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-

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

("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.