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instantly sent a nuncio into France. His instructions were to prevent, if possible, the calling of a national council, and to promise the re-assembling of the general council of Trent. The protestants had been too often dupes to such artifices as these, and, being fully convinced of the futility of general councils, they refused to submit to the council of Trent now for several good reasons. The pope, they said, who assembled the council, was to be judge in his own cause: the council would be chiefly composed of Italian bishops, who were vassals of the pope as a secular prince, and sworn to him as a bishop and head of the church: the legates would pack a majority, and bribe the poor bishops to vote each article would be first settled at Rome, and then proposed by the legates to the council; the emperor, by advice of the late council of Constance, had given a safe conduct to John Huss, and to Jerom of Prague, however, when they appeared in the council, and proposed their doubts, the council condemned them to be burnt. The protestants had reason on their side, when they rejected this method of reforming, for the art of procuring a majority of votes is the soul of this system of church-government. This art consists in the ingenuity of finding out, and in the dexterity of addressing each man's weak side, his pride or his ignorance, his envy, his gravity, or his avarice: and the possessing of this is the perfection of a legate of Rome.

During these disputes, the king died without issue, December 5, 1560, and his brother Charles IX. who was in the eleventh year of his age, succeeded him, December 13. The states met at the time proposed. The chancellor opened the session by an unanswerable speech on the ill policy of persecution; he represented the miseries of the pro

testants, and proposed an abatement of their suf ferings, till their complaints could be heard in a national council. The prince of Conde, and the king of Navarre, were the heads of the protestant party; the Guises were the heads of their opponents; and the queen-mother, Catharine of Medicis, who had obtained the regency till the king's majority, and who began to dread the power of the Guises, leaned to the protestants, which was a grand event in their favor. After repeated meetings, and various warm debates, it was agreed, as one side would not submit to a general council, nor the other to a national assembly, that a conference should be held at Poissy, July, 1561, between both parties, and an edict was made, that no person should molest the protestants, that the imprisoned should be released, and the exiles called home.

The conference at Poissy was held, August 1561, in the presence of the king, the princes of the blood, the nobility, cardinals, prelates, and grandees of both parties. On the popish side, six cardinals, four bishops, and several dignified clergymen, and on the protestant about twelve of the most famous reformed ministers, managed the dispute. Beza, who spoke well, knew the world, had a ready wit, and a deal of learning, displayed all his powers in favor of the reformation. The papists reasoned, where they could, and, where they could not, they railed. The conference ended September 29, where most public disputes have ended, that is, where they began; for great men never enter these lists without a previous determination not to submit to the disgrace of a public defeat,

At the close of the last reign the ruin of protestantism seemed inevitable; but now the reformation turned like a tide, overspread every place, and seemed to roll away all opposition, and in all pro

bability, had it not been for one sad event, it would now have subverted popery in this kingdom. The king of Navarre, who was now lieutenant general of France, had hitherto been a zealous protestant, he had taken incredible pains to support the reformation, and had assured the Danish ambassador that, in a year's time, he would cause the true gospel to be preached throughout France. The Guises caballed with the pope and the king of Spain, and offered to invest the king of Navarre with the kingdom of Sardinia, and to restore to him that part of the kingdom of Navarre, which lay in Spain, on condition of his renouncing protestantism. The lure was tempting, and the king deserted, and even persecuted, the protestants. Providence is never at a loss for means to affect its designs. The queen of Navarre, daughter of the last queen, who had hitherto preferred a dance before a sermon, was shocked at the king's conduct, and instantly became a zealous protestant herself. She met with some unkind treatment, but nothing could shake her resolution; Had I, said she, the kingdoms in my hand, I would throw them into the sea rather than defile my conscience by going to Mass. This courageous profession saved her a deal of trouble and dispute!

The protestants began now to appear more publicly than before. The queen of Navarre caused Beza openly to solemnize a marriage in a noble family, after the Genevan manner. This, which was consummated rear the court, emboldened the ministers, and they preached at the countess de Senignan's, guarded by the marshal's provosts. The nobility thought that the common people had as good a right to hear the gospel as themselves, and, caused the reformed clergy to preach without the walls of Paris. Their auditors were thirty or for

ty thousand people, divided into three companies, the women in the middle, surrounded by men on foot, and the latter by men on horseback; and, during the sermon, the governor of Paris placed soldiers to guard the avenues, and to prevent disturbances. The morality of this worship cannot be disputed, for, if God be worshipped in spirit and truth, the place is indifferent. The expediency of it may be doubted; but in a persecution of forty years, the French protestants had learnt that their political masters did not consider how rational, but how formidable they were.

The Guises, and their associates, being quite dispirited, retired to their estates, and the queenregent, by the chancellor's advice, granted an edict to enable the protestants to preach in all parts of the kingdom, except in Paris, and in other walled cities. The parliaments of France had then the power of refusing to register royal edicts, and the chancellor had occasion for all his address to prevail over the scruples and ill humour of the parliament to procure the registering of this. He begged leave to say, that the question before them was one of those which had its difficulties, on whatever side it was viewed; that in the present case, one, of two things, must be chosen, either to put all the adherents of the new religion to the sword; or to banish them entirely, allowing them to dispose of their effects; that the first point could not be executed, since that party was too strong both in leaders and partizans; and tho' it could be done, yet as it was staining the king's youth with the blood of so many of his subjects, perhaps when he came of age he would demand it at the hands of his governors; with regard to the second point, it was as little feasible, and could it be effected, it would be raising as many desperate enemies as exiles; that

to enforce conformity against conscience, as matters stood now, was to lead the people to atheism. The edict at last was passed, Jan. 1562, but the house registered it with this clause, in consideration of the present juncture of the times; but not approving of the new religion in any manner, and till the king shall otherwise appoint. So hard sat toleration on the minds of papists!

A minority was a period favorable to the views of the Guises, and this edict was a happy occasion of a pretence for commencing hostilities. The duke, instigated by his mother, went to Vassi, a town adjacent to one of his lordships, and, some of his retinue picking a quarrel with some protestants, who were hearing a sermon in a barn, he interested himself in it, wounded two hundred, and left sixty dead on the spot, March 1, 1562. This was the first protestant blood, that was shed in civil war.

The news of this affair flew like lightning, and, while the duke was marching to Paris with a thousand horse, the city, and the provinces rose in arms. The chancellor was extremely afflicted to see both sides preparing for war, and endeavored to dissuade them from it. The constable told him, it did not belong to men of the long robe to give their judgment with relation to war. To which he answered, that tho' he did not bear arms, he knew when they ought to be used. After this they excluded him from the councils of war.

The queen-regent, alarmed at the duke's approach to Paris, threw herself into the hands of the protestants, and ordered Conde to take up arms, Aug. 1562. War began, and barbarities and cruelties were practised on both sides. The duke of Guise was assassinated, the king of Navarre was killed at a siege, fifty thousand protestants were slain, and, after a year had been spent in these

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