Henry M. Baird · 297 of 379

CHAPTER XI · The "Mercuriale" of 1561.

On the twenty-third of June, Charles, accompanied by his mother, by the King of Navarre, and the other princes of the blood, and by the council of state, came to the chamber of parliament, and the chancellor announced to the assembled members the object of this extraordinary visit. It was to obtain advice not respecting religion itself—that was reserved for the deliberation of the national council, and its merits could not be discussed here—but respecting the best method of appeasing the commotions daily on the increase, caused by a diversity of religious tenets. He therefore begged all present to express in brief terms their opinions on this important topic. It is not surprising that the answers given should have been of the most varied import. Ever since the time of Henry the Second, the Parliament of Paris had contained a considerable number of friends, more or less open, of Protestantism, and among the princes and noblemen who came to join in the deliberation, the number of its warm advocates was proportionately still greater. At the same time, the Roman Catholic party was largely represented in the ranks of the members of the parliament proper, as recent events had indicated; while, among the high nobility and the dignitaries of the church, the weight of the constable and the Duke of Guise, the cardinals of Bourbon, Tournon, Lorraine, and Guise, and the Bishop of Paris, counterbalanced the influence of the King of Navarre, the Prince of Condé, the Châtillons, and the chancellor. Five or six different opinions were announced by the successive speakers; but they could all be reduced to three. The more tolerant advocated the suspension of all punishments until the determination of the questions in dispute by a council. A second class, on the contrary, maintained the propriety and expediency of enforcing the laws which made death the penalty of heretical belief. The rest—and they mustered in the end a majority of three over the advocates of toleration, while they were much more numerous than the champions of bloody persecution—advised the king to give to the ecclesiastical courts exclusive cognizance of heresy, according to the provisions of the Edict of Romorantin, and to forbid the holding of public or private conventicles, whether with or without arms, in which sermons should be preached or the sacraments administered otherwise than according to the customs of the Romish Church. Such was the result of the deliberations of the Mercuriale of June and July, 1561, in the course of which opinions had been freely expressed far more radical than those of Anne Du Bourg in the Mercuriale of 1559.