tion. She scarcely eats or drinks, nay, scarcely sleeps, without having some storm of business assail her ears. Thus she does in peace and war what is the duty of men to do, but is nevertheless not loved in the kingdom. The Huguenots, namely, thus complain; Catherine amused us with fair words and deceitful show of friendship, while she was, in fact, in an understanding with Philip II., and was forging intrigues for our destruction. The Catholics, on the other hand, maintain: if the queen had not favoured the Reformers, and exalted them, they could never have achieved what they have. It is, moreover, now a time in France, when every one arrogates to himself what he pleases and boldly demands it; but, in case of refusal, cries out, and thrusts the blame on the queen. Many also think that, even if she, as a stranger, give them all they ask, she yet gives nothing of her own. Every resolution which misbefel, in peace or war, would be laid to her, as reigning uncontrolled without council or associate. I say not that the queen is a sybil, who cannot err, or who has never trusted too much to herself, but I ask what prince, how wise and experienced soever, would not be put out of his way, in case he should find himself suddenly involved in a war, in which none could distinguish friend from foe, and no aid was to be discovered all around except from persons engaged in party and seldom trustworthy? If the wisest of princes might well, in such complicated circumstances, have committed an error, I cannot but be surprised that a timid woman, a foreigner, without confidential friends, almost excluded from the truth, and not even standing at the head of the Government, should not have altogether lost her head, and given over the realm to ruin. She alone has sustained the little majesty of the crown which remains, and I am more inclined to sympathize with her than to blame. As I was once speaking with her in this sense, she herself laid before me in detail the difficulties of her position. I also know that she, more than once, has retired to her chamber to weep, there, however, did herself violence, dried her tears, and let herself be seen in public places with a cheerful countenance, because people drew their conclusions from it as to the condition of public affairs. She has also insensibly so set to rights the understandings of Frenchmen, that they no longer speak of her retirement, but rather all fear and wish to please her."

In the meetings of the States-General, so strong was Protestantism, that it seemed as if a confiscation of the Church property were likely to take place, and that, seduced by the prospect of the payment of the debts of the Crown, Catherine would finally close with the Protestant party Nothing seems to have averted the storm

from the heads of the clergy, but their own voluntary offer of a large subsidy; with this, Catherine rested satisfied, for she was, probably, wise enough to see in the suggestions of Reform in every department of the State as well as of the Church, with which the plan of the Third Estate was accompanied, the foundation of a popular control over the Government, which would greatly interfere with her theory of the Royal Prerogative, M. Ranke justly estimates the importance of these proposals of the Third Estate, and the consequences to which they would have led, had they been carried out.

"In seasons of great agition all designs tend to those energetic changes, and reforms, the notions of which having been long nourished in secret, by the contemplation and suffering of prevailing abuses, now burst forth suddenly. The significancy of proposals like those made at Pontoise by the third estate is obvious,—an alternation in the magistracy, grounded upon election; the sale of the ecclesiastical property in a mass, for the advantage of the nobility and the estates, as well as of the King; a clergy paid from the treasury of the State; the royal power limited, through the periodical assembly of the estates, every two years. All this together would have constituted France an entirely new kingdom. These projects have an analogy with those which were afterwards effected by the Revolution. The Parliaments and the clergy would have been overthrown by them in the same manner, and the third estate would likewise have drawn from them the chief advantages; but, above all, the nobility would not have been abolished, but strengthened. The movement did not spring from a negative philosophy, but from Protestant principles: not that these would have required so total a change in the form of the State-the example of England shows how little this is the case; but from the coincidence of financial disorders and of a universal political fermentation with the religious tendencies of the age, and the absence of authority in the supreme power, a more radical change had been inevitable in France than that which took place in England."-Vol. i. p. 290.

This indeed was the crisis of French Puritanism, and never again did it assume so proud a position. The Reformers, however, had made too forward a step at once. Their reform scheme irritated and alarmed several powerful classes :-

"It excited the opposition of the corporate power of the clergy, which in England had even shown itself favourable to such efforts;

of the Parliament, whose authority was so deeply founded in the general feeling; and, more than all, of the great nobles, who would have been forced to surrender the possessions which, under the old constitution, they had, as they said, well acquired through their own services and the royal grace. The reforms in prospect were so immeasurable, that they terrified men's minds, and caused them to draw back from their contemplation."—Vol. i. p. 292.

At the same time a last attempt to reconcile the adverse systems failed completely. The leaders of the reformed clergy were confronted with those of the French Catholic Church:

"At the head of the preachers appeared Theodore Beza, the friend of Calvin and of Condé, a handsome man, of dignified appearance, universal scholarship, good morals, and thoroughly confident in his cause; the ladies of the Court remarked, with pleasure, that he knew how to maintain his position, both in jest and earnest, against the Cardinal of Lorraine. I will not say that an agreement in the comprehension of doctrine was not possible, if they had earnestly desired it; for they came very near one another on one of the most disputed and most important points in the controversy the Eucharist. In the commission, to which the most learned and moderate men on the Catholic side were appointed, they actually agreed to a formula, concerning the spiritual reception through faith, which was satisfactory to both parties. This formula however was not at all approved of in the great council of prelates to which it was referred, and with respect to which the commission occupied now a difficult position. The prelates proposed another formula, which the Reformed declared they never could adopt. They had however only left for the moment in abeyance some distinctive opinions; and it is doubtful if the agreement would have continued, particularly if Calvin would have declared himself satisfied with it."-Vol. i. p. 293.

We can well believe that "Catherine listened to these debates with a secret contempt for the dispute and the disputants. She thought that they were contending about words only; and she inferred that they would consequently rejoice to terminate their warfare by a verbal compromise.'

The Reformers had found allies during these recent occurrences in a body of men to whom the title of "Politiques" was given. These, as far as they had any fixed views at all, seem to have taken up much the same posi

'tion with respect to the interests of the State, that Catherine assumed with regard to the Crown. Seemingly indifferent with respect to the religious disputes which convulsed the nation, they sought to shape the course of the Commonwealth between the conflicting parties, so as to preserve the constitution of the State intact, and to maintain a Kingdom in the midst of a civil war. At the head of the higher-minded among the Politiques stood the Chancellor L'Hôpital, and to his moderation the Protestants were indebted for an enactment by an assembly of Notables

"... which authorised the public celebration of the reformed worship on the easy conditions, that it did not take place within the walls of any fortified city-that the worshippers did not assemble in arms—and that they permitted the attendance of any officer of the Crown who might require to be present. On the other hand, it was provided that the Huguenots should restore the churches which they had usurped, and that they should not give scandal to the Catholics by breaking their images or crucifixes, or by any similar outrage. This law was called the Edict of January, 1562. It was willingly registered by the Parliaments in the south and west of France, and peremptorily rejected by the Parliament of Dijon. The Parliament of Paris at first refused to accept it, and accepted it at last only in obedience to repeated and positive commands from the king, and not even then without a protest that they did so in submission to necessity,- without approving the new opinions, -and awaiting the time when it might be possible to make other and better arrangements on the subject. By the Huguenots themselves, the Edict of January, 1562, was received with gratitude, or rather with exultation. Except that they were still excluded from public preaching within the fortifications of walled towns, they had at length, by many grievous sufferings, acquired whatever was necessary to the freedom of their worship, and to the diffusion of their doctrines. For such a victory they rightly judged that the lives of their martyred brethren had not been an excessive price."Stephen, vol. ii. p. 108.

The publication of this law led to the massacre of Vassy and the commencement of the wars of religion. The Constable de Montmorency, jealous of the increasing power of the Huguenots, had joined in what was called "the Triumvirate" with the Marshal St. André and the Duke of Guise. They now won over the fickle King of Navarre CHRISTIAN TEACHER.-No. 59.

I

to their cause, and together they threatened the complete destruction of the Reformers. This end they further endeavoured to ensure by "a traitorous treaty with Philip II., of Spain, by which they bound themselves to concur in the introduction into France, and in the employment there, of the forces of Spain, for the extermination of heresy." At Vassy, the Duke of Guise fell on the unarmed Huguenots, slaying many and wounding still more. In vain Condé appealed to the queen against this atrocious violation of the new enactment. Catherine would willingly have crushed this new league which threatened the Crown as much as the Huguenots. But Guise had entered Paris in triumph amidst the acclamations of the citizens of that Catholic metropolis, and when the queenmother wrote letters (which still remain), imploring Condé to take the children, the mother, and the kingdom under his protection, and to save them from those who wished to ruin all, Guise anticipated the Prince, and, seizing the Royal Family at Fontainbleau, carried them to Melun and Vincennes, where they were detained in a gentle but wellguarded captivity. Thus once more the House of Guise reigned paramount in France, and for the Protestants nothing was left but an appeal to the fortune of war.

The Civil Wars divide themselves into three distinct periods-" The first," according to Sir James Stephen

"... would embrace the ten years which elapsed between the seizure of Orleans by Condé, in 1562, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in 1572-years memorable for the too successful treacheries of Catherine de Medici. The second period, commencing from that fearful tragedy, and terminating with the assassination of Henry III. in August, 1589, would exhibit the triumph and the fall of the great commander of the League, Henry, the second Duke of Guise. The third period would be that of the gallant struggle of Henry IV. against the Leaguers and their foreign allies, and would conclude with his purchase of the Crown of France by the abandonment of the faith to the defence of which his life had been so solemnly consecrated, both by his mother and by himself."-Vol. ii. p. 115.

The events which characterized these wars are so well known that it is needless for us to enter upon them. Though M. Ranke has thrown new light on particular