization of all western Europe in the second half century, France became the central arena of ideological and military struggle between the Protestant-Gallican and Counter-Reformation forces. All French subjects were affected, at least potentially, by the alliances and enmities of the crown, with their shifting patterns in war and diplomacy. Here too, the Parlement was necessarily and directly involved: the success of the League-Spanish forces would violate the fundamental laws, change the royal succession, and destroy the Gallican church, while the triumph of Catherine de Médicis's policy of a degree of toleration for the Huguenots would violate the unity of un roi, une loi, une foi and risk accession of a heretic king in the near future.

Doubtless the fact that the religious reform had its roots in the Renaissance and arose from the intellectual movement of returning to the sources,

[17] . Paolo Sarpi, Lettere ai gallicani , ed. B. Ulianich (Wiesbaden, 1961).

classical and Christian, made a profound appeal to the educated robin elite, amongst whom were to be found the greatest number of writers and the owners of the most comprehensive libraries in France. And aside from religious issues, the general relations between the court and the crown had a determining effect on parlementaire perceptions of religious policy. It is significant, for example, that relations with François I were antagonistic from the outset, because of his disregard for the rules of recruitment, followed by the Concordat struggle, which was more constitutional than religious. The court was already outraged before the matter of heresy arose. With Henri II, on the contrary, relations were generally harmonious, and it was easy for crown and court to join forces against heresy, except when Henri II seemed to threaten the Gallican liberties, indeed the crown's own autonomy, notably by a proposal to institute an inquisition in 1555.^[18]

These conditioning factors stood in different relations to each other at different times, naturally. When tensions were sharp between Parlement and François I over the Concordat, relations between the royal government and Rome were harmonious. In the regency of Catherine de Médicis (1560-63) there was less strain between France and the papacy than between France and Spain, and the latter was mild compared to the extreme antagonism between Catherine and Parlement. In the final years of Henri III's reign (1584-89), the king and the court were at sword's points over religious policy and the legality of the League but closed ranks to support the status of Henri de Bourbon as heir apparent under the Salic law, while Rome was abetting the ligueur -Spanish attempt to invalidate it. There was some opposition from the court to every one of the Edicts of Toleration (between 1562 and 1598) because the court opposed any breach of the solidarity of un roi, une foi . Yet such fears paled in parlementaire eyes when the Counter-Reformation forces took the offensive—so much more threatening than Huguenot demands.

When the successive configurations among the various factors are studied in chronological sequence, two kinds of pattern emerge. One is in the dimension of time: there were periods of acute tension concerning religious policy, tension between the court and religious dissidents—of whatever persuasion—tension between the court and the crown, and, most significantly, tensions within the Parlement itself. Each period covered several years (up to a decade in two cases), clearly bounded by some striking event or shift in policy at the beginning—such as the Berquin case, or the re-

[18] . Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:2-6; Sutherland, "An Inquisition in France?," 370-372.

sumption of severe repression in 1540 after a period of "amnesty"—and by another at the end, which, by causing a marked (often sudden) drop in tension, initiated a period of "decompression" or détente. Such was the amnesty of the mid-thirties, and the let-up of pressure that followed the termination of the special court for heresy, the Chambre Ardente, in 1551.^[19] The starting points of these periods, when the tension mounts sharply, I call the "pressure points of the century." The intervals of decompression generally lasted about half as long as the periods of tension: for instance, the tension-period 1540-51 was followed by a decompression between 1551 and 1557. The particular group of parlementaires active in religious policy at any given time constituted a generation or cohort in operational terms, although of course some would be near the end of their careers and others just beginning. Among the leaders in our early generation, Thibault Baillet died in 1525, when the confrontation between the court and the regent was at its height; his colleague Charles Guillart outlived him by a dozen years, and his colleague Jean Prévost by thirty years (his fiftieth year of service in the court was celebrated in 1555).

The other pattern is the range of religious options discernible within the Parlement mainstream. During every period of tension there were noticeable differences among magistrates in attitude toward heresy and in religious policies advocated, forming a spectrum (roughly from more liberal to more fanatical, but accurate descriptions can only be given in the specific context). The options were not precisely the same in any two periods, because they were often not so much chosen as imposed by circumstances. Analysis of the several spectra will follow in chapters 6-10. A prerequisite is to establish the chronology of the pressure points and the parameters of the respective time periods.

The Concordat of Bologna

The first manifestations of reform sentiment (Lefèvre's translations of the Bible, and the first phase of the Berquin case, 1522-23) took place in the aftermath of the struggle between François I and the Parlement over the Concordat of Bologna. The active struggle itself had lasted nearly fourteen months (February 1517 to March 1518) exhausting and embittering to both sides, for the fight did not end with the enforced registration by the court and the king's victory. It was a case of "fire in the ashes." Parlement's opposition, which never died out entirely, was easily fanned into renewed

[19] . Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:4-7.

flame in the 1520s by acts of the crown, under the Concordat, which would have been illegal under the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges and were therefore regarded by the Parlement as violations of the Gallican liberties. Another factor contributing to the court's "guerrilla warfare" against the Concordat was the virtually unbroken leadership of Parlement throughout the decade. Baillet had died in midstream, to be sure, but he left a heritage of eloquent argument for his colleagues to use, and none of the other leaders disappeared from the scene before the end of the decade, and by then the Concordat was no longer in the foreground. Chancellor Antoine Duprat was the chief villain in Parlement's eyes. Duprat's high-handed manner of dealing with the court would have created antagonism in any case, but the facts that he had formerly been a member and that he had succeeded in placing many protégés in important royal offices added bitterness. His nomination to the benefices of Sens and St-Benoît, over the expressed opposition of the canons and the monks to whom the choice belonged under the Pragmatic Sanction, compounded his original crime by making him its chief beneficiary.

The Concordat contradicted the specific provisions of the Pragmatic Sanction, both by substituting royal nomination for the election of bishops and abbots by their chapters, and by requiring that certain ecclesiastical revenues be reported to Rome. Gallicans feared that this latter was a step toward the restoration of annates. In addition, the superiority of the pope to church councils was implied. During the first six months of the struggle the strategy of the court was delay while using every weapon in its arsenal: citing all the precedents, claiming that a full convocation of the clergy was required, challenging the legitimacy of the presence of several royal spokesmen sent to intimidate them, setting up repeated commissions to study the question.^[20]

On July 24, 1517, these tactics had to be abandoned. On that day speaking through Baillet, the court courageously refused to register the Concordat as "against the honor of God, the liberties of the Gallican church, the honor of the king, and the welfare of the kingdom." The king's retort, drawn up by Duprat, denied the existence of the Gallican liberties and the superiority of councils to the pope. As one historian says, "Both the king's policy and his procedure were arbitrary and Parlement was bound to oppose him on both counts."^[21] Six months later the court was still defiant. The king openly

[20] . On the Concordat of Bologna see R. J. Knecht, "The Concordat of 1516: A Reassessment," University of Birmingham Historical Journal 9 (1963): 16-32; and his Francis I , ch. 4; Shennan, The Parlement of Paris , 193-197.

[21] . Sherman, The Parlement of Paris , 194, 195.

threatened a delegation of parlementaires with virtual abolition of the court if resistance continued. There was only one king in France, he reminded them, and the Parlement was not a senate, as in Venice. If they continued to be stubborn (obstinés ), the mildest fate that would befall them would be to follow his lead (trotter après lui ) as mere members of the royal suite; the worst fate was suggested by the hint that he would replace them with obedient subjects who would confine themselves to the administration of justice and refrain from meddling in affairs of state, or even that he might remove Parlement from the capital altogether.

The immediate dilemma was solved by a compromise proposed by the avocat général, Jean Le Lièvre: the Concordat was a contract between the king and the pope made independently of the Gallican church and thus could not affect its rights. The gens du roi therefore recommended registration by Parlement under the formula de expresso mandato regis (at the express command of the king). In its own arrêt on the matter, Parlement stipulated that it would continue to return judgments affecting benefices according to the Pragmatic Sanction. And it put a statement into the secret register, again expressing its stand. Historians' opinions of these actions range from accusations of cowardice to congratulations for courageous independence.^[22]

After François I was captured at Pavia and imprisoned in Madrid, northeastern France and Paris itself lay open to attack from the Netherlands, which were ruled by the emperor. Louise de Savoie, as regent, called on Parlement to take charge of the defense of the capital. The response was prompt, loyal, and whole-hearted, as leaders of the court rallied all segments of the population, produced plans for all contingencies, and personally participated in their implementation. The non-judicial authority of the court, so recently denied by the king, was dramatically demonstrated. But Parlement also seized the occasion to "advise" the regent's government, and premier président Jean de Selve went to Lyon in April 1525 with a long list of remonstrances. The Concordat, Parlement's prerogatives, evocation—all were included. The overall message was the need to restore the traditional, constitutional equilibrium.^[23]

Another phase of the struggle took place over the rival claims to the

[22] . Sherman, The Parlement of Paris , 195-196. See also Roger Doucet, Étude sur le gouvernement de François I dans ses rapports avec le Parlement de Paris (Paris, 1921), 1:168; Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:580-581.

[23] . Shennan, The Parlement of Paris , 197-198. R. J. Kalas, "The Selve Family of Limousin: Members of a New Elite in Early Modern France," Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987): 147-172.

benefices of Sens and St-Benoît. The king had evoked the case to the Grand Conseil as soon as he realized the dimensions of Parlement's opposition to his nomination of Duprat to both offices. This was the occasion of Pierre Lizet's important speech denouncing evocations on principle.^[24]

The situation encapsulates the real dilemma created by the Concordat for the Parlement: under its own precedents the court had to uphold petitioners whose cases were illegal under the Concordat, which was now the law of the land. Parlement even launched proceedings to indict the chancellor himself for his violation of the court's jurisdiction, and it proclaimed that rulings of the Grand Conseil were null and void in such matters. The dispute hung fire until after the king's return from Spain; predictably, he gave the judgment to Duprat and demanded the surrender of the court's registers so as to tear out the offending passages. This deadlock was the context of President Charles Guillart's speech setting forth the constitutional view, the parlementaire view.^[25] On the matter of benefices, as on the opposition to the Concordat, the king's will prevailed. Yet before we conclude that this outcome was inevitable and that the constitution was only a delusion or obsession of parlementaires, it is worth recalling that even François I believed that his appointments, edicts, and treaties with foreign powers required registration by the Parlement of Paris if they were to have the force of law.

In these same years, 1521-27, when the struggle over the consequences of the Concordat was going on and the disasters of Pavia and Madrid occurred, another set of events took place: the first of the pressure points initiated the first period of tension over religious dissent, in its new, sixteenth-century, form. This was more than the news of Luther's defiance of pope and emperor, sensational as that was, or scandal over heretical books smuggled into France, arousing vague fears of contagion; this was the stark, explicit repudiation of basic Roman Catholic belief and its replacement by heretical belief, voiced unequivocally in the Parlement of Paris by one of its own members.

Successive Pressure Points and Generations

There were three distinct judicial phases to the case of Louis de Berquin, conseiller clerc, tried for heresy in 1523, 1526, and finally in 1529, when he

[24] . Shennan, The Parlement of Paris , 199-200.

[25] . For Charles Guillart's exposition of the Parlement's interpretation of the constitution, see Hanley, Lit de Justice , 53-55; and Archives Nationales registers of the Parlement (hereafter AN) x^1a 1530, fols. 350v-357v.

was executed. During these six years the tension was building in spurts, as the court confronted François I. The king succeeded in rescuing Berquin on the first two occasions and might have done so again but for the rapidity of Parlement's definitive (and defiant) action. The sharp leap in pressure, however, occurred in the last phase when, in 1528, Paris experienced its first serious outbreak of iconoclastic vandalism, against a revered statue of the Virgin and Child. A sense of shock and outrage swept the city and influenced the Parlement to take a more firm—and also more extreme—stand than it had in previous years. The tension lasted without let-up until after l'affaire des placards (October 1534). Not until then did the king definitively adopt a policy of repression, though his earlier protection of the reformers had been increasingly eroded. In the 1520s, the Sorbonne had espoused the policy of repression firmly, and the Parlement was divided; François I's course made the crown appear to be the most lenient authority toward religious dissent and the most reluctant to resort to repression. The appearance was deceptive, but understandable, in the light not only of the king's interventions in behalf of Berquin but of his much-publicized protection of Briçonnet and Lefèvre. Eventually he turned against them also and silenced even his sister, who was closely associated with them and their ideas of reform within the Catholic fold. However disturbing these events might be, members of Parlement were accustomed to bizarre and irresponsible behavior on the part of les grands . The unorthodoxy—even heresy—of a fellow magistrate was quite another matter, and it posed the problem in terms that made the issue impossible to avoid.

When François I joined the Sorbonne and conservative elements of the Parlement in a dramatic procession through the streets of the capital in 1535, all the voices of authority were singing the same song, and tensions among them dropped rapidly.^[26] (At the same time such unanimity in advocacy of repression created an atmosphere of crisis for the victims and their sympathizers, of course.) During these seven to eight years (1528-35) the articulate leaders of the court were Charles Guillart, Jacques de La Barde, and others of the early generation; only two leaders important in the initial stages had died (Thibault Baillet and Jean de Selve). This was the first generation of Frenchmen to be faced with dissent in religious views, well articulated by their own countrymen (in the case of Berquin, by a colleague) in such a way as to force them to take a position.

Events on the international scene contributed to the détente that began

[26] . Knecht, Francis I 250-252; Victor Bourrilly, ed., Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris (Paris, 1910), 358-360, 378-386.

in the latter months of 1535 and lasted until 1540. During these years a new pope (Paul III) was favoring the liberal faction in the College of Cardinals and urging reform rather than repression. More importantly, François I sought an accommodation with the emperor some of the time and at others tried to build up alliances with German princes against the emperor. Some of these princes were adherents of Luther, and while the king's opinion of heretics at home was not softened by his alliances with heretics abroad, in 1535 and 1536 he issued edicts offering amnesty to dissenters who abjured their faith. The pressures were greatly relieved. During the interval, many Frenchmen heard the name of John Calvin for the first time and also learned of the reform movement in the city of Strasbourg, a model of humanist moderation of the sort that would appeal to educated parlementaires.^[27]

All the more brutal, therefore, was the shock when the policy of repression was resumed, with new implementing devices, in the Edict of Fontainebleau of 1540. The pressures escalated, and the renewed tension lasted for more than a decade. The climactic phase was related to the establishment and operation of the Chambre Ardente, between 1548 and 1550. In this period the crown (Henri II) and the court (dominated by Pierre Lizet) were in general agreement, and both persecution and prosecution rose to a new level of ferocity. But there were still some differences on the means to implement the elimination of heresy, and the Parlement resented a decree of 1543 (Edict of Paris) that seemed to reduce the court's traditional power over religious matters, to the advantage of the ecclesiastical authorities. In 1544 a list of prohibited books, prepared earlier by the Sorbonne, was established by royal decree (in imitation of the Roman Index); in 1545 special commissions of parlementaires to seek out heresy in particular regions began to function, providing precedents for both the personnel and the procedures of the Chambre Ardente. In 1546 the humanist Étienne Dolet (sometimes called the "martyr of the Renaissance") and fourteen members of the groupe de Meaux , formerly associated with Briçonnet, were put to death, and a much publicized procession was held some months later in expiation of their sins, at which the presence of all the lawyers licensed to practice before the Parlement was required. Fear of the noose was beginning to be felt in the Palais de Justice itself.^[28]

[27] . All biographies of Calvin deal with his stay in Strasbourg and its influence on him. See William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (Oxford, 1988), 20-22.

[28] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , xxxvi-xxxviii.

It is worth noting that this new period of tension coincided with the collapse of the liberal reform effort in the Roman curia. Paul III began to lean in the direction of the "hard-liners," whose methods would triumph in the coming decades, personified by Cardinal Caraffa, later Paul IV. This leadership, in contrast to that of the liberals, under the Venetian Contarini, believed that no accommodation with heretics was either possible or desirable; their errors should simply be exterminated. The Society of Jesus, founded in 1540, stood ready to implement this policy; the Index and the Inquisition were already functioning in some states, and the Council of Trent held its first session in 1545-46.

The leadership of the court in this period was in perfect agreement with the new direction in Rome, under premier président Pierre Lizet and his alternate, président François de Saint-André. But this group proved to be a transitional generation, because although powerful, the acharnés could not really command and hold the confidence and adherence of the mainstream parlementaires who were not comfortable with their extreme position. Since moderates in the court could not safely voice their objections to the engine of repression on religious grounds (any such hint made one suspect), the initial murmurs of opposition ignored the specifically religious issues altogether and attacked instead the constitutionality of the Chambre Ardente as an "extraordinary tribunal." We have noted the court's resentment of any such body as a threat to the judicial sovereignty of the Parlement.^[29]

A quarrel between Henri II and the papacy (Julius III) over the second session of the Council of Trent in 1551 provoked an incipient Gallican crisis and gave the moderates in Parlement a chance to reassert themselves. The Chambre Ardente had ceased to function, and heresy cases were moved into the Tournelle, the regular chamber for criminal cases. Important changes of personnel within the court itself also contributed to a decompression in the 1550s, especially with the appointment as présidents of two men who rapidly became the leaders of the inner group and remained so for a quarter of a century: Pierre (I) Séguier and Christophe de Thou, both fearless, influential, and solidly traditional in their views. From the outset (1554) they were able to shape Parlement's action and opinion, in part because of the removal from office of Lizet, and his temporary replacement by Jean Bertrand, who was distrusted and disliked, before the assumption of the premier présidence by Gilles Le Maistre, whose ambition often exposed

[29] . Shennan, The Parlement of Paris , 206-207; Bourrilly, ed., Journal d'un bourgeois , 213-216; Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:548-549; Doucet, Gouvernement de François I , 1:60-61.

him to hostile or satirical comment as well. Lizet, Bertrand, Le Maistre, each in his different way, deviated from the mainstream tradition, so that neither the majority of their contemporaries (nor the survivor-spokesmen for the Parlement at the end of the century like Loisel, L'Estoile, and La Roche-Flavin) felt comfortable with their ideas nor confident in their leadership. Séguier and de Thou, in contrast, they perceived as the embodiment of traditional parlementaire virtues.^[30]

The decompression this time lasted five to six years. Although there were some signs of rising pressure in 1555, it did not become acute until 1557. It reached the highest level so far attained in 1559-60 and lasted for four years of escalating crisis including one of open civil war (only in the 1590s would tension be higher). The triggering events of 1557 included one action by the king (a proposal to establish a French inquisition) and one spectacular clash between the newly organized Parisian Calvinist community and the authorities (l'affaire de la rue St-Jacques ). But the complex and prolonged tension of 1557-63 came from the eruption of divisions within the court, formerly suppressed. Brought to light in contrasting judgments of heresy cases, and different reactions to royal religious policy in the context of a series of melodramatic events, these divisions reflected the necessity for each magistrate to think through the ideological puzzle and take a stand, as an individual Christian, as a subject of the French king, and as a member of Parlement.

The fact that the Pacification of Amboise (March 1563), which brought this crisis—together with the First Civil War—to an end coincided with the first major thrust of the Counter-Reformation is extremely significant. As soon as Cardinal Caraffa (Paul IV) ascended the throne of Peter he began to organize the several weapons created (or, in the case of the Inquisition, revived) by his predecessors into a system. The final session of the Council of Trent (1562-63), which provided the framework for the policies of the Roman church for four hundred years, thereafter issued a series of decrees relating to doctrine and to ecclesiastical administration that all Catholic rulers were then pressured to implement in their realms. No powerful ruler easily accepted these decrees, and even Philip II modified them to some extent. In France, they became the focus of the continuing struggle between Gallicans and ultramontanes, together with the legal status of the organi-

[30] . On the Gallican "crisis" of 1551, see Kelley, Foundations , 165-166; and chapter 2; on Pierre (I) Séguier and Christophe de Thou, see many specific references in chapters 1, 6-10, to these two leaders of the mainstream. On the disgrace of Lizet and its consequences, see Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:234 n.4; and AN x^1a 1567, fols. 219, 223, 317.

zation most effective in carrying them out—the Society of Jesus. The Trent decrees and the Jesuits became the immediate targets, pushing the Concordat into the background—but never out of sight. Although declining to yield his own secular power over the church in Spain, Philip II, as is well known, committed his financial, diplomatic, and, when necessary, military power to the Catholic cause throughout the continent. In France, that meant partnership with the ultra-Catholic Guise-Lorraine party. The result was pivotal to our study: traditional Gallican concern with heresy faded in face of the much greater threat from Rome and Madrid. This shift of attention was entirely realistic; the ligueur -Spanish party was much stronger than the Huguenot party, even when the latter had the support of England and several German princes, and also at times stronger than the royalist-Gallican forces even when allied with the Huguenots in order to maintain the balance against the Counter-Reformation party.^[31]

The end of this time segment, therefore, marks a break in our series. Whereas in the thirty-five years from the late 1520s to the early 1560s, the various shifts in parlementaire attitudes and policy were determined by the dual challenge to tradition from the dissidents on the one hand and from royal policy on the other, in the remaining years (into the early seventeenth century) the tensions between Gallican-traditionalists and the ultra-Catholics, foreign and domestic, were overriding. This did not mean greater acceptance of non-Catholic religious belief by parlementaires—far from it. In fact, the attitudes hammered out in the earlier decades were pretty well set by 1562. On certain occasions in the later decades, contention over policy toward heresy would surface again briefly—especially at the occurrence of a truce in the endemic civil wars. The Huguenot forces rarely managed to prevail in battle but always avoided final defeat and, when truces were signed, gained concessions: a measure of freedom of worship, access to offices and privileges, and politico-military autonomy in regions they already held. As one of the leading Catholic captains exclaimed in exasperation, "We win on the field and they with their damned documents!"^[32]

The changed pattern after 1563 produced two periods of lesser tension over religious policy. One was in 1568, in the six months between the second and third civil wars, when there was a renewal of legal discrimination against Huguenots and the imposition of a second profession of faith on

[31] . On parlementaire hostility to the Trent decrees from the 1560s to the first years of the seventeenth century, see V. Martin, Gallicanisme , esp. 44-54, 188-211, 303-343.

[32] . Blaise de Monluc, Commentaires, 1521-1576 , ed. R. Courteault (Paris, 1964), 800.

royal officers. It lasted only until the end of the third war (August 1570). The decompression this time involved the most important of Catherine de Médicis's repeated attempts at reconciliation of the factions. The marriage of Henri de Navarre to one of the Valois daughters was to be the showpiece of this policy, and the crowning realization of the queen mother's dream. Unfortunately for long-range peace, the détente did not last. The presence of Huguenot leaders in fanatically Catholic Paris caused an explosion of anti-Huguenot prejudice, in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, four days after the wedding, August 24, 1572.^[33] A second period of lesser tension occurred in 1576, when another Edict of Pacification—officially the Edict of Beaulieu, but usually referred to as the Peace of Monsieur—after the king's brother—stimulated the organization of the Holy League as a united movement (up to this point there had been a variety of regional leagues). The League challenged the king, Henri III, and supported policies that threatened the Gallican church.

An uneasy equilibrium prolonged the situation of 1563. We cannot speak of a "freeze" because there were three brief wars in the twenty-one years between the Pacification of Amboise and the death of Alençon in 1584, but in general the restraining factors prevailed over those threatening to upset the status quo. Two of the latter were new.^[34] The active intervention of foreign powers on both sides, with military power supplementing diplomacy, blocked a military victory by any side. Of the nations involved, only Spain might (conceivably) have been strong enough, but it would have been a victory worse than Pyrrhic, and Philip hoped to prevail at a lesser cost. Catherine de Médicis's government became even weaker as she sought to reconcile factions and avoid war, civil or foreign, at almost any price—except capitulation to either faction. The weakness of the crown was hardly new, but as the decades dragged on, a general unraveling of morale took place, partly as a result of the feuds within the Valois family, which drew increasing comment.^[35] The attack of the Huguenot pamphleteers on the

[33] . The works of N.M. Sutherland, especially The Massacre of St. Bartholomew and the European Conflict (London, 1973), were initially responsible for revision of Catherine's role, although the legend of "the wicked Italian queen" lingers in popular treatments. The relation of the Parlement to this major event is discussed in chapter 10.

[34] . On the interval and the causes and results of the Third Civil War (1568-1570) see Salmon, Society in Crisis , chs. 8-9; Nancy L. Roelker, Queen of Navarre: Jeanne d'Albret, 1528-1572 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 297-300; J. Shimizu, Conflict of Loyalties: Politics and Religion in the Career of Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, 1519-1572 (Geneva, 1970), esp. 125-130.

[35] . On the feuds in the Valois family see Roelker, Queen of Navarre , ch. 12 n.26; on dispatch of the Florentine ambassador (August 20, 1570) see A. Desjardins and G. Canestrini, eds., Négotiations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane (Paris, 1859-1875), 3:639.

royalist tradition was decidedly new, but its effects were further to isolate the Huguenots from the general population, and to reinforce in magistrates' minds their loyalty to the tradition of un roi, une foi . If a spokesman for the reformed faith advocated a revival of the Estates General and attacked Parlement for usurping its functions, as did François Hotman in the Franco-Gallia , parlementaires held up the work as confirming the irresponsibility and danger of religious dissent, a social evil that it was Parlement's duty to stamp out.^[36] The implications for private belief also had a restraining effect. In the prevailing circumstances public adherence to the reform had become unthinkable for a member of the court; if he nevertheless held dissenting beliefs, he must keep them to himself, behind a safe, conformist façade. (He might, in other words, become a Nicodemite.)

Our final period of tension was initiated by the death of Alençon in 1584, which shocked Frenchmen into the realization that Henri de Bourbon would almost certainly become king at the death of Henri III, which could not be far off. Navarre's personal adherence to Calvinism, and even more his leadership of the Huguenot party, made this prospect unwelcome to many—and virtually unconstitutional to those for whom un roi, une foi was fundamental, if not officially a fundamental law. The pressure jumped up noticeably at once, and a new ultra-Catholic offensive sprang into being, sometimes called "the second League." It was in fact the old League, reorganized and reinvigorated, under the leadership of the second generation of the Guise-Lorraine family. With the help of Spain and the papacy they succeeded in capitalizing on the public discontents in French cities and towns to the point of open rebellion—in Paris on the Day of the Barricades, May 12, 1588.^[37] Henri III was repudiated on the grounds that his weakness and concessions to heresy prevented him from fulfilling his royal duty, and after the assassination of the Guise brothers he was proclaimed a tyrant for persecuting the defenders of the true church. Under the doctrine of tyrannicide it became not merely legitimate but meritorious for anyone to assassinate him, without any special authorization.

[36] . Much has been written about the Huguenot "monarchomachs" and their pamphlets, especially by Kelley, Giesey, Salmon, and Franklin; and on Bèze's Droit des magistrats: e.g., Julian H. Franklin, ed., Constitutionalism and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1969); Kelley, François Hotman ; Hotman, Franco-Gallia .

[37] . The Day of the Barricades and the upheaval that followed figure in every history of the period. Pierre de L'Estoile's account, one of the fullest, is in his Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Roelker, 145-152.

Parlementaires found such disorder an abhorrence. The leadership that had to deal with it was in the hands of a younger generation, for the first time in twenty-five years. Pierre (I) Séguier had died in 1580, Christophe de Thou in 1582. There were of course many elements of continuity, in personnel and in opinion; the elite core was now led by Achille de Harlay, son of Christophe de Harlay and son-in-law of Christophe de Thou. His tenure as premier président would last for twenty-nine years (1582-1611), nine years longer than the term of his own predecessor, and he died in 1611, one year after the king whose reign he did much to bring about. The values stamped on the court by de Thou were voluntarily continued by Harlay, so that together they represent a half-century of mainstream mentalité .

The tension of this period did not break at all until the capitulation of Paris to Henri IV in March 1594, following his abjuration of Calvinism the previous July. At a lower level, the tension continued until 1598, the year when the first Bourbon king defeated the League, (with his nobles) drove the Spaniards out of France and then made peace with them in the Treaty of Vervins, and forced the Parlement of Paris to register the Edict of Nantes (February 1599). All the issues we have seen in earlier periods were raised again, but because the royal succession and even the survival of France as an independent nation were also at stake in the 1590s, the pressure was the greatest and the events were the most sensational of the entire century. For the parlementaires themselves the most intense pressure point of all time was the attack on the court by the extremist faction of the Paris League (the Sixteen) that led to the assassination of the premier président, Barnabé Brisson, and two others in November 1591.^[38]

The Parlement of Paris put up the same struggle against the Edict of Nantes in 1598—after thirty-six years of civil war in which religious toleration was one of the main issues—as against the Edict of January 1562 and with many of the same arguments. But as we shall discover in chapter 11, the context was profoundly changed by the presence of a strong king. He was their opponent on the toleration issue and their ally in the Gallican issue, and their struggle was that of the fish on the end of the line held by a master fisherman.

[38] . On Barnabé Brisson see Barnavi and Descimon, Sainte-Ligue ; see also L'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Brunet, vols. 3-4; and Robert Descimon, Qui étaient les Seize? vol. 34 in Mémoires de la Fédération des sociétés historiques et archéologiques de Paris et l'Île de France (Paris, 1983)—a comprehensive biographical dictionary of the movement, with much genealogical as well as socioprofessional documentation.

6
Challenge and Response of the Early Generation
Mid-1520s to Mid-1530s

Early Manifestations of Unorthodoxy

For historians of the French Reformation, the early 1520s are notable for Guillaume Briçonnet's reform of his diocese of Meaux, where he became co-leader of reform-minded Frenchmen with the humanist scholar Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, whose vernacular translations of the Bible were just being published. Both enjoyed the patronage of Marguerite d'Angoulême, later queen of Navarre, the king's sister, and their three names have continued to be identified with what the French call the pré-réforme . Translations of Luther's pamphlets of 1520, condemning the sacramental system and celibacy, and calling on the German princes to reform the churches of their respective states, were circulating throughout Europe. Not far behind was news of his excommunication, his defiance of the emperor (1521), and the changes in liturgy he introduced in Wittenberg after his rescue by Elector Frederick "the Wise" of Saxony, in 1522. For Parisian parlementaires, however, events in Germany were material rather for amazed gossip than for serious concern. Even the new ideas of Marguerite and her protégés did not loom large by comparison with events close to Parlement's interests, such as the king's creation of new judicial offices and establishment of a system of municipal bonds (rentes de l'Hôtel de Ville ) as ways of augmenting the royal revenues. To be sure, the Sorbonne had condemned Luther's works as heretical, together with Lefèvre's translations, and Parlement prohibited the publication of any religious books lacking the imprimatur of the faculty of theology. The "menace of Lutheranism" began to be mentioned in Parisian diaries.^[1]

[1] . Ludovic Lalanne, ed., Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris (Paris, 1854), 94; Versoris, Livre de raison , 122.

But the court as a whole was not yet aroused on the subject of heresy, and between the representatives of unorthodoxy and those who attacked it stood the royal family's sponsorship of the new learning. Yet the royal family's position was not monolithic. Marguerite's stand was clearly with the humanist reformers but that of her mother was ambiguous. Louise de Savoie had always exerted the greatest influence over her son, understandably in view of his debt to her ambition and political ability. Louise visited Meaux in the early fall of 1521 and a letter of Marguerite's to Briçonnet shortly thereafter says that her mother and brother were ready to defend the "évangéliques contre les calomnies des hypocrites."^[2] A year later, however, Briçonnet wrote, "Le bois que vous vouliez faire bruler est encore trop vert. . . . Le roi et Madame ne sont pas mûrs pour la réforme évangélique."^[3]

Those who believe that the queen mother was, like her daughter, a true believer in and sponsor of the reform, base their opinion on an entry in her so-called Journal for December 1522, expressing antagonism to the ultraconservatives: "Mon fils et moi . . . commencens à cognoistre les hypocrites blancs, noirs, gris . . . et de toutes couleurs." At the time of this entry Louise was angered by attacks on Michel d'Arande, a member of her household who was "reading scripture" with her, a circumstance that might account for the tone rather than personal sympathy with the reform; Louise was not one to take any kind of opposition in stride.^[4] If the argument of a recent article is correct, one aspect of the mystery can be cleared up, namely, the explicitly Protestant tone of the Journal text. Myra Orth's hypothesis is that the Journal was actually ghostwritten by François Du Moulin, one of Louise's Franciscan advisers who had been a tutor of young François in Angoulême, before his accession. Orth claims, in fact, that Du Moulin was the link between the royal family and the humanist reformers, Budé and Erasmus as well as Lefèvre. Du Moulin seems to have lost favor with Louise about this time, the turn of 1522-23, and Orth asks, "Was the Journal his swansong?" If so, she does not feel able to elucidate the matter.^[5] Orth's attribution would explain the text of the Journal as Du Moulin's unorthodox views are well known, but it leaves the question of Louise's own true

[2] . V. L. Saulnier, "Marguerite de Navarre aux temps de Briçonnet: étude de la correspondance 1521-22," Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 39 (1977): 437-478, letter no. 35, Marguerite to Briçonnet, November 1521.

[3] . Ibid., letter no. 85, Briçonnet to Marguerite, October 1522; my italics.

[4] . Gordon Griffiths, "Louise of Savoy and the Reform of the Church," Sixteenth Century Journal 10 (1979): 30; my italics. Michel d'Arande, member of the queen mother's household, is mentioned in Briçonnet's letter.

[5] . Myra D. Orth, "Francis Du Moulin and the Journal of Louise of Savoy," Sixteenth Century Journal 13 (1982): 55-66.

belief unresolved. While Marguerite, in the Heptaméron , presents the Louise-character, Oisille, as évangélique , I incline to the opinion expressed by V. L. Saulnier that the queen mother was not on the conservatives' side "nor resolutely on that of Briçonnet . . . never allowing herself to be sidetracked from political and practical considerations."^[6]

The same might be said of François I himself. He cultivated the image of Maecenas, a patron on the model of the Italian princes, treating representatives of the new learning as ornaments of his court. The establishment of lecteurs royaux for classical, oriental, and scientific scholars, in 1530, was the crowning manifestation of that policy. This sponsorship earned him the flattering title, père des lettres . The fact that he also protected representatives of the new religious learning (notably Briçonnet, Lefèvre, Clément Marot, and especially Louis de Berquin) from the secular and ecclesiastical authorities produced the impression that he shared the opinions of his sister. Historians prior to the midtwentieth century tended to contrast a pre-reform period of considerable leniency toward dissent on the king's part, with a "crackdown" in the late 1520s and especially after l'affaire des placards (1534). A careful examination of the record does not support the view that François I was seriously interested either in the innovative intellectual currents (Renaissance) or in religious reform. In the former he was a dilettante, and he always opposed "heresy"—or anything else—that undermined royal authority. N.M. Sutherland attributes the conventional misreading to historians' failure to trace out the links between François's religious and political policies, especially in foreign affairs, and to their exaggeration of the significance of his repeated interventions for Berquin. I believe that she is right on the first point but underestimates the importance of the second in contemporary opinion. The parlementaires, at least, were convinced that the crown favored the alleged heretics, with the result that tension between king and court steadily increased.

New scholarship of the 1990s has drawn fresh attention to the problems of interpreting attitudes toward the reformers of both the king and the Parlement. On the one hand, James Farge maintains that the influence of the reformers has been greatly exaggerated, that the title Très Chrétien was much more important than père des lettres , and indeed that the sponsorship of letters was inseparable from the concept of king-priest as sacerdoce royal . Likewise Guillaume Budé, organizer of the lecteurs royaux , believed that the classics gave Christian scholarship greater depth. For "Christian humanists," following Erasmus, true religion had nothing to fear and every-

[6] . Saulnier, "Marguerite de Navarre," 462.

thing to gain in partnership with study of the classics. Indeed the liaison étroite of church and state in opposition to heresy was conspicuous in the very years of the lecteurs royaux .^[7] Farge is certainly right that the Parlement consistently supported the Roman tradition against dissent; even the most open-minded of our magistrates never rejected core Catholic doctrine although conceding "peripheral" changes, such as use of the vernacular.

C.A. Mayer, on the other hand, takes a boldly revisionist view and maintains that the king, and others of the royal family, not only favored the reformers but developed a strategy of elaborate deceit to protect them from exposure, persecution, and prosecution by an argument as follows: only persons who claimed to be followers of Luther were condemned by the pope's bull Exsurge domine (June 1520), and thus Frenchmen who denounced Luther—even while embracing some of his ideas—could escape prosecution by the Sorbonne. According to Mayer, the term évangéliste (or évangélique ) was invented to describe them (and indeed the practice of historians down to the present has been to apply it), a "cover-up" term (faux-fuyant ) Mayer calls parfaitement erroné . Mayer says that they are equivalent terms and that rationalization for évangélisme was based on the correspondence of Marguerite and (especially) Briçonnet, with the false assumption that the Roman church was on the threshold of reforming itself, and that only those who acknowledged Luther were really heretics or Protestants. There are no known French dissenters claiming Luther as their model. In fact, they usually replied to such allegations, "I was not baptized in the name of Martin Luther, but in that of Jesus Christ!"

The correspondence of Marguerite with Briçonnet, in 1521-22, is the only primary source known to the present writer that might support a policy of deliberate deception, and that attributable exclusively to Marguerite. It assumes a commitment to the reform inconsistent with the pragmatic political position of both the king and his mother, abundantly documented; it also conflicts with the humanist Erasmian position of Catholics who were opposed to persecution of dissenters but who also felt a need to differentiate themselves from the ultramontanes of the Sorbonne.

Even less convincing is Mayer's revisionist contention that the Parlement of Paris in the 1520s was antiroyalist, even anti-French, cooperating with Spaniards and others allied with Charles V to delay François's release and

[7] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 18, 22-23; James K. Farge, Le Parti conservateur au XVIe siècle: Université et Parlement de Paris à l'époque de la renaissance et de la réforme (Documents inédits du Collège de France, 1992), 18-19. For a good survey of the early period see Jean Delumeau, Naissance et affirmation de la réforme (Paris, 1965), 142-147.

return to France. Conceivably, this might be true for Jean Bouchard, an obscure figure, whose identity has never been clearly established, but he was anything but representative of the court. The loyalty of ranking magistrates to the monarchy—as distinct from particular sovereigns—is unmistakable throughout the century.^[8]

The relative scholarly neglect of the pré-réforme is partly to be explained by its scattered and amorphous character. Some personalities and events stand out: Noël Béda, syndic of the faculty of theology, made a virulent attack on the reformers, some of whom fled the country (Guillaume Farel, Marot) while others, like Briçonnet, drew back, and the first rash of martyrdoms occurred. Mayer does not understand how the mistaken theory that rationalized évangélisme could survive the "magisterial" exposure of Jean Delumeau.^[9]

From Switzerland Guillaume Farel undertook to give shape to the reform as a national movement in France. In the eyes of later generations, his contribution was often masked by that of John Calvin, understandably since most of their doctrines coincided, and it was Farel who first invited Calvin to Geneva. The armature of Calvinism, after its establishment in the 1550s, tended to reduce the phase of Farel's leadership to "background" in historians' accounts. Farel was promoting the Zwinglian or sacramentarian doctrine of the Eucharist—denial of the Real Presence (except in a spiritual sense)—that served as a core to the concept of heresy in France. In the mid-1520s attacks on the mass were matched by increasing references in Catholic circles to the necessity of defending "the sacrament of the altar" at all costs. Agreement on this priority eventually caused king and Parlement to join forces, but for about ten years neither recognized how much greater was the strength of this bond than the various, less central, issues that divided them.

The heresy of Louis de Berquin became the principal bone of contention between the crown and the court, whose offensive was directed by avocat du roi Pierre Lizet. The polarization of later decades was foreshadowed in

[8] . Claude-Albert Mayer, "Évangélisme et protestantisme," Studi francesi 88 (1986); "L'Avocat du roi d'Espagne, Jean Bouchard; le Parlement de Paris, Guillaume Briçonnet, et Clément Marot," Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français 137 (1991): 16-17.

[9] . Noël Béda, principal of the Collège de Montagu and syndic of the Faculty of Theology, leader of the early hard-liners opposing heresy (Dictionnaire de biographie française , vol. 5, col. 1255); Guillaume Farel, leader of the early phase of the Reformation in Geneva (DBF , vol. 13, cols. 590-595). See also Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 22-24.

the first period of tension over religious dissent, which rose in sharp jumps, from 1523 to 1529.^[10]

In the first phase of the case, Berquin was caught in the Sorbonne-Parlement net that included clandestine searches for forbidden books. A collection of books and manuscripts found on Berquin's premises on May 1, 1523, and turned over to the faculty of theology to be judged, included translations of works by Luther and Melanchthon and original works of Berquin's, defending Luther. Not surprisingly, the faculty found them "manifestly Lutheran and derogatory to the Catholic Church" and recommended that they be burned. This judgment was handed down in late June, simultaneously with a letter from the king to the Parlement ordering the court to drop the case. Ignoring this command, Parlement summoned Berquin to explain his opinions to representatives of the faculty and two magistrates, André Verjus and Jean Le Verrier, who appeared often in this and similar capacities. Lizet attempted to act as mediator, hoping to persuade Berquin to modify his views sufficiently to bring about an accommodation, but nothing came of it when François I definitively evoked the case to the Grand Conseil on July 11. Still ignoring the king's wishes, Parlement had Berquin arrested the first week in August and ordered him to stand trial before the bishop of Paris. Rescue by royal officers "in the bishop's very presence" spared him this fate, but his books were burned in front of the cathedral of Notre-Dame on August 8.^[11]

Thus in less than one hundred days, between May and August 1523, latent fears of innovation and Parlement's resentment of special privileges granted by the king to a "carrier of contagion"—heresy was regularly referred to as disease or poison—had produced a mind-set of intolerance in Parlement, which then took the first steps in the formation of a policy of repression.^[12] Already certain members of the court were becoming known as "specialists" in heresy cases; their names recur in each episode. Pierre Lizet as avocat du roi became a leader of the acharnés . Twenty years later, as premier président, the pinnacle of a parlementaire career, he organized and directed the infamous special chamber for heresy cases, the Chambre Ardente. In the early generation with which we are presently concerned,

[10] . Louis de Berquin, the first highly educated person of candidly Protestant belief to be a member of Parlement (DBF , vol. 6, cols. 138-139).

[11] . Gordon Griffiths, "Louis de Berquin," in Contemporaries of Erasmus , ed. Peter Bietenholz and Thomas Deutscher (Toronto, 1985), 1:135-140; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 14.

[12] . Sutherland, "Was There an Inquisition in France?," 366-367; Doucet, Gouvernement de François I , 1:320-347.

although Lizet was influential, the court's leadership was in the hands of the moderate traditionalist présidents Thibault Baillet and Charles Guillart. Premier président Jean de Selve was also a moderate, but he became suspect when he accepted dedications from Lefèvre (of the Psalter , 1524) and from Erasmus (of his Apologia , 1525). De Selve was a member of the small group of liberal parlementaires whose most distinguished representative was Guillaume Budé, and whose future offered a choice only between flight and silence.^[13]

If any humanist reformer could be assumed to rank so high that he would be immune to parlementaire inquisition, it was Erasmus of Rotterdam, the model Christian scholar whose wit and pen faithfully served the Roman church in essential matters, like the sacraments and the papacy, while turning against only the abuses and human encrustations. The drift of parlementaire opinion to the conservative side is shown by the court's defiance of the king's wishes in 1524, when it insisted that Erasmus's works be reviewed and judged by the faculty of theology.^[14]

Parlement's increasing agitation over heresy is a compelling drama, but it would be a mistake to assume that it had become the dominant concern. In the 1520s constitutional issues were more central and more keenly felt, though religious issues were inextricably entangled with them because of Parlement's traditional role as guardian of the Gallican liberties. Specifically, the bitterness of the Concordat fight was far from forgotten by either the king or the court. Parlementaires were not reconciled to the abandonment of the Pragmatic Sanction, nor could they forgive the man chiefly responsible, Chancellor Antoine Duprat.

The Confrontation with Louise De Savoie, 1525-1526

The crown's nomination of Duprat to two major benefices, the archbishopric of Sens and the abbey of St-Benoît, flatly denying the election of another man by the canons and the monks—operating under the old rules of the Pragmatic Sanction—was a concrete basis for reviving the Concordat battle. The twin facts of the king's absence from the country, initially at war and then as a prisoner in Madrid, and the resulting regency of his mother, made the moment opportune for a Gallican counterattack.

There were two prongs to the Parlement's offensive against Louise de Savoie in 1525: on the one hand, the direct attack on Duprat, which was at

[13] . On Jean de Selve, premier président 1519-29, see Griffiths, "Jean de Selve," in Contemporaries of Erasmus , 3:238-240.

[14] . Doucet, Gouvernement de François I 1:332.

the same time an indirect attack on the Concordat and a new affirmation of the court's adherence to the Pragmatic Sanction, and on the other, an attempt to take over control of royal policy toward heresy. In both they hoped, in the contemporary phrase, mettre en tutelle the queen regent, so that the returning king would be faced with a fait accompli. He would need Parlement's cooperation in order to secure arrangements favorable to France in negotiations for peace with Spain, and the court hoped to use this dependence as a quid pro quo to guarantee continuation of the gains made at the expense of the regent during the war. Although this strategy ultimately failed, it is important to our story because it reveals the spectrum of religious opinion shaping up in the early generation.

On the heels of François I's defeat at Pavia (February 1525) Ulrich Zwingli, the pioneer reformer of the Swiss Reformation, dedicated his Traité de la Vraye Religion to the French king. This had the effect of further alarming French Catholics already disturbed by the crown's religious policy. During March Parlement laid the foundations of a fortress to defend orthodoxy, whose battlements would not be completed until the 1540s. Premier président Jean de Selve's speech of March 20 began by stressing the importance of keeping in force the ordinances against blasphemy, the earliest being those of Louis IX, and the most recent those of Louis XII, and went on to say,

We must keep God's commandments . . . because His majesty is greater than that of kings. . . . Heresy is already great and is spreading rapidly in this kingdom [here de Selve refers to some of the instances of "Lutheran" doctrine brought to the court's attention;] some of the greatest persons in the realm have blocked the proper punishment for these offenses . . . and there are also highly placed persons who are not heretics, but who have shown disrespect toward God. . . . It is said that there are lawyers who eat meat on fast days, but [a search] has not turned up a single reliable witness.^[15]

A commission set up to deal with future instances of blasphemy was composed of président des enquêtes Philippe Pot, conseiller André Verjus, and two theologians, Guillaume du Chesne and Nicolas Leclerc.^[16]

An arrêt of March 28 ordained not only that those found to be blasphemers would be brought to trial but that "any judges found to be negligent in the pursuit and punishment of said blasphemers" would also face

[15] . See Mayer, La Religion de Marot , 140-141, which reproduces the account in Parlement's registers.

[16] . Ibid., 141-142; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 334.

trial. This was the first tolling of the bell proclaiming the intent to purge the Parlement itself, if necessary.^[17] But in 1525 it was rather the royal court and circles patronized by the royal family that were producing the "poison." Parlement therefore decided to address remonstrances to the queen regent. They were drawn up on April 10 by a committee, on which served présidents Le Viste and Guillart, maître des requêtes Adam Fumée, président des enquêtes Jacques de La Barde, and conseillers Louis Séguier, Jean Tavel, and Claude Viole. The delegation that took the document to Louise, then in Lyon, was headed by premier président de Selve and included also Verjus, conseiller Jean Prévost, and président des enquêtes Pierre Clutin.

The points relating to our subject are these:

As faith is the true foundation of Christian law . . . [above all of the kingdom of France] . . . whose ancient kings . . . by their devout and meritorious deeds have earned the title Most Christian by purging the kingdom of heresies and errors up until this unhappy and unfortunate time, when some [persons] have adopted the pernicious doctrines of Luther, to which they have added their own particular errors . . . and, not content with their own perdition, have deceived many simple people into following them . . . with perilous consequences. . . . It is greatly to be feared . . . that they will draw still others to their ruin.

For these reasons, this court, which is charged with conserving the holy decrees, under the authority of the king . . . and which has always had the principal responsibility of cleansing the areas of its jurisdiction of such monstrous and pestilent errors, has previously ruled against the guilty ones, but the provisions enacted have not been carried out because their supporters found ways [to block their execution] sometimes by evocations to the Grand Conseil, sometimes by using illegal and absolute powers to release [the culprits] from prison, which has given others the audacity to adopt their evil doctrines. . . .

The court has deliberated further and begs Madame to request our Holy Father, the pope, to appoint some good and notable persons to [act] against archbishops, bishops, abbots, and other prelates [exempt from secular law] who might be found guilty . . . and [the court further requests the regent] to prohibit and forbid all evocations and exceptions to the law hereafter, declaring null and void those that have already taken place . . . and thus to show that she is a virtuous princess, worthy mother of the Most Christian King [by enforcing the law even in her own household].^[18]

The spread of heresy was thus attributed to the decadence and deficiencies of the clergy, the subversion of justice—through evocations and weakening

[17] . AN x^1a 1527, fol. 262v; my italics.

[18] . Remonstrances' points excerpted from Mayer, La Religion de Marot , 142-144 (doc. no. 6).

of Parlement's control—and the encouragement of those in high places. The queen's response, as later reported to the court, after a conventional endorsement of the necessity of reform, rode roughshod over the more substantial points and threatened the magistrates by reminding them that they owed their offices to the king, who could easily take them away.^[19]

In the late spring the pope buttressed Parlement's commission with his authority and Philippe Pot was replaced by Jacques de La Barde as the partner of Verjus. Linkage between heresy and the fight against the Concordat and the basic constitutional issue of Parlement's own jurisdiction—specifically in the never-ending resistance to evocations—comes out clearly in the regent's evocation to the Grand Conseil of the quarrel over Sens and St-Benoît, and also in Lizet's speech of June 9, in which he combined a strong claim for Parlement as against the Grand Conseil with an ardent plea to Louise to supervise (veiller sur ) the religious state of the kingdom by enacting necessary reforms while guarding against the penetration of new ideas.^[20]

Throughout the summer and fall attacks on the groupe de Meaux intensified. At different times they were interrogated by Nicolas Brachet, Jean Mesnager, André Verjus, Nicole Dorigny, Louis Séguier, and Jacques de La Barde, acting in pairs. Séguier and Mesnager also gained a reputation as effective interrogators of prisoners arrested on suspicion of heresy in the capital.^[21] The leading reformers recognized that the cooperation of Parlement and the Sorbonne increased their danger and reacted to it. In October Lefèvre fled to Strasbourg; in November the court initiated a trial for him, Farel, and others in absentia, only to have the cases speedily evoked by Louise. This provoked a formal protest by the court, composed by Le Viste and La Barde, delivered to the queen by the latter and Verjus.^[22] In early December the court again requested the queen and the pope to take action, saying that "the investigations of our brother M. J. Mesnager [had found] that the seeds of evil, pestiferous and contagious, had been widely sown . . . [that] the situation was much worse than it had formerly seemed . . . [such that] great and execrable blasphemies threaten to overcome God's

[19] . AN x^1a 1530, fols. 363r-364r (La Barde report of Louise's reply).

[20] . AN x^1a 1528, fols. 533-535.

[21] . AN x^1a 1528, fols. 531, 535, 614r, 780, 806, 820.

[22] . AN x^1a 1529, fol. 21v. On all events of the early years see Pierre Imbart de la Tour, Origines de la réforme (Paris, 1905-35), vol. 3; and Doucet, Gouvernement de François I .

honor, that of the king, and even the Truth to which our consciences are responsible."^[23]

Since early summer Louise de Savoie had been actively negotiating her son's release. Jean de Selve had been sent to Spain in June, and in August Marguerite began her celebrated mission to Madrid, which would end in triumph just before Christmas. The result, formalized in January 1526, was the Treaty of Madrid, by which the king was released in exchange for his two eldest sons, as hostages, pending payment of a large ransom. France was also committed to surrendering Burgundy to the emperor.^[24] Parlement exploited the situation by renewing the charges against Berquin and sending him to the Conciergerie. In February, it defied a royal command to release him and he was interrogated by président Guillart.

After Berquin had declared that he was appealing certain judgments against him as sans raison , président Guillart said that Berquin

had sent . . . in writing . . . some causes of recusancy against the judges delegated by the court, but that they were not acceptable and served only to delay his trial, [adding] that he appeared to be very contumacious. To this Berquin replied . . . that there were other . . . more sufficient causes than those he had put in writing. . . . [When Guillart asked how much more time he would need,] the said Berquin replied that he was making as much haste as he could, and that he could not [produce the evidence required] without recounting the wrongs done him in his first trial. . . . When asked if he was making the appeal comme d'abus . . . he repeated that [this fact] was already on the record . . . and after the aforesaid sentence of the deputed judges was read aloud, the said Berquin stated that by protesting that he had said nothing against God, the pope, the Catholic Church, or the king, or their several powers and authorities, he wished the court to realize that he was not contumacious, and intended only to show that the powers of the said deputed judges were insufficient in regard to his case . . . [and asked] that he be tried by the vicar of the bishop of Paris and other appropriate judges . . . or that he be sent to Rome, at his own expense . . . and that if . . . there were other witnesses to appear against him, that he be allowed to confront them. . . . Whereupon préesident Guillart said . . . that if he was appealing comme d'abus , he should state what the abuses of the deputed judges were. . . . Berquin than asked to be provided with counsel. After the said Berquin was taken away, the matter was declared open for deliberation by the court.

Parlement granted a delay until the next day, at which time Berquin was required to appear and explain the alleged abuses before the court proceeded

[23] . AN x^1a 1529, fol. 25.

[24] . On the Treaty of Madrid see Pierre Jourda, Marguerite d'Angoulême (Paris, 1930), 1:130-133.

to make its decision. Parlement then tightened its own policy toward heresy. Preaching and teaching against the Eucharist were to be punished by banishment for clerics and imprisonment and confiscation for laymen within eight days of sentencing, on pain of loss of office for those responsible for executing the sentence .^[25] Penalties for possession of condemned books were also stepped up.

In March 1526 François I returned to his kingdom, followed shortly thereafter by Farel and Gerard Roussel. Parlementaires must have felt that all the efforts and protests of recent months had been written in water. In early April they nevertheless tried again to explain their position to the king—through premier président Jean de Selve, who told the court that François wanted full details on Berquin's "alleged errors." Between April and October there was a continuing struggle between king and Parlement over Berquin, in which the magistrates were obliged to give way a little at a time. In July they relaxed their original order against permitting him to exercise in the prison courtyard, but only for two hours and only by himself. In October they allowed him to have books. By November they were on the defensive, excusing their treatment on grounds that Berquin had broken his word, before finally releasing him—to Marguerite—a few days later. Protests against royal protection of Berquin, which were issued following each concession, involved most of the ultras we have seen in action against heresy, but also mainstream moderates like Charles Guillart and René du Bellay, bishop of Paris.^[26] The king's irresistible force was wearing down the Parlement's immovable body.

In December 1526 the king drove the point home by decisive resolution of the Sens and St-Benoît issue in favor of Duprat and by the suspension of three parlementaires to make examples of them: conseillers Nicolas Hennequin, François Disques, and Nicolas Le Coq, as well as procureur général François Roger, were barred from the exercise of their offices because they had been particularly hostile to the chancellor; they were not reinstated for many months.^[27] This episode could be called Duprat's revenge, but Parlement did not give up the fight. As noted (in chapter 2) Guillart's speech of

[25] . AN x^1a 1529, fols. 77r, 149-150, 207r; my italics.

[26] . On Berquin's "errors" see AN x^1a 1529, fol. 216; on protests see AN x^1a 1529, fols. 231, 266-272; Michel Félibien and Guy-Alexis Lobineau, Histoire de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1725), 2:984-985.

[27] . Lalanne, ed., Journal d'un bourgeois , 315; Versoris, Livre de raison , 192-193; Félibien and Lobineau, Histoire , 2:939. We cannot be sure of first names, but internal evidence from available sources indicate these; see also Knecht, "Francis I and the 'Lit de Justice,'" 60-64.

July 27 was an expanded, elaborately documented expression of the court's protests of the previous two years, an example of offense being the best defense. In the opinion of a leading scholar, it contains "the statement of every preoccupation in the head of a parlementaire at the time." Of special interest is the phrase "kingdoms, empires, and monarchies cannot exist without the right religion."^[28]

The new year had begun with another blow for Parlement: the pope revoked his support of the parlementaire commission and established in its place an episcopal commission, but the pontiff's own authority suffered an even greater loss and all Christendom a shock when Clement VII was captured by the victorious troops of Charles V, commanded by Charles de Bourbon, formerly constable of France, during the Sack of Rome, May 6, 1527.

French religious policy continued to lack coherence. Repeated shifts in the balance of ecclesiastical and lay shares in the control of heresy was a major obstacle, though Parlement's own position was consistent: the court had a constitutional right, and duty, to judge all nontheological aspects of the offense. As early as the 1520s members tended to equate heresy and sedition, although many royal edicts and parlementaire remonstrances attempting to define the precise demarcation line still lay in the future.^[29] The extirpation of heresy was coupled with the liberation of the pope in an appeal of the clergy to the king at the end of the year, which also called for a council to deal with the threat of heresy to be held in every diocese in the kingdom.

Heresy as Clear and Present Danger

The Parisian diocesan council, presided over by Duprat, met in February 1528 and drew up a list of sixteen articles defining Catholic orthodoxy and another list of thirty-one "errors." The distinctions between the humanist reformers and the "sacramentaires" who denied the Real Presence were becoming evident, although the former were blamed for paving the way for the latter. The works of Zwingli were widely known in France, especially in the southern provinces, and Farel's efforts to recruit lieutenants to man the national reform were meeting with considerable success. Like the pro-

[28] . Henri Bordier's note in his transcription of the document (AN x^1a 1530, fol. 349r), in Bibliothèque de la société de l'histoire du protestantisme francais (hereafter, BSHPF) 487, 1.

[29] . Imbart de la Tour, Origines de la réforme , 3:259; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 27, 34.

verbial match in a powder keg, the first outbreak of iconoclasm in Paris set off an explosion. On June 2 a much venerated statue of the Virgin Mary (in a niche in the wall of Louis de Harlay's house) was mutilated. The king was very angry and for the first time took a dramatic public stand by leading the procession to expiate la profanation de la Vierge and by ordering a silver statue to replace the old one. The "bourgeois de Paris" features it in his journal .^[30]

Within a few days the Parlement was expressing its indignation and calling for strong measures. Pierre Lizet's speech was addressed to Duprat, urging the chancellor to influence the king's policy toward the "hard line."

This poisonous, contagious sect . . . is undoubtedly the source and root of all these scandals and evils. . . . For the Lutherans, as one can see in their writings, have not only despised the images in our churches, but also prayers to the saints, saying . . . that they have no power to help us, as Saint Augustine and Gratian said . . . [we must] try to cut off all the branches and toxic fruit . . . there is no other way than to exterminate and uproot [the evil] from this kingdom, otherwise . . . it will be beyond control. . . . [We must] make a thorough search for those of this unfortunate sect . . . by publicizing in all the major towns . . . where there is a royal court . . . and commanding the bishops to keep it under control and do their duty . . . so that this great and dangerous evil may be entirely removed from the state (chose publique ) as [the king] has always wished . . . and [now wishes] to achieve by sound advice to remove from his whole kingdom with the greatest diligence possible this unhappy sect that he has always hated. . . . Lizet then very humbly begged the said cardinal chancellor, as chief of French justice and principal prelate of the Gallican church [to carry out the policy stated].^[31]

Louis de Berquin's release in November 1526 had not invalidated his sentence. He was determined to force the issue by claiming that those who had condemned him had exceeded their authority (appel comme d'abus ). For months (1527-28) he sought and obtained interventions by Erasmus, Marguerite, and the king himself, which finally resulted in the creation by the pope of a special commission to review the case (1529). Meanwhile Berquin was importuned by both Jean de Selve and Charles Guillart to drop the appeal. The sources make it clear that the court's leadership was anxious to find some face-saving formula and to avoid another confrontation with

[30] . Bourrilly, ed., Journal d'un bourgeois , 290-293.

[31] . Lizet speech, 8 juin 1526, AN x^1a 1531, transcribed by Henri Bordier in BSHPF 487, 1, fols. 308-312.

the king—which they fully expected unless some accommodation could be found. Contemporary observers thought Berquin was himself responsible for his predicament, and for the third—and final—round of the case, through his unwillingness to let well enough alone. The bourgeois begins his very full account with the phrase, "God, wishing to punish him, puffed up his heart with pride." And Versoris remarks, "he absolutely insisted on abusing his knowledge."^[32]

The papal commission decided that Berquin had clearly fallen into Lutheran heresy but that because of his declared willingness to submit to church discipline, his sentence would be limited. Although his books were to be burned and his doctoral degree revoked, and he was required to make public abjuration of his errors before being imprisoned for life, that life itself was spared. But when he then refused to withdraw his appeal, it was interpreted as disobedience to the Church and "hardness of heart." As a lapsed heretic he was turned over to the "secular arm," that is, the Parlement of Paris, which deputed a special panel to sentence him: premier président Jean de Selve presided; Denis Poillot was the only other président, but maître des requêtes Guillaume Budé served, as did Étienne Leger, vicar-general of the bishop of Paris (by invitation), along with conseillers Jean Prévost, Guillaume Bourgeois, Louis Roillart, René Gentils, and Pierre Brulart. Striking swiftly, they condemned Berquin to death and executed the sentence on April 17, 1529; in the words of the bourgeois, "expedited the same day with great diligence, so that he could not again have recourse to the king."

Although "the excessive impieties committed by heretics so angered the king" that he abandoned Berquin "to the ordinary course of justice," as Félibien says, the Parlement had no reason to expect that the king would thus reverse his course. Berquin having been twice snatched from parlementaire justice, it was logical to anticipate a third "rescue."^[33] In addition, the return of Lefèvre, Roussel, and Farel under the shelter of the throne and their enjoyment of Marguerite's continued favor (shared by many lesser "innovators") supported parlementaire expectations, as well as their fears.^[34]

In the first years of the new decade, the Reformation was expanding

[32] . Bourrilly, ed., Journal d'un bourgeois , 317-322, 423-427; Versoris, Livre de raison , 213.

[33] . Félibien and Lobineau, Histoire , 2:985.

[34] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 26-30.

throughout Europe in a variety of forms. Three of these were "magisterial," that is, under a centralized ecclesiastical direction, in contrast to the radical movements.^[35]

In England the Reformation Parliament was passing a series of acts, climaxed by the Act of Supremacy (1534), which established a national church under the crown instead of the pope, but still Catholic in doctrine. On the continent, a clear-cut break between Lutherans and Zwinglians over the interpretation of the Eucharist had occurred at the Colloquy of Marburg (1529), an outcome diametrically opposed to the intentions of the organizers, who hoped to unify the continental reform. Within a year the basic doctrines of the Lutheran Church were formulated (Confession of Augsburg, 1530); the major Swiss cities, following the model of Zurich in 1523, held "disputations" between a reformer and a representative of the Roman church that resulted in the establishment of a reformed church in Bern, Basel, and—most important for us—Geneva and Neuchâtel. The exiled French reformers made Geneva their headquarters and when Calvin joined Farel there in 1536, that city was launched on its destiny as the "Protestant Rome"—although it would not be fulfilled for another twenty years.

In France meanwhile Louise de Savoie died, and François I grew apart from his sister and the humanists as he elaborated the policy of repression. In 1533 he launched a systematic drive to extirpate heresy in Languedoc, ordering Parlement to appoint commissioners who would proceed rapidement, par main forte to the task. Even so, parlementaires were not convinced that the king really agreed with them, but his reaction in l'affaire des placards would help them believe it. The appearance of handbills attacking the mass in Paris (and even on the door of the king's private apartments in the château of Amboise) in the night of October 4-5, 1534, and a heretical sermon by the rector of the university, Nicolas Cop, shortly thereafter, caused the extension of edicts against heretics to those who harbored or in any way helped them. Tighter censorship of printing was also instituted. But what impressed public opinion most was the king's personal participation in the public acts of expiation on the one hand and reprisals enacted against heretics on the other, in the early months of 1535.^[36]

[35] . "Radical Reformation" designates a wide variety of groups that refused centralized institutions allied with the secular authorities. See the major study by George Hunston Williams (Philadelphia, 1962); new edition, 1992.

[36] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 28-31, and notes; on the placards see Robert Hari, "Les Placards de 1534," Aspects de la Propagande religieuse , ed. G. Berthoud (Geneva, 1957), 79-122; Bourrilly, ed., Journal d'un bourgeois , 359-360; Georges-Maurice Guiffrey, ed., Cronique du Roy François, premier de ce nom (Paris, 1860), 110-140; for the speech of parlementaire Jean Tronson, see Félibien and Lobineau, Histoire , 2:987-989.

François I was no less preoccupied with foreign policy in the 1530s than earlier. Following a short break in hostilities (Treaty of Cambrai, 1529), he was preparing a new offensive against the emperor, this time by diplomacy. The first move was a new rapprochement with the papacy to secure papal acceptance of his proposed alliance with German princes against Charles V. The quid pro quo for the ambitious Pope Clement VII was the marriage of his niece, Catherine de Médicis, to the king's second son, Henri, in 1533, a marriage thought at the time to be inconsequential, which in fact turned out to be historically important when fate brought Henri (II) to the throne in 1547, after the dauphin's death. According to the bourgeois de Paris, it was the suggestion of the next pope, Paul III, that the French king reduce the discrepancy between his treatment of Protestants in France and those in Germany, "to employ mercy rather than justice . . . begging the king to calm his rage and exercise pardon. . . . Thus the king moderated his policy and ordered the court of Parlement not to proceed with the same rigor, . . . which resulted in the release of prisoners." This explains the tone of the preamble of the Edict of Coucy, January 1535, which is often cited as a sign of greater leniency on the part of the French crown.^[37]

Sutherland is correct in seeing this as window-dressing, and in pointing out that it did not apply to those who most needed clemency, sacramentaires and recidivists, but it was nonetheless perceived by contemporaries as a softening of royal policy, a shift in the direction of toleration. At the same time the repressive measures remained in force, and Parlement was not deceived into renewed opposition to the king. The death of Duprat, which occurred about the same time, also contributed to the lessening of tension.

Decompression, 1535-1539

The period of détente lasted about four years. This does not signify a change in attitude toward heresy on the part of either the crown or Parlement. On the contrary, it means that their policies were in agreement. No new issues of contention, analogous to the Berquin case, surfaced in these years. The leading reformers were now in exile and Marguerite (de Navarre, since 1527) herself had been obliged to withdraw into silence. The pré-réforme was over. The lull coincided with the brief "liberal" period of the Roman Catholic reform, when the small group of cardinals who sought to heal the

[37] . Bourrilly, ed., Journal d'un bourgeois , 359-360; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 30-31, 336.

breach with the Lutherans—under the leadership of Gasparo Contarini—drew up a proposal to reform the Church, at the request of Paul III.^[38]

A brief pause in the relentless development of repressive machinery in France was noticeable, especially in Paris. Languedoc continued to be riddled with heresy. The Parlement of Toulouse, which had the reputation of being the most intolerant of the sovereign courts, obtained a royal edict that authorized it to initiate repressive measures against heretics without waiting for royal leadership. In 1539 another edict extended this option to all royal courts and officers above a certain rank.^[39]

[38] . On the liberal phase of the Catholic Reformation see Henri Daniel-Rops, The Catholic Reformation (2 vols. New York, 1964), vol. 1; see also Richard M. Douglas, Jacopo Sadoleto, Humanist and Reformer (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).

[39] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 337-338.

7
The Engine of Repression
The Transitional Generation, 1540-1551

Collaboration of Crown and Parlement in Religious Policy During the 1540s

The Edict of 1539, by which the crown first took a direct part in the prosecution of heresy, had not been registered by the Parlement of Paris. Sutherland is undoubtedly right in believing that this was one reason for issuing another exactly a year later, but the Edict of Fontainebleau also specifies some new points of capital importance for the future, which is why it may be reckoned as the first step in the systematic assembling of machinery for the repression of heresy.^[1] While royal courts and officials at all levels might initiate proceedings in heresy cases, the new edict required them to submit their findings to the criminal chambers of the Parlements, which were ordered to give these cases priority and report to the king every six months. Moreover, this edict constitutes the first of many attempts to define the relation of heresy to sedition, of the ecclesiastical to the secular authorities. Ambiguities and contradictions in phrasing on this subject in successive edicts are among the main causes of the incoherence of royal policy toward heresy. Contemporaries and historians have been equally confused. The major contribution of Sutherland's work on the Huguenots is that she has disentangled, summarized clearly, and analyzed all the edicts, letters patent, and other official documents on heresy from 1525 to 1598—for the first time ever. While this makes the incoherence even more conspicuous, it also enables us to follow the serpentine record step by step and attempt to relate each formulation to the specific historical and political context that produced it.

[1] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 33. Unless some other place is indicated, the edicts were issued in Paris.

The 1540 edict forbids association with heretics because the profession of false doctrine "contains in itself the crimes of human and divine lèse-majesté, popular sedition, and the disturbance of our state and the public peace."^[2] In other words, heresy equals sedition; it is both a canonical and a criminal offense, imposing on the ecclesiastical authorities an obligation to cooperate with the secular authorities. The clergy took this as an encroachment on their authority, which resulted in another edict in 1543, allegedly to "clarify" the respective jurisdictions—heresy to lie in that of the church and sedition in that of the state. Clear enough on paper, but "not helpful" in Sutherland's words, because heresy itself had already been declared treasonable. The Edict of Fontainebleau was also modified by removal of the requirement that heresy cases be sent to the parlements to be judged; they were now merely to be reported to the sovereign courts within two months. If the ecclesiastical jurisdiction suffered in 1540, Parlement's was reduced in 1543. Sutherland's comment is a masterpiece of understatement, "By 1543 the heresy laws were in a state of confusion."^[3] Nor did this condition end with the reign of François I.

Emergence of the jurisdictional problem was only one of the differences between the 1540s and the earlier tensions of 1525-35. Another was a reversal of roles as between the crown and the Parlement with regard to initiative in combating heresy. As long as parlementaires felt threatened by royal favor to heretics, they kept pressing the crown for action against them; we recall Parlement's demands on Louise de Savoie and its summary execution of Berquin to forestall (a third) royal intervention. In the early 1540s, on the contrary, it was the crown, acting in concert with the Sorbonne, that took the initiative. In 1541, the parlements were ordered to pursue heretics "with the utmost vigor"; the authority of Matthieu Ory, "Inquisitor of the Faith," was extended; the first special or regional commissioner, Jacques Le Roux, was appointed in 1542. Extirpation of heresy was stated as a prime objective in the Treaty of Crépy (1544), one of the ephemeral truces between France and the Empire, and the first special court for heresy cases (in Rouen) was established in 1545.^[4] By then the Parlement and the crown were both engaged in "hot pursuit," which created serious divisions within the court, between acharnés and moderates.

The hardening of attitudes into ideological factions within Parlement

[2] . Ibid., 338-339.

[3] . Ibid., 340.

[4] . These matters and others included in ibid., 35-37; Weiss, Chambre ardente , xvi-xxxviii; Le Monnier, France sous Henri II , 383-386.

itself offers us the most important contrast between the early and transitional generations. The spectrum of opinion was very different. Where there had been a fluid continuum from generally open-minded to fearful and closed-minded, there was now a well articulated ultra-Catholic position, organized to launch the offensive about to be analyzed, with no balancing liberal position. The liberals of the Berquin period had either died (de Selve, Guillart, Budé) or had gone "underground." We know that a substantial minority of parlementaires held unorthodox views right through the crisis period of 1559-62 (chapter 8), but they were—wisely—keeping silent in the 1540s. The large majority in the center was more clearly than ever opposed to heresy, but they now faced a different problem: how far were they willing to go along with the increasingly severe measures of the ultraconservatives? They were often able to avoid taking a stand because of deviations from traditional parlementaire procedures imposed by the crown. With increasing frequency the king would order a case to be judged by particular judges (either as individual commissioners, or as a specially designated group); standard general votes and plenary sessions became rare. Parlementaire discontent, especially among the younger members of the Chambres des Enquêtes, erupted in a series of protests and demonstrations, which came to a head in the opening years of Henri II's reign. To Parlement's plea that "from now on all chambers be allowed to participate in the execution of justice, according to custom," the new king responded that "from now on, in order to avoid wasting time" only one président and two conseillers from each Chambre des Enquêtes would meet regularly with members of the Grand' Chambre in the Tournelle, for criminal cases.^[5] The rarity of votes taken in these circumstances made it easy for those who were uncertain how they felt—or who merely wished to postpone taking a stand—to avoid committing themselves, until the reemergence of strong moderate leadership in the 1550s.

With the encouragement of the king, the Sorbonne produced a program that provides a measure of the temper of the 1540s: in 1542 the faculty drew up a preliminary list of books to be banned, which included the works of the German and Swiss reformers (in the original or in translation) as well as unorthodox works of French authors such as Clément Marot and Étienne Dolet, followed in 1543 by twenty-five fully elaborated "articles of the faith" that explicitly reaffirmed the doctrines of transubstantiation, papal supremacy, and others under attack, as well as a list of condemned articles of belief. The wording and organization of these documents are very

[5] . See Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:596-598.

similar to those later drawn up by the Council of Trent, as noted by both Weiss and Sutherland.^[6] It is quite possible that the Sorbonne's formulations did influence the church council, whose definitive doctrinal pronouncements date from its last session (1563), but more interesting than this speculation is the fact that the Sorbonne's action came at a critical juncture in the history of the Roman church.

In the mid-1530s Pope Paul III had given a small group of reformers in the College of Cardinals an opportunity to produce a program for reform of the Catholic church "in the head and in the members." When embodied in a document (De ecclesia emendanda , 1538) presented to the sacred college, it was overwhelmingly voted down. With hindsight this does not seem surprising, since its recommendations were antipathetic to the course of reform actually taken in the following years, but at the time this was hidden in the future. The liberal leadership did not disintegrate until after the death of Cardinal Contarini and the withdrawal of other reformers, while the Counter-Reformation leaders had not yet closed ranks, though there too the machinery was being created: both the Index and the revived Inquisition (in the papal states) were already in being, and Paul III had extended the status of priesthood to members of the recently formed Society of Jesus (1540), who would become active in the movement. In spirit and in the instruments of implementation the 1540s measures against heresy in Paris resemble those later taken in Rome on an international scale and for a much longer time.

Led by premier président Pierre Lizet, who had held this most important office since the death of Jean de Selve in 1529, the Parlement of Paris made its own contributions to the completion of the repressive policy. In 1542, coincident with the Sorbonne Index, Parlement forbade possession of Calvin's Institutes (which had recently appeared in French, earlier editions were in Latin) and decreed the surrender of copies within twenty-four hours, on pain of death . The court began at this time to acquire allies among the Parisian clergy, some of whom were fanatics, denouncing heretics in very extreme terms and inciting the populace to violence against them. This pattern would become increasingly familiar in the coming decades, as we will see in each phase of the religious wars, culminating in a high degree of stylization by the 1590s. The excess of zeal expressed in the pulpits offended many, even parlementaires actively engaged in enacting repressive legislation. In 1543, coincident with the Sorbonne articles of faith, procureur général Noël Brulart so feared the consequences that he asked the Grand'

[6] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , xxxvi; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 36-38.

Chambre to discipline the most vituperative of the preachers, and premier président Lizet himself tried to persuade them to moderate their language. There is no evidence that he succeeded, however, and the dominant theme of inflammatory sermons continued to be that heresy was getting worse every day. In 1544, in accord with the Treaty of Crépy (with the emperor), the court condemned the works of Calvin and Dolet to be burned on the Parvis Notre-Dame, with the bells of the cathedral ringing to celebrate the event.^[7] The Parlement then enacted the arrêt des luthériens , which was the legal cornerstone of the special chamber for heresy cases known as the Chambre Ardente.

Even so, Catholics both inside and outside Parlement feared that the king might withdraw his support and there were rumors that he was about to soften his stand on the heresy of the Vaudois. The momentum could not be arrested, however, even had François wished to do so. The point of no return had been passed, as Weiss notes: les bûchers sont partout allumés .^[8]

By 1545 the several constituent elements—royal edicts, Sorbonne definitions, clerical propaganda—were joined by arrêts of Parlement into a structure for official French policy toward heresy. The engine of repression was set in motion when François created the Rouen Chamber in the spring of 1545 and appointed five members of the Paris Parlement as commissioners to investigate and root out heresy, each in a particular region noted for the incidence of "infection": Claude des Asses in Anjou and Touraine, Jacques Le Roux in Sens, Nicole Sanguin in Meaux, Guillaume Bourgoing in the Bourbonnais, and Louis Gayant in Orléans and Blois.^[9] They would figure among the most experienced members of the Chambre Ardente in 1547-50.

Heresy—and persecution—had raged out of control in the Pays de Vaud for some months already and fears of a return to leniency on the king's part focused on that region, homeland of Farel and wide open to currents of opinion from Switzerland and Italy. A number of pleas for mercy to the Vaudois had been presented to the king, but after the premier président of the Parlement of Aix (falsely) accused them of conspiring to seize the city of Marseille in 1544, the whole region was marked for punishment. In only ten days, twenty-two villages were totally destroyed and nearly four thousand inhabitants killed or taken captive. Riding roughshod over protests,

[7] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 35; Weiss, Chambre ardente , xxiii-xxvii; AN x^1a 1550, fols. 298, 352v.

[8] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , xxix.

[9] . Ibid., xxxiii-xxxiv; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 340.

the king decreed that the prisoners must abjure within two months or pay with their lives.^[10]

The tempo of persecution was quickening throughout the kingdom. Many of the victims were humble folk, but some enjoyed high patronage, like François Bribart, secretary of Bishop Jean Du Bellay, martyred in Paris in March 1545. The bloody climax of this period, marking the final months of François I's reign, occurred in the summer and fall of 1546, in Paris. Among the victims were printers of forbidden books in July; the humanist Étienne Dolet in August; and finally, on October 7, fourteen members of the groupe de Meaux (out of fifty-seven condemned) were burned in a giant auto-da-fé in the Place Maubert. It did not stop there. As Brantôme wrote some thirty years later, "François's path to the tomb was lighted by the fires he had set."^[11] There were five such executions in the first weeks of January 1547 (not all in the capital). On January 14 a solemn procession was held in expiation of the mutilation of a statue in the Cemetery of the Innocents, which the lawyers and procureurs of Parlement were ordered to attend. Absentees would incur a fine of sixty Parisian sous and the risk of being removed from the rolls .^[12] The machinery of repression was moving uncomfortably close to the Paris robe, although only its lower echelons were affected, as yet.

François I fell ill shortly thereafter and died on March 31. Contemporaries have left different versions of his dying sentiments on the religious issue. The most favorable account attributes to him a deathbed repentance in regard to the slaughter of the Vaudois. "He charged his son . . . not to defer the punishment of those who, abusing his name and authority, were responsible for the harsh escalation . . . because otherwise God, who does not permit such [violent acts] . . . to go unpunished, will exact vengeance Himself." But another quotes him as saying that he had no remorse, that his conscience was clear because he had "never done or had done, injustice to anybody in the world, as far as he knew." We are not in a position to decide between these two accounts, but even if the apologist is correct, it matters little; after a lifetime of adjusting expression of his sentiment on religious issues to the advantage of the moment, to satisfy the pope at one time, the Protestant German princes at another, the dying François I doubtless wished to present the best possible face to win the Almighty's favor.^[13]

[10] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , xxxiv-xxxv.

[11] . Ibid., xxxiv-xxxix, citing the sieur de Brantôme, xxxix.

[12] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , xli-xlii; my italics.

[13] . Ibid. xl-xlii.

For the Vaudois the aftermath was equivocal. Premier président Oppède of the Parlement of Aix, responsible for the worst of the persecutions, was arrested and his trial lasted for three years, but he was finally acquitted. All his offices and honors were restored and he was later made a Knight of the Order of Saint John by the pope. Only the lawyer Guérin did not escape punishment, among those responsible, while the Vaudois heretics continued to be both prosecuted and persecuted. For the Parlement of Paris, storm clouds were thickening; despite their robes, conseillers returning from François's funeral were jostled by hostile crowds shouting menacing epithets, of which the worst was Fauteurs d'hérésie!^[14]

Climax of the Collaborative Policy, 1548-1550

The new king was very different in temperament and in habits from le roi chevalier . Less active in the physical sense, Henri II tended to stay near the capital, usually at Fontainebleau, instead of moving from one château to another for good hunting; less changeable in his affections, he remained faithful to one mistress, many years his senior, and allowed her to interfere in all aspects of royal policy, instead of playing his favorites (all definitely his creatures) off against one another. The same contrast can be seen in their approaches to the religious issue: where François had favored some accused and treated others with ruthless severity, Henri II was consistent in his opposition to unorthodoxy of any kind, in any degree. He replaced his father's advisers with his own, and they all stood at the conservative end of the spectrum. Constable Anne de Montmorency, a "bluff soldier" according to all who knew him, was an old-fashioned traditional Catholic, while twenty-two-year-old Charles, cardinal de Lorraine, was a highly sophisticated politician, a master of both polemics and strategy. At the coronation, he emphasized the primacy of the king's religious obligation, "to exterminate all those whom the Church designates as given to error." Lorraine asked God "to make the king's sword the terror of all the enemies of the Church." Henri II embraced this goal. Edicts against blasphemers were implemented with greater physical violence; press censorship was tightened. Between April and November 1547, Parlement passed seventy arrêts against heresy in the Loire valley, the greatest single number in Blois, where Antoine Le Coq was carrying out an inquisitorial commission with exceptional zeal. Henri II's response to a delegation of Parlement that waited on him for instructions, on December 3, 1547, as reported by conseiller

[14] . Ibid. lxii.

Robert Bonete was, "the king charges messieurs of the court to administer good justice, and chiefly to act in the matter of the Lutherans."^[15]

The Sorbonne articles, the suppression of the Vaudois, the fervor of the parlementaire commissaires , the whole-hearted dedication of the new administration—all contributed to a climate of opinion dominated by fear; in the "infested" areas, suspects multiplied. Moreover, there were now more visible targets, organized groups that had in fact withdrawn from the Roman church to form new congregations to worship in a different way. The phrase "French Reformed Churches" in midcentury is shorthand that covers congregations in various stages of development. Calvin distinguished between églises plantées and églises dressées . Only the latter were fully constituted, though often having to share the services of a pastor with others; églises plantées were emerging groups, usually self-generated, that would appeal to Geneva to send them a pastor. There were always more congregations than pastors. Calvin tended to give priority to calls from great nobles for chaplains—consistent with his belief that the best chance for the reform in France lay in the conversion of the top echelons of the social order. The reformed congregations were small and apt to be clandestine, to meet at night in open fields. The lay leaders and pastors needed pseudonyms and were frequently in flight.^[16]

There were poles of religious opinion in France in the reign of Henri II, ultra-Catholics at one extreme and Calvinists at the other, but it would be inaccurate to describe the country as polarized thereby. The great majority of French believers was Catholic, sufficiently alarmed by the "menace of heresy" to go along with the right-wing argument that harsh measures were necessary to save the church, and the state. And as is usually the case, the majority was disorganized. In two respects the Parlement of Paris did not reflect the country in this period; there were no declared Protestants in the court, and the ultra-Catholics were much more highly organized than in the general population. The court accurately reflected the country in one respect, however; the traditionalist majority of both was leaderless.

The Chambre Ardente

Nathanaël Weiss, who made a full study of the "engine of repression," believed that the Chambre Ardente was set up in Paris sometime between December 11, 1547, and May 2, 1548, on which date it began to function

[15] . Ibid., lxii, lviii, and 1-18; AN x^1a 1561.

[16] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 37-39; R. M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France (Geneva, 1956).

officially, ceasing in January 1550.^[17] There are some gaps in the records, for instance the trials of the victims of the autos-da-fé that marked the triumphal entrée of Henri II into his capital in July 1549 are missing. Twenty-three parlementaires served at one time or another in the Chambre Ardente; the usual bench comprised twelve. The presidency was alternately in the hands of Pierre Lizet and François de Saint-André, both veterans of the Parlement, Saint-André since 1514, Lizet (as avocat du roi) between 1519 and 1529, when he became premier président. Weiss has very pronounced opinions about their respective performances in office, noting the conspicuously smaller number of capital sentences when Saint-André was in the chair; his efforts went rather into "obtaining retractions, with punishments confined to amende honorable and procedures designed to intimidate the prisoners." Lizet, on the other hand, is described as "all the more ferociously conservative in religion because he prided himself on [his knowledge of] theology, of which he understood nothing." The founding of the special court is generally attributed to Lizet, and Weiss adds, "the arrêts signed by him certainly contributed to its nickname, Chambre Ardente. He distinguished himself not only by implacable severity but also by the care he took with numerous details designed to terrorize the victims and those tempted to imitate them."^[18]

Saint-André had a reputation for intellectual cultivation—he purchased the bulk of Budé's library, as Weiss points out—but Lizet was recognized as a man of prodigious learning in the legal field and was much more highly respected by contemporaries. His integrity impressed them, and one finds frequent reference to the fact that he died poor, which is pointedly contrasted to the financial situation of his two (notoriously venal) successors, Jean Bertrand and Gilles Le Maistre. His strict orthodoxy and collaboration with the Sorbonne cannot be doubted, but he was not subject to pressures from outside the court, as was Saint-André, especially in the 1560s (see chapter 9). Furthermore, we have noted that in at least two crucial situations he intervened to reduce tensions and bring about accommodation, as avocat du roi in 1523 with regard to Berquin, and in the 1540s when he urged the fanatical preachers to cool their oratory in order to prevent the populace

[17] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , lxxii; but see Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 42-43, for a somewhat different interpretation.

[18] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , lxxii-lxviii; the Huguenots were rumored to have attempted to assassinate Lizet (Aubert, "Parlement au XVIe siècle" [1906], 130). As a supplement to Weiss, see documentation of the background of the Chambre Ardente, with the names and previous assignments of members, in Taber, "Religious Dissent," 9-18, esp. 12, on Lizet.

from taking the law into its own hands, leaving control of heresy to those whose legal responsibility it was. Some sixteenth-century writers also credited Lizet with resisting the poursuites of Béda in the early 1520s, but I have not found any firsthand evidence of this claim. He was, in any case, unbending in his loyalty to the law and to his duty as he saw it.^[19]

A comparison of Saint-André's 1548 presidency (May 2-July 19) with that of Lizet (July 19-October 30) bears out Weiss's contention in that death sentences and the use of violence were more frequent in the latter period: there were only two martyrdoms under Saint-André compared to twelve under Lizet. Torture also figured routinely in the Lizet period. The difference in length of term (three months, ten days, as compared to two-and-a-half months) is not significant in view of the nearly equal number of cases in the two periods, ninety under Saint-André and eighty-six under Lizet. At the other extreme, there is also a marked contrast in the incidence of leniency: under Lizet, only two of the accused were élargis with no punishment at all, a mere admonition vivre en bon catholique , as compared to a dozen under Saint-André. Between the extremes there is little difference except that there were somewhat fewer public whippings under Lizet (eight as against fourteen under Saint-André). Banishments were about equally frequent, though the sentences of Saint-André show a greater flexibility, two are for one year only, while under Lizet all but one were for life and that one was for five years.^[20]

While there is no denying the harshness of the most severe sentences and the horror they inspire even on the printed page, it should be noted that in both periods the majority of the accused was punished by public humiliation and admonition. The usual sentence called for confession of one's errors—specified, as was the place(s) of the recantation, followed by attendance at a special church service at which an official spokesman of the faith would preach on the particular "errors" involved; followed by amende

[19] . François de Larfeuil, Études sur Pierre Lizet (Clermont-Ferrand, 1856), esp. 26 on Béda, 45 on Lizet's integrity.

[20] . The 1548 cases reproduced in full by Weiss: May 2-August 8, 1-188 (112 cases); August 8-October 30, 190-318 (64 cases). Note that these official terms do not correspond with the dates of the two presidencies: Lizet took over from Saint-André on July 19. This accounts for the two periods mentioned in the text, with ninety cases under Saint-André and eighty-six under Lizet. Because on the one hand many cases involve more than one defendant (up to as many as fifteen) and, on the other, some individuals figure in multiple cases (up to as many as eight) it is not feasible to attempt a precise count of the numbers tried. Weiss's study also includes brief resumés of cases between November 1548 and April 1549 and between November 1549 and March 1550. See also Taber, "Religious Dissent," 10-13.

honorable , that is, walking a prescribed route in the town(s) where the sins had been committed, barefoot and all but naked, carrying a lighted candle of prescribed size and weight. The sinner was admonished to live henceforth as a good Catholic, avoiding association with heretics or fugitives, sometimes on pain of banishment or the fire. We have noted Alfred Soman's revisionist analysis of criminal justice with regard to sorcery. The Parlement of Paris showed similar leniency with regard to heresy in appellate cases under the moderate Tournelle judges in the late 1550s (see chapters 4 and 8).

In cases involving a group, the leader(s) would be more severely dealt with than the followers, condemned to the fire with no leeway, having first been tortured to extract other names. Those guilty of any form of preaching or proselytizing, or of harboring these activities in their houses, received the harshest sentences. It is often not clear what the precise content of the crime was; blasphemy against the "sacrament of the altar" was one of the most frequently cited, attendance at illicit assemblies was another. The occupational categories of the accused were consistent throughout the two periods and featured clergy, mostly regulars, artisans and women (the latter often wives of accused artisans). There was a sprinkling of lawyers and notaries. In one case the local officers of Cognac, as a group, were accused of sympathy with heretics and refusal to prosecute them, but since individuals were not named, strictly speaking there was no immediate case. They were suspended from their functions pending further inquiry.^[21] Regions of greatest incidence of heresy cases in this period include the upper parts of Burgundy (Sens, Auxerre), Poitiers, Picardy (Amiens), as well as the Orléanais, and the Loire valley.

Only two nobles figured in the 176 cases judged in the six months analyzed; they were brothers, Guillaume du Monceau, seigneur de la Brosse, prior of Sermoises, and Lancelot du Monceau, seigneur de Tignonville. Each was cited before the Chambre Ardente half a dozen times, the last three times together. On April 8, 1549, one Louis Jolippon of Étampes was taken from the Conciergerie to the Place Maubert and tortured for names of his accomplices before being executed. The court's order decreed that if he named either of the Monceaux, he should confront them. Five days later Lancelot was convicted of "stubborn persistence in heresy" and condemned to amende honorable in front of the main portal of the church in Tignonville before perpetual banishment and confiscation of all his prop-

[21] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , case no. 159; Le Monnier, France sous Henri II , 243-244.

erty. We do not know the fate of Guillaume. Members of the Tignonville and de la Brosse families were still active in the Huguenot party a generation later. The commander of the defense of Niort, a heroic episode of July 1569, who was honored in a special ceremony by Jeanne d'Albret, was a seigneur de la Brosse; the governess of her daughter Catherine de Bourbon, was a Madame de Tignonville (born into the family of Jean de Selve) known for her puritan zeal.^[22]

The personnel of the Chambre Ardente was quite stable. In the lists published by Weiss (from the Parlement's registers) there were always at least ten and sometimes as many as fourteen serving in a given session, but both these figures were exceptional. A nucleus of eleven sat almost every day and usually there were twelve. When neither of the présidents was in attendance, a veteran conseiller presided, either Jean Tronson, Guillaume Bourgoing, Franéois Tavel, or Louis Gayant. Other regulars were Jean Barjot, Nicolas Chevalier, Antoine Le Coq, and Pierre Hotman. Occasional participants, in descending order, were Jean Florette (twelve times), Nicolas Martineau, Nicole Du Val, Guillaume Luillier, Pierre Grassin, Martin Le Camus, and Oger Pinterel (each three times); Étienne de Montmirail, Jacques Le Roux, and Claude Anjorrant each sat once. Not all of these should be reckoned as equally hard-core acharnés ; some stood at times (during the civil wars) with the moderates. In general, however, the membership of the Chambre coincided with the ultra wing of the transitional generation. The gens du roi were not consistently aligned with this group—as Lizet had been as avocat du roi—except for Le Maistre (avocat civil , 1541-50), who was much less effective in each of the offices formerly held by Lizet. Avocat criminel Gabriel Marillac (1543-51) was a moderate; and Noël Brulart, procureur général 1541-57, although often associated with the ultras, also showed a balance and sense of the public interest as in his attempts to control the violent rhetoric of Parisian sermons. Brulart also spoke boldly to the king in opposition to the admission of the Jesuits in 1551, joining forces with his fellow gens du roi , Marillac and Pierre Séguier, both known moderates.^[23]

For an inkling of the identities of the suppressed liberal (or even heretical) minority, we must have recourse to other sources, such as the police report of suspects in 1562, which, as we shall see (chapter 8) also raises questions,

[22] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , cases nos. 139, 276, 289; Roelker, Queen of Navarre , 316, 400.

[23] . On Brulart see Aubert, "Parlement au XVIe siècle" (1906), 194.

by inclusion of some unexpected names and omission of some that seem more likely from what we otherwise know of them.

Reaction to the Chambre Ardente, 1549-1554

Outside the special chamber events were taking place that would affect religious policy, and especially Parlement's part in it. The "clarifying" edict of 1543 had not satisfied the clergy in the matter of their jurisdiction, and they pressed the king to reiterate the exclusive right of bishops over "simple heresy" in their dioceses. A new edict of November 1549 did so, but it also specified that for related offenses involving scandalle publicque the clergy must cooperate with the royal courts, at all levels; the right of appeal was reserved to the Parlements.^[24] Weiss imputes another motive (undeclared) to the clergy: the negative reaction to the excessive persecution was turning public opinion against the Roman church. It is true that the number of heretics was constantly increasing and that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church"—in this case, the Reformed Church. According to Weiss, the measures taken by the Chambre Ardente constituted "overkill. It was better to keep waverers in the fold, even if only formally, rather than 'exterminate' them in a way that increased their numbers." Parlement disapproved of "fudging" the issue—a tactic that implied condoning hypocrisy; the court insisted that heresy was a crime and should not go unpunished.^[25]

Another factor was becoming increasingly important. The authorities charged with disciplining heretics often failed to do so. Sometimes they refused outright and became suspects or acknowledged converts. The Parlement itself was under suspicion, but the proportion of suspects was always much greater in the lower courts and among local officers. We have noted the case of the officers of Cognac, suspended as a group for failing to prosecute known Protestants. In the southern provinces Protestants were often a substantial majority in the lower ranks of the robe. Of forty notaries in Bordeaux, twenty-eight were Calvinists; further east in towns like Nîmes and Béziers, virtually all the notaries, lawyers, and procureurs were members of Reformed congregations. Every instance of defection in their own profession facilitated the efforts of the ultras to persuade the moderates of the necessity of repression—and brought it closer to the sovereign courts

[24] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 341-342; Weiss, Chambre ardente , cxxvii-cxxviii; Le Monnier, France sous Henri II , 203.

[25] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , cxxiv-cxxxi.

themselves.^[26] This situation, as will be seen in the next chapter, was a major cause of the political crisis that could not be settled without civil war.

The factional power struggle at the king's court became entangled with religious policy. Each of the chief rivals for the king's favor was Catholic and each wished to place his or her own clients in the most advantageous positions in the royal bureaucracy, and none were more advantageous than the Parlement. Constable Montmorency's influence was being eroded by that of the Guises and the latter's alliance with Diane de Poitiers assured their triumph. The powerful duchess was determined to ruin Lizet, who had made thinly veiled hostile references to her influence on the king. In the later decades of the century it was generally believed that Lizet's disgrace reflected the strategy of the cardinal of Lorraine. The cardinal had advised Diane "to allow only persons who were wholly loyal to her" to hold high office "and to get rid of any who stood in her way. She began with Pierre Lizet, auvergnat, premier président, a man very learned in the law, both Roman and French." Lizet had also boldly risked some sharp encounters with the powerful cardinal directly. His disgrace took effect on July 12, 1550, and while the court gave him some support, the remonstrances were half-hearted because "they too [other parlementaires] were threatened by the creatures of the Guises." The content of the remonstrances is not recorded in the registers, but we do find the following references under dates of June 16 and 20.

[When the Parlement sent remonstrances to the king about the disgrace of Lizet and high-handed treatment of some other members] the chancellor replied that . . . the king found it marvelously strange that the Parlement, which stood watch every day to make certain that its own arrêts were observed, should make difficulty for him, so just a prince, in his own [jurisdiction]. . . . Moreover, he had done nothing contrary to established practice, as the offense had been committed by the premier président blatantly, in the Privy Council, and two fingers from the king's own person. . . . Furthermore, although the king had admonished him . . . he had persevered in his obstinate contumaciousness. [June 16]

The king has since forgiven him and sought him out for a high (and more profitable) office, but [Lizet] has given him no occasion to continue him in royal favor. . . . If [the king] has shown more indulgence to others [Saint-André and Minard], it was at the request of some grands seigneurs . . . . What's more, everybody knows that he had a particular cause in regard to Lizet. [June 20]^[27]

[26] . Weiss, Chambre ardente , case no. 159; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 45; Monluc, Commentaires , 4:472, 486-487.

[27] . On Lizet's disgrace see Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:232, 234-235, and 596 (but Maugis regards the whole story as a roman ); Larfeuil, Pierre Lizet , 41-42; Félibien and Lobineau, Histoire , 2:1034; Blanchard, Présidents , 46; Aubert, "Parlement au XVIe siècle" (1950), 130; AN x^1a 1567, fols. 219, 223.

Lizet's disgrace was in fact only one part of an elaborate scheme to bring the highest echelons of the law under Guise control. Jean Bertrand held the office of premier président briefly before assuming that of garde des sceaux . (François Olivier, a man of outstanding integrity, had already been stripped of the substance of the office of chancellor on the pretext of poor health, but he was allowed to keep the title and privileges.) Gilles Le Maistre, another Guise client, then became premier président, and held the office until 1562.^[28]

We do not know what "high office" Lizet scorned, but there is no doubt that he became abbot of the abbey of St-Victor, to which he retired, and where he died in 1554. It is noteworthy that the Protestant historian Regnier de La Planche joins the ranks of other historians and legists in his laudatory epitaph of Pierre Lizet, the scourge of heretics: "[It is a great shame] that this good old man who had served in the front ranks of justice, should be disgraced and forced out."^[29]

It is safe to assume that the power plays of les grands did not escape parlementaire notice. Those who were not Guise clients would be alarmed by the course of events through self-interest. There was also a reaction against the entire system of repression among the mainstream parlementaires, of whose Catholic piety there was no question, on grounds that skirt the religious question entirely—that could justifiably be called "constitutional." The Chambre Ardente was an "exceptional jurisdiction" and thus an invasion of Parlement's sphere, encroaching on its powers as the supreme and most ancient judicial body in France. We have noted the consistent resistance to what Parlement regarded as usurpation by the Conseil du Roi, and in the following chapters we will follow its furious protests when the crown attempted to bypass the parlements by sending royal edicts directly to the presidial courts and especially when the provincial Parlements were used to bypass the Parlement of Paris.^[30] The Chambre des Luthériens was staffed by parlementaires. When repeated remonstrances against the exceptional chamber were unsuccessful, members of the court resorted to another strategy, using every pretext for refusal to serve when called upon

[28] . On Bertrand and Olivier see Blanchard, Présidents , 57-58; and Aubert, "Parlement au XVIe siècle" (1905), 130. On Le Maistre see Aubert, 130-131; and Blanchard, 69-71. See also Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:234 n.4.

[29] . Larfeuil, Pierre Lizet , 48; Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 3:189.

[30] . Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:595-601; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 16.

by the king to discharge particular tasks, and finally by abstentions and absenteeism. In January 1550, a delegation of parlementaires exhorted the king to terminate the Chambre Ardente and leave heresy cases to the regular criminal chamber, the Tournelle. The Chambre did indeed cease to function at that time, although Henri II could not abolish it officially without losing face.

As of 1550 the moderates lacked effective leadership, but their time was not far off. An early sign was the expression of protest against the manipulation of the chancellorship and first presidency, on grounds that the appointments of Bertrand and Le Maistre violated all the rules, and the request for a plenary session to deliberate the matter. The time was not yet ripe, however; the court dismissed the argument and voted to register the appointments as raisonnables .^[31] Yet, as at its lowest point the tide begins imperceptibly to turn, so forces favorable to a shift in the balance of power between the factions of the court soon provided an opportunity for the moderates to recapture the leadership.

Decompression

In 1551 an issue arose that diverted Parlement's attention from heresy. The first session of the Council of Trent had broken up (1547) because of national rivalries, especially between France and the Hapsburgs, and differences over organization and procedure among the prelates. The French specifically opposed a recall of the same council by Julius III, at Trent in November 1550, which made the interval a mere adjournment. Henri II retaliated with traditional Gallican moves, a threat to hold a national council, an embargo on the export of gold to Rome, and preparations to use the ultimate weapon, the "withdrawal of obedience" from the church. Schism was avoided by the diplomatic mediation of cardinal de Tournon, and the episode of 1551 ranks among the least of the "Gallican crises." Nevertheless, the revival of the old ultramontane menace drew the ultras closer to the mainstream, a rapprochement facilitated by the king's abolition of the Chambre Ardente on the one hand and his granting the Society of Jesus teaching privileges on the other.^[32]

Simultaneously, although a new edict (Chateaubriand, 1551) marked a shift to what Sutherland calls "positive persecution," the king's attention was diverted for three or four years by the renewal of war. After a number

[31] . AN x^1a 1566, fols. 117, 170, June 11 and 27, 1550.

[32] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 342-343; Kelley, Foundations , 165-166.

of encounters, military and diplomatic, in Italy, Henri II decided to attack the emperor in a more sensitive area, the middle strip of the old Carolingian empire, which bordered France on the east. The constable would attack Metz while the king and Guise would penetrate Lorraine. Before leaving for the front, Henri extended an olive branch to Parlement by recognizing its right of remonstrance but asked also that the court accept the actions and edicts of Catherine de Médicis as regent in his absence and register them without remonstrance.

The strategic fortress of Metz became the focus of Franco-imperial rivalry in 1552. The constable took the city in the spring but the emperor could not accept its loss, and in the latter part of the year he attempted to drive the French out. The siege of Metz was one of the great military events of the century and the brilliance of its successful defense made the reputation of François, duc de Guise, with consequences for the history of France later in the sixteenth century that are hard to exaggerate.^[33]

Charles V was defeated in battle and the long years of struggling to hold together his far-flung holdings had worn him out; he abdicated in 1556, but the military threat to France did not disappear. By 1557 she was on the defensive against Philip II on her vulnerable north-eastern frontier. Long years of expensive war had profoundly affected the relations of king and Parlement by stimulating an extraordinary increase in venality and exploitation of offices for money. Responsibility for these developments and for the entire chain reaction of consequences should be attributed to king and magistrates in about equal shares. Without entering into details, we need to follow the main outlines in order to understand changes occurring within Parlement between the early years of Henri II's reign and the long crisis over religious policy that began in its final years and reached a climax after his death.

Henri II's systematic exploitation of parlementaire ambition, greed, family pride, and vanity leaps out of the record. War imposed actual fiscal needs, yet the cynicism with which the king would reiterate reform intentions and recite the rules intended to regulate the composition and operation of the court in the very act of breaking them is reminiscent of the twentieth-century uses of "the big lie." Maugis contrasts Henri II's methods with those of his father—hardly a model respecter of procedures: "Where François I had proceeded more or less subtly with small steps of equivocation, menace and constraint, the art of his son lay entirely in deception, indirect means, that is of diplomacy aided by corruption." Maugis adds, "he scarcely

[33] . Le Monnier, France sous Henri II , 147-154.

bothered to deny that his one thought was to sell more offices." The principal means was by illegal private arrangements with those présidents and conseillers "known to be ready for seduction, who had something to gain from the proposed creations [of offices] for their elder sons, benefices for the younger ones, marital alliances for their daughters. The game began on the first day [of the reign]." The offices thus gained became a part of the family heritage, droits acquis , and some of the greatest parlementaire families were involved in these transactions, not excluding the de Thou, the Séguier, and the Harlay.^[34]

Nevertheless, there were periodic protests and attempts to restore the traditional dignity and discipline. In March 1554, when he was still avocat du roi, Pierre (I) Séguier spoke out against a royal edict abolishing the old system of épices (unofficial but customary fees in addition to legally defined fees) and substituting new taxes on every act, commission, order, inquiry, record, or other transaction in every royal court, including inferior jurisdictions such as the presidial courts and those of the bailliages . Arguing for retention of the old system, Séguier pointed out that whereas the épices were paid at the end of a case, when sentence had been pronounced, under the new system litigants "would have to put their hand in their pockets in order to get a hearing and again at every step of the judicial process, with the risk for a poor man that he would be denied justice entirely. What a scandal, not only for the king's subjects, but even more for foreigners accustomed to revere French justice!"

The edict was registered de mandato expresso on April 28, after much debate, but it was abolished along with the entire système de semestre (a doubling of the numbers in the court, with one-half to serve in one-half of the year) four years later (January 1558). Séguier's eloquence had not prevailed in the spring of 1554, but he was promoted to a presidency on June 30 of that year, one day after Christophe de Thou. Although at the time he expressed some resentment that a mere avocat at the bar of the court should outrank him, the avocat du roi, he accepted the situation. It seems possible that this slight humiliation was the king's reprisal for Séguier's opposition. If so, it did not turn him into a docile rubber stamp of royal policy. Nor did any serious antagonism from this initial rivalry develop between him and de Thou. On the contrary, they joined forces repeatedly, and as leaders of the moderate mainstream they were able to wrest control from the ultras and enlist the majority on their side.^[35]

[34] . Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:191-192, 208, 217-219.

[35] . Ibid., 1:193, 197, 211, 203.

In 1550, the expiration of the Chambre Ardente and parlementaire reaction against flagrant manipulation of the two ranking judicial offices (chancellorship and first presidency) had brought about a lessening of tensions within the court. Recognition of Parlement's rights in heresy cases and the "Gallican crisis" healed the breach still further in 1551. The détente this time was of brief duration, however. Even though Henri II's attention was mainly on the war until financial necessity obliged him to prepare for peace in 1558, he resumed the offensive in religious policy as early as 1555. Neither he nor the ultra parlementaires would easily accept the shift of parlementaire opinion toward modification of uncompromising repression of heresy.

8
The Road to Civil War (1):
1555-1561

Divisions in the Crisis Generation

Historians of all generations and persuasions agree that the death of Henri II (July 1559) precipitated the midcentury crisis in France, weakening the crown and encouraging attempts by rival, armed politico-religious groups to dominate the country through the young Valois kings who succeeded him. The first civil war broke out in April 1562. The thirty-three months between these two dates constitute the period of acute crisis, yet events in the last years of Henri II's reign provided its context, partly determined the shape it would take, and contributed to its long-range consequences, even beyond the end of the century. The virtually all-embracing character of this turning point results from the coincidence and interaction of major changes in the power structure and religious forces throughout western Europe with equally important changes within France.

In 1555 the first war "of religion," in the Germanies, ended in the Peace of Augsburg, by which the several princes were granted the autonomy they had long sought, including the right to determine the religious affiliation of their subjects (as between Catholic and Lutheran only). One result was that the Lutheran princes no longer needed the active support of the French king; another was that Emperor Charles V was preparing to abdicate and to divide his domains into two parcels. Within two years, his son Philip, king of Spain and lord of the Netherlands, was posing a very direct threat to France's northeastern frontier, only a few miles from Paris. The Spanish king would prove to be a dangerous foe in future decades, but in the first stages of the Franco-Spanish war (1557-59) both nations were in such serious financial straits, after sixty years of intermittent war, that they were forced to prepare for peace—actually concluded in April 1559. The fact that

both kings were alarmed by the spread of heresy provided them with a useful rationalization: it was the prime duty of Catholic monarchs to unite to defend the faith by stamping out heresy, rather than wasting their substance in war against each other, which permitted heresy to increase.

Philip's emergence as a main actor on other parts of the European stage also affected France. To the west, his marriage to Mary Tudor (1554) created a kind of encirclement of France by Spanish influence, while the rising tide of Calvinism in Scotland (John Knox returned in 1559) threatened the stability of the Scottish throne and the age-old alliance between Scotland and France. Mary of Guise, sister of the French ultra-Catholic party leaders, was regent for her daughter, Mary Stuart, who was residing at the French court and soon to be married to the dauphin, François (1558). To the south, Philip's inheritance of the Kingdom of Naples aroused the opposition of the Neapolitan pope, Paul IV. He made an alliance with Henri II, who undertook to protect the pope and his ambitious Caraffa nephews, and to assist in liberating Naples from Spain. As a Counter-Reformation leader, the pope was a natural ally of the Guise faction, whose fortunes we have seen rise dramatically (as a result of the siege of Metz) at the expense of Constable Montmorency's. In the mid-1550s Montmorency was urging peace on Henri II and secured a—fleeting—victory over his rivals when France signed a truce at Vaucelles in 1556, while the cardinal de Lorraine was absent in Italy. Dynastic and personal motives were no more lacking in Montmorency's pursuit of peace than in the aggressive policy of the Guises. A clause in the Truce of Vaucelles provided for the ransom of his son François, and the constable's own release from captivity (in the battle of St-Quentin, 1557) was an important French objective in the more definitive Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559).

The balance of religious forces in Europe was also changing in the last years of Henri II's reign. The Lutheran states were so well established that their existence had to be accepted, however reluctantly, by the successors of Charles V and even by the papacy. The strategy of the Counter-Reformation leadership was to focus attention on areas like France, wavering in their allegiance but still loyal if Rome used the right methods, and to "counter" heresy directly by reaffirming every Catholic doctrine that had been challenged. The source of the "contagion" was now Geneva, where Calvin achieved undisputed religious supremacy in the very year of the Peace of Augsburg and of the organization of the Paris Reformed Church, 1555.

By 1558-59 the religious polarization was to some extent linked with the diplomatic lineup: Spain, the papacy, and in France the Guise party in

a Counter-Reformation coalition, as against the states that had broken with the old church, of which England became the most important with Elizabeth's accession to the throne. Elizabeth's own religious position was conservative but also imprecise; she could not be a Roman Catholic, as in the eyes of the papacy she was illegitimate both as a sovereign and as an individual. Furthermore, England's national interests would lead Elizabeth to join forces with the followers of Knox against the Guise party in Scotland (Treaty of Edinburgh, 1560), and later to support the Dutch rebels and the Huguenots—as cheaply as possible, to be sure. Both international coalitions were subject to internal tensions and temporary dissolution whenever national, dynastic, or factional interests conflicted with the religious interest.

France was divided not only by two rival parties striving for supremacy, each allied to an international camp, but further by the conflicts between traditional Gallican Catholics and followers of the newer Tridentine approach, which was specifically antinational and ultramontane. The three-way split would make France the crucible of Europe and prolong the wars of religion for thirty-six years.

The international religious polarization was matched by profound shifts in the religious pattern in France. In the late 1550s, the ultra-Catholic position was greatly strengthened by the prestige of the Guises and, in a negative way, by reaction against the spectacular growth of Calvinism. These facts have long been recognized. In addition, Denis Richet has recently drawn attention to changes within the French Reformed movement and in the perceptions and reactions of the surrounding Catholic community. He points to three "mutations" in French Protestantism that surfaced at the end of Henri's reign: first, the conversion to or tolerance of unorthodox views of significant numbers of notables in Paris in three important milieux: the ranking commercial families, the municipal government, and the sovereign courts; second, contrary to their predecessors, the new Huguenots or sympathizers, were militant: "aux martyrs qui acceptaient la supplice, qui éprouvaient même une joie intense à périr pour Dieu, se substituent des hommes qui résistent." Sure of themselves, the Protestant notables asserted their legitimacy and disclaimed any kind or degree of rebellion or sedition. Accompanying this triomphalisme , as Richet calls it, was contempt for the man in the street that Richet believes helps to explain the connivance of Catholic notables who were also concerned to purge the community of disturbers of the peace. Richet postulates a desire, shared by the upper class of both confessions, to contain and impose "order" on the lower classes, and he considers this horizontal class cleavage more significant than the vertical ideological (religious) cleavage. The third new factor was the reluc-

tance of the authorities to act against well-placed persons by whom they were impressed. "A certain diffuse sympathy for the cause of the Gospel among Parisian notables" was manifested among parlementaires, which provoked distrust of their sincerity as Catholics and skepticism of their declared intentions to suppress heresy.^[1]

The Parlement of Paris thus stood at the center of a series of concentric circles of crisis. It was inevitably affected by international crises, like those in the British Isles and the Netherlands, toward which France had to take a stand; bonds of clientage and interest connecting them to les grands made it impossible for parlementaires to avoid being caught in the crossfire of factional rivalries at court; and a difference of religious opinion among parlementaires put them at odds with royal policy toward heresy.

At the center of all these circles, the Parlement was subject to inner divisions that seriously impeded its effectiveness and threatened its integrity. As long as religious policy dominated both the relations of the court to the crown and among its own members, the pressures continued to mount. Not even the eventual explosion in civil war could relieve them. Only displacement of the threat of heresy by the ultramontane threat could do so—and that was not until 1563.

The Moderates at Bay, 1555-1559

When Henri II requested the court's "advice" on the best means of punishing and stamping out heresy in 1555, the moderates had the opening they had been waiting for. Président Séguier and conseiller Du Drac spoke out against a proposed new edict (as unnecessary) and specifically opposed the introduction of an Inquisition. In their opinion, "the record of the medieval Inquisition did not inspire confidence . . . [it was] marked by savage brutality and gross errors in judgment." If new men were appointed to such a court, they would lack the necessary knowledge and experience of the law, and if new men were not to be appointed, why was it necessary to create a new court?

Special courts in any case weakened justice by reducing the jurisdiction and the prestige of the existing courts. Royal justice, vested in Parlement, was the main protection of Frenchmen, and kings should not abandon it in favor of "innovations." More attention should be given to prevention of

[1] . Denis Richer, "Aspects socio-culturels des conflits religieux à Paris dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle," Annales—Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 32 (1 977): 769, 765, 770; see also Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:13-23, for many details on Parlement's hostility to the Reformation, with full archival references in notes.

heresy and less to punishment, following the example of the primitive church, which, far from taking the sword, resisted persecution by the purity of Christian lives. "By these means the word of God was spread . . . and the church was able to persevere in bad times as well as in good. The wise Emperor Justinian forbade the clergy to come to court, under pain of suspension from their offices. . . . The residence requirement should be revived in France." Alluding to one more danger of an Inquisition—denunciation by one's personal enemies under the cover of religion—président Séguier reemphasized the main point: "Parlement's deputies advise the king that the best way to put an end to heresies would be to imitate the state of the primitive church, that is, through good examples set by ecclesiastics, rather than by fire and sword."^[2]

The moderates may have been emboldened to speak up at this time (October 1555) by episodes in which individuals had taken the law into their own hands, exceeding even the harsh measures permitted by royal policy. Only a few days earlier one Jean de Thérouenne, described as exalté , had harassed, without authorization, the bailli of Orléans, Jean Groslot, "for negligence in pursuing persons suspected of heresy" and caused him to be imprisoned, "usurping power reserved to the Grand' Chambre by royal command."^[3]

In April 1556 the court refused to knuckle under to pressure from the cardinal de Lorraine. Procureur général Brulart reported that the cardinal was displeased to learn that certain prisoners pour le faict de la religion had continued in their errors after being released, plus refractoires qu'au-paravant , and wished the court to require proof of real repentance in future cases. The court replied that each case would continue to be decided on its merits, while agreeing that released prisoners should report to diocesan authorities.^[4]

In 1556 and 1557 the court was repeatedly accused of foot-dragging in the pursuit of heresy by spokesmen for the crown, sometimes by the king himself. On June 12, 1556, Henri II told a parlementaire delegation that the court "had proceeded so coldly against heretics for the past three years" that he was considering removing the matter from their jurisdiction. A year later, the gens du roi presented letters patent commanding the court—

[2] . AN x^1a 1581, fols. 308-312 on Séguier and Du Drac, October 1555.

[3] . Ibid., fol. 284v on Thérouenne; and Christopher W. Stocker, "The Calvinist Officers of Orléans, 1560-1572," Proceedings of the Western Society for French History 6 (1979): 21-23.

[4] . AN x^1a 1581, fols. 308-309, for April 3 and June 12, 1556; AN x^1a 1584, fol. 340, June 12, 1557.

again—to register an edict seizing the goods of religious fugitives who had fled the kingdom. The accusation of deliberate malingering stung the parlementaires, and Séguier retorted that no more than eleven or twelve sessions had been involved, and "when the two hours reserved for current cases each day were subtracted, only about fifteen minutes were left for each [member] to declare his conscience." On the last day of 1557, the gens du roi complained again that the court had still not deliberated the king's latest edict (Compiègne), "presented four months ago." They understated the case: the edict had been presented on July 24, 1557, and was registered in January 1558.^[5]

Fabian tactics were routine in parlementaire resistance. In this case it is easy to understand because the Edict of Compiègne was Draconian. It enforced the death penalty, without appeal, for all sacramentaires (those who denied the Real Presence), all who preached heresy, even in private, all who offended against the sacraments, images, the Virgin, or the saints, engaged in unlawful assembly or other sedition, who communicated with Geneva, or who possessed or traded in condemned books. In addition to summing up all previous edicts, it stated that violations sont autant à chastier par armes que par voye de justice , which Sutherland interprets as no less than "a declaration of war by the king against his Protestant subjects."^[6]

Simultaneously letters patent establishing "three inquisitors of the faith in our kingdom" had been sent to Parlement. (This royal decree confirmed a papal brief of April 1556. The Edict of Compiègne can be considered a companion declaration for the secular arm.) Conditions were attached to this unpopular measure by which the king hoped to soften the opposition and limit the inquisitors' power: only reliable churchmen were to be employed, cooperation with the local bishop was required, and at least six of the ten bons et notables personnages on the tribunals were to be conseillers in Parlement. Moreover, all final decisions lay with royal officials. The inquisitors chosen reflect the same caution and desire to defuse hostility. They also represent a balance of the noble factions at court: Odet, cardinal de Châtillon, a nephew of Montmorency and a liberal Erasmian;^[7] Charles, cardinal de Lorraine, leader of the Guise party; with Charles, cardinal de

[5] . AN x^1a 1586, for December 3, 1557.

[6] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 344-345 on Edict of Compiègne; my italics.

[7] . Odet de Coligny, cardinal de Châtillon (1517-71), has usually been treated as a Huguenot because he served the cause in the Third Civil War as its chief diplomat (in addition to the adherence of his two brothers), but the latest study shows that he was a liberal religious reformer, rather than a Calvinist (Lawrence S. Metzger, "The Protestant Cardinal, Odet de Coligny, 1517-1571" [Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1979]).

Bourbon, ineffectual but of royal blood, in the middle. Although the letters patent were registered by Parlement in January 1558, they remained a dead letter and were allowed to lapse in six months. No Inquisition of the Roman type ever functioned in France, although many measures of French courts were substantively similar, and some Sorbonne theologians had borne the title "inquisitor of the faith" since the reign of François I.^[8]

Events of major importance occurred in the months between this attempt to set up an inquisition, in July 1557, and its abandonment the following year. In August the French armies suffered a drastic defeat by the Spaniards at St-Quentin. In addition to the constable, his nephew Gaspard de Coligny was taken prisoner. Anxiety to obtain Montmorency's release was a principal factor in Henri II's willingness to sue for peace, while the admiral's confinement was probably the turning point of his life, laying the groundwork for his conversion to the Protestant cause, which he would lead for the last ten years of his life.^[9] This was, of course, unknown at the time, but other events kept the menace of heresy in the forefront of Parisian public opinion.

Shortly after St-Quentin, on September 5, 1557, a clandestine Protestant service in a private house in the rue St-Jacques was invaded by the authorities. The congregation included many nobles, and while the men fought their way out, 22 of the 132 persons arrested were described as "dames et demoiselles de grandes maisons." The affaire de la rue St-Jacques created a scandal, confirming the fears of those who had only suspected the extent of the movement in those circles. Two of the noblewomen were members of Catherine de Médicis's entourage, and she subsequently took others under her protection. Important persons in the Germanies and Switzerland tried to intercede with the French king on behalf of the prisoners—in vain. The episode is a striking instance of the points made by Richer about the Huguenots of these years.^[10]

The most flagrant manifestations of Huguenot triomphalisme were yet to come, in the spring of 1558, when Protestants assembled openly in the

[8] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 54-55; Sutherland, "An Inquisition in France?," 363-369.

[9] . Shimizu's Conflict of Loyalties , the most recent biography of Admiral Cologny, has very complete references to the sources.

[10] . On the affaire de la rue St-Jacques see Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 64; Nancy L. Roelker, "The Role of Noblewomen in the French Reformation," Archive for Reformation History (1972): 168-195. See also Taber, "Religious Dissent," ch. 1. Canon Brulart confirms Richet's thesis when he refers to Huguenots making a point of being fashionably (and expensively) dressed when they knew members of the royal court would see them.

Pré-aux-Clercs (quartier St-Germain) to hold services à la mode de Genève , in the contemporary phrase. The presence of François d'Andelot, youngest of the Châtillons, and on occasion that of Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre and first prince of the blood, seemed to protect the gatherings, so that the laws against "illicit assemblies" were not enforced, which encouraged others to join. On May 17 the bishop of Paris complained that in the streets surrounding the Pré-aux-Clercs "great crowds were chanting the Psalms of David in French."^[11] As with any novelty, many were curiosity seekers rather than serious converts, and university neighborhoods are always volatile, but the increased numbers raised the visibility of Parisian heretics.^[12]

Some came to taunt and heckle; fights frequently broke out and the neighborhood became notorious for its "disorders." A considerable share of the responsibility for the endemic violence should probably be attributed to the ever more inflammatory sermons, which the bishop tried to control, but with no noticeable effect.^[13] The king expected the Parlement to control the situation and sent word (May 23) that he wished to get to the bottom of the disturbances: "Those who know anything and do not reveal it will be punished by death, as seditious [persons]." Henri II was quoted as saying that if his own son did not share his religion, he would treat him as an enemy. Parlement's position, already difficult, grew increasingly hazardous, caught between royal pressure to punish lawbreakers and confidence of the latter that their high sponsorship would shield them.^[14] Parlementaires heard threats from outraged Catholics in the streets and felt reluctance to move against persons they respected—colleagues, friends, and relatives with whose views they often sympathized and sometimes shared. Judges who tried to implement royal policy were jostled and insulted in the streets; a frequent epithet was Fauteur d'hérésie! The king's Catholic advisers were urging that judges who failed to apply the heresy laws—and especially those who were personally guilty of violating them—should be stripped of

[11] . Clément Marot (1495-1544) translated the Psalms into French, an important contribution to the Protestant movement, and had written many poèmes d'occasion for his patroness, Marguerite de Navarre, before becoming a Calvinist.

[12] . AN x^1a 1588, for May 12, 1558.

[13] . AN x^1a 1584, fols. 282, 294, April 9, 13, 1558; ibid., 1585, fols. 353, 404v, April 29, May 14, 1558.

[14] . This illusion shattered when D'Andelot was arrested, imprisoned, and coerced into a retraction to make an example of him (May-July 1558), but he remained a leader in the Calvinist movement in the first two civil wars, until his death in 1569. See Nancy L. Roelker, "Family, Faith, and Fortune; the Châtillon Brothers in the French Reformation," in Leaders of the Reformation , ed. R. De Molen (London, 1984).

their offices. Attempting to pass the buck, the court deplored the dereliction in their duty of the municipal and university authorities. On June 2 the king lost patience and sent orders to the court "to act at once and severely," making Antoine Fumée and Bartholomé Faye responsible for carrying them out.^[15]

However severe the pressures from outside, the Parlement's own crisis was caused by an inner explosion. Conflicts between the moderates and the ultras over religious policy fragmented the court. The moderates, led by présidents Séguier and Harlay, prevailed in the Tournelle and thus routinely heard heresy cases appealed from lower courts, while the ultras, led by premier président Le Maistre, dominated the Grand' Chambre. The case that set off the explosion, in March 1559, involved three prisoners who were appealing a death sentence. The Tournelle judges had failed to persuade the accused to recant and were under attack for delaying sentence. They then made a move, at great risk to themselves, which could only mean that they were unwilling to apply the royal edicts and were seeking a further means to avoid doing so. Entering into discussion with the accused, they apparently offered acquittal on condition of attendance at mass, and when the prisoners refused, they permitted them to give explanations of their reasons in writing. The source that gives the fullest detail on the episode is the Histoire ecclésiastique that speaks for the Calvinist leadership (formerly attributed to Théodore de Bèze himself). We cannot therefore be sure that the explanations of the accused were so convincing that "some of the judges were obliged to admit out loud that in truth the Mass contained abuses," but there is no disputing the fact that the Tournelle converted the death sentence of a lower court to banishment, even as the Grand' Chambre was handing down another death sentence in a comparable case.^[16]

Such a situation could not be tolerated. The gens du roi convoked a special mercuriale to "restore discipline" and heal the breach. The king's intention was clearly to bring the erring moderates into line. We recall that all those close to him favored the ultra position and that their reaction to Huguenot triomphalisme had gone from indignation to fright and fury in recent months.

[15] . AN x^1a 1588, 1590, fols. 8v, 30v, 35v, 56v, 65; Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds Dupuy (hereafter, BN Dupuy) 132, fols. 58, 60, 62; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 42-49; Jean Calvin, Opera quae supersunt omnia , vol. 17, cols. 134-135, Macar to Calvin, May 1558.

[16] . Taber, "Religious Dissent," 42-44 and notes. We owe insight into this first open split in parlementaire opinion to the Huguenot sources, Jean Crespin, Bèze, and the authors of the Histoire ecclésiastique who were, of course, anxious to exploit it.

The Offensive of the Ultras, Spring 1559-December 1560

The first mercuriale session was held on the last Wednesday in April 1559. Our source, La Vraye Histoire (anonymous and Protestant) was considered factually reliable by de Thou, and nothing that I know of contradicts it. The author's judgments of people are frankly biased, however: Arnauld du Ferrier, who advocated submitting the heresy problem to a church council, is "a learned man with an enlightened mind," while the ultra président Minard is "given to sensuality, with no learning, a great inventor of schemes and factions."

It appears that a moderate consensus was reached in the first two sessions, on the necessity (and appropriateness) of leaving heresy to a church council, with discussion centering on how to handle unorthodox opinions in the meanwhile. One proposal was to offer declared heretics six months in which to recant or face banishment, but with permission to take their movable property with them. Antoine Fumée argued that capital punishment should be suspended until the issues were clarified by the ecclesiastical authorities. According to the Vraye Histoire premier président Le Maistre and présidents Minard and Saint-André, together with procureur général Bourdin, "fearing that a majority shared [Fumée's] opinion, and wishing to please the king and the pope, gave the king to understand that almost all the conseillers were Lutherans who wished to strip him of his power and his crown . . . that if he allowed the mercuriales to continue the [Roman] church would be ruined because Parlement would support its Lutheran [members], who paid no attention to the laws and mocked those who judged according to them . . . and that the majority [of the court] never attended Mass."^[17] The informers urged the king to surprise the court during a mercuriale session so as to verify their report, and advised that force be used against the heretic members.

This "leaked" information—which was decidedly exaggerated—was of course a violation of the confidentiality of Parlement's deliberations. Jacques-Auguste de Thou also reports, on the authority of his father, président Christophe de Thou, that the informers produced a list identifying parlementaire suspects—and their property—which the king had shown to de Thou. The session of June 10, when Henri II followed the informers' advice, was the most important (historically) ever held. Accompanied by

[17] . "La Vraye Histoire, contenant l'inique jugement et fausse procédure contre le fidelle serviteur de Dieu, Anne du Bourg," in Mémoires de Condé (London, 1743), 1:218-221.

Montmorency and the Guises, under armed escort, the king interrupted the deliberations, announced his dissatisfaction with the pursuit of heresy and his determination to stamp it out. He then ordered the deliberations to resume forthwith. Conseiller Claude Viole, advocating that the heresy question be submitted to a church council, summed up the substance of previous sessions. Unfortunately, there are no minutes for these sessions in the registers; they were probably destroyed, as seems to be true of Parlement's records in other major crises. There are some sources other than the Vraye Histoire , however, for the belief that a majority of those who spoke favored a general council and opposed the death sentence, notably the dispatch of England's ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton of June 13, which states that of one hundred twenty persons present, only Le Maistre and fourteen others supported the death sentence. He also interprets the basic motive for the ultra maneuver as their desire, one might say their need, to discredit président Séguier.

The House of Guise hath taken this occasion to weaken the Constable; and because they wold not begynne directly with Seggier, for feare of manifesting their practise, they have found the meanes to cause these counsailors to be taken; supposing, that on the examination of them somme mater may be gathered to toche Seggier withal, and thereby to overthrow him.^[18]

While saying nothing about religious policy as such, two conseillers made bold attacks on the king. Louis Du Faur said that it was necessary to uncover the ultimate responsibility for the troubles of the kingdom and cited the prophet Elijah, who accused King Ahab of "troubling Israel," while Anne Du Bourg commented on the contrast between the flourishing and prosperous condition of blasphemers and adulterers, and the persecution of those who led pure lives and whose "sedition" was to demand the reform of a corrupt church. Even a more magnanimous king would probably have found that these remarks constituted lèse-majesté; it was out of the question for Henri II to ignore them in the very presence of his most important, ultra, advisers. The cardinal de Lorraine may well have been murmuring, "I told you so."

After the conseillers, the présidents expressed their opinions, which are

[18] . Public Record Office, "Throckmorton to Queen," June 13, 1559, Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth [I ] (London, 1863) (hereafter, Cal. S.P. For. ), vol. 1, no. 833; Mémoires de Condé , 1:222-224 on June mercuriale ; Jacques-Auguste de Thou, Histoire universelle (Amsterdam, 1740), 2:666-680—a major mainstream parlementaire interpretation of events throughout the years it covered; Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:9-10.

of particular interest to us. Four constituted the nucleus of the moderate leadership: René Baillet, Christophe de Harlay, Christophe de Thou, and Pierre (I) Séguier. Their main message was the defense of the court, with some suggestion that the heresy laws should be reexamined. The other two présidents were the "informers." Antoine Minard, who had a reputation for timidity, said merely that the royal edicts should be obeyed. Only premier président Le Maistre (liaison between the ultras in the royal entourage and those in Parlement) said anything directly about religious policy, by expressing approval of the policy of Philip Augustus toward the Albigensians as a precedent for the death penalty.

There was no orderly conclusion or adjournment to this mercuriale . The king flew into a rage, demanded that the register be surrendered to him, stormed out of the building with his entourage, and ordered the arrest of eight parlementaires. Three were able to hide with friends and stay out of sight: Jacques Viole, Arnauld Du Ferrier, and Nicole Du Val. Along with Anne Du Bourg, the most "seditious," four others were arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille: Louis Du Faur, Antoine Fumée, Paul de Foix, and Eustache de la Porte. According to the rules, magistrates could be tried only by the whole court, all chambers assembled, but on June 19 the king appointed a special commission to try them. It was even more flagrantly "extraordinary" than the Chambre Ardente, indeed, two of its members were veterans of the latter, président François de Saint-André and conseiller Louis Gayant. The others were conseiller Robert Bonete, maître des requêes Jean de Mesmes, and two ecclesiastics, Antoine de Mouchy and Eustache du Bellay, bishop of Paris.

During the following week the prisoners were interrogated. Du Bourg denied the authority of the commission and took advantage of many legal loopholes, including appeals to his ecclesiastical superiors as well as to the full Parlement. Against some members of the commission he also made challenges of their competence (récusations ), on the grounds that they had previously taken action against him. The case dragged on until the end of the year, in various phases. He was repeatedly condemned as a heretic and finally burned at the stake in the Place de Grève on December 23. It is clear that in the latter stages Du Bourg was consciously making points, both legal and theological, and that he was prepared for martyrdom, perhaps even seeking it.^[19] Aspects of the case significant for the general question of parlementaire mentalité will be considered in the next section of this chap-

[19] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:225-65, for interrogations and sentence of Du Bourg, and other documents 1:266-304.

ter, along with the opinions of other members. The four conseillers arrested with Du Bourg were all reinstated the following year, but there was considerable variation in the sentences they received and in the circumstances of their rehabilitation. Each denied the legality of the case against him.^[20]

Analysis of the spectrum of religious opinion among parlementaires must be understood in the context of some important changes in the political climate of France between the arrests in June 1559 and the release of all but Du Bourg within a few months. On July 10, 1559, exactly one month after Henri II had sworn "to see [Du Bourg] burn with his own eyes," the king died as a result of a wound inflicted during a joust that was part of the celebration of two royal marriages sealing the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis.^[21] The fact that the fatal thrust had reached the brain through the eye did not escape notice of the Huguenot pamphleteers, who saw it as God's punishment on the adulterous persecutor of the righteous. The removal of the king did not, of course, soften the harsh policy of the royal government, over which the cardinal de Lorraine now had virtually unchallenged control. The young king, François II, was married to the cardinal's niece, Mary Stuart; Catherine de Médicis was not yet in a position to emerge from her enforced role as mere mère de famille (although she could destroy Diane de Poitiers's influence); and Montmorency was also in eclipse.

The Guises removed all important officeholders not of their party, and under their direction the tempo of persecution in Paris rose to new heights. There were massive arrests, regularly resulting in torture, mutilation, and autos-da-fé. The property of Protestants was sacked and public places were emblazoned with libels attacking them. The French pastors felt obliged to warn Calvin (who did not approve of armed resistance) that the faithful could not long bear these conditions, and they appealed to Catherine de Médicis to intervene. Parlement managed to soften one edict (September) that decreed the razing of any house used for Protestant assemblies by restricting its application only to cases in which the owner had been a participant. An edict (November) requiring denunciation of any heretical activity one knew of on pain of being considered a heretic oneself was

[20] . Taber, "Religious Dissent," 64-67, 74-99. From time to time, Taber and I interpret a particular parlementaire's religious stand differently: she regards président René Baillet as more "hard-line" and I count him in the moderate category, among other reasons because he voted with premier président de Thou, Christophe de Harlay, and Pierre Séguier, the moderate leadership.

[21] . Henri's daughter Elizabeth married Philip II (widowed by the death of Mary Tudor the previous year); his sister Marguerite married Philip Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, ally of Spain.

allowed to stand, together with a monetary reward to informers and personal pardon if they had themselves formerly been guilty.^[22] In the week before Christmas fear, rumor, and violence reached a new crescendo. Présiclent Minard, prominent in the ultra faction, was assassinated in the street, an act understandably (but with no known justification) attributed to the Huguenots. Rumors that Le Maistre and Saint-André would soon fall victim fueled the anti-Protestant frenzy, and on December 23 Du Bourg was burned at the stake.

The intensity of persecution aroused widespread passive resistance and, not surprisingly, plans for armed resistance as well. The Conspiracy of Amboise, an ill-conceived and badly executed plot of some lesser Protestant nobles to seize the Guises and "rescue" the king in March 1560, was an isolated resort to arms unauthorized by the Reformed leaders either in France or in Geneva. It was betrayed to the Guises in advance and easily put down with brute force. The consequences were unfortunate in that the episode played into the hands of the ultras, who could represent all Protestants as rebels and thus frighten many law-abiding, non-ultra Catholics into accepting the persecution policy as essential to law and order and to the stability of the state.

For some time the French pastors and Calvin himself had been working for the conversion of the Bourbon brothers, princes of the blood. Neither Antoine, king of Navarre, nor Louis, prince de Condé, had become converts but their actions as "protectors" of the Huguenots were exploited by the Guises, who condemned them as fauteurs d'hérésie and rebellion. Condé was described as "the silent chief" of the Conspiracy of Amboise.^[23]

The attack on the princes of the blood proved counterproductive for the Guises, substantiating the view that they had usurped the princes' "constitutional" place as "natural" advisers to the crown and regents for weak or minor sovereigns. People in all sections of the country and all (articulate) classes were drawn into a loose anti-Guise coalition, most of them Catholics of the traditional, Gallican stripe, as well as loyal to the crown. A Huguenot "party" would emerge in 1561, but there were as yet no respected and sufficiently powerful lay Protestant leaders. The anti-Guise "party" of 1559-60 naturally included the Huguenots and they tended to become its most vocal elements, but it was the moderate Catholics in the entourage of

[22] . For measures of the Guise regime in 1559 see Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 82, 346-347.

[23] . On Condé and the Conspiracy of Amboise see Shimizu, Conflict of Loyalties , 33-39; Alphonse de Ruble, Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d'Albret (Paris, 1881-86), 2:121-229, has full detail.

Catherine de Médicis who were responsible for some modifications of royal policy in the summer of 1560. At what might on the surface seem the height of their power, the Guises had created their own nemesis.

The historian can discern the signs as early as the spring of the year. On March 11 Parlement registered the Edict of Amboise, which states explicitly that the queen mother's advice had been sought because the religious troubles were threatening the kingdom with civil war. She replied that the young king did not wish "to stain the first year of his reign with the blood of his subjects" and therefore offered pardon for all crimes of religion on condition of abjuration. Pastors and conspirators against the royal family or its ministers were specifically excluded. The long-range aim was to separate rank-and-file Protestants from their leaders, but there is no doubt that the immediate purpose was to abort a Huguenot resort to force, widely rumored. It was badly timed, too late; the attack on the château of Amboise came only five days later, March 16. On the 17th, an ampliation de l'édit du Roy was issued from Amboise, offering pardon to those who claimed they had merely intended to petition the king and had been "misled" into treasonable actions. Catherine made this move when interrogations of those captured revealed many humble persons who had been persuaded that if the king only understood their grievances he would redress them. The ampliation was the basis for releasing many in the ranks while the limbs of the leaders were displayed on the walls as a grisly deterrent to would-be imitators.^[24]

In the early summer, Catherine made her most important appointment. Michel de L'Hôpital officially took over the seals as chancellor on June 20. It would be his thankless task to pilot through Parlement the ill-fated policy of religious toleration Catherine adopted in 1562. L'Hôpital, who had not enjoyed his sixteen years as conseiller in Parlement and never assimilated the mainstream mentalité , had risen rapidly under the sponsorship of the cardinal de Lorraine since 1553. He was successively maître des requêtes, premier président of the Chambre des Comptes, and a member of the Conseil Privé. An accomplished man of letters, he had eulogized the valor of François de Guise and the eloquence of the cardinal. It was generally assumed that he would be a tool of the Lorrainers, but L'Hôpital had served each of his several patrons so as to advance his own career as well. His adaptation to the service of Catherine while retaining the cardinal's favor, during the six months between his assumption of office and the fall of the Guises, was a political masterpiece.

[24] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 102-12, 348-349 on ampliation d'Amboise .

As the most recent authority on L'Hôpital says, "Hostility between L'Hôpital and the Parlement escalated into institutional conflict when the king appointed him to the newly created first presidency of the Chambre des Comptes in February 1555." Clashes with Parlement left an indelible mark not only on L'Hôpital's career when he became chancellor in 1560, but also on royal policy throughout the 1560s. The parlementaires felt both humiliated and betrayed by his authoritarian manner and consistent efforts to reduce their power. He was after all a former colleague and the first chancellor who had not advanced from the position of premier président of the Parlement.^[25]

L'Hôpital's first direct confrontation with Parlement over religious policy came when he presented the Edict of Romorantin in May 1560. The court was resisting registration because the edict reduced its jurisdiction; all civil authorities were forbidden de s'en mesler aucunement in heresy cases, the cognizance of which was thus "returned" to the church. Illicit assemblies, especially of armed men, were to be the responsibility of the presidial courts, recently established by Henri II, and presumably easier for the crown to control than the Parlements. Sutherland says that the edict provided "a relatively unobtrusive way of departing from extreme persecution" and that the situation of the earlier part of the century was "restored . . . in which Protestants could survive if they behaved discreetly, though naturally no such intention was expressed."^[26] This was a first step in the policy of restricting government measures to law and order—to actions as opposed to beliefs. It certainly represented a via media between the Protestant demand for a suspension of all persecution and the Guise policy of inquisition. Yet Parlement's remonstrances, drawn up by conseillers Jean Jacquelot and Adrien Du Drac and expressed by président Baillet, were virtually identical to the earlier protests of Séguier against the Inquisition, that is, that the king's justice was diminished by allowing ecclesiastics to punish heresy, even if there were no accompanying "seditious disturbances," and by denying the right of appeal. Parlement's specific constitutional prerogatives were infringed by designating independent powers to the presidial courts.^[27] The Edict of Romorantin was never enforced, and no further edicts were issued in the remaining months of the reign. As a conciliatory gesture to the court, the crown shortly denied any intention of removing its jurisdiction over illicit assemblies.

[25] . Kim, "Michel de L'Hôpital," and "The Chancellor's Crusade."

[26] . Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 113, 345-351 on Edict of Romorantin.

[27] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:539-555; Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:25-28.

In the weeks surrounding the Conspiracy of Amboise, Catherine had begun to seek advice from seigneurs sufficiently powerful to provide a counterforce to Guise domination. Most prominent among them were Montmorency's Châtillon nephews, Gaspard de Coligny, admiral of France, and Odet de Coligny, cardinal de Châtillon. She would depend heavily on them for the next two years. The timing of their respective "conversions" is uncertain. Although their reform sympathies dated back to the later years of Henri II's reign, they did not take an unequivocally partisan stand until the spring of 1561, and not until the Huguenot resort to arms in 1562 did collaboration with the regent become impossible.

When Catherine convoked a special meeting of the royal council at Fontainebleau in August 1560, as a means of reducing tension between the factions, Coligny played an important part. He was highly respected and could do more than anyone else to present the legitimate grievances of the Protestants and to change their association with sedition in the public mind, by emphasizing their loyalty and law-abiding character and insisting that the leadership had no responsibility for the Conspiracy of Amboise. The admiral was not yet the Huguenot leader known to history, however. His first public step was not taken until the following April—as will be seen. At Fontainebleau his role was "more that of a mediator than that of an advocate," as his most recent biographer demonstrates.^[28]

Also present at Fontainebleau were three prominent liberal Catholic bishops, frequently attacked by the ultras as heretics: Jean de Monluc, bishop of Valence, Jean de Morvilliers, bishop of Orléans, and Charles de Marillac, archbishop of Vienne, all members of the Conseil Privé. It seems probable that Catherine shared their view that abuses in the clergy were responsible for the corruption of the church and its loss of appeal; that a general council was the most desirable remedy, but if that did not occur there should be a national council, possibly in consultation with leaders of the reform, to seek an accommodation; and that no punishment harsher than exile was suitable for peaceable heretics. For the concomitant secular problems solutions should be sought in a meeting of the Estates General, which was decided upon for later in the year. In 1561, Catherine would also try the remedy of a national council on the religious question.^[29]

[28] . On Catherine and Coligny see Roelker, "The Châtillon Brothers"; on Coligny and the Huguenots see Shimizu, Conflict of Loyalties , 37-41. Historians have often anticipated Coligny's role, e.g., Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 115-117.

[29] . On Jean de Monluc, who merits a full, up-to-date study, see P. Tamizey de Larroque, "Notes et documents pour servir à la biographie de Jean de Monluc, évêque de Valence," Revue de Gascogne 8-9 (1867-68); H. Reynaud, Jean de Monluc, évêque de Valence (Paris, 1893); J. Flèche, "Évêque Jean de Monluc et la réforme à Valence," Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français 77 (1928).

Exchanges between Chancellor L'Hôpital and Parlement in September 1560 foreshadowed the struggle ahead.^[30] When the chancellor reproached members of the court for "inciting [sedition] instead of opposing it" and warned that the king expected everyone "to avoid language that might cause scandal or confirm the seditious in their opinions," Parlement was hit on a sensitive nerve, loyalty to the crown. Premier président Le Maistre retorted that he did not know of anything said by any officer of the court tournant à sedition , and reiterated parlementaire loyalty and persistent efforts to secure obedience to the king's laws. Passing over to the offensive, he noted that two important offices were held by Huguenots and declared that such violations were the real cause of the disorders.^[31]

The fact that the opinions of the queen's most trusted advisers partly coincided with those of the Protestants could not help alarming the Guises, who resumed the offensive by accusing the Bourbons of complicity in the Conspiracy of Amboise. In October they were summoned to Orléans, which had become an armed camp, and treated with scant respect by François II. Shortly Condé was arrested and Antoine humiliated. An extraordinary tribunal comprised of magistrates, conseillers d'état , and knights of the Order of St. Michael, pronounced a death sentence (for treason) against Condé on November 26, but opinions were so sharply divided that L'Hôpital adjourned the trial.^[32] A political reversal even more dramatic than the sudden death of Henri II seventeen months earlier then changed the course of events. François II fell ill with a severe ear infection and died on December 5. While the Guise administration was overwhelmed with confusion, Catherine took steps to assure for herself the regency—the next Valois brother (Charles IX) was only ten years old. She was able to exploit the well-known weaknesses of Antoine de Bourbon so as to neutralize his counterclaims as first prince of the blood.^[33] There were historical precedents for both. As

[30] . The definitive phase occurred in 1563, over the declaration of Charles IX's majority in the Parlement of Rouen, bypassing Paris.

[31] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:574-581, exchange between L'Hôpital and Le Maistre. Desjardins was still in office and even more controversial fifteen months later.

[32] . The magistrates were président Christophe de Thou and his two close associates, conseillers Bartholomé Faye and Claude Viole. Procureur général Bourdin and chief clerk Du Tillet also took an important part in these proceedings. It is worth noting that with the exception of Bourdin, those chosen by the crown for this critical assignment were all consistent, mainstream traditionalists, in both politics and religious opinion.

[33] . Roelker, Queen of Navarre , 157-158 on Catherine, Antoine, and regency in 1561; Shimizu, Conflict of Loyalties , ch. 3.

parlementaires who were their clients had been manipulated by the Guises under François II, so now there was an opportunity for the moderates, favored by the regent, to become more influential. But this did not transform them into docile creatures, cooperating with her policies; far from it.

Religious Opinion in the Crisis Generation

Reference has been made to the modest, low-key religious style habitual for magistrates, with its emphasis on conformity to conventional beliefs as well as reserve in behavior as expressed in such precepts as "The most familiar is always the best," "The facade must never be disturbed." The hold of these attitudes became even stronger under the pressure of new religious movements in the sixteenth century. Suspicion of innovation and the conviction that theology should be left to trained, authorized theologians—just as law should be left to trained, authorized lawyers and judges—caused typical mainstream robins to shy away from theological disputes associated with the Protestant challenge, even while favoring the reform of abuses in the Roman church. They readily imputed the decline in religious fervor and the growth of heresy to the failures of the contemporary clergy and regularly insisted that the only sure remedy was for clerics to be morally superior persons, resident in their cures or sees, who would set the right example for the Christian life. Discussion of the content of religious belief is virtually unheard of amongst them. When the challenge of the ultramontane revival replaced that of heresy, after 1563, the problem of content faded away but differences of opinion over forms of religious expression were greatly sharpened. Typical parlementaire opposition to ultra-Catholic extravagance (especially in the public displays of Henri III and in the League processions) was frequently and unequivocally expressed. For the substance of their belief, however, the historian is obliged to draw inferences from indirect sources. This contrasts sharply with the explicit statements of those like Berquin and Du Bourg, who frankly departed from the old church and explained fully both their reasons for doing so and their contrary ("heretical") beliefs, in "confessions of faith."

One particular document that allows us to penetrate beyond the conventional facade is, therefore, uniquely useful for our inquiry. In 1574 Pierre de Gondi, bishop of Paris, at the request of Pope Gregory XIII, conducted a hearing concerning the religious opinions expressed by Paul de Foix at the mercuriale of 1559 for which he had been imprisoned by Henri II. In spite of his rehabilitation and successful career as royal adviser and diplomat in the intervening fifteen years, there was still a taint of suspicion hanging

over Foix as candidate for the archbishopric of Toulouse, even with the support of Catherine de Médicis. The hearing involved interrogating thirty-six surviving magistrates, who had been present, on the statements of Paul de Foix. The facts that Foix had himself chosen the witnesses and that their testimony was favorable to him do not invalidate the source for our purposes, because prominent spokesmen of the mainstream were among the witnesses and through the questions and answers of the hearing we glean some insights into their religious opinions to balance those of the suspects recorded in La Vraye Histoire .^[34]

The attempt to sketch out a religious "profile" of the Parlement in this period must be postulated on the recognition that the only member we can call "Protestant" with certainty is Anne Du Bourg, on his own testimony. In the course of his trial(s), Du Bourg revealed that he had not attended mass since 1557 and that for him the pope was only the bishop of Rome. He declared that Scripture was the sole authority for a Christian and that all other elements, called by Catholics "the tradition," were man-made, as were the sacraments except for baptism and the Eucharist. These beliefs, expressed as early as the fourteenth century by John Wycliffe, had become the core tenets of all varieties of Protestantism since Luther. Another was repudiation of the doctrine of transubstantiation, Du Bourg thought that the Last Supper should be reenacted in simplicity, following Christ's instruction, "Eat, drink . . . do this in remembrance of me." This implies communion for the laity "in both kinds" and denies miraculous power to the priest. Preaching is the special function of the clergy: "Go, tell all the world." In common with almost everyone in the sixteenth century, Du Bourg thought there was one religious truth, that all other beliefs were heretical, and that heresy should be punished. For him, heresy was anything that departed from the (written) Word of God; for his judges, it was anything that denied the essential teachings of the Roman church.^[35]

The other 1559 suspects revealed little about their beliefs, confining themselves to adherence to the Bible and the Athanasian Creed. Their claims dealt with legal technicalities, and chiefly featured récusations against those who interrogated and judged them, and the irregularity of the procedures. These were manipulated by président Saint-André so as to prevent the defendants from exercising their rights as subjects of the crown, not to speak of their legal privileges derived from their offices. For example, "con-

[34] . Didier, "Paul de Foix," 396-435. The document in the Vatican Archives is AA I-XVIII, no. 2209.

[35] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:225-262.

frontations" of Antoine Fumée with the moderate leaders (de Thou, Séguier, Baillet, and Harlay) were arranged in order that they could subsequently be declared ineligible to be among his judges.^[36]

La Vraye Histoire dismisses the responses of all the prisoners except Du Bourg with the phrase, "Il n'y avait rien de notable ni digne de tels personages." From the pen of that author, this is proof positive that he did not consider them Protestants, an opinion borne out by the specific charges against them and what was required for their rehabilitation. Three of them, as well as the three who escaped imprisonment, had joined in the consensus on submission of the religious problem to a general council and opposition to the death penalty, suggesting various less severe punishments and favoring suspension of all prosecution until the definition of heresy had been clarified by the ecclesiastical authorities. Eustache de la Porte's offense had been to condemn the severity of the Grand' Chambre in heresy cases, and his only punishment was public reversal of that opinion. Louis Du Faur, no doubt because of his personal insult to Henri II, received the harshest sentence. He was obliged to retract his support of a national council and opposition to persecution, in addition to being fined and suspended from his office for five years.^[37]

Antoine Fumée's was the stormiest case, involving denunciations of all his judges and appeals to les grands , including even the cardinal de Lorraine. In the end he got off with no punishment whatsoever, almost certainly thanks to the intervention of Catherine de Médicis.^[38]

For Paul de Foix, unlike' the others, owing to the document mentioned and the article of Noël Didier analyzing it, we have access to at least some of his substantive religious beliefs.^[39] He favored making a distinction between heretics who believed only in a spiritual "Real Presence" (sacrementaires ) and those who merely "varied the form" of celebrating the Eucharist (Lutherans). He advocated that the death penalty be limited to the former

[36] . On Saint-André and the suspects of 1559 see Taber, "Religious Dissent," 30-34, 37, 41, 44.

[37] . The ultimate fate of the prisoners was as follows: De la Porte, retractions and release, January 10, 1560; Louis Du Faur, sentence revised by a large assembly, including all the moderate présidents, and restored to office, August 31, 1560; Antoine Fumée, rehabilitated without punishment, February 1560; Paul de Foix, readmitted January 1560 after retraction of his views.

[38] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:244, 263-265; Taber, "Religious Dissent," ch. 2 gives much valuable detail.

[39] . Didier, "Paul de Foix," 396-435; C. du Plessis d'Argentré, Collectio judiciorum de novis erroribus qui ab initio duodecimi seculi post Incarnationem Verbi, usque and annum 1713, in Ecclesia proscripti sunt et notati (Paris, 1724-36), 2:280.

("those who denied both the form and the substance"). In order to strengthen its hand, the Guise regime had requested the Sorbonne to condemn formally the propositions, "put forward by some royal officers" (that is, by Foix), that a general council was required to settle the religious question because of diversity of opinion on the sacrament, and that all punishment should meanwhile be suspended. The faculty's response went beyond mere compliance, condemning in addition Foix's argument that the sacramentaires had been judged by "Mosaic law" instead of the "law of grace," which was supposed to prevail among Christians, and the argument that the sacraments of the contemporary church lacked validity because most of the priests had concubines and that the ritual was meaningless because the people could not understand it. For royal officers to echo this familiar "Protestant" criticism shows the strength of the reform from within in the robe milieu, even as the Sorbonne's condemnation demonstrates the extent to which the ultra-Catholic mind was closed to any suggestion of change.

Paul de Foix did not deny any fundamental Roman Catholic dogma, as attested by all the witnesses at the 1574 hearing. He acknowledged that rites at variance with those of the Roman church were punishable under the royal edicts. Nevertheless, his was not a dogmatic faith requiring absolute obedience: personne ne lui semblait avoir tout à fait raison . In these circumstances a man of conscience could not presume to pronounce judgment, still less could he condemn men to death for their opinions when nobody knew what the truth was. However great and numerous the bonds between reform-minded Catholics and Protestants, including both negative views of abuses and positive beliefs—like the superiority of the primitive church—they were not strong enough to bridge the chasm between sophisticated Catholic doubt and unquestioning Protestant conviction that theirs was the only truth. The "suspects" of 1559 stood close to the dividing line, but still on the Catholic side. It is improbable that Christophe de Thou would have intervened in their behalf—as he did for each one—otherwise, nor is a virtually agnostic position, even in secret, psychologically compatible with Calvinism.

There was less legal wrangling in the case of Foix than in that of Du Faur, but he was obliged to declare to the full court that he had erred in seeing a distinction between form and matter in the Eucharist. As punishment he was forbidden to possess censured books and suspended from his office for a year (later annulled).

As far as can be ascertained from real sources (as opposed to rumors and accusations) the position of Paul de Foix was the farthest "left" in the

mainstream. In order to distinguish it from that of his fellow suspects who merely said the problem of heresy should be settled by an ecclesiastical council with suspension of prosecution in the interval, I am designating his stand as "radical" and theirs as "liberal." The liberals constituted a considerable proportion of the court, even if we do not accept the claim that they would have had a majority if a free vote had been permitted. Séguier and Harlay should certainly be included in their ranks. For the radicals, it is hard even to guess. It seems likely that many of those who later absented themselves from crucial sessions (especially those in which a profession of faith was required) and who appear on the anonymous "police report," shared the views of Paul de Foix. If any were secretly Protestant, those Calvin castigated as "Nicodemites," the sources present no evidence. After the events of 1559, such was the course of wisdom, even of survival. But if there was a sizable liberal minority, the majority was undoubtedly moderate-conservative. The first of these adjectives distinguishes them from the extreme conservatives, the second from the liberals. This moderate-conservative group proved in the long run to be the most important, less because of its numbers than because it repudiated both the experiment in religious toleration (1561-62) and the ultramontane reform, simultaneously infusing new life into the liberties of the Gallican church.

9
The Road to Civil War (2):
1561-1562

The Failure of Toleration

If religious policy was the most important single problem facing Catherine de Médicis in December 1560 when the wheel of fortune finally put the reins of government in her hands, entangling it were several others; any measure regarding one could not fail to affect the others. The prince de Condé's life could now be spared, but the sentence hanging over his head would have to be legally revoked by Parlement before he could be fully reinstated in all his offices and titles. The Estates General were demanding that the princes of the blood be entrusted with the regency, and so were the Protestants. Antoine de Bourbon's religious position was so ambiguous that neither party could count on him. He was supposedly the chief protector of the reformed (Calvin kept urging him to assert leadership and his wife, Jeanne d'Albret, announced her conversion on Christmas Day 1560) yet he continued to attend mass, alternately with the reformed culte , and the Catholic party used all its ingenuity to keep him in the fold. A year later it would succeed and the reformed would turn to Condé, because only a prince of the blood had the political stature required for their purposes.

As traditionalists, magistrates shared the preference for the princes of the blood but were disturbed by their heretical leanings, while Catherine, although she welcomed the pressures in behalf of the Bourbons in opposition to the Guise party, was obliged to move cautiously because of their growing association with the Protestants. Conflicts, fears, and uncertainties thus made impossible a clear-cut correlation of political with religious position, except for the two extremes, the Huguenots on the one hand and the ultras on the other. Catherine could not risk increasing Parlement's opposition to her religious policy because she needed its cooperation in the

rehabilitation of Condé, and she tried to use that leverage to minimize the risk of a head-on collision by modifying royal religious policy.

Hemmed in as she was, the queen nevertheless held the initiative, and she quickly took small steps to reduce the religious pressures, paving the way for greater ones to follow. Avoiding the leaders of both factions, she depended chiefly on the advice of cardinal de Tournon and Chancellor L'Hôpital. Royal orders issued in January and February 1561 modified the Edict of Romorantin, suspending prosecution against suspects, except those who had conspired against the king. Heretics who had been freed were allowed a period of time within which to leave the country. A letter from Catherine to procureur général Gilles Bourdin interprets the royal intentions clearly, by saying that the authorities should not be "too curious" about what went on in private houses. This would indicate a sort of unacknowledged toleration, analogous to that of Queen Elizabeth toward English Roman Catholics at the same period.^[1] Parlement made its own modification, allowing appeal from ecclesiastical to lay judges, and the schism in the court was to some extent bridged by the readmission of Paul de Foix and the assignment of Du Ferrier as ambassador to Rome. Catherine's policy of reconciliation brought Condé into the Conseil Privé after his release, along with Coligny, and made Antoine lieutenant général of the kingdom, successfully circumventing a move by his Huguenot followers to "purge" the council and, in Lucien Romier's phrase, "send [Catherine] back to the nursery."^[2]

The regent did not gain a breathing spell by these moves, however, because aggressive new thrusts from both sides overpowered "raison, douceur et moderation," as Catherine described the desirable method. During the Lenten season, dubbed by Parisians la carême huguenotte , some adherents of the reform mistook the amnesty of the new edicts as preparation for true toleration, an interpretation encouraged by the first visible steps toward conversion to Protestantism by Coligny and Odet, cardinal de Châtillon: the admiral had his son baptized according to the Reformed rite; the cardinal met with known Protestants and permitted them to hold services

[1] . Lettres de cachet containing these orders, AN x^1a 8624, fols. 71-72. Interpretations in Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:27; and Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 121, 351-352. Lucien Romier, Catholiques et huguenots à la cour de Charles IX (Paris, 1924), 73 on letter of Charles IX to the duc d'Étampes, March 1560.

[2] . Romier, Catholiques et huguenots , 84, 90. The reinstatement of these two very distinguished members was essential, to restore Parlement's face and make the court more amenable to cooperation.

in his diocese of Beauvais.^[3] At the same time, several very large Huguenot assemblies in Paris fueled the invective of the Lenten preachers. One particularly inflammatory sermon specifically incited the populace to violence against the persons of the Châtillons.^[4]

Les grands in the Catholic party were also alarmed by the religious activities of the royal family, which seemed similarly to presage convergence with the Huguenots. Jean de Monluc, bishop of Valence, was the Lenten preacher in the royal chapel; Charles IX's tutors were of the same liberal stripe, and subsequently the young king and his companions were rumored to have been heard singing the psalms of Marot and mocking the Mass.^[5] On Easter Sunday the chief Catholics at court expressed their protest by absenting themselves from the royal chapel and attending mass with the palace servants. This was the origin of the Triumvirate, comprising Constable Montmorency, the duc de Guise, and Marshal Saint-André. Montmorency's separation from his Châtillon nephews created a new political configuration, with important long-range consequences in the following decades. Philip of Spain began openly voicing his threats to "exterminate heresy in France" in these same weeks of the Easter season. Catholic and Protestant parties had crystallized since the start of the new reign and faced each other across a widening abyss.^[6]

The polarization of les grands was matched by the rising tempo of disorder in the streets of the capital. In mid-April Parlement deputed président de Thou and procureur général Bourdin to request the king to restore order.^[7] Catherine was thus obliged to take further steps on religious policy. L'Hôpital's speech of April 18 introduced a new edict with an earnest plea

[3] . For the significance of the spring of 1561 in the Châtillon careers, see Roelker, "Family, Faith, and Fortune."

[4] . Its Latin text, Ite in castellum quod contra vos est , was delivered by Jean de Han, a Minim friar who will appear again at the end of the year. Cf. Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:19; de Thou, Histoire universelle , 4:68; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 141 n.54, 162-165. Michele Suriano, the astute Venetian ambassador, already anticipated civil war ("Despatches of Michele Suriano and Marc'Antonio Barbaro, 1560-63," Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, no. 6 [Lymington, 1891], 13-14)—among reports of more than a score of foreign agents in the 1560s, those of the Venetian ambassadors are often the most accurate.

[5] . Roelker, Queen of Navarre , 166.

[6] . Romier, Catholiques et huguenots , 72; Sutherland sees the triumvirate as part of a long-range plan to exterminate the Huguenots, rather than as a tactical response to particular circumstances (Huguenot Struggle , 123). Again, Suriano understood the implications better than other observers (Suriano and Barbaro, "Despatches," 15, 26).

[7] . Félibien and Lobineau, Histoire , 4:797b; Mémoires de Condé , 2:332-337.

for its main point: the elimination of the epithets "papiste" and "huguenot," and of all reciprocal recrimination du faict de la religion .

The edict's second and third points were designed to reduce the incidence of intrusion into private houses on pretext of religion by guaranteeing the inviolability of one's person and property and limiting the right to search for illicit assemblies to authorized officials. The release of prisoners, proclaimed in January, was reaffirmed. In the broadest provision, heretics in exile were offered the option of returning to France and retaining the full possession of their property on condition of living as Catholics, or of selling their goods and going into permanent exile. Parlement's opposition was certain, and it was not lessened when the edict was sent directly to royal administrators (baillis and sénéschaux ) so as to bypass the sovereign courts.^[8]

Parlement's remonstrances were drawn up in early May by three prominent representatives of the moderate-conservative mainstream: président René Baillet and conseillers Eustache Chambon and Bartholomé Faye. They merit our detailed analysis because they constitute a valuable revelation of parlementaire mentalité at this crucial juncture, the spring of 1561.^[9]

Predictably, violation of the court's own prerogatives takes first place. Six paragraphs are devoted to spelling out—several times—that it was unconstitutional to send to administrators royal orders that had not been registered by Parlement. When this has been done in the past "such orders have not been regarded as laws" and any subsequent action such as appeals, based on the judgment of baillis or sénéschaux , "would be of doubtful legality" because "[they] had not been read, published, and registered [by Parlement] according to usage, [of which] the memory of man knoweth not the contrary (de tout temps gardée )."

Turning from form to substance, the remonstrances restate the opening clause of the edict: "By these presents we again forbid all our subjects of whatever station, to insult or provoke one another on the subject of religion (de s'entr'injurier n'y provoquer pour le faict de la religion ), and to do, procure, encourage or speak in such a way, in public or in private, as to invite blame or fault in regard to religion." The court's objection is boldly stated: "These words seem to approve diversity of religion in this kingdom, which has never been the case from King Clovis I to this day." Here the Parlement sees through the indirect, allusive language to the ultimate intent

[8] . On L'Hôpital's speech and the edict see Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 352; de Thou, Histoire universelle , 3:54.

[9] . On points of edict and Parlement's remonstrances see Mémoires de Condé , 2:352-357; in discussion of points below, the emphasis is mine.

and future impact of the edict. There is no mention of two religious establishments, merely of arguments and hostility concerning religion, but the words seem to approve of the existence of more than one religion.

The third point spells out the historical argument. While kings and even popes have been declared heretics in the course of the centuries, "by the grace of God no king of France has fallen into this misfortune, and when error surfaced in any part of the kingdom, as in the time of the Albigensians, it was resisted in such a way as to be totally exterminated and the kings of France have continued to hold the title 'Most Christian,' by which all Christendom honors them."

The next two points make the contrast between the historic situation and the new edict, "which provides an excuse to adopt new religions and to separate oneself from the unity of the old religion . . . something condemned (damnée et reprouvée ) by all the ancient laws . . . and which has been the cause of the subversion of kingdoms and empires." Thus, although the intention is laudable, that is, an end to sedition, it is to be feared that, on the contrary, "instead of putting out the fire greater ones would be lighted, because people would follow whatever religion they chose without fear of penalty." The only way to calm sedition is "for the king to declare that he will live and die in the faith in which he was baptized . . . in which his predecessors lived . . . and [to declare] that he understands that his subjects will make similar profession, on pain of punishment. "

In point six the document then addresses the specific epithets, papiste and huguenot . Parlement finds it strange that the latter word, "an invention unused (inusite ) in France," should be used in an official document and that "the word papiste should be used as a term of opprobrium, when it has always described those who live as Catholics, that is, according to the church of which the pope has always been held to be the Head and Vicar of God on earth, in spiritual matters. "

Moving on to the "police" aspects of point seven on the inviolability of private houses, Parlement finds that they contradict all the former edicts, "which forbid all assemblies or conventicles, by day or by night, in any places not approved by the diocesan authorities." The court believes the old rules should prevail and that its duty is to enforce them.

Point eight takes up the new options for heretics. The court foresees "scandals and other difficulties" if ex-religious who fled to Geneva and are now married return to France with spouses and children and make claims on property against their relatives. If they do not wish to live as Catholics (vivre catholiquement ), the new edict says they may take their goods with them or sell them and take the profit: yet according to the law, it is forbidden

to transport money out of France for the purpose of aiding the king's enemies. Moreover, the phrase vivre catholiquement itself creates difficulties: those who follow the new religion claim to do so, though this is denied by those who follow the old. The king should declare that he understands it as "those who obey the unique Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic church in which [the king] intends to live, as did his predecessors." Point nine is a corollary: earlier edicts specified that prisoners for religion be released on condition of leaving the country within a certain period of time, but some are still resident in the kingdom. The court begs the king to enforce the earlier laws.

The tenth and final point constitutes a reprise of the song parlementaires never tired of singing:

Furthermore, to put an end to all seditions and troubles . . . may it please the king to bring about a reformation of the ministers [sic ] of the church, to [assure] the provision of benefices to worthy and capable persons, because, since publication of the Concordat and suspension of elections, the disorder and diminution of the ecclesiastical estate has steadily increased.

In January 1562 L'Hôpital would bring to Parlement a carefully worded edict, hammered out in long negotiations by which religious coexistence was to be explicitly established. Parlement's forced acceptance (de expresso mandato regis ) should not have come as a surprise, since the principle had been rejected a year in advance.

In the circumstances of the spring of 1561, however, Catherine and her chancellor either overlooked or pretended not to read the omens, and the tensions continued to mount. The Protestant flood tide, which would reach its height between October and Christmas, was the most conspicuous phenomenon of the year. In Paris, even as Parlement was responding to the Edict of April 19, public opinion was scandalized by Protestant services at the residence of Michel Gaillard, seigneur de Longjumeau, in the Pré-aux-Clercs. Gaillard was the son of one of the noblewomen arrested in l'affaire de la rue St-Jacques three and one-half years earlier, and he was also distantly related to the royal family. Others who attended regularly included the duc de Longueville, affianced to a daughter of the duc de Guise, Filippo Strozzi, a cousin of Catherine de Médicis, and Pierre Ruzé, a prominent lawyer well connected in parlementaire circles. It was natural for enemies of the Huguenots to interpret the April edict as favorable to heretics under the circumstances: on April 22, Philip's ambassador Perrenot de Chantonnay described the Catholic faction as "thrown into despair."^[10]

[10] . On all these episodes see Romier, Catholiques et huguenots , 119-120, which cites the sources; Félibien and Lobineau, Histoire , 4:798b; Chantonnay's letter in Mémoires de Condé , 2:6-10—the ambassador's letters to Philip II offer a full disclosure of the Spanish view of relations between France and Spain in the early crisis period.

Yet the authorities took actions that were not reassuring to the Huguenots. When students attacked Longjumeau's house, some of the Protestant seigneurs sprang to the defense, resulting in two days of riot and a number of casualties. On April 28, all chambers assembled, Parlement ordered Gail-lard to leave the Paris region on pain of being declared a rebel and forfeiting all his property. Linda Taber points out that the two members sent to notify him (Jean Burdelot and Étienne Charlet) figured among the suspects themselves a year later. One cannot help wondering if they were already under suspicion and assigned the task in order to embarrass them (and Gaillard) or, whether the episode was a factor in their attraction to the reform (these are both only speculations, of course).^[11]

At the coronation of Charles IX on May 15, further gossip was stimulated by the presence of Élisabeth de Hauteville, whom the cardinal-bishop of Beauvais, Odet de Châtillon, called his wife, and Condé's release encouraged the Huguenots, who counted strongly on an opportunity to defend their faith in public. Catherine had decided to hold a "national council" without waiting for Trent to resume. A petition from deputies of all the reformed churches in France (June 11) went so far as to ask for temples to be granted where their services could be held openly. They believed that all the libelous accusations against them would disappear if royal officials witnessed the actuality of their culte .^[12]

Under intense pressure from both sides, Catherine decided to hold at once the so-called pourparlers de Paris , a special assembly including all the grands seigneurs of the royal council, and leaders of the Parlement, between 120 and 140 persons in all. The purpose was explicitly stated by Chancellor L'Hôpital: to advise the king, not on religion, but on "means of pacifying troubles arising from divisions in religion." We are fortunate to have Étienne Pasquier's interpretation of this assembly, to which Catherine submitted the petition for temples.

Opinions were freely expressed on both sides . . . the [conservative] Catholics carried the day by three votes. The decision was that one must either adhere to the Roman church, like our ancestors, or leave the kingdom, with permission to sell one's goods. When the vote count was known there was considerable muttering, because the others claimed that in so important a

[11] . Taber, "Religious Dissent," 151 and n. 79; Mémoires de Condé , 2:341-350.

[12] . On Odet de Coligny, cardinal de Châtillon, see Metzger, "The Protestant Cardinal," 108; on the Protestant request for temples, Mémoires de Condé , 2:370-372.

matter it was not reasonable that all France should be thrown into uproar by only three votes, and because such banishment would be impossible to carry out.

There were sharp exchanges between Coligny (advocating suspension of all persecution) and Guise (advocating the death penalty for heresy) and the differences of opinion were such that les choses se sont passées sans conclusion . Pasquier then pays tribute to Catherine's statesmanship, comparing it to Constantine's after the Council of Nicaea:

The action of the queen mother is greatly to be praised; she had the ballots brought to her and burned in her presence, not wishing to know who had voted for which solution, so that the liberty with which some had expressed themselves could not be prejudicial to them in another reign.^[13]

Twenty-three sessions of confused deliberations (June 23-July 11) produced the Edict of July, a tissue of compromises. Concessions to the moderates caused the overall results to be generally regarded as favorable to the reformers and a setback for the ultras.^[14] The most militant Protestants were disgruntled because all their meetings, public or private, were prohibited, and they placed their hopes in the approaching colloquy; but others were confident that the restrictions against their assemblies would not be enforced.

How little the Edict of July held back the rising tide of Calvinism is illustrated by the triumphal progress of Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, from her domains in the Pyrenees to court. Chantonnay wrote to Philip in mid-August, "Everywhere the heretics await her coming as if she were the Messiah, because they are certain that she will perform miracles in their behalf," and Throckmorton, commenting on the outbreaks of unrest in her wake, wrote to Cecil, after she had passed through the Orléanais, "At the convent of Ste. Madeleine, twenty-five religious ladies, the fairest of sixty, threw aside their habits and scaled the walls . . . such was their abhorrence

[13] . Mémoires de Condé , 2:396, for L'Hôpital speech of June 18, 1561, and on the pourparlers de Paris , 2:401-409; Pasquier, Lettres historiques , 64-65 to Christophe de Fonsomme; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 127-129. Although historians disagree somewhat on the Edict they produced (July), the extreme contrasts in interpretation exist in contemporaries' comment.

[14] . Especially pardon for all religious offenses since the death of Henri II and exclusion of the death penalty—except for the possession of firearms.

of the superstitions of the cloister, or rather, so much did they prefer profane company."^[15]

Parlement had registered the Edict of July provisionally, reserving the right to remonstrate later, but a few days afterward the court stubbornly refused to be pressured into registering the Ordinances of Orléans, embodying the conclusions of the Estates General of the past winter. In addition to the constitutional grounds—challenging the crown's argument that they did not need to scrutinize and deliberate since Parlement was a subordinate part of the Estates General—they refused on procedural grounds. The ordinances had been sent just before the summer vacation and the time left was inadequate for serious consideration. Parlement also objected to the fact that the assembly of bishops was simultaneously deliberating on the question of church reform, which was one topic of the ordinances. Parlement contended that it was indécente for two assemblies to debate the same issue at the same time. A consequence was that at the opening of the new parlementaire season in November Chancellor L'Hôpital reproved the court for these actions as illegal usurpations of legislative power. He elaborated in some detail the "proper place" of Parlement, as the crown saw it. These constitutional issues (mentioned in chapter 2, elaborated in chapter 5) added to the tension between the crown and the court as the confrontation over religious policy entered its final phase.^[16]

The "national council," in which Protestant ministers disputed with Catholic prelates in the presence of the king and leaders of the court, took place in Poissy in September 1561. Parlementaires had no occasion to address this event officially, but we are not in doubt about their attitude, expressed in the remonstrances of the past April and again in those of February and March 1562 against the Edict of January. Although a failure in terms of the stated objectives, the Colloquy of Poissy acknowledged by its mere existence that there were in fact two religions, or, more accurately, two different Christian sects, in France and this was an affront to the tradition of un roi, une foi that could not be accepted or overlooked. The intervention of non-French Counter-Reformation leaders only made parlementaires more frustrated and uncomfortable; before long they would conclude that the Roman medicine was worse than the Genevan disease.^[17]

[15] . Roelker, Queen of Navarre , 160.

[16] . On Parlement and the Estates-General see Denault (works cited chapter 2 note 48). Also Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:665-670; and Mémoires de Condé , 2:529-530.

[17] . For full bibliographical and historiographical references see D. Nugent, Ecumenism in the Age of the Reformation: The Colloquy of Poissy (Cambridge, Mass., 1974).

The Decisive Struggle

It is not surprising that the hardiesse protestante became ever more conspicuous in the weeks following the Colloquy of Poissy. Pasquier describes one of its sensational manifestations at court in a letter to his friend Christophe de Fonsomme. It was the marriage of a son of the Rohan family to a daughter of the Barbançon family, under the sponsorship of Jeanne d'Albret. The ceremony, à la mode de Genève , was performed by Theodore de Bèze himself. Attention was naturally drawn to nuptials in such prominent families; the Rohans held the highest position in the Breton nobility and the bride was the niece of Madame d'Étampes, formerly maîtresse-en-tête of François I. All the ranking Protestant nobles were in attendance, and there was no censure of any kind by the royal authorities, as Throckmorton reported to Queen Elizabeth.^[18]

With Huguenot nobles enjoying such favor while violating the edicts against Protestant assemblies, Catherine's government could hardly apply the letter of the law to their humbler coreligionists in the city. These were now meeting just outside the city limits, near the Porte St-Antoine and near the Porte St-Marceau, next to the church of St-Médard. Curiosity-seekers and enemies of the reformed helped to swell the crowds beyond anything that had been seen before. "Il serait incroyable de dire quelle affluence se trouve à ces nouvelles dévotions," remarked Pasquier. Bèze estimated that six thousand attended a service he conducted in mid-December, and the Spanish ambassador, to whom it was very bad news, concurred.^[19]

It would be easy to draw the wrong conclusion about the religious climate of Paris from these episodes, as indeed some contemporaries did. In fact, Protestants were a small minority; the fear and apprehension they aroused was way out of proportion to their numbers. The resulting tensions exceeded even those of the Advent season of 1559, when Minard was assassinated and Du Bourg executed. Ordinances forbidding possession of firearms had not reduced them, as Protestants feared for their safety and Catholics for their property. The royal governor (a Bourbon prince, La Roche-sur-Yon), no doubt on orders from Catherine, turned a deaf ear to pleas, including those of the Parlement, to end the prêches , widely perceived as the cause of the mounting violence. In her anxiety to keep the peace, Catherine permitted the municipal police to escort Protestants coming and

[18] . Pasquier, Lettres historiques , 68-71 to Fonsomme; Romier, Catholiques et huguenots , 250-258, includes a variety of firsthand sources.

[19] . Roelker, Queen of Navarre , 263-268; Pasquier, Lettres historiques , 70.

going to services avec main forte pour empêcher les troubles , a decision that would boomerang fatally.^[20]

Reference has repeatedly been made to the role of inflammatory preaching in Parisian pulpits. In the 1561 Advent season a young Minim friar named Jean de Han had the reputation of being le plus hardy precheur qui fust en France . His particular target was the Huguenot influence at court, especially the liberal tutors of Charles IX, on whom he blamed the present evils, predicting worse to come. He had a tremendous following so there was a general outcry when he was arrested by royal authorities on December 10. Under pressure from numerous influential Parisians he was released three days later—a victory for the ultra-Catholics and a defeat for the queen's policy, and for law and order as well. An episode known as the tumult of St-Médard might have been just one more in the endless series of riots had it not been for the fever pitch of religious antagonism caused by the discrepancies between official royal policy and the current practice of royal officials, with the police protecting the lawbreakers, as Linda Taber points out in her illuminating analysis of these events.^[21]

On December 26 there was a clash between Protestants attending service at "the house of the Patriarch" and Catholics in the church of St-Médard next door. Opinions differ as to which group first resorted to the violence that resulted in two deaths and many wounded, but it is clear that the arresting officers imputed the responsibility to the Catholics, who were led off in chains, under armed guard. One of the officers was Lieutenant Criminel Desjardins, whom the crown had kept in office over parlementaire objections (already noted, in September 1560) qu'il lust convaincu Luthérien . Canon Brulart, spokesman for the Parisian in the street, describes the populace as fort esmeu that the authorities should perpetrate such an injustice—he had no doubt that the Protestants were the real disturbers of the peace. The politique historian Jacques-Auguste de Thou, in one of his admirably low-key judgments, later wrote, "The spectacle aroused the indignation even of those who were least unsympathetic to the new doctrines." The next day the gens du roi and the Bureau de Ville complained, and Desjardins and the other officers were arrested, while Catherine replaced La Roche-sur-Yon with François de Montmorency as governor of Paris. Unlike his Châtillon nephews, the constable's sons did not embrace

[20] . Félibien and Lobineau, Histoire , 5:392a; Mémoires de Condé , 1:56-59, 73.

[21] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:65-66; Guerin, ed., Registres du bureau de ville , 5:109; and esp. Taber, "Religious Dissent," 162-167. On St-Médard, Mémoires de Condé , 1:68-69, 2:561-569.

the reform; the Montmorencys were Catholic leaders of a group of (chiefly) nobles unaligned with either religious faction, often considered the nucleus of an emerging "politique party," discussed in chapter 10.^[22]

Parlement conducted its own investigation of the episode concurrently with its resistance to the new Edict of Toleration in the opening weeks of the new year. Two conseillers, each well known as an activist in his own faction, were appointed to take the testimony of witnesses, "chacun de leur côté," in de Thou's words: Louis Gayant, of the Chambre Ardente and Antoine Fumée of the June 1559 suspects. (They were later replaced by others, first by two virtual unknowns and eventually by two mainstream representatives of high repute.)

Protestant and politique historians are unanimous in the opinion that collusion of the authorities with the Catholic ultras ruled out the possibility of a fair trial, although proof is lacking. In any case, the authorities probably felt it expedient to appease public hostility (by a sacrifice). The unlucky victims were Nez d'Argent (hanged on May 23) and Jean de Gabaston, chevalier du guet , the commander of the guard that had led off the parishioners of St-Médard "in chains, as if they were criminals condemned to the galleys." Both were eventually beheaded by arrêt of Parlement in 1562.^[23] Desjardins escaped punishment, almost certainly thanks to the influence of Catherine de Médicis, after a complicated trial in which he lodged récusations against all the présidents, a majority of the conseillers, and even the gens du roi . Avocat du roi Du Mesnil, in refuting Desjardins's claims, made a point significant for the future of French religious policy. If Desjardins's récusations had been allowed, he said, there would have to be a new Parlement to judge those of the new [religious] opinion, as well as new laws.^[24]

[22] . François de Montmorency, one of the sons of the constable. Unlike his Châtillon nephews, his sons did not embrace the reform but were actively liberal Catholics and the leaders of the emerging "politique party." As is evident in these midcentury chapters, François was active in Paris as a collaborator of the queen and suspected of favoring the Huguenots; another brother, Damville, was the dominant noble in Languedoc, often cooperating with the Huguenots or serving as mediator (de Thou, Histoire universelle , 3:101; Mémoires de Condé , 1:68-69; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 169). See also F. De Crue de Stoutz, Le parti des politiques au lendemain de la Saint-Barthélemy (Paris, 1892); F. C. Palm, Politics and Religion in Sixteenth-Century France: A Study of the Career of Henry of Montmorency-Damville, Uncrowned King of the South (Boston, 1927).

[23] . Taber, "Religious Dissent," 168-170; Pierre de Paschal, Journal retrospective de ce qui s'est passé en France durant l'année 1562 , ed. M. François (Paris, 1950; hereafter Journal de 1562 ), 31.

[24] . Du Mesnil on Desjardins's récusations , AN x^1a 1599, fols. 344v-345r; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 175. It is significant that the chambre mi-partie (half of its members were to be Protestant), created to hear heresy cases and cases arising under the edicts of pacification, was tried out (1576) not in fanatical Paris but in Guyenne, where public opinion was much more sympathetic to the reform. Moderate Parisian parlementaires such as Étienne Pasquier and Antoine Loisel staffed the first chambre mi-partie ; it did not function at the national level until the Edict of Nantes.

The Protestant community of Paris owed its prominence in the public eye almost equally to proximity to the royal court and regular contacts with the noble party leaders resident there, and to the disorders, "scandals," and outrages caused by the continuous attacks of Parisian Catholic extremists. Conspicuous as it was, the capital was a relatively small part of the problem faced by the royal government. Some regions of France were honeycombed by heresy and there were instances of whole towns being taken over. Increasingly, lower-rank officials, local and national, tended to ignore the laws against heresy, even to challenge them openly. The reasons for this are complex and difficult to disentangle. In addition to the growing appeal of the reform there was also the opportunity to assert local and regional autonomy against a weakened central government. (In the domains of the queen of Navarre where the laws, the sovereign, and the highest echelons of the government were strongly Calvinist, disobedience under the banner of Catholicism was widespread.) The nature of the Protestant problem, in terms of law and order, had changed drastically in recent months. Small isolated groups, clandestine and vulnerable, had been replaced by politico-military Calvinist enclaves, whose disciplined forces were strong enough to defy royal administrators, sometimes to the point of armed rebellion.

The numbers of lower-level royal officers and robins drawn to the reform are striking, far greater than the proportion of Protestants in the general population, and the same is true of municipal officers. In the ressorts of the parlements of Bordeaux and Toulouse, Protestant robins accounted for between 7 and 8 percent, according to careful quantitative studies summarized by Janine Garrisson-Estèbe. She explains the well known reciprocal antagonism between the capitouls of the city and the Parlement in Toulouse more completely than earlier scholars. The aggressive actions of the former—voting to establish the reform, writing to Geneva for pastors, for example—made the devoutly Catholic parlementaires feel that they were obliged to "make the city a fortress, in a region that had become three-quarters Huguenot," a justification also for the reputation of the Toulouse court as the most severe on heresy in France. Reformed lower-level practitioners of the law in the Midi represent an even greater proportion—10 percent: "[the reform] was a magnet pour tout un petit monde de clercs, basochiens ,

procureurs, greffiers " as well as for sergeants and officers in the municipal militia.^[25]

The most important Catholic military commander in the Midi, Blaise de Monluc, was struck by this phenomenon and his Commentaires provide one of its major sources. His editor notes that this sympathy of the gens de robe for the reform was displayed "by total inertia with regard to the violators of the law, organizers of disorder, and image-breakers . . . who assembled under the mantle of religion, especially in the small towns, and committed excesses that worried the chiefs of the reform." For the most part these persons were educated, and prosperous above the average, but left out of the power structure; if it was a "class struggle" the stakes were political and professional rather than economic.^[26]

In addition to refusing to prosecute heretics, the reformed robins took the lead in violating the law, offering their own houses for illicit assemblies, attending prêches in a body (Castres), turning over Catholic churches to the Calvinists (Nîmes), providing armed protection to Protestants (Agen). In Montpellier the reformer Pierre Viret was escorted to the pulpit by the First Consul wearing his red robes; in Pamiers (as early as 1556) the municipal officers refused to admit the Society of Jesus "because there are already too many religious, and they will dominate the town if we permit this importunate and annoying anthill to increase" (fourmillière importune et fascheuse ).^[27] Where the Parisian ultras opposed royal policy as "soft" on heresy, many provincials found it too harsh.

Catherine de Médicis was aware that each successive edict had provoked hostility in two radically different groups of Frenchmen, and she declared her intentions to formulate a new one—a compromise that would conciliate both parties—as early as November 1561. If a document could be so drawn that both sides would be willing to accept it as a matter of civil administrative policy (pour adviser la police pour faire cesser les troubles procédant de la religion ) pending resolution of the religious issue by the ecclesiastical authorities, perhaps further escalation of conflict could be avoided. It had at least to be tried, unless one was resigned to civil war.

To advise her in the preparation of the new edict, the queen convoked another special assembly, at St-Germain. It met during the first two weeks of January 1562, in the aftermath of the tumult of St-Médard. Opponents

[25] . Janine Garrisson-Estèbe, Les Protestants du midi, 1559-1598 (Toulouse, 1980), 28-39.

[26] . Paul Courteault, Blaise de Monluc, historien (Geneva, 1970), 409.

[27] . Garrisson-Estèbe, Protestants du midi , 32.

were convinced that she stacked the membership so as to obtain a favorable outcome, as soon as possible. Members of the Conseil Privé and of the Order of St. Michael were naturally included, as well as two judges from each parlement. Paris was represented by président de Thou and Guillaume Viole, the eldest clerical conseiller. Neither the Guises nor the constable attended; Marshal Saint-André was the only ultra of the court Catholic party, cardinals Charles de Bourbon and Tournon being traditionalists by comparison, as was Marshal Montmorency.^[28]

By contrast with earlier assemblies, this time the chancellor faced the religious division head on and took pains to emphasize the distinction between the religious issue as such and the maintenance of peace.

Il ne s'agit pas d'établir la foi, mais de règler l'État . One could be a citizen without being a Christian [sic ], and one did not cease to be the king's subject by separating from the church. We can live in peace with those who do not observe the same ceremonies . . . and apply what is said about the defects of wives . . . they must either be corrected or tolerated.

In addition, the chancellor pointed out, pragmatically, that since the Edict of July had not succeeded, it was necessary to have a new one, for laws should be fitted to circumstances "as shoes to feet."^[29]

Upon first reading the text of the Edict of January, we might find it hard to believe that through all the succeeding decades of the century the constant cry of the French Huguenots would be "Give us the Edict of January!" because most of its provisions were directed against the reformed: they were obliged to restore all church property, from buildings to relics; forbidden to interfere with any activities of the ecclesiastical authorities (such as officiating on saints' days, collecting tithes); forbidden to build churches anywhere or to hold assemblies either by day or by night inside the limits of any town; forbidden to harbor criminals or to raise money or troops. Iconoclasm and sedition would be punished by the death penalty, as would a second offense of printing or distributing prohibited books. To balance these negatives there were some concessions: services inside private houses, for the household only, could be held inside town limits; public assemblies, by day, would be tolerated outside them (provided that the local seigneur gave his permission and that nothing contrary to scripture or to the Nicene Creed was said); royal officers might attend these assemblies and indeed were

[28] . On the Assembly of St-Germain, Mémoires de Condé , 1:69-70; Taber, "Religious Dissent," esp. 176-177.

[29] . L'Hôpital speech at St-Germain: de Thou, Histoire universelle , 3:122-123; Mémoires de Condé , 2:606-612; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 128 n. 92; my italics.

almost obliged to do so, because their permission was required for consistories to be held and because their presence was safeguard against harassment of the participants. Catholics as well as Protestants were forbidden to hold armed assemblies and priests were forbidden to incite violence in their sermons—a belated recognition of the pulpits' role in civil conflict. That this edict should be acclaimed by the Protestants shows how precious was mere recognition of their existence and official permission to hold services, no matter how hedged about with restrictions.^[30]

The opposition of the Parlement was inevitable. Such recognition and concessions were exactly what the court found unacceptable. The moderate leaders who had participated in the discussions at St-Germain undertook, without much enthusiasm, to pilot the edict through the deliberations of the court. Chances for parlementaire support were always slight (as were those of success in the ultimate objective, the avoidance of civil war) but a major turn in the power struggle of les grands just as the court was being pressured to register the edict, virtually eliminated them. This was the "capture" of Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre and first prince of the blood, by the ultra leaders. They had worked hard for this victory, as we know from the letters of the Spanish ambassador to his king. Antoine's religious ondoyance —his shiftiness and resulting unreliability—had withstood every argument; the capitulation was brought about by Spanish exploitation of his well-known vanity and obsessive desire for a kingdom of his own. The "king of Navarre" was only "the consort of the sovereign" in the eyes of Jeanne's Béarnais subjects, and since her conversion the marriage had been deteriorating. In the first week of January, Philip II sent a special envoy to Antoine with the message that he would provide him with another kingdom after he had procured the abolition of Calvinist services, even in the private quarters of the Huguenot nobles, expulsion of all ministers from France; restoration of all church property; and in addition, repudiation of his wife and the transfer of Henri de Navarre to his father's custody and to orthodox Catholic tutors. Antoine took the bait and began furiously to carry out his side of the bargain. "The King of Navarre was never so earnest on the Protestant side as now zealous on the other," Throckmorton wrote to Cecil. Catherine's fragile balance of the factions was destroyed. "After the

[30] . Edict of January text: Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 354-356, interpretations 133-136. Mémoires de Condé , 3:8-96, covers the entire process of passing the edict from January 17 through March 6, 1562; see also 3:256; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 177-182.

king's volte-face the superiority of the Catholic faction was overwhelming," Romier concludes.^[31]

Even so, the ultras did not triumph easily. The edict was delivered to the court on January 23 but not registered until March 6. Long-standing bones of contention between the crown and the court provided the latter with some leverage for resistance: their wages had been in arrears for months, delaying compliance with the edict might speed up settlement. Also, the credentials of Hippolyte d'Este, cardinal of Ferrara, as papal legate were awaiting court action. Since he was an important ally of the ultras, the moderates were holding back and capitalizing on the basic Gallican conviction that was the strongest bond between them and that would eventually reunite the court. Meanwhile, the St-Médard investigation was dragging along and was a source of continuing embarrassment.

On Saturday, January 24, the edict was read in Parlement in the presence of Marshal Montmorency and the king of Navarre, who transmitted a royal command that it be registered immediately sans y user de restrictions, limitations, ou remonstrances . The court did not dignify this bluff by calling it, and it is doubtful that anybody really expected it to succeed. Members of the court, including (ultra) premier président Le Maistre and (moderate) Christophe de Harlay, demanded copies so that they might give it serious consideration. Over the weekend, Marshal Montmorency had some printed and by Monday they were in the hands of several parlementaires (we know of Dormans, Longueil, and Le Maistre). The court was indignant that this should be done prior to deliberation and without its authorization, and also that the phrase avec privilège du roi was included, which had not been authorized. Conseillers Jacquelot and Eustache Chambon, accompanied by two ushers, were sent to the marshal to demand that the entire output be handed over. The sources conflict as to the number of copies made, the marshal claiming there were only twelve, for specific important persons, others saying there were twelve hundred . The latter number sounds high, but the supply was sufficient for copies to circulate in the other parlements before action by the Parlement of Paris, whose displeasure is reflected in amended remonstrances to the edict itself in late February.^[32]

Prestigious royal emissaries were sent from St-Germain to the Palais de Justice nearly every day to keep up the pressure. On January 30, the court expressed its irritation to one of them, Tristan de Rostaing, sieur de Thieux,

[31] . Antoine's shift, Roelker, Queen of Navarre , 174-177; Romier, Catholiques et huguenots , 309.

[32] . Taber, "Religious Dissent," 189-193.

saying that it was impossible to hurry any more because the decision would be made by vote, and every member had to be free to change his mind after hearing the opinions of others. "Your court cannot do its duty without hearing all the opinions." It seems likely that both moderates and ultras hoped to benefit from delay.^[33]

On February 7, that is, two weeks after receiving it, the court declared for the first time that it could not, en conscience , verify, publish, and register the edict but would send remonstrances, deputing de Thou and Guillaume Viole to explain their position.^[34]

The remonstrances were drawn up on February 12 and signed by premier président Le Maistre and Louis Gayant, who had the greatest experience of any conseiller in dealing with heresy. Parlement took the offensive on the identical grounds as had the chancellor—law and order, but from its own point of view: the spread of heresy, which was responsible for the disorders, was a direct result of royal policy since the start of the new reign (that is, Catherine's policy of de facto toleration) allowing Protestant assemblies, contrary to the law. Disorders would cease if Protestant pastors were exiled. The argument that leniency was required for the peace of the city was ridiculous since there were only two hundred Protestant households out of a total of thirteen thousand. Most important, the prohibition of appeals to Parlement from lower courts was a denial of the king's justice, and this was particularly dangerous because many lesser officials were themselves heretics and their failure to execute the laws was one of the chief causes of the troubles.^[35]

Two clays later in St-Germain, the parlementaire representatives were severely reprimanded. The king said to de Thou, "Nous avons grande occasion de nous malcontenter de vous," and L'Hôpital said that the court's remonstrances did not help the situation and showed that its members did not understand it as did the queen and her council. When the magistrates asked for clarification of the clause about the attendance of royal officers at Protestant services, a loophole opened up for acceptance of the edict by the moderates of the court: the crown's intention was that officers of the police only , and only to maintain order, would attend, not officers of the sovereign courts. When de Thou reported this to Parlement on February 16, he said that this declaration, together with the king's stated intention to live and die in the religion of his ancestors and his understanding that the royal

[33] . Ibid., 194-197; Mémoires de Condé , 3:35-37.

[34] . Mémoires de Condé , 3:42-43.

[35] . Ibid., 3:43-44; AN x^1a 1600, fols. 29v-30v.

judiciary would do likewise, had brought the court's deputies to the conclusion that Parlement "would not find it difficult to proceed to publication of the edict, which was, after all, only provisional."^[36] This opinion was seconded by René Baillet and Christophe de Harlay, who had also been at St-Germain, but the moderates as a group could still not carry the court, which voted down the edict for the second time on February 18: "Ladicte court . . . ne peult et ne doit pas en conscience procéder à la vérification."^[37]

Several days of confusion followed. When Catherine was in Paris on February 20, accompanied by the queen of Navarre,^[38] she sent for Guillaume Viole and told him she had heard that some members of the court had drawn up preliminary suggestions (ouvertures ) for calming the disorders and she wished the court to hear them, pour appaiser les séditions . Both Le Maistre and Saint-André (next in line for the chair) were absent, alleging illness (thought by some contemporaries to be "diplomatic") and Saint-André with a "monstrous nosebleed," so the session requested did not take place until February 23. It was decided that only those who had taken part in the February 18 session (the second rejection) would be included—despite Catherine's understandable wish for a full complement. Linda Taber's detailed analysis of the eleven-member commission chosen to prepare the ouvertures points to the significant correlation of those in attendance on February 23 with those in attendance on June 9, when the court made the "profession of faith" which was the heart of the ultra program. Sixty-nine members were present, noticeably fewer than for recent sessions. "Nearly three-fourths (twenty-one out of twenty-nine) of those who would refuse [the oath] were also absent on the previous 23 February when the court was preparing its counter proposals, striking evidence that, for all practical purposes, the conservatives already controlled the court and that . . . the ouvertures would represent their program and not that of the court as a whole." This conclusion is undoubtedly correct, although the designation of all eleven commissioners as "conservatives" without further differentiation, blurs distinctions necessary to the present study.^[39]

[36] . Mémoires de Condé , 3:45-59, esp. 57-58; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 199-205.

[37] . Mémoires de Condé , 3:65-68; my italics.

[38] . The Journal de 1562 entry for this day states that they went incognito "pour ouir parler les gens et entendre que l'on disoit du gouvernement. Elles alloient par les botiques, faisant sembler de vouloir achepter . . . où elles entendirent beaucoup de propos contre les grands, mesme contre la Royne de Navarre présente" (5).

[39] . AN x^1a 1600, fol. 122; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 206-207 (cf. my comment in chapter 8 note 20). Eight commissioners were lay: Louis Gayant, François Dormy, Jean Picot, Eustache Chambon, Gaston de Grieu, François Thomas, Pierre Boulard, and Pierre Hennequin; three were clerical conseillers: Bartholomé Faye, Florent Regnard, Déode Boutin.

The ouvertures constitute a condensed and sharpened revision of the February 22 remonstrances: all Protestant services would be prohibited and the pastors exiled; consequently non-Catholic baptisms and marriages would cease to take place and non-Catholic transactions concerning property would be illegal. The new element is the requirement for all royal officers from the lowest to the highest to make profession of faith according to the Sorbonne's twenty-five articles. The precedent for this had been set for their own chapter by the canons of Notre-Dame two months earlier (November 1561), with only two negative votes, by Adrien de Thou and Jacques Rouillard. Had the result been the same in the Parlement, Taber points out, French Protestantism would have been "choked off at its roots, since the economic and legal consequences, especially for affluent and high-ranking families, would have forced them into either abjuration or exile."^[40]

The court's proposals were delivered to Catherine on February 25. The response, presented by La Roche-sur-Yon on March 3, stated that members of the royal council would agree with the court if it were possible to carry out Parlement's advice, but they were constrained to insist on the edict drawn up at St-Germain "by the necessity of the times," and if the edict was not a good solution, "it was the least bad they had been able to find." Moving to the offensive, the prince said that Parlement had made the situation worse by obliging Protestants to arm themselves in self-defense because they lacked legal standing. He needled the court by announcing that other parlements had already registered the edict and that disorders had diminished as a result, which stung the premier président to object again to the violation of constitutional precedent.^[41]

Reference to Protestants resorting to arms was not mere rhetoric. The tempo of "disorder" had risen sharply in recent days, especially in the vicinity of the university. The previous week eighteen collège principals had complained to Parlement of armed groups gathering for prêches , claiming that they were nonstudents who were interfering with the functioning of the university. On March 4, as the final, and crucial, deliberation on the edict was taking place in Parlement, a large band of armed "students" (so called in the Journal de 1562 ) rioted in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice itself, demanding publication of the edict and shouting that if they were not given temples they would seize them. Marshal Montmorency reported

[40] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:61-62; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 208-211, esp. tb. C on 211; Journal de 1562 , 5.

[41] . Mémoires de Condé ,1:73-74; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 185-188.

that five thousand or six thousand armed men were approaching Paris; sedition and looting were to be feared, but if Parlement would register the edict the danger would be averted. Throckmorton's dispatch of March 6 said that Paris was "more like a place besieged than . . . a merchant city."^[42]

Such was the atmosphere of the city as Parlement began its final debate, in which all members were allowed to speak and vote, although the ultras had tried to exclude those who had participated in the assembly at St-Germain. The capitulation was led by the gens du roi , ironically, since they, especially procureur général Gilles Bourdin had led the opposition in previous sessions. But now avocat général Du Mesnil announced that the gens du roi were of the opinion that "verification of the edict was the most opportune means presently available to appease sedition," that refusal might make things worse, that it was only provisional and could be changed later. The clinching argument was that since the safety of the kingdom seemed to depend on publication, it was expedient to obey the king's command, especially in view of his assurance that he would not change his religion.^[43] On March 5, it was decided that the edict would be registered the next day. Five members absented themselves, three of the commissioners (Brulart, Regnard, and Prévost), as did the two ultra présidents, Le Maistre and Saint-André, again on grounds of ill health. Canon Brulart calls them "gens de bien, voiants la force qu'on faisait à la justice . . . ne voulant consentir à un si meschant édit, contre leurs consciences."^[44]

The Edict of January was registered "because of the necessity of the times, at the express command of the king (de expresso mandato regis ), without approval of the new religion and only until the king shall order otherwise"—and was then immediately disclaimed in the secret register.^[45] The results were diametrically opposed to the hopes of its supporters and bore out the worst fears of its opponents. Étienne Pasquier's epitaph cannot be surpassed: "[The edict] was no sooner born than it died; thus it was, so to speak, an abortion suffered by France . . . [like a dead child] that will cause many tears in the entrails of the mother who produced it." Events in the following days and weeks show up the real failure of the edict rather

[42] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:69-71 on Catherine's response of March 3; Cal. S.P. For ., 4, no. 924 (3).

[43] . Mémoires de Condé , 1:75; 3:88-89; Félibien and Lobineau, Histoire , 4:800a-b.

[44] . Mémoires de Condé , 3:85-87 on the shift of gens du roi , Du Mesnil speech.

[45] . Ibid., 1:73, 3:88-90; and see Taber's interpretation, "Religious Dissent," 220-223. We know from numerous references in the sources that a "secret register" was kept on similar significant occasions, but no copy has been found and we do not know whether there was a single continuous record, or whether records of registrations de expresso mandato were separate occasional records.

than its pretended success. Within forty-eight hours Paris learned of the massacre of a Huguenot congregation by armed retainers of the duc de Guise at Vassy, and on March 16 Guise entered Paris by the Porte St-Denis (site of royal entries), where "there was an infinite crowd of people. Many called out that he was welcome and that he had come just in time to chase out the Huguenots."^[46]

On March 20, both Guise and Condé were attracting crowds of their partisans and "everybody feared some great riot because there was freedom for everyone to bear arms . . . shouts were heard everywhere, as if Paris were a town in the front line." Cardinal de Bourbon's efforts to persuade both Guise and Condé to withdraw from the city failed ("je ne scay par quel empechement," says the author of the Journal de 1562 ). but the prince did leave on the 23d, leaving the field to Guise. All during Holy Week rival processions and services were marked by violence. Huguenots mocked Catholics carrying palms on Palm Sunday and following the stations of the cross on Good Friday. On Easter Monday, March 31, when armed men, rumored to be supporters of Condé, appeared in Chaillot, the principal streets of the city were barricaded by chains.^[47] The following weekend Constable Montmorency led an armed troop to the house called "Jerusalem" in the Faubourg St-Jacques, where Protestant services were held, broke in, and seized a cache of arms before turning it over to sack by the soldiers. "The pulpit from which the ministers preached, the congregation's benches, and everything made of wood was burned." From there they went to Popincourt to do the same, and one of the best-known ministers, La Rivière, was taken prisoner, along with the lawyer Jean Ruzé. The constable's example was not lost on a Parisian crowd, which looted the Popincourt house the following day, and "made a great bonfire in front of the Hôtel de Ville, dancing and shouting, 'God has not forgotten the people of Paris!' And if anyone demurred," adds the journaliste , "he was severely beaten or killed on the spot." Ambassador Chantonnay's report to Philip reflects the same

[46] . Registration of the edict, Mémoires de Condé , 1 :72-74, 3:93-96; Pasquier, Lettres historiques , 95 to Fonsomme; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 224-226. The duke timed his entry into the capital, in a royal manner, to coincide with a diplomatic maneuver of his brother the cardinal de Lorraine, and exploit the differences among Protestants, by meeting with German Lutherans at Saverne. For one historian's interpretation of the episode see Nugent, Ecumenism .

[47] . Journal de 1562 , 7, news of Vassy; 8, arrival of Guise; so, violence of Holy Week; Mémoires de Condé , 1:75-79; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 232-237, 246-248.

sentiment. "It would seem that God is kindling a spirit to remedy matters in this kingdom."^[48]

Condé's forces had seized the town of Orléans on April 2, and civil war was erupting in other parts of the country, including major cities like Lyon and Toulouse. Catherine and her moderate advisers, especially Jean de Monluc, were trying to negotiate with Condé, as were members of the moderate parlementaire leadership like René Baillet, a matter to be discussed in the next chapter.

In the capital, the ultras were enjoying triumph upon triumph. Shortly after Montmorency's violence, Parlement exempted the city of Paris from application of the Edict of January, which meant that Parisian Protestants had lost all their rights. While the king, the queen, the king of Navarre, the constable, and the duc de Guise, with other grands , attended mass at Notre-Dame and heard a sermon by the cardinal de Lorraine, in the presence of the exposed Host, "an infinity of the people praised God for conserving their king in the true and pure religion of Jesus Christ." The anti-Huguenot frenzy continued to mount during May. Processions celebrating the fête of the Holy Sacrament, May 28, were the most elaborate ever seen, with the papal nuncio Prospero di Santa Croce, other ambassadors, and all the Catholic seigneurs taking part (the royal family had left Paris on May 14), "flanked by large numbers of gentlemen, each carrying a lighted candle." Most houses were elaborately decorated, according to Catholic custom, and those that were not, were sacked. "One poor man said aloud, 'If I had six men with courage equal to my own, I would put all these idolaters to flight.' No sooner had the words left his mouth than he was killed by those who overheard him."

Mobilization plans were set up for the defense of each quartier against the enemy, as Antoine de Bourbon prepared to assume the command of the royal armies. Before leaving, he issued instructions that all Protestants were to be treated as traitors, that is, with death. Nicolas Luillier, lieutenant général of the Prévôté of Paris, in conveying Antoine's instructions to the Parlement, remarked that "the people" were saying that the members of Parlement should also be on the proscribed list and were threatening to attack them, along with the Huguenots, if they did not leave the city. Also threatened were parlementaires who had not attended mass for years but

[48] . Journal de 1562 , 16-17 on Montmorency, 24 on exemption of Paris; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 249; Chantonnay's report, Mémoires de Condé , 2:6-10.

suddenly took an ostentatious part in the pentecostal processions and ceremonies.^[49]

Nor did the ultras confine themselves to indirect measures. In the first week in June an anonymous libel, addressed to présidents Le Maistre, Saint-André, Baillet, and de Thou, accused présidents Séguier and Harlay, along with several conseillers, of heresy. The court then assigned two canons of Notre-Dame, well-known ultras (Jacques Verjus and Jean Picot), to inquire into the authorship of the libel as well as récusations against magistrates involved in the investigations of the tumult of St-Médard. All the charges were declared false and scandalous, but Le Maistre found it expedient for the court to make obvious gestures of orthodoxy in order to alter its image as a refuge of sympathizers with heretics and associates of rebels: the requirement of a profession of faith, and an expiatory procession and rededication of the church of St-Médard.^[50] Even in the face of such pressure, 31 parlementaires failed to take the oath on June 9 and only 83 (out of 143) took part in the procession, on June 14.^[51]

In the summer of 1562 tension within the court dropped somewhat, because members who had been under attack for years were now absent, and the moderates, relieved of the awkward choice between attempting to persuade suspects to change their views and defending them against the ultras, could turn their efforts in another direction: to bring about a cessation of hostilities and a reconciliation of Condé with the crown. These objectives would stimulate new conflicts with the ultras. Consequently, there was no real decompression, but rather a new period of tension and a renewed struggle between those who were assigned to implementing the edict and those who were determined to render it a dead letter.

[49] . Journal de 1562 , 260-261 on increased persecution of Huguenots, Catholic processions; Mémoires de Condé , 3:462-464, 470-472.

[50] . AN x^1a 1600, fols. 350-355, for June 5-6, attack on Séguier; fol. 378v for June 9, profession of faith; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 264-266.

[51] . Ibid., 269-270; AN x^1a 1602, fol. 358 on expiatory procession, St-Médard.

10
The Crisis Generation in Civil War, 1562-1582.

The First Civil War and the Pacification of Amboise, 1562-1563

For more than three centuries, the civil wars in France were most often explained by confessional rivalry, hence the familiar title, "Wars of Religion." Beginning with contemporaries, historians often carried on the war with pens where other weapons left off: Catholics saw Protestantism as a rebellion against the one true faith and the natural secular order it sanctioned, and Protestants regarded the Roman church and its supporting governments as oppressors of the true faith and obstructors of progress. From time to time a few more sophisticated interpreters understood the dynastic and political motives underlying the confessional alignment of rival noble leaders; among the most astute, unequaled until our own time, were Parisian magistrate historians, especially Étienne Pasquier and Jacques-Auguste de Thou.

The first major revisionist of the twentieth century was Lucien Romier, for whom the political and dynastic rivalry of the dominant noble families was the "cause," and their vassals, clients, retainers, and other traditional dependents became their political and military followers. The end of the wars with the Hapsburgs, after sixty years, leaving all ranks of the fighting class at home, idle and incapable of retooling, provided the occasion for the ongoing rivalries to assume more explicit and aggressive form. The contending sects furnished ideologies; those who stood to gain most by change (the Bourbons and the Châtillons) chose the newer Protestant option, and those who assumed the defense of the traditional establishment (the Guises) in the process turned it into the French Counter-Reformation.

Every subsequent interpreter has had to address Romier's thesis, which

has been refined and modified in various respects. His neglect of economic and social factors has been remedied, so that rivalry of the noble factions, by itself, now seems incomplete and oversimplified. In the most comprehensive analysis of sixteenth-century France as a "society in crisis," J. H. M. Salmon says, "The preconditions of civil conflict were contained in the coincidence of religious passion, financial crisis, and factional division. The immediate precipitant . . . was an unexpected vacuum at the center of power"—the death of Henri II. The fact that his young successor was married to their niece enabled the Guises to take control of the government, "and their enemies within the aristocracy began to marshal the forces of opposition."^[1]

In recent decades historians have also revised our view of the power structure of early modern France in itself, that is, without reference to either religion or war. Through the work of J. Russell Major and Robert R. Harding among others, the previously accepted concepts of royal centralization and aristocratic weakness and decline have both been considerably qualified. A new analysis that penetrates further into the internal dynamics of the nobility than any previous work revises even the modified "clientage" model. On this level, the "Wars of Religion" become merely one particular phase of "the centuries-old competition for status and power" that always characterized noble behavior, from the most modest to les grands , who showed continued vitality, more autonomy, and less rigidly hierarchical dependence on the state than is generally assumed.

Kristen Neuschel, in her analysis of nobles in Picardy who followed Condé (or did not ) has discerned a pattern of violence made up of local conflicts and individual strategies, in contrast to the conventional model that focuses on a small minority of prominent nobles. The pattern reveals that even quite minor nobles acted independently within certain limits: "The behavior of . . . the 'followers' towards Condé as well as that of Condé towards his 'followers' indicates that [the prince] . . . was by no means the only focal point of these nobles' lives." Neuschel suggests that fighting represented no single purpose, because there was no single war. Defense of honor was often the goal of noble participants, as well as concrete material or strategic gains. The line between warring activity and seemingly peaceful activity was extremely thin. Physical violence and symbolic violence offered different means of defending a noble's interests. As she documents local patterns of ordinary violence, Neuschel adds a new level to interpretation of the wars.^[2]

[1] . Salmon, Society in Crisis , 117-118.

[2] . All the works cited in chapter 1 note 79 are relevant, but especially to be noted is Neuschel, Word of Honor , which this paragraph draws on (and cites, 16); her extensive study makes sense of an otherwise random sequence of aggressions.

Members of Parlement were not unaware that the ambitions and rivalries of les grands figured in the menace to the constitutional equilibrium they considered normal and wished to defend. Like Romier, they believed that the crown was at the root of the problem, but where he, with the hindsight of four hundred years, identified the cause as royal weakness and the consequent vulnerability of the queen mother's government to the pressure of rival noble factions under their rival religious banners, the sixteenth-century parlementaires placed the blame squarely on her religious policy. Their "thesis" was embodied in the phrase un roi, une foi . Catherine's advocacy of limited toleration they saw as sanctioning "two religions" and destroying the historic linkage of "the Holy Land, the Chosen People, and the Most Christian King," through the Roman Catholic Church. Before the era of the Counter-Reformation and the emergence of the League, the Guise party and the Huguenots appeared not as two "rival factions" but rather as "defenders of the faith" on the one hand, and victims of false propaganda, originating outside France, on the other. The acknowledged abuses of the church were considered responsible for the receptivity to heresy. Moreover, the association of the Bourbons with the Huguenots was confusing, weakening Parlement's traditional loyalty to princes of the blood as the natural advisers of the king. The ondoyance of Antoine de Bourbon blurred the distinctions even more. His death made nine-year-old Henri de Bourbon king of Navarre and first prince of the blood and brought Antoine's brother Louis de Bourbon, prince of Condé, to the fore.

Condé had been a troubling figure in Parlement's eyes since 1560. Historians are still uncertain about the extent of his involvement in the Conspiracy of Amboise, but the accusation by the Guise party that he had been its silent chief, blackened his image sufficiently to make even royalist Catholics uncomfortable, especially after his arrest for treason in November of the same year. The three magistrates appointed to the commission that tried him (Christophe de Thou, Jacques Viole, and Bartholomé Faye) would show themselves to be among the leading moderates in the debates on religious policy in 1561 and 1562, and while there is no explicit record of their sentiments at the time of the trial, when Chancellor L'Hôpital adjourned the proceedings after the death of François II, on December 5, five days before Condé was scheduled for execution, he admitted that opinion among the commissioners had been divided. It would have been very difficult for any of these three to support a death sentence against a prince of the blood,

especially one imposed by the Guise party. The prince had challenged the competence of the commission and demanded a hearing by the full court. It occurred in the following year and he was cleared, but Condé never forgave those who had lined up against him and launched récusations against them in 1562.^[3]

If the condemnation of Condé was a manifestation of Guise power, his release and rehabilitation were among the important signs that the Guises had fallen. The queen mother was now at center stage. She and L'Hôpital could push more openly and vigorously the policy by which they hoped to reduce the tensions that had been mounting since the death of Henri II. Each measure they adopted toward that end, from the Edict of July 1561 through the Colloquy of Poissy to the Edict of January 1562, not only failed but boomeranged, by further polarizing public opinion. To the extent that the government's modified policy removed handicaps for the Huguenots, it encouraged them to make further demands and thus exacerbated Catholics' fears, so that in the weeks surrounding the Edict of January violence and hysteria reached a new high.

In the late winter and spring of 1562 the political and military force of each of the two noble factions offset the other. The tumultuous reception given to the duc de Guise testified to the intensity of Parisian partiality toward him, but Condé was also in the capital, with armed troops terrorizing the populace and displaying arrogance in his own behavior. When président René Baillet was delegated by Parlement to request Condé to stop Protestant preaching in a fief whose seigneur was opposed—in conformity with the edict—the prince replied truculently that regardless of what the court ruled, if the king wished them to preach there, they would do so. That was on March 19. During the following days, Holy Week, there were many clashes between armed supporters of the two sides, and the atmosphere was described as that of a town "in the front lines." Parlement supported the request of the Church to forbid Calvinist preaching, and Condé left Paris on March 23. Yet Huguenots were still boldly mocking Catholic rituals on Good Friday, March 27, and most of the rumors raging through the capital predicted an attack by Condé, because the seven hundred cavalry reported in Chaillot were allegedly his retainers.^[4]

[3] . On Condé and the Parlement in 1560 see Mémoires de Condé , 2:373-379; and in 1561, 2:383-395.

[4] . Condé and Baillet in March 1562, Journal de 1562 , 9-10; Parlement's support of bishops, AN x^1a 1600, fols. 379r-382r; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 233, 241-242; Parisian fears of Condé, Journal de 1562 , 14-17; Pasquier, Lettres historiques , 97-101 to Fonsomme, on the impact of Vassy.

The relative distribution of power among factions in Parlement presents a very different configuration. The right-wing ultras were confidently on the offensive. Présidents Le Maistre and Saint-André and procureur général Bourdin were routinely described as attached to and in consultation with the Triumvirs, Constable Montmorency, the duc de Guise, and Marshal Saint-André. The moderate (and silent) majority was immobilized by distrust of both Catherine and Condé, fearful of an outbreak of civil war and reluctant to follow the ultras to an extreme position. There were no parlementaire spokesmen corresponding to the Huguenot nobles. Persons even suspected of an inclination toward leniency were increasingly exposed to danger. Parisians were decking themselves out in red and yellow ribbons—colors of the house of Guise—and "were saying aloud that the Queen should be sent back to Italy, that they would have no king who was not Catholic, and that God had given them one, le grand roi de Guise. " The papal nuncio Santa Croce remarked at the end of April, "no Huguenot speaks out now, and those [persons] who never passed the doors of a church now make ostentatious gestures [to prove] how devout they are." Catherine was backtracking: Paris had been declared exempt from the edict (denying Parisian Protestants their rights under its terms), the Triumvirs were loudly threatening to exterminate them, and in a few weeks, Antoine de Bourbon would physically expel them.^[5]

The moment was fast approaching when parlementaires who were not ultras (and not inclined to martyrdom) would find that their options lay between flight and remaining as inconspicuous as possible. The "natural order" and "constitutional equilibrium" in which they believed were badly shaken and there was nothing they could do about it. Civil war could only make matters even worse. One of the tragic ironies of the century lies in the fact that Parlement's distrust of Catherine and obsessive insistence on une foi prevented members from realizing that their only chance to avoid the worst outcome lay in rallying to her support.

Early in April she had entered into negotiations with Condé, who had established headquarters in Orléans, using numerous envoys (in the words of one historian), "men of the robe, men of the sword, men of the church,

[5] . Ultras and Triumvirs, Mémoires de Condé , 3:378-421; Parisians exalt Guise, anonymous letter cited by James Westfall Thompson, Wars of Religion in France, 1559-1576 (Chicago, 1909), 142; Prospero di Santa Croce, "Lettres anecdotes écrites au cardinal Borromée," in Archives curieuses de l'histoire de France depuis Louis XI jusqu'à Louis XVIII ed. L. Cimber and F. Danjou (Paris, 1834-40), 6:93, Santa Croce to Borromeo. Triumvirs' threats, Santa Croce letter of April 14 cited by Romier, Catholiques et huguenots , 338; expulsion of Huguenots by Antoine, Mémoires de Condé , 3:462-464.

men who were tolerant or indifferent, [anyone] devoted to the cause of peace." Catherine's own efforts in the cause were unflagging. Throughout the twenty-seven years between the outbreak of civil war and her death in January 1589, she never stopped trying to prevent war, refusing to recognize it by continuing negotiations long after others gave up, and missing no opportunity to bring representatives of opposing sides to parley. It is true that she was willing to use anyone capable of acting as an intermediary, but the circumstances noted had greatly reduced the number of gens de robe available to her in the spring of 1562. Most helpful were members of the royal council. Her most persuasive agent was Jean de Monluc, bishop of Valence, whose political and religious opinions seem to have been close to her own, but even he failed to persuade the prince to lay down his arms.^[6] Parlementaires she might have called on (and would in later situations), de Thou for example, were already known to be unacceptable to Condé. Like the earlier measures, Catherine's efforts to come to terms with Condé only increased the opposition of the Catholic ultras and the fears of the populace. In early April the municipal leaders requested Antoine de Bourbon, as lieutenant général, to increase the security guard of Paris "fearing that the Huguenots were preparing a surprise"; a month later the Bureau de Ville would be organizing militia in each quarter of the city.^[7]

On several occasions in the early months of the war there were direct communications between Condé and the Parlement of Paris. In each case the prince took the initiative, or rather, the offensive. His first manifesto, addressed to all royal officers and courts, called on them to assist the prince of the blood and his "associates" in defending the king and the constitution against those who, "full of blood and threats, have reduced their Majesties to captivity in their persons and in their wills." Chief clerk Jean Du Tillet recounts what happened in the court when this first declaration was received. He was instructed by Catherine and Antoine to prepare a reply, but it was not to be sent until it had been cleared by the Conseil du Roi because

[6] . On Catherine's efforts for peace, Jean-H. Mariéjol, La Réforme, la Ligue, l'Édit de Nantes . Vol. 6 in Histoire de France depuis les origines jusqu'à la Révolution , ed. É. Lavisse (Paris, 1904), 60; and see Sutherland, Massacre . Jean de Monluc's mission, Journal de 1562 , 16 (and see chapter 8 note 29); H. de La Ferrière and B. de Purchesse, eds., Lettres de Catherine de Médicis (Paris, 1880-1943), vols. 1-2, constitute the chief source for Catherine's efforts.

[7] . For Bureau de Ville's apprehension see Journal de 1562 , 20 for April 20, 35 for May 11; and Registres du bureau de ville , 5:122; Barbara Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris (New York, 1991), 62-63; this is the most comprehensive as well as the most up-to-date analysis of the decade of the massacre.

a "matter of state was involved, and not justice." When Du Tillet showed a rough draft to présidents Saint-André, Baillet, and de Thou, they expressed the opinion that it should be en quelques termes et endroitz adoulcye . But the first draft was chosen by the crown, and the court was told to have it delivered posthaste by special courier. Presumably there was another draft, but it has not been discovered. The modern reader may well wonder what those three could have agreed upon, a triumvirate like that formed by Pompey and Caesar: Saint-André one of the ultra leaders, de Thou the leader of the moderates, and Baillet, acceptable to both as a link. To know the respects in which the second draft was plus adoulcye by comparison with the first would be especially useful.^[8]

Jean Acarie, an usher in Parlement, was assigned to deliver the reply and to render a detailed account of his mission. Dated April 28, it claims to give every particular of his journey and to name every person encountered but does not include any mention of individual parlementaires.^[9] During his two-day trip, the Paris Parlement received a second declaration from Condé, with a covering letter addressed to members (April 27), by which Condé disingenuously "assumed" that the court had also asked "the other party" to lay down arms and demanded the withdrawal of the Triumvirs from the royal court, claiming that the prince and his associates would then do likewise. This document was taken to the king by another triumvirate, led by the relatively uncontroversial Baillet, flanked by Louis Gayant of the ultras, and Guillaume Viole (bishop of Paris and eldest clerical councillor) of the moderates, who were told to hand it over to Du Tillet to be kept under lock and key. Parlement did not reply.^[10]

There is no doubt from the record that the parlementaires, even the ultras, were in no position to act on their own. The Triumvirs held the reins and in early May they struck back. Unwilling to dignify Condé's claims by addressing him directly, they replied obliquely by a "request" to the crown, to declare that no "diversity of religion would be tolerated, and to require of all royal officers that they make a confession of Catholic faith, on pain of being deprived of office." All armed forces except those of the crown under Antoine's command were to be disbanded. If these conditions were met, they professed themselves willing "to depart, not just from [the royal]

[8] . Condé and Parlement, spring 1562, Journal de 1562 , 29-30; Mémoires de Condé , 3:311-315. On Du Tillet and Parlement's negotiations with Condé, there is significant new information in E. Brown, Jean du Tillet , 25-34.

[9] . Acarie mission, Mémoires de Condé , 3:335-339.

[10] . Condé's second declaration and letter to Parlement, Mémoires de Condé , 3:319-335.

court, but to the ends of the earth." Condé prepared a long manifesto in response to the Triumvirs (but addressed to the crown) and sent a copy with still another letter to Parlement on May 20. He described himself as "so scandalized and offended by their calumny" that he would rather have replied with arms, but instead he had sent the "most modest reply possible." He was sending a copy to the Parlement, "as those from whom I would hide nothing," to be carefully preserved, so that the magistrates could testify to his loyalty when Charles IX came of age. When Du Tillet took his letter to the royal court, currently at Vincennes, Catherine and the Triumvirs did not receive him in person but sent a message that Parlement was neither to accept nor to read such missives in the future; on the contrary, they were to be burned unopened.^[11] With this background, Condé's récusations against prominent parlementaires in July should not come as a surprise. The list contains many examples of guilt by association. Premier président Le Maistre's greatest offense is that "he drew up the plan to make war on the king's true loyal subjects," but he is identified as owing his position to the favor of the duchess of Valentinois (Diane de Poitiers). None of the présidents is exempt. Saint-André is denounced as the creature of Marshal Saint-André, Dormy is associated with Le Maistre as well as with Diane and the Guises. De Thou, a client of the cardinal of Lorraine, in addition to having sat on the commission that condemned Condé, is accused of stirring up rebellion in the municipal leadership of Paris. It may be significant that the two best known moderate présidents, Séguier and Harlay, are tainted only by association with Montmorency.

The previous careers of conseillers Gayant, Bonete, and Anjorrant would be sufficient to explain Condé's hostility, but Gayant's abstention from the vote that cleared the prince was his ultimate offense. Bonete is accused as a Guise client, along with several others, including avocat du roi Du Mesnil and procureur du roi Bourdin. Anjorrant was among those associated with—really led by—Saint-André. Relatives of Le Maistre, Saint-André, and de Thou on the court were accused as such, and the latter's close associates Viole and Faye, along with Le Maistre's brother-in-law Jean-Baptiste Sapin, were individually named. A very few conseillers are listed for specific offenses against Condé: Eustache de Chambon for having said in public that the prince and his followers should be exterminated, Jean de Thérouenne for abuses of his position as judge of heretics in Orléans.

[11] . Triumvirs, Parlement, and Condé, ibid., 388-391, 416-417, 419; Pasquier, Lettres historiques , 105-109, to Fonsomme.

Bracketed with parlementaires were members of the clergy who held benefices from members of the Guise faction, accused of having raised 200,000 écus to repay a papal loan "for the advancement of this damned conspiracy."^[12]

In the interval between the decision to burn any further messages from Condé and his July récusations , pressures on the Parlement had been stepped up from the other side. Antoine's order that Protestants leave Paris or be prosecuted for treason was issued on May 26; on the 29th premier président Le Maistre warned members of the court "fraternally," that if those with unorthodox views did not withdraw, "one could not easily keep the populace from attacking them." This was followed on June 1 by the first of a series of house-to-house searches for heretics, called by reporters for the Guise party la chasse aux Huguenots . On June 5 the anonymous attack on the orthodoxy of présidents Séguier and Harlay was found on the premises of the Palais de Justice, and although the charges were dismissed as "scandalous calumny" the next day, we have noted that Le Maistre felt it necessary to take measures that would reassure the city that the faith was not in danger from heresy in Parlement. A fresh surge of anti-Huguenot hysteria was sweeping the city and everyone feared the worst.^[13]

June 9 brought the non-ultra Catholic magistrates to their Rubicon: if they did not make profession of Catholic orthodoxy, those who were already suspects would confirm this attribution and those who might formerly have escaped suspicion could hope to do so no longer. Thirty-one members, almost one-quarter of the court, absented themselves from the session rather than take the oath.^[14]

For the Parisian in the street, the climactic point of this drama-packed season was the St-Médard procession on June 14. Public opinion had not cooled on this subject in the six months since the tumulte ; only a month earlier the unfortunate Sergeant Nez d'Argent had been hanged for the crime of protecting the Huguenots and blaming the Catholics for the incident. Parlementaire participation and abstention symbolized the court's

[12] . Condé and Parlement, summer 1562, Journal de 1562 , 77-78; Mémoires de Condé , 3:549-553.

[13] . Events of late May-June 1562, and Le Maistre threats, Mémoires de Condé , 3:468-470; searches, Journal de 1562 , 47-48; June 9, 1562, Cal. S.P. For ., 5, no. 174, "Throckmorton to Queen," June 9, 1562; Santa Croce to Borromeo, June 1, 1562, Archives curieuses , 7:104; see also Taber, "Religious Dissent," 264-270; Journal de 1562 , 58, 61; profession of faith decided/implemented, AN x^1a 1602, fol. 350r.

[14] . On the absentees see Taber, "Religious Dissent," ch. 5, note significance of attendance, identification of absentees.

predicament: while the Host was flanked by the six ranking members, only 86 of the 143 parlementaires attended.^[15]

If moderates had expected the St-Médard procession to serve as a catharsis for anti-Huguenot hostility, they were disappointed. Intensity was maintained throughout the summer; book burnings did not diminish, murders increased, and all other corps were obliged to make a similar profession of faith. As noted above, Nicolas Luillier, lieutenant criminel, who had protected a suspect, was obliged to take refuge in the Palais de Justice and to lock the doors for several hours, because "the people were demanding permission to kill Huguenots without a trial." The city was simultaneously hit by the plague, a spell of bad weather, and shortages—thus suffering, as the Journal de 1562 notes, from God's three scourges, plague, famine, and civil war. In late August Catherine and Parlement were unable to prevent Gabaston (commander of the municipal guard at the time of the tumult of St-Médard) from suffering the same fate as Nez d'Argent, "because the people were so aroused that if he had been released, it was feared that they would do violence to the court of Parlement itself." Members of the highest court in France could now be hunted down as outlaws with no legal recourse.^[16]

Deeply involved as they were in religious and political issues, the Paris magistrates had little contact with the military events of the First Civil War. One episode, however, affected them directly, the death of one of their own members at the hands of Condé. During Parlement's summer recess Jean-Baptiste Sapin was captured and hanged in Orléans, together with one of his traveling companions. When we recall that Sapin had been singled out by name in Condé's récusations , it seems a simple act of vengeance. Huguenots rationalized it as justifiable "execution" for Sapin's participation in the court's proceedings that had violated the legal rights of Huguenots and usurped royal authority, but to his fellow parlementaires it was murder, committed by outlaws against the king's justice. The shocking news was announced at the opening of the new parlementaire season, November 12, 1562, by procureur général Bourdin, who urged the court to erect a memorial tablet to Sapin and the king to reserve his office for a member of his family. Two days later a requiem mass in his memory was held at Notre-

[15] . On the St-Médard expiatory procession see Taber, "Religious Dissent," ch. 5; Journal de 1562 , 52-53, 89-90.

[16] . Huguenots outlawed, Journal de 1562 , 93; de Thou, Histoire universelle , 3:170; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 281.

Dame, with Bourdin pronouncing the eulogy.^[17] Most of the fighting was far away, much of it in the Midi, and the main military engagement was the siege of Rouen. Nevertheless, the one real battle, at Dreux (also the final and decisive event of the First Civil War) took place virtually at the gates of the capital, and parlementaires shared with other inhabitants the fear, uncertainty, and other shifting emotions as rumors of a Condé victory on December 20 struck terror in Parisian hearts, only to be followed by relief and exuberant rejoicing the next day—despite the death of Marshal Saint-André and the capture of the constable.

One other event that occurred during the ensuing negotiations for peace (which lasted until mid-March) was of capital importance. François, duc de Guise, the charismatic Catholic commander, was assassinated on February 24, 1563.^[18] The immediate consequences, though less momentous than those of the long-range, significantly affected the Parlement. The elimination of all three Triumvirs obliged Catherine to press for peace and make some concessions to Condé, which infuriated public opinion and hardened opposition to the queen's policy. During the final days of the peace parley, the assassin was executed and two funeral services were held for the martyred duke, the first at the Sainte-Chapelle in the Palais de Justice, on March 9, subsidized and heavily attended by the Parlement. A solemn high requiem mass was held at Notre-Dame on March 20, the day the Pacification of Amboise, ending the First Civil War, was signed.^[19]

The mourning of the Parisian crowds matched in hysterical intensity the welcome they had given Guise just a year before, and the position of those suspected of dissent grew still more precarious. As early as January, the Bureau de Ville had been demanding that no compromise be made on religious uniformity and Parlement rejected the proposal of amnesty for the defeated rebels. A number of absent Parisians, even including some parlementaires, were hanged in effigy, reported the Venetian ambassador

[17] . On the murder of Sapin and its aftermath, Mémoires de Condé , 1:100; 4:107-114; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 284.

[18] . Pasquier on the battle of Dreux, Lettres historiques , 117-121 to Fonsomme; on the assassination of Guise, 126-133, to Fonsomme; Mémoires de Condé , 1:106; 4:178, 198.

[19] . On the funeral services and mourning for Guise in Paris (Taber, "Religious Dissent," 336-340), note the significance of the analysis of attendance; Marc'Antonio Barbaro, dispatch of March 2: "the grief of Paris, if described, would scarcely be believed"; March 23: "the remains of no King or Emperor have ever been more splendidly treated, nor with more widespread demonstrations of grief" (Suriano and Barbaro, "Despatches," 80-84); Mémoires de Condé , 4:240-241, 284.

Marc'Antonio Barbaro, and the harassment of suspects did not abate. Parisians had been aware of Catherine's contrary intentions for some time, but popular anger had escalated since the victory at Dreux and the assassination of the duke was an event that Parisians expected would stiffen royal resistance to Condé's demands. The public failed to realize that the crown's financial and military weakness canceled out its presumed advantages. The queen mother was held to be in collusion with the enemy, a slander made credible by the role played in the peace parleys by Éléonore de Roye, princesse de Condé.^[20] Negotiations had begun on November 28, some weeks before the battle of Dreux, while the Huguenot army was encamped near the city. Achille de Harlay, later premier président and the model parfait magistrat of the mainstream, while also suspect to the ultras, took part in the peace negotiations of December 1562-March 1563.^[21]

In the altered circumstances after Dreux peace talks were resumed, with great urgency. The English ambassador Nicholas Throckmorton wrote to Queen Elizabeth on January 6, 1563, that Catherine de Médicis had moved to Chartres, and that "some judge peace to be more forward than it appears because the chief présidents and other councillors from the Parlement have gone to Chartres at the Queen's command, to yield to such articles as hitherto they and the Parisians have refused." We wonder who the other councillors were and regret the silence of the sources. André Guillart, sieur du Mortier, who was employed as envoy by Catherine a few weeks later on a sensitive mission, would not have been a logical choice for this mission since he was suspect himself. René Baillet might qualify, or de Thou's close associates Viole and Faye. (Recall that in December 1562, at the critical juncture de Thou became premier président, replacing Le Maistre, a tremendous stroke of luck for Catherine and for the cause of peace.) Yet the atmosphere in the capital had not moderated to match the drive toward compromise. A dispatch of the English agent Smith, who had remained in the city when Throckmorton went to Chartres, reports, on January 14, "all here is ruled by the house of Guise, to whose order the King and Queen have submitted." A few days later he refers to the dilemma of Marshal Montmorency, "as much [as] he might safely do, he favors those of the religion, which [is] the opinion the Papists and the Parisians have of him,

[20] . Parlementaires burned in effigy, Suriano and Barbaro, "Despatches," 78; amnesty refused, Registres du bureau de ville, 5:185-186 ; on Éléonore de Roye, princesse de Condé, see Nancy L. Roelker, "The Role of Noblewomen in the French Reformation," Archive for Reformation History (1972): 168-195.

[21] . Taber, "Religious Dissent," 290-292.

so he is not so beloved by them." On February 4 Smith gives details of Parisian atrocities against Huguenots in a letter to William Cecil, and he was himself a victim (though not a fatality) the next day.^[22]

Some articles of the Pacification of Amboise met Condé's demands just enough to enrage the ultras without providing safeguards for the Huguenots. For instance, injuries and offenses on both sides were to be wiped out, on pain of death for violation, but no oath to observe the edict was required of royal or municipal officers, and the ultras held that it was not necessary to keep faith with heretics. Condé's specific request that all cases involving religion or the execution of the edict be assigned to the Grand Conseil was ignored; the regular course of justice was to be followed. This meant the parlements, of which the prince had said, at an early stage of the negotiations, that "the lives of the reformed would be no safer than if they were handed over to their worst enemies." Propertied Parisian Huguenots were allowed to reclaim their property but not to worship as they wished, even in their own houses, unlike haut justiciers elsewhere in the kingdom. Offices and titles were supposed to be restored to ex-rebels, but there was an outcry that the king should permit at court no person who did not profess the Catholic faith. If Protestant nobles, like the Châtillons, were thus imperiled, dissident parlementaires stood no chance of getting their rights. In the words of the Spanish ambassador, Chantonnay, the Parisian public was enragé .^[23]

It was hardly surprising that the Parlement should drag its heels in these circumstances. Premier président de Thou tried to reassure Catherine. The letters patent ordering registration "will be published and registered without restrictions or modifications, but to allay the suspicions some have against Parlement, which will not like [the edict] and who will use it to cause more trouble, we shall delay until it pleases the king to send two princes of the blood to supervise it." He then requested that the duc de Montpensier and cardinal de Bourbon be assigned this duty.^[24] When the edict was finally registered, (after a long wrangle to be discussed shortly) only the first and last phrases were read out by Du Tillet, Parlement "fearing a commotion if the full text were announced," as one observer put it.^[25] Santa Croce was assured by the ultra leaders that the peace would not last, its

[22] . Cal. S.P. For ., 6, no. 89, "Smith to Queen," January 14, 1563; no. 146, "Smith to Queen," January 24, 1563; no. 239, Smith to Cecil, February 4, 1563.

[23] . Mémoires de Condé , 4:311-321; Lettres de Catherine de Médicis , 2:cciv.

[24] . Lettres de Catherine de Médicis , 1:416 n.1.

[25] . Cal. S.P. For ., 6, no. 239, "Smith to Cecil," February 4, 1563. See also Taber, "Religious Dissent," 341-344.

purpose being to gain time. Catherine herself excused it as an instance of reculer pour mieux sauter . As so often, the Venetian assessment seems to reveal the real situation. Barbaro wrote to the Senate on March 23.

I have been told by a principal member of Parlement that the king had no further means to carry on the war. The city must either accept the peace or defend itself. The Parlement is much disturbed, and knowing that both parties are equally dangerous to the state , does not know what resolution to take, but [the Parlement spokesman added] if we bring this public war to a conclusion, we are preparing a private one on a much larger scale in every city and house in the kingdom .^[26]

This statement is a valuable revelation of the ambivalence of Parisian parlementaire opinion: on the one hand the threat of the Catholic party is recognized, but on the other, the determination to continue the fight against any degree of toleration of dissent is forcefully expressed.

Fewer nuances are found in robe opinion in the provinces, not surprisingly. In the major parlements, except Rouen's, dissenters or doubters of the Catholic line were few. The Toulouse court had a well-earned reputation for harshness. The capitouls (of the municipal leadership), on the contrary, had been for the most part won over to the reform, and the antagonism produced four tumultuous and bloody days (May 1562), in which one of the most distinguished jurists, Jean de Coras, who happened also to be one of the rare Protestants, was among the victims. In Bordeaux also, the Parlement was strongly anti-Huguenot, although both the city and the court were less ultra than in Toulouse. The Catholics in these two cities often expressed the feeling of being under siege because the smaller cities and towns of Languedoc and Guyenne constituted the heartland of the reform.^[27]

Burgundy was a bastion of conservative Catholic opinion. Perhaps the proximity of Switzerland and the Rhine and Rhône valleys made Burgundians particularly fearful of penetration by "foreign" ideas that threatened traditional habits and beliefs, and influential regional nobles, especially the Saulx-Tavannes, ranked among the leaders of the ultra party. When the deputies of the three estates of le pays et duché de Bourgogne produced remonstrances against the Edict of Amboise, they were embodied in a pamphlet that elaborates the Catholic position in more than fifty pages, drawing extensively on the Bible and the ancient history of the Near East

[26] . Suriano and Barbaro, "Despatches," 85, dispatch of March 23, 1563 (my italics); see also 92, dispatch of May 4, 1563.

[27] . Garrisson-Estèbe, Protestants du midi , 28-33; Philip Benedict, Rouen during the Wars of Religion (Cambridge, 1981), 78-79.

to make the same few points over and over again: France is a monarchy; a monarchy that permits diversity of religion cannot enjoy internal peace and stability; wise rulers have realized this and have suppressed religious beliefs that differed from their own; where toleration has been tried, the results have been disastrous, as currently in France, with the policies of Catherine de Médicis. Thus far the main argument is a simple statement of un roi, une foi . De Caprariis says, "In this pamphlet are presented, forcefully and in lucid form, all the objections of Catholic parlementaires to the policy of the regent and L'Hôpital." The author was Jean Begat, conseiller in the Dijon Parlement, with a reputation for learning. He makes a further point, new at this time, that would figure frequently in the propaganda of the League, accusing the Huguenots of intending to break up the kingdom into a group of city-states, like Switzerland. The accusation was as ridiculous as it was libelous, considering the passionate royalist nationalism of the French Huguenots in every generation, but it was an effective scare-tactic. In Burgundy at this time also, the first regional confraternity was organized, to wage "implacable war" against heresy. De Thou comments, "The piety of the king of Spain was publicly exalted, even in the pulpits, and unflattering comparisons were made with the royal [French] authority and the very name of Frenchman was made to sound shameful, as if it were the business of the king of Spain to regulate religion in France and to interpret the king's edicts."^[28]

By comparison with Parlement's action on the Edict of January 1562, the Edict of Amboise appeared to be registered in Paris with little opposition, but this impression is misleading. It was only a pro forma acceptance. The court was not strong enough to block it and resorted instead to a strategy of sabotaging its implementation. Meanwhile house-to-house searches, book burning, and street violence continued; Huguenots were denied their rights under the edict. Although the tide had begun to turn within the court—with de Thou's assumption of the first presidency—the ultras still had the upper hand, and some parlementaires who had thus far escaped harassment came under fire.

A major contribution of Linda Taber's study of heresy in the Paris Parlement is the discovery of some key documents and the unraveling and interpretation of others. An outstanding example is an anonymous police

[28] . On Jean Begat, see de Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero , 179-181; text of remonstrances and correspondence with the crown are in Mémoires de Condé , 4:356-441; see also Mack P. Holt, "Wine, Community, and Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Burgundy," Past and Present (February 1993): 58-93, esp. 70-71.

report.^[29] According to her reconstruction, the genesis of this list was probably a complaint by certain dixaine captains on November 12, 1562, just as the session that had opened with the news of Sapin's murder was about to close. The captains reported that "the people" were outraged by the continued presence in the court of members who "ordinarily" attended the sermons and observed the rituals of the new religion and held assemblies in their houses, with impunity. The complaint was followed by a "request" to the Parlement, to refuse entry to such members, even if they had already made profession of faith (or said they would be willing to do so), to expel members who had approved allowing the Huguenots to have temples or to assemble, under any conditions, and to grant them, the captains, permission to order all such persons to leave Paris. For the Parlement, the timing of the captains' request or report is especially significant for it illuminates the divisions among magistrates as the First Civil War was drawing to a close, as well as revealing the development of those divisions discussed above in chapters 7-9 and foreshadowing many of the complications in the months ahead.

Although the November 12 register does not mention the episode, that of November 27 alludes to it, recording that after lengthy debate it was decided that the captains should investigate and then submit a list of known or suspected heretics. Procedure is not mentioned until the register of January 8, 1563, which instructs the captains to inquire into the orthodoxy of members of all important corps and their families. The Parlement of Paris is named first. Each captain is to solicit assistance from the most prominent inhabitants of his dixaine and to prepare a separate list with their names. Neither list is to be signed.^[30] Slight changes in procedure authorized in late January suggest that some difficulties had been encountered, but neither the registers of the court nor those of the Bureau de Ville contain any further mention of this investigation. The Journal de 1562 and other sources refer to the continued pursuit of heretics, however, one claiming that right after the battle of Dreux Parlement had ordered all priests to denounce suspects to their bishops within nine days, on pain of excommunication for failure to comply.^[31]

Taber believes that the anonymous police report was the end product of the captains' request. Of the sixty-eight names, thirty-six are those of

[29] . Captains' request and police report, Taber, "Religious Dissent," 289-324.

[30] . Mémoires de Condé , 4:132-133, November 27, 1562; 192-193, January 8, 1563; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 286-294, appendix C, tbs. D-E.

[31] . AN x^1a 1604, fol. 230r, January 8, 1563; Journal de 1562 122; the ultra-Catholic Claude Haton cited by Thompson, Wars of Religion , 180.

conseillers in the Parlement, and fourteen others are wives or other relatives. Her reasoning and conclusions have been very valuable to this study—more than can adequately be acknowledged—and are incorporated into my own conclusions about the spectrum of religious opinion in each generation.

The Fragmentation of the Court, 1563

The ultras had lost no time in attacking the vulnerable aspects of the Edict of Amboise. On March 29, at the session immediately following registration, Parlement remonstrated against Catherine's toleration of non-Catholic courtiers, on grounds that they could not be trusted to be faithful, for "no certainty of good [performance in] office can be found with diversity of religion." Two weeks later they carried presumption even further, expressing resentment that violence in other parts of the kingdom (against the Huguenots) was ignored, "as if only Catholic Paris was to be held to the terms of the edict," and demanding that it be applied equally to both sides.^[32] Taber summarizes the situation, "the functions of Parlement as the conservatives saw them emerge very clearly . . . in both the making of policy and the execution of justice, the Court was the king's mentor. The royal reply, read to the members on April 24, made it equally clear that such tutelage was felt to be inappropriate and offensive." As retaliation against the ultras, the crown took deadly aim at a sensitive spot. In an interview between de Thou and Chancellor L'Hôpital on May 9, despite the premier président's almost superhuman efforts to be tactful and conciliatory, the court was ordered to withdraw the requirement for a profession of faith, and to admit without coercion absentees who did not wish to make one.^[33] The return of several controversial absentees heightened the drama and hardened the court's resistance, but the only result achieved by an impressive delegation of présidents, gens du roi , and senior conseillers who tried to explain their position (May 18) was that they were explicitly forbidden to deliberate the question at all.^[34] At least by implication, this was an attack

[32] . Diefendorf's analysis of the escalating disorder emphasizes the "intensification of religious hatreds" in Parisian society (Beneath the Cross , chs. 3-4); see also Taber, "Religious Dissent," 334-335.

[33] . Taber, "Religious Dissent," 346; Parlement's remonstrances of March 1563, Mémoires de Condé , 4:327-328; April 15, AN x^1a 1605, fols. 1v-3r; April 24, AN x^1a 1605, fols. 28v-30r, May 9.

[34] . De Thou's report of May 12 (on interview of May 9 with the king), AN x^1a 1605, fol. 135r; Parlement's delegation to king of May 17, AN x^1a 1605, fol. 181; and see Taber's analysis, "Religious Dissent," 348.

on Parlement's most precious prerogative, the right of remonstrance. Inevitably, it provoked new remonstrances on May 22.

Noting that a profession of faith conformed both to the procedures of François I and to the requirement of the Edict of January that members of the court be of the same faith as the king, the main thrust of Parlement's argument was that law and order depended on the maintenance of the profession. To drop it would entail dire consequences, including public disrespect for Parlement and disunity within its ranks. Predictably, the king's reply was that reasons of state made it imperative that members of the court not be obliged to make profession, and that such was his will.^[35] Taber speculates that Parlement had probably anticipated this outcome, since the remonstrances of May 22 are entered in the register of May 25 with yet another parlementaire initiative, drawing a distinction between Protestants who had borne arms during the war and officers who had absented themselves in order to avoid a profession of faith. In the court's opinion, the edict applied only to the former category; the profession of faith, on the contrary, was a rule of the court, to be obeyed by all members, as the king's justice was by definition in conformity with his religion.^[36]

Taber has a convincing hypothesis concerning the probable membership of the commission that drew up the second, bolder set of remonstrances on May 25. She sees a division within "the conservative rump" that had made a profession of faith the previous June. Thirteen members whose ideological deviation had been revealed in the police report she calls "unreliables," ten of whom were present when the May 25 remonstrances were formulated, three belonged to the Grand' Chambre: Étienne Charlet, Matthieu Chattier, and Michel Quélain.^[37]

Those who were "unreliable" from the point of view of ultra-conservative solidarity I place in the parlementaire mainstream, as moderates, who for the most part had been silent in recent months. These were sincere Catholics, for whom a profession of faith was a natural act in support of un roi, une foi , and while they could not accept the crown's moves toward accommodation of heretics, neither did they believe in either vindictive persecution or in the imposition of iron-bound uniformity in every detail of religious observance and belief. They were willing, therefore, to waive

[35] . De Thou's evasion of royal orders, AN x^1a 1605, fols. 181r-183v; remonstrances of May 22, AN x^1a 1605 fols. 216r-217r; discussion of these matters in Taber, "Religious Dissent," 349-353.

[36] . Remonstrances of May 25, AN x^1a 1605 fol. 216; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 356-359.

[37] . See Taber, "Religious Dissent," tb. C on 211, ch. 7.

the oath for returnees and let bygones be bygones as much for alienated colleagues as for those who had borne arms. These attitudes did indeed make them "unreliable" as followers of the ultra line, but the court's leadership was no longer hostage to the ultras. Of the five présidents only Saint-André stood for total unwillingness to compromise. Christophe de Thou was now in the driver's seat, and he had shown his independence by permitting deliberation on the question of the profession of faith in defiance of the king's command and by the same act had defied ultra parlementaire opinion by allowing the returnees the same privileges as others. De Thou could count on the support of Séguier and Harlay (who would probably have gone even further) and of Baillet, who was always compliant. Among the conseillers, de Thou's own allies and those of Séguier, notably Faye, Viole, and Du Drac, could act as "whips" of the Gallican party that would emerge when the patriotism of the ultras seemed compromised by the Counter-Reformation.

The balance of power between the mainstream and the ultras was beginning to shift. The French delegation to the Council of Trent, led by conseiller Arnauld Du Ferrier, opposed decrees that would eliminate the autonomy of the French church before withdrawing from Trent altogether. One result would be to make the ultra position appear more extreme and to accelerate defections from it toward the mainstream, in the center. The full implications of these changes were not yet evident, however.

There were also subdivisions among the dissidents, the thirty-one parlementaires who had absented themselves to avoid the profession of faith. Nearly two years earlier, in the summer of 1561, the Venetian ambassador Michele Suriano had already reported differences of opinion among parlementaires. The reason the pourparlers that finally produced the Edict of July were so long and drawn out, he said, was that "everyone insisted on giving his own opinion, not satisfied with what had been said by previous speakers." He adds provocative details on two prominent individuals:

Hitherto all members of Parlement had shown themselves most hostile to the new sects [sic ], with the exception of M. Viole, who spoke openly in their favor. He had consequently gained great credit with them, while M. du Ferrier had lost as much . . . [but since returning from Rome] from having been the most violent and implacable enemy of Catholics and especially of the authority of the Pope [he is now] more kind and friendly. . . . Those who are displeased by the change declare that he had been bought by presents and promises.^[38]

[38] . Suriano and Barbaro, "Despatches," 29.

These impressions reflect the opinions of Suriano's informant(s); he or they were clearly "reliable" conservatives; the slur on Du Ferrier's integrity conflicts with everything we know of him.

In another dispatch, written two weeks later (July 14), after the conclusion of deliberations but before the edict was officially issued, Suriano states that "more than 100" of the 140 persons who participated, that is, the Parlement and the Conseil du Roi

were firm and united in opinion in favour of the Catholic faith. The remainder were opposed to it; but divided into several parties. . . . Some of them openly advocated the cause of the Sacramentarians; amongst them the Admiral and M. du Mortier [seigneur de l'Isle], and some members of the Parliament. Some, who were doubtful, wished, under various pretexts, to delay the decision [of the Parliament]. Others, who thought that it was too severe, desired that more leniency should be shown. Amongst the latter was the Cardinal de Châtilion.

Antoine de Bourbon spoke in a low voice and said little, continues Suriano. The cardinal de Lorraine spoke with learning and eloquence and persuaded the assembly to publish the decree by authority of Parlement, because its supremacy in the kingdom "has all the force of a pragmatic sanction, against which neither the favour, nor the ability nor the rank nor the authority of anyone would avail."^[39]

The father of André Guillart, sieur de l'Isle, was président Charles Guillart, who had died in 1524. Louis Guillart, André's uncle, bishop of Chartres, a member of the king's council, was one of the French bishops the papacy attempted to deprive of their sees, as heretics, in August 1563.^[40] We are tantalized by the offhand reference to "some members of Parlement," probably those who later refused to make profession of faith in June 1562. Those who "sought pretexts for delay" would seem to indicate men like Du Faur and Paul de Foix, who urged waiting for a church council to decide the religious question. The "leniency" of cardinal de Châtillon might be an allusion to his willingness to allow the use of the vernacular in some church rituals, for instance. It is particularly interesting that Suriano expresses the

[39] . Ibid., 30-31.

[40] . On André du Mortier and the Guillart family see Jouanna, "André Guillart"; on papal excommunications of French bishops see Lettres de Catherine de Médicis , 2:119-120, where the queen's instructions to her agents are listed; also Edmond Cabié, ed., Ambassade en Espagne de Jean d'Ébrard, seigneur de St-Sulpice, 1562-1565 (Albi, France, 1903), 167-168. Saint-Sulpice was her principal agent in the crown's defense of Jeanne d'Albret, excommunicated and "deposed" at the same time; de Thou, Histoire universelle , 3:442-446; Roelker, Queen of Navarre , 221-222.

exalted parlementaire view of the court's authority and prestige—it could be Étienne Pasquier speaking—and intriguing that such a view should be put in the mouth of the cardinal de Lorraine. This is not plausible, however. I suspect the Venetian ambassador conflated a report that the assembly was persuaded to accept the edict—which nobody really favored—by the cardinal's eloquence, with some parlementaire's assertion of the court's influence.

Of the edict itself Suriano had said (July 27, 1561) that the published version was less severe on heresy than Parlement had intended because "it had been weakened by the Chancellor, whose orthodoxy was suspected," consequently, "that which was intended as remedy, would instead add to the evil." A secret dispatch the same day reports that the queen mother was suspected of collusion with the chancellor and others who favored the Huguenots.^[41] Again we see that the ultras had the ambassador's ear.

Suriano's mission ended just after the Colloquy of Poissy, in October 1561. A year and a half later, in spite of an unbroken series of setbacks, the Protestant party still loomed as a dreadful menace in conservative parlementaire opinion. In April 1563 the succeeding Venetian ambassador, Marc'Antonio Barbaro, could report to the Senate, "the Catholic party is convinced that if the peace [Amboise] is continued, the whole kingdom would go over to the new religion , although the king has declared his intention to live and die in that of his fathers."^[42]

In the interval between the earlier Venetian reports and the one just quoted, the clear-cut division between those who made profession of faith and the thirty-one who refused had surfaced, and the less clear subdivisions within both groups that Taber and I have analyzed became discernible. Her painstaking analysis of the time-table of absentee returns shows that four of the thirty-one had been lost through resignation or death, and three were abroad, serving as ambassadors. All but nine of the rest had reclaimed their seats by June 1563; only two had asked to be excused from the oath.^[43] The last nine, who did not return until the fall or winter 1563-64, had all been accused of the most serious offenses on the police report, such as holding assemblies in their houses or serving in Condé's army.

[41] . Suriano and Barbaro, "Despatches," 32-33.

[42] . Ibid., 89; my italics.

[43] . Taber, "Religious Dissent," on absentees' return, 358-363, tbs. D-E. After being forced to capitulate on the issue of the profession of faith in May 1563, Parlement in its frustration had decided to ask each returnee whether or not he would take an oath, and to keep a record of those who said they would not, as a weapon to use against them at a later date. The two who refused were Louis Du Faur and Jacques Spifâme.

The evidence suggests that these nine were real heretics, and to the extent that they retained dissident beliefs after their return, they were what Calvin called "Nicodemites," secret Protestants. The earliest returnees, of June and July 1562, on the contrary, who took the oath without apparent hesitation, were almost certainly conventional or indifferent Catholics. We recall that Eustache de la Porte, for instance, had complied easily and promptly when the judges at his 1559 trial had required him to recant his criticism of the Grand' Chambre's severity to heretics. Some of the dissenters I would characterize as "liberal" Catholics. In contrast to the indifferent or conventional group, they had reached their beliefs through sophisticated and subtle reasoning, but the substance was more spiritual and moral than theological, as we have seen with Paul de Foix, who represents the most radical end of the spectrum. The congruence of his views with those of Jean de Monluc and with the provisions of the Edict of January marks the difference between the "left of center" members and the moderate conservatives of the court. If about three-fourths of the Parisian parlementaires were conservatives, relatively few were ultras—and as time passed there were fewer. And if the remaining fourth consisted of dissidents, relatively few of them were heretics. The moderates of the mainstream and the liberal Catholics between them constituted a substantial majority.

As long as Charles IX was a minor, opposition to the policies of Catherine and L'Hôpital stimulated anticipations of the end of the regency.^[44] The Parlement, hoping that the king's policies would be closer to its own when that moment came, exploited the situation by granting only "provisional" registration to the Edict of January and the Pacification of Amboise. Moreover, while Charles IX had been crowned in May 1561, it was not until two years later that he paid the court the honor of a visit. The occasion was the crown's need for new revenues in order to take advantage of the cessation of hostilities to unify the quarreling factions in a "national" military campaign to drive the English out of Normandy. The device so often resorted to in such circumstances, to "borrow" from the French church, made it necessary to launch an official royal appeal, in a royal séance of the Parlement of Paris on May 17, 1563.

In a personal statement opening the proceedings, the young king excused himself for not coming sooner "to do my duty, that is, to admonish you to administer justice well and honorably . . . because I became king at such a

[44] . Barbaro's dispatch of June 21, 1563, reports that the queen is preparing to announce the king's majority, "but it is doubtful that the Parlement would agree" (Suriano and Barbaro, "Despatches," 100); Taber, "Religious Dissent," 367.

young age and have been so preoccupied with other affairs." The chancellor elaborated the point and brought up the proposition of alienating church lands to meet the needs of national security. Premier président de Thou, speaking for the court, supported the request and thanked the king effusively for their "joy at seeing before them the image and power of God represented in their king . . . seated in the throne of his majesty. " This meant in the Grand' Chambre of the Parlement of Paris, and he was beseeched to do so often. The premier président underlined Parlement's opinion that it had a right to be consulted by inserting smoothly, "as pilot of a [vessel] which is tossed and torn by ill winds, the king as is customary requests counsel of those who are inside [the vessel]."^[45]

The royal séance of May 17 has usually been interpreted as a humiliation of the court because it was obliged to drop the requirement of a confession of faith and to readmit those who had refused to take the oath—a matter that was uppermost in their current concerns. Hanley, however, carrying out her constitutional interpretation, believes that "contrary to common supposition . . . this Royal Séance . . . was specifically convoked to register a royal edict not under the iron hand of the monarch but at the willful insistence of a Parlement intent upon securing for itself during minority kingship a greater legislative role."^[46]

The crown's announcement that a lit de justice would be held in the Parlement of Rouen (August 17, 1563) to proclaim the king's majority (and crown the national military victory in Normandy) precipitated a constitutional crisis that some scholars regard as the most serious of the century, prior to the 1590s.^[47] The Parisian Parlement not only refused to comply with the request to send delegates but attempted to change the regent's mind—in vain. The argument advanced in de Thou's letter was that there was no need for a special assembly to proclaim the royal majority because

even if you [Charles IX] were only one day old, you would be as much a major in respect to justice as if you were thirty years old, since [justice] is administered in your name by the power God has given you. In addition, the attire [red robes] in which we [the Parlement of Paris] are vested during

[45] . Hanley, Lit de Justice , 155-156 on May 17, 1563, citing AN x^1a 1605, fols. 169v-177v; my italics.

[46] . Ibid., 157. One need not agree with Hanley's conclusions, but Parlement's determination to assert its rights is indisputable.

[47] . Ibid., 158-173 on circumstances and events of the Rouen lit de justice assembly, August 17, 1563; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 369-373.

Royal Funerals shows that since [kings] do not die in respect to justice, they can never be reputed as minors [in respect to justice].^[48]

If such an ordinance, as special, is however, deemed necessary,

then the act must take place first in this Court . . . the first of the Courts of the kingdom, the Court of peers, and the seat of the king's sovereign justice. . . . [The Parlement of Paris is the true and only court in which] he customarily holds his Lit de Justice [assembly] . . . it [the court] represents the true and solid image of the majesty and dignity of his justice.^[49]

Parlement had thus completely reversed the position it had held in earlier decades. From denying the legitimacy of a lit de justice assembly, the Parisians had turned to co-opting the institution, asserting that it could only take place in the Grand' Chambre of the Paris Palais de Justice.

Using the compilations of Du Tillet (see chapter 2), Chancellor L'Hôpital articulated a royal strategy designed to counter the Parlement's claim and to "eliminate the shadow of legislative incapacity hovering over the scene of royal minority," by asserting that the throne was never vacant (l'autorité royale ne meurt point ). Transfer of this maxim, borrowed from private law, provided a basis for "instantaneous succession" in public law, as a legitimate concept in the "ancient constitution."^[50]

In Parlement's eyes, the villain of the majorité struggle was Chancellor L'Hôpital, who, as spokesman of the crown, expressed the more absolutist interpretation and challenged parlementaire constitutionalism by every available means, from straightforward pressure, applied through prestigious envoys who commanded registration and dismissed remonstrances in the king's name, to underhanded practices like suborning members of the court to break the confidentiality of its proceedings so that every move was known in advance by officers of the crown. A new royal tactic was to announce that the king would shortly come in person to the Paris Parlement, and then to change the rules and require that a parlementaire delegation bring the remonstrances to him in Normandy. The location of the meeting was changed three times before it took place, five days after the original date, in the presence—unexpected by the parlementaires—of the Conseil

[48] . Hanley, Lit de Justice , 158-159; my italics.

[49] . Ibid., 184-185 on Parlement of Paris reaction to the Rouen assembly. Mémoires de Condé , 1:132-136; Taber, "Religious Dissent," 371.

[50] . Hanley, Lit de Justice , 181-182 on the royal strategy presented by L'Hôpital; see also the standard works on this problem by Giesey.

du Roi. The king denied the validity of every point in the remonstrances and castigated the court for disobedience:

The kings who preceded me placed [the Parlement] in your present station only for the purpose of making justice for subjects. . . . You are not my tutors or guardians of the kingdom . . . you are always welcome to make remonstrances . . . but not as my governors. And after having made them and having heard my will, you must obey. . . . You are my servants and subjects who must obey me when I command.^[51]

Forced to abandon direct resistance, the Parlement resorted to obstruction through procedural tactics, which prolonged the struggle for several weeks more. The height of the crisis occurred after a tie vote (partage ) in Parlement on whether to register the second Edict of Pacification (a confirmation of Amboise) without its being "witnessed" by two princes of the blood—as a warranty of good faith that it was not intended to legitimize the existence of two religions. The tie vote listed the individual parlementaires by name, in writing , contrary to the usual custom of taking votes orally and recording only the overall numbers, for and against. When the king demanded to see the original list, the situation became much worse. Several desperate maneuvers of the court failed, and members were finally compelled to concede that the partage was invalid because Parlement's "cognizance did not extend to affairs of state." But the court did not obey the command to record the original (now canceled) partage —the document instead was deleted from the registers until some days later, when they were brought to the king to prove that the order had been executed. In defeat, the factions had to close ranks. To be sure, the partage in itself reflected division in the court, but the agreement to take such a step in the first place and the resistance of all factions to cancellation and to expunging the record, show how members separated by disagreement over substantive policy, joined forces to defend the court's prerogatives.^[52]

At the all-important lit de justice in Rouen, in August 1563, the majority of Charles IX was proclaimed and the royal theory of government was set forth by L'Hôpital: the king was sole legislator in matters of state (public or constitutional); Parlement's jurisdiction was restricted to the private sphere, the application of law among individuals. This stood in marked contrast to "les pretensions du Parlement de Paris à être colégislateur avec le roi et à s'imposer comme le principal Parlement en France." The ada-

[51] . Hanley, Lit de Justice , 190.

[52] . Ibid., 191-197. See also Taber, "Religious Dissent," 373-380.

mantine stand of the Paris court against the crown's tactic (on such vital issues as the Edicts of January, Amboise, majority, and later Nantes) of bypassing it and having them registered in provincial parlements first , makes clear the Parisian belief that the latter were "lesser" in some respect. Some of their discourse suggests a theory of "parlementaire unity," in which the others were subordinate to Paris in one "national" court. Hanley, however, points out that "Far from being official doctrine in the sixteenth century, the idea of parlementary unity under the Parisian court was vigorously contested." In speeches delivered in provincial parlements, L'Hôpital defined parlementary unity in a way that "leveled all the courts to one unit headed by the king."^[53]

These rival assertions express two conflicting views of the constitution: Paris claimed both superiority over all other courts and a "partnership" with the king, as colegislator without whose consent (registration) no royal decree had the force of law. The crown ignored the Parisian arguments and the chancellor repeated the humiliating limitation to "private justice" in the parlements of Toulouse and Bordeaux. Hanley comments, "The Parlement of Paris was well aware that Charles IX's Majority Lit de Justice of Rouen had undermined its pretensions to supremacy among the Courts of France."^[54]

This defeat of Parlement's claim to equal partnership with the crown set a pattern in 1563 that would be repeated each time the issue arose, with ever-increasing slippage of Parlement's position. Contemporaries did not realize how decisive it was, probably because each successive occurrence—always in crisis—was perceived as an opportunity to redress the balance of power to the true, constitutional equilibrium. The next major test was nine years off.

Decompression and Reconciliation, 1563-1566

Eighteen years after its beginning, the Council of Trent was about to wind up, with deadlock on two fronts. On the one hand, the papal legates were trying to achieve enactment of a "reformation of princes" before the council adjourned, in revenge for the leadership of secular rulers in the drive toward church reform. This "reformation" would remove from the secular authorities any jurisdiction over heresy and social matters like marriage, and administrative matters like nomination to benefices, and criminal jurisdic-

[53] . Hanley, "Idéologie constitutionelle," 40-42; Hanley, Lit de Justice , 197-198 on September 17, 1563, citing AN x^1a 1606, fols. 330r-331v.

[54] . Hanley, Lit de Justice , 197.

tion over the clergy even in cases of murder and would place these matters under the exclusive jurisdiction of clerical administrators and courts. Predictably, representatives of all the secular rulers resisted the proposals, the French most sharply and vociferously. We recall that there had been a brief Gallican "crisis" over the mere convocation of the second session, in 1551-52, and that in fact no French delegates had taken part. Ten years later the problem was exacerbated by the insertion of a hotly contested unorthodox religious policy of the French crown. Another deadlock, unabashedly political, was a resurgence of the long-standing rivalry between the French and the Spaniards over precedence.^[55]

The third session of the Council of Trent opened on January 18, 1562 (the day after the Edict of January was announced by L'Hôpital). Two of the three ambassadors Catherine sent to the council were robins , Arnauld Du Ferrier, conseiller in the Paris Parlement, and Guy Pybrac Du Faur, a member of the king's council and of a family prominent in the Toulouse robe, both known for liberal religious views. The third was Louis de Saint-Gelais, sieur de Lansac. They presented their credentials on May 26, that is, coincident with the violent aftermath of the registration in Paris of the Edict of January, leading up to the imposition of the confession of faith. In Trent little was happening. The strategy of the French clerical delegation—more than sixty bishops led by the cardinal de Lorraine—was to follow the lead of the imperial delegation, since the pope was more inclined to listen to the Germans and Lorraine's views and those of the emperor (temporarily) coincided on the most pressing changes to be made: marriage of the clergy, communion in both kinds for the laity, and a limited use of the vernacular. Repeated delays and procedural disputes blocked action, however, to the annoyance of the secular rulers, who kept sending protests by special messengers. No sessions at all were held between September 1562 and July 1563.

During that interval in France, we have seen that the first civil war was brought to an end by the Pacification of Amboise, with a great deal of effort on Catherine's part. Exploiting this unaccustomed advantage, after Dreux she had sent a list of thirty-four articles, described as "disciplinary," to be presented to the council, urging their adoption. In addition to the three major points already mentioned, the list included such reforms of the epis-

[55] . The sources on the Council of Trent are abundant. For France, the most important twentieth-century studies are V. Martin, Gallicanisme , and H. O. Evennett, The Cardinal of Lorraine at the Council of Trent (Cambridge, 1930). Parisian parlementaire attitudes are well expressed by J.-A. de Thou and Pierre de L'Estoile in the last of our generations; de Thou's account, Histoire universelle , 3:256-260.

copate as abolition of resignatio in favorem (no. 22), and of benefices without mandatory duties (no. 24), and a general rubric (no. 29) of "abuses" and "superstitions" to be eliminated, which included indulgences, images, pilgrimages, and reverence of saints and relics. The signatures of the Conseil du Roi on these demands, as the opposition called them, imply approval, but it is hard to imagine the constable, for instance, associating himself with the language and embracing the ideas of the heretics he hated and feared. The document's tone suggests that it was formulated by L'Hôpital and/or Monluc; the conservatives of the Conseil du Roi probably signed under the influence of Lorraine. There was a suggestion that annates would be restored to the papacy as a quid pro quo for acceptance of the crown's articles, but the papal claim to plenitudo potestatis that contradicted Gallican traditional belief in the superiority of bishops-in-council was firmly repudiated.^[56]

By the end of summer, in the weeks of the Parisian struggle against the announcement of Charles's majority in Rouen, the cardinal de Lorraine, who had shifted away from sponsorship of the reform toward cooperation with the pope, left Trent for Rome. The assassination of his brother, Catherine's accommodation of the Huguenots, and papal flattery are among the factors that may have persuaded him, either that religious compromise could not work in France or that the continuation of his own power depended on orthodox alignment.

At this point the papal legates in Trent advanced the "reformation of princes," complete with a proviso for excommunication of rulers who transgressed the restrictions, and Du Ferrier made an impassioned Gallican protest. He claimed that all the points in this reformation of princes had the sole object of abolishing the ancient liberties of the Gallican church and of diminishing the majesty and authority of the Most Christian kings, and he insisted that in France ecclesiastics could not be judged outside the kingdom. The kings, who were the founders and patrons of most of the churches had the right to use the revenues of the church in cases of necessity, and none of these Gallican practices were contrary to the dogma of the Catholic church, or to the ancient decrees of popes and councils. Whoever dared to violate the privileges of the king and the Gallican church would be resisted by the crown, the laws and the French church itself. The oration ended in an expression of astonishment that the church fathers should presume to excommunicate princes, who were established by God, to whom obedience and respect were required, even when they did wrong.^[57]

[56] . De Thou, Histoire universelle , 3:430-435.

[57] . Ibid., 3:447-449.

The ultramontane assault on the Gallican liberties was not confined to generalities. Pius IV had recently presumed to deprive six French bishops of their sees and issued a summons to Jeanne d'Albret, the Calvinist queen of Navarre, to appear before the Inquisition; the summons declared her deposed and her kingdom forfeit.^[58] Catherine's special representative in this case, Henri de Clutin, sieur d'Oysel, currently French ambassador to the papacy, stated in no uncertain terms that the pope "had no jurisdiction whatever over kings and queens" and that the queen of Navarre held the major part of her lands from the crown of France, which alone could legislate for or dispose of them. The king threatened dire reprisals against any French prelates who cooperated in the attack on Jeanne and especially denounced the intention, rumored, to declare her marriage with Antoine de Bourbon invalid (which would make Henri de Navarre a bastard and annul his status as first prince of the blood). Charles IX demanded again that the council enact the articles sent many months earlier and instructed the French delegation to leave Trent forthwith if it were not done. Indeed, they never attended the council again and shortly withdrew to Venice.

The Trent decrees, a package whose contents violated the laws, customs, and traditions that constituted the Gallican liberties, were never accepted, en bloc, in France, although some particulars were duplicated or echoed in royal edicts. The first of many tests occurred in a meeting of the Conseil du Roi, attended also by the présidents of the Parlement, in February 1564. The cardinal de Lorraine urged the reception of the Trent decrees, and the chancellor was among the most outspoken opponents. Lorraine, who had signed, as head of the French clerical delegation, on the last day of the council, was anxious for ratification by the crown. When the chancellor categorically refused, the cardinal's anger exploded. "Throw away the mask," he shouted, "we cannot tell what your religion is, or rather, we know all too well: it is to do as much harm as you possibly can to me and to my family!" and he launched on a long list of favors L'Hôpital owed to the Guises, charging him repeatedly with ingratitude. L'Hôpital was not intimidated: "Your Illustrious Lordship should know who trampled the Edict of January under foot at Vassy and set off the troubles. . . . As for services kindly rendered to me, I shall always be ready to acknowledge them

[58] . The sources vary on the number of bishops (six to eight) disciplined by the papacy, owing to variations in the wording. All eight were summoned to the Inquisition, six were to be removed; royal intervention forestalled the orders.

on my own account, but I will never pay them off at the expense of the king's honor and [my] usefulness [to him]!"^[59]

The significance of this heated exchange to both camps is reflected in the fact that Bèze reported it to Bullinger, with glee, while Santa Croce reported it to the pope, in the tone of "I-told-you-so." In the opinion of de Caprariis, "The chancellor found precious allies in Parlement on the common ground of opposition to the Council of Trent. . . . The Gallican issue was stronger than any other consideration in parlementaire thought. Defense of the Gallican church, of the royal prerogative, and of Parlement's own privileges were joined into one common cause." The Parlement of Paris remained the guardian of the Gallican liberties and the bastion of resistance to the Trent decrees in perpetuity, and the first fruit of that resistance was rapprochement with L'Hôpital, although this did not erase the reciprocal distrust and antagonism on other issues between the court and its ex-member become their superior.^[60]

In addition to the revival of Gallican sentiment, the recall of Perrenot de Chantonnay as Spanish ambassador contributed to the détente. Since 1559 he had been a close observer of every action and nuance of opinion at the French royal court—historians have benefited from his insight and detailed reports to his master. His hostility to the crown's policy of coexistence of the two sects reflected his belief in greater influence of the Huguenots over Catherine and L'Hôpital than they in fact had. Catherine was increasingly frustrated by his stubborn refusal to listen to her justifications, to the point that his usefulness was really at an end. Philip removed him in January 1564, coincident with the royal court's move to Fontainebleau (the first step in an absence from the capital that would last more than two years) and replaced him with Don Francis Alava, Spanish ambassador to the duchy of Savoy, who had been in France for two years already, at Chantonnay's right hand. By comparison with his predecessor, Alava's manner was less abrasive, his mind more flexible and his understanding of France more subtle, but the policy he pursued was unchanged, as Philip's instructions make clear.

Recognizing the predicament of Spanish diplomacy created by Chantonnay's antagonism of Catherine, the king of Spain tells his new ambassador to start his tour of duty by explaining that Chantonnay had been recalled

[59] . V. Martin, Gallicanisme , 46-47.

[60] . On the letters from Bèze to Bullinger and Santa Croce to Borromeo, see Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français 24 (1875): 409-422. V. Martin (Gallicanisme , 47-51) and de Caprariis (Propaganda e pensiero , 185-186) are not in full agreement on the relations of the chancellor with the court, except on the Gallican issue.

so as to replace him with somebody in whom she could have "entire confidence." The substance of his mission is to warn her repeatedly that she, Charles IX, and the kingdom of France are in grave danger from evil men who "wish to change the crown." After his predecessor's departure, in order to underline the alleged change in policy, the new ambassador should flatter her, while at the same time keeping her in perpetual fear , and "penetrate French designs" in Germany, England, Flanders, and Italy. Alluding to Catherine's preoccupation with the proposed meeting with her daughter Élisabeth, Philip says he needs proof that what the queen mother wishes to discuss can only be done in a face-to-face meeting. The greetings for Alava to convey from his master to the duchess de Guise are accompanied by warm praise of the late duke, and those to the constable contain a barbed reference to the Châtillons. "I am constantly astonished that the dangers threatening religion in France come from your close relatives."^[61]

While the court was at Fontainebleau, the ambassadors of the chief Catholic powers laid siege to the king collectively, proposing a "summit meeting" of Catholic rulers at some convenient place, like Nancy (Lorraine), where they could hear the Trent decrees read and discuss at leisure their relation to "the poisons spread about by the sectarians, which have undermined divine law and disturbed the peace." Catherine was not displeased with this idea as long as she did not have to implement it. The king gave a vaguely assenting response, as the queen mother plunged the court into a series of pre-Lenten bails, jousts, and other entertainments on a lavish scale.^[62]

These distractions served as a screen for consultations on the Trent decrees and related issues of religious and foreign policy, for which some leading members of Parlement were invited to join the Conseil Privé. Five were well known: présidents de Thou, Séguier, and Harlay, avocat général Du Mesnil, and procureur général Bourdin. The premier président and ranking gens du roi would be summoned ex officio to such a consultation. There was also a new président, Bernard Prévost, and an undistinguished assistant to Du Mesnil, Edmond Boucherat, who is dismissed as sans valeur by Loisel.^[63] (This opinion may have stemmed from Boucherat's close identification with the Guises.)

Catherine attempted to reassure Santa Croce about parlementaire par-

[61] . Pierre Champion, Catherine de Médicis présente à Charles IX son royaume, 1564-1566 (Paris, 1937), 44-47; my italics.

[62] . Ibid., 58-68.

[63] . On Prévost and Boucherat see Aubert, "Parlement au XVIe siècle," 198; on the consultations of Fontainebleau, V. Martin, Gallicanisme , 49-51.

ticipation, promising to see to it "that they walked the straight and narrow," but their initial reaction was that it would endanger the peace to accept the Trent decrees until the crown had the situation more firmly in hand and the Protestants were no longer to be feared. The deliberations continued for three weeks, in deep secrecy, and the ultimate parlementaire arguments went beyond passing political considerations to constitutional issues. De Caprariis says:

Other enemies of the council might grow feeble or disappear, but the Gallican spirit, on the contrary, increased in strength as the struggle continued. From this time on the Trent decrees would regularly come up against it without ever being able to prevail. Without exaggeration it can be said that these Fontainebleau consultations mark an essential date in the history of the French church; they set the stage whereon, for more than a century, two irreconcilable movements would clash, religious nationalism, determined to conserve even the [Gallican] abuses, and Roman centralization, the instrument of a more monolithic and purified Catholicism.^[64]

Du Mesnil's Advertissement sur le faict du Concile de Trente sums up the deliberations and arguments, some general, others relevant only to particular articles. The historic propositions of Gallicanism provide a preamble: first, the French church is subject only to God's law and the decrees of the earliest councils, and second, a corollary, it is not subject to any rulings of modern popes and councils, except as the king may choose to apply them, a condition that has traditionally been accepted by popes. The defense of this autonomy, Du Mesnil continued, "was never more important than now," with a young, inexperienced king on the throne and the threat of a renewal of civil war. The determining role of the immediate circumstances is clearly spelled out:

[Everyone knows with what urgency and difficulty] the Edict of Pacification was achieved last year, and the evils, calamities, and desolation that constrain the consciences of the king's subjects and violations of his edicts had brought on the kingdom, which were remedied by the sole means of that Edict. . . . Approval of the said council cannot be given without the alteration, or rather the revocation of the said Edict . . . [because] the permission the king accorded his subjects to live in liberty of conscience, would come to an end, and the troubles would start up again. . . . Whoever advocates any means of disturbing the public tranquillity of this kingdom, especially now,

[64] . De Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero , 188-193.

when hearts and wills are just beginning to be reconciled, not only is not to be held a good and loyal subject, he is not to be tolerated at all (souffert ).^[65]

Before its decrees can be considered, he went on, the council's procedural defects alone would invalidate them a priori: it was a continuation of earlier Trent sessions, and not the new council required for a fresh start; it contradicted earlier councils and frustrated its own raison d'être by increasing papal power instead of restraining it. The council's connivance in Spanish usurpation of precedence (over the French) was another procedural fault.

The offensive decrees were those that set aside the rights of secular authorities, especially but not exclusively in France, in matters ranging from denial of the need for secular assent to ordinations and nominations to church offices, to regulation of marriage, and the universities. All these matters were henceforth to be controlled by the clergy. The jurisdiction of lay courts was specifically to be eliminated, as was the accountability of the clergy to lay justice under any circumstances. The application of these decrees to France would indeed have destroyed Gallican liberties, mutilated the constitution, and subjected the king and the law to the papacy and its agents. It was to be expected that resistance by Parisian magistrates would be virtually unanimous.

De Caprariis says that Du Mesnil's Advertissement reflects the entire range of parlementaire opinion "from Séguier to de Thou and from Harlay to Bourdin." Séguier seems to have objected only to some of the decrees—he and Harlay were usually in accord—while de Thou rejected them all. Bourdin threatened to resign his office rather than accept publication. Not satisfied with Du Mesnil's synthesis, the procureur général drew up his own objections, which include more than sixty of the Trent articles.^[66]

The avocat général and the procureur général spoke for the Parlement of Paris, but a third expression of the Gallican position, Charles Du Moulin's Conseil sur le faicte du Concile de Trente has been more influential in posterity. Du Moulin's standing as philosopher-legist-historian, author of major treatises, would certainly explain his enjoying greater prestige than gens du roi temporarily in office, but the depth and originality of his arguments are also much greater. The leading authority on feudal law, and a master of canon and customary law, Du Moulin's learning had earned him the soubriquet "prince of legists." Among his impressive earlier works,

[65] . Du Mesnil, Avertissement sur le fait du Concile de Trente (1569), text in Mémoires de Condé , 5:130-138; discussion in V. Martin, Gallicanisme , 51-52.

[66] . De Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero , 187. On Bourdin, V. Martin, Gallicanisme , 53.

Les Commentaires analytiques tant sur l'édit des petites dates et abus de la cour de Rome es bénéfices ecclésiastiques, que sur un ancien arrest de la souveraine cour du Parlement de Paris was the most substantial legacy of the Gallican crisis of 1551. It is a sharp exposure of fraudulent claims and practices in the Roman church, especially by the popes, and a brilliant critique of ecclesiastical history across the centuries. Du Moulin's interest in comparative law and history have earned him a place among the pioneers of sociology, yet he was no ivory-tower theorist, or antiquarian. Years of practice at the Châtelet and numerous associations with members of Parlement—de Thou was a close friend—informed his interest in current affairs and public policy. Donald Kelley says his attitude was "utilitarian and often a bit vulgar for humanist taste."^[67]

Throughout a bizarre personal career—his religious beliefs swung from Calvinism to Lutheranism and then to Catholicism, and his geographical displacements were equally wide-ranging—he remained "the arch-Gallican" who assembled the most comprehensive and at the same time "one of the most radical interpretations of royal Gallicanism and of national monarchy in modern times." He carried it so far that Kelley calls him plus Gallican que le roi .^[68] One may add, et que le Parlement de Paris —an even more extraordinary feat, never again equaled. Precisely because Du Moulin's formulation was original (and more logical) than traditional versions, the parlementaires were uneasy with him as an ally. His religious and other gyrations could not have inspired confidence in the moderate conservative mainstream, whose ideals and models lay safely in the past.

The thrust of Du Moulin's book is twofold: first, the refutation of papal supremacy and of the "Romanist" interpretation of history with which it is linked (dominant in the first half of the century), and then the substitution of a Gallican interpretation, according to which the key figure in the "translation of empire" was Charlemagne. The Frankish kings were founders of the French church, along with the other major institutions. "Du Moulin's program rested upon a threefold ideal, the unity and self-sufficiency of French law, the French monarchy and the Gallican church," un roi, une loi ,

[67] . Du Moulin, the major thinker and theorist in the Gallican movement, is discussed by V. Martin, Gallicanisme , 53; de Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero , 186; and by every scholar who deals with the subject, but the chief work is Kelley, Foundations , esp. ch. 6, and above all, "Fides Historiae: Charles Du Moulin and the Gallican View of History," Traditio 22 (1966).

[68] . Kelley, Foundations , 171.

une foi , all embodied in Charlemagne. Kelley adds, "If Charlemagne had not existed the Gallicans would have had to invent him."^[69]

Du Moulin's Conseil would take its place among the foundation-stones of Gallicanism in the coming years, but in 1564 Parlement censored it and its author. Parlementaire concern had not yet swung definitively away from the threat of heresy, and the full menace of the Counter-Reformation had not yet been felt. It seems significant that premier président de Thou was among the first to advocate a new line. "The Parlement was not yet possessed by the anti-papal ardor of the coming years . . . not all the conseillers shared the opinions of their premier président . . . the court judged that [Du Moulin] had gone too far, especially in touching on matters of doctrine."^[70]

At the conclusion of the consultations of Fontainebleau, Catherine announced that a decision on the Trent decrees would be made in the middle of May. Not long afterwards she set out, with the king and the royal court, on an extended tour of the kingdom, designed to rally the support of all regions and classes to the young king. The circumstances were propitious: Charles IX was ruling in his own name; the Pacification was holding up well in general, although there were some pockets of endemic resistance and occasional flare-ups elsewhere; the leaders of the rival factions had withdrawn to their estates; while the Trent question was in abeyance, pressure from the Catholic rulers diminished; France had recovered Le Havre and relations with England were the best in memory (the Treaty of Troyes with England was signed in April 1564).

The most important stop on the tour de France was to be Catherine's meeting with her daughter Élisabeth, queen of Spain, and, she hoped, with Philip as well. The queen mother's agenda included both family matters (marriage) and affairs of state (religion). After many delays it finally took place at Bayonne in July 1565, sixteen months into the tour. Catherine expected much from this encounter, which drew the attention of every ambassador and agent in Europe and played an important role in creating the twin myths of Catherine as "the wicked Italian queen" and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew as premeditated event.^[71]

The papal nuncio was convinced that the entire tour was just another manifestation of Catherine's preferred policy of delay and avoidance of

[69] . Ibid.

[70] . V. Martin, Gallicanisme , 53.

[71] . On Bayonne see Champion, Catherine , 257-293; de Thou, Histoire universelle , 3:549-550; Pasquier, Lettres historiques , 147-149, to Fonsomme; Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross , ch. 4, points out how economic crisis affected the political and religious crises, 1564-66.

facing up to the problems of concessions to heresy, on the one hand, and ratification of the Trent decrees, on the other. In fact, the queen mother never committed herself to an impossible situation if she could postpone doing so. Optimism went hand in hand with procrastination. She always thought that time was on her side and that circumstances could eventually be manipulated in the desired direction. Catherine has often—falsely—been accused of Machiavellian ruthlessness, but she was certainly one who believed with the Florentine secretary that virtù was the only weapon against fortuna .

In the early months of the tour Santa Croce expressed a degree of admiration for Catherine's policy of poco a poco , and confidence that it would succeed. In a letter of June 21, 1564, to Cardinal Borromeo, he says, "The Queen Mother is working it out so that, little by little, without saying no, she is bringing about observance of the [Trent] decrees. This is a better method than to attempt to make changes now, so as not to give the Huguenots any pretext to rebel anew." He ends the letter by relaying a message the Catholic leaders at court have asked him to pass on to the pope: tutto passera bene .^[72]

Catherine's actions in recent days seemed to support the nuncio's optimism. Arriving in Lyon on June 12, 1564, she immediately banned all preaching, on pain of death for those attending as well as the preachers. Santa Croce also intervened personally in the situation, meeting with Pierre Viret, the leading reformer in the south.^[73] He claimed that Viret had agreed to abandon Protestant beliefs if he could be convinced that they were mistaken, and the nuncio had arranged for a disputation between Viret and a leading Jesuit, Antonio Possevino. Catherine's optimism in Lyon was even greater, as Santa Croce realized, "she already sees Viret converted and persuading the entire city to return to the church!" His own hopes seemed on the point of fulfillment in 1565, at Bayonne, where he believed he had extracted a promise from Catherine to publish the Trent decrees "as soon as certain practical details could be taken care of." Victor Martin weighs the question of her sincerity. The probability is that she was delaying, as usual, and that in her relief and satisfaction after the meeting with Élisabeth she was in a euphoric mood: "She held forth at length on the great blessings

[72] . Santa Croce to Borromeo, June 21, 1564, Publications of the Huguenot Society of London, no. 6 (1891), 100.

[73] . Viret was a skilled debater and diplomat. He was chief spiritual adviser to the Calvinist queen of Navarre, and until his death in 1571 directed her religious establishment in Béarn, including the academy, modeled on Geneva's, which became the leading Protestant university in France.

God had showered upon her . . . protesting that for nothing in the world would she abandon the religion in which she had been raised, and would defend it as long as she lived."^[74]

We will never know whether or not Martin's speculation is correct that "one of the few chances for Catholic reform to penetrate France by the official entrance" was lost in the following weeks, when Santa Croce was replaced as nuncio and Plus IV died. There could be no follow-up to all Santa Croce's hard work, because the new pope and the new nuncio adopted a very different approach. Contrary to the gestures toward the Catholic camp Catherine had made in the months leading up to Bayonne, she swung to the other side immediately thereafter, allowing the princely Huguenot leaders to rejoin the court, and to hold Calvinist services in their private apartments, supposedly for their own household only, behind closed doors. She also insisted on holding another public ceremonial "reconciliation of the factions," but with no more success than formerly. Sir Thomas Smith reported to William Cecil on December 10, 1565, "The Huguenots look that the Edict of Pacification will forthwith be broken, and they to have no other remedy but to take to their weapons. The Papists also look for no less than that the King and Queen should openly declare that they would have but one [Catholic] religion in France."^[75]

During the court's absence from Paris, the frictions between the crown and the Parlement that had been constant since the late 1550s lessened and there was a truce between the factions within the court while the Pacification held and the Trent decision was suspended. But both tensions surfaced again—briefly—when the Parlement was presented with the Ordinances of Moulins in 1566. These were the embodiment of L'Hôpital's "reformation of justice," and they brought about still another round of confrontation between the chancellor and the Parlement. The ordinances of Moulins were a comprehensive package embodying reforms demanded for decades; procedures were streamlined, appellate jurisdictions redefined, superfluous courts eliminated; abuses such as pluralism and nepotism were forbidden and the qualifications and examinations for judicial office stiffened. Prosecution of the powerful was facilitated and the administration of the poor laws revised. Many of these reforms were recognized as essential by the ranking jurists, but the magistracy as a whole resisted them because of L'Hôpital's determination to restrict, if not to abolish, venality.^[76]

[74] . V. Martin, Gallicanisme , 81-87.

[75] . Cal. S.P. For. , 7, no. 1728 (2), "Smith to Cecil," December 10, 1565.

[76] . The Ordinances of Moulins and Parlement: Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:605-624, with full archival sources; Salmon, Society in Crisis , 156-158, 160. See also Kim, "Michel de L'Hôpital" and "The Chancellor's Crusade."

Although each clash was provoked by a specific disagreement, they should be seen collectively as links of a single chain, beginning with the inauguration of the policy of coexistence of Protestantism and Catholicism in the spring of 1560. There were differences on two planes, political and constitutional, organically connected, but the spotlight focused first on one and then on the other. In the early clashes, prior to the Pacification of Amboise, the political conflict was uppermost. The Edicts of Romorantin (1560), of July (1561), and especially the Edict of January 1562, and the chancellor's speeches in presenting them to Parlement, reflect certain political realities on which that policy was based.

The total failure of persecution and the danger of civil war lay behind the decision—or at least the attempt—to separate the maintenance of civil peace and order from religion: "It is not a question de constituenda religione, sed de constituenda republica , and many can be cives qui non erunt Christiani . . . even the excommunicate does not cease to be a citizen. . . . Persons of diverse opinions can live together in peace" (June 1561). This, of course, meant the abandonment of une foi: "Those who advise the king to choose one side or the other [in religion] might as well advise him to take arms against some members [of the body politic]. . . . He who is even-handed (égal ) between the two parties is he who follows the right path" (September 1561). It became evident that under the regime of L'Hôpital not only would prosecution cease, but diversité de religion would be authorized. The chancellor also showed an awareness of the value of the Huguenots to France lacking in most of those who refused to contemplate toleration—notably Louis XIV a century later—when he drew attention to the influential persons associated with the reformed and their wealth, "their departure from the kingdom would be a loss one can hardly estimate, if only because of the goods they would take with them."^[77]

L'Hôpital hoped to enlist the cooperation of the Parlement. In Salmon's opinion, since L'Hôpital viewed government as the granting of justice, he envisaged the supremacy of the gens du roi and a partnership between those who served in the council and those who sat on the benches of the sovereign courts. But he was never able to allay the antipathy of the latter.

The constitutional issues underlying these differences on policy that had

[77] . L'Hôpital's religious policy is discussed by all the scholars of the period concerned with institutions, political theory, and politics. Salmon, Society in Crisis , 154, 160-162; de Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero , 174-193; 204-215. The parlementaire view is in Kim's study.

come to the surface in the 1563 crisis over Charles IX's majorité with particular force, remained there. The position of the crown was that the king, as the sole legislator, could call on any individual or body at his pleasure, whenever, wherever, and for whatever purpose. L'Hôpital's orderly mind assigned particular kinds of advice to each of the important bodies: the royal council normally advised the king in matters of state; the Estates reported the sentiments of his subjects to the king and communicated his policies to them in return. A meeting of the Estates was an occasion where, by hearing grievances and granting redress, "the crown dispensed justice corporatively. The Parlement, on the other hand, was the instrument through which the king granted justice to individual subjects." It might also be consulted when the king so chose, but only when, as, if and to the extent that he chose, and if it remonstrated, the outcome was still in his hands. When L'Hôpital presented the majority edict to the Parlement of Rouen he said, "Matters of state in no way belong to [your] jurisdiction . . . you are judges of the meadow and the field, but not of life and customs and not of religion. " It was the sovereign's sphere to establish the general laws, the judge's to apply them in particular cases. The Parisian parlementaires, we know, believed the court to be pars corporis principis , and that no royal legislative act had the force of law unless approved and registered by the Parlement of Paris. Accordingly, when their remonstrances were repeatedly ignored, the parlementaires would finally register the offending edict with the phrase de expresso mandato regis and enter their protests in the secret register.^[78]

The leading (twentieth-century) authorities on French constitutionalism are in accord on L'Hôpital's moderate position, between the traditional and the new, more absolutist extremes. "He understood the king's prerogative as unlimited only in his power to do right. Like Seyssel, he envisaged government as necessarily restrained by justice, and he saw justice as inseparably attached to the crown," says Salmon. Since this is so, "in case of any particular sovereign's act of in justice, refusal [by the court] far from being imputed to disobedience and injustice, is one of the greatest and most notable services, one can render . . . for the king's real will is never to harm his people, but rather to procure all possible good." Differences between the chancellor and the court derived from their conflicting interpretations of the common heritage; L'Hôpital thought of the court—and all other bod-

[78] . L'Hôpital on institutions: Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 1:603-605 (my italics); Salmon, Society in Crisis , 153; de Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero , 185; Denault, "In Defense"; see also Hanley, Lit de Justice , chs. 7-9.

ies—as subordinate to the crown, while the parlementaires clung to the claim of equality.^[79]

Despite his moralizing tone, with overtones of condescension toward the court (his biographers speak of "disdain") and his frequently doctrinaire mode of expression, there was a considerable element of realism in L'Hôpital's thought, the key to which was his acceptance of change. He was given to metaphors of adaptability: "the law should fit the times as the shoe the foot," and "as a mariner changes the set of the sails according to the wind," and, "the wise man knows when to yield to necessity." On the political plane this flexibility enabled L'Hôpital to separate out the religious issue in order to concentrate on law and order in a kingdom whose inhabitants differed in belief. It permitted the maintenance of une loi —though flexible—while it necessitated the abandonment of une foi . Because of stubborn resistance, especially by the Parlement of Paris, it also entailed increasing the power of un roi . L'Hôpital's policy could only be imposed from above. The result was paternalist tilting toward absolutism, but less so than earlier thinkers like Grassaille or Rebuffi, and further still from the position soon to be taken by Bodin. Salmon's overall assessment is that L'Hôpital "was a singular blend of the idealist and the practical reformer, the learned jurist and the statesman who knew how to compromise, and how to insinuate his ideas into the minds of others without dictating them. . . . He believed in the authority of tradition, but he was not afraid to espouse radical innovation when he thought it necessary."^[80]

L'Hôpital's personal religious stance certainly compounded his difficulties with Parlement. He disapproved of "forcing consciences" and specifically opposed the profession of faith. He considered it inappropriate for the state to arbitrate religious questions, which was the task of church councils. The substance of his belief seems to have resembled Erasmus's "philosophy of Christ" rather than official Roman doctrine, resembling the liberal Catholic parlementaires Du Faur, Paul de Foix, and Du Ferrier, who were, we recall, suspects. L'Hôpital was a central figure in the humanist-literary-philosophical Parisian elite, most of whom were his associates and corre-

[79] . L'Hôpital on the constitutional tradition: Salmon, Society in Crisis , 157; Church, Constitutional Thought , 50; de Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero , 204, 206.

[80] . Salmon, Society in Crisis , 152. L'Hôpital's acceptance of change: Church, Constitutional Thought , 205; de Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero , 209. Two older biographies of the chancellor deal with all these topics as well: H. Amphoux, Michel de L'Hôpital et la liberté de conscience (Paris, 1900); A. Buisson, Michel de L'Hôpital (Paris, 1950). Kim's study is a much needed addition.

spondents and not a few of whom dedicated works to him, including Bodin (the Methodus ) and Hotman (Anti-Tribonian ).

The similarity of L'Hôpital's liberal religious views to those of alleged Huguenots afforded no protection to the latter during the chancellor's difficult final years, 1567-68. Moreover, the specific attempts of Marshal François de Montmorency, eldest son of the constable and governor of Paris, to mitigate persecution only exacerbated the antagonism of the populace toward him. His request for garrisons to enforce royal orders and still more his lecturing municipal officers and captains of militia on their disobedience, aroused the fury of a city jealous of its prerogatives. Indictments of prisoners in the Conciergerie registers reveal a tendency to insurrection under the influence of the municipal militia. One captain dared to threaten the governor: "when the captain of a ship neglects his duty, the subordinate officers should take command." Increasingly severe measures were often described as instigated à la clameur du peuple and would "explode in [the Massacre of] St. Bartholomew."^[81]

Analysis of the register of prisoners reveals that underlying the charge of heresy the authorities had a political agenda: to impede Condé's recruitment (his call to arms in the Second War, September 1567, had considerable success with the rationale that the king had been "taken prisoner" by the Catholic faction), and perhaps more significantly, to cut off the financial support for the Huguenot cause of an internationale de marchands that included rich Protestants in the Low Countries. The most important Frenchmen in the group were the brothers Gastine.^[82]

Boucher's breakdown of the verdicts in the sample shows twenty-four prisoners sentenced to die, eighteen condemned to the galleys, fourteen to fines, ranging from 2 to 200 livres , two to whippings, and twenty-four turned over to the Châtelet. Others were released, sometimes with conditions—to obey the laws, to leave the city, or to put up money subject to forfeiture if they violated the conditions. A number of prominent men among those receiving harsh sentences included André Guillart, premier président of the Breton Parlement and a member of the Conseil Privé, and Jean Bodin. Guillart was released two days after his arrest, Bodin not until eighteen months later. In Guillart's case Boucher speculates that Catherine

[81] . Jacqueline Boucher, "Les Incarcerations à la Conciergerie de Paris pour fait de religion, 1567-1570," in Les Réformes: enracinement socio-culturel , ed. B. Chevalier and R. Sauzet (Tours, 1982), On the role of the Parisian militia in these increasingly agitated years see also Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross , 76-84 and 160-168.

[82] . See Boucher, "Incarcerations," 313; Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross , index.

de Médicis intervened—"she made use of men with a foot in each camp"—and we know that she called on him subsequently. Boucher interprets the fate of such notables thus: "The arrest of such men reflects the Catholic militancy of Paris, their prompt release [reflects] the crown's desire in the search for peace to find a political compromise across ideological divisions.^[83]

Parlement, the Edicts of Toleration, and the Massacre, 1568-1580

Although the Huguenots never won a single round in the Wars of Religion—and only the occasional military encounter—they were consistently strong enough to block a clear-cut Catholic victory and were never knocked out of the running. For this reason the terms of religious settlement dominated the successive truces, embodied in edicts of pacification that separated the wars. A model of parlementaire action on the edicts had been established by the court's docile acceptance of the Pacification of Amboise ending the First Civil War, in 1563. Without debate and without facing up to the actual substance of the edict, the court resorted to what Édouard Maugis calls "cowardly subterfuge . . . which allowed it to avoid responsibility and to leave loopholes for the future." He notes that the identical tactics employed in 1563 were applied again to the Edicts of Longjumeau (1568), St-Germain (1570), and La Rochelle (1573), terminating the second, third, and fourth wars, respectively. In addition to systematic delays and registration qualified "by express command of the king," and "without approving of the new religion," Parlement sometimes pretended that the king's orders and messages had not been received or that the court did not understand them. The usual tactic, and the most effective, was simple non-implementation.

Maugis's severest criticism is that the court did not take a stand on principle. In fact, however, the parlementaires were caught between two principles, both sincerely held, which in the current circumstances were in conflict. They believed in peace and reasoned discourse to settle disputes, to the point (as we have seen) of claiming moral superiority to nobles who always resorted to force—each of these treaties included some degree of toleration for a second religion in France, more accurately, for non-Roman Catholic worship—and thus with reasoned discourse they were in violation of un roi, une foi , the most sacred principle of all.^[84]

[83] . Boucher, "Incarcerations," 314-315.

[84] . Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:40, 44, on "quelques timides réserves"; Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 214, 271-277. It is noteworthy that while the Parlement exhibited docile submission to the many lesser (and unenforced) edicts, between Amboise and the Peace of Monsieur (1563, 1576) and to those of the latter years of Henri III's reign that also favored the Huguenots, they did resist the Edict of Union (July 1588) by which the king joined forces with the League.

Each edict reflected immediately preceding historical circumstances, and there was considerable variation in both the Huguenot demands and in the relative leniency or severity of the negotiated settlements. In general, the stronger the Huguenot military forces at the time of negotiation, and the greater the concomitant weakness of their opponents, the greater the concessions, resulting in increased anxiety and resistance in Parlement. The fragility of the Peace of Longjumeau, ending the second war in March 1568, was evident from the start. Nobody believed it would endure and indeed war broke out again only six months later.^[85]

Longjumeau restored the terms of the Pacification of Amboise, removing the later modifications, and seemed initially to have the effect of lessening Huguenot power; Sir Henry Norris remarked ruefully that peace was "more dangerous than war," which accords with Pasquier's assessment, more wittily expressed. "It is no small feat for the king, after sparing the skins of an infinite number of his subjects, to gain back with one parchment skin all the towns they had taken from him."^[86] If the application of peace and reason could diminish Huguenot power instead of increasing it, it seemed that—exceptionally—the two principles could be reconciled.

Altogether different was the context of the Peace of St-Germain. Huguenot strength at the end of the third war was the greatest it had ever been—and greater than it would be again until the leadership of Henri de Navarre in the late 1580s. Admiral Coligny and Jeanne d'Albret were a strong aggressive team, driving a hard bargain, exploiting the weaknesses of the crown—near-bankruptcy and in-fighting among the leaders—and prolonging the negotiations for eight months, to squeeze out every possible advantage. Odet, cardinal de Châtillon, was in England securing the support of the major Protestant power. Already the Huguenots had broadened their support by comparison with earlier phases of the wars. Pasquier notes, "they have given a new name to their enterprise, The Cause , a word that wormed its way into their minds through a sort of popular republic, to show that in this quarrel . . . the cause was the cause of all, in general and in particular. Each should contribute what he could and the little man had

[85] . Salmon, Society in Crisis , 172.

[86] . Norris cited by Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 159; text of Longjumeau, ibid., 358; Pasquier, Lettres historiques , to Ardivilliers, on Longjumeau, 182.

an equal share with the greater." He continues, "I do not know what will be the outcome of this great tragedy."^[87] One can understand that it seemed a tragedy to Pasquier, even as it produced a degree of optimism in the Protestant camp that would not be duplicated even under Henri IV, because his conversion was always feared—justifiably.

The Edict of St-Germain incorporated in its text some guarantees that had been "understood" in earlier edicts but never specified in the document and never implemented. It did not merely impose amnesty but detailed rights, such as access to educational institutions and the right to challenge the competence of judges; Protestants were allowed to worship in two towns per gouvernement and four places de sûreté , strategically selected, were ceded to them for two years. For the first time royal officials were required to swear to uphold the edict and the parlements to register it; severe penalties were provided for infraction, including whipping as well as fines for nonviolent action and the death penalty for obstruction by force. It was the first edict to have "teeth," as Sutherland points out. She calls it "seminal," and indeed it was the model in some respects for the Edict of Nantes. Even though it strengthened the Huguenots, Pasquier judged c'est finir où nous devions commencer , no doubt because the kingdom and especially the king's authority were deteriorating with each day of war. Better to arrest the disastrous decline and begin to heal the divisions by keeping the long-range vision of a united France in mind, at the price of some immediate concessions.^[88]

Given the relative numbers and strength of those (on both sides) who worked to undo it compared to those who would preserve it, it is improbable that the Peace of St-Germain could have held for any length of time. Yet the effects might have lasted longer if the ranking Huguenots had not been removed from the scene within a few months. Odet de Châtillon died in the summer of 1571, just as he was embarking for France, having optimistically laid the foundations of a pan-European Protestant coalition. Jeanne d'Albret died in June 1572, her bad health exacerbated by exhaustion from a long struggle against the marriage of her son with Catherine's daughter Marguerite de Valois, an alliance intended by the queen mother as the instrument of national conciliation.

[87] . On the Third Civil War, Pasquier, Lettres historiques , to Ardivilliers, 189. On the mission of Odet de Châtillon to England, E.G. Atkinson, "The Cardinal of Châtillon in England," Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London 3 (1888-91); Metzger, "The Protestant Cardinal."

[88] . On the Peace of St-Germain, text in Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 358-360; Pasquier, Lettres historiques , to Ardivilliers, 201. My italics.

Admiral Coligny, of course, was assassinated six days after the wedding, in August 1572, and much of the second level of Huguenot leadership was eliminated, and the remainder scattered, in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Navarre's life was spared but he was only nineteen years old and was subjected to a kind of house arrest at court, from which he did not escape until 1576. The fundamental cause of the failure of the Peace of St-Germain, however, outweighing changes in personnel, was the involvement of the Huguenots with the parallel religio-political movement in the Netherlands, which had been escalating since 1566. Sutherland has disentangled the multiple threads of this involvement and provided a fresh, plausible rationale for their interrelations, which resulted in France becoming the crucible of the European conflict between the Counter-Reformation and the Protestant-nationalist camps for the rest of the century.^[89]

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the single most shockingly dramatic event in thirty-six years of civil war, was an insurrection of fanatically Catholic Parisians against policies, actual and anticipated, of Charles IX, perceived as favorable to adherents of "the new religion." Accumulated economic, political, and religious grievances of the past decade and fear of a war in which French Protestants allied with foreign Protestant powers would overrun Paris and change the governance of (Catholic) France, exploded in looting, rioting, and murder, creating widespread devastation and leaving thousands of casualties, beginning on Sunday, August 24, and lasting for several days.

Until very recently accounts by contemporaries and historians alike, often polemical (on both sides), failed to extract a coherent analysis of the event from a mass of confusions, contradictions, and factual lacunae. Protestant accounts tended to treat it as a holocaust, with the crown and/or the Guises as the planners and instigators of a policy of extermination of heresy. Standard royalist accounts echoed the explanation of Charles IX when he accepted responsibility, declaring the use of force justified by the necessity to prevent a Huguenot uprising that would destroy the state. No traditional account hinted at any involvement of the Parlement of Paris; it is not even mentioned. The assumption that the court played no part rested on the fact

[89] . France and Netherlands: Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 186-207; and especially Sutherland, Massacre . Sutherland believes that fear of the Netherlands entanglement caused Charles IX to "take credit" for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The classic work on the role of France in Europe later in the century is G. Mattingly's Armada (Boston, 1959); see also De Lamar Jensen, Diplomacy and Dogmatism: Bernardino de Mendoza and the French Catholic League (Cambridge, Mass., 1964); Lynn Martin, Henri Ill and the Jesuit Politicians (Geneva, 1973).

that it did not meet for about ten days—some before and some after the event—and especially on the absence of any mention of the event, or of parlementaire reaction, in the court's registers or in other primary sources for the period.

Fortunately, there is now a thorough, sophisticated study of the background, context, and repercussions of the massacre, to which all students of the question are greatly indebted.^[90]

Another new, radically revisionist, interpretation is contained in a series of articles (1987-92) by Jean-Louis Bourgeon, in which the silence of the sources is considered proof, not merely of Parlement's involvement but of Parlement's responsibility . Indeed, Bourgeon speculates that its leaders, especially members of the de Thou clan and Pierre (I) Séguier, conspired to foment the insurrection and staged a strike (mensonge par omission ) to cover up their responsibility.^[91] Their objective is alleged to have been the overthrow of the monarchy and takeover of the government. Elaborating his argument, Bourgeon links the parlementaire "conspirators" of 1572 with the leadership of all subsequent conflicts between Parlement and the crown down to the end of the ancien régime, referring to 1572 as a Fronde parlementaire . A number of students of the question are not persuaded—I among them.

Aside from the fact that he bases his case on a total lack of evidence, Bourgeon does not seem to recognize the long-established parlementaire view of the structure of the French government as a complex of powers in which the crown is subject to law, its power limited by the right of Parlement to debate, and if found constitutional, to register all royal edicts, without which they do not have the force of law.

The parlementaire leaders of 1572 certainly opposed the king's violation of their (most fundamental) right of remonstrance and used every weapon at their disposal to defend it, as well as to force Charles IX to modify or abandon his offensive policies. To extrapolate from this predictable stance the claim that Parlement's opposition represented a desire to destroy the

[90] . Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross , chs. 3-5, provides a masterful account of the buildup to the event itself, in ch. 6. Further details on the various key factions and individuals are in ch. 10. I emphasize here only certain points that relate directly to the Parlement.

[91] . Jean-Louis Bourgeon, "Le Parlement et la Saint-Barthélemy," Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes 148 (1990): 77-79. The key document, AN x^1a 1637, which Bourgeon asserts has never been seriously considered before, has been carefully checked by several experienced archival scholars to help me in the evaluation of his thesis. I am particularly indebted to Elizabeth Brown and Alfred Soman.

monarchy as such , however, flies in the face of abundant evidence to the contrary.

French government under the ancien régime functioned according to a constitutional process, in which the crown and the court bargained over royal policies, with Parlement always attempting to modify them in defense of its own prerogatives and rights. As in all bargaining situations, the outcome depended on the respective skill, and strength, of the negotiators. Faced with a strong king Parlement had to delay, stand on technicalities, make minor concessions, and dissimulate, leading to an outcome of ostensible acceptance of defeat (de expresso mandato regis ), as in the conflict over the Concordat with François I. When the crown was weak, skilled parlementaire leaders could force face-saving compromises or accept the policies conditionally. Concessions on religious policy under the last Valois kings fall in this category. They were always described in terms that denied finality, "pending the decision of a church council" or, "until such time as His Majesty deems otherwise." The Edict of January 1562 illustrates all these tactics in turn, and Parlement never really accepted it.^[92]

An even stronger argument against Bourgeon's conspiracy theory lies in the lifelong, consistent parlementaire posture toward the monarchy in its traditional, constitutional form. Their public actions, speeches, and writings, identically matched in private correspondence and diaries, testify to their wholehearted, unreserved devotion to the French monarchy. Indeed, for the most articulate of the mainstream parlementaires it was their ruling passion, the chief expression of their patriotism.^[93] With Pierre de L'Estoile, it became a veritable obsession; the perception of the monarchy as perverted was the ultimate proof that his were "the worst of times." Henri III "would have been a very good prince if he had met with a good century," and Henri IV was France's greatest hero because he was "the restorer of the monarchy."

Both Bourgeon and Diefendorf recognize what the latter describes as "building anger against the crown," initially targeted at Catherine, but with the edict creating new taxes on procureurs (to pay the subsidy the king had

[92] . On the constitutional process, misunderstood as absolute confrontation-to-the-death, see Salmon, Society in Crisis ; see also Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross , 173-174.

[93] . From Charles Guillart in the 1520s to Guillaume Du Vair in the 1590s, and most explicit in the works of Antoine Loisel, Étienne Pasquier, and Achille de Harlay. For point-by-point responses to Bourgeon's thesis see Michel De Waele, "Une Question de confiance? Le Parlement de Paris et Henri IV" (Ph.D. diss., Université McGill, Montréal, Québec, 1994, paper presented to Society for French Historical Studies, California State University, Chico, March 1993); also Marc Venard, "Arretez le massacre!" Revue d'Histoire moderne et contemporaine 33 (1992): 645-661.

promised the crown would supply for the German reiters who had fought with the Huguenots in the Third Civil War) increasingly aimed at Charles IX himself. I would add that Parlement's anger was reinforced because the constitutional issue was combined with the religious, evoking memories of the major defeat (by L'Hôpital in 1563) over the king's majority and readmission of those who had refused to make profession. The approaching marriage of a Valois princess to the Huguenot leader, heir to the throne, was an immediate menace. The leaders of the court were resolved to prevent another defeat. Diefendorf reminds us that after the failed attempt on Coligny's life (August 22) the threatening words and gestures of the Huguenot nobles, gathered for the ceremonies and bent on revenge, created great fear in the population, shared by parlementaires and fed by wild rumors. This threat provided the rationale for the king's decision to use force. Diefendorf's designation of the resulting massacre as "a preemptive strike" seems to be le mot juste; what was intended as a preventive measure, aimed at the armed Huguenot nobles, "got out of hand," partly because it was not certain what orders had been issued following the important meeting of the royal council in the night of August 23. Conceivably, many of the atrocities may have appeared to be sanctioned by the belief that the king himself had said something to the effect of "Kill them all." There is also evidence that ulterior motives, including private vengeance and the opportunity for extortion, explain some important crimes.^[94]

In judging the action—or rather the inaction—of the civilian authorities responsible for public order, we must bear in mind the virtual paralysis that had been created by the ongoing conflicts over royal policy in the past decade. Diefendorf describes the division in the Hôtel de Ville between those who saw the main danger as heresy and those who saw it as anarchy . We have noted in each generation of parlementaires that this cleavage can also be described as ultras versus moderates in religion. In 1572, the moderate leaders, Christophe de Thou and Pierre (I) Séguier, were still in control; weaker leadership in the latter years of Henri III's reign would find Parlement too timid to prevent the excesses of the Sixteen. The rupture of the civic fabric increased dramatically under the League and reached its climax—as far as the Parlement was concerned—in the murder of premier président Brisson in November 1591.^[95]

[94] . Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross , 88 on building anger, 95 on "preemptive strike," 103-104 on ulterior motives, 105 "got out of hand."

[95] . Ibid., 159-175. See also Barnavi and Descimon, Sainte-Ligue ; on the ultras who believed they were engaged in a "holy war," Crouzet, Guerriers de Dieu .

Examining anew the crucial sessions of mid-August 1572, the exchanges in the Parlement between Charles's spokesmen and the court's leaders, in which Bourgeon finds a conspiracy masked by deceptive rhetoric, I see a graphic example of the constitutional process, which, as Diefendorf says, "is easily mistaken for obstructionism." Citing earlier instances, she concludes, "when the full circumstances of each of these incidents are taken into account, it can be seen that the magistrates temporized because they were afraid to take actions whose success they could not guarantee, because any failure would only reveal more clearly the true weakness of civil authority." The ostensible victory was really another in the long series of defeats for Parlement, contrary to Bourgeon's conclusion, though the crown in turn also fell victim, during the reign of Henri III, to deepening crisis and renewed civil war. The magistrates' fate, which would further weaken their constitutional rights, came about because "[they] emerged as defenders of constituted authority. They were willing to enforce the king's edicts even when these edicts violated their Catholic beliefs, because they shared an even stronger belief in a legitimate and orderly state." Parlement's powers were thereby worn down by attrition without in the least changing their minds about une foi .^[96]

The elimination of the first generation of Huguenot leaders was not the only major change in the French political configuration of the 1570s. Antagonism between Charles IX and his next brother, Henri d'Anjou, was disrupting the royal Catholic party, especially since Anjou's spectacular success as commander at the victory of Montcontour (October 1569). By 1573, Catherine de Médicis could no longer control the situation. Anjou's siege of the Huguenot port of La Rochelle, the main event of the Fourth Civil War, inflated his ambition still further, and Charles IX was visibly dying. An edict Sutherland describes as "crudely drafted and hastily concluded" so that Anjou could withdraw, ended the fighting, and the "victor" left for a brief reign as king of Poland—whence he would flee in a few months with his "subjects" in hot pursuit. This was a maneuver of the queen mother's to remove the heir apparent from the scene until he could return in triumph as king of France.^[97] The Parlement of Paris registered the Edict of La Rochelle in silence, with the reservation "without approving of the new religion" written in.

Salmon describes the ten years from 1574 to 1584 as a drift to anarchy.

[96] . Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross , 172, 174.

[97] . On the Edict of La Rochelle, text in Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 360-361; Maugis, Parlement de Paris , 2:44.

"One civil war followed another in an aimless procession that demonstrated the decline of royal authority. Famine and peasant revolt followed the path of marauding armies. . . . Social hostilities deepened." Reform was desperately needed and "there were times when the last and most intelligent of the Valois kings took a personal part. . . . Unfortunately, Henri III's intellectual ability was accompanied by an erratic and willful self-indulgence that alienated the loyalty of his subjects."^[98] Salmon groups the signs of anarchy under three main headings: the weakness of the crown, the selfishness of the factions, the inner divisions tearing apart each party and social order. Illustrative detail springs out of the pages of Pierre de L'Estoile's Journal d'Henri III for these years.

Social fissures were opening up in every direction. In addition to the familiar contempt for the clergy, blamed for abuses that undermined faith and fed immorality and cynicism, nobles were castigated as frivolous and irresponsible and "the people" as a "stupid beast, stubborn and more inconstant than weather vanes, easily led against their own best interests." Within the robe, jealousy and antagonism between the parlementaires and administrative bureaucrats were increasingly bitter; they even occasionally came to blows in public.^[99] Scapegoats for the unraveling of society were easily found, most frequently the Italians—especially the queen mother, "Sainte Katherine" as one widely disseminated libel called her, and the troupe of Italian comedians I Gelosi , the first modern-style theatrical company in French history.^[100]

Given the crown's chronic financial crisis, it is understandable that public opinion was inflamed by the extravagance and waste of the king's favorites (mignons ), rising to new heights when they were given offices, estates, and lavish weddings. Money was also partly the cause of antipathy toward Henri III's increasing displays of piety, regarded as inappropriate and excessive—in which the mignons also participated. Under the heading Dévotions du

[98] . Salmon, Society in Crisis , 196.

[99] . L'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Brunet, 1:155, 13, 3:306. The reader should recall that although L'Estoile's politique bias is very obvious here, it is a faithful example of parlementaire opinion; his indignation shows his passionate (idealistic) devotion to the traditional monarchy. The final entry, on the day of Henri III's assassination, reads, "This king, when he died, left the kingdom of France and all his subjects so poor and debilitated that one would rather have expected their ruin, than hoped for any recovery. And this as much or more by [the people's] fault and rebellion, as through any fault of their king , who would have been a very good prince if he had met with a good century" (L'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Brunet, 3:306; ed. Roelker, 181; my italics).

[100] . L'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Brunet, 1:27-28, 192-193. Also 1:179, 266-268 on Catherine and the Italians.

Roy; Dévotions d'argent mal agréables , in Lent 1575, L'Estoile reports, the king went every day to a different parish in the capital, "using every means ingenuity could invent to raise money." Toward the end of the year, he repeated the visits

to pray and give alms with great displays of piety. He abandoned at this time his embroidered shirts and wore his collar reversed, in the Italian style. He went in a coach, with his wife, the queen, to the convents in the vicinity, to add to his collection of little lap dogs. . . . He also took up the study of grammar, [he said,] "to learn to decline." This seemed to presage the decline of his authority.

There are pages on end of satirical and sometimes obscene verse attacking the Italians, the mignons , and the king himself.^[101]

Scandal, vice, and extravagance were compounded by unrestrained violence. A total reversal of the old values appeared to be taking place. Nothing could be a more shocking proof to a traditionalist like L'Estoile than the extremes of disrespect for the king. Among the "titles" given him in the scurrilous pasquils circulating in Paris, were "Henry, by the grace of his mother, imaginary king of France and Poland, concierge of the Louvre, despoiler of the churches of Paris . . . merchant of justice, habitué of the sewers, protector of thugs."^[102]

The first civil war under Henri III—number five, as specialists reckon—reflected the chaotic condition of the country, but it was precipitated by a new disruptive factor, the ambitions of François d'Alençon, now heir apparent.^[103] He escaped from Paris in September 1575 and joined forces with the Huguenots. Their most militant faction had gained the upper hand, extending their politico-military organization, providing for an army as well as financial, judicial, and administrative institutions—the nucleus of what later would be called the Protestant "state within a state." They were demanding that the crown approve these actions—which no king of France could have done. They were also demanding a meeting of the Estates-General and places de sûreté . Alençon claimed as his objects "to undertake the people's cause" and "to oppose those who were devastating the king-

[101] . Ibid., 1:193. See also 1:53-54, 142-143, 151-152, 188-189, 240-241, 263-265 for examples of domination by financial considerations and the mignons ; 1:70-82, 143-148, 168-177, 215-254, 281-295 on religious excesses of the king and mignons .

[102] . Ibid., 1:155-156.

[103] . See Mack P. Holt, The Duke of Anjou and the Politique Struggle during the Wars of Religion (Cambridge, 1986).

dom," by which he meant the Guise party. He also made exorbitant demands on the crown, including an enormous sum to pay off his mercenaries and dismantle his garrisons. The malcontents and the Huguenots formed an "incongruous coalition," Sutherland says, but "there was a real danger that it might have toppled the monarchy before its members disputed the spoils."^[104] The crown had to capitulate. The resulting Edict of Pacification, appropriately called the Peace of Monsieur, granted important concessions to him and to the Huguenots. Most important of the latter were the right to unrestricted worship in temples of their own, and special chambers in the parlements called mi-parties , with equal numbers of Catholics and Protestants on the bench, to judge cases arising under the edict, or any case between litigants of opposing faiths. Eight towns were ceded as places de sûreté , some to be ruled by Alençon.

Resistance to the Peace of Monsieur was instantaneous and violent. Parisians boycotted the Te Deum and fireworks that the king was staging in celebration; the chambres mi-parties were odieuses à la cour . In L'Estoile's opinion, the edict would never have passed without the king's insistence, in person. That was in May 1576. Yet the magistrates came under attack later in the summer for "conniving in opening the door to heretics," an instance of effective propaganda against any advocates of peace. L'Estoile notes, "The truth is that these people would be willing for the whole world to be Huguenot provided that they could rule and make their League and conspiracy against the state successful."^[105]

For it was not the Huguenots who posed the greatest threat to Henri III and traditional Gallicans, but rather the ultra-Catholics. The Peace of Monsieur had stimulated the formation of the Holy League—its first phase—designed to rally Catholics to defend the faith. The noble leadership was in the hands of the Guise-Lorraine family, who could include their own dynastic ambitions under that umbrella. The Parisian Third Estate was also drawn into the movement, as we shall see in the next phase of this study, as were many robins —but not the mainstream magistrates. Characteristically, L'Estoile's attitude is "A plague on both your houses." He remarks sardonically on the capture of the town of St-Esprit by Catholics and the town of La Charité by Huguenots in December 1576, "the former as little touched by the Holy Spirit as the latter by Charity."^[106]

[104] . L'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Brunet, 1:122-128 on the Peace of Monsieur; text in Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle , 228.

[105] . L'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux , ed. Brunet, 1:129-133.

[106] . Ibid., 1:163.

Opposition to any degree of toleration was expressed by each order at the Estates General of 1577, but the threat of heresy paled in comparison to the threat from Rome, which became acute when the heir presumptive to the title of Most Christian King was really a heretic.^[107] Any hopes of arresting the national decline were brutally disappointed when François d'Alençon, last of the Valois brothers, died in 1584. The probability of Henri III having any offspring had diminished to the vanishing point, so with Alençon's removal Henri de Bourbon, king of Navarre, leader of the Protestant party, stood next in line for the throne. His claim under the regular laws of succession was indisputable, but his Protestant belief invalidated and overruled that claim in the eyes of the ultras, while creating a cruel dilemma for even the most moderate Catholics, as well as for Henri III, who was destroyed by it, first politically, and ultimately personally. For moderate Catholics, including mainstream parlementaires, the ordeal would grow in intensity for nearly ten years, until Henri de Navarre, become Henri IV, liberated them by his conversion.

In the interval, however, the leadership of the crisis generation came to an end, after more than twenty years at the helm. Pierre (I) Séguier died in 1580 and Christophe de Thou in 1582. The climate of opinion in the last generation, which fought the royalist-Gallican wars against the League even more than against heretics, was different in some important respects: autres temps, autres moeurs . The succeeding mainstream leaders—the politiques —constituted a coalition rather than an organized "party," having in common strong opposition to what they were against, while holding disparate, sometimes conflicting, views on what they were for.

The conventional designation politique for Catholic royalists, activist opponents of the League, and partisans of Henri IV in the 1590s, is legitimate and serviceable, but applications of the term in earlier phases of the Wars of Religion embrace a considerable range of political and religious positions. The nineteenth-century conception, which has prevailed, uncritically, to the present day, was formulated principally in the work of De Crue de Stoutz, followed most influentially by Michelet and Ranke. It embodied "the good sense of Erasmus, the probity of L'Hôpital . . . a program eventually espoused . . . by the gens de robe longue and érudits , respectable

[107] . Ibid., 1:165-177 on resistance of the three Estates to religious toleration; see also Mack P. Holt, "Attitudes of the French Nobility at the Estates-General of 1576," Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987): 489-504.

Parisian bourgeois and finally even by moderate Leaguers," in the words of Charles Labitte.^[108]

Recent scholarship has offered fresh examinations of several crucial questions: who, exactly, were the politiques and what were their defining characteristics? What elements, if any, linked L'Hôpital and the Montmorencys in the 1560s, Alençon and his associated malcontents in the 1570s, the fierce critics of Henri III in the 1580s with the parlementaire leaders who engineered the triumph of Henri IV in the 1590s? Was there at any time a politique "party" and, if so, what were its historical causes, its effects?

These questions are taken up by Christopher Bettinson in a 1989 article in which he challenges the notion of continuity that he finds characteristic of earlier histories, in particular Salmon's influential Society in Crisis . As Bettinson describes it, the "Politique party" that Salmon sees emerge from the fusion of loyalist Protestant and Catholic groups in the wake of Anjou's death derives its "identity" from the "flood of what he [Salmon] calls Politique political theory, . . . as a reaction to the resurgence of the League and the constitutional excesses of its pamphleteers." "Politique theory," Bettinson continues, "is defined as an amalgam of many elements of Renaissance political thought," from Seyssel to Machiavelli, constitutional, absolutist, Stoic, and Gallican.^[109] In this view, moreover, the "attempts [of Catherine de Médicis] to counter the collapse of authority in the state and the policies she developed with Michel de L'Hospital in the early 1560s are seen . . . as the most significant element of continuity and the edicts of toleration or pacification themselves as a spinal cord running from the edicts of amnesty, granted at the end of the Conspiracy of Amboise, to the issue of the Edict of Nantes in 1598."^[110]

For Bettinson, Salmon's "pattern of continuity" is too abstract and "systematizing at a level of generality not rooted in historical reality." He proceeds to give a more événementiel analysis. In response to the severe pressures of Philip II and the papacy, against the background of the final sessions of the Council of Trent (1562-63), when many leading French Catholics were "stiffening toward the religious concessions given to Huguenots, [the term politique was applied to] Catholics who refused to commit themselves fully to the eradication of heresy." Appeal was made to the "law of necessity" by the French crown, and the toleration policy was

[108] . De Crue de Stoutz, Le Parti des politiques ; Charles Labitte, De la démocratie chez les prédicateurs de la Ligue (Paris, 1841), 105-106.

[109] . Christopher Bettinson, "The Politiques and the Politique Party: A Reappraisal," in From Valois to Bourbon , ed. Keith Cameron (Exeter, 1989), 37.

[110] . Ibid., 41.

rationalized as pur politique . By 1568, it was regularly applied to the circle of L'Hôpital, that is, those committed to a negotiated settlement with the Huguenots. From the ultra point of view they were virtually traitors—to the concept of state reflecting the rule of God. Bettinson points out that the effect of the massacre was to magnify the differences. Catherine, Charles, L'Hôpital—who had been driven from office—and all who would not follow the ultra line, were included as politiques , although some were primarily defenders of tradition, especially of the constitution and the Parlement itself, and some leaned markedly toward absolutism: some were Huguenot sympathizers, without becoming Nicodemites, and others merely wished to avoid any religious settlement until ecclesiastical authorities took modifying action, meanwhile separating the church-state-law questions from confessional ones.^[111]

In conclusion Bettinson agrees with Salmon "that the issues and arguments struggling for dominance in the period of transition from Valois to Bourbon do bear a close similarity to those clustering around the pacification policy . . . of Catherine and L'Hôpital," but he retains doubts about the comparison of the historical circumstances and denies that these factors brought about "a major change in the nature of French society." Indeed, despite the secular and absolutist reactions against the excesses of the League, "the reality, as the development of royal absolutism in the seventeenth century shows, was a gradual return to the dominant notion of 'une foi, une loi, un roi.'"^[112] This study maintains that the traditional view had never been abandoned by the mainstream.

Edmond Beame, in a thoughtful historiographical review of 1993, is struck by how rarely the word occurs in the primary sources, especially noticeable in the case of politiques , for example Jacques-Auguste de Thou, though he admits that L'Estoile is the outstanding exception. Only glimpses of them are to be found, "not a coherent picture but a series of snapshots, some sharp, others only hazy, each taken from a different angle." The result is a "legacy of ambiguity," "a modern historical vocabulary with meaning far more distinct than sixteenth-century usage would support." Beame's conclusion is that the word came to symbolize "a kind of attitudinal terrain, a land whose ideological boundaries . . . are delineated by a willingness to

[111] . Ibid., 43-45.

[112] . Ibid., 48-49.

sacrifice religious unity for peace. It was a territory across which various Frenchmen passed at one time or another . . . often for disparate reasons."^[113]

Based on the actions, writings, and reputations of the mainstream parlementaires, the writer confidently asserts that one can discern defining elements in politiques thought: loyalty to the monarchy; opposition to the ultramontane position, including the Trent decrees, and unswerving defense of the Gallican liberties; abstention from specific statements of religious belief and refusal to condemn others who differed from them, together with the conviction that laymen were not qualified to judge religious matters other than where those impinged on the state, the community, the law, for which Parlement was directly responsible. In the circumstances of the civil wars, it was preferable to make temporary concessions on confessional uniformity rather than to suffer the destruction of the national community. Positive national feeling, xenophobia, and personal ulterior motives (self-preservation) were contributing ingredients, naturally in varying proportions among politiques as a group (if not really a "party" until 1593) and also within the mind of each member. This position is appropriately represented by our most astute spokesman, Étienne Pasquier, who differentiates earlier Catholic subgroups from the politiques . "Only in our most recent troubles was the Catholic party subdivided into the politique, considered worse than the Huguenot because he advocated peace, and the Ligueur, who was still divided into three or four groups."^[114]

[113] . Edmond M. Beame, "The Politiques and the Historians," Journal of the History of Ideas 54 (1993): 358-359, 379.

[114] . Pasquier, Recherches de la France , 1:860. Beame ("Politiques," 363) points out that this unique mention of the politique occurs in bk. VIII, ch. 4, entitled "Du mot Huguenot."