HUGUENOTS
532
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
