Henry M. Baird · 298 of 379

CHAPTER XI · Disappointment at its severity.

The edict for which the direction had been thus marked out was published on the eleventh of July, 1561. It has become celebrated in history as the "Edict of July." After reiterating the injunctions of previous royal letters, and forbidding all insults and breaches of the peace, on pain of the halter, Charles was made to prohibit "all enrollings, signatures, or other things tending to sedition." Preachers in the churches were strictly commanded to abstain from uttering words calculated to excite the popular passions or prejudice. The most important portion of the law, however, was that which punished, by confiscation of body and goods, all who attended, whether with or without arms, conventicles in which preaching was held or the holy sacraments administered. Of simple heresy the cognizance was still restricted, as by the edict of Romorantin in the previous year, to the church courts; but no higher penalty could be imposed on the guilty, when handed over to the secular arm, than banishment from the kingdom. The punishment of all offences in which public disorder or sedition was mingled with heresy, remained in the hands of the presidial judges. These were the leading features of this severe ordinance. It is true that the edict was expressly stated to be only provisional—to last no longer than until the Universal or National Council, whichever might be held—that pardon was offered to those who would live in a Catholic manner for the future, that calumny was threatened with exemplary punishment. Yet it was clear that the law was framed in the interest of the Roman Catholics, and in their interest alone. The Duke of Guise openly exulted. He exclaimed in the hearing of many, "that his sword would never rest in its scabbard when the execution of this decision was in question." The disappointment of the Protestants was not less extreme. At court, Admiral Coligny did not hesitate to declare that its provisions could never be executed. The farther they were removed from St. Germain, the more loudly the Huguenots murmured, the greater was their indisposition to submit to the harsh conditions imposed upon them. In Guyenne and Gascony, and in Languedoc, where whole towns were to be found containing scarcely one avowed partisan of the papacy, the discontent was open and threatening. How long did the bigots of Paris intend to keep their eyes closed and refuse to recognize the altered aspect of affairs? Until what future day was the simplest of rights—the right of the social and public worship of God—to be proscribed? Must the inhabitants of entire districts continue, month after month, and year after year, to stand in the eye of the law as culprits, with the halter around their necks, and beg mercy of a despised priesthood and a dissolute court, for the crime of assembling in the open field, in the school-houses, or even in the parish churches, where their fathers had worshipped before them, to listen to the preaching of God's word?