History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 1

FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

[Sidenote: Extent of France at the accession of Francis the First.]

When, on the first day of the year 1515, the young Count of Angouleme succeeded to the throne left vacant by the death of his kinsman and father-in-law, Louis the Twelfth, the country of which he became monarch was already an extensive, flourishing, and well-consolidated kingdom. The territorial development of France was, it is true, far from complete. On the north, the whole province of Hainault belonged to the Spanish Netherlands, whose boundary line was less than one hundred miles distant from Paris. Alsace and Lorraine had not yet been wrested from the German Empire. The "Duchy" of Burgundy, seized by Louis the Eleventh immediately after the death of Charles the Bold, had, indeed, been incorporated into the French realm; but the "Free County" of Burgundy--_la Franche Comte_, as it was briefly designated--had been imprudently suffered to fall into other hands, and Besancon was the residence of a governor appointed by princes of the House of Hapsburg. Lyons was a frontier town; for the little districts of Bresse and Bugey, lying between the Saone and Rhone, belonged to the Dukes of Savoy. Further to the south, two fragments of foreign territory were completely enveloped by the domain of the French king. The first was the sovereign principality of Orange, which, after having been for over a century in the possession of the noble House of Chalons, was shortly to pass into that of Nassau, and to furnish the title of William the Silent, the future deliverer of Holland. The other and larger one was the Comtat Venaissin, a fief directly dependent upon the Pope. Of irregular shape, and touching the Rhone both above and below Orange, the Comtat Venaissin nearly enclosed the diminutive principality in its folds. Its capital, Avignon, having forfeited the distinction enjoyed in the fourteenth century as the residence of the Roman Pontiffs, still boasted the presence of a Legate of the Papal See, a poor compensation for the loss of its past splendor. On the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the Spanish dominions still extended north of the principal chain of the Pyrenees, and included the former County of Roussillon.

[Sidenote: Territorial development.]

But, although its area was somewhat smaller than that of the modern republic, France in the sixteenth century had nearly attained the general dimensions marked out for it by great natural boundaries. Four hundred years had been engrossed in the pursuit of territorial enlargement. At the close of the tenth century the Carlovingian dynasty, essentially foreign in tastes and language, was supplanted by a dynasty of native character and capable of gathering to its support all those elements of strength which had been misunderstood or neglected by the feeble descendants of Charlemagne. But it found the royal authority reduced to insignificance and treated with open contempt. By permitting those dignities which had once been conferred as a reward for pre-eminent personal merit to become hereditary in certain families, the crown had laid the foundation of the feudal system; while, by neglecting to enforce its sovereign claims, it had enabled the great feudatories to make themselves princes independent in reality, if not in name. So low had the consideration of the throne fallen, that when Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, in 987 assumed the title of king of France, basing his act partly on an election by nobles, partly on force of arms, the transaction elicited little opposition from the rival lords who might have been expected to resent his usurpation.

[Sidenote: Excessive subdivision in the tenth century.]

France contained at this time six principal fiefs--four in the north and two in the south--each nearly or fully as powerful as the hereditary dominions of Hugh, while probably more than one excelled them in extent. These limited dominions, on the resources of which the new dynasty was wholly dependent in the struggle for supremacy, embraced the important cities of Paris and Orleans, but barely stretched from the Somme to the Loire, and were excluded from the ocean by the broad possessions of the dukes of Normandy on both sides of the lower Seine. The great fiefs had each in turn yielded to the same irresistible tendency to subdivision. The great feudatory was himself the superior of the tenants of several subordinate, yet considerable, fiefs. The possessors of these again ranked above the viscounts of cities and the provincial barons. A long series of gradations in dignity ended at the simple owners of castles, with their subject peasants or serfs. In no country of Europe had the feudal system borne a more abundant harvest of disintegration and consequent loss of power.[3]

[Sidenote: Decline of the feudal system.]

The reduction of the insubordinate nobles on the patrimonial estates of the crown was the first problem engaging the attention of the early Capetian kings. When this had at length been solved, with the assistance of the scanty forces lent by the cities--never amounting, it is said, to more than five hundred men-at-arms[4]--Louis the Fat, a prince of resplendent ability, early in the twelfth century addressed himself to the task of making good the royal title to supremacy over the neighboring provinces. Before death compelled him to forego the prosecution of his ambitious designs, the influence of the monarchy had been extended over eastern and central France--from Flanders, on the north, to the volcanic mountains of Auvergne, on the south. Meanwhile the oppressed subjects of the petty tyrants, whether within or around his domains, had learned to look for redress to the sovereign lord who prided himself upon his ability and readiness to succor the defenceless. His grandson, the more illustrious Philip Augustus (1180-1223), by marriage, inheritance, and conquest added to previous acquisitions several extensive provinces, of which Normandy, Maine, and Poitou had been subject to English rule, while Vermandois and Yalois had enjoyed a form of approximate independence under collateral branches of the Capetian family.

The conquests of Louis the Fat and of Philip Augustus were consolidated by Louis the Ninth--Saint Louis, as succeeding generations were wont to style him--an upright monarch, who scrupled to accept new territory without remunerating the former owners, and even alienated the affection of provinces which he might with apparent justice have retained, by ceding them to the English, in the vain hope of cementing a lasting peace between the rival states.[5]

[Sidenote: France the foremost kingdom of Christendom.]

The same pursuit of territorial aggrandizement under successive kings extended the domain of the crown, in spite of disaster and temporary losses, until in the sixteenth century France was second to no other country in Europe for power and material resources. United under a single head, and no longer disturbed by the insubordination of the turbulent nobles, lately humbled by the craft of Louis the Eleventh, this kingdom awakened the warm admiration of political judges so shrewd as the diplomatic envoys of the Venetian Republic. "All these provinces," exclaimed one of these agents, in a report made to the Doge and Senate soon after his return, "are so well situated, so liberally provided with river-courses, harbors, and mountain ranges, that it may with safety be asserted that this realm is not only the most noble in Christendom, rivalling in antiquity our own most illustrious commonwealth, but excels all other states in natural advantages and security."[6] Another of the same distinguished school of statesmen, taking a more deliberate survey of the country, gives utterance to the universal estimate of his age, when averring that France is to be regarded as the foremost kingdom of Christendom, whether viewed in respect to its dignity and power, or the rank of the prince who governs it.[7] In proof of the first of these claims he alleges the fact that, whereas England had once been, and Naples was at that moment dependent upon the Church, and Bohemia and Poland sustained similar relations to the Empire, France had always been a sovereign state. "It is also the oldest of European kingdoms, and the first that was converted to Christianity," remarks the same writer; adding, with a touch of patriotic pride, the proviso, "if we except the Pope, who is the universal head of religion, and the State of Venice, which, as it first sprang into existence a Christian commonwealth, has always continued such."[8]

[Sidenote: France contrasted with England.]

Other diplomatists took the same view of the power and resources of this favored country. "The kingdom of France," said Chancellor Bacon, in a speech against the policy of rendering open aid to Scotland, and thus becoming involved in a war with the French, "is four times as large as the realm of England, the men four times as many, and the revenue four times as much, and it has better credit. France is full of expert captains and old soldiers, and besides its own troops it may entertain as many Almains as it is able to hire."[9]

[Sidenote: Assimilation of language and manners.]

Meantime France was fast becoming more homogeneous than it had ever been since the fall of the Roman power. As often as the lines of the great feudal families became extinct, or these families were induced or compelled to renounce their pretensions, their fiefs were given in appanage to younger branches of the royal house, or were more closely united to the domains of the crown, and entrusted to governors of the king's appointment.[10] In either case the actual control of affairs was placed in the hands of officers whose highest ambition was to reproduce in the provincial capital the growing elegance of the great city on the Seine where the royal court had fixed its ordinary abode. The provinces, consequently, began to assimilate more and more to Paris, and this not merely in manners, but in forms of speech and even in pronunciation. The rude patois, since it grated upon the cultivated ear, was banished from polite society, and, if not consigned to oblivion, was relegated to the more ignorant and remoter districts. Learning held its seat in Paris, and the scholars who returned to their homes after a sojourn in its academic halls were careful to avoid creating doubts respecting the thoroughness of their training by the use of any dialect but that spoken in the neighborhood of the university. As the idiom of Paris asserted its supremacy over the rest of France, a new tie was constituted, binding together provinces diverse in origin and history.

[Sidenote: The nobles flock to Paris.]

The spirit of obedience pervading all classes of the population contributed much to the national strength. The great nobles had lost their excessive privileges. They no longer attempted, in the seclusion of their ancestral estates, to rival the magnificence or defy the authority of the king. They began to prefer the capital to the freer retreat of their castles. During the reign of Francis the First, and still more during the reign of his immediate successors, costly palaces for the accommodation of princely and ducal families were reared in the neighborhood of the Louvre.[11] It was currently reported that more than one fortune had been squandered in the hazardous experiment of maintaining a pomp befitting the courtier. Ultimately the poorer grandees were driven to the adoption of the wise precaution of spending only a quarter of the year in the enticing but dangerous vicinity of the throne.[12]