Page:History of Freedom.djvu/146

 102

ESSAYS ON LIBERTY

them public. In the absence of these documents the most authentic information is that which is supplied by the French Ambassador and by the Nuncio. The despatches of Ferralz, describing the attitude of the Roman court, are extant, but have not been used. Those of Salviati have long been kno\vn. Chateaubriand took a copy when the papal archives were at Paris, and projected a work on the events with which they are concerned. Some extracts \vere published, with his consent, by the continuator of Mackintosh; and a larger selection, from the originals in the Vatican, appeared in Theiner's Annals of Gregory XIII. The letters written under Pius V. are beyond the limits of that work; and Theiner, moreover, has omitted whatever seemed irrelevant to his purpose. The criterion of relevancy is uncertain; and we shall avail ourselves largely of the unpublished portions of Salviati's correspondence, which \vere tran- scribed by Chateaubriand. These manuscripts, with others of equal importance not previously consulted, determine several doubtful questions of policy and design. The Protestants never occupied a more triumphant position, and their prospects were never brighter, than in the summer of 1572. For many years the progress of their religion had been incessant. The most valuable of the conquests it has retained were already made; and the period of its reverses had not begun. The great division which aided Catholicism afterwards to recover so much lost ground \vas not openly confessed; and the effectual unity of the Reformed Churches was not yet dissolved. In controversial' theology the defence was weaker than the attack. The works to which the Refor- mation owed its popularity and system were in the hands of thousands, \vhile the best authors of the Catholic restoration had not begun to write. The press continued to serve the ne\v opinions better than the old; and in literature Protestantism \vas supreme. Persecuted in the South, and established by violence in the North,. it had overcome the resistance of princes in Central Europe, and had won toleration without ceasing to be intolerant. In