OF PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE, FROM THE EARLIEST AGES TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES IX, LONDON: TUS RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY : Instituled 1799, CONTENTS. Dawn of the reformation.-The university of Paris.- Francis and his sister Margaret.-Progress of piety 37 Political parties.-Court festivities and Protestant mar- tyrdoms.--Spread of the reformed religion. The 61 CHARLES IX.-PARTI. 1560--1574. Vow of Francis 11.-Catharine de' Medici and the Guises. - Protestants favoured.---General spread of Protestant- ism.—The triumvirate formed to crush it.- Protestant reverses.- Public worship prohibited.-Conference at The duke of Guise and prince de Condé.-Seizure of the young king and his mother by the Catholic leaders.- State of the Protestant army at the commencement of the war.-Demoralising effects of civil war.--Queen Elizabeth assists the French Protestants.-Misdeeds and cruelties on both sides.- Battle of Dreux.-Dream of Condé.–Marshal St. André killed.—The prince taken prisoner.-Siege of Orléans-Danger of the Pro- Catharine acquires supreme power.- Education of Charles Ix.-The royal tour.- Protestantism of the queen of Navarre.- I'he prince de Condé at court.-- Different conduct of Coligny:-Disappointment of the Protestants.-Public worship restricted.-Reformed monks and nuns ordered to return to their convents.- War renewed.-Battle of St. Denis.-Last of the tri- umvirate killed.-Death of the prince de Condé.-- Death of Andelot.-Letter of Coligny.-- Dissimulation of the king and his mother.-Admiral Coligny at court. ~Marriage of the king of Navarre.-Coligny assassi- nated.-St. Bartholomew's eve.- Massacre of the Pro- THE HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE. CHAPTER I. PERIOD PREVIOUS TO LOUIS XII. A.D. 1497. PERHAPS there is no country in the world, when we except the Holy Land, where the entire history of religion, taken in connexion with the circumstances which have surrounded it, has been at once more interesting and more painful, than in France. In France, the Christian religion has uniformly been placed between two enemies ;-on one side, superstition ; on the other, infidelity. An escape from the former has too often caused a fall into the latter. In no country has the history of persecution and martyrdom been more striking than in France, whether the persecutors were the furious worshippers of the gods of ancient Rome and Gaul, or the unhappily blinded and bigoted disciples of the church which succeeded them. In the first ages of Christianity, the martyrs |