History of the Rise of the Huguenots. Baird Henry Martyn

and deformed in person, he was a general favorite; for he was amiable, witty, and talkative.306 Moreover, he was fond of pleasure to an extent that attracted notice even in that giddy court, and as open to temptation as any of its frivolous denizens.307 For such persons Catharine knew how to lay snares. Never did queen surround herself with more brilliant enticements for the unwary. Her maids of honor were at once her spies and the instruments of accomplishing her designs. As she had had a fair Rouhet to undermine the constancy of Antoine, so she had now an Isabeau de Limueil to entrap his younger brother. Nor did Catharine's device prove unsuccessful. Condé became involved in an amorous intrigue that shook the confidence of his Huguenot friends in his steadfastness and sincerity; while the silly girl whom the queen had encouraged in a course that led to ruin, as soon as her shame became notorious, was ignominiously banished from court – for no one could surpass Catharine in the personation of offended modesty.308 Yet, notwithstanding a disgraceful fall which proved to the satisfaction of a world, always sufficiently sceptical of the depth of religious convictions, that ambition had much more to do with the prince's conduct than any sense of duty, Condé was not wholly lost to right feelings. The tears and remonstrances of his wife – the true-hearted Éléonore de Roye – dying of grief at his inconstancy, are said to have wrought a marked change in his character.309 From that time Catharine's power was gone. In vain did she or the Guises strive to gain him over to the papal party by offering him, in second marriage, the widow of Marshal Saint André, with an ample dower that might well dazzle a prince of the blood with but a beggarly appanage;310 or even by proposing to confer upon him the hand of the yet blooming Queen of Scots,311 the Prince of Condé remained true to the cause he had espoused till his blood stained the fatal field of Jarnac.

      Huguenot progress.

      But while the queen mother was plying the great with her seductions, while the Roman Catholic leaders were artfully instilling into the minds of the people the idea that the Edict of Amboise was only a temporary expedient,312 while royal governors, or their lieutenants, like Damville – the constable's younger son – at Pamiers, were cruelly abusing the Protestants whom they ought to have protected,313 there was much in the tidings that came especially from southern France to encourage the reformers. In the midst of the confusion and carnage of war the leaven had yet been working. There were even to be found places where the progress of Protestantism had rendered the application of the provisions of the edict nearly, if not quite impossible. The little city of Milhau, in Rouergue,314 is a striking and very interesting instance.

      Milhau-en-Rouergue.

      The edict had expressly directed that all churches should be restored to the Roman Catholics, and that the Protestants should resort for worship to other places, either in the suburbs, or – in the case of cities which the Huguenots had held on the seventh of March, 1563 – within the walls. But, soon after the restoration of peace, the consuls and inhabitants of Milhau presented a petition to Charles the Ninth, in which they make the startling assertion that the entire population has become Protestant ("de la religion"); that for two years or thereabouts they have lived in undisturbed peace, whilst other cities have been the scene of disturbances; and that, at a recent gathering of the inhabitants, they unanimously expressed their desire to live in the exercise of the reformed faith, under the royal permission. By the king's order the petition was referred for examination to the commissioners for the execution of the edict in the province of Guyenne. All its statements were found to be strictly correct. There was not one papist within the city; not one man, woman, or child expressed a desire for the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic ceremonial. The monks had renounced the cowl, the priests their vestments. Of their own free will, some of the friars had married, some had taken up useful trades. The prior had voluntarily resigned the greater part of his revenues; retaining one-third for his own support, he had begged that the remainder might be devoted to the preaching of God's Word and the maintenance of the poor. The two churches of the place had for eighteen months been used for Protestant worship, and there were no other convenient places to be found. Indeed, had the churches been given up, there would have been no one to take possession. A careful domiciliary examination by four persons appointed by the royal judge had incontestably established the point. Over eight hundred houses were visited, constituting the greater part of the city. The occupants were summoned to express their preferences, and the result was contained in the solemn return of the commission: "We have not found a single person who desired or asked for the mass; but, on the contrary, all demanded the preaching of the Word of God, and the administration of His holy sacraments as instituted by Himself in that Word. And thus we certify by the oath we have taken to God and to the king."315

      The cry for ministers.

      From other places the cry of the churches for ministers to be sent from Geneva was unabated. In one town and its environs, so inadequate was a single minister to the discharge of his pastoral duties, that the peasants of the vicinity were compelled to baptize one another's children, or to leave them unbaptized.316 At Montpellier it is the consuls that beg that their corps of ministers may be doubled; their two pastors cannot preach every day and three times upon Sunday, and yet visit the neighboring villages.317

      Establishment of the Reformation in Béarn.

      Nowhere, however, was the advance of Protestantism so hopeful as in the principality of Béarn, whither Jeanne d'Albret had retired, and where, since her husband's death, she had been dividing her cares between the education of her son, Henry of Navarre, and the establishment of the Reformation. A less courageous spirit than hers318 might well have succumbed in view of the difficulties in her way. Of the nobility not one-tenth, of the magistracy not one-fifth, were favorable to the changes which she wished to introduce. The clergy were, of course, nearly unanimous in opposition.319 She was, however, vigorously and wisely seconded in her efforts by the eminent reformed pastor, Merlin, formerly almoner of Admiral Coligny, whom Calvin had sent from Geneva at her request.320 But when, contrary to his advice, the Queen of Navarre had summoned a meeting of the estates of her small territory, she detected unexpected symptoms of resistance. She accordingly abstained from broaching the unwelcome topic of reformation. But the deputies of the three orders themselves introduced it. Taking occasion from a prohibition she had issued against carrying the host in procession, they petitioned her to maintain them in the religion of their ancestors, in accordance with the promise which the princes of the country were accustomed to make.321 Fortunately a small minority was found to offer a request of an entirely opposite tenor; and Jeanne d'Albret, with her characteristic firmness, declared in reply "that she would reform religion in her country, whoever might oppose." So much discontent did this decision provoke that there was danger of open sedition.322

      These internal obstacles were, however, by no means the only difficulties. The court of Pau was disturbed by an uninterrupted succession of rumors of trouble from without. Now it was the French king that stood ready to seize the scanty remnants of Navarre, or the Spaniard that was all prepared for an invasion from the south; anon it was Montluc from the side of Guyenne, or Damville from that of Languedoc, who were meditating incursions in the interest of the Roman Catholic Church. "In short," exclaims her indefatigable coadjutor, Raymond Merlin, "it is wonderful that this princess should be able to persist with constancy in her holy design!"323 Then came the papal citation, and the necessity to avoid the alienation of the French court which would certainly result from suddenly abolishing the papal rites, especially in view of the circumstance that Catharine de'