Lord’s Day, Vol. 11 No. 44

The French Reformation

As in the case of England, religious affairs in 16th-century France were closely linked with the occupant of the throne. When Lutheran teachings began to enter France, the king was Francis I. He was three years younger than Henry VIII of England and in character very similar to him. Like Henry, he took pride in patronizing men of letters, though probably he paid little attention to the learned Jacques Lefevre who has been called ‘father of the French Reformation’. At first Francis I regarded the Reformation as a struggle of mind against a very conservative Church, but he had no real sympathy with Protestant teachings and his outlook was far from spiritual. 

In 1516 for political reasons, he made a Condordat with the Pope, and before long, Frenchmen who leaned towards Luther, and later towards Calvin, knew that their lives were imperilled. John Calvin, the Genevan reformer, himself a Frenchman, dedicated his Institutes to Francis I in the hope that persecution might be averted. But as Lutheran teachings gained adherents Francis became furious and many were burned at the stake. By 1545 thousands had been killed or sent to the galleys, and twenty-two towns and villages had virtually been destroyed.

Dying in the same year as Henry VIII – 1547 – Francis was succeeded on the throne by his son Henry II who had married Catherine de Medici, an Italian.

For ten years she bore her husband no children, but subsequently, she had seven, of whom three successively were kings of France. Henry II carried on his father’s policy with even more ardour. A special committee of the French Parliament was formed called La Chambre Ardente (the Burning Chamber) from the number of its victims. To escape, not a few fled to Geneva which became thronged with refugees. Young men of courage, trained in Geneva, often returned to France at the risk of their lives to distribute books and tracts. ‘Send us wood,’ Calvin had said to his fellow countrymen, ‘and we will send you back arrows.’ He meant, of course, that in Geneva men would be trained to spread Reformation doctrine effectively.

The French king fought back by forbidding pedlars to sell books. Unlettered persons were forbidden to discuss religious matters at home at work or among neighbours. Printers were regularly visited by government agents. All packages entering France from beyond the frontiers were inspected. Nevertheless, Reformation work and witness continued, secretly when necessary, and publicly when the king’s authority was weak. In 1559 Henry II met his death at a tournament, his temple being pierced by a lance which he failed to avoid. 

From about the year 1560 French Protestants were known as Huguenots. Their name and their creed alike came from Geneva. Certain Genevan partiers were known as Eidgenossen, or Confederates, and this name seems to have been transferred to French refugees in that city. From them, it spread speedily throughout France. Not that the Huguenots were evenly distributed. Their chief strength lay in the area bounded on the North by the River Loire, and by the Rivers Rhone and Saone on the East, with Normandy and Dauphine as outposts.

Socially, they had numerous followers among the less nobility, tradesmen, and professional men in the lower middle class. Very few of the great noblemen joined them and similarly, the mass of the peasantry remained solidly Catholic. Paris itself, influenced by its famous university – it had 65 colleges – and its great religious houses, remained a papal stronghold.

The chief Huguenot leaders were Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, and Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France (though he never commanded on the sea), a ‘military hero of the French Reformation’. Conde was slain in battle in 1569. On the Catholic side, members of the Guise family who were related to the king were the chief leaders, particularly Francis de Guise and Charles, a cardinal of the Roman Church.

The death of Henry II, a youth of sixteen, who had married Mary Queen of Scots. Before long, however, he died of a disease of the ear and was replaced by his brother Charles IX, a boy of ten. Catherine de Medici, his mother, then became Regent of France. At the time of her husband Henry II’s death, she had been left with a family of five children and was determined to protect their interests against the Guises on the one hand and the Bourbons on the other. The Bourbons had married into the important House of Navarre, a kingdom on the frontier of Spain, and were represented by their Prince Henry, a friend of Coligny and a Huguenot, though not a man of deep religious convictions.

Shortly after 1560 a period of religious wars, which lasted on and off for thirty years, set in for France. Into the details of these wars, we cannot enter, but we concentrate on the lights and shadows of the period. At the centre of action was Catherine de Medici, and although at the beginning she seemed to wish to maintain a balance of power between the Protestant and Catholic forces, it soon became clear that her ultimate aim was to crush the Huguenots.

Craftily she hit upon a plan to gain her object. To cement a treaty between the two parties, she proposed that the Catholic princess Margaret, the sister of king Charles IX, should be given in marriage to Henry de Bourbon, the new Huguenot king of Navarre. All the notables of the land were invited to Paris where the marriage was to take place. Among them was Admiral Coligny. The Huguenots were not aware of the trap that was being set for them. Before the festivities which followed the wedding were over, there occurred one of the most hideous crimes in history. The date was St. Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August 1572. On the evening of that day Catherine went to her son, the king, and told him that the Huguenots had formed a plot to assassinate the royal family and the leaders of the Catholic party, and that, to prevent the utter ruin of their house a cause, it was absolutely to slay all Protestants within the city walls. Catherine had prepared a document to this effect and she presented it to the king for signature, in order to make it an official document.

The weak-minded king at first refused to contemplate such a dreadful crime against a section of his subjects, but finally, pressed by his mother, he yielded and exclaimed, ‘I consent, but, then, not one of the Huguenots must remain alive in France to reproach me with the deed; and what you do, do quickly.’ The Paris mob was given a free hand; only Henry of Navarre, the bridegroom on the occasion was spared. [Extracted and edited from Sketches From Church History by SM Houghton]

Yours lovingly,

Pastor Lek Aik Wee