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1899 451 Some Pamphlets of the French Wars of Religion Downloaded from period of the French wars of religion was emphatically an age of pamphlets. From the ' Tigre ' of Francois Hotman, that remarkable pamphlet which was published in the year of the Tumult of Amboise, to the ' Satyre Menippee,' that still more http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ remarkable pamphlet which heralded the entry of Henry IV into Paris, they were produced in long succession. At firBt, indeed, the production was somewhat sparse, but the massacre of St. Bartholomew gave it additional impetus, and if it slackened some- what during the earlier years of Henry III, towards the close of his reign it became enormous. The revival of the League, the question of the succession, the murder of the Guises, and finally the murder of the king himself, were each occasions for a fresh at Georgetown University on July 18, 2015 fusillade. After his death the firing became less furious, but it was more effective; a share in the final victory of Henry IV waa rightly attributed by a contemporary historian to the plumes bien taillees of the pamphleteers of his party.1 Some of the pamphlets were, originally at least, written in Latin. Dealing for the most part with questions of constitutional law or political philosophy, they appealed from the passions of contending Frenchmen to the judgment of educated Europe. But, though they rise above the dust of party warfare to the clear atmosphere of philosophy, and though they wear an air of candid inquiry, they are none the less inspired by contemporary events; the fighting man's harness peeps out under the philosopher's cloak, and in the heat of the scuffle the combatants often interchange weapons. Of the two most important of these learned pamphlets, the 'Franco- Gallia' and the ' Vindiciae contra tyrannos,' an admirable account has been given by Mr. Armstrong in a previous number of this BEVIEW.* MJ- own interest lies more with those written in the vernacular, and especially with those that have any literary merit. 1 The fullest bibliographical lists of the pamphlets will be found in Lclong, Biblio- thique historiqut, ii. 233-364, nos. 17,767-l!t,5G7, and in the gale catalogue of the Coste library (Lyons, 1854), nos. 1575-2060. A great many are noticed in a recent book by O. Weill, Les tlitories sur Ic poutoir royal en France pendant let guerres de religion (1892), which, however, leaves much to be desired from a bibliographical point of view. * Vol. iv. (1889) 13. o u 2 4.12 SOME PAMPHLETS OF THE July The 'Tigro' and the 'Satyro Mcnippoe,' the 'Livre des Marchands' of Regnier de la Planche, tbo two ' Discours' of Michel Hurault, the' Anti-Espagnol' of Antoine Arnaud, are all more or Ie8s remark- able specimens of French prose which the student of literature must take into account. Jhit they have an historical interest as well, and in saying something about these us well as alxmt some others less remarkable for literary merit, I hope I may be of some service to tins historical student. I shall concern myself more especially with bibliographical questions, though I cannot claim to have solved them all. But it in, at any rate, of importance to the historian to know when a pamphlet was first published. Downloaded from It will be convenient to deal with the pamphlets in a more or less chronological order, and 1 shall borrow for the purpose the divisions which Mr. Armstrong has made of the whole period in his ' French Wars of Ueligion.' http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ 1. 15(iO-li>7'2. /'Vow the. Tumult of Amhoixe to the iif St. Bartholomew-. During this period the favourite mark of the pamphleteers was the house of Guise. Already in the reign of Henry II the Guises had disputed with their rival, the Constable Montmorency, the first place in the royal council chamber; the accession of Francis II, the sickly husband of their niece, Mary Stuart, at Georgetown University on July 18, 2015 brought the whole power of the crown into their hands. The conspiracy of La Kenaudie, which came to an untimely birth in the so-called Tumult of Amboise, was engendered rather by the discontent of the nobles at the power of the Lorrainers than by zeal for the reformed religion. The feeling of the malcontents found expression in an often-quoted quatrain :— Le feu roi3 divina ce point, Que ceux de la maison de Guise Mettruient acs enfauts en pourpoint, Et son pauvre peuple en chemise. It was more especially against the cardinal of Lorraine, the guiding mind of the Guise family, that the wrath of their opponents was directed. It overflowed at boiling point in a tiny pamphlet containing ten small pages of text which appeared in 1560 under the title of ' Epistre envoiee au Tigre de la France.'4 It was naturally anonymous, but we know from tolerably conclusive evi- dence that it was written by the well-known jurist and publicist, Francois Hotman, the author of the ' Franco-gallia.' Modelled on 1 Francis I. 4 Edited by C. Head for the Acad^nie dt* Bibliophiles (Paris, 1875) from the copy then supposed to be unique, which escaped the destruction of the Hotel de Ville library by the Commune. Since then a copy was sold in the Sonderland sale (no. 4918) for 4-22. 1899 FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION 453 Cicero's Catiline orations it reads like a succession of pistol-shots tired point-blank at the cardinal. Rarely had the French language been used with such nervous and concise energy. But, as a full account of the pamphlet will be found in Baird's ' History of the Huguenots' (i. 445 ff.), I need say no more about it here. The next pamphlet that I shall notice belongs to the year 1565. The first civil war had, after a year's duration, been terminated by the Edict of Amboise in March 1568. In December the council of Trent had concluded its labours; the Counter-Reformation had begun. Downloaded from In January 1564 the cardinal of Lorraine returned to France and tried in vain to procure the recognition of the council's decrees in that country. In the following March Catherine de' Medici and Charles IX began that ' progress ' through France which was to culminate in the celebrated interview at Bayonne with the Queen http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ of Spain and the Duke of Alva (June 1565). Meanwhile the Huguenots were complaining that the Edict of Amboise was not being observed. It must huve been a. little before the interview at Bayonne that the new pamphlet appeared.' The title-page con- tains nothing but the date—15(55 -and the title ' f)u grand et loyal devoir tidelite et obeissance de messieurs de Paris envers le Roy et Couronne de France, addressee a,' &c. Here follow the names of the Provost of the Merchants and the four sheriffs of at Georgetown University on July 18, 2015 Paris.6 The pamphlet was commonly known as ' Le Livre des Marchands,' and its author was undoubtedly Louis Regnier de la Planche, the son of a magistrate of Poitiers, who was attached to the household of the Constable of Montmorency.7 He was a Protestant, but, aH he says of himself in his admirable ' Histoire de l'Estat de France sous Francois II,' he was hommn politiqncplutiixt qnc religieux,* and in this pamphlet he wears the mark of a moderate Catholic. Its occasion was the entry of the cardinal of Lorraine into Paris on January 8, 15(55, when, contrary to the royal prohibition, he was attended by an armed escort. Accordingly, Francis of Montmorency, the Constable's son, in his capacity of governor of the Isle of France, having in vain warned him, while still on the road, that he would not permit such an infringement of the king's orders, dispersed the escort by force as soon as it had entered the gate of St. Denis, and forced the cardinal and his friends to take refuge in some neighbouring houses. The pamphlet opens with a description of this event, of which the writer represents himself as an eye-witness. He then describes how he engaged in conversation with several shop-keeperB on the * The printing had been finished for three months, says the publisher. • It will be found in the I'anth&m LitUrairc under Chroniqucs et Mdmoires, and in the edition of the Histoirc de l'Estat de France, published by Techener in 1886. 7 Rtveille-matin, dialogue i. p. 104. " I cannot agree with Baird's reasons (History of the Huguenots, i. 410, note) for doubting the authorship of La Planche. 454 SOME PAMPHLETS OF THE July Btate of public affairs and in particular on the merits of the house of Guise. A representative of each trade is brought forward in turn, and made to express his opinion, the author professing merely to record these opinions without adding anything of his own. With great skill the Guises are represented in the light most calculated to make them unpopular with the Paris ixHiryeowie. Their foreign descent, their greed of power and office, their offences against the clergy, the nobles, and the Tiers Etat, are all dwelt on in turn; while generally their selfish and anti-national policy is contrasted with the patriotism of the house of Montmorency. Downloaded from But the pamphlet is not merely an attack on the Guises ; it is an appeal in favour of moderation and tolerance, of that policy which Michel de l'Hospital, now chancellor, was in vain endeavouring to carry out.