the Court of Rome This Court is the Head the Clergy is the Body the Ecclesiasticks and Monks are the Members and all these Members move by the Orders of the Head Again I have no Design to chocque the Gentlemen Clergy whose persons I respect I do not doubt but that they have good French Hearts But in fine they have their Maximes of Conscience they are of a Religion and they must follow its Principles Now the Principles of their Religion binds them to the Holy See and its preservation preferably to all things moreover Interest makes illusion in Hearts and Minds Their Interest obliges them to take the Popes part who is their Preserver and Protectour and what they do out of interest they persuade themselves that they do it out of Conscience First it may be said of the Monks that all the Houses they have in France are as many Citadels that the Court of Rome has in the Kingdom Those great Societies have withdrawn themselves from the Dominion of the Bishops they depend immediately on the Holy See they have all their Generals of Orders at Rome and those Generals who are Italians and Spaniards are the Soul of the Society they are obliged to follow their Opinions and their Orders the Italian Divinity is the Divinity of the Cloisters Thus the King may reckon that all the Monks look upon him as the Pope's Subject as being lyable to be Excommunicated his Kingdom put under an Ecclesiastical Censure his Subjects dispensed and released from the Oath of Fidelity and his States given by the Pope to another Prince And every time that this happens they will believe themselves obliged out of Conscience to obey the Pope If in those Orders of Monks there happens to be some particular One who follow other Principles it is certain that they are in no Number and do not hinder that the Body of the Monks is absolutely in the Interests of the Court of Rome and by consequence in that of Spain Thus you see already a considerable Party of whose Fidelity the Kings of France cannot be assured And what is this Party One may say that it is all France for the begging Monks and the Jesuits are Masters of all the Consciences they are Confessors they are Directors they persuade what they will to those that are devoted to them The House of Bourbon ought not to doubt of this truth if it never so little calls to mind the endeavours that were used by the Monks for the forcing from it the Crown when the Race of the Valois came to fail It is against this so considerable Party that the State ought to take its Precautions in preserving that other Party which can never be of intelligence with this it is that of the Reformed History tells us how impossible it is to be long without having Disputes with the Court of Rome It is always attempting and one is obliged to defend ones self against its enterprises It is capable of setting great Engines a going of making Engagements and Alliances It had twenty times like to have ruined Germany it has dethroned great Emperours it has likewise caused great troubles in France and one cannot be too secure against its ambition Par. I fancy that your Hugonot's Advocate would not spare the rest of the Clergy and that he endeavoured to prove that we can be no more assured of their Fidelity than of that of the Religious Prov. What you have already heard may make you easily divine that for the giving the more force to what he had to say against our Divines he prevented what might have been objected If you understood these matters Sir said he to me you could tell me that our Clergy of France teach a Divinity wholly different from that of Rome that all make profession of holding for the Liberties of the Gallicane Church the principal Articles of which are 1. That the King of France cannot be Excommunicated by the Pope 2. That an Ecclesiastical Censure cannot be laid upon their Kingdome 3. That it cannot be given to others 4. That the Pope has nothing to do with the Temporality of Kings 5. That he is not Infallible 6. That he is inferiour to the Council These you would tell me are the Maximes of the Sorbonne that have often censured the contrary Propositions This Divinity is maintained by the Authority of the Parliaments who have often declared the Bulls of the Pope abusive null scandalous and impious and have appealed from the Execution of these Bulls when they found them contrary to the Liberties of the Gallicane Church The Court of Parliament assembled at Tours during the League caused the Bulls of Excommunication to be burnt by the hands of the Executioner that had been published against Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth This is all sine and magnificent if you please but these fair appearances have no stock I do not speak of the Divinity of the Parliaments which is that of the Politicians I speak of the Divinity of the Clergy Once more added he I do not at all doubt of the Fidelity of the Divines of France to their King but they shall never perswade me that this Fidelity and Zeal for their Prince is without exception and I make no other exception against it than what they themselves make Will you hear they themselves speak Read the Harangue that Cardinal du Perron made to the third Estate in the name of all the Clergy of France in the States 1616 and remember that it is not the Cardinal du Perron who speaks it is the Clergy of France assembled in a Body who speak by the mouth of that Cardinal All France seised with an horrour of the two horrible Parricides that had been committed in the persons of the two late Kings both of them assassinated out of a false Zeal of Religion would draw up a Formulary of Oath and establish a Fundamental Law of the State which all the Subjects were to swear to and this Law bore that every one should make Oath of ac-acknowledging and believing that our Kings for their Temporalities do not depend on any one soever but on God that it is not lawful for any cause soever to assassinate Kings that even for causes of Heresie of Schism Kings cannot be Deposed nor their Subjects Absolved from their Oath of Fidelity nor upon any other pretext soever This Law methinks is the security of Kings this is a Doctrine which all the Hugonots are ready to sign with their Blood What did the Clergy of France do thereupon It formally opposed that Law divers Works of Cardinal du Perron p. 600 and following they were willing to acknowledge the Independancy of Kings in regard of the Temporalty they consented that Anathema should be pronounced against the assassinates of Kings But they would never pass the last Article that for what cause soever it was a King cannot be Deposed by the Pope stript of his States and his Subjects absolved from the
Oath of Fidelity He who spoke for them alledged all the examples of Emperours and of Kings who had been Deposed and Excommunicated by Popes upon account of refusing Obedience to the Holy See approved them he alledged the example of St. Vrban the Second who Excommunicated Philip the First and laid an Ecclesiastical Censure upon his Kingdom because he had repudiated his Wife Bertha Daughter of a Count of Holland to Marry Bertrade Wife of Foulques Count d' Anjou then still alive He made use of the testimony of Paul Emile who said that Pope Zacharias dispensed the French from the Oath of Fidelity that they had made to Chilperick These two Princes were not Hereticks yet the Clergy of France approved their having been stript of their States by the Popes which makes appear that the Clergy in the bottom judges that the Pope has Right to lay an Ecclesiastical Consure upon the Kingdom of France and to depose its Kings for any other cause as well as that or Heresâ—e Is it not to abuse the World to confess on one side that the Temporalty of Kings does not depend on the Pope and establish on the other that the Pope may in certain occasions Interdict these Kings Excommunicate them and Absolve their Subjects from the Oath of Fidelity In sine this is the result of that famous Opinion of the Clergy of France So that if Christians are constrained to defend their Religion and their lives against Heretick Princes or Apostates from their Fidelity to whom they have been Absolved the Politick Christian Laws does not permit them any thing more than what is permitted by Military Laws and by the Right of Nations to wit open War and not Assassination and Clandestine Conspiracies that is to say that when a Pope has declâ—â—ed a Prince deprived of his â—tates his Subjects may set up the Standard of Rebellion declare War against him refuse him Obedience and kill him if they can meet him provided it be with arms in their hand and by the ordinary course of War I cannot comprehend how one can be secured of the Fidelity of those who hold such like Maximes For in fine Kings are not insallible and if they happen to do any thing that the Court of Rome judges worthy of Excommunication and Interdiction they are Kings without Kingdoms and Subjects according to our Clergy of France as well as according to the Divines of Italy But perhaps that the Sorbonne which is the Depository of the French Divinity does not receive these Maximes so fatal to the safety of Kings Let us see what it has done In the Month of December 1587 because that Henry the Third for the security of his Person and of his State made a Treaty with the Resisters or the German Protestants the Sorbonne without staying for the Decisions of Rome made a secret Result which said That the Government might be taken from Princes who were not found such as they ought to be as the administration from a suspected Tutour This was known by the King he sent for the Sorbonne some days after and complained of it After the death of the Princes of Guise which happen'd at Blois the Sorbonne did much worse they declared and caused to be published in all parts of Paris That all the People of that Kingdom were Absolved from the Oaths of Fidelity that they had sworn to Henry of Valois heretofore their King they razed his name out of the publick Prayers and made known to the People that they might with safe Conscience unite arm and contribute to make War against him as a Tyrant If I would add to that the Story that I know this Gentleman told you concerning the Death of the late King of England we should find that the Sorbonne has ever been of the same Opinion Let things be told as they are every time that our Kings shall have assairs that will carry them to extremity against the Court of Rome the Clergy of France will suppress the discontents while that affairs go well for the Court of France but if things turn otherways the dictates of our Divines against the King will not fail to break out Every sincere person will allow that it has never been otherwise than so and that it will be always thus which may be observed in the very least disputes By example in that the King has now lately had with the Pope upon the account of the Regality and of the Vrbanists the publick has seen a Letter from the Clergy Addressed to the King when he departed to visit the Frontiers of the Low-Countries In that Letter these Gentlemen promise the King let whatever be the issue of his Disputes with the Pope they will be always inviolably fixed to his Majesties Interests But we know from good hands that the Archbishop of Paris and the Sieur Rose Secretary of the Cabinet are the sole Authors of that Letter the Bishops have almost openly disavowed it And this makes it apparent enough that in this Dispute they were of the Popes side Must it not then be confessed that it is the King's Interest to preserve the only Party that makes Oath of Fidelity to him without exception and without reserve that can never have engagements contrary to his Service either with Spain or the Court of Rome or with the revolted Clergy favouring the Enemies of the State And it is well known that in the time of Henry the Third while that all the Corporations of the Kingdom were in an actual Rebellion against their Prince the Hugonot was the only one which remained Loyal If it was necessary to add any thing more pursued our Civil Lawyer for to prove that it is the King's Interest to protect the Reformed in his States one might say that the Alliances that have been made with Foreign Protestants have not been disadvantageous to the State Since the year 1630 its engagements with England Holland Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg have been a great help towards its humbling the House of Austria Cardinal Richlieu successfully employed the King of Sweden for to punish the pride to which that House was mounted after the defeat of the Palatine House that had accepted the Crown of Bohemia And it is well enough known that the Protection that the King gave the Protestants in his Territories facilitated those Foreign Engagements and Alliances Thus our Orator ended and made a pause at this place Par. He has forgot a great Article That which is against the Peace of a State is ever against his Interests who governs it Nothing is more incompatible with Peace than diversity of Religions Prov. He did not forget it but he thought he had said enough for one time and referred what he had more to say till the next day This morning sour Gentleman returned and as what was said is fresher in my memory perhaps I shall give you a more exact account I know very well continued our Hugonot Civil Lawyer that I am to
several Months in Prison but that he purged himself and yet was silenced by a decree of the Parliament of Greneble I know nothing of the particulars of his business if you are informed of them I pray you tell me what they are Prov. You have divined him it is the same his adventure has something very singular The Hugonots of Dauthine had kept a Fast in all their Churches and the Synod that had ordered it had enjoyned all the Ministers that belonged to it assisted with their Ancients to visit Families and put them in mind of what had been promised God on the Fast day These are the terms of the Article which was Printed and Divulged This Minister did not fail to execute this Order in his District It was during the heat of the War with Holland The Religious of St. Anthony who had lain in wait for him a long time laid hold on this occasion to insinuate themselves with the Court to his Cost They writ to M. le Tellier then Secretary of State that something was contriving against the Kings Service that the Hugonots had celebrated a Fast through all Dauphinate that there was a Plot Couched under this Fast and that Devotion was only the pretext of it That the Minister of had held secret Assemblies at the Houses of the Principals of his Parish that he had prayed God for the success of the Hollanders Arms and that he had gathered great sums of Money from those of of his Party to send to the Prince of Orange Par. Good Could this come into rational Heads though all the Hugonots of the Kingdom should have contributed to this gathering it would not have been sufficient to have furnished Oats to the Cavallry of the Army the Prince of Orange Commanded They can hardly maintain the six or seven hundred Ministers they have since the Seal and Subvension Moneys were taken from them that were destined to that use without any thinking of gatherings for forreign Countries Prov. I knew very well you would also cry out upon this Yet as strange and as unlikely as the thing is it caused this Minister a great deal of trouble There came Orders from the King to seize his Person He was kept in Prison for above four Months false Witnesses were raised to maintain the Accusation and if he had not had the Address to Convince them in the Confrontation he would certainly have passed his time very ill Par. This is horrible It is rather fury than zeal But it is with our Religious as with Angels when they are Corrupted they are Devils There is no manner of ill but what they are capable of Those of St. Anthony surpass in this all the other Orders They have appropriated to themselves vast Riches of St. Lazarus under pretext of Serving the sick Monsieur de Louvois who is chief of this Order designs to make them restore these Goods and to apply them to the Hall of Mars destined to the maintenance of the maimed without doubt these Reverend Fathers to fence off this 〈◊〉 with which they were threatned and to insinuate themselves into the Kings favour bethought themselves of giving this advice to the Court and sacrificing this Minister to their Interest Prov. You have hit the mark and methinks so many Monks ought not to be suffered The Policy of France observes there are too many It would be convenient to retrench at least the two thirds of them and to apply the Revenues of their Houses which are immense to the necessities of the State and to the ease of the people And the other Thirds Wings ought likewise to be clipped and hindred from growing great by forbidding them as is done at Venice to acquire stocks and receive considerable Gifts and Legacies It is the same with their Fraternities as with the Den of Esops Lyon all goes in and nothing comes out and it is not otherwise possible but that at length they must become yet more powerful and formidable Par. I am impatient to know the issue of this Process I beg you would tell it me Prov. The false Witnesses were freed for a Years absence from the Province and the Religious for some Reprimands from the Judges As for the Minister he was fined without any Note of Infamy and condemned to pay the Charges by reason of the visits he had made which they called Assemblies and the silencing of his Ministry too happy to have thus escaped from the Snare that was laid him I saw the Sentence in Print and fixed up by Order of the Bench. You see by all these Stories that all manner of ways are tryed for the tiring out those people their ruin comes on apace consider how many Declarations there be against them within these two Years Par. Two things are the cause of this The first is the Peace while the King has less forreign Affairs he employs himself in the reforming the disorders that may be in the State and in the Religion Moreover the disputes the King has had with the Pope has obliged him to appear severe against the Hugonots Prov. What Mozeray has observed in the Life of Henry the 2d is very true that the disputes of the Kings of France with the Popes have ever cost the Hugonots dear As soon as a Prince thinks of defending himself against the enterprizes of the Court of Rome he is accused of being an Abettor of Heresie and Princes to clear themselves of this suspicion redouble their severity against the Hereticks Par. You see that the Pope in the Briefs he has written to the King praises him for his zeal against Heresie and gives him joy for having destroyed so many Temples and the King on his part to appease the Pope has not failed to make him observe that in few Weeks he has made three very strong Declarations against the Hugonots Prov. Since we are fallen upon this tell me in short what were the disputes the King had with the Pope Par. There were two The first was upon the account of the Regality and the second upon the account of the Urbanists The Regality is a Right our Kings have over vacant Bishopricks upon the Decease or the Demission of those who possessed them During the vacancy the Fruits of them belong to the King and even till that the new Bishop has taken the Oath of Fidelity in Person all the Benifices which would be at the Bishops Nomination are at the Kings The most part of the Bishopricks in France have submitted to this Right However there are some who pretend not to be in the Regality and amongst others those of Guyenne and Languedock Of which kind is the Bishoprick of Pamiers near the Pyrences The King pretended he had the Right of Regality over that Bishoprick the Bishop pretended not His Temporals were seized on of which he complained to the Pope who proceeded so far in this affair as to threaten the King to make use of the Arms of the Church against him The