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 HUGUENOTS

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HUGUENOTS

Coligny and his partisans hail organized a plot against his person and authority, and that he (the king) had merely suppressed it. Thus it was that Pope Gregory X 1 1 1 at first believed in a conspiracy of the Huguenots, and, persuaded that the king had but defended him- self against these heretics, held a service of thanks- giving for the repression of the conspiracy, and com- memorated it by having a medal struck, which he sent with his felicitations to Charles IX. There is no proof that the Catholic clergy were in the slightest degree connected with the massacre. Cries of hor- ror and malediction arose from the Huguenot ranks; their writers made France and the countries beyond its borders echo with those cries by means of pamphlets in which, for the first time, they attacked the abso- lute power, or even the very institution of royalty. After St. Bartholomew's the Huguenots, though be- reft of their leaders, rushed to arms. This was the fourth civil war, and centred about a few fortified towns, such as La Rochelle, Montauban, and Nimes. The Edict of Boulogne (2.5 June, 1573) put an end to it, granting to all Huguenots amnesty for the past and liberty of worship in those three towns. It was felt that the rising power of the Huguenots was broken — that from this juncture forward they would never again be able to sustain a conflict except by allying themselves with political malcontents. They them- selves were conscious of this; they gave themselves a political organization which facilitated the mobiliza- tion of all their forces. In their synods held from 157.3 to 15S8 they organized France into gincraliU's, placing at the head of each a general, with a perma- nent council and periodical a.s.scmblies. The dele- gates of these gcnfralilcs were to form the States General of the Union, which were to meet every three months. Special committees were created for the recruiting of the army, the management of the fi- nances, and the administration of justice. Over the whole organization a "protector of the churches" was appointed, who was the chief of the party. Cond^ held this title from 1574; Henry of Navarre after 1576. It was, so to say, a permanently organ- ized revolt. In 1574 hostilities recommenced; the Huguenots and the malcontents joined forces against impotent royalty until they wrested from Henry, the successor of Charles IX (30 May, 1574), by the Edict of Beaulieu (May, 1576) the right of public worship for the religion, thenceforth officially called the prHendue T(formce, throughout France, except at Paris and the Court. There were also to be estab- lished chambers composed of equal numbers of Cath- olics and Huguenots in eight Parliaments; eight places de suretc were to be given to the Huguenots; there was to be a disclaimer of tlie Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the families which had suffered from it were to be reinstated. These large con- cessions to the Huguenots and the approbation given to their political organization led to the formation of the League, which was organized by Catholics anxious to defend their religion. The States-General of Blois (December, 1576) declared it.self against the Edict of Beaulieu. Thereupon the Protestants took up arms under the leadership of Henry of Navarre, who, escaping from the Court, had re- turneil to the Calvinism which he had abjured at the time of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The advantage was on the Catholic side, thanks to some succe.sses achieved by the Duke of Anjou, the king's brother. The Peace of Bergerac, confirmed by the Edict of Poitiers (September, 1577), left the Hugue- nots the free exercise of their religion only in the sub- urbs of one town in each bailiwick (bailliage), and in those places where it had been practised before the outl)reak of hostilities and which they occupied at the current date.

The national synods, which served to fill up the intervals between armed struggles, give us a glimpse

into the forces at work in the interior life of the Huguenot party. The complaints made at their synods show clearly that the fervour of their early days had disappeared; laxity and dis.sensions were finding their way into their ranks, and at times pas- tors and their flocks were at variance. It was neces- sary to forbid pastors to pulilish anything touching religious controversies or political affairs without the express approval of their conferences, and the consis- tories were asked (1.5S1) to stem the ever-widening wave of dissolution which threatened their church. A Venetian ambassador writes at this period that the number of Huguenots had decreased by seventy per cent. But the death of the Duke of Anjou on 10 June, 1.5,S4, the sole surviving heir of the <lirect line of the Valois, revived their hopes, since the King of Navarre thus became heir presumptive to the throne. The prospect thus opened aroused the League; it called upon Henry III to interdict Huguenot wor- ship everywhere, and to declare the heretics incapable of holding any benefices or public ofhccs — and con- sequently the King of Navarre incapable of .succeeding to the throne. By the Convention of Nemours (7 July, 1585) the king accepted these conditions; he revoked all previous edicts of pacification, ordered the ministers to leave the kingdom immediately and the other Huguenots within six months, unless they chose to be converted. This edict, it was said, sent more Huguenots to Mass than St. Bartholomew-'s had, and resulted in the disappearance of all their churches north of the Loire; it was therefore impos- sible for them to profit by the hostilities which broke out between the king and the CUiises, and resulted in the assassination of the Gui-ses at the States-General of Blois (23 December, 158S) and the death of Henry III at the siege of the revolted city of Paris (1 August, 1.5,S9). Henry of Navarre succeeded as Henry IV, after promising the Royalist Catholics who had joined him that he would seek guidance and instruction from a council to be held within six months, or sooner if possible, and that in the meantime he would main- tain the exclusive practice of the Catholic religion in all those places where the Huguenot religion was not actually being practised. Circumstances prevented him from keeping his word. The League held Paris and the principal towns of France, and he was forced into a long struggle against it, in which he w.as en- abled to secure victory only after his conversion to Catholicism (July, 1593), and, above all, after his reconciliation with the pope (September, 1505). The Huguenots had meanwhile been able to obtain from him only the measure of tolerance guaranteed by the Edict of Poitiers; they had profited by this to reopen at Montauban (June, 1.594) the synods which had been interrupted for eleven years. They soon com- pleted their political organization in the .Assemblies of Saumur and Loudun, they exteiwled it to the whole of France and claimed to treat with the king as ecjiial with equal, bargaining with him for their help agamst the Spaniards, refusing him their contingents at the siege of .Vmiens, withdrawing them in the midst of a campaign during the siege of La Fere. Thus they brought the king, who was besides anxious to end the civil war, to grant them the Edict of Nantes (April- Ma v, 1.598).

(2) Under the Edict of Nantes. — This edict, containing 93 public and 36 secret articles, provided in the first place that the Catholic religion should be re-estab- lished wherever it had been suppressed, together with all the property and rights previously enjoyed by the clergy. The Huguenots obtained the free exercise of their religious worship in all places where it actually existed, as also in two localities in every bailiwick {bailliage), in castles of lords possessing the right of life and death, and even in those of the ordinary nobles in which the number of the faithful did not exceed thirty. They were eligible for all