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were at once set aside by a bull of excommunica- | who on entering were made to swear to sacrifice tion, and the court of Rome openly put forward their lives, if necessary, to the cause, and who met the titles of Henri de Guise, the eager adviser for some time in the chamber of Boucher, in the and promoter of the massacre of the Saint Bar-Sorbonne. They were especially supported by thélemy, to the crown of France, which the the Duke of Mayenne, and were directly counpreachers were directed to set forth zealously in tenanced by the pope. It was, indeed, with them their sermons.

that the latter communicated most confidentially. They began by demanding of the king the establishment of an inquisition, like that of Spain, in every town in France, which was of course refused; and then they sent agents into every part of the kingdom, to agitate the populace. At Paris, the seditious acrimony of the sermons increased to such a degree, that the king was obliged to send for one of the preachers, who, at the beginning of May, had held forth against him with more than ordinary intemperance in the pulpit of St. Séverin. A report was instantly set abroad by the clergy, that the king designed to seize all the preachers; whereupon the curé of St. Séverin raised his parishioners, and refused to deliver the offender. Boucher simultaneously sounded the tocsin in his parish of St. Benoit; their confederate, Bussy-le-Clerc, one of the most violent of the lay members of the committee, came with his company in arms, and established himself in the imme

At first the higher clergy had shown some degree of reluctance to take part in these gross and indecent attacks upon royalty. It was the religious orders, the curés, the maistres ès arts crottés, (as they were termed in derision by the other party,) the doctors of the Sorbonne, fed with Spanish money, publicly encouraged by the Guises, paid and excited, and even prompted by the Duchess of Montpensier, to whom the king was an object of furious hatred; in fact it was the whole body of the secondary clergy, who, assisted by the intrigues of the Jesuits, the support of the pope's nuncio, and the discontent of two or three ambitious and turbulent prelates, threw themselves into the foremost ranks of the disaffected, and acted upon the masses by the unbridled brutality of their declamations. An example or two will show the unscrupulous manner in which they propagated misrepresentation and falsehood. In August, 1587, Jean Boucher, (one of the most vio-diate neighborhood of the church; and the king's lent of the curés of Paris,) preaching in the church archers, who came to seek the preacher, were of St. Barthélemy, told his auditors with the driven away. The die was irrecoverably thrown greatest assurance, that the king intended to hin- by this open act of rebellion; and only a few days der all the preachers from speaking the truth, and after, on the 12th of May, 1588, the "barricades" that he had already put to death Burlat, the incen- compelled Henri III. to make a hasty retreat from diary preacher of Orleans. Henri III., informed his capital by one of its most private entrances, of this calumny, sent for several of the rebellious followed by the musket-shots of his own subjects. doctors of the Sorbonne, and in their presence This event had been long in preparation by the asked Boucher why he had accused him of mur- revolutionary council of the preachers, who, in the dering Burlat? Boucher said that it had been told moment of action, showed themselves in the forehim for truth. The king reproached him for be- most ranks. They marched at the head of an lieving what was evil rather than what was good, army of 400 monks, and 800 scholars of the uniand then caused Burlat to be introduced, alive and versity, shouting out "That they must go and well, to Boucher's no small confusion, who, how-seize brother' Henry de Valois, in his Louvre." ever, escaped without punishment. It is even said After the king's escape, they established a kind of that Burlat had been all the time living in inter- municipal government in the capital. course with Boucher and the other preachers. In Influenced by this success, for the king by his the same year, when the German Reiters were en-flight had given them an undoubted advantage, the tirely defeated at the battle of Auneau, at which the king was present, the preachers could scarcely give him a small share in the victory, a few of them only condescending to compare him with Saul, who had slain his thousand, while David, i. e., Henri de Guise, had killed his ten thousand; but every pulpit rang with the marvellous valors of this 66 new Gideon sent for the salvation of France." The king is said to have been extremely offended at these demonstrations of partiality; but he was still more alarmed in the December following, when in the Sorbonne the faculty of theology decided that it was lawful to take the government out of the hands of princes, who did not fully perform the duties expected from them.

clergy of Paris seemed to be worked up to a sort of madness, and the king, in his retreat, was exposed daily to new insults and humiliations. Many of the vacant curés of the churches of the capital were given to violent liguers, to the injury of those who were legitimately entitled to them; and two priests, who afterwards made themselves peculiarly conspicuous, Guincestre and Pigenat, were thus forced into the churches of St. Nicolas des Champs, and St. Gervais. The latter preacher was especially popular with the Parisian mob, and he carried his zeal so far as to march in their fanatical processions stark naked, with nothing but a little apron of white linen before him. Henri III., driven to desperation, had the weakness to attempt to deliver himself by a crime; he ordered the murder of the two Guises, Henri and his brother, the cardinal, which was executed on the 23d of December, 1588.

We are now arrived at the eventful year 1588. In spite of the successful efforts of the preachers, in spite of the approbation and encouragement of the pope, and the active support of Philip II., of The preachers of Paris were struck dumb with Spain, the Guises seem to have shown some reluc- astonishment at the first intelligence of this untance to put themselves openly at the head of the looked-for tragedy, and for two or three days their insurrection, till the uncontrollable zeal of a self-violence seemed to have ceased. But it was only formed committee, behind which they concealed the silence which often precedes a great explosion. themselves, obliged them to throw off the mask. Guincestre was the first to break it; on the 29th This committee consisted chiefly of the more intemperate of the preachers, with two or three bourgeois, equally distinguished by their violence,

of December he mounted the pulpit of the church of St. Barthélemy, and pronounced a violent philippic against the king, whom he called a vilain

Herodes (the anagram of Henri de Valois,) and "This scurvy-pate (ce teigneux) always wears a after applying to him every kind of opprobrious turban like a Turk, which he has never been seen epithet, declared to his audience that they owed to take off, even at the sacrament. And when this him no further obedience. The latter, after the wretched hypocrite pretended to go against the sermon, rushed to the door, where they tore down Reiters he wore a furred German coat with silver the king's arms, and trampled them under foot. hooks, which signified the good intelligence and On the 1st of January, the same Guincestre called agreement which were between him and ces diables out to his audience to hold up their hands and noirs empistolés." These were all gratuitous falseswear that they would revenge the deaths of the hoods. Guincestre, though not a member of the princes with the last farthing in their purses, and council, went still further. On Ash-Wednesday with the last drop of their blood. The president, he announced that that Lent he would not preach De Harlay, a man distinguished for his modera- the gospel, because it was "too common and everytion, was sitting in face of the pulpit; and the body knew it," but that he would relate to his conpreacher addressed him more pointedly than the gregation, "The life, actions, and abominable deeds rest-"Raise your hand, Monsieur le President, of that perfidious tyrant Henri de Valois," in the raise it very high, in order that everybody may course of which he deliberately accused him of see you." Had the president dared to disobey, he offering worship to devils; and drawing out of his would probably have fallen a sacrifice to the mob.pocket an ornamental candlestick, supported by Not many weeks afterwards, he was thrown into figures of satyrs, which he pretended had belonged prison by the liguers. Pigenat preached the to the king-"Lo!" said he, "these are the king's apotheosis of the Guises at Nôtre Dame; and, in demons; these are the gods whom he adores, and the midst of a torrent of eulogistic eloquence, he whose enchantments he uses!" Guincestre and stopped suddenly to ask his auditors if there was Feuardent, a preacher as violent as himself, with not a man among them zealous enough to avenge the influence of others of the fraternity, now ob the martyrs" in the blood of the tyrant who had tained from the faculty of theology a decree, which ordered their death." This was a direct incite-declared that Henri III. was dethroned, and authorment to regicide. In Paris, the clergy got up a procession of 100,000 persons carrying tapers in their hands, and shouting, "God, extinguish the race of the Valois !" Some of the priests placed on their altars wax images of Henri III., and during the service of the mass stabbed them several times to the heart.

ized his subjects to take arms against him. The personalities employed in the sermons became daily more frequent; the moderate inhabitants of Paris were obliged to attend the preachings, and join in acts of intemperate zeal, or they ran the risk of being pointed out from the pulpit to the vengeance of the mob. Women were not spared. On one The murder of the princes forms a marked epoch occasion, a preacher having pointed out two ladies in the history of the Ligue. Mendoza, the Spanish of quality, named Barthélemy and Feudeau, as ambassador, left the king and repaired to Paris, being somewhat remiss in their zeal, it was not where he gave the Ligue, by his presence, the without the greatest difficulty that their persons authority of the name of Philip II. The Duke of were saved from outrage, and their houses from Mayenne, the brother of the Guises, had also pillage. Murder, when committed upon a partisan thrown himself into Paris; and under his presi- of the king, was a subject of public exultation. One dency was constituted the "council of forty," day a liguer slew a royalist, in a frivolous duel; afterwards increased to the number of fifty-four, his valor was in an instant the subject of a sermon which included seven of the most intemperate in every church. "The young David," it was preachers, Rose, Boucher, Prévost, Aubry, Pelle-said, "has slain the Philistine Goliah!" tier, Pigenat, and Launay. The members of this A new tragedy was now preparing, which was council, which had virtually seized upon the gov- to lead to a further complication of events. The ernment of the country, received each a salary of king had strengthened himself by joining with the a hundred écus every month. The object of the King of Navarre, who came to his assistance with Essay of M. Labitte, which we are following in a Protestant army, and they advanced upon Paris. our narrative, is to show the democratic tendency The populace began to be discouraged; an exhiof the sermons of these preachers; and it is evi- bition of strength might still revive the latent dent throughout, that they encouraged republican respect for the crown, and in that case the influence principles, with the object of securing to them- of the preachers was at an end. The latter, aware selves the exercise of power unchecked by a supe- of this, were indefatigable in their exertions, both rior hand. They were never unmindful of their at Paris and in the provinces, to keep up people's own interests, for they took care to appropriate to zeal; they said that the capital was strong enough themselves a large portion of the plunder of the and rich enough to set at defiance four kings; that houses of suspected royalists, and some of them France was sick, and could only be relieved by a were known to be living in shameful profligacy." potion of blood;" and they announced officially A writer of the time tells us that men who a few that they knew it was intended that, in every town years before stood amongst the lowest of the which surrendered to the king, the preachers were clergy, and possessed little more than what was to be massacred, the magistrates hung, and the necessary for their existence, were now grasping, women abandoned to the brutality of the soldiers. one at a rich benefice, another at an abbey, another The not over-scrupulous writers of the time refuse at a bishopric, and were hardly satisfied even with to report the gross indecency of the terms in which these. the king was spoken of in the pulpit. The end of The hundred écus a month had certainly a pow-July was approaching, and Paris was suffering so erful effect in stimulating the zeal of those who received them, who were, if possible, less scrupulous than ever in their calumnious statements. They began, as M. Labitte observes, to deal in the marvellous. Boucher, speaking of the king, in a sermon, on the 15th of February, 1589, said,

much from the siege, that people already began to speak of surrendering. The preachers begged them to wait patiently seven or eight days, and assured them that they would see before the end of the week "some great thing," (quelque grande chosc,) which would effect their deliverance. We

are told that the same announcement was made by containing_three points which they were to susthe preachers at Rouen, Orleans, Amiens, and other tain in their next sermons-to justify the act of the great towns. Within the time specified, on the Jacobin by comparing him to Judith-to prove that 1st of August, 1589, Henri III. was assassinated" the Béarnois" (Henri of Navarre, who had at by the Jacobin monk, Jacques Clement, who had once assumed the title of Henry IV.) could not been urged to this crime by the exhortations of the succeed to Henry de Valois, and to show that all preachers, by the favors (as it was said) of the those who ventured to support his claims ought to Duchess of Montpensier, and by the promises of be excommunicated. Guincestre celebrated first the chiefs of the Ligue. One only of the clergy of the apotheosis of Jacques Clement, who was proFrance, the superior of a Cistercian convent, dis- claimed in every pulpit as "the blessed child of tinguished by his virtues, ventured to celebrate in St. Dominic," "the holy martyr of Christ." Those public the funeral service for the unfortunate mon- who dared to apply the title of regicide to the hero arch; his monks rebelled against him, he was who had delivered his country "from that dog driven from his office, and was long afterwards an Henri de Valois," were marked by the preachers object of persecution in the church. for popular vengeance, under the coarsely expressive but untranslatable epithet of garnements. Tapers burnt in the churches around the statue of Jacques Clement, whose mother came to Paris to receive the reward of his act. The people were invited in special sermons to go and reverence "the blessed mother of the martyr," who, on her return, was accompanied to the distance of a league from the capital by a cortège of forty monks. The pope in his joy, on receiving intelligence of the murder, exclaimed that the deed was as useful to the church as the incarnation of the Saviour, and compared the heroism of the assassin to the actions of Judith and Eleazar.

As we stated at the beginning of our article, France now lay absolutely at the mercy of its preachers. M. Labitte has given brief notices of some of the most prominently seditious. Jean Boucher, the most remarkable of them all for the part he acted, and for the number and violence of his writings, was a native of Paris, born in 1551, distinguished for his learning and eloquence, but ambitious in the extreme, and possessed of a ferocity of character which the historians of the time describe as amounting almost to madness. Next to him comes Guillaume Rose, a fit companion for him, equally learned, and even more eloquent, but characterized by Bayle as le plus enragé ligueur The siege of Paris had been relinquished after qui fût en France: he was two or three years older the murder of Henri III., and the liguers, whose than Boucher, had received innumerable benefits hopes were suddenly raised to the highest pitch, from the king whom he deserted, and had been proclaimed the Cardinal de Bourbon (then a prismade Bishop of Senlis in 1584. He was believed oner) his successor, under the title of Charles X., by some to be liable to temporary attacks of insan- a mere shadow of a king, as M. Labitte observes, ity. Mathieu de Launay was a native of Sens, which adjourned the settlement of the question had been a convert from Calvinism, and was sub- among the real pretenders, and allowed them to sequently a canon of Soissons, where he was the unite for the destruction of the rightful monarch, grand supporter of the cause of the Ligue, until Henri IV. The latter appeared to have no resource he was called by his brethren to Paris; he was left but his own tried genius and courage. The accused of irregularity of morals, and there were Duke of Mayenne had pursued him to the neighthose who did not hesitate to characterize him by horhood of Dieppe, in the confidence of there putthe appellation of un scélérat. Génébrard, a Bene- ting an end to the war, and the windows of the dictine, born at Riom, in 1537, was also distin-houses in Paris were already let to those who guished by his learning, and by his fanatical vio- wished to see the Huguenot king led a captive lence-Lestoile compares his eloquence to that of through the streets, when the victory of Arques, a fish-woman in a passion. The cordelier, Fran- in the month of October, completely changed the çois Feuardent, born at Coutances, in 1539, was face of events. The preachers were thunderstruck also considered as one of the pillars of the Ligue; at the news of this disaster; but they had recourse his name appears to have been characteristic of his to their old tricks, and kept people in ignorance as temper. A contemporary writer, speaking of his long as they could, by reading from the pulpit eloquence, tells us that verbum sicut facula ardebat. pretended letters of their general, announcing Such were the men who in a manner wielded the triumph after triumph. A sudden and vigorous destinies of their country. After these in impor-attack on the faubourgs of the capital revealed the tance come the names of Pigenat, Pelletier, Pré-truth to the astonished Parisians. Another cirvost, and Guincestre, the latter a Gascon, whose cumstance alarmed the preachers: Pope Sixtus V. name would seem to show that he was descended from an English family. Jean Hamilton, the curé of St. Cosme, was a Scot, who had left his native country in his youth, on account of his religion. These were imitated in their zeal in a greater or less degree by the numerous muster of names, most of them obscure, which formed the army of this extraordinary church militant. There were but three churches in all Paris which were not occupied by violent liguers; all the others had become veritable nests of sedition, and there was not a place of worship in which a sermon for the success of the "Holy Union" was not preached twice every day.

The murder of the king threw everything into momentary confusion. The preachers were far from wishing to avoid the odium of the deed. A circular was sent round to the clergy of Paris,

had hitherto given the Ligue his entire support, but, perhaps seeing more advantage to be derived from the expected conversion of Henri IV. than from the success of his rebellious subjects, he began to show a certain degree of irresolution, which irritated them so much that they actually began to

* A circumstance told by Lestoile on this occasion shows the tyranny exercised by the preachers and lower bourgeoisie at this time, and their jealousy of the civil zélés ayant remarqué que pendant que le roi estoit maître magistracy. "Le Lundy sixième de Novembre quelques des faubourgs, le président Blancmenin, président au parlement, aroit son visage plus riant que de coutume, le prirent prisonnier, et commencerent de lui faire sen procès, comme homme suspect et attaché au Bearnois. Cependant il n'en mourut pas par les soins de son frère, seigneur de Gevre et Secretaire d'Estat." People were daily murdered in the streets or drowned in the river for offences of no greater magnitude.

speak openly against the head of the church, and sadness, passed from terror to enthusiasm, and the news of his death, which happened soon after-showed a disposition to suffer anything for the holy wards, was received with expressions of joy.-cause of the Union. Another siege of Paris was "God," said Aubry, in announcing this event from imminent, and the wiser heads began to talk of the pulpit, "has delivered us from a wicked and conciliation; but the violent councils of Boucher, 'politic' pope. If he had lived longer, people Pelletier, Aubry, Hamilton, &c., carried the day. would have been surprised to hear the pope preached Henri IV. established the blockade of Paris on the against in Paris, but it would have been necessary 8th of May, 1590, and nearly at the same time the to do it." The Duke of Mayenne and other great death of the so-called Charles X. left the liguers leaders of the Ligue began also to nourish more without even the shadow of a king. moderate feelings, for they were tired of the intem- At the beginning of the siege, the ecclesiastics perate violence of the churchmen. But the latter of Paris made a grand procession, which took were supported by the gold of Philip II., who had place on the 3d of June. About 1300 monks, his own private views; and they endeavored to priests, and scholars, all dressed in the habits of keep up the political agitation by a multitude of their order, and bearing arms of different descriplibellous and seditious pamphlets, among the writ- tions, with their robes tucked up, marched in ers of which Jean Boucher stood preeminent. A grotesque military order through the streets of party, however, had risen, known under the title Paris, with the Pope's legate, the bishop of Asti, given them by the preachers, of "the politics," (Panigerolle,) Bellarmin, (not yet a cardinal,) and advocates of moderate measures, and willing to Bishop Rose at their head. Even buffoonery like give the crown to Henri of Navarre, on his con- this was not thrown away on the excitable minds of version to the Catholic faith, who were increasing the Parisians; and it helped to encourage them daily, though in secret, and who exerted a consid- in sustaining the miseries of the siege, which were erable influence on events in the sequel. For the increasing daily in the total absence of supplies present, the preachers had obtained entire command from without. The violence of the preachers had over the minds of the people, as well in the prov- created a sort of terror; the man who dared to inces as in the capital. "Fanaticism," as M. La-speak of peace or of surrender was pointed out as bitte observes," reasons not, and, until the exasper-a" politic," and instantly sacrificed; people were ation subsided of itself, the efforts of the royalists everywhere dying of hunger, yet they were satisto plead their cause were vain. They, therefore, fied with popish indulgences and promises of Parareturned to the means of conquest, while the dise. However, as a historian of the time informs liguers redoubled new methods of exciting the us, "the chiefs took care that the convents and populations. Decrees of the Sorbonne, protesta-presbyteries were well stored with victuals, for fear tions of the pope's legate, (who, by the way, paid that if they felt hunger themselves, the clergy little attention to the directions of his master, when might not show so much inclination to preach pacontrary to the party in which he had joined heart tience to others." From day to day the preachand soul,) processions, threats of damnation, prom-ers promised relief before the end of the week; ises of felicity in heaven, sermons more frequent than ever, everything was employed with a new eagerness, all means were accumulated, so to say, to render the insurrection general." Every town in the north of France, and several cities of the south, especially in Provence, were by such means as these secured under the domination of these turbulent monks.

In March, 1590, the Ligue received a still more serious check in the battle of Ivry. The council of government alone knew this fatal intelligence, which had been brought by a prisoner released on parole; and they knew not how to communicate it to the people. After a long deliberation, the monk Christin was charged with this difficult mission. On the 16th of March, the second day after the battle, he mounted the pulpit, and in the course of his sermon introduced, as if by chance, the words of the Scripture: "Quos ego amo, arguo et castigo." This offered a theme upon which he dwelt at some length, and in the course of his argument he went on to say that God, without doubt, would not fail thus to try the devotion of his Parisians. He pretended to have done with this part of the subject, and was proceeding to another division of his sermon as a courier hastily entered the church, and placed a letter in his hand. Christin looked at it, and then raising himself suddenly in the pulpit with the letter in his hand, he cried out with an affected air of consternation, that doubtless Heaven had inspired him, and had made him that day a prophet rather than a preacher. He then related to them the disaster they had experienced at Ivry, and with all the force of his eloquence, burst into such pathetic exhortations, that the crowd, which at first had listened in silence and

yet weeks passed, one after another, and the capital was gradually reduced to the last extremity, A few herbs boiled in water were an enviable repast-every kind of animal was eaten with avidity then even scraps of leather boiled were sold as a dainty-a dead dog was devoured in the strect without waiting to be cooked-and lastly it was proposed to make bread of dead men's bones, taken from the church-yards, and ground to powder; and a mother ate her own infant. In the course of three months 30,000 persons died of hunger. Yet still the preachers ceased not to urge people to patience and endurance. Whole quarters of the city were deserted, and even venomous reptiles were seen in some of the unfrequented streets. The bishop of Asti said that

this was the effect of magic, and an illusion of the devil to discourage the good Catholics." Things had proceeded to that point, that even the preachers were likely to be no longer listened to, when the Duke of Parma, who had entered France with an army of Italians, formed a junction with the Duke of Mayenne, and very opportunely raised the siege, forcing the king to remain comparatively inactive, with the exception of taking two or three provincial towns, for some months. The clamorous exultations of the preachers knew no bounds; it was a miracle from heaven, sent as a reward for their persevering constancy in the good cause, that had delivered the Parisians; and the populace in their joy forgot their past sufferings, and put more confidence than ever in their clerical leaders.

In the moment of success dissension began to show itself among the all-powerful curés of the parishes of the capital. Some leaned towards

they were in danger of being marked out for mur-
der and pillage.

Spain, others towards the Duke of Mayenne, and others towards the young Duke of Guise, who had The magistracy of Paris became next the object escaped from his prison at Tours. The greater number wanted a popular government of their own of attack, because they presented a powerful imfashion, to be composed of a certain number of pediment to the sanguinary designs of the preachBoucher, Rose, and Aubry, were the most theologians and bourgeois, who, to use the words ers. of our author," would in the first place have es- intemperate in their abuse of this body. The tablished their authority by proscriptions, and then court of parliament acquitted a gentleman named strengthened it by a new Barthélemy of the mod- Brigard, who held the office of procureur du roi de erate party." Many of them changed, accordingl'Hôtel de Ville, unjustly accused of treason. The to circumstances, from one side to another, and they preachers set up a universal cry from their pulpits all joined when their own power was to be exer- that the whole court ought to be thrown into cised or defended. During the earlier months of prison. Aubry went so far as to point out one of the year 1591, the sermons of the clergy were en- them named Tardif, who dwelt in his parish, as a tirely devoted to two objects, to abuse the per- traitor, and said that under pretence of playing at Pelletier exson of Henri IV., and to call down the vengeance bowls, he held in his garden secret meetings for The the subversion of their cause. of the people upon the detested "politics. king laid siege to Chartres, the second city of the claimed from the pulpit, that as they could not have Ligue, which enjoyed the special sympathy of the justice from the court, it was time to make use of Parisians, and every church in Paris immediately their knives. The preachers and others of the resounded with vows and prayers. These were council of the Union met, and chose a secret couninterspersed with announcements of fictitious intel-cil of ten, which, after several preliminary consulligence, invented for the purpose of buoying up tations, met in the night of the 14th of November, the hopes of the faint-hearted, and conveyed in at the house of Pelletier, who, as we have just coarse terms calculated to arrest the attention of seen, had spoken of knives, and was curé of St. the mob. One day Commolet, preaching from the Jacques-la-Boucherie, and it was there resolved pulpit, stated (though he knew it to be false) that that the president Brisson, though a zealous succors had been thrown into the besieged city; liguer, with the counsellors Tardif and Larcher, and he cried out, amid extraordinary gesticulations should be put to death. At seven o'clock in the for which he was famous: "Va te pendre, va te morning, the preachers and their satellites were up pendre, va te pendre, te dy-je encore un coup, in arms, and Brisson and Larcher were seized at Politique! Ton Béarnois est bien peneu; il est once, carried to the Châtelet, and there slaughterentré du secours, malgré sa moustache et ses ed without any form of judgment. Hamilton, the dens!" When the necessity of surrender could no curé of St. Cosme, with a party of priests, went to longer be concealed, the preachers declared that the house of Tardif, and finding him ill they the city had been sold by the "politics," (as they dragged him from his bed of sickness, carried him constantly termed the advocates of moderation,) to the place where the others had just been killed, and that the only hope remaining was that the and hanged him without even the intervention of true Catholics of Chartres might rise up against the ordinary executioner. their politic' fellow-citizens, and bury their dag-proceeded to seize upon the governing power, exgers in their bodies." The declamations against pelled all they disliked from their offices, and made the "politics," who were increasing in number, out a list of forty-four persons to compose a chamand consisted chiefly of the more respectable part bre ardente, or court of inquisition, a sort of revoof the community, now became perfectly fearful. lutionary tribunal which was to have power of Boucher, preaching Lent at St. Germain l'Auxer-life and death over the persons of the Parisians. rois, said: "Qu'il fallait tout tuer,' ," and that Next, preparations were made for a general pro"it was quite time to put the hand to the sickle scription; and each in his own quarter drew up and exterminate those of the parliament and oth-lists, which they called papiers rouges, containing ers." The Duke of Mayenne, terrified and unable the names of all the "politics," marked with the to resist the blind fury of the clergy, sent letters letters C, D, or P, which signified the fate to which of cachet to several of the magistrates, ordering each was destined, chassé, dagué, or pendu. This them to quit Paris as a measure of precaution. horrible design was only adjourned because the The preachers, supposing it was a measure of Spanish and Italian troops, which formed the garvengeance, openly praised the duke, but at the rison of Paris, refused to lend their hands to it, same time they excited the populace to continue and it was entirely quashed by the vigorous and these insufficient proscriptions. After the sur-timely interference of the Duke of Mayenne, who, render of Chartres, Bishop Rose declared from the hearing that the preachers were determined to pulpit that une saignée de Saint Barthélemy was necessary, and that they must cut the throat of the disease. Commolet declared that "the death of the politics' was the life of the Catholics.' bry proclaimed, equally from the pulpit, that he was ready to march first to the slaughter. Cueilly said he wished they would lay violent hands on every one they saw laugh. And Guincestre expressed the wish that they would throw into the These atrociriver all who inquired after news. ties showed that the moderate party was gaining strength; but, although many were disgusted with such excesses, they were more than ever obliged to attend at the sermons, for their absence was taken as a proof of their being "politics," and

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The preachers then

brave his authority, hastened to Paris with his army, where he dissolved the council of the union, gave the municipal offices to "politics," and conAu-demned to death nine of the council which had procured the death of Brisson. Four only were executed, and even this might have served as a salutary check upon the sanguinary disposition of the clergy, had not Mayenne relapsed almost immediately into his ordinary weakness of character. Boucher was the leader of the seditious attacks which were now made upon Mayenne from the pulpit, and by his extraordinary violence earned for himself the popular title of the King of the Ligue. The four victims of Mayenne's just anger were cried up as martyrs, and during the whole of

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