Henry M. Baird · 244 of 379

CHAPTER X · The Cardinal of Lorraine is more politic.

The cardinal was more politic, and suppressed the manifestation of that deadly hatred which, from this time forward, the brothers cherished against Coligny. He declared, however, that, although the petitioners laid claim to such loyalty, their true character was apparent from the affair at Amboise, as well as from the daily issue of libellous pamphlets and placards, of which he had not less than twenty-two on his table directed against himself, which he carefully preserved as his best eulogium and claim to immortality. He advocated the severe repression of the seditious; yet, with a stretch of hypocrisy and mendacity uncommon even with a Guise, he expressed himself as for his own part very sorry that such "grievous executions" had been inflicted upon those who went "without arms and from fear of being damned to hear preaching, or who sang psalms, neglected the mass, or engaged in other observances of theirs," and as being in favor of no longer inflicting such useless punishments! Nay, he would that his life or death might be of some service in bringing back the wanderers to the path of truth. He opposed a council as unnecessary—it could not do otherwise than decide as its predecessors—but consented to a convocation of the clergy for the reformation of manners. The States General he thought might well be gathered to see with what prudence the administration of public affairs had been carried on.