The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 | Page 9

Colloquy of Poissy 537 A Private
Conference at St. Germain 538 A Discussion of Words 540 Catharine's
Premature Delight 541 The Article agreed upon Rejected by the
Prelates 541 Catharine's Financial Success 543 Order for the
Restitution of Churches 544 Arrival of Five German Delegates 544
Why the Colloquy proved a Failure 546 Catharine's Crude Notion of a
Conference 547 Character of the Prelates 547 Influence of the Papal
Legate, the Cardinal of Ferrara 548 Anxiety of Pius the Fourth 548 The
Nuncio Santa Croce 549 Master Renard turned Monk 551 Opposition
of People and Chancellor 551 The Legate's Intrigues 552 His Influence
upon Antoine of Navarre 554 Contradictory Counsels 555 The
Triumvirate leave in Disgust 556 Hopes entertained by the Huguenots
respecting Charles 557 Beza is begged to remain 559 A Spanish Plot to
kidnap the Duke of Orleans 559 The Number of Huguenot Churches
560 Beza secures a favorable Royal order 560 Rapid Growth of the
Reformation 561 Immense Assemblages from far and near 562 The
Huguenots at Montpellier 563 The Rein and not the Spur needed 565
Marriages and Baptisms at Court "after the Geneva Fashion" 565
Tanquerel's Seditious Declaration 566 Jean de Hans 567 Philip
threatens Interference in French Affairs 567 "A True Defender of the
Faith" 568 Roman Catholic Complaints of Huguenot Boldness 570 The
"Tumult of Saint Médard" 571 Assembly of Notables at St. Germain
574 Diversity of Sentiments 575 The "Edict of January" 576 The

Huguenots no longer Outlaws 577

BOOK FIRST.
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH REFORMATION TO
THE EDICT OF JANUARY (1562).
CHAPTER I.
FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
[Sidenote: Extent of France at the accession of Francis the First.]
When, on the first day of the year 1515, the young Count of
Angoulême succeeded to the throne left vacant by the death of his
kinsman and father-in-law, Louis the Twelfth, the country of which he
became monarch was already an extensive, flourishing, and
well-consolidated kingdom. The territorial development of France was,
it is true, far from complete. On the north, the whole province of
Hainault belonged to the Spanish Netherlands, whose boundary line
was less than one hundred miles distant from Paris. Alsace and
Lorraine had not yet been wrested from the German Empire. The
"Duchy" of Burgundy, seized by Louis the Eleventh immediately after
the death of Charles the Bold, had, indeed, been incorporated into the
French realm; but the "Free County" of Burgundy--la Franche Comté,
as it was briefly designated--had been imprudently suffered to fall into
other hands, and Besançon was the residence of a governor appointed
by princes of the House of Hapsburg. Lyons was a frontier town; for
the little districts of Bresse and Bugey, lying between the Saône and
Rhône, belonged to the Dukes of Savoy. Further to the south, two
fragments of foreign territory were completely enveloped by the
domain of the French king. The first was the sovereign principality of
Orange, which, after having been for over a century in the possession
of the noble House of Châlons, was shortly to pass into that of Nassau,
and to furnish the title of William the Silent, the future deliverer of
Holland. The other and larger one was the Comtât Venaissin, a fief

directly dependent upon the Pope. Of irregular shape, and touching the
Rhone both above and below Orange, the Comtât Venaissin nearly
enclosed the diminutive principality in its folds. Its capital, Avignon,
having forfeited the distinction enjoyed in the fourteenth century as the
residence of the Roman Pontiffs, still boasted the presence of a Legate
of the Papal See, a poor compensation for the loss of its past splendor.
On the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the Spanish dominions still
extended north of the principal chain of the Pyrenees, and included the
former County of Roussillon.
[Sidenote: Territorial development.]
But, although its area was somewhat smaller than that of the modern
republic, France in the sixteenth century had nearly attained the general
dimensions marked out for it by great natural boundaries. Four hundred
years had been engrossed in the pursuit of territorial enlargement. At
the close of the tenth century the Carlovingian dynasty, essentially
foreign in tastes and language, was supplanted by a dynasty of native
character and capable of gathering to its support all those elements of
strength which had been misunderstood or neglected by the feeble
descendants of Charlemagne. But it found the royal authority reduced
to insignificance and treated with open contempt. By permitting those
dignities which had once been conferred as a reward for pre-eminent
personal merit to become hereditary in certain families, the crown had
laid the foundation of the feudal system; while, by neglecting to
enforce its sovereign claims, it had enabled the great feudatories to
make themselves princes independent in reality, if not in name. So