Minority Rights and the State: Protestant Polemic in Seventeenth-Century France

Transcription

1 Minority Rights and the State: Protestant Polemic in Seventeenth-Century France In 1598 the establishment of the Edict of Nantes brought an end to nearly four decades of religious civil war between the Catholic majority and the Protestant, or Huguenot, minority in France. However, over the course of the first two decades of the seventeenth century the Edict gave way to an increasingly Catholic program on the part of the crown. The Huguenots status in France suffered as a result. The French Protestant movement in the seventeenth century therefore began to turn its gaze to the international sphere, beginning in the first two decades of the century with its foremost polemicist, Pierre du Moulin. From the beginning of his career du Moulin nurtured hopes of leading Europe towards a united Protestant Church. His return to France in 1598 indicates that, like many of his coreligionists, he believed that the Edict of Nantes could prove a first step towards establishing an official Calvinist program in France. Because of his adherence to Calvinist theology, du Moulin s united church could not be established without a king at its head. The limitations of the Edict and the policy of the French crown, however, very quickly proved to du Moulin that his vision could not be achieved in France. Still, du Moulin engaged in several polemical battles at the French court in defence of the Reformed faith. Once again because of his theological beliefs, du Moulin could not attack the person of the king directly, and instead focussed his efforts against the Jesuits at court, the group that he blamed for the crown s increasing Catholicity. Nevertheless, by 1610 his hopes in France were dashed. For du Moulin, the future of not only the French Reformed Church, but of all of Christianity including non-papal Catholics! lay in his vision of a united European church under the Reformed faith, and from he began to look outside of his own state to James I of England as the future head of this united Christendom.

2 2 As the leading voice of French Protestantism in the seventeenth century, du Moulin provides us with an excellent case study in how Protestant polemicists in France reacted to the fact that France had clearly established itself as a Catholic state. Du Moulin was the most prolific polemicist of the seventeenth century, and if we take the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries together, the measure of his publications is second only to Jean Calvin and Theodore Beza. 1 In total, Pierre du Moulin published approximately 1,200 individual treatises that were translated into 10 different languages, proving Brian Armstrong correct in his assertion that, du Moulin was to dominate French Protestantism [in the seventeenth-century] like no individual before or since. 2 In the context of the preceding decades of civil war and the final victory of the Catholic majority the Edict of Nantes had granted significant concessions to the Huguenots. In addition to freedom of worship, the two royal brevets attached to the Edict allowed the Huguenots to maintain troops in some 200 towns, half of which would be subsidized by the crown. Traditionally historians have applauded the Edict as an innovative experiment in religious pluralism that allowed for peaceful coexistence and the flowering of a Huguenot culture. 3 While it is true that the 1598 Edict granted the Huguenot minority a status akin to what many historians have called a state within a state, the reality was that the terms of the Edict made it explicitly clear that France was, and would always be, a Catholic state. While Huguenot worship was tolerated, the areas in which it could be practiced were limited. Catholicism, meanwhile, could be practiced anywhere, even in Huguenot-controlled towns. Even before Henri IV s 1 Armstrong and Larminie, ODNB, Pierre du Moulin. 2 Armstrong in Schnucker, Raymond A. Mentzer, The Edict of Nantes and its Institutions in Society and Culture in the Huguenot World , Raymond A. Mentzer and Andrew Spicer eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 98, 116.

3 3 assassination in 1610 several key points of the edict were not being implemented across the country. The judicial components and various provincial parlements delayed in registering many of the edict s provisions and the financial subsidies promised to the Huguenots were never paid in the sums the edict had outlined. 4 Henri IV himself put significant pressure on the Huguenot nobles to convert and after his death in 1610 the regency of his young son, Louis XIII, was directed by the devoutly Catholic Queen Regent. Thus, despite the toleration that the edict had appeared to afford, it became apparent rather quickly that the Huguenots could never be more than a heretical minority in a Catholic state. While in areas like the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle the French Protestants chose to respond to the situation by military means, Calvinist theologians and polemicists in France, like du Moulin, instead directed their efforts towards an international audience. Du Moulin s personal experience as a minister in France proved to him that the future of the Huguenot population and the Protestant church could not be secured under Henry IV. In 1598 du Moulin had returned from studies abroad in England and Leiden to accept the post of minister of the Reformed Church of Paris. Protestant worship in Paris had never been permitted during the religious civil wars of the sixteenth century, but under the Edict of Nantes du Moulin was able to establish a congregation just outside of Paris at Charenton. 5 Nonetheless, the fact that the congregation still had to assemble outside of Parisian walls is significant: It underscored the fact that temporary religious unity with the ultimate goal of drawing the Huguenots back into the Catholic fold was the intent of the edict, not permanent toleration. For du Moulin status as an 4 Holt, The Huguenots were still not officially allowed to worship within Parisian walls, as the staunchly Catholic Parisian population would never have allowed it. For an excellent discussion of the Huguenots and Catholic populations of Paris see Barbara Diefendorf Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

4 4 heretical minority was directly opposed to his goal of a united Protestant church, which could only succeed with a Protestant monarch at its head. Additionally, because of his Calvinist theology, du Moulin could not petition against the French crown directly. Like Jean Calvin, du Moulin believed that the powers that be were ordained by God. 6 Thus, unlike some of his theological counterparts, du Moulin could not endorse the program of military action that was being called for by groups like that previously mentioned at La Rochelle. 7 Prevented by his theological position from attacking the monarch, du Moulin instead launched his attacks against the French king s Jesuit confessors, whom he saw as the worst incarnation of the Romish Church and a seditious influence on the person of king. 8 Du Moulin s most famous controversies in France were those fought with the leading Roman Catholic polemicists at court, particularly the Jesuits. In a 1611 treatise he accused the king s confessor, Father Cotton, of forging letters out of his own brain to deceive the king. 9 In this publication, popularly know as the Anti-Coton, du Moulin addressed his cause to the Queen Regent directly. After the assassination of Henri IV, the court was flooded by Catholic influence, and in this treatise du Moulin pleaded with the Queen Regent to reconsider this policy. In the preface he warned I thought it necessary to make appear to your Majesty the original cause of this aspersion cast upon them [the Jesuits], to the end that if it be found to spring from sure and undoubted grounds, your Majesty may from thence conjecture whether it may stand with the 6 Philip Benedict, Christ s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), See Philip Benedict Christ s Churches Purely Reformed (2002), Mack Holt The French Wars of Religion (1995) and Alan James Huguenot militancy and the seventeenth-century wars of religion in Society and Culture in the Huguenot World Mentzer and Spicer eds. (2002). 8 Du Moulin always refers to the Church in Rome, or the Romish Church; an effort to distinguish between the evils of Popery that are brewed by the Papacy in Rome, and the general body of Catholic believers, whom he hopes to bring into the fold of a united, European, Protestant Church (under James I). 9 Pierre du Moulin, The Anti-Coton, or, A Refutation of Coton s Letter Declaratorie (1611), 9.

5 5 safeguard of the present king, your son s life, to suffer these holy Fathers to approach near his person. 10 Despite his efforts the French crown continued to lean towards an increasingly Catholic policy. After the death of Henri IV and the rise of the Catholic regency, the Huguenots had begun to lose their position at court, culminating in the resignation of their sole representative on the royal council, the Duc de Sully. Increasingly disillusioned under Henri IV, and now struck a final blow by the establishment of a royal minority under a devoutly Catholic regent, it became clear by 1610 that du Moulin could not construct his vision of a united Protestant Church in Catholic France where the Huguenots were little more than an officially recognized heretical minority. The encroachments against the Edict, coupled with its affirmation of France as a firmly Catholic country, and the increased Catholicity of the court under the regency meant Huguenot prospects in France were dim; they could certainly never hope to establish a church as du Moulin envisioned: a united Protestant Christendom led by a Protestant monarch. To overcome this obstacle, du Moulin turned to the King of England. The choice of England and James I was quite a natural one for du Moulin: James was himself a Protestant king who had already shown an interest in the Huguenot cause in France. While in England pursuing his education from , du Moulin had made several important connections amongst the academic and church communities, including Cambridge University classmate James Montagu, a later favourite of James I, and Sir Thomas Edmondes, representative of Elizabeth I at the French court and then Ambassador to France after Henri IV s assassination. 11 Edmondes became du Moulin s most enthusiastic supporter at the English court and is credited for establishing the connection between du Moulin and James I that would 10 Du Moulin, The Anti-Coton (1611), iii. 11 Armstrong, Pierre du Moulin and James I: the Anglo-French Programme, 21.

6 6 continue until the king s death. 12 Over the course of their relationship, du Moulin wrote several treatises in defence of James I s religious policy, expounding him as the guardian of Christendom. He also ghost-wrote at least two religious declarations traditionally credited to the English king and received three church livings in England for his service. 13 Du Moulin s desire to see a united Protestant Christendom established in Europe found expression early in his career and developed in tandem with his vision of James I as its head. His close relationship with the king was established in 1610 when he undertook his first treatise in defence of the English king, specifically on the issue of the recently established Oath of Allegiance. 14 This example is significant because not only was it the first treatise du Moulin undertook in defence of the English monarch, but it also showed that James I s policy of allowing for toleration of the Catholic minority in England matched with du Moulin s own hope that his united Protestant church would include a settlement that incorporated the Catholic population, without the tyrannical trappings of Rome. The Oath itself was a response to the recent Gunpowder Plot of November 1605 (famously celebrated now as Guy Fawkes Day), and it essentially required all Catholics in England to acknowledge that their first allegiance was to the king, not the pope in Rome. In the dedication of his defence of the king s position, du Moulin clearly identifies his own cause with James I, declaring to the English monarch that that religion which you [James] defend is the same which we profess, and several times referring to James I as his sovereign. 15 Du Moulin also made the gesture of pledging his pen to the service of the English king: But were it so that 12 Armstrong, The Declaration des Eglises Reformes de France (1612) and the Declaration du Serenissme Roy Jacques I (1612 and 1615). Brian G. Armstrong, Bibliographia Molinaei: An Alphabetical, Chronological and Descriptive Bibliography of the Works of Pierre du Moulin ( ). (1997). Armstrong, Pierre du Moulin and James I. 14 Armstrong, Pierre du Moulin and James I, Du Moulin, Défense de la foy Catholique (1610), A3-5.

7 7 you had use of any man s pen, yet should you have little cause to seek further. 16 In the opening chapter of the main body of text, du Moulin established James I as a tolerant king who, in the sweetness and fairness of his own nature inclined to give content unto all his subjects with free liberty of conscience. But this his [sic] inclination was over-ruled by necessity when his wisdom entered into consideration that the matter now in question was not only religion, but the peace of his estate and the security of his crown. 17 By establishing that the Oath ran contrary to James I s desire to unite all Christians in his kingdom, and that it was instead necessitated by the Jesuit plot to kill him, du Moulin urged lay Catholics in England to recognize the evil of the Jesuits and the papacy for seeking first to murder the king and usurp his rightful authority. In doing so, du Moulin hoped to convince the Catholic population that the King s Oath was in no way a violation, but went hand in hand with true Christian piety as according to Scripture. Even the first Catholic Cardinals, he asserted, loved their king too well to assent that the Pope may either directly or in-directly deprive him of his crown. 18 Du Moulin s attacks against the Jesuits were thus not unique to France. His belief that the Jesuits were a seditious influence on the king in France now found expression in his belief that the Jesuits had long sought to usurp English monarchical authority as well. In both the treatise defending the Oath the Défense de la foy Catholique and another treatise titled Papal Tyranny in England, du Moulin traced the historic relationship between the papacy and the kings of England to prove that the pope had always exposed kingdoms as a prey and pretended upon the temporality of Kings Ibid. 17 Du Moulin, Défense de la foy Catholique (1610), Du Moulin, Défense de la foy Catholique (1610), Du Moulin, Défense de la foy Catholique (1610), 52.

8 8 From 1611 to 1614, du Moulin pursued his goal of a united church under James I tirelessly and was engaged in a series of polemical battles with prominent Catholic theologians, and even other Protestants, to preserve orthodoxy and to promote James I as the defender of the Reformed faith. 20 In 1613 he began writing letters to the king directly, suggesting the idea of Protestant union in Europe with James I at its head. 21 In one of these letters, du Moulin included a treatise on the topic of church union roughly translated as the Overture to work for the union of the Christian churches in which James I was recognized, of course, as the head. As the foremost expert on du Moulin, Brian Armstrong has noted, it is quite apparent from this text that, for du Moulin, James was the hope for a united, European, Reformed church. 22 Ultimately, du Moulin s hopes were dashed in 1625 with the death of James I, for King Charles did not extend du Moulin the same patronage his father had. Du Moulin continued to promote a program for unity amongst the existing Protestant confessions on Europe, but he would not again find a monarch like James I to stand at its head. Within the first two decades after the signing of the Edict of Nantes, the failure of the crown and administration to evenly enforce it, along with Henri IV s policy of pressuring Huguenot nobles to convert, had led to the realization amongst the Huguenots that the edict was not the stepping-stone to legitimacy in France that they had hoped. Combined with the assassination of Henri IV in 1610 and the subsequent rise of the Catholic regency, it was apparent that the Huguenots in France would never rise beyond their status as a heretical minority. Du Moulin s theological beliefs meant that his dream of a united Protestant church had to be established with a Protestant monarch at its head. Seeing that his goal of Protestant unity 20 Armstrong, Pierre du Moulin and James I, Ibid. 22 Ibid.

9 9 would never be achieved under the French monarchy, du Moulin transferred his royalist sentiments - a product of his Calvinist theology - to James I, a Protestant monarch who had expressed an interest in the French Protestant cause. Furthermore, James I s religious policy complimented du Moulin s own vision of a united Christendom. Thus, as the Huguenot movement in the seventeenth century began to turn its gaze to the international sphere, James I was, for du Moulin, the future of the Protestant faith. Such a study of the way in which events played out for du Moulin and the Huguenots in France, as this paper has attempted, has particularly interesting implications when viewed through a postcolonial lens. If we consider that the Catholic majority in France, by characterizing the Huguenots in the Edict of Nantes as a state within a state, were in fact positioning the Huguenots as a distinctly foreign other the question of identity enters a new realm of possibility and complexity. 23 As a group conceptualized as a foreign other, the re-drawing of confessional identity to include a more international perspective and hegemony is an attractive, and indeed perhaps the only, alternative open to the French Reformed Church. To what degree this influenced areas such as Huguenot national identity, the development of the Huguenot diaspora, and cross-confessional cooperation on an international level are perhaps fruitful areas for future investigation, especially as the last would seem to challenge the theory of confessionalization which has so dominated historical studies of the religious scene in seventeenth-century Europe. 23 See Anne McClintock s discussion of external and internal colonialism in her various works, including Messy Beginnings: Postcoloniality and Early American Studies (2003), Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives (1997), The Angel of Progress; Pitfalls of the Term Postcolonialism (1992).

10 10 Armstrong, Brian G. Bibliographia Molinaei: An Alphabetical, Chronological and Descriptive Bibliography of the Works of Pierre du Moulin ( ) The Changing face of French Protestantism: The Influence of Pierre du Moulin in Calviniana: Ideas and Influence of John Calvin, Robert V. Schnucker ed. Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, Vol X. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Pierre du Moulin and James I: the Anglo-French programme in De l humanisme aux lumières: Bayle et le protestantisme en l honneur d Elisabeth Labrousse, M. Magdelaine et al. eds. Paris, Brian G. Armstrong and Vivienne Larminie, Du Moulin, Pierre ( ), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct Benedict, Philip. Christ s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Diefendorf, Barbara. Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris. New York: Oxford University Press, Du Moulin, Pierre. The accomplishment of the prophecies. Translated into English by I. Heath, fellow of New College in Oxford. (1613).. The anatomy of Arminianisme. Carefully translated out of the originall Latine copy. (1620).. Anti-Coton, or A refutation of Cottons letter declaratorie. Both translated out of the French, by G.H. Together with the translators animaduersions vpon Cottons letter. (1611).. A defence of the Catholicke faith contained in the booke of the most mightie, and most gracious King Iames the first. Translated into English according to his first coppie, by himselfe reuiewed and corrected. (1610). Holt, Mack P. The French Wars of Religion, New Approaches to European History. New York: Cambridge University Press, Alan James Huguenot militancy and the seventeenth-century wars of religion in Society and Culture in the Huguenot World , Raymond A. Mentzer and Andrew Spicer eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Mentzer, Raymond A. The Edict of Nantes and its Institutions in Society and Culture in the Huguenot World , Raymond A. Mentzer and Andrew Spicer eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.