The History of Freedom, and Other Essays. Acton John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Baron

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СКАЧАТЬ reason which he could not trust to paper, the marriage would certainly take place, though not until the Huguenots had delivered up their strongholds. Four weeks later Alamanni announced that the Queen's pious design for restoring unity of faith would, by the grace of God, be speedily accomplished. On the 9th of August Petrucci was able to report that the plan arranged at Bayonne was near execution.26 Yet he was not fully initiated. The Queen afterwards assured him that she had confided the secret to no foreign resident except the Nuncio,27 and Petrucci resentfully complains that she had also consulted the Ambassador of Savoy. Venice, like Florence and Savoy, was not taken by surprise. In February the ambassador Contarini explained to the Senate the specious tranquillity in France, by saying that the Government reckoned on the death of the Admiral or the Queen of Navarre to work a momentous change.28 Cavalli, his successor, judged that a business so grossly mismanaged showed no signs of deliberation.29 There was another Venetian at Paris who was better informed. The Republic was seeking to withdraw from the league against the Turks; and her most illustrious statesman, Giovanni Michiel, was sent to solicit the help of France in negotiating peace.30 The account which he gave of his mission has been pronounced by a consummate judge of Venetian State-Papers the most valuable report of the sixteenth century.31 He was admitted almost daily to secret conference with Anjou, Nevers, and the group of Italians on whom the chief odium rests; and there was no counsellor to whom Catherine more willingly gave ear.32 Michiel affirms that the intention had been long entertained, and that the Nuncio had been directed to reveal it privately to Pius V.33

      Salviati was related to Catherine, and had gained her good opinion as Nuncio in the year 1570. The Pope had sent him back because nobody seemed more capable of diverting her and her son from the policy which caused so much uneasiness at Rome.34 He died many years later, with the reputation of having been one of the most eminent Cardinals at a time when the Sacred College was unusually rich in talent. Personally, he had always favoured stern measures of repression. When the Countess of Entremont was married to Coligny, Salviati declared that she had made herself liable to severe penalties by entertaining proposals of marriage with so notorious a heretic, and demanded that the Duke of Savoy should, by all the means in his power, cause that wicked bride to be put out of the way.35 When the peace of St. Germains was concluded, he assured Charles and Catherine that their lives were in danger, as the Huguenots were seeking to pull down the throne as well as the altar. He believed that all intercourse with them was sinful, and that the sole remedy was utter extermination by the sword. "I am convinced," he wrote, "that it will come to this." "If they do the tenth part of what I have advised, it will be well for them."36 After an audience of two hours, at which he had presented a letter from Pius V., prophesying the wrath of Heaven, Salviati perceived that his exhortations made some impression. The King and Queen whispered to him that they hoped to make the peace yield such fruit that the end would more than countervail the badness of the beginning; and the King added, in strict confidence, that his plan was one which, once told, could never be executed.37 This might have been said to delude the Nuncio; but he was inclined on the whole to believe that it was sincerely meant. The impression was confirmed by the Archbishop of Sens, Cardinal Pellevé, who informed him that the Huguenot leaders were caressed at Court in order to detach them from their party, and that after the loss of their leaders it would not take more than three days to deal with the rest.38 Salviati on his return to France was made aware that his long-deferred hopes were about to be fulfilled. He shadowed it forth obscurely in his despatches. He reported that the Queen allowed the Huguenots to pass into Flanders, believing that the admiral would become more and more presumptuous until he gave her an opportunity of retribution; for she excelled in that kind of intrigue. Some days later he knew more, and wrote that he hoped soon to have good news for his Holiness.39 At the last moment his heart misgave him. On the morning of the 21st of August the Duke of Montpensier and the Cardinal of Bourbon spoke with so much unconcern, in his presence, of what was then so near, that he thought it hardly possible the secret could be kept.40

      The foremost of the French prelates was the Cardinal of Lorraine. He had held a prominent position at the council of Trent; and for many years he had wielded the influence of the House of Guise over the Catholics of France. In May 1572 he went to Rome; and he was still there when the news came from Paris in September. He at once made it known that the resolution had been taken before he left France, and that it was due to himself and his nephew, the Duke of Guise.41 As the spokesman of the Gallican Church in the following year he delivered a harangue to Charles IX., in which he declared that Charles had eclipsed the glory of preceding kings by slaying the false prophets, and especially by the holy deceit and pious dissimulation with which he had laid his plans.42

      There was one man who did not get his knowledge from rumour, and who could not be deceived by lies. The King's confessor, Sorbin, afterwards Bishop of Nevers, published in 1574 a narrative of the life and death of Charles IX. He bears unequivocal testimony that that clement and magnanimous act, for so he terms it, was resolved upon beforehand, and he praises the secrecy as well as the justice of his hero.43

      Early in the year a mission of extraordinary solemnity had appeared in France. Pius V., who was seriously alarmed at the conduct of Charles, had sent the Cardinal of Alessandria as Legate to the Kings of Spain and Portugal, and directed him, in returning, to visit the Court at Blois. The Legate was nephew to the Pope, and the man whom he most entirely trusted.44 His character stood so high that the reproach of nepotism was never raised by his promotion. Several prelates destined to future eminence attended him. His chief adviser was Hippolyto Aldobrandini, who, twenty years later, ascended the papal chair as Clement VIII. The companion whose presence conferred the greatest lustre on the mission was the general of the Jesuits, Francis Borgia, the holiest of the successors of Ignatius, and the most venerated of men then living. Austerities had brought him to the last stage of weakness; and he was sinking under the malady of which he was soon to die. But it was believed that the words of such a man, pleading for the Church, would sway the mind of the King. The ostensible purpose of the Legate's journey was to break off the match with Navarre, and to bring France into the Holy League. He gained neither object. When he was summoned back to Rome it was understood in France that he had reaped nothing but refusals, and that he went away disappointed.45 The jeers of the Protestants pursued him.46 But it was sufficiently certain beforehand that France could not plunge into a Turkish war.47 The real business of the Legate, besides proposing a Catholic husband for the Princess, was to ascertain the object of the expedition which was fitting out in the Western ports. On both points he had something favourable to report. In his last despatch, dated Lyons, the 6th of March, he wrote that he had failed to prevent the engagement with Navarre, but that he had something for the Pope's private ear, which made his journey not altogether unprofitable.48 The secret was soon divulged in Italy. The King had met the earnest remonstrances of the Legate by assuring him that the marriage afforded the only prospect of wreaking vengeance on the Huguenots: the event would show; he could say no more, but desired his promise to be carried to the Pope. It was added that he had presented a ring to the Legate, as a pledge of sincerity, which the Legate refused. The first to publish this story was Capilupi, writing only seven months later. It was repeated by Folieta,СКАЧАТЬ