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confusións, a peace was concluded, 1563. All that the protestants obtained, was an edict, which excluded the exercise of their religion from cities, and restrained it to their own families.

Peace did not continue long, for the protestants, having received intelligence, that the pope, the house of Austria, and the house of Guise, had conspired their ruin, and fearing that the king, and the court, were inclined to crush them, as their rights were every day infringed by new edicts, took up arms again in their own defence, 1567. The city of Rochelle declared for them, and it served them, for an asylum for sixty years. They were assisted by queen Elizabeth of England, and by the German princes, and they obtained, at the conclusion of this second war, 1568, the revocation of all penal edicts, the exercise of their religi on in their families, and the grant of six cities for their security.

The pope, the king of Spain, and the Guises, finding that they could not prevail while the wise chancellor retained his influence, formed a cabal against him, and got him removed. He resigned very readily, June 1568, and retired to a country seat, where he spent the remainder of his days. Ă strange confusion followed in the direction of affairs, one edict allowed liberty, another forbad it, and it was plain to the protestants that their situation was very delicate and dangerous. The articles of the last peace had never been performed, and the papists every where insulted their liberties, so that, in three months time, two thousand Hugonots were murdered, and the murderers went unpunished. War broke out again, 1568. Queen' Elizabeth assisted the protestants with money, the Count Palatine helped them with men, the queen' of Navarre parted with her rings and jewels to sup

port them, and, the prince of Conde being slain, she declared her son, prince Henry, the head, and protector of the protestant cause, and caused medals to be struck with these words, a safe peace, a complete victory, a glorious death. Her majes ty did every thing in her power for the advancement of the cause of religious liberty, and she used to say, that liberty of conscience ought to be preferred before honors, dignities, and life itself. She caused the new testament, the catechism, and the liturgy of Geneva, to be translated, and printed at Rochelle. She abolished popery, and established protestantism in her own dominions. In her leisure hours, she expressed her zeal by working tapestries with her own hands, in which she represented the monuments of that liberty, which she procured by shaking off the yoke of the pope. One suit consisted of twelve pieces. On each piece was represented some scripture history of deliverance; Israel coming out of Egypt, Joseph's release from prison, or something of the like kind. On the top of each piece were these words, where the spirit is there is liberty, and in the corners of each were broken chains, fetters, and gibbets. One piece represented a congregation at mass, and a fox, in a friar's habit, officiating as a priest, grinning horribly and saying, the Lord be with you. The pieces were fashionable patterns, and dexterously directed the needles of the ladies to help forward the refor mation.

After many negociations, a peace was concluded, 1570, and the free exercise of religion was allowed in all but walled cities, two cities in every province were assigned to the protestants, they were to be admitted into all universities, schools, hospitals, public offices, royal, seignioral, and corporate, and, to render the peace of everlasting du

ration, a match was proposed between Henry of Navarre and the sister of king Charles. These articles were accepted, the match was agreed to, every man's sword was put up in its sheath, and the queen of Navarre, her son, king Henry, the princes of the blood, and the principal protestants, went to Paris to celebrate the marriage, Aug. 18, 1572. A few days after the marriage, the Admiral, who was one of the principal protestant leaders, was assassinated, Aug. 22. This alarmed the king of Navarre, and the prince of Conde, but, the king and his mother promising to punish the assassin, they were quiet. The next Sunday being St. Bartholomew's day, Aug. 24, when the bells rang for morning prayers, the duke of Guise, brother of the last appeared with a great number of soldiers, and citizens, and began to murder the Hugonots; the wretched Charles appeared at the windows of his palace, and endeavored to shoot those who fled, crying to their pursuers, kill them, kill them. The massacre continued seven days, seven hundred houses were pillaged; five thousand people perished in Paris; neither age, nor sex, nor even women with child were spared; one butcher boasted to the king that he had hewn down a hundred and fifty in one night. The rage ran from Paris to the provinces, where twenty five thousand more were cruelly slain; the queen of Navarre was poisoned; and, during the massacre, the king offered the king of Navarre, and the young prince of Conde, son of the late prince, if they would not renounce Hugonotism, either death, mass, or bastile for, he said, he would not have one left to reproach him. This bloody affair does not lie between Charles IX. his mother Catharine of Medieis, and the duke of Guise, for the church of Rome, and the court of Spain, by exhibiting public re

joicings on the occasion, have adopted the whole for their own, or, at least, have claimed a large share.

Would any one after this propose passive obedience, and non-resistance, to French protestants? Or, can we wonder, that, abhorring a church, who offered to embrace them with hands reeking with the blood of their brethren, they put on their ar mor again, and commenced a fourth civil war? The late massacre raised up also another party, called politicians, who proposed to banish the family of Guise from France, to remove the queen-mother and the Italians from the government, and to restore peace to the nation. This faction was headed by Montmorency, who had an eye to the crown. During these troubles, the king died, in the twenty fifth year of his age, 1574. Charles had a lively little genius, he composed a book on hunting and valued himself on his skill in physiognomy. He thought courage consisted in swearing and taunting at his courtiers. His diversions were hunting, music, women and wine, His court was a common sewer of luxury and impiety, and, while his favorites were fleecing his people, he employed himself in the making of rhymes. The part he acted in the Bartholomewan tragedy, the worst crime that was ever perpetrated in any christian country, will mark his reign with infamy to the end of time.

Henry III. who succeeded his brother Charles, was first despised, and then hated, by all his subjects. He was so proud that he set rails round his table, and affected the pomp of an eastern king: and so mean that he often walked in procession with a beggarly brotherhood, with a string of beads in his hand, and a whip at his girdle. He was so credulous that he took the sacrament with the duke of Guise, and with the Cardinal of Lorrain, his

brother; and so treacherous that he caused the assassination of them both, 1588. He boasted of being a chief adviser of the late massacre, and the protestants abhorred him for it. The papists hated him for his adherence to the Hugonot house of Bourbon, and for the edicts which he sometimes granted in favor of the protestants, though his only aim was to weaken the Guises. The ladies held him in execration for his unnatural practices: and the duchess of Montpensier talked of clipping his hair, and of making him a monk. His heavy taxes, which were consumed by his favorites, excited the populace against him, and, while his kingdom was covering with carnage, and drenching in blood, he was training lapdogs to tumble, and parrots to prate.

In this reign, 1576, was formed the famous league, which reduced France to the most miserable condition that could be. The chief promoter of it was the duke of Guise. The pretence was the preservation of the catholic religion. The chief articles were three. The defence of the catholic religion. The establishment of Henry III. on the throne. The maintaining of the liberty of the kingdom, and the assembling of the states. Those, who entered into the league, promised to obey such a general as should be chosen for the defence of it, and the whole was confirmed by oath. The weak Henry subscribed it at first in hopes of subduing the Hugonots; the queen-mother, the Guises, the Pope, the king of Spain, many of the clergy, and multitudes of the people, became leaguers. When Henry perceived that Guise was aiming by this league to dethrone him, he favored the protestants, and they obtained an edict, 1576, for the free exercise of their religion; but edicts were vain things against the power of the league, and three civil wars raged in this reign,

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