Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/304

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288 L A N L A N

infant baptism, respect for churches, the worship of the cross, transubstantiation, and prayers for the dead. His follower, Henry the Deacon, most eloquent of preachers, denied a great deal more. Wherever he taught he left deserted churches and contempt for the clergy. Although Bernard himself was invited to lend his persuasive powers to restore the cause of the church, he succeeded for a time only. Toulouse, for instance, was brought back to ortho doxy; yet when the great preacher went away the citizens relapsed. Again, there. were the poor men of Lyons, the followers of Peter Waldo, of whom there were many in Languedoc; and there were the Manichæans, under the name of Puritans, Paterines, or Populars. In Languedoc and Provence the ground was ready for the seed of heresy. The towns were wealthy and free, the people had been in continual intercourse with Saracens of Palestine and Moors in Spain they had never entirely rid themselves of pagan customs; their poetry taught the joys of life rather than the fear of death; their restless inquiring minds prompted them to ask whether there were any other solution of the problem of life than that offered by the church. The whole province – the county of Toulouse, with its fiefs of Narbonne, Beziers, Foix, Montpellier, and Quercy – was in open and scornful secession. It seems incredible, but it is doubtless true, that the churches were universally deserted, sacraments denied, and clergy despised. The history cf the crusade, in the reign of Raymond VI., against the heretics of Languedoc contains every element of cruelty and horror. The count made haste to submit, but it was of no avail. Bishops, papal legates, and ecclesiastics of all ranks headed the vast armies which were gathered together against the freethinkers. All the cities, one after the other, the castles, and the strongholds of Languedoc were taken by the crusaders. Raymond was made to submit to the lowest abasement; the country was wasted; the people were destroyed by fire and sword. When all was over, when Raymond and Simon de Montfort were dead, and King Louis VIII. had led a vast army of conquest through the country, the council of Toulouse was held, in order to subject the people to total spiritual submission. They chose the method, which seems so easy but is so difficult, of universal espionage and delation. They succeeded in enforcing apparent submission: but the spirit of religious freedom lingered among the people, and yet survives, for nearly half the Protestants in France belong to the south. The pacification of Languedoc was completed by the annexation of the county to the crown of France. In 1229 Count Raymond VII. renounced his claim to seven provinces, and swore fealty to the king.

Languedoc had, for two centuries, no other history apart from that of France. The long wars with the English affected the country little. The province, comparatively safe from war, continued to increase and prosper in wealth. When it begins again to have a history of its own, it appears to be the home of the most bigoted orthodoxy. The university of Toulouse burns a professor, Caturce, for supposed heresy, and exiles a scholar, Dolet, for daring to sympathize with him. At the east of the province, however, Rabelais, who carries with him an atmosphere of free thought, is lecturing and dissecting; and in the west of the province Gerard Roussel is already preaching the doctrines of a purer faith. In the wars of religion, the great recruiting ground of Coligny was in those southern provinces against which Simon de Montfort had led his crusade. The insurrection of the Camisards belongs to the history of Languedoc, but the struggle was confined to the north part of the province. The pacification by Villars and the duke of Berwick, the horrible cruelties practised upon the people, and the singular story of Cavalier are noticed elsewhere.

A special interest attaches to the history of two towns, at least, of Languedoc. Both Montpellier and Toulouse present very remarkable features of interest to the student of municipal histories. The literature of the country is the literature called after its neighbour PROVENCE (q.v.). Probably no great future remains for the literature of a dialect slowly dying out, yet examples have not been wanting of late to prove that there is still vitality in the language of the people. (W. BE.)

LANGUET, Hubert (1518-1581), diplomatist, and one of the boldest political writers of the 16th century, was born in 1518 at Viteaux, near Autun in Burgundy, where his father held a good official position. He early manifested an inclination for study, and his tastes were encouraged by able masters; at Poitiers he devoted him self not only to law but also to natural science, history, politics, and theology. On leaving that university, after a sojourn at Leipsic, where he became the friend of Camerarius, he visited Padua and Bologna, and saw many other parts of Italy. Having been introduced in the course of his Italian journey to the Loci Theologici of Melanchthon, he in 1549 set out for Wittenberg to make the acquaintance of that author, and thus originated a friendship which terminated only with the death of the latter in 1560. Between 1551 and 1557 Languet travelled extensively in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Lapland, and in 1559 he entered the diplomatic service of the elector of Saxony, where he remained until his death. During the greater part of this period he was employed chiefly in negotiations with France and in the interest of the Huguenots. He was present in Paris on St Bartholomew's Day (1572), and was the means of saving his friends Wechel the printer, and Duplessis-Mornay; but his efforts drew on him the attention of the mob, and he himself in turn became indebted for his life to the chancellor Morvilliers. From 1573 to 1576 his mission lay chiefly at the imperial court; here he gained the acquaintance and ultimately the close friendship of Sir Philip Sidney. About 1578 he went to Ghent on the invitation of John Casimir, whom he accompanied to England, and the rest of his days he spent chiefly in the Low Countries, watching the course of political events. There seems to be no ground, however, for the assertion that in 1577 he had resigned his connexion with the court of Saxony, and formally attached himself to the prince of Orange. Languet died at Antwerp on September 30, 1581.


His correspondence with Augustus of Saxony (three hundred and twenty-nine letters, from November 17, 1565 to September 8, 1581) and with Mordeisen, the chancellor of the duchy (one hundred and eleven letters, from November 1559 to the summer of 1565), were published by Ludovicus at Halle in 1699 under the title Arcana sæculi XVI. Huberti Langueti Epistolæ politicæ et historicæ ad Philip. Sydnæum (ninety-six letters, from April 22, 1573 to October 28, 1580) appeared at Frankfort in 1633, and have since been reprinted. Langueti Epistolæ, ad Joach. Camerarium, patrem et filium (one hundred and eight letters) were published by L. Camerarius at Groningen in 1646. The Historica Descriptio of the siege and capture (1567) of Gotha appeared in 1568. The work by which Languet is best known is pseudonymous, and its authorship has not been undisputed. It is entitled Vindiciæ contra tyrannos, sive de principis in populum populique in principem legiuima potestate, Stephano Junio Bruto Celta auctore, and bears to have been published at Edinburgh in 1579. By Edinburgh is most probably to be understood Basel. A French translation appeared in 1581; the original has been frequently reprinted, most recently at Leipsic in 1846. The work, which discusses with much freedom various points connected with the then familiar doctrine of passive obedience, attracted much attention, but its author was very successful in concealing the somewhat dangerous secret of his identity. It has been attributed to Beza, Hotman, Casaubon, and Duplessis-Mornay, by divers writers on various grounds – to the last-named on the very respectable authority of Grotius. The grounds on which Bayle (who has been followed almost unanimously by later writers) assigned it to Languet will be found in the form of a supplement to the Dictionnaire. The Apologie ou défence de Guillaume, Prince d'Orange, contre le ban et