cial functions left him, he employed in planning a work on Roman law. When holiday-time allowed him a sojourn at his father-in-law's countryhouse, he resumed with unfailing zest his cherished studies, poetry and general literature. His Latin epistles, written in "an easy Horatian versification," Mr. Hallam considers more interesting than such insipid effusions, whether of flattery or feigned passion, as the majority of modern Latinists present. They are unequal, that discerning critic admits, and fall too often into a creeping style but sometimes we find a spirit and nervousness of strength and sentiment worthy of the Chancellor's name ; and though keeping in general to the level of Horatian satire, he rises at intervals to a higher pitch, and wants not the skill of descriptive poetry.* M. Chasles, comparing L'Hôpital in this capacity with De Thou, says, "they both wrote Latin verses full of grace and abandon," and "both of them frequently gave expression, in Virgil's harmonious tongue and with the easy rhythm of Horace, to the grief caused them by the ills of France and the persecutions of their own foes." Indignatio fecit versus. De Thou, by the way, is more suitably, on various accounts, paralleled with L'Hôpital than are many of Plutarch's worthies, one with another. De Thou's eulogist can find no other man of that century to be compared with his hero but Michel de L'Hôpital: to him destiny seems to have united these two good citizens "by a noble and touching concord," and a particular providence to have willed the perpetuity of "this double image of virtue in times of terror." L'Hôpital, the author of ordinances which far outrun all that had hitherto been accomplished, as regards tolerance and impartial equity, prepared by his edicts of Romorantin and Amboise that more famous edict of Nantes which was drawn up by De Thou. While the latter, still a young man, was "assisting at the results of the Massacre of Saint-Bartholomew's day," the former, in deep seclusion at his estate of Vignay, was dying of a broken heart: the horror that hastened the end of the old man, was imprinted in ineffaceable characters in the soul of the young one. If De Thou was the more celebrated writer, L'Hôpital was the greater jurisconsult. He, "endued with a firm spirit and of a character supple enough and strong enough to make way undaunted athwart the storms of courts," and De Thou, “more in love with study than honours, sacrificing his taste for solitude to his duties, and both alike born with a talent for observation,"-if this worthy pair offer des dissemblances in the salient points of their life, at least they present singular affinities in details of character. Nor to either of them would be wholly inapplicable (with due allowances) what a "rare" poet of our own, De Thou's contemporary, has written of one of England's Lord High Treasurers: -That mine of wisdom, and of counsels deep, And legal ways Men's loves unto the laws, and laws to love the crown.§ * See Hallam's Literature of Europe, vol. ii. part ii. ch. v. § 94. : Ben Jonson: Underwoods. The Chancellor Olivier gave substantial proof of his estimate of L'Hôpital's business powers, in selecting him as ambassador to the Council of Trent, or rather of Bologna-for to the latter town had the Pope just transferred the sessions of an assembly he would fain withdraw from the Emperor's influence. L'Hôpital's mission thither was futile: the bishops were at loggerheads; some were still for Trent, and with these the Bologna party could come to no terms; so Henri II. recalled his ambassador, and L'Hôpital returned to France, in time to see Olivier's fall-the king's mistress being one too many for that upright old Chancellor, whose disgrace and exile seemed of evil augury for our ex-envoy's fortunes. Michel wanted some such mediator between the Court and himself; a sort of invincible shame-facedness, he tells us, preventing his waiting on great people, or making boast of his services, or showing the aim of his ambition. He was now forty-two, and still merely a Parliament councillor. But just at this crisis a new influence reached him. The Duchess of Berry, Francis the First's daughter, and niece of the celebrated Queen of Navarre, chose L'Hôpital for her Chancellor-for, like her aunt, this lady had an esteem for men of letters, and loved to prove it in the best way she could. At her court he mingled with the most learned men in France, collected there by the same generously eclectic princess. Scholars, whom we now look upon as mere commentators, were then the most enlightened of Frenchmen, and of the greatest service to the early progress of reason; for erudition was the philosophy of that day-an idiom common to the few only, whom at least it seemed to preserve from the prejudices and passions which intoxicated the vulgar herd. Women of illustrious birth, and adorned with all the graces of youth and beauty, used to speak this kind of sacred language with grave magistrates, famous masters, and a few tolerant bishops who laboured under suspicions of heresy. Thus, within an interval of thirty years, we see the Queen of Navarre, the Duchess of Berry and her sister the Princess of Ferrara, Anne Duchess of Guise, and Henry the Fourth's first wife, Margaret of Valois, support with their favour, and animate with their friendly good offices, such men as Erasmus, Budæus, Marot (persecuted as a savant), Paul de Foix (littérateur and great statesman), Amyot, De Thou, the learned and ill-starred Ramus, one of the St. Bartholomew victims, and many another then renowned but now forgotten name. The Court of L'Hôpital's patroness was not quite so loose-laced as Aunt Margaret's had been; fewer contes badins and love-stories were told there, but there was a deal of reading and learned conversation. L'Hôpital occasionally took his wife and daughter with him, and the Duchess would embrace them, and complain to them that her Chancellor kept too much aloof from the world and its honours, and was (for his and their interest) far too averse from looking out for the high employments which his rare knowledge and integrity deserved. She took care, for her part, however, to commend him heartily to her brother the King, and Henry at once gave him a berth, and admitted him at Court. Anon his Majesty made him surintendant of finance in the Chambre des Comptes-a new and important office, the duties of which had previously been combined with those of Keeper of the Seals. The Cardinal of Lorraine was at that time supreme in the * * Villemain. King's councils, in which dominance he was maintained by the "glory" of his brother, the Duke of Guise, and the favour of the royal mistress, Diana of Poitiers. This unscrupulous politician could not help esteeming L'Hôpital, in whom he could perceive the good man's moral strength that is not to be cowed by intimidation or corrupted by bribes. He helped to raise a rising man, and almost appeared as his protector. L'Hôpital had need of this support, says M. Villemain, to guard him against all the enmities excited from the first by his inflexible rectitude. For a long time past the finances of the kingdom had been the prey of those who farmed them and of the Court, each party struggling for the largest share. The public revenue reached the sum of thirty-eight millions; but barely half this amount went into the State coffers, and a thousand prodigalities drained what did go in." To have such a supervisor as L'Hôpital set over the exchequer, was intolerable to those who lived by abusing it. Hence a noisy band of malcontents and malignants, who detested the new minister, and were of one mind to put him down if the chance offered. Then again he made more enemies by the opposition he offered to the persecuting party. Together with some of his friends in the ParliamentArmand du Ferrier, for example, and Paul de Foix, and Christophe de Thou, and Louis du Faur-he petitioned the King to "suspend the proscriptions and executions" of Protestant reformers, "until the newlyassembled council should decide on the religious controversy." But Henry treated the petition as rebellious, and had some of the petitioners arrested; the boldest of them, Anne du Bourg, being eventually put to death. Not many days, however, after the arrest-which "odious violation of the privileges of the Parliament filled the wisest minds with consternation"—the King was slain in single combat, of the deadly sportive sort, by the hand of Montgomery. The Guises now had it all their own way, or nearly so. They induced the Chancellor Olivier, now enfeebled by age, to sign the ordinance which constituted Duke Francis lieutenantgeneral of France. With sorrow and sighing the aged minister wrote his name, nor ever, it seems, from that moment, had a quiet hour. Remorse overtook him in the very act, and may be said to have brought down his white hairs with sorrow to the grave. We are told that when visited, in his last illness, by the Cardinal of Lorraine, he exclaimed, "Ah! cardinal, par toi, nous voilà tous damnés." My brother," remonstrated his sleek and smooth-tongued Eminence, " mon frère, resist the evil spirit." "Well said! well met!" exclaimed the other, "with a horrible laugh;" and so, having said his say, and laughed his laugh, il tourna le dos, et mourut.* L'Hôpital was appointed his successor the Queen-mother, Catherine, being desirous to have as Chancellor some man of assured probity, on whose loyalty to the crown she might implicitly rely, and who would not be a tool in the hands of any noble-family compact. The Cardinal was not discomposed by this appointment; he knew his man, he thought, and could reckon on his deference, he hoped. Both the Guise brothers consented to the Medicean selection, and made it appear they desired it of themselves; but Catherine took some pains to assure the Chancellor that to her alone he owed his elevation.† It was early in the 1560 that year * Michelet, Histoire de France au XVIme Siècle, t. ix. ch. xi. † Villemain. he took office. The signs of the times could be read by all, for the sky was red and lowering; the storm, indeed, had already fitfully broken out; but none could tell what would be the end thereof. Chancellor and Cardinal soon came into collision. The establishment of the Inquisition in France was a pet project with his Eminence, and met with strenuous resistance from L'Hôpital, who finding it necessary to legislate on the matter, proposed to give the bishops cognisance of heresy within their respective dioceses. Hence his "Romorantin" edict, which he sent to the Parliament to be registered, reminding that body, at the same time, that opinions resist violence and constraint, but may be shaken in their strongholds by exhortations and reasoning. He next essayed to revive the States-General, which had not been convoked for fourscore years. The Guises "shuddered" at the very notion, and would hear of nothing more, at the most, than a réunion of the grandees of the realm, who were assembled, accordingly, at Fontainebleau. This assembly-presided over by Francis II., by whose side sat his radiant young queen, Mary Stuart-was attended by men who were soon to be engaged against each other in civil war. Coligny had his place there with the Guises and the Constable Montmorency; Montluc, Bishop of Valence, was there, "so favourable to the Reformers, whose most ruthless enemy his brother was ;" and the Archbishop of Vienne, whose religious tolerance was construed into the guilt of apostasy. L'Hôpital supported in effect the endeavours of the liberal party, and urged the king to confide in the love of his people, and convoke the States-General. He obtained leave to publish an edict for their convocation on the 10th of December, at Orleans, and meanwhile suspending all prosecutions "for the crime of heresy." The Paris Parliament protested bitterly against this unwonted tolerance. The Reformers were all astir; their tactics seemed to justify fresh measures of repression; the Prince of Condé and the King of Navarre were laid hands on; and the Duke of Guise urged on the queen-mother their destruction. Catherine hesitated and vacillated, amid divers apprehensions: she dreaded the reforming princes, for them she had persecuted; she dreaded the Guises, for she knew their power; the Catholic party suspected, and the Protestant despised her. Tormented by these uncertainties, though untroubled by remorse, she burst into tears in the midst of her maids of honour.* At length she resolved to appeal for counsel and aid in this emergency to the Chancellor, to whom she opened her grief, and her dismay at the present aspect of affairs, Francis dying, and the Lorraine princes growing stronger and bolder every day. L'Hôpital sought to interest her pride and ambition in the liberal cause and against these doughty brothers; he pointed out the great things she might do as Regent-how she ought to reign for her second son, Charles, still a child, without dependence on aspiring nobles. Catherine, in her alarm, acceded to all the Chancellor's sage counsels, and came to an understanding with the King of Navarre that same night, while Francis II. was expiring in another room. But she could not all at once throw off the dangerous support of the Guises. L'Hôpital wanted to see her "reign for herself and France, with the assistance of the States-General. His impartiality was that of justice, which would * Villemain. depend on no party, no ambition; the impartiality of Médicis was that of cunning, which would at once caress and dupe everybody." She tried to put off the assembly of the States, on the plea of the king's death. But, The King never dies, her Chancellor reminded her; and he had the gratification of actually opening the session with a characteristic speech, in which he combated the scruples of those who did not "think it useful and profitable to kings thus to consult their subjects,"-and then exposed the evils of the situation, the perils of sectarian spirit, and the need of dealing with it by wisdom and moral reform rather than pains and penalties of "assailing them with the arms of charity, with prayers, persuasions, the word of God, which are meet for such conflicts." And then he added: "Let us get rid of those diabolical words-Lutheran, Huguenot, Papist-names of party and sedition; nor let us change for them the title of Christians." It is remarked by Mr. Buckle, in reference to this period, that while the minds of men were heated, as then they were, by religious strife, it would have been idle to expect any of those maxims of charity to which theological faction is always a stranger. While Protestants were murdering Catholics, and Catholics murdering Protestants, it was hardly likely, he says, that either sect should feel tolerance for the opinions of its enemy. "During the sixteenth century, treaties were occasionally made between the two parties; but they were only made to be immediately broken; and, with the single exception of L'Hôpital, the bare idea of toleration does not seem to have entered the head of any statesman of the age. It was recommended by him; but neither his splendid abilities, nor his unblemished integrity, could make head against the prevailing prejudices, and he eventually retired into private life without effecting any of his noble schemes." His reiterated appeals to unrighteous authority, when it cries Havoc! and lets slip the dogs of war, were in the tone of Abner's to Joab: "Shall the sword devour for ever? knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end? how long shall it be, then, ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren ?" But there was this difference, that the son of Ner's pleading prevailed. M. Capefigue, in his History of the Reformation and of the League, is pleased to treat the Chancellor de l'Hôpital with contempt, as a man without sense or courage, who was continually attempting some wretched compromise between two adverse parties that sought each other's destruction. By various modern writers, at home and abroad, a not dissimilar character is given of one who, as judged by traditional reverence, might almost appropriate Spenser's lines, -than which none more upright, Ne more sincere in word and deed profest; Most voide of guile, most free from foule despight, There are repeated passages in a recent English biography of Montaigne, which uniformly treat L'Hôpital with the reverse of veneration. Thus, describing the progress of Charles IX. to the south of France, in 1565, *Buckle's History of Civilisation in England, I. 467-8. 2 Samuel, IL. 26. See Edin. Rev., LXIII. 3. § The Faerie Queene, bk. iv. c. xi. st. 18. |