166 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS cution throughout the land with unrelenting and strenuous ferocity, we feel that if ever the right of self-defence can make an appeal to arms justifiable, it was so in their instance. Extermination or apostasy formed the only choice that their nik-rs offered them. Mackintosh, in his " History of the English Revolution of 1688," has truly termed the question of when subjects are justified in making war on their sovereign, " a tremendous problem." But the same admirable writer has bequeathed to us a full and luminous code of the rules and principles of immutable morality, by which this awful issue must be tried, and no one who is familiar with these principles can hesitate in pronouncing that the war on the part of the French Huguenots was lawful and laudable before God and man. Coligni is peculiarly free from the heavy imputation, which insurrectionary leaders incur, however great their provocation, who introduce the appeal of battle in civil controversy, and, to use the emphatic language of Milton, " let loose the sword of intestine war, soaking the land in her own gore," before every other possible mode of obtaining protection from further enormous wrong has been attempted, and attempted in vain. He was wholly unconnected with the enterprise (known in French history as the conspiracy of Amboise) by which some of the Protestant chiefs designed to withdraw the young king, Fran- cis II., forcibly from the influence of the Guises, and which may be considered the first overt act of insurrection. Not that Conde" is to be condemned for that effort, but the Admiral's exceeding loyalty is proved by his having kept aloof from it. Coligni continued to seek security for his co-religionists by peaceable means, for two years after that unsuccessful enterprise, from the savage reprisals of the Court upon its authors. He seemed at one time to be successful in his blameless exertions ; and in the Assembly of Notables, held in January, 1562, an edict was issued, called the " Edict of Pacification," giving a partial toleration of the Protestant creed, and suspending all penal proceedings on the ground of re- ligion. This was all that Coligni strove for. He said at the time to some of his ad- herents : " If we have our religion, what do we want more ? " But those who had made this concession were treacherous as they were cruel, and the fair prom- ise which France seemed to have acquired of tranquillity was destined to be soon destroyed. Tvo powerful parties were arrayed against the Huguenots, one of which con- sisted of their avowed and implacable enemies. This was headed by the Guises, with whom the Constable Montmorenci, and the Marechal St. Andre" had been induced to enter into league. Less fanatically violent, but far more formidable, through its false show of moderation and favor, was the party of the Queen- mother, Catherine de Medici. Catherine dreaded the power of the house of Guise ; and was often glad to avail herself of the Protestant interest as a coun- terpoise against them. But though the jealousy which animated herself and her sons against the Princes of -Lorraine was great, their hatred of the Huguenots was greater ; and their occasional simulation of friendship enabled them to wreak it more malignantly and more completely.
