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ended the revolt, was a mere revival of the Treaty of Nemours. The King renewed his pledges in the matter of succession. It was ratified by an assembly of Estates at Blois, where Guise received the congratulations of the Pope on the part he had played; a second papal message to the people, exhorting them to obey the King, gave poor comfort to Henry.

Waxing power and popularity of Guise ever connoted waning of the royal influence. He was acting the rôle of monarch in the Château of Blois, usurping royal authority and prerogatives, and giving much reason for the belief prevailing that he was about to make a further effort to snatch the crown. Henry, believing it, was led to give ear to evil advisers, who counselled, some the prison, others the knife, for Guise. The advocates of the latter form of reprisal won the day; on the 23rd of December, 1588, the knife of the hired assassin, St. Malines, despatched the spirit of Guise to join and give answer to his St. Bartholomew victims. The body fell almost at the door of the King's bedroom, to which the Leaguer had been summoned by the occupant as a preliminary step in the drama. Next day the Cardinal suffered a like fate in another room, at the hands of Dugast.

Here was a triumph for the Huguenots; their own hands were clean of such murders as their adversaries indulged in amongst themselves. That this one took effect on their greatest enemy was matter for congratulation.

The King claimed the right of punishing, without trial, those unmistakably guilty of lèse-majeste. It was a more than doubtful prerogative, and an argument which failed with the Leaguers, now hastily taking up arms under Guise's brother, the Duke of Mayenne. The tragedy was about the only one of those in which the court was implicated during the life-time of Catherine de Medicis in France from which she was absolved by her enemies. On hearing of the event she remarked to Henry: 'You have cut your cloth, my son; but you have yet to sew the pieces together.' Catherine knew the League. By all accounts the crime was a factor in hastening her end, which came a few days later. So she died of grief-grief for the crime of the dearest of her children.

The revolt which occurred bore no doubtful aspect on this occasion. Its inception had no religious significance. Its object was the overthrow of a miserable king who had

failed. The League denounced him as faithless to his oath. Summoned to Rome to answer for the murders this factitious Catholic flouted papal authority by remaining where he was. He was burnt in effigy in all the Paris churches.

Many towns of importance, such as Blois, Tours, Bordeaux, remained loyal, but Mayenne attracted many from the royalist ranks, and Henry was forced to make a humiliating offer to come to terms with the League. Failing in this he effected an alliance with the Huguenots who, taking advantage of the situation, had turned out a strong army under Navarre. The two kings decided to march on Paris by different routes, and the royalists soon encountered the League army, under Mayenne, on the Loire. The King's force was beaten, but Navarre coming up in time to avert disaster, the League had to retreat on Paris, which was soon almost invested by the other troops. A second League army, which had laid siege to Senlis during the Loire action, was decimated by a Huguenot force under La Noue. The Parisians were in sore plight when Henry III arrived at St. Cloud.

At St. Cloud, with victory in sight, Henry came by his untimely and tragic end at the hands of Jacques Clement, a fanatic Jacobin monk, who left Paris with a sauf-conduit, carrying papers to the King. Admitted to the royal apartments Clement presented his papers and, drawing a knife from his cloak, stabbed his preoccupied victim in the abdomen. Henry instantly withdrew it, and plunged it into the zealot's heart.

Thus ignobly perished the last of the Valois, last of the family of five Kings, who promised so much and effected so little that was good. In their contest with the Reformation their alternations of cruelty and leniency, of autocracy and sycophancy, failed to command respect and authority. Their lack of method was their greatest handicap, especially in the third generation. But the Guise schemes made the situation complex; the main issue was constantly sidetracked by this disturbing factor. Dread of Guise, it is said, influenced Catherine de Medicis in procuring the freedom of Condé. Dread of Guise she certainly entertained, but Condé would probably have experienced her clemency independently of this; his pardon was of a piece with her conciliatory attitude all through. How Condé's execution would have affected the subsequent history of

Calvinism it is difficult to say. It would certainly not have abolished it, though it might have modified it. Condé was the chief power in effecting the generous concessions of the Treaty of Amboise, precedent for subsequent favourable terms. These terms gave to Guise and his followers their pretended excuses for disturbing the peace. Calvinist contempt for treaties was in a measure justified by frequent breaches on the other side, and it is but fair to state that the breaches were not often attributable to Valois.

Guise is believed, by the present writer, to have been the chief instigator and perpetrator of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, but German suspicion of the complicity of the Duke of Anjou (Henry III) in the affair had some foundation. The elements which combined to constitute a motive for this crime varied according to the aspect which the prospective victims bore for the assassin or assassins. The Huguenots inspired pure religious hatred or prejudice enough to incite to murder; and it is a matter of universal experience that this irreligious sentiment is engendered not always amongst the zealots, but that it frequently actuated the indifferent, who cannot tolerate contrary opinion, of which religion is often merely a test. A second factor in the motive was fear, fear for religion and person, as inspired by the cries of Catholic victims from Geneva and activated by Huguenot threats on the spot. A third ingredient was the menace to one's contemplated schemes which the waxing power of the Calvinists involved. A fourth was revenge. Charles of Valois, insouciant and unambitious, was actuated by fear alone, fear inspired by evil counsellors, in whose hazy equivocation the Huguenot menace loomed large before his vision. He was a passive agent who consented under pressure. "Eh bien,' said he finally, 'tuez les tous pourvu qu'il n'en reste pas un pour me le reprocher après.'

The motive of Guise lacked none of the elements mentioned. Even supposing his religion to have been but a form of politics, it was a shibboleth which fostered passion and extravagance. He was detested by the Huguenots, who were bitterly opposed to his stratagems, and he hated and feared them in turn. But his greatest incentive to the deed was the desire of vengeance for the death of his father, a desire which he had nurtured and avowed during nine years.

Henry of Valois, at the time of the massacre, was

ambitious and designing. He exploited his religion in developing lustre and prominence, and for this he cannot be excused as a monomaniac, though his abnormalities gave him the appearance of one. With this perverted outlook he was capable of criminal excesses in achieving his object of transcendency-a species of motive for the St. Bartholomew murders omitted from our category above-or in satisfying the hatred of bigotry. He had not brains enough to carry the full responsibility of organizing the great tragedy, though he had malice enough to take a share in it. He showed a certain courage on his deathbed, expressed his regret for failure to comply with the citation from Rome, which he intended to fulfil when occasion arose. His friendship with Henry of Navarre had survived some subverting agencies, and him he nominated as his successor before he died.

I beg to express my indebtedness to the Very Rev. E. A. Canon d'Alton, D.D., for some valuable hints.

D. T. BARRY.

DOCUMENTS

THE MAYNOOTH MISSION TO CHINA-LETTER FROM THE HOLY SEE TO HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL LOGUE APPROVING OF THE FOUNDATION OF A NEW COLLEGE FOR THE MISSION

(June 13, 1917)

[In view of the importance of the subject we give underneath (1) an English translation of the Letter; and (2) the original Resolution of the Irish Bishops sanctioning the project.]

S. CONGREGATIO DE PROPAGANDA FIDE

EPISTOLA

AD MICHAËLÉM S. R. E. CARD. LOGUE, ARCHIEPISCOPUM ARMACANUM SUPER NOVO COLLEGIO IN HIBERNIA CONDENDO PRO MISSIONIBUS EXTERIS.

Libenter accepi, faventibus Eminentia Tua caeterisque Hiberniae Episcopis, valde opportunum a nonnullis ecclesiasticis viris initum esse consilium novum in Hibernia condendi pro Missionibus Exteris Collegium, ubi adolescentes, in sortem Domini vocati, ad apostolicum munus apud infideles populos obeundum apta disciplina efformentur. Porro si semper optandum ut ad divinum implendum mandatum docendi omnes gentes apta ministrorum copia Ecclesiae suppetat, his potissimum temporibus, quum tot ac tanta sacris Missionibus obvenerint detrimenta, enixe adlaborandum ut huic tam sancto operi nova subsidia quaerantur. Quum autem de tali proposito Summum Pontificem certiorem fecerim, iussit Sanctitas Sua ut Tibi significarem propensissimam Eius in id voluntatem, Tibique suo nomine animum addendum voluit ad novum opus alacriter inchoandum. Ut autem optati fructus olim inde percipiantur, sedulo curandum ut tum in alumnis deligendis tum in iisdem ad tantum munus solide praeparandis praecipua adhibeatur diligentia. Cum autem huic S. Consilio Christiano Nomini Propagando demandatum sit munus ea providendi quae ad Missionum bonum et regimen spectant, gratum mihi erit de novi Collegii exordiis ac progressu edoceri, ac perspectas habere disciplinae regulas, quae ad adolescentium animos apostolico spiritu imbuendos proponendae videantur.

Multa spero ex novo Instituto promanatura sacris Missionibus commoda. Qua de re auspicem habeas apostolicam benedictionem quam

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