Henry II. was twenty-nine years of age when he ascended his father’s throne (31st March, 1547), his elder brother, the dauphin Francis, having died almost ten years before. He was rather tall, well-proportioned, fond of athletic sports, and vain of his skill in the tournay—a weakness that proved fatal to him at last. His hair was dark, his beard short and pointed, his complexion pale, almost livid. His large, black, lively eyes somewhat contradicted his melancholy, saturnine character. He rarely laughed, and, according to the Venetian envoy, Matteo Dandolo, some of the courtiers declared they had never seen him smile. His portraits would leave us to suppose that he was of a mild and gentle disposition; but bigotry often made him cruel, and his pride was impatient of opposition. He could be liberal, too—especially with other persons’ money. Thus he gave the notorious Diana of Poitiers the renomination of all the officials whose posts had become vacant by the death of his predecessors, by which she appropriated more than 100,000 crowns in the shape of fines and presents. Henry possessed good natural abilities, and a retentive memory, but was uninstructed;[26] he had a taste for music, and spoke Italian and Spanish. He was also religious, so far at least as not to ride out on Sunday until after mass. Though not much distinguished in war, he never shrank from danger, and at Landrecy conducted himself as a good captain and brave soldier.[27]

His queen was Catherine de Medicis, one of the most enigmatical personages in history. Attempts have recently been made to reverse the judgment of time, and rehabilitate her character,[28] which possibly has been painted in darker colors than it deserved; but to convert her into a martyr and victim, entitled to our respect and sympathy, is to write not history but romance. In early life she had more than one narrow escape, and her later career can hardly prevent our regretting that she lived to be old. At her birth (so runs the story) astrologers foretold that she would be the ruin of the family and the place where she was married. She was accordingly put into a convent; but when her uncle, Clement VII., besieged Florence, in 1530, the council of that city proposed taking her out and hanging her in a basket over the battlements, so that she might be killed by the besieger’s cannon. A still worse fate was proposed by others, which, to the honor of humanity, she escaped. Although the niece of a pope, she was a portionless orphan, and apparently doomed to spend her days in the seclusion of a cloister. Such a life would have been happier for her and for France; but it was not to be so. Her marriage with Henry of Valois, in 1533, was strictly a political one—a bond of union between Francis I. and Clement VII. against the emperor. The child-bride[29] displayed at this time none of the darker characteristics which afterward distinguished her. She was rather below the middle height, her eyes were large and sparkling—they were peculiar to her family,[30] her complexion was beautiful, her voice clear as a bell; she dressed with care, and exercised a singular fascination over all who came near her. Foreigners who saw her twenty or thirty years later describe her as still possessing an excellent figure, with a hand and arm that were the despair of the sculptor. She possessed many shining qualities, which she often marred by devoting them to evil purposes. In an age when female purity was not held in high esteem, she preserved a reputation that scandal scarce has touched. She was prompt in action, fertile in resources, could read character well, and had perfect control over her own feelings. She never designedly made an enemy of any one; and with her sweet smile, musical voice, and courteous manner, converted many an enemy into a friend.

After the disastrous battle of St. Quentin she gave the first indications of her skill in public matters. The king had urgent need of money, and as he was absent from Paris, Catherine went to the parliament, explained the royal necessities, and obtained a grant of 300,000 livres. “She thanked them in such words that all wept with tenderness.... Throughout the city men talked of nothing but her majesty’s prudence.”[31] After this time (we are told) the king went more into her society. During her husband’s life, she possessed but little influence: his dislike to her at one time nearly approaching to hatred. He often taunted her with her plebeian origin; and, but for the love Francis I. bore her, she would have been repudiated and sent back to her relations. In the earlier years of her wedded life she was unpopular, because she was childless, and because her uncle, Clement, who deceived all who trusted in him, had evaded his engagements. By degrees, however, she won the love of the people, who would willingly have shed their blood for her.[32]

If she did not love her husband, she made a great show of sincere attachment. When he was away from her with the army, she would put herself and her attendants into mourning; and go in procession to various shrines to pray for his happiness and success. She has been described as molto religiosa, but that means very little in an Italian mouth. In later years, it was not easy to tell when she was sincere, or when playing a part. She had been trained in that school whence Machiavelli derived his maxims. She thought nothing of right or wrong: her principles, if such they may be termed, were prudence, expediency, and success; and she preferred a tortuous to a straightforward policy. During the life of her husband, Catherine had filled a subordinate position, having the title, but little of the respect, that surrounds a queen. She never had fair play, and her early years were blighted by the shadow cast upon them by Diana of Poitiers.

Diana, Duchess of Valentinois, was the widow of Louis de Brézé, high seneschal of Normandy,[33] and the most beautiful woman of the age.[34] In her youth she had captivated the affections, such as they were, of Francis I., and even during his life-time had enthralled the future king by her dazzling charms. Henry used to wear her colors, black and white;[35] consult her on affairs of state, and permit her to dispense the ecclesiastical patronage.[36] It has been said that the love between them was purely platonic: the statement—borne out in some degree by the difference of their years—is not, however, in accordance with the opinion of her contemporaries.[37] The king at one time seems to have been quite infatuated with her. At the foot of her portrait he wrote the first words of Marot’s version of the forty-second Psalm—

Brantome describes her as “a good Catholic and very devout;” but the abbe’s standard is not a high one. He adds that “she hated those of the religion.”[38] This we can believe, but her dislike did not extend to their possessions, by which she grew enormously rich. The historian Matthieu records that the people said of her: “For twelve years an old woman kept heaven so close, that not a drop of justice fell on France, except by stealth.” She was very extravagant in her tastes, to meet which added much to an already oppressive taxation. The ruins of her little palace of Anet, on the Eure, near Dreux, still exhibit some faint traces of the splendor and elegance of its first occupant, and of its architect Philibert de l’Orme. In 1547, Henry II. made her a present of the castle of Chenonceau, a marvel of the Renaissance, built by that unfortunate superintendent of finance, Jacques de Beaune-Semblançay. In the letters patent conveying this magnificent present to his favorite, the king declared it was “in consideration of the great and most commendable services rendered to the crown by her late husband, Louis de Brézé.” But when Henry died, Catherine forced her to give up the château, and retained it for herself. To decorate this building and add to its pleasure grounds, Henry imposed a tax upon bells—twenty livres each. The people murmured loudly at this, and Rabelais, echoing the popular complaints, pretended that “the king had hung all the bells of the kingdom round the neck of his mare.”[39]

One of Henry’s first acts, after his accession, was to dismiss his father’s ministers, and place the management of affairs in the hands of Montmorency, conjointly with the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and Marshal St. André, who had been the king’s playmate. The constable was nearly sixty years of age when he was thus recalled from the retirement to which Francis I. had banished him. He was a man of harsh manners, ignorant,[40] greedy of money, and a bigot in religion; or, perhaps it may be truer to say, vain of his descent from Pharamond, and of being “the first Christian baron of France.” At times he could be exceedingly pompous and haughty, and though he had seen much service, he possessed but little military capacity. Some of the stories told of his ferocity have a certain grim humor about them, notwithstanding their brutality. While saying his prayers, he would break off suddenly and order this man to be whipped, or that to be hanged, or a village to be burned, and then continue (“tant il était consciencieux,” says Brantome) as if he had done the most natural thing in the world. These paternosters had passed into a proverb, during his life-time. When he marched to Bordeaux, to put down an insurrection occasioned in the south-west of France by the severity with which the infamous gabelle or salt-tax was levied, he told the citizens as they came out to present him with the keys of the gates: “Begone with your keys. I don’t want them. I will open your gates with mine (pointing to his cannon), and have you all hanged. I’ll teach you to rebel against your king.” And for five weeks terror reigned in the city. More than one hundred and forty persons were hanged, decapitated, burned alive, or otherwise put to death; not a few of them having been torn asunder by horses, impaled, or broken on the wheel. “It was an exemplary punishment,” says Brantome, “but not so severe as the case required.” The country was laid waste far and wide by an ill-disciplined, unpaid soldiery—a course of treatment which did not increase the loyalty or orthodoxy of the inhabitants. Montmorency was a great favorite with the king, and his son Francis married Diana of Angoulême, Henry’s natural daughter.[41]

Henry II. was duly crowned at Rheims in July, 1547, and the particulars recorded of the ceremony show that we have fallen off in the matter of kingly pomp. On a platform erected before the gate of the city, there was a representation of the sun, which appeared to expand like a flower. In the centre was a crimson heart, out of which stepped a young girl in costly attire, who offered the keys of the city to the monarch. Henry suffered two years to elapse before he visited his capital. On 16th June, 1549, all Paris was in commotion. A grand procession of the notabilities of the city, both lay and clerical, went out to meet and harangue him, according to the wearisome custom of the age. The king, richly dressed, rode a white horse, and was attended by the princes of the blood, foreign ambassadors, marshals of France, and knights of the various orders of chivalry, all well mounted. The glittering procession took its way through streets hung with tapestry, and under triumphal arches, to Notre Dame. After the usual Te Deum, Henry was escorted with boisterous acclamations to the bishop’s palace, where a royal banquet had been prepared for him in the great hall. Only the princes of the royal house ate at his table. On his right sat the Cardinals of Bourbon and Vendome: on his left the Dukes of Vendome, Montpensier, and Roche-sur-Yon. The Constable Montmorency, by virtue of his office, stood in front of him with a drawn sword. Henry remained at the palace two days, until the solemn entry of the queen. She was in a horse-litter profusely ornamented, and at her side rode the Cardinals of Amboise, Chatillon, Boulogne, and Lenoncourt. Two other litters were used by the princesses, their ladies following on hackneys, and attended by pages on foot. After the customary prayers at Notre Dame, and the dinner at the bishop’s palace, a ball was given (for churchmen could dance in those days), at which the “enfants de la ville,” some sixscore young men, danced with the court ladies, and acquitted themselves with much grace, to the evident satisfaction of Henry, who had arranged this little incident. After the ball there was a supper—a collation of preserves and sweetmeats; and to end the feast, the provost of the merchants and the aldermen presented the queen with a “buffet complet,” a complete set of double silver-gilt plate, adorned with fleur-de-lis and “crescents.”[42]

The morrow being Corpus Christi day, the provost and aldermen waited upon the king at the palace of the Tournelles, to present him with a piece of plate, which the chronicles are careful to tell us was of “ducat gold.” It was a grand allegorical work of art, at that time unmatched in Europe.[43] The provost made a complimentary speech on presenting it, and the king, who was delighted with the gift, thanked him in language as flattering as it was gracious. This emboldened the provost to invite him to follow the example of his ancestors, and come to the Grève next Sunday—the eve of St. John—and set fire to the great tree. Henry complied with the request, and went, accompanied by the queen, the princes and princesses, and kindled the fire with a torch of white wax handed him by the provost. Thence he proceeded to the Hotel de Ville, where, after the usual collation—a good custom which still prevails in civic entertainments—the city dames had the honor of dancing with the king and his court. It was still light when he returned to his palace of the Tournelles.

During the month Henry remained in Paris, there were frequent tournays in the lists, prepared by the city in the Rue St. Antoine. The provost had also built a fort on the islet of Louviers in the Seine, to afford the king the pleasing spectacle of a bombardment and a sea-fight. A bridge of boats had been constructed from the island of Notre Dame to that of Louviers for the passage of the troops that were to attack the fort. These were harmless amusements compared with some that followed. On Thursday, 4th July, Henry quitted the Tournelles at seven in the morning, and rode in grand procession to the great cathedral, where he heard high mass, and then went to dine at the episcopal palace, after which the royal digestion was gently stimulated by the burning of some heretics. On another occasion, after a similar procession and banquet, some more heretics were burned in the Rue St. Antoine, “where the king stopped and advised them to recant.”[44] Heretic-burning was one of the popular sports of the day, at which—if contemporary engravings are any authority in such matters—high-born dames attended in full dress. It was on one of these occasions (4th July, 1549), that Henry witnessed the execution of a poor tailor, who had offended Diana by language not unlike that which John the Baptist used with regard to Herodias. The sufferer, we are told, turned upon the king such a look of calm reproach, that he withdrew frightened from the window, and for several nights after fancied that the dying man haunted his bedside.

Meanwhile the reformed doctrines had been spreading fast. Extending beyond the small circle of nobles, scholars, and church dignitaries, by whom they were first taught and defended, and making their way into the lower strata of society,[45] they had become more definite and radical. The uneducated shoe-maker or ploughman could not appreciate such nice distinctions as Margaret of Valois drew in her “Mass of Seven Points,” and would not have cared for such subtleties if he had understood them. These simple men heard the Bible read and explained to them, and the doctrines of Free Grace and of the Atonement sank straight into their hearts. There was very little but habit to keep the people faithful to the old Church. “They are more affected,” says Matthieu, unconsciously imitating Horace, “by example than by instruction, and estimate the truth of a doctrine by the purity of a man’s life.” Such an example was rarely found in the Catholic clergy. Another strong reforming agent was the misery of the times. With reference to Normandy, which was better off than many other provinces, a local historian writes: “The people were easily seduced; the dues and taxes were so excessive that in many villages there was no assessment. The decimes were so high that the parish priests and their curates ran away for fear of being imprisoned, and ceased to perform divine service in many parishes near Caen.... Seeing this, the preachers from Geneva took possession of the churches and chapels.”[46]

Yet great as had been the increase of numbers, the Reformed at this time could hardly have amounted to a hundredth part of the population; even in 1558 they were not estimated at more than 400,000. The cities along the course of the Rhone and those lying at the foot of the Alps were strongly Calvinistic, as was also Languedoc, where probably some relics of the old Albigensian spirit of revolt still lingered. In this province the Romish Church was especially hateful, as it had been enriched by the confiscated estates of the Albigensian nobles.[47] Anjou and Normandy were divided; Picardy felt the influence of Flanders, where the new doctrines were extending with civil liberty. Nearly all the rest of France was Catholic. The rural population was then, as now, under the influence of the clergy, as also were the inhabitants of the smaller country towns. These are usually a narrow-minded class, an almost inevitable consequence of their isolation, and the dull nature of their habits and occupations. In Paris, the mass of the population was Catholic, the dangerous classes being especially demonstrative in their orthodoxy. The progress of religious reform might have been more rapid but for certain peculiarities in the state of society, which made every innovation difficult. The guilds in the towns had their patron saints and annual festivals. If a man adopted the reformed faith, he must renounce these, and become a sort of outcast among his comrades, and perhaps the severest persecution he had to undergo was that he endured at the hands of his fellow-workmen. We all know how much this prevails in large factories and in trade unions among us: and it must have been incalculably worse at a time when the guilds were such close bodies that it was impossible to carry on a trade independently of them.

Henry II., like his father, cared little about the new doctrines, so long as they were confined to the learned and the well-born: but when they spread among the lower classes, he determined to punish heresy as worse than treason. His father’s edicts were carried out with great severity; but they were so far from producing the desired effect, that the Reform spread more and more. In order to hasten its extirpation, a new edict was issued (19th November, 1549), in which, after complaining that the bishops and their suffragans proceeded too slowly and tenderly—a statement which it is hard to accept—Henry established special chambers of Parliament for the trial and punishment of heresy only. It was a kind of lay inquisition, of which all the judges in the realm, both civil and ecclesiastical, were members ex officio. These were the famous chambres ardentes, so called, says Mezeray, “because they burned without mercy every one they convicted.” But the new edict appears to have had as little effect as its predecessors, for in the following month of February the king by letters patent reproached the judges for want of zeal “in discharging their duty in this holy and laudable work, so acceptable to God.” Finally the sanguinary edict of Chateaubriant[48] was issued (27th June, 1551), by which all the old laws on heresy were revised and codified. In the preamble, after recounting the efforts of his father as well as his own to suppress heresy, Henry declared that “the error went on increasing day by day and hour by hour;” that it was “like the plague, so contagious that in many large cities it had infected the majority of the inhabitants, men and women of every station, and even the little children had sucked in the poison;” and that he saw no hope of amendment except by employing the severest measures “to overcome the willfulness and obstinacy of that wretched sect, and to purge and clear the kingdom of them.” The magistrates were, therefore, ordered to search unceasingly for heretics, and to make domiciliary visits in quest of forbidden books (among which the Latin Bible of Robert Stephens was included).[49] This edict made denunciation a trade by giving the informer one-third of the heretic’s confiscated property, and farther enacted that a person acquitted of heresy in any ordinary court of justice might be again tried before an ecclesiastical tribunal, and vice versâ, thus depriving the poor Reformer of all chance of escape. Every suspected person was required to possess a certificate of orthodoxy, and even intercession on behalf of convicted heretics was made penal. These severities—though they were called “too lenient” by the pope—drove the Reformed to emigrate in such numbers in spite of all attempts to stop them, that a president of the Parliament of Bordeaux wrote to Montmorency expressing his alarm at seeing on the one hand the emigration increasing every day, and on the other the great progress made by Calvinism. But the king was not to be moved from his purpose. “In God’s cause,” he said, “every one should be ready to put his shoulder to the wheel.” A very proper sentiment, only we must be sure that the cause is of God. When the Parliament of Paris registered the edict of Chateaubriant, they compared Henry to Numa, “quod Numa primus condidit templum fidei.” The decree was carried out with extreme severity all over the kingdom, but particularly in Saumur, Lyons, Nîmes, Toulouse, Paris, Guyenne, Bresse, and Champagne.

In Poitou and Anjou the fires of persecution blazed fiercely. Of three pastors at Angers two were burned alive, and of the flock six were put to death, and thirty-four who fled were burned as they were caught. The Reformed meditated taking up arms in self-defense, but were strongly advised by Calvin not to do so, and they obeyed. But the trial of their endurance must have been severe; for so great was the terrorism toward the end of 1556 that the Reformed ceased from writing to one another, or if they wrote, directed their letters, “To the brethren whom we dare not name lest they should suffer harm.”

In other parts of France, especially in the south and centre, the Reformers suffered less. At Le Puy the discontent first showed itself in the destruction of a venerated crucifix during the Holy Week. The sacrilege was atoned for by a solemn procession. The shops were closed, all work ceased, the bells rang out noisily from the great belfry, and the priests in a long line climbed the steep and narrow streets of that gloomy-looking town, up that giant flight of one hundred and eighteen steps to the grand portal of the cathedral. On this lofty platform the procession halted—not to admire the wide prospect that now charms every traveler—but to chant the penitential psalms before entering that old grey temple. The bells, which had ceased their monotonous din during this solemn moment, now pealed out joyously. The priests took off the emblems of mourning which they had worn until this moment, and entered the cathedral, the citizens following, each man in his own guild. The very next night a similar outrage occurred, and as the real culprits could not be found, two men were burned for heresy, their tongues having been first torn out (July, 1552). But “justice” was not overprecise in its nomenclature in those days, for we find two thieves who stole a chalice put to death as heretics, and two coiners of base money suffered a like fate. In 1555 two “most rascally heretics” were burned to death in the midst of a pile of “pestilent books from Geneva.” Oh, those books! how tyranny and falsehood hate them!

Two years later a wretched pedlar was convicted of selling “the damnable writings of Calvin,” and his execution ordered to take place on one of the chief festivals of the Church—that of Corpus Christi. It was a bright morning in summer. The walls of the houses were hung with drapery and the windows filled with spectators, while the procession moved along more like a Roman triumph than a Christian celebration. Music led the way, the guilds followed with their insignia, next came the religious brotherhood with their banners, while troops of boys and girls, all dressed in white, scattered roses and burned incense. The clergy in their costliest robes followed next, escorting the Holy Sacrament, which the bishop held up to be seen and worshiped by all. Again came white-robed youths and maidens, and last of all the poor pedlar in a shirt of sacking. He was barefoot, carried a lighted taper in his hand, and the rope was round his neck. Every time the procession halted, the wretched man fell on his knees and made the amende honorable, according to the terms of his sentence. This long agony lasted five hours, until at length the martyr was committed to the fire.

After this the heretics of Velay, where this mournful tragedy had been enacted, grew bolder and began to assemble “in open day in fields, gardens, barns, no matter where.... Their preachers were butchers, brick-layers, publicans, and other venerable doctors of that sort,” says a contemporary manuscript. The populace jeered and hooted at them as they went to their meetings, and the Reformers retaliated by fastening rosaries to their dogs’ necks, and breaking the images of Our Lady, calling them “useless logs.” Sometimes the persons who thus insulted the established religion were discovered and punished, but heresy flourished nevertheless. The heretics banded together and entered into a covenant of mutual aid. They established a sort of benefit club, elected leaders, collectors, and treasurers, bought arms and ammunition, and kept themselves ready for all eventualities. The society numbered about four hundred—all resolute men, and strong enough to ensure freedom of worship—at least for a time.

Confiscations, imprisonment, and death having failed to purge the kingdom of heresy, the Cardinal of Lorraine suggested (in 1555) a new edict, by virtue of which all persons convicted of heresy by the ecclesiastical judges should be punished according to the magnitude of the crime without appeal, and proposed the appointment of Ory as “inquisitor of the faith in France;”[50] but bishops and Parliament alike protested against it. The magistrates were especially offended at having a court set over them, before which they were liable to be tried. President Seguier remonstrated to the Council in language worthy of the occasion: “We abhor the establishment of a tribunal of blood, where secret accusation takes the place of proof; where the accused is deprived of every natural means of defense, and where no judiciary form is respected. Commence, Sire, by giving the nation an edict which will not cover your kingdom with burning piles, or be wetted with the tears and blood of your faithful subjects.” He suggested that instead of employing fire and sword to establish and extend religion, they should try the same means that had been employed to found it, namely, “the revival of pure doctrine, combined with the exemplary lives of the clergy.” Henry received the advice courteously, and the edict was not enforced.

It might be supposed that there was little to choose between the Inquisition and the Chambres Ardentes; but the difference was vital. From the sentence of the Inquisition, which derived its authority from the Holy See, there could be no appeal. Its victims were handed over to the secular arm, and not even the king had power to come between them and death.[51] But it was a fundamental principle of the French law that the king alone, as supreme head of the state, had the power of life and death over the subjects of the state; and that all appeals should be heard and decided by lay judges.[52] In the next reign we shall find the great Chancellor L’Hôpital declaring the edict of Romorantin with all its harshness and restrictions to be more merciful than any copy of the Spanish tribunals of blood could be.

The cardinal was not a man to be daunted by this repulse, and in April, 1557, he procured a bull from Pius IV. ordering the establishment of an inquisitorial tribunal of which himself and the Cardinals of Bourbon and Chatillon were named directors, with authority to set up new courts of bishops and doctors of divinity, with full power to arrest, imprison, and put to death, without regard to rank or quality, all persons suspected of heresy. The king seems to have been as eager as the cardinal to obtain this bull, his embassador at Rome being ordered to press the matter as “the only means of extirpating false doctrine.”[53] The pope also sent Henry a sword and helmet as symbols of the war he had declared against heresy. We shall see ere long to what use the sword was put. Again the Parliament stood forward and resisted the establishment of the irresponsible tribunal. If their motives were selfish, their object was good, and farther proceedings were adjourned for a year. It is possible too that Henry yielded from opposition of another kind, having discovered that the new doctrines had made greater progress than he had imagined among the nobles, who were not the men to suffer patiently like poor scholars and mechanics. A certain amount of toleration was therefore conceded, until the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis made persecution an international duty.

Although the persecution never ceased in France during the reign of Henry II., there were intervals of reaction when the fires burned dim and the sword of the executioner hung idle on the wall. These were usually connected with the foreign policy of the government—a subject not within the scope of these pages. It may be sufficient to mention generally that as the basis of every diplomatic arrangement with the Pope, the Emperor, or the King of Spain, was the extirpation of heresy, so a certain toleration accorded to heretics was a means of showing dissatisfaction with one or all of those three powers. The furious outburst of persecution which occurred at the period we have now reached, may be partly traced to the changes that had taken place in foreign countries. Mary was fiercely persecuting her English subjects, Cranmer having atoned for his weaknesses by his heroic martyrdom in 1556; Philip II. had succeeded to the throne of Spain and re-enacted his father’s cruel edict of 1550; and Paul IV., the restorer of the Inquisition, sat in St. Peter’s chair. France was at war with Spain and had suffered many reverses; Francis, Duke of Guise, was unsuccessful in Italy, where Alva, as yet unstained by blood, was carrying all before him; while on the northern frontier the Constable Montmorency tried in vain to make head against the impetuous attacks of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, who commanded the Spanish troops in Flanders. Philibert laid siege to St. Quentin, where Admiral Coligny held out stubbornly against overwhelming odds. Montmorency marched to the relief of the city and re-enforced the garrison by 500 soldiers, under the command of Andelot, but suffered a bloody defeat (10th August, 1557) a few hours afterward, when his cavalry was routed and his infantry cut to pieces. He himself was wounded and made prisoner, along with Marshal St. André. So complete was the rout, so crushing the defeat—the severest that France had received since the battle of Agincourt—that the Parisians trembled lest the conqueror should appear before their gates. More than once has that beautiful city been spared by the procrastination of a victorious enemy, and the fear of driving a gallant nation to extremity. The fortress of St. Quentin fell on the 27th August, Coligny and his brother Andelot being made prisoners.

Such national disasters were regarded as a judgment from heaven, and the evangelicals were made the scape-goats. Priests went into the pulpit and inflamed the passions of their ignorant hearers by the coarsest vituperations. “God is punishing us,” they shouted, “because we have not avenged his honor,” and the populace yielding to the superstitious impulse caught up the cry.[54] They soon had an opportunity of putting into practice the lesson they had been taught. On the night of the 4th September, 1557,[55] a number of adherents of the new religion, amounting to three or four hundred, assembled at a private house in the suburbs on the left bank of the river for the purpose of united worship. The men belonged chiefly to the upper classes, and the women were of good families, some of them being ladies in attendance on the queen.[56] The service had been conducted in quiet, the Lord’s-supper administered, and the congregation was about to separate when they found the street—the Rue St. Jacques—blockaded by a furious mob bearing torches and armed with every weapon they could catch up. “Death to the traitors! down with the Lutherans!” they shouted, as they rushed to the door and tried to force an entrance. They were kept at bay by a few resolute gentlemen who, by their rank, were entitled to carry swords, while the women and the elders sought to escape through the garden which opened into the fields. But every outlet was guarded and all opportunity of flight cut off. What was to be done? Death, a horrible death at the hands of the mob, appeared imminent. The only chance of safety lay in seeking the protection of the magistrates before the city gates were opened, and all the ruffianism of Paris was let loose upon them. With this intent a few gallant gentlemen volunteered to attempt to reach the Hotel de Ville, the others remaining to guard the helpless women and old men. Suddenly the door of the house was thrown open and the desperate little band rushed out and cut its way through the crowd with the loss of only one of their number. Throughout the long night those left behind waited in trembling apprehension for the dawn. They prayed to God for support, and sometimes one of their number would read a consolatory chapter from the Bible, the yells of the populace frequently drowning the voice of the reader.

Day-light came at last, but it brought no relief. The doors were forced, and the unarmed worshipers would have been torn to pieces, when a detachment of the city guard arrived and took them off to prison, saving many of them for a still crueler death. As the helpless captives were dragged through the streets, the mob reviled and cast mud at them. On reaching the Châtelet, they were thrust into filthy dungeons from which the vilest criminals had been removed to make room for them; where the light of day hardly penetrated, and where “they could neither sit nor lie down, they were so crowded.”[57]

The Reformed Church of Paris was in a pitiable state, so many of its members being in peril of their lives. Extraordinary prayers were offered up in every family for the delivery of the martyrs, and a remonstrance drawn up by the elders was presented to the king, who put it aside unnoticed. But (strange to say!) there was no eager haste to punish the prisoners any farther, the example of their seizure having frightened many back to orthodoxy. But orthodox agitators were busily at work to keep up the popular excitement and prevent the escape of the captives. The heretics and all who would shelter them were vehemently denounced from the pulpit, and inflammatory placards were stuck on every wall. A verse from one of these, posted all over Paris on Christmas day, 1557, will show the style in which the popular fury was stirred against the “Lutherans.”

When the excitement had abated, and the affair was almost forgotten, the prisoners of the Rue St. Jacques were brought to trial. Their lives were forfeited by the mere fact of their presence at an unlawful assembly, and the alternative of recantation or death was presented to them; but they would not yield an inch. They found that man’s weakness was God’s strength.

Among the captives was Philippa de Lunz, a woman of good family, a widow, and only twenty-two years old. She was interrogated several times, but her answers were such as to destroy all hope of pardon. On the 27th September, 1558, more than a year after her imprisonment, she was led out to death, in company with Nicholas Clinet or Clivet, a school-master, and Taurin Gravelle, an advocate, both elders in the Reformed Church. Before they were placed in the tumbrel that was to carry them to the stake in the Place Maubert, they were to have their tongues cut out, to prevent their praying aloud or addressing the people on the road to death. The two men suffered this cruel mutilation without a groan. Turning to Philippa, the executioner roughly bade her put out her tongue. She did so immediately. Even he was struck by her intrepidity: “Come! that’s well, truande,” he said; “you are not afraid then?” “As I do not fear for my body,” she replied, “why should I fear for my tongue?” The knife flashed an instant before her eyes and her tongue fell to the ground. She was then thrust into the cart at the feet of her two companions and bound to the same chain. Before leaving the prison she had taken off her widow’s weeds and put on the best garments left her, saying: “Why should I not rejoice? I am going to meet my husband.”

Around a pile of faggots in the Place Maubert there had collected all that was vilest in Paris, dancing and calling out for blood, just as some two hundred years later a similar mob danced round the victims of the guillotine. The king is said to have been a spectator of the horrible scene that followed. It was Philippa’s fate to look on while her two companions were burned to death—to witness their horrible convulsions, and hear the shrieks which the mounting flames extorted from them. But even this did not shake her faith, which found support in earnest prayer. And now her turn had come; the executioners roughly seized her with their strong arms, shamefully tearing her clothes, and held her over the hot ashes until her feet were burned to the bone. Then with a horrible refinement of cruelty the savage torturers hung her head-downward in the fire, until the scalp was burned off and her eyes scorched out. After that she was strangled, and heaven received another saint.

A few days later four more of the prisoners suffered death at the same place. One of them, as he opened the shutter of his cell on the morning of his execution, that he might behold the sunrise once more, exclaimed: “How glorious it will be when we are exalted above all this.”

One of Calvin’s noblest letters was written at this time to the prisoners still remaining in the Châtelet, and more particularly to the women, whom he exhorted to imitate the strength and faith of Madame de Lunz: “If men are weak and easily troubled,” he said, “the weakness of your sex is still greater, according to the order of nature. But God, that worketh in weak vessels, will show forth his strength in the infirmity of his people.... He who sets us in the battle supplies us from time to time with the necessary arms, and gives us skill to use them.... Consider how great were the excellences and firmness of the women at the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the apostles had forsaken him, they still remained by him with marvelous constancy, and a woman was his messenger to inform them of his resurrection, which they could neither believe nor understand. If he so honored them at that time and gave them such excellence, do you think he has less power now, or that he has changed his mind?” Calvin showed that his was not a barren sympathy by making every effort to induce the cantons of Berne and Zurich and the German princes to intercede in behalf of the poor prisoners. Their intercession prevailed to save such as remained alive. The doors of the Châtelet were thrown open: the younger prisoners were transferred to monasteries from which they easily escaped; while others obtained a full pardon after making an ambiguous confession of faith before the bishop’s officers. Pope Paul IV. complained bitterly of this moderation, and declared that he was not astonished at the bad state of affairs in France, now that the king trusted more in the support of heretics than in the protection of heaven.[58]

Not only did the severe measures we have described fail of their effect, after the first alarm had passed away, but the reformed doctrines made so many new converts that Beza, writing to his friend Bullinger about this time, declared “that the king must either destroy entire cities, or make some concession to the truth.”[59] The severity exercised upon the martyrs of the Rue St. Jacques had overleaped itself. A contemporary historian and a Romanist says, that such mournful sights disturbed many simple souls, who could not forbear thinking that the men and women who could undergo such tortures with calmness and resolution must have truth on their side, and he adds with touching simplicity, “They could not contain their tears, their hearts wept as well as their eyes.”[60]

The summer of 1558 witnessed a singular protest against the persecuting and obstructive policy of the Church. It assumed a form, and was carried out with a pertinacity and a malice peculiarly French. Clement Marot, the earliest of French poets and a favorite of the late king, had translated some of the Psalms of David into verse, which immediately became popular. They sold faster than they could be printed. Francis I. quoted them on his dying-bed,[61] and by his order the translator had presented a copy of his first series of thirty to Charles V., who rewarded him for it and pressed him to continue it.[62] The ladies and gentlemen of the French court took a strange delight in singing them, but not always to the most appropriate tunes. The martyrs of Meaux had sung them at the stake. Henry II., when dauphin, was fond of singing them; and on one occasion, when recovering from an illness, he had them chanted to him by his choristers, with the accompaniment of “lutes, viols, spinnets, and flutes.” His favorite was the 128th Psalm: Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord, which he is reported to have set to music. Catherine had her favorite: O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger; that of Diana of Poitiers was the solemn De Profundis (Ps. 120). The King of Navarre selected the 43d: Judge me, O Lord; and even Charles IX., at a much later period, used to repeat, As pants the hart; probably because of its allusion to the chase. The Protestants of France sang them at all times, and as neither the music nor the words could be condemned as heretical,[63] they were sung when no other mode of divine worship was practicable. Thus when the citizens took their evening walk in the Pré aux Clercs,[64] the Hyde Park of those days, some student or Reformer would strike up one of Marot’s Psalms, in which they would all join. Many may have done this out of pure bravado, but others out of love for the truths they contained. The King and Queen of Navarre were fond of that pleasant promenade by the river-side, and took delight in listening to this multitudinous singing.

These things cease to move us now, not because we are less religious, but because we are less demonstrative, and there is no opposition to force us into an external display of our faith. There have always been occasions when large bodies of men have tried to conceal or perhaps to alleviate their excitement by singing. Cromwell’s troopers thundered out a Psalm as they marched up the breach at Dunkirk, and the Girondins sang the Marseillaise as they stood at the foot of the guillotine.

But there was something more than this in the sudden popularity which Marot’s Psalms acquired among all classes. It was the revival of an old Christian custom; it popularized a new mode of worship. In the earlier and purer days of the Church, singing had been congregational; but it had long since become the business of priest and chorister solely. The old tunes had grown obsolete, and airs wedded to mundane songs had been introduced into the Church service. “The Miserere is chanted to a jig-tune,” said a Catholic writer. Other influences, many of them sacerdotal, were at work to widen the interval between the priest and his flock—to reduce public worship into a sort of theatrical performance in which he and his colleagues were the actors, and the others the spectators and listeners. But if the people did not sing at church, there is ample evidence that they sang at home; and it is probably owing to this circumstance that we possess so many partsongs in our old music-books. It is one of the glories of the Reformation that it gave a religious character to these songs. Luther and Calvin both saw how music might be employed to advance the truth, and neglected no opportunity of recommending the study of singing. Luther had but a poor opinion of a school-master who could not sing, and ranked music next to theology. “It has been commanded unto all men,” he said, “to propagate the word of God by every possible means, not merely by speech, but by writing, painting, sculpture, psalms, songs, and musical instruments.” He composed many tunes: these and the chorales of Senfel penetrated into France, and German airs form the basis of a large part of the French hymnal. Calvin took no less pains at Geneva, and the tunes composed by his desire were distributed by thousands, each part being printed separately to facilitate their execution. Even Catholics were to be found using these Protestant scores—a practice which Florimond de Remond, the historian of heresy, bitterly condemns: “The wise world—stupidly wise in this—which judges of things by outward appearance only, praised this kind of amusement, not seeing that under this chant, or rather new enchantment, a thousand pernicious novelties crept into their souls.”[65] The time came, however, when even psalm-singing was interdicted. At Bourges, in April, 1559, the Reformed began to hold open-air meetings, similar to those at Paris, to the great annoyance of the orthodox, who caused proclamation to be made forbidding the singing of Psalms under pain of death, and a gibbet was erected, in terrorem, in the middle of the promenade (the Pré Fichault); but even that grim monitor failed to terrify the Reformers into submission. In the Velay, the opposition was equally determined. The very day an order was issued forbidding the people to sing the Psalms of that “sacrilegious apostate,” Marot, the heretics, “fearing neither God, pope, king, law, nor justice, sang them all the louder.”[66]

Meanwhile both France and Spain had grown weary of the war, and a treaty of peace was concluded at Cateau-Cambresis (3d April, 1559), France agreeing to give up all her conquests. Indeed that country was exhausted, and her treasury empty, and there was little hope that the people would submit to additional taxation. Philip II. on his part was equally glad to put an end to hostilities, which prevented him from turning his attention to the progress of heresy in the Low Countries. The treaty was regarded by the Reformers as “disgraceful and injurious to the kingdom,” and with our subsequent knowledge we may add, full of danger to the Reformers themselves. During the negotiations, which lasted from January to April, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine had sought a private interview with the Spanish Minister Granvelle, Bishop of Arras, at Peronne, in which they expressed their devotion to Spain, and entered into a league for the extirpation of heresy in Navarre, France, and the Netherlands.[67] What after-thought there may have been in the cardinal’s mind is uncertain, but he had probably hoped for the support of Spain in the ambitious views of his family upon the crown of France.

The treaty had been concluded in opposition to the advice of the Guises, who consequently fell into disgrace at court, while the constable triumphed. Henry seems, indeed, never to have liked the Lorraine family, and his feeling toward them is strongly marked in a letter he wrote to Montmorency, then a prisoner: “I have been constrained to create the Duke of Guise lieutenant-general; also affairs have now compelled me to conclude the marriage of the dauphin with the duke’s niece (Mary Stuart), and likewise to do many other things. Time, however, m’en fera raison.”[68] By the treaty the Cardinal of Lorraine lost three sees, and he swore to be avenged of Montmorency and the admiral. In this he so far succeeded, with the help of Diana of Potiers, who worked upon the king by stories of the increase of heresy, that the persecution which had been suspended by the war (except in the affair of the Rue St. Jacques), broke out again, and was conducted with more regularity.

The Parliament of France was originally, like the Parliament of England, a national council with functions both legislative and judicial.[69] In the course of time a separation of classes and powers took place: in England the judicial power fell into disuse, and the Parliament became a mere legislative body; in France, the Parliament lost its legislative authority, and subsided into a high court of justice of last resort, and a court of revenue. It consisted of a fixed number of churchmen, lay peers, and councillors—all equal in voice and authority. Each province had its independent Parliament, over which that of Paris asserted, but was rarely able to enforce, its authority. In the early days of the new religious movement, the Parliament of Paris was hardly less hostile than the Sorbonne to the new doctrines; but as time rolled on and the principles of the Reform were better known, the Parliament became divided in opinion. As in all similar bodies, there were three parties: those who sympathized with the religious reform movement, those who were opposed to it, and those who, either from policy or coldness of temper, floated between the two. To this party belonged the elder De Thou, Harlay, and Seguier, all members of the Tournelle. On the last Wednesday in April, 1559, Bourdin, the king’s proctor-general, made a proposition that as the laws were enforced so irregularly—the Grand Chamber burning heretics implacably, the Tournelle only banishing them, to the great scandal of justice—the two courts should come to some arrangement by which uniformity of action would be insured. Each judge gave his opinion, and there was naturally great diversity of sentiment. Arnauld du Ferrier proposed the convocation of a general council for the settlement of all religious controversies, and that in the mean time all measures against the Reformed should be suspended. This learned lawyer, like many others of his day, not only did not appear to contemplate the possibility of the Romish and the Reformed religions existing quietly side by side in France, but thought the differences between the two were so trifling that union might be restored by a few mutual concessions. Arnauld’s proposal was supported by a majority of the meeting,[70] and, among others, by Anthony Fumée, whose father and grandfather had filled the highest judicial offices. He not only vindicated the Calvinistic interpretation of the doctrine of the Lord’s-supper, but advised an address to the king, praying him to summon a general council, in which all erroneous doctrines should be exposed, and all heresies condemned; and that the persecution of those who held heterodox opinions upon secondary points should cease. The matter began to look so serious that the Duchess of Valentinois urged Henry II. “to hang half a dozen at least of the councillors as heretics,” and show Spain (with whom the marriage-treaty between Philip II. and Isabella was going on) that he was firm in the faith, and would not tolerate heresy. The Cardinal of Lorraine strongly advised a similar course; while Marshal Vieilleville tried to dissuade the king: “Sire,” he said, “if you think of going to play the theologian or inquisitor, we must get the cardinal to come and teach us how to hold our lances in the tournament.”[71] But the churchman prevailed; not, however, until the king was threatened with the anger of God if he refused a Mercurial against those free-thinking lawyers. These Mercurials were assemblies of the Parliament held on Wednesday (dies Mercurii), at which the members of that body were censured for any thing they might have done contrary to their dignity or duty. The word was afterward extended to the censure or judgment itself. On the 15th June, 1559, “after dinner” (about noon) Henry, attended by the Cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, unexpectedly entered the great hall of the Augustines’ convent, where the sittings of Parliament were temporarily held, just as the councillors were discussing the means of settling a uniform jurisprudence in heretical matters.[72] After taking his seat, the king said: “I desire to secure the repose of my kingdom, and the maintenance of religion. Having concluded a peace abroad, I will not have it disturbed at home by religious disorders. For this reason I am come among you, that I may hear what is your opinion about the present religious differences, and know why you have not carried out my edicts constraining the judges to condemn all Lutherans to death.” Undismayed by the king’s presence, the moderate party defended what they had done. Louis du Faur acknowledged that the present troubles were caused by religion, but he added: “We must trace them back to their source, lest we be exposed to the reproach the prophet Elijah made to King Ahab: ‘I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house.’” Anne du Bourg was equally bold in his language: “There are certain crimes,” he said, “that deserve to be punished without mercy; such are adultery, blasphemy, and perjury, which are countenanced daily by men of disorderly life and infamous amours. But of what do men accuse those who are handed over to the executioner? of treason?... They never omit the name of the king from their prayers. What revolt have they headed? what sedition have they stirred up? What! because they have discovered, by the light of Holy Scripture, the great vices and the scandalous offenses of the Roman Church—because they have petitioned for a reform: is that an offense worthy of the stake?” The king trembled with anger, but listened with pleasure to the first president, Gilles le Maistre, who advised him to treat the new sectarians as the Albigenses had been treated by Philip Augustus, who burned six hundred of them in one day; and the Vaudois by Francis I., who killed them in their own houses, or stifled them in the caverns to which they had fled for refuge.[73] Henry closed the sitting by reprimanding the judges for their laxness in administering the laws against heresy, and ordered Du Faur and Du Bourg to be arrested—the first for having spoken of Ahab, the second for condemning adultery, both of which the king applied to himself. Montgomery, captain of the royal archers, seized the two lawyers and conveyed them to the Bastille. This was the same Montgomery who was shortly to be the innocent cause of Henry’s death, and some years later to die on the scaffold as a heretic and traitor. The two prisoners were put into separate dungeons, and denied the use of paper, ink, and books, or communication with their friends. The king, unwilling to leave them to be tried before an ordinary tribunal, appointed a commission to hear and condemn them, unless they retracted, and swore he would have them burned before his eyes.

Du Bourg’s arrest was not a solitary act of persecution. By the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, Henry and Philip had bound themselves to maintain the Catholic worship inviolate, to assemble a general council, and to extinguish heresy in their respective dominions.[74] To William of Orange, rightly surnamed the Taciturn, then a hostage for the due execution of the treaty, the king imparted the secret of these negotiations with the King of Spain.[75] William listened, but held his peace, and it was probably his knowledge of this projected massacre—delayed for thirteen years—that converted him into the liberator of the Netherlands.

The violence with which the storm of persecution raged may be conceived from a few isolated examples. The edicts were enforced with such vigor that the Reformed feared to meet in groups of more than twenty or thirty at a time. In some places they ceased altogether to assemble, or else they met in the woods and fields, in caves and quarries. Great mystery was used in summoning the faithful together. On the evenings when there was to be a sermon, a man would go through the streets and whistle the signal. If there was reason to fear the watch or patrol, the summoner carried a lantern of a peculiar form, and passed along without uttering a word. The worshipers crept muffled up to the place assigned, where they sang in a suppressed voice one of Marot’s Psalms, prayed, and then separated, often without any sermon. It was this meeting by night which gave a substance to the licentious and calumnious stories told of the Reformed.[76]

The Parliament of Bordeaux received instructions to hold the “grand jours,” or special assize, at Saintes, not that they might listen to the grievances of the people, as was the ancient custom, but to operate on a large scale against heresy. When all the prisons in Saintonge were crammed, the rest of the heretics were sent to Bordeaux. In order to remove the odium under which they labored, the Reformers of France resolved to draw up a confession of their faith, and lay it before the king, begging Anthony of Navarre, Governor of Guienne, to present it, adding that they were prepared, if necessary, “one and all to seal their faith with their blood.” But Anthony objected, and like a true man of the world as he always was, advised them to keep quiet and let the storm blow over. It was in circumstances such as these—in the “midst of burning piles, and gibbets erected in every corner of the city”—that the first Protestant synod met in Paris (May, 1559), and continued sitting four days. Francis Morel, sire of Collonges, a gentleman by birth, and now pastor of the metropolitan church, was their president. Not more than a dozen provincial churches—there is a slight discrepancy in the numbers—sent deputies; but, being earnest men, they soon succeeded in giving French Protestantism the organization which it has preserved, with few trifling exceptions, until the present day. The church in Paris had been the first to organize itself with pastor, elders, and deacons,[77] and the example was speedily followed by many provincial cities; but these churches were all isolated, and it was felt that by uniting into one body, they would be stronger against their enemies, as well as richer in the divine graces.

In thus assembling together the deputies carried their lives in their hands, for, by an edict then in force, all preachers found in the kingdom were to be put to death. But, undeterred by peril, they drew up a Confession of Faith and a Book of Discipline, each consisting of forty articles. In the former the doctrine of non-resistance was laid down with a thoroughness somewhat startling. Thus the fortieth article says: “We must obey the laws and ordinances, pay tribute, tax, and other dues, and bear the yoke of subjection with good and hearty will, even should the magistrates be infidels.... Furthermore, we detest those who would reject superiorities, set up a community of goods, and overthrow the order of justice.” The synod clenched these doctrines by reference to Matthew xvii. 24, and Acts vi. 17–19. Calvin’s opinions on this point are briefly shown in one of his sermons delivered three or four years later: “All principalities are types of the kingdom of Jesus Christ; we must hold them precious, and pray God to make them prosper.”[78] Yet the ecclesiastical constitution which he drafted was entirely republican in form, every thing being made to depend upon the votes of the people, who elected a consistory (or kirk-session), which chose the pastor, whose final appointment rested on the decision of the congregation. A certain number of churches formed a conference or presbytery which met twice a year, and in which each church was represented by the pastor and one elder. These presbyteries united into provincial synods, and above them all presided a general assembly, the supreme court of legislation and appeal, composed of two pastors and two elders from each provincial synod.

There can be little doubt that this organization of the Reformed churches added another element of strife to the contest between the two religions. The Romish clergy naturally abhorred it, as a sign of the increasing power and boldness of the Reformed party; while the statesmen of the day could not but look upon it with suspicion as a sort of imperium in imperio—a dangerous rival to the civil power, and savoring of rebellion, inasmuch as it ignored the headship alike of pope and king, acknowledging that of God alone. Men did not take the trouble to examine closely into the causes of their dislike: they felt instinctively that such an organization proclaimed the sovereignty of the people, and that the doctrine might easily be extended from spiritual to temporal matters. The subsequent history of the chief Calvinistic churches shows that this instinctive hatred was not altogether unreasonable. In Switzerland and Holland, in England and in North America, wherever this organization has been able to control the political power, a republic has followed. These are indeed the parts of the world where liberty flourishes most, and for this noble fruit we may well love the tree that bore it; but in the sixteenth century, the tendency of society was toward despotism, not toward self-government; and the statesmen of Europe must be excused if they were not clear-sighted enough to see that the new movement must inevitably succeed, or wise enough to become the leaders and controllers of the popular feelings. And so far it may be doubted whether Calvin’s influence in France was altogether for good, and whether the Reformed Church would not have struck deeper root in that country, if its organization had been less antagonistic. By separating itself entirely from antiquity, it risked a doubtful good for a certain evil. As church-government is not a matter of faith but of discipline, those have much to answer for who array Christians in hostile ranks on a secondary matter.

The news of this synod and the merciful tendency of the Parliament inflamed Henry’s orthodoxy to such an extent that he issued an edict (June, 1559) more terrible even than those which had gone before. It was dated from Ecouen, a castle belonging to the constable, and situated about four leagues north of Paris. By that decree all convicted Lutherans were to be punished with death—instant and without the chance of remission. It was registered by all the Parliaments without any limitation or modification whatsoever, and the judges were forbidden, under severe penalties, to diminish the pains of the edict, as they had lately been in the habit of doing. Such terrible powers could scarcely have failed completely to eradicate heresy, if they had been carried out as Henry II. intended they should be. But there was a providence watching over France, by which the religionists were unexpectedly saved from the jaws of the lion.

One of the regulations of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis was that Philip II.—now a widower through the death of Mary of England in the preceding November—should marry Henry’s sister, Elizabeth of Valois, then just turned of thirteen. The betrothal was to take place at Paris, and thither came the Duke of Alva, attended by a numerous suite of nobles and gentlemen. Even at such a time, when we might suppose the king entirely occupied with nuptial festivities—for his sister Margaret was also to be married—he proposed a crusade against Geneva, “that sink of all corruption,”[79] and, but a few hours before his death, he had given Montgomery instructions about an expedition on a grand scale into the Pays de Caux for the extermination of the Reformed. But the finger of God was upon him.

On the 26th June,[80] the Spanish marriage was celebrated, the Duke of Alva acting as proxy for Philip II. Magnificent rejoicings followed the ceremony, and a tournament was held in the lists erected at the end of the Rue St. Antoine. It must have been a grand sight, that old historic street. In front of the palace of the Tournelles stood a gallery in which sat the youthful Queen of Spain under a canopy of blue silk, ornamented with the device of her husband whom she had not yet seen. Around her were grouped men destined to become famous in history: Alva, the Prince of Orange, and Count Egmont. Catherine sat in a gallery apart, with Mary Stuart on her right, and Margaret, affianced to the Duke of Savoy, on her left. The king had declared his intention of entering the lists, in order to display his skill before the Spanish grandees. As if foreseeing evil, the queen besought him to forego the dangerous pastime; but, confident in himself, he only laughed at her fears. After two successful encounters with the Dukes of Savoy and Guise, he challenged Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery. De Lorges was captain of Henry’s Scotch guard, and had been sent to Scotland by Francis I. in 1545, in command of the troops dispatched to the assistance of the queen-regent Mary of Guise. In the first course the advantage lay with the count, and the king, chafed by such a partial discomfiture, challenged him to try another turn. The queen and Marshal de Vieilleville entreated him to be satisfied, and Montgomery declined a second encounter. But Henry would take no refusal. Once more they met; their lances were shivered, but both retained their seats. Again the trumpets sounded, again they spurred their horses, when Montgomery’s lance struck the king’s helmet, knocked off the plume, and snapped in two, a splinter from the lower portion of the shaft entering his right eye. There was a loud shriek from the royal gallery, which for a moment distracted the attention of the spectators from the king, who had lost all command over his horse, and was reeling in his saddle. The attendants were hardly quick enough to save him from falling to the ground. His helmet was loosed and the splinter pulled out. It was “of a good bigness,” says the English embassador, who was an eye-witness.[81] “Nothing else was done to him upon the field; but I noted him to be very weak, and to have the feeling of all his limbs almost benumbed; for being carried away as he lay along, nothing covered but his face, he moved neither hand nor foot, but lay as one amazed. There was marvelous great lamentation made for him, and weeping of all sorts, both men and women.” The wound proved more serious than Throckmorton had imagined: Henry never left his bed again. Twice he received the last sacraments of the Church, and calling for his son Francis, “commended the Church and the people to his care.” After an interval of repose—for the exertion of uttering these few words was almost too great for him—he added: “Above all things, remain steadfast in the true faith.”[82] Henry II. died on the 10th of July, leaving behind him four sons, three of whom wore the crown of France. He also left three daughters and a bastard son, Henry of Angoulême, who cruelly distinguished himself at the massacre of St. Bartholomew.