Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/13

  , (pages 1 to 8). — The Persecution which drove the Protestants from France and its causes. I need give no summary of the historical statements down to the date of the massacre of the Huguenots (or French Protestants) by the Romanists, by order of King Charles IX., on St Bartholomew’s day 1572. But I insert an abridgement of the remainder of Section I.

In order to understand the justification of civil war in France at this period, we must consider some points of ditference from our views of law and loyalty, belonging to the very constitutions of ancient government as compared with more modern monarchy and executive authority. After considering that the St Bartholomew massacre made personal self defence a Huguenot’s only protection, the reader must picture a French Protestant congregation, forbidden to carry any arms, yet surrounded by Roman Catholics, armed with weapons which a raging priesthood stirs them up to use against the unarmed worshippers, the law not visiting such murderous assaults with any punishment. It must also be realised that it was consistent with loyalty for a noble to have a fortress over which the king had no active jurisdiction, and for a town such as La Rochelle to be equally independent of the sovereign. Such a town, by feudal right, was as effectual a sanctuary against the king’s emissaries as any ecclesiastical building. It was as lawless for the king to go to war with the town, as for the town to send an invading army against Paris. The independent rulers of a fort or walled town had some duties to their own dependents, to which even the king’s claims must be postponed. The supreme authority of a king over all towns and castles was a state of things svhich in theory the King of France might wish: but it was not the constitution of France; and therefore such coveting was a species of radicalism on his part.

The inhabitants of La Rochelle owed to their independence their escape from the St. Bartholomew massacre. The Queen of Navarre, though decoyed to Paris, escaped by the visitation of God, who removed her “from the evil to come,” and to the heavenly country, about two months before. A very great Huguenot soldier, second to none but Coligny, survived the massacre, namely, Francois, Seigneur de la Noue. This “Francis with the Iron Arm” had been Governor of La Rochelle. He was at Mons at the date of the massacre, but was spared, and graciously received by the king. Assuming that he would recant in return for his life, the Court sent him to La Rochelle to see if the citizens, on their liberty of conscience being promised, would surrender to royal authority. La Noue, as an envoy, was coldly received. Finding the citizens firm and courageous, he again accepted the chief command in the Protestant interest, and the Royalist besiegers withdrew in the summer of 1573.

An edict, dated 11th August 1573, conceded to the Huguenots liberty of domestic worship and the public exercise of their religion in La Rochelle, Montauban, and Nismes. The