Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/594

 558 F K A N E [HISTORY. 1547. affairs ; we shall also find her appreciation of political interests weak and ill-informed, her desire for self-govern ment at home as dimly felt as her desire for a right policy abroad ; and lastly, we shall see that for ages her history is the history of men not of institutions, and that her worst struggles are caused by personal not national questions. It is one of the grand results of the Revolution that it raised France from this vicious moral and mental state, introducing the rule of ideas and opinions, and the general participation of citizens in their own affairs. Why the In the reign of Francis I. the court looked not unkindly Ilefor- ou the Reformers, more particularly in the earlier years, fafkcHu wn ^ e tue new opinions were mostly those of Luther. France. Margaret, the king s sister, the duchess of Etampes, his mistress, Renee of France, the daughter of Louis XII,, who took Clement Marot as her secretary, and was a declared Protestant, all these ladies patronized and protected the Reformers. The king himself, regarding them as a people having ideas and some education and enlightenment, was well inclined towards them for a time. Later on, the excesses of the image-breakers, and the tendency of some of them to depreciate carnal learning, entirely alienated him from them. He never had any religious sympathy with them ; and though both he and his mother sided in the beginning with the learned world against the monks and &quot; hypocrites,&quot; as Louise of Savoy calls them, they never were interested in those theological questions which, though they might seem to them often to degenerate into unmeaning subtleties, still in reality gave to the reforming movement its true strength. The nobles went with the court, and beyond it. About half the great families with more or less earnestness adopted the Reformed opinions, and that more specially in their second or Calvinistic development. With them went a not inconsiderable body of the upper clergy. With these strong elements in its favour, how did the Reformation come to fail in France 1 It failed, first because the general body of the people took absolutely no interest in the matter ; no popular feeling had been aroused ; no discontent with either the clergy or the monasteries existed; and the people, uneducated and unused to political controversy or expression, were in fact never called on to form a judgment in the matter. Personal religion, or per sonal judgment as to theological questions, even in their more practical bearings, was but little known or cared for in France. And this was true not only of the people, but of the nobles and the court. There was, too, a want of that wholesome cathartic effect which the Reformation worked elsewhere ; men s lives became no purer, the family relation was not strengthened, and from the moral side the move ment was a failure also. Lastly, France has few great cities though many small ones, and her cities had little or no use of independence of thought and opinion. The towns were much divided ; the capital, with its preponder ating influence, was distinctly hostile to the Reformers. The Champagne towns, specially Meaux, showed themselves favourable to the new opinions ; in the rest of France they had little sway ; the persistent piety of the hill country of the south-east and south was an entirely independent pheno menon, which seemed to exert very little influence on the rest of France, In the later days of Francis!., the politico- religious movement connected with the name of Calvin, the series of ideas which formed the basis of Latin Pro testantism, as distinct from the Germanic movement of the north, spread over a great part of the south and west of France. It was warmly welcomed by the dissidents of Dauphiny, the Cevennes, the Garonne valley ; the nobles also adopted it with enthusiasm. It became a disruptive force in France. While Paris and northern France cling to the old opinions, round which a good number of the great families group themselves, Poitou and the western provinces are the home of the new ideas in church and state. They utter opinions which combine reform in religion with aristo cratic and republican views in politics. France thus divided falls a prey to civil war. Henry II., who succeeded in 1547, &quot;had all the faults of his father, with a weaker mind&quot;; and as strength of mind was not one of the characteristics of Francis I., we may imagine how little firmness there was in the gloomy king who now reigned. Party spirit ruled at court. Henry II., with his ancient mistress Diana of Poitiers, were at the head of one party, that of the strict Catholics, and were supported by old Anne of Montmorency, most unlucky of soldiers, most fanatical of Catholics, and by the Guises, who chafed a good deal under the stern rule of the constable. This party had almost extinguished its antagonists ; in the struggle of the mistresses, the pious and learned Anne of Etampes had to give place to imperious Diana. Catherine, the queen, was content to bide her time, watching with Italian coolness the game as it went on ; of no account beside her rival, and yet qaite sure to have her day, and ready to play parties against one another. Meanwhile, she brought to her royal husband ten sickly children, most of whom died young, and three wore the crown. Of the many bad things she did for France, that was perhaps among the worst. On the accession of Henry II. the duchy of Brittany finally lost even nominal independence ; he next got the hand of Mary queen of Scots, then but five years old, for the dauphin Francis; she was carried over to France, and being by birth half a Guise, by education and interests of her married life she became entirely French. It was a great triumph for Henry, for the protector Somerset had laid his plans to secure her for young Edward VI.; it was even more a triumph for the Guises, who saw opened out a broad and clear field for their ambition. At first Henry II. showed no desire for war, and seemed to shrink from rivalry or collision with Charles V. He would not listen to Paul III., who, in his anxiety after the fall of the Protestant power in Germany in 1547, urged him to resist the emperor s triumphant advance ; he seemed to show a dread of war, even among his neighbours. After he had won his advantage over Edward VI., he escaped the war which seemed almost inevitable, recovered Boulogne from the English by a money-payment, and smoothed the way for peace between England and Scotland. He took much interest in the religious question, and treated the Calvinists with great severity ; he was also occupied by troubles in the south and west of France, Meanwhile a new pope, Julius III., was the weak dependant of the emperor, and there seemed to be no head left for any move ment against the universal domination of Charles V. His career from 1547 to 1552 was, to all appearance, a trium phal march of unbroken success. Yet Germany was far from acquiescence ; the princes were still discontented and watchful ; even Ferdinand of Austria, his brother, was offended by the emperor s anxiety to secure everything, even the imperial crown, for his son Philip ; Maurice of Saxony, that great problem of the age, was preparing for a second treachery, or, it may be, for a patriotic effort. These German malcontents now appealed to Henry for help ; and at last Henry seemed inclined to come. He had lately made alliance with England, and in 1552 formed a league at Chambord with the German princes ; the old con nexion with the Turk was also talked of. The Germans agreed to allow him to hold (as imperial vicar, not as king of France), the &quot; three bishoprics,&quot; Metz, Verdun, and Toul ; he also assumed a protectorate over the spiritual princes, those great bishops and electors of the Rhine, whose stake in the empire was so important. The general lines of French foreign politics are all here clearly marked ; in this 1547- Henri II. Partii at cov Scot