J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8)

Francis was not to be seen among the vast and brilliant crowd which filled Marseilles. There were princes of the blood, prelates, diplomatists, magistrates, courtiers, and warriors; but the king, although at the gates of the city, kept himself in the background and apart. However, when the night came, and everybody had retired to their quarters to rest after so fatiguing a day, a man, wrapped up in a cloak, entered the city, glided mysteriously along the dark streets, and stopped at the gate of the palace where the pope was lodging. This man was immediately introduced into the apartments where Clement was preparing to take his repose: it was the King of France. 473... What was the object of this nocturnal visit? Was it because the king wished to sound the pontiff in secret, before receiving him officially? Was it the etiquette of the time? However that may be, Francis, after a secret and confidential conversation, returned with the same mystery, wearing a very satisfied look. The pope had promised everything, all the rights, all the possessions,—in a word, whatever he had made up his mind not to give.

The next day the pope, dressed in his pontifical robes, and seated in a magnificent chair borne on men's shoulders, made his solemn entry, attended by his cardinals, also in all the brilliancy of their costume, and by a great number of lords and ladies of France and Italy. 474

=LATIN ADDRESS TO THE POPE.=

Early in the morning, and while the streets were echoing with cries of joy, the president of the parliament, living in one of the handsomest houses of Marseilles, was pacing his room with anxious brow, gesticulating and carefully repeating some Latin phrases. That magistrate had been commissioned, as a great orator, to deliver an address to the pope; but as unfortunately Latin was not familiar to him, he had had his speech written out beforehand, and by dint of labour he had so far committed it to memory, as to be able to repeat it off-hand—provided there was no change made in it.

At the same moment, a messenger from the pope appeared at the king's levée with a paper, and requested, on behalf of the pontiff, who had a great fear of the terrible Charles V., that the said oration should be delivered as it was written on the paper he brought with him, so as to give the emperor no offence. Francis despatched Clement's draft to the president. What a disappointment! The new address was precisely the contrary of what he had been learning by heart. The famous orator became confused: he did not know what to do.... Alas! he had but a few minutes to spare, and the sonorous words which would have offended the great emperor, and which he had counted on reciting in his loudest voice, kept recurring to his mind. He fancied himself in the presence of that magnificent assembly of proud Roman prelates who knew Latin so well.... There could be no doubt about it ... he would become embarrassed, he would stammer, he would not remember what he had to say, and would break down. He was quite in a fever. The president, no longer master of himself, hurried off to the king, and begged him to give the office to some one else. 'Very well, then,' said Francis to Bishop du Bellay, 'you must undertake it.' At that moment the procession started. It reached its destination; the Bishop of Paris, although taken unawares, put a bold face upon the matter; and being a good Latin scholar and able orator, he executed his commission wonderfully well. 475

The official conferences began shortly after, and neither king nor pope spared protestations, stratagems, or falsehoods: the pope particularly excelled in the latter article. 'He used so much artifice in the business,' says Guicciardini, 476'that the king confided marvellously in him.' What Francis required to compensate him for the misalliance was not much: he asked for the duchies of Urbino and Milan, Pisa, Leghorn, Reggio, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, and Genoa. But if the king was inexhaustible in his demands, the pope was equally so in his promises, being the more liberal as he intended to give nothing. Clement, touched by the good-nature of Francis, who appeared to believe all that was told him, sent at last to Nice for the youthful Catherine.

=BULL AGAINST HERETICS.=

It was not decorous for the pope to appear to have come so far only to give away a young lady. He proposed, therefore, in order to conceal his intrigues, to issue the bull against the heretics which he had brought with him. It was his wedding present, and nothing could better inaugurate Catherine's entry into France. But the diplomatist, William du Bellay, did all in his power to prevent this truly Roman transaction. He had several very animated conversations on this subject with the cardinals and with the pope himself. He represented to him the necessity of satisfying the protestants of Germany: 'A free council and mutual concessions,' he said; but Clement was deaf. Du Bellay would not give way; he struggled manfully with the pontiff, and conjured him not to attempt to put down the Reformation with violence. 477He used similar language to Francis, and laid before him some letters which he had recently received from Germany; but the king replied that he was taking the matter too seriously. The bull of excommunication was simply a manner , a papal form ... and nothing more. The bull was published, and there was a great noise about it. Francis and Clement, each believing in the other's good faith, were deceiving one another. The only truth in all this Marseilles business was the gift the pope made to France of Catherine de Medici. That was quite enough certainly.

As soon as the pope's niece arrived, preparations were made for the marriage. The ministers of the king and of the pope took the contract in hand, and the latter having spoken of an annuity of one hundred thousand crowns: 'It is very little for so noble an alliance,' said the treasurers of Francis I.—'True,' replied Strozzi, one of Clement's most able servants; 'but observe that her grace the Duchess of Urbino brings moreover three rings of inestimable value ... Genoa, Milan, and Naples.' 478These diamonds, whose brilliancy was to dazzle the king and France, never shone on Catherine's fingers or on the crown of Henry II.

=MARRIAGE OF CATHERINE AND HENRY.=

The ceremony was conducted with great magnificence. The bride advanced, young, brilliant, radiant with joy, with smiling lips and sparkling eyes, her head adorned with gold, pearls, and flowers; and in her train ... Death.... Death, who was always her faithful follower, who served her even when she would have averted his dart; who, by striking the dauphin, was to make her the wife of the heir to the crown; by striking her father-in-law, to make her queen; and by striking down successively her husband and all her sons, to render her supreme controller of the destinies of France. In gratitude, therefore, towards her mysterious and sinister ally, the Florentine woman was forty years later, and in a night of August, to give him a magnificent entertainment in the streets of Paris, to fill a lake with blood that he might bathe therein, and organise the most terrible festival that had ever been held in honour of Death. Catherine approached the altar, trembling a little, though not agitated. The pope officiated, desirous of personally completing the grandeur of his house, and tapers without number were lighted. The King and Queen of France, with a crowd of courtiers dressed in the richest costumes, surrounded the altar. Catherine de Medici placed her cold hand in the faithless hand of Henry of Valois, which was to deprive the Reform of all liberty, and France herself, in the Unhappy Peace , of her glory and her conquests. Clement gave his pontifical blessing to this tragic pair. The marriage was concluded; the girl , as Guicciardini calls her, was a wife; her eyes glanced as with fire. Was it a beam of happiness and pride? Probably. We might ask also if it was not the joy of the hyena scenting from afar the graves where it could feast on the bodies of the dead; or of the tiger espying from its lair in the African desert the groups of travellers upon whom it might spring and quench its raging thirst for blood. But although the appetites which manifested themselves in the St. Bartholomew massacre already existed in the germ in this young wife, there is no evidence (it must be acknowledged) that she allowed herself to be governed at Marseilles by these cruel promptings.