Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, vol 1 | Page 6

down beneath, where the eye of the detective could not
penetrate, in the closet of the scholar and at the fireside of the artisan
and the peasant, the new gospel, silently and without observation, was
spreading like an all-pervading leaven. [11]
In 1562, the repressed forces of the Huguenots could no longer be
restrained, and, bursting forth, assumed the form of organized civil war.
With the exception of temporary lulls, originating in policy or
exhaustion, there was no cessation of arms until 1598. Although it is
usually and perhaps best described as a religious war, the struggle was
not altogether between the Catholic and the Huguenot or Protestant.
There were many other elements that came in to give their coloring to
the contest, and especially to determine the course and policy of

individuals.
The ultra-Catholic desired to maintain the old faith with all its ancient
prestige and power, and to crush out and exclude every other. With this
party were found the court, certain ambitious and powerful families,
and nearly all the officials of the church. In close alliance with it were
the Roman Pontiff, the King of Spain, and the Catholic princes of
Germany.
The Huguenots desired what is commonly known as liberty of
conscience; or, in other words, freedom to worship God according to
their own views of the truth, without interference or restriction. And in
close alliance with them were the Queen of England and the Protestant
princes of Germany.
Personal motives, irrespective of principle, united many persons and
families with either of these great parties which seemed most likely to
subserve their private ambitions. The feudal system was nearly extinct
in form, but its spirit was still alive. The nobles who had long held
sway in some of the provinces of France desired to hold them as
distinct and separate governments, and to transmit them as an
inheritance to their children. This motive often determined their
political association.
During the most of the period of this long civil war, Catherine de
Médicis [12] was either regent or in the exercise of a controlling
influence in the government of France. She was a woman of
commanding person and extraordinary ability, skilful in intrigue,
without conscience and without personal religion. She hesitated at no
crime, however black, if through it she could attain the objects of her
ambition. Neither of her three sons, Francis, Charles, and Henry, who
came successively to the throne, left any legal heir to succeed him. The
succession became, therefore, at an early period, a question of great
interest. If not the potent cause, it was nevertheless intimately
connected with most of the bloodshed of that bloody period.
A solemn league was entered into by a large number of the
ultra-Catholic nobles to secure two avowed objects, the succession of a

Catholic prince to the throne, and the utter extermination of the
Huguenots. Henry, King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. of France,
admitted to be the legal heir to the throne, was a Protestant, and
therefore by the decree of the League disqualified to succeed. Around
his standard, the Huguenots rallied in great numbers. With him were
associated the princes of Condé, of royal blood, and many other
distinguished nobles. They contended for the double purpose of
securing the throne to its rightful heir and of emancipating and
establishing the Protestant faith.
But there was another class, acting indeed with one or the other of these
two great parties, nevertheless influenced by very different motives. It
was composed of moderate Catholics, who cared little for the political
schemes and civil power of the Roman Pontiff, who dreaded the
encroachments of the King of Spain, who were firmly patriotic and
desired the aggrandizement and glory of France.
The ultra-Catholic party was, for a long period, by far the most
numerous and the more powerful; but the Huguenots were sufficiently
strong to keep up the struggle with varying success for nearly forty
years.
After the alliance of Henry of Navarre with Henry III. against the
League, the moderate Catholics and the Huguenots were united and
fought together under the royal standard until the close of the war in
1598.
Champlain was personally engaged in the war in Brittany for several
years. This province on the western coast of France, constituting a
tongue of land jutting out as it were into the sea, isolated and remote
from the great centres of the war, was among the last to surrender to the
arms of Henry IV. The Huguenots had made but little progress within
its borders. The Duke de Mercoeur [13] had been its governor for
sixteen years, and had bent all his energies to separate it from France,
organize it into a distinct kingdom, and transmit its sceptre to his own
family.
Champlain informs us that he was quarter-master