The Jesuits and the Monarchy: Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590-1615) [Reprint ed.] 075463888X, 9780754638889

Table of contents :
List of Figures vi
Publishers' Note vii
Series Editor's Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
1. Expulsion 11
2. Recall 57
3. Expansion 97
4. Regicide 147
5. Accommodation 209
Conclusion 240
Appendix 245
Bibliography 249
Index 267

Citation preview

The Jesuits and the Monarchy

To my parents, Gerald and Nancy Nelson Thank y ou for your belief and support

The Jesuits and the Monarchy Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590-1615)

ERIC NELSON

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Institutum Historicum Societatis lesu

First published 2005 by Ashgate Publishing and Institutum Historicum Societatis lesu Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX 14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Eric Nelson 2005 Eric Nelson has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Nelson, Eric The Jesuits and the monarchy : Catholic reform and political authority in France (1590-1615). - (Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700) 1. Jesuits - France - History - 17th century 2. Jesuits - France - History - 16th century 3. Church and state - France - History - 17th century 4. Church and state - France History - 16th century 5. France - Church History - 17th century 6. France - Church History - 16th century 7. France - Politics and government - 1589-1610 8. France Politics and government -1610-1643 I. Title 271.5'3'0944'09032 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nelson, Eric, 1970The Jesuits and the monarchy : Catholic reform and political authority in France (1590-1615)/Eric Nelson. p. cm—(Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7546-3888-X (alk. paper) 1. Jesuits—France—History—16th century. 2. Monarchy—France—History—16th century. 3. Church and state—France—History—16th century. 4. France—Politics and government—16th century. 5. Jesuits—France—History—17th century. 6. Monarchy— France—History—17th century. 7. Church and state—France—History—17th century. 8. France—Politics and government—17th century. I. Title. II. Series. BX3731.N45 2005 271'.53044'09031—dc22

2004011504 Institutum Historicum Societatis lesu ISBN 88 7041 358 6 ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-3888-9 (hbk)

Contents

List of Figures Publishers ' Note Series Editor's Preface Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations

1 2 3 4 5

Introduction Expulsion Recall Expansion Regicide Accommodation Conclusion

Appendix Bibliography Index

vi vii ix xi xiii 1 11 57 97 147 209 240 245 249 267

List of Figures

Figure 1 The façade of the Jesuit Church of Saint Louis in Paris. (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.)

xiv

Figure 2 Depiction of Henri IV's entry into Paris, 1594. (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.) 10 Figure 3 Allegory of the Jesuit expulsion from France, ca. 1595. (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.)

54

Figure 4 The Pyramid, 1597. (Courtesy of Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu.)

56

Figure 5 The College of La Flèche with Louis IX, Henri IV and Louis XIII in the foreground, ca. 1610. (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.)

98

Figure 6 The assassination of Henri IV and the execution of François Ravaillac, ca. 1610. (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.)

146

Figure 7 Peter Paul Rubens, The Majority of Louis XIII, ca. 1622-1625. (© Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY.)

208

Publishers' Note

This volume is a co-publication between Ashgate Publishing and the Jesuit Historical Institute. As well as being part of Ashgate's Catholic Christendom, 1300-1750 monograph series, it is the 58 volume in the Jesuit Historical Institute's series Bibliotheca Instituti Historici Societatis lesu.

ASHGATE Ashgate Publishing

Institutum Histoicum Societatis lesu

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Series Editor's Preface

The still-usual emphasis on medieval (or Catholic) and reformation (or Protestant) religious history has meant neglect of the middle ground, both chronological and ideological. As a result, continuities between the middle ages and early modern Europe have been overlooked in favor of emphasis on radical discontinuities. Further, especially in the later period, the identification of 'reformation' with various kinds of Protestantism means that the vitality and creativity of the established church, whether in its Roman or local manifestations, has been left out of account. In the last few years, an upsurge of interest in the history of traditional (or catholic) religion makes these inadequacies in received scholarship even more glaring and in need of systematic correction. The series will attempt this by covering all varieties of religious behavior, broadly interpreted, not just (or even especially) traditional institutional and doctrinal church history. It will to the maximum degree possible be interdisciplinary, comparative and global, as well as non-confessional. The goal is to understand religion, primarily of the 'Catholic' variety, as a broadly human phenomenon, rather than as a privileged mode of access to superhuman realms, even implicitly. The period covered, 1300-1700, embraces the moment which saw an almost complete transformation of the place of religion in the life of Europeans, whether considered as a system of beliefs, as an institution, or as a set of social and cultural practices. In 1300, vast numbers of Europeans, from the pope down, fully expected Jesus's return and the beginning of His reign on earth. By 1700, very few Europeans, of whatever level of education, would have subscribed to such chiliastic beliefs. Pierre Bayle's notorious sarcasms about signs and portents are not idiosyncratic. Likewise, in 1300 the vast majority of Europeans probably regarded the pope as their spiritual head; the institution he headed was probably the most tightly integrated and effective bureaucracy in Europe. Most Europeans were at least nominally Christian, and the pope had at least nominal knowledge of that fact. The papacy, as an institution, played a central role in high politics, and the clergy in general formed an integral part of most governments, whether central or local. By 1700, Europe was divided into a myriad of different religious allegiances, and even those areas officially subordinate to the pope were both more nominally Catholic in belief (despite colossal efforts at imposing uniformity) and also in

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SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE

allegiance than they had been four hundred years earlier. The pope had become only one political factor, and not one of the first rank. The clergy, for its part, had virtually disappeared from secular governments as well as losing much of its local authority. The stage was set for the Enlightenment. Thomas F. Mayer, Augustana College

Acknowledgments

This monograph developed out of a D.Phil, dissertation completed at the University of Oxford in 1999; and, after so many revisions, it is impossible to fully thank all the people and institutions that have assisted me in completing this project. In its manifestation as a thesis, I would like to thank my dissertation adviser Jonathan Powis. His always helpful advice had a profound influence on my first effort to define and shape the arguments presented in this book. I would also like to thank Robin Briggs, David Parrott and Steven Gunn for their support during my time at the University of Oxford. I owe Tom McCoog SJ. a debt of gratitude for his help in preparing me for my first trip to the Jesuit archives in Rome and his ongoing support ever since. I owe a similar debt to the archivists at the Archivum Roman Societatis lesu who helped to make my work in their archives so productive and enjoyable. In addition, I would like to thank Tim Watson, Steven Casey and Guy Rowlands for reading drafts of my thesis as it took shape. Several funding bodies also made important contributions to the completion of my dissertation. I would like to thank the J.B. and M.C. Shapiro Scholarship Fund at the George Washington University for making my graduate study at the University of Oxford possible. I would also like to thank Merton College and those graduate research funding bodies at the University of Oxford that helped to fund my research trips to Paris and Rome. In reworking my manuscript into a monograph, I have collected an additional set of debts. I would like to thank Alain Tallón and Luc Racaut for reading and offering helpful feedback on drafts of this book. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to both Megan Armstrong and Jotham Parsons for reading and rereading drafts of this book. Their ongoing support and advice have profoundly shaped this study. Phyllis Jestice and Tom Lansford, my colleagues at the University of Southern Mississippi, have proven over and over again that the university as a community of scholars is alive and well. In particular Phyllis's constant willingness to consider and reconsider the stylistically challenged Latin of early seventeenth-century lawyers and churchmen has been invaluable. Mylene Valluet did me a great service in double-checking my French translations as did Sylvana Newkirk in double-checking my Italian translations. I also want to thank Bill Naphy and Mike Broers for helping me to decode the allegory at the end of Chapter One. Crucial institutional support that funded further research in the

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

archives of Paris, Rome and London came in the form of a Lucas Grant from the University of Southern Mississippi. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Alice for her patience, company and advice throughout this project. Her sharp eye and careful critical reading of endless drafts of this book makes the final product as much hers as mine. I will forever be grateful for all that she has done.

List of Abbreviations

AFCJ AMAE AN ARSI AV BI BN BOD CP MD MS Fr MS Latin PRO SP

Archives Française de la Compagnie de Jésus Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères Archives Nationales Archivum Romanum Societatis lesu Archivio Segreto Vaticano Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France Bibliothèque Nationale Bodleian Library Correspondence Politique Mémoires et Documents Manuscrits Français Manuscrits Latin Public Records Office State Papers

Figure 1

The façade of the Jesuit Church of Saint Louis in Paris (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.) xiv

Introduction

The concerted efforts of French Revolutionaries to cleanse the church of Saint Paul and Saint Louis in Paris of its royalist and Catholic past has permanently obscured the original purpose of the building. Dedicated solely to Saint Louis upon completion, this flagship church of the Society of Jesus in France was built to symbolically affirm the close relationship between the Jesuits and the French monarchy. The church was unmistakably a royal foundation. Louis XIII, founder and chief financial contributor to the project, sought publicly to link his person to the church both when he laid its first stone in 1627 and when he attended the dedication mass performed by his chief minister Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis Richelieu in 1641.1 For their part, the Jesuit fathers used every opportunity to advertise their close relationship with the monarchy through the church's design and decoration. On its facade, in a single niche on the top level, stood a statue of Saint Louis, blood relation of Louis XIII, underneath a Bourbon coat of arms. In the only other niches, below to the right and left of Saint Louis, the Jesuits placed two statues of their saints; their founder, Ignatius Loyola, and the Society's most famous missionary to Asia, Francis Xavier. The simple message that the Society sought to convey through these statues was that of the Society of Jesus as the faithful servant of its patron, the French monarchy. The Jesuits replicated this same theme in the decoration of the interior of the church, and soon after its dedication this thematic programme received an unmistakable symbol of royal approval when, at his express wish, Louis XIIFs heart was interred at the church following his death in 1643. The completion of the church of Saint Louis in the early 1640s symbolized the

1

For the foundation ceremony see ARSI Franciae 32, fo 544v°: Annual letter of the French Province, 1627. For an example of Louis's financial support and examples of his frequent visits to the professed house see: ARSI Franciae 33, fo 44: Annual letter of the professed house in Paris, 1631. Louis's ongoing presence at the professed house is also noted in ARSI Franciae 33, fo 110: Annual letter of the professed house in Paris, 1633. See also P. Delattre (éd.) Les Établissements des jésuites en France depuis quatre siècles: répertoire topo-bibliographicque publié à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de la fondation de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1540-1940 (Enghien, Belgium, 1949-1957), iii, cols 1263-1269. For a description of the Ascension day mass see the letter from Louis Mairat to Etienne Charlet in ARSI Franciae 33, fos 283-284: Mairat to Charlet, 10 May 1641.

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THE JESUITS AND THE MONARCHY

well-established alliance between Society and monarchy in France. But it also reflected a partnership that had only taken root over the previous forty years. Indeed, in 1600 few would have predicted that the Society would enjoy such a close relationship with the French monarchy or become such an important feature of the French church. Following their semi-official foundation in France during the early 1550s, the Jesuits maintained a relatively small presence that by 1589 amounted to around three-hundred Jesuits operating thirteen colleges. None of these colleges could boast of a royal founder or even of significant royal support for its activities. Instead, the Order relied upon the patronage of a group of aristocratic and ecclesiastical supporters who never succeeded in securing full legal status for the Society. Events at the opening of Henri IV's reign threatened even their modest presence in France. The Jesuits found themselves drawn into the political conflict surrounding the pacification of the Catholic League by their opponents in the Parlement of Paris. These magistrates secured their complete exclusion from the Parlements jurisdiction in 1594 for allegedly promoting and assisting in Jean Chastel's attempted assassination of Henri IV. Soon after the parlements of Rouen, Dijon and Rennes passed similar expulsion edicts. Thus, in 1600 the Jesuit mission maintained only a precarious legal existence in the south and west of the kingdom and was estranged from the new Bourbon royal line in France because of its alleged role in the assassination attempt upon Henri. The Society's new relationship with the monarchy, as symbolized by the church of Saint Louis, only took shape in the years following their partial expulsion when Henri IV chose to rehabilitate the Society as part of a wider effort to strengthen and reinterpret royal authority in France following the collapse of the Catholic League. Henri redefined the Society's legal position in his kingdom through an act of royal clemency, which was formally established through the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen in 1603. Moreover, following the rehabilitation of the Jesuits, both Henri and the Society sought to establish and maintain a relationship that involved Henri channelling Jesuit resources through the use of royal patronage and goodwill into activities which advanced royal policies to their mutual benefit. During this short period a partnership between monarch and Society developed that shaped the Society's presence in France for the next one hundred and fifty years. The following chapters re-examine the partial expulsion, subsequent recall and rapid integration of the Jesuits into the French church between 1590 and 1615 to explain how one of the most influential religious orders in the seventeenth-century Catholic church successfully integrated into the French church. The study also seeks

INTRODUCTION

3

to use the Society's recall and expansion-amongst the most contentious controversies within the French Catholic church in the twenty years following the collapse of the League - as a lens to bring into focus a series of important broader issues concerning state formation in post-League France and the interaction between manifestations of international Catholic Reformation and national churches in western Europe. Within France, close examination of the Society's expulsion and subsequent rehabilitation provides new insight into both the struggle to redefine royal authority following the collapse of the Catholic League and the foundations on which aspects of the more Baroque absolutist style of government, so important to the rule of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, took root during Henri IV's struggle to establish his authority within the Catholic church in his kingdom. Moreover, reconsideration of the Society's efforts to reach an accommodation with the king and other institutions in France over the scope and regulation of their activities in the kingdom during the closing years of Henri's reign and the period of regency government which followed offers useful insight into how the requirements of Catholic secular authorities and national church traditions shaped Catholic renewal at the opening of the seventeenth century. These wider issues at stake in the Jesuit rehabilitation shaped and defined both the initial understanding established between the Society and Henri IV and the rapid development of the Society's activities in the kingdom. This study seeks to make a contribution to our understanding of post-League France in a manner similar to a series of important recent studies including Michael Wolfe's on the conversion of Henri IV and Michel de Waele's on the Parlement of Paris's relationship with Henri IV.2 These works amongst others have collectively transformed our understanding of how Henri and his supporters sought to reconstruct the fractured French church and wider French polity following the collapse of the Catholic League.3 Individually these studies make their contributions by focusing on

2 M. Wolfe, The Conversion of Henri IV: Politics, Power, and Religious Be lief in Early Modern France (Cambridge MA, 1993); M. De Waele, Les Relations entre le parlement de Paris et Henri IV(Paris, 2000). 3 Other works have taken up aspects of Henri's efforts to re-establish religious and political authority in France. Two recent works on the Edict of Nantes have used the struggle to secure acceptance of this controversial royal edict to examine Henri's effort to assert his authority within the French polity and the French church, see J. Garrisson, L 'Edit de Nantes: chronique d'une paix attendue (Paris, 1998); B. Cottret, 1598: L'Édit de Nantes (Paris, 1997). Annette Finley-Croswhite's study of Henri IV's relationship with the towns of France uses this question to explore Henri's style of kingship and his campaign to re-establish royal authority over local institutions within the French polity, see S.A. Finley-Croswhite, Henry IV and the Towns: The Pursuit of Legitimacy in French Urban Society, 1589-1610 (Cambridge, 1999). Denis Crouzet has focused his attention on the construction of Henri IV's image as 'king of reason' over the

4

THE JESUITS AND THE MONARCHY

an important controversy or institution in order to shed light on broader political and religious developments during this short period of significant change. This approach has proven particularly useful for scholars attempting to come to terms with the complex and multi-faceted campaign by Henri and his allies to re-establish both peace and royal authority in France. By drawing on individual controversies or relations between the king and particular institutions in his kingdom, scholars have succeeded in drawing a more precise picture of how Henri conducted policy and the theories of royal authority that he promoted to advance these policies. This study seeks to make an important contribution to this body of literature by focusing upon the longneglected subject of the Society of Jesus in post-League France in order to advance our understanding of how this religious Order became an influential feature of the French church and what their experience can tell us about the re-establishment and redefinition of royal authority in the Gallican church during the first twenty-five years of Bourbon rule.4

course of his reign in order to explain how Henri reconstructed royal authority in France following his conversion, see D. Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu: la violence au temps des troubles de religion vers 1525-vers 1610 (Paris, 1990), ii, 541-619. He focuses exclusively on this theme in D. Crouzet, 'Henry IV, King of Reason?', in K. Cameron (éd.), From Valois to Bourbon: Dynasty, State and Society in Early Modern France (Exeter, UK, 1989), pp. 73-106. 4 The question of the Society's partial expulsion and subsequent return to France at the opening of the seventeenth century has not always been a neglected subject. Literally hundreds of histories and political pamphlets were published on this topic in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although a vast majority were written to make a contribution to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century political and religious controversies and therefore are polemical rather than historical in approach. For an analysis of the eighteenth-century anti-Jesuit literature see O.K. Van Kley, The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France 1757-1765 (London, 1975). For a modern critique of nineteenth-century anti-Jesuit literature see G. Cubitt, The Jesuit Myth. Conspiracy Theory and Politics in Nineteenth-Century France (Oxford, 1993), pp. 188-196. However, over the last century the Society's activities in France during the reign of Henri IV and the regency of Marie de Medici have received little attention. Henri Fouqueray completed the last book-length account on this subject in the 1920s and his study remains the standard work on the subject today, see the first three volumes of H. Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France des origines à la suppression (1528-1762) (Paris, 1910-1925). Claude Sutto is the only modem scholar to draw attention to the importance of this topic in a series of articles based primarily on the published pamphlet literature of the period, see C. Sutto, 'Henri IV et les Jésuites', Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, 17 (1993), 17-24. See also C. Sutto, 'Quelques conséquences politiques de l'attentat de Jean Chastel', Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, 1 ( 1977), 136-154; C. Sutto, 'Le Père Louis Richeome et le nouvel espirit politique des Jésuites français', in G. Demerson et al. (eds), Les Jésuites parmi les hommes auxXVIe etXVHe siècles (Clermont Ferrand, 1987), pp. 175-184; C. Sutto, 'Le Roi et le Parlement dans la pensée et Factions des Jésuites français (15901625)', in A. Stegmann (éd.), Pouvoir et institutions en Europe auXVIe siècle (Paris, 1987), pp. 278-297. Finally, he addressed this topic in the introduction to E. Pasquier, Le Catéchisme des Jésuites, C. Sutto (ed), (Sherbrooke, Canada, 1982).

INTRODUCTION

5

The Society's partial expulsion and recall provides an ideal focus for a study of this kind. The rich body of source material held in Paris, Rome and London concerning the Jesuit experience in France provides the most detailed record of a longrunning controversy within the French Catholic church during the reign of Henri IV and the regency of Marie de Medici. These sources allow this study to place the Society's experience firmly into the context of wider developments within the French church and state. Moreover, the sources allow this study to draw at several points an important conceptual distinction between the public rhetoric surrounding controversies over the Jesuit presence in France and the deeper reality of political and religious accommodation revealed in the manuscript sources. This distinction has important implications for our understanding of how religious and political controversies were defused in post-League France, but it is a distinction that the source material from this period has rarely allowed scholars to draw. These opportunities help to place the setpiece public battles over the Society's presence and regulation in the kingdom into context, while at the same time casting new light on our understanding of royal religious policy during this period and the Society's effort to accommodate national church requirements in order to operate in France. This study follows a generally chronological sequence and takes as its primary focus the Society's experience in France. Nevertheless, its focus shifts over the course of the study in order to take into account the increasingly important role that the Society played in shaping and defining its position in France. The first two chapters, 'Expulsion' and 'Recall', address the period between 1590 and 1603 when the Society of Jesus found itself one of the most important subjects of controversy in the wider dispute amongst royalists over how to re-establish peace within the fractured French polity following thirty years of religious and civil war. They argue that the key to understanding the Society's partial expulsion and subsequent recall is to place the Jesuit experience in the context of this wider struggle amongst Henri's allies during the pacification of his kingdom. 'Expulsion' explains how one group of influential erudite Gallican royalists succeeded in securing the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from its jurisdiction in 1594 as part of a wider effort to secure peace in the kingdom through the strict definition and enforcement of traditional French fundamental law.5 5 I will take up the concept of erudite Gallicanism in greater detail in Chapter One, but for a full exploration of the concept see J. Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate in Early Modern France: Politics, Ideology and the Gallican Liberties 1550-1615' (Johns Hopkins University Ph.D. thesis, 1997). I would like to thank Jotham Parsons for allowing me to read his reworked version of this thesis which will be

6

THE JESUITS AND THE MONARCHY

By the spring of 1595, their successful campaign had become an important symbolic triumph for erudite Gallicans in their effort to re-establish the fundamental laws of the kingdom and the related effort to establish their authority and duty to define and defend the laws of the kingdom as a means of securing peace in the realm. This erudite Gallican conception of royal authority defined the thinking of many Navarrist magistrates in the early 1590s. However, a second influential group of royalists, primarily drawn from the ranks of Henri's ministers and personal advisers, defined during this same period an alternative conception of royal justice that relied on the use of royal attributes - especially that of clemency - to re-establish peace and social order in France. Central to this approach was an effort to transcend the strict letter of French law by using royal judgment to pardon those patently guilty of disloyalty in the past in exchange for obedience in the future. 'Recall' examines how Henri IV used this conception of royal justice to secure the partial rehabilitation of the Society through a royal pardon based on his judgment. This assertion of royal prerogative met with stiff opposition amongst erudite Gallican magistrates, and Henri's success in using the symbolic Jesuit issue to assert this very different conception of how royal authority operated in France proved an important step in his wider campaign to redefine royal authority as inscrutable to even his closest advisers. At stake in the debate between these rival conceptions of how peace should be reestablished in France lay an important set of issues that in part defined the theoretical extent of royal power in France during the seventeenth century. Once re-established, the Society rapidly expanded its presence in the kingdom primarily as part of a wider effort by Henri IV to aggressively use patronage to expand and define royal influence over the Catholic church in France. Chapter Three, entitled 'Expansion', examines how Henri established a relationship with the Society during the final seven years of his reign that proved conducive to both the Society's ministries in France and the monarchy's effort to regain authority in the kingdom. One key to this development was the impact of royal patronage and goodwill on Jesuit activities in France. But equally important to their rapid expansion was the Society's decision to embrace and shape these initiatives into a relationship which effectively made the Society of Jesus the most responsive active religious Order in the kingdom to the royal will. 'Expansion' explores how, through this new relationship, Henri increasingly

published by The Catholic University Press of America under the title The Church and the Republic: Gallicanism and Political Ideology in Renaissance France.

INTRODUCTION

7

channelled Jesuit resources into areas of activity which supported royal religious policy. This new relationship defined a potentially important role for the Jesuits in royal educational, religious and even foreign policy. It also shaped the Society's relationship with both its supporters and opponents in the kingdom. From the perspective of the Jesuits, 'Expansion' examines how this new relationship, in conjunction with the revival of local patronage for the Society's activities, provided the foundation on which the Society became the largest, most influential religious Order in France by the mid-seventeenth century. Moreover, through a careful study of the establishment and definition of this relationship, 'Expansion' illuminates the wider issue of how the internationally organized Society was able to assimilate into the French church. By 1603 the Jesuits were a leading religious Order in the international Catholic Reformation dedicated to teaching and missionary work in Catholic and Protestant regions of Europe and the growing overseas empires of Catholic powers. The Order was founded on an international conception of Catholic renewal that required the Society to send its members to those places where the church was most in need of its ministries. To accomplish this Ignatius Loyola, the Society's founder, had established the most centralized organization of any active religious Order in the Catholic church, which granted the father general absolute obedience from all members and also required fully professed members of the Society to take an unprecedented vow of obedience to the pope. This centralized organization based in Rome was designed to facilitate the conduct of activities which transcended national boundaries. Loyola sought to create an Order dedicated to addressing the needs of the entire Catholic church. Both the Order's global vision and the talent of its early members ensured that the Society had an important impact on efforts to combat the spread of Protestantism and, perhaps more importantly, on initiatives to renew Catholic spiritual and devotional life in large parts of the Catholic world along the lines defined by the decrees of the Council of Trent.6 Thus, the Society of Jesus, which was amongst the most effective promoters of the international conception of Catholic renewal advocated both at Trent and by a succession of popes, seems an unlikely partner for Henri IV to choose in his campaign to re-establish royal authority over the Catholic church in France. 'Expansion' explains how this unlikely alliance took shape and in the process sheds light on how manifestations of international

6

J. O'Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge MA, 1993).

8

THE JESUITS AND THE MONARCHY

Catholic renewal and the requirements of Catholic rulers and national churches interacted in the early seventeenth century. Chapters Four and Five, entitled 'Regicide' and 'Accommodation', examine the Society of Jesus's interaction with the French royal courts following Henri's untimely death at the hands of the Catholic assassin François Ravaillac in 1610. As in Chapter Three, these final two chapters, through the close analysis of the Society's situation in France, also examine the wider issue of how a distinctly French Catholic reform movement took shape in part through the regulation of international manifestations of Catholic renewal. Despite the period of royal weakness following Henri's death, these final two chapters show how the Society continued to integrate into the French church. They trace the fortunes of the Society during the regency of Marie de Medici and the opening months of Louis XIII's personal rule in order to examine how, despite determined opposition from many magistrates imbued with erudite Gallican ideas, the Society was able to maintain and even work to expand its activities in the kingdom. One key to this success was the willingness of the Jesuits in France to legitimize their presence in the kingdom by recognizing the jurisdictional authority of the Parlement of Paris over the writings of their members on the issue of tyrannicide. They also agreed to abide by French law even when it impacted on some aspects of their ministries and temporal affairs. This established a regulatory framework for the Society ' s mission that complemented their relationship with the monarchy. Thus, these final two chapters show how the Jesuits proved so effective in operating within the distinctive French Catholic reformation because of their willingness to compromise with secular regulatory authorities both to secure the goals of their reform agenda and to address the sensibilities of national church traditions. Establishment of a close relationship between monarchy and Society during the reign of Henri IV proved the defining feature for their presence in the kingdom over the next century and a half. The construction of the church of Saint Louis was merely one symbol of the continued strengthening of the relationship between monarchy and Jesuits which defined their ministries and influence in France during the reigns of Louis XIII, Louis XIV and Louis XV. Through their ministries and especially the curriculum of their schools, over the course of the seventeenth century the Society became important promoters of a spirituality and religious dogma in tune with the absolutist political culture promoted by their Bourbon patrons. The church of Saint Louis provides a useful symbol of this long-term development as it became an important focus in the Marais for the promotion of royal religious sensibilities. Royal

INTRODUCTION

9

patronage of the church and the Society which conducted its ministries in it paid dividends for the monarchy in the decades following its opening as it became a venue for fashionable preachers and a meeting place for aristocrats, royal officials and précieuses who played a role in some of the important cultural changes set in motion by Henri IV and advocated by his successors. This alliance with the monarchy, which proved so fruitful for the Society, also lay behind their ultimate expulsion from France in the second half of the eighteenth century as their fortunes followed the same trajectory as their royal patrons. In the early 1760s, the Society was expelled once again by the royal courts, but this time instead of being accused of seeking to undermine royal authority in France they were accused of actively supporting the tyranny - or as their opponents termed it royal and sacerdotal despotism - of their Bourbon patrons.

Figure 2 Depiction of Henry IV's entry into Paris, 1594. (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris)

CHAPTER ONE

Expulsion

Henri IV was a ruler who understood the importance of image and perception. A central feature of Henri's successful pacification of France, following his accession to the throne in such unpromising circumstances in 1589, was his careful cultivation of traditional royal attributes - including those of a Catholic prince after his abrogation of the Protestant faith in July 1593. Thus, Henri would undoubtedly have been pleased with the engraving produced to accompany lean le Clerc's account of the royal pacification of Paris on 23 March 1594. The image portrays a confident monarch riding in the midst of his soldiers through the narrow streets of the île-de-Cité at the heart of his capital. His newly liberated subjects line the route straining to catch a glimpse of their king or betraying expectation at his imminent arrival. The distinctive portal of Nôtre Dame Cathedral in the background reminds the viewer of the king's decision to travel directly to this symbolic centre of French Catholicism in order to celebrate his triumph with a Te Deum mass. The intended message of the engraving was clear. The first son of the Catholic church with the support of his loyal subjects had returned to take his rightful place as head of state in his capital. The pacification of Paris proved a seminal moment in Henri IV s campaign to assert his claim to the throne, and this image provided the interpretation of the event that royal polemicists and historians intended to present to the public.1 However, the official interpretation only masked a much more complex situation in Paris. Henri's capital had in fact submitted to him only through the treachery of Charles de Crosse, comte de Brissac, and a small group of co-conspirators who opened the Porte Neuve and Porte Saint Denis to royal troops in the early hours of the morning. The population turned out to welcome the monarch, but these same 1 For a concise account of the official interpretation of Henri's entry see P. Cheverny, Mémoires de Messire Philippe Hurault, Comte de Cheverny, Chancelier de France, in Michaud and Poujoulat (eds), Nouvelle collection des mémoires, relatif à l'histoire de France depuis le XHIe siècle, (Paris, 1854), x, 534-545.

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subjects were guilty of lese-majesty and their loyalty to Henri IV was far from certain. Henri's very public Te Deum at Nôtre Dame was more than just a mass of thanksgiving, it provided the first opportunity for Henri to display the sincerity of his conversion to his Catholic subjects in Paris. Defence of the Catholic church had played a central role in the rebellion of the city's population against Henri's predecessor in 1588 and had defined their participation in the Catholic League. Henri was determined upon his arrival in Paris to portray himself as a Catholic prince to this critical audience. From the start Henri combined his outward devotion to the Catholic faith with a concerted effort to assuage concerns amongst the population of Paris about retribution for their opposition to his rule. From early in the morning royal criers had announced Henri's offer of clemency for past disobedience to all his subjects willing to live in obedience to him in the future, even those who had actively supported the League.2 The crowded streets reflected the enthusiastic response of Parisians to this offer. Desperate efforts to raise the population of Paris against the relapsed heretic Navarre fell upon deaf ears; the king had indeed returned to his capital. In the days following Henri's entry into Paris numerous corporations within the city that were patently guilty of participation in the League sought to reconcile themselves with the king. The Society of Jesus's actions mirrored that of many other compromised groups in the capital. The Jesuits participated in victory celebrations and took swift action to transfer their members who had been most compromised by involvement in the League to foundations outside the city.3 The Jesuits, like other groups in Paris, hoped that by removing their most suspect members and avoiding public attention they could quietly put their participation in the League behind them. The Society's members had reason to be optimistic. Several Jesuits had participated in the League, but the Society had not played a direct role in the worst excesses of the movement.4 Furthermore, the Jesuits received tacit support from the king when, after his entry into Paris, he ignored calls for the arrest of the Jesuit

2 Henri did expel a small number of dedicated Leaguers from the capital in the weeks following his pacification of Paris, but during the crucial first few days following his entry into Paris he maintained this clement policy, see D. Buisseret, Henri IV(London, 1984), p. 53. 3 ARSI Galliae 93, fos 122-123: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 13 April 1594. This tactic continued, see ARSI Galliae 93, fo 182: Codreto to Aquaviva, 25 June 1594. 4 A.L. Martin, Henry III and the Jesuit Politicians (Geneva, 1973), pp. 154-186.

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Father Ambroise Varade over his alleged complicity in Pierre Barrière's attempted assassination of Henri in 1593. Instead of detaining the father, Henri IV advised him to leave the city before the members of the Parlement of Paris who had sat in exile at Tours and Chalons arrived in the capital.5 Thus, the king's actions indicated that the policy of clemency would extend to the Society. The Jesuits in Paris met the king's gesture of clemency with further signs of loyalty, including a public affirmation that they were willing to take an oath of obedience to the still excommunicated Henri.6 Yet, despite these efforts, within nine months the Society of Jesus became the only organization collectively expelled from much of France during Henri IV's pacification of his kingdom. This dramatic reversal of the Society's fortunes was a direct result of the determined efforts of an influential group of royal magistrates who in the early 1590s advocated the strict enforcement of French law, rather than clemency, as the key to re-establishing peace and social order in France. These magistrates increasingly identified the Society as a subversive threat to French law and as a dedicated opponent of peace in France. Thus, in order to understand the Society's expulsion from much of France in 1594, one must consider developments in political thought within the milieu of the royal judiciary in the early 1590s and the misgivings amongst many of these same jurists towards Henri's policy of clemency or douceur in the pacification of his kingdom. The political and social instability resulting from the religious wars inspired the articulation of a series of political and legal theories amongst jurists and royal office holders who were charged with maintaining and upholding public order and the laws of France.7 One significant tradition, which emanated from the milieu of the Parlement of Paris in the 1570s and 1580s, asserted that the definition and strict

5

AFCJ Prat 30, p. 171 : Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603. The Society did not actually make an oath before the Parlement of Paris as their opponents did not want to advertise their willingness to recognize Henri's authority, see ARSI Galliae 93, fo 136-136v°: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 27 April 1594; ARSI Galliae 93, fo 132-132v°: Commolet to Acquaviva, 18 April 1594; AFCJ Prat 30, p. 173: Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603. 7 One important set of ideas emanated from the debate surrounding resistance theory, see R.M. Kingdon, 'Calvinism and Resistance Theory, 1550-1580', in J.H. Burns (éd.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 206-214. See also J.H.M. Salmon, 'Catholic Resistance Theory, Ultramontanism, and the Royalist Response, 1580-1620', in J.H. Burns (éd.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 219-253. For an interesting account of competing views of the role of law in re-establishing political order in France during the 1580s see J. Parsons, 'The Political Vision of Antoine LoiseF, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 27 (1996), 453-476. 6

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enforcement of French law offered the best means of re-establishing peace and stability in the kingdom after the disorder of religious war. Jurists who advocated this approach - which for the purposes of this study are labelled erudite Gallicans consciously drew upon Renaissance humanist techniques in textual criticism, historicism and philology as established by French jurists in the opening half of the sixteenth century to identify and define the traditional customs and fundamental laws of France.8 By the accession of Henri IV in 1589, this approach to juristic study and the related belief that the strict enforcement of established French law provided the clearest path to peace had grown in influence amongst some of the Parlement of Paris's jurists who sat in the Navarrist parlements at Tours and Chalons.9 The physical collection of documents that they represented as authoritative, a well-defined vocabulary and rhetoric associated with their humanist and legal training, along with a strong institutional basis in the royal courts provided a solid platform on which they could present and develop their ideas. These jurists possessed a sense of legitimacy centred on the belief that their role in defining and enforcing the law was established by an earlier French political tradition known as Gallicanism.10 By the sixteenth century Gallicanism was composed of a set of traditions that loosely shared the same purpose of defining the privileges and autonomy of French ecclesiastical and political institutions with reference to outside sources of authority, particularly that of the Holy See in Rome. These ideas had their roots in the late fourteenth century and had found at various points in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries prominence in the thought of French ecclesiastical and political writers. The jurists of the later sixteenth century focused primarily on one influential set of ideas often collectively referred to as royal or royalist Gallicanism. At their most assertive royalist Gallicans advanced a set of ideas including the king's absolute temporal authority within his kingdom and the impossibility of his subjects rebelling against him because of his divine

8 For developments in the 1570s and 1580s and for the concept of the erudite Gallicanism, see J. Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate in Early Modern France: Politics, Ideology and the Gallican Liberties 1550-1615' (Johns Hopkins University Ph.D. thesis, 1997). My discussion of erudite Gallicans and their ideas in this paragraph draws heavily on Parsons's work. For more on the relationship between jurists and history in sixteenth-century France see D. Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law and History in the French Renaissance (New York, 1970). 9 The royalist jurists who sat in the parlements at Tours and Chalons had abandoned their colleagues who continued to meet in Leaguer-controlled Paris. 10 For more on the origins of Gallicanism see V. Martin, Les Origines du gallicanisme (Paris, 1939).

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right to rule. Further, royalist Gallican thought, particularly those versions of the tradition advocated by the king's magistrates, often emphasized the right of French church corporations and clergy to appeal papal and ecclesiastical court decisions in the sovereign royal courts. A series of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century French monarchs promoted the tenets of royalist Gallicanism. However, royal enthusiasm for Gallican ideas depended in large measure on the state of relations with the papacy. When relations were good, the potential benefits of papal support for the monarchy often outweighed the advantages to be gained through the active promotion of an exact definition of royal authority. Indeed, after Pope Leo X granted François I and his successors substantial rights to nominate important church personnel through the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, active royal support for Gallicanism largely disappeared. However, royal magistrates in the sovereign courts, who had a tendency to view Gallican ideas from a legal rather than a political perspective, proved far more consistent supporters of royalist Gallican thought. Indeed, on occasions during the sixteenth century, like the registration of the Concordat of Bologna, the Parlement of Paris confronted monarchs who betrayed what they believed were the fundamental tenets of Gallicanism.11 The study of documents and theoretical texts associated with royalist Gallicanism provided the historical evidence required by late sixteenth-century jurists to advance the principle of absolute royal sovereignty in questions of secular law within the French state. The interpretation of royalist Gallican writings in the later sixteenth century using erudite Gallican scholarly techniques defined a unique position for the king and, through his delegated authority, the royal sovereign courts of the realm as enforcers of French customary law. For these jurists the sovereign authority of the monarch to enforce a pure version of French law as established through their research provided the best means of re-establishing peace in the realm.12 French law as a transcendent form of authority proved a powerful concept which theoretically allowed those who advocated the approach to address all aspects of both secular and religious life in France. Many jurists who advocated this new approach were, through temperament and their positions within the royal

1

' For an examination of the conflict between François I and the Parlement of Paris over the Concordat of Bologna see R. Doucet, Étude sur le gouvernement de François 1er dans ses rapports avec le Parlement de Paris (Paris, 1921), i, 77-148. 12 The convergence of these ideas is examined in detail by Jotham Parsons, see Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate'.

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judicial machinery, likely to support many traditional royalist Gallican ideas, especially on relations between king and pope. However, this new approach also led magistrates to treat with suspicion or outright hostility groups or corporations, like the Society of Jesus, that in their eyes did not fit into the customary legal framework of France. Distribution of humanist education, access to the Parlement of Paris's legal records and the close institutional relationship between the sovereign courts in Paris and the monarch made the milieu of the Parlement of Paris a focal point for the development and use of the new erudite Gallican juristic technique. The milieu of the Parlement also proved a fertile ground for those who advocated strict enforcement of French law as the best means for re-establishing peace in the realm.13 The most vocal proponents of the new Gallican approach were found amongst barristers who pleaded cases before the Parlement, those employed at the greffe - the bureau responsible for the maintenance of the Parlement's registers and above all the parquet - those royal officers responsible for looking after the king's affairs in the Parlement. Many of the most outspoken proponents of erudite Gallicanism - like Etienne Pasquier, Antoine Arnauld, Louis Servin and Louis Dollé - were also the most vehement opponents of the Jesuits in the summer of 1594 and, indeed, remained the most outspoken opponents of the Society and the political theories espoused by some Jesuit writers throughout the opening decades of the seventeenth century.14 While these barristers and royal office holders represented both the most vocal proponents of erudite Gallicanism and the most outspoken opponents of the Jesuits, they also received a sympathetic reception amongst some of the conseillers and présidents of the Parlement. The Parlement of Paris in the 1590s included an influential group of magistrates labelled traditionalist parlementaires by Michel De

13

Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate', p. 40. These men are readily identified as erudite Gallicans through their publications. For Etienne Pasquier see E. Pasquier, Les Recherches de la France, revenes & augmentées de 4 hures (Paris, 1596). For Antoine Arnauld see, A. Arnauld, Coppie de rAnti-Espagnol faict à Paris (n.pl., 1590). For Louis Servin see L. Servin, L. Servin Aduocat du roy contenant exhortation aux subiects à l'obéissance enuers sa Majesté (Tours, 1589). See also L. Servin, Vindicae secvndvm libertatem ecclesiae Gallicanae, & Regij status Gallofrancorum. Sub Henrico IIII. Rege Francorum & Navarrae (N.pl., 1593). For Louis Dollé see L. Dollé, 'Plaidoyé de M. Louis Dollé, Aduocat en Parlement: Pour les Curez de Paris demandeurs. Contre les lesuites défendeurs, des 13 & 16 luilliet 1594', in C.E. du Boulay (éd.), Historia Vniversitatis Parisiensis (Paris, 1673), vi, 852-866. 14

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Waele.15 In general these men were drawn from families with long attachments to service in the royal judiciary. Included amongst those identified as traditional parlementaires were important members of the Parlement in 1594, like premier président Achille de Harlay, présidents Jacques-Auguste de Thou, Edouard Mole and Jacques and Charles Paye d'Espesse, along with conseillers Jean de Thumery, Jacques Gillot and Nicholas Rapin.16 These men had sympathy with the humanistic approach to the study of history and law, strongly advocated the authority of tradition and accepted the importance of enforcement for the effectiveness of law.17 Moreover, as magistrates they recognized and promoted the belief that the law played an important role in the re-establishment of peace and order in the kingdom.18 Thus, these men shared many of the same values and outlooks with members of the bar, the greffe and the parquet, but were often more conservative than the most outspoken advocates of the new erudite Gallican ideas. In this context, erudite Gallican arguments against the Society of Jesus in the summer of 1594 resonated with many, but not all, traditional parlementaires.19 The assertive efforts of many erudite Gallicans based in the Navarrist parlements at Tours and Chalons to define and enforce French law contrasted with royal policy from the summer of 1593 to increasingly disregard the law in pursuit of a quick pacification of the kingdom. At the centre of this conflict was Henri's decision to prosecute a clement policy towards his Leaguer enemies following his public abjuration of the Protestant faith on 25 July 1593.20 Part of this new policy involved enticing important Leaguer noblemen and towns to defect to the king's party through offers of money, positions in the royal government or armed forces and recognition of rights and privileges. However, as Michael Wolfe has emphasized, offers of enticements only proved compelling when combined with 15

M. De Waele, Les Relations entre le Parlement de Paris et Henri IV (Paris, 2000), pp. 72-91. De Waele, Relations, p.74. 17 De Waele, Relations, pp. 74-91. 18 For another account of how magistrates sought to establish both the authority of law and the importance of their counsel see C. Sutto, 'Tradition et innovation, réalisme et utopie: l'idée Gallicane à la fin du XVIe et au début du XVIIe siècles', Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, 8 (1984), 278-297. 19 With reference to issues of religion and the Catholic church, the Parlement of Paris had long shown a concern for procedure, the defence of precedent and the defence of established law, see S. Daubresse, 'Le Parlement de Paris et l'édit du 17 Janvier 1562', Revue historique 299 (1998), 515-547. 20 For more on Henri IV's policy of pacification after his conversion see M. Wolfe, The Conversion of Henri IV: Politics, Power, and Religious Belief in Early Modern France (Cambridge MA, 1993), pp. 159187. 16

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concessions that protected the honour of League participants who had sworn to defend the Catholic church when they joined the Sainte Union. To accomplish this, the king presented his decision to embrace the Catholic church and its teachings as a choice which removed the need for his Catholic subjects to choose between obedience to him and their consciences. In his agreements with individual Leaguer nobles, Henri recognized that many of his subjects rebelled against his rule because of their loyalty to the Catholic faith - a faith that he now shared with them. Therefore, Henri offered to forget past disobedience in return for a public oath from each Leaguer to obey him as monarch in the future.21 If the king's Leaguer subjects accepted the sincerity of his conversion, then Henri's offer of clemency provided a path whereby his erstwhile opponents could claim that submission to Henri was the culmination, not the betrayal, of their Leaguer oath to defend the Catholic church. Many Leaguer noblemen and towns explicitly noted in their public submissions to the monarch that the conversion of the king to the Catholic faith marked victory in their effort to defend the church and that they found no reason to continue their opposition to the king.22 Henri based his campaign of douceur on the traditional royal attribute tí grâce, which served both to reassure Leaguers and to reinforce his claim to the throne by displaying royal judgment and justice.23 Royal clemency provided Henri IV with a flexible means with which to transcend the letter of the law in order to provide him with the authority to pardon those patently guilty of opposing his rule. His offer of clemency drew upon a long tradition of thought concerning royal sovereignty which emphasized royal access to the arcana imperil of monarchy - that is the inscrutable aspects of the royal mystique. During the later stages of the religious wars royal access to the arcana imperil as a source of sovereignty received significant support from some important political and juristic thinkers. For instance, in his Les Six livres de la république the influential political philosopher Jean Bodin presented royal grâce as a true mark of royal sovereignty by citing Cicero's request for imperial grâce from Caesar:

21

Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 176-187. Wolfe, Conversion, p. 185. 23 For a discussion of the role of clemency in the royal mystique see N.Z. Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, 1987), pp. 52-53. 22

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... the magistrate has cognizance only of the issue of fact, the penalty being reserved to the law and the right of pardon (grâce) to the sovereign. That is why Cicero, asking Caesar to pardon (grâce) Ligarius, says 'I have often pleaded before judges as your adversary, and never did I say on behalf of my client, "Pardon him gentlemen. He has erred; he didn't mean it; he will never again etc.," as though it is a father to whom pardon is asked. Before judges one says that the charge was fabricated out of envy, that the accuser is a slanderer, that the witnesses are false,' whereby Cicero shows that Caesar, being sovereign, had power to grant a pardon (grâce), which judges do not.24

As Bodin's assertion makes clear, some humanistically trained magistrates were willing to support the monarch's decision to disregard long-established law in order to broker lasting peace in France through his royal mystique.25 However, Henri's use of royal clemency to subvert the letter of the law directly opposed the erudite Gallican assertion that lasting peace and social order could only be re-established in the kingdom through the strict maintenance of French law. Thus, Henri IV's decision to employ a powerful component of the royal mystique, which could be used by the monarch alone, as a basis for pacifying France left many of his legally trained officers uneasy about the prospects for peace and uncertain about their role in establishing this peace. By the summer of 1594 the king's campaign had broken Leaguer resistance, but it had also raised important questions for many of his allies and supporters. Michel De Waele has shown that an important group of polemicists, many of whom were based in the Navarrist parlements at Tours and Chalons during the League and were imbued with erudite Gallican ideas, became deeply concerned that Henri IV's clemency, if offered from a position of weakness, would undermine royal authority.26 The anonymous author of the Satyre Ménipée de la vertv av Catholicon

24 I take this translation from J. Bodin, On Sovereignty: Four Chapters from the Six Books of the Commonwealth, J. Franklin (ed. and trans.) (Cambridge, 1992), p. 78.1 take the precise use of the word 'grâce' from J. Bodin, Les Six livres de la republique de I. Bodin Angeuin (Paris, 1576), p. 211. 25 For more on this subject see Parsons, 'The Political Vision of Antoine LoiseP. 26 De Waele's articles provide a clear and convincing discussion of the misgivings that some of Henri IV's allies had with his policy of pacification, see M. De Waele, 'Image de force, perception de faiblesse: la clémence d'Henri IV, Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, 17 (1993), 55-58. See also M. De Waele, 'Pour la sauvegarde du roi et du royaume. L'Expulsion des Jésuites de France à la fin des guerres de religion', Canadian Journal of History/Annales Canadiennes d'histoire, 29 (1994), 267280. De Waele does not label his protagonists 'erudite Gallicans', but his work focuses on the writings of leading figures in the erudite Gallican milieu including Arnauld and Pasquier.

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d'Espagne, et de la tenve des Estatz de Paris, first published in 1593, expressed these concerns when he wrote: What I delayed telling him, what he must know and that you and I owe him is that he treats us too tenderly and pampers us too much: the excessive clemency he shows is quite praise-worthy and bears great and everlasting fruits although long and late to come. But only victorious people can use it, and those who do not have anybody resisting them: [then] nobody sees it as the result of flattery and timidity but instead of bravery and generosity.27

As Henri IV s power increased and as more Leaguers made their submissions to their clement monarch, loyal supporters of the king became increasingly concerned that none of the most important leaders of the League would be punished for their treasonous and rebellious actions. The laws of the kingdom would remain unenforced and justice would be subverted.28 For many of his supporters the king's clemency was unacceptable if it failed to include punishment at least for those most responsible for the League. Even moderate Navarrists, like Pomponne de Bellièvre whose work Advertissement sur la conversion de Henry de Bourbon IIII used the king's conversion to provide a rationale for reintegrating League opponents, felt the need to provide a responsible party to shoulder the blame for the worst of the Leaguer excesses. For this role Bellièvre chose Spain, the traditional enemy of France.29 The Spanish menace, which had a long pedigree in religious war polemic, dominated the literature by 1593.30 Indeed, important erudite Gallican polemicists like Antoine Arnauld published a series of fiercely anti-Spanish tracts which shifted the blame for the League almost exclusively onto the king's Spanish enemies.31 But many of these polemicists took this theme further than Bellièvre when they also called for the

21 Satyre Ménipée de la vertv dv Catholicon d'Espagne, et de la tenve des Estatz de Paris (n.pl., 1593), p. 226. 28 De Waele, 'Image de force', pp. 55-57. 29 P. de Bellièvre, Advertissement sur la conversion de Henry de Bourbon //// (n.pl., 1593), pp. 11-14. Reprinted as P. de Bellièvre, Advis aux François sur la déclaration faicte par le Roy, en l'église S. Deny s en France, le XXVejour de juillet 1593 (n.pl., 1593). 30 Wolfe, Conversion, p. 170. 31 For example, see Arnauld, Coppie de l'Anti-Espagnol. See also the anonymous work attributed to Arnauld entitled La Flevr de Lys. Qui est vn Discours d'vn François retenu dans Paris, sur les impietez, & desguisemens contenu au Manifeste d'Espagne, publié au moys de lanuier, 1593 (Lyon, 1594).Thèse copies are reprints of tracts that were originally published in 1593.

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punishment of Spain's leading allies in France. Their unease increased as it became apparent that Henri IV was not inclined to punish any individuals or corporations in France that were willing to accept his authority. The concern of many of those who claimed to speak for Henri, therefore, came to be reflected in their desire to find a responsible party to label as the chief proponents of the League in France. From late 1593 a series of circumstances led several erudite Gallican polemicists to label the Society of Jesus as promoters of Spanish influence and therefore of the Catholic League in France. Before 1593 criticism of the Society by French Catholics had been confined to the occasional remark or the implication of individual members of the Society in the factional conflicts endemic during the religious wars.32 Several aspects of the Society's establishment and activities in France during the second half of the sixteenth century made the Jesuits a potential focus for erudite Gallican polemicists. From its first encounters with the French authorities in the 1550s and 1560s, the Society had raised the suspicions of an already hostile audience. In the 1550s, when the Parlement of Paris first took up the question of the Society's presence in France following Henri IPs issuance of lettres patentes in favour of their establishment, the Jesuits committed the grave error of basing their effort to gain legal recognition on the presentation of papal briefs granting the Society substantial rights and privileges.33 In this context French magistrates defined the Society of Jesus as another active religious Order with special privileges granted by the pope that conflicted with the rights and privileges already established in the French Catholic church. Therefore, they naturally addressed the question of the Society's admittance into the kingdom in the context of the long, bitter conflict between the mendicant friars and interests within the French church.34 Pierre Séguier, avocat général at the Parlement of Paris, presented the 32

De Waele, 'Pour la sauvegarde', p. 271. J. Brodrick, The Progress of the Jesuits (1556-1579) (London, 1946), p. 33. 34 Several scholars have argued that Gallicanism's roots can be found in the polemics surrounding the mendicant versus secular struggle, see H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1895), i, 390; G. de La Garde, La Naissance de l'esprit laïque au déclin du moyen âge (Vienna, 1934-1946), iii-iv; and C. Thouzellier, 'La Place du "de Periculis" de Guillaume de St. Amour dans les polémiques universitaires de XlIIe siècle', Revue historique, 156 (1927), 69-83. Even the more cautious Yves-Marie Congar agrees that the seed of future Gallican concerns were present, although he argues that the primary concern at the time was authority in the church, see Y.-M. Congar, 'Aspects ecclésiologiques de la querelle entre mendiants et séculiers', Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen-âge, 28 (1961), 35-151. Although the purpose of this book is not to chronicle this controversy, it is important to note that the anti-Jesuit arguments were defined by this long-term conflict between two rival ecclesiological systems within the Catholic church. 33

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substance of the magistrates' objections on 25 January 1552 in the first official reaction to the royal lettres patentes that granted the Jesuits legal recognition in France. Séguier based his opposition on the argument that the lettres were contrary to the acts which had brought a stable compromise with the friars: 'Not only did they find the creation of this congregation unnecessary, but superfluous, because the canonical constitutions which were made four or five hundred years ago, estimated that there were enough religious orders suppressing the new ones'.35 Further, when in 1554 the Parlement of Paris requested judgments on the Society from the University of Paris and Eustache du Bellay, bishop of Paris, it merely received more detailed arguments drawn from standard anti-friar polemic.36 Indeed, aside from the objection to the title Society of Jesus on the grounds of arrogance, all the arguments offered in the 1550s can be traced directly back to traditional grievances against the friars. In large part because of the suspicions engendered by their first interactions with French royal and ecclesiastical authorities, the Society was only able to secure limited legal recognition in 1562. Limited legal recognition and continued criticism of the Society's constitutions and papal privileges left the Society open to accusations that it failed to conform to, or even subverted, the customs and laws which established the social and ecclesiastical hierarchy in France: issues of the utmost importance to erudite Gallicans in the early 1590s. The Society's reputation amongst erudite Gallicans also suffered because of a second case before the Parlement of Paris in 1564, this time pitting the University of Paris against the College of Clermont, a proposed Jesuit teaching foundation in the capital. While this case was suspended without verdict, it provided the platform for the articulation by Etienne Pasquier, avocat for the University, of a much broader set of criticisms concerning the Society's presence in France.37 Pasquier,

35 BN Dupuy 438, fo 15v°: 'Extrait des registres de parlement du mercredi 20 Janvier 1552'. This statement refers to a crucial aspect of the Gallican versus friar conflict which resulted in a compromise in 1274 at the second council of Lyon, see C.H. Lawerence, The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society (London, 1994), p. 158. 36 The conclusions of Eustache du Bellay have been printed in J. A. Gazaignes (éd.), Annales de la société des soi-disans Jésuites; ou recueil historique-chronologique (Paris, 1764), i, 4-6. The conclusions of the Faculty of Theology are recorded in AN MM 249, fos 29v°-37: Registers of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris. The Faculty of Theology's conclusions have also been printed in Gazaignes, Annales, i, 7-9. 37 Most of the avocats representing the University of Paris produced arguments which reflected midcentury objections, see BN MS Fr 2761, fos 84-86v°: Consultation of six avocats, 24 March 1564. See also C. Du Moulin, 'Consultatio super commodis et incommodis novae sectas seu fictitae religionis jesuitarum', in Œuvres complètes de Du Moulin (Paris, 1681), v, 445. For the intellectual context of this tract see J.-L.

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author of Les Recherches and leading erudite Gallican scholar of his generation, used his plaidoyer in defence of the University to advance his assertion that foreign influences like the Jesuits were not only difficult to integrate into the French church, as their critics had noted in the 1550s, but were also a subversive or corrosive influence on French institutions and society.38 For Pasquier, the influence of foreign corporations like the Jesuits in part explained periods of disorder, including the one that France was suffering from in the early 1560s. Indeed, Pasquier argued that the Society's false doctrines, which he blamed primarily on the organization's Spanish arrogance and Italian catechism, made the Jesuits as dangerous to French society as the German Protestants, who similarly threatened the social and political order in France.39 Pasquier's effort to link the Jesuits to the subversive effects of foreign influences on French society remained dormant for the next thirty years as the Huguenot challenge subdued the debate surrounding the Society's role within the Catholic church. Nevertheless, the growth of the Jesuit mission in France over the next three decades did little to dispel the perceived link between the Society of Jesus and the foreign, especially Spanish, influences defined by Pasquier. Suspicious French opponents in the 1590s noted that the first five fathers general of the Society were all born subjects of the Spanish monarch and that some rapidly growing Jesuit ministries in the later sixteenth century, like their missionary work in the New World, appeared to support Spain's imperial ambitions. Opponents could also plausibly assert that subjects of the Spanish monarch dominated the Society's activities in France. The most famous member of the Society in the kingdom, the charismatic teacher and controversial theologian Juan de Maldonado, was Spanish. High-profile foreigners like Maldonado reflected a wider problem

Thireau, Charles Du Moulin (1500-1566) (Geneva, 1980), pp. 49-58, 272-347. 38 E. Pasquier, Les Recherches de la France, i-iv; E. Pasquier, Le Plaidoyé de M. Pasquier pour l'Université de Paris (Paris, 1594). It is impossible to discuss with certainty Pasquier's exact arguments in 1564 because the first surviving copy of his plaidoyer is the printed edition which appeared in 1594, and, thus, it is possible that Pasquier reworked his manuscript for publication. For a history of the plaidoyer see D. Thickett, Bibliographie des œuvres d'Estienne Pasquier (Geneva, 1956), pp. 55, 118. Some indirect evidence of a possible reworking of the text in 1594 exists. For instance, when writing about the Jesuits in the late 1560s, Pasquier neglects the distinctive arguments that appear in the printed edition of his plaidoyer against the Society, see E. Pasquier, Lettres historiques pour les années 1556-1594, D. Thickett (éd.) (Geneva, 1966), pp. 152-161: Pasquier to Fonssomme, 1569. Nevertheless, it is probable that Pasquier offered a set of arguments in 1564 along the general lines noted above. 39 E. Pasquier, 'Plaidoyer de M. Etienne Pasquier pour l'Université', in J.A. Gazaignes (éd.), Annales de la société des soi-disans Jésuites ou recueil historique-chronologique (Paris, 1764), i, 53-54.

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within the Society: its failure to attract enough French recruits to staff its colleges in the kingdom. In 1566 in the Jesuit Province of Aquitaine only about half of the Society's members were French, and of these French Jesuits over eighty per cent were not ordained into the priesthood and therefore did not hold important positions in the Order.40 The shortage of French Jesuits, particularly in positions of authority within the Society, remained a problem throughout the sixteenth century. Finally, despite their claims to eschew politics, the participation of individual Jesuits, including several of their French recruits, in the Catholic League was well known to contemporaries and could be linked by their critics to a pro-Spanish bias. The Society's mission in France continued to possess features in the 1590s which erudite Gallicans could draw upon to re-establish the link first presented by Pasquier in the 1560s between the Jesuits and foreign efforts to foster disorder in French society. To explain how the potential for casting the Society as amongst the principal leaders of the League became a reality in 1593, one has to focus upon Pierre Barrière's plot to assassinate Henri IV. Barrière, a former soldier in the League from the Orléanais, was arrested on 27 August 1593 in Melun on suspicion of plotting to assassinate the king and was executed four days later. Pasquier interrogated Barrière for the king and published a short pamphlet which accused the Jesuit rector in Paris, Father Varade, of actively encouraging Barrière: ... and [Barrière] having found him [Varade] revealed his bad will and intention, which the Jesuit praised, telling him that it was a good thing, among other similar things, and exhorting him to be courageous, to be steadfast, and to confess, go to Easter mass and take communion. And after having encouraged him to keep on, and assured him that he would go to Heaven, the Jesuit gave him his benediction, telling him that he had shown a lot of courage, that he had prayed to God a lot, and that God would help him in his plan.41

40 Martin, Henry ///, p. 26. Martin also notes that only thirty-seven per cent of all the Jesuits who wrote to the father general from France between the Order's arrival in the early 1550s and the 1580s were French, see A.L. Martin, 'Jesuits and Their Families: The Experience in Sixteenth Century France', The Sixteenth Century Journal 13 (1982), 6. 41 E. Pasquier, 'Bref discours du procès criminel fait à Pierre Barrière, dit la Barre, natif d'Orléans', in M. Cimber and F. Danjou (eds), Archives curieuses de l'histoire de France depuis LouisXIjusque 'a Louis XVIII (Paris, 1837), xiii, 368.

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The Jesuit Father Jacques Commolet's sermon in Paris on 2 February 1593, in which he called for the assassination of Henri IV, lent credence to Pasquier's accusation.42 While a common theme amongst Leaguer preachers, Commolet's public call for an attack on the king only months before Barrière's arrest further confirmed the suspicions of the Society's enemies. Pasquier's publication was the first to present the Jesuits as actively encouraging and abetting a plot to assassinate a French king and provided the catalyst behind the rapid rise of the Society to prominence in anti-League polemic. The safety of the king's person was a paramount consideration of magistrates during this period. Thirty years of political assassinations during which the rule of law proved largely ineffective in bringing the guilty to justice had ultimately left a fundamental law of France, the inviolability of the king's person, subverted.43 Magistrates, particularly those imbued with erudite Gallican ideas at the Navarrist parlements at Tours and Chalons, focused their attention on re-establishing the enforcement of this law by their search for co-conspirators in the assassination of Henri III and the careful investigation and strict punishment of those accused of plotting to murder Henri IV. Thus, in 1593 the Society for the first time since 1564 found itself associated as a corporation with an important and contentious issue with serious implications for the re-establishment of French law.44 Pasquier's previous opposition to the Jesuits in 1564 and his careful study of French history and law for his influential publication Les Recherches made him one of the most astute observers of the religious wars and the Society of Jesus in France.45 Therefore, Pasquier's admission in a letter that he only realized in 1593 that the Jesuits had played an important role in fomenting the disorder of the League is a remarkable reflection of the rapidly changing context in which antiJesuit rhetoric operated: 'With this opinion, I lived until 1593, not informed of their taciturn conspiracy; but seeing troubles first blamed on the name of the League and

42 For an account of Commolet's sermon see P. de l'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux de Pierre de I 'Estoile, P.O. Burnet (ed.) (Paris, 1888-1896), v, 214. 43 O. Ranum, 'The French Ritual of Tyrannicide in the Late Sixteenth Century', The Sixteenth Century Journal, 11 (1980), 63-82. See also O. Ranum, 'Guises, Henri III, Henri IV, Concini: trente ans d'assassinats politiques', L'Histoire, 51 (1982), 36-44. 44 Michel De Waele has emphasized the prominence of regicide amongst the concerns of the members of the Parlement of Paris in exile at Tours and Chalons from 1589, see M. De Waele, 'Une question de confiance? Le Parlement de Paris et Henri IV, 1589-1599' (McGill University Ph.D. thesis, 1995), pp. 280281. 45 Pasquier, Les Recherches, i-iv.

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then the Sainte Union'.46 In the second half of 1593 long-established suspicions about the Society of Jesus returned to public attention as a new interpretation of the Jesuit role in the religious wars developed rapidly in the minds of some polemicists who were particularly concerned with the maintenance of royal authority in France. Crucial to this development was the link between the Society, already considered by many to be a foreign corporation with loyalties to the pope and the king of Spain, and the pressing need both to protect the king's person and enforce the laws of France. That others shared Pasquier's evolving view of the Jesuits was reflected in a text entitled La Flevr de Lys first published in late 1593 and attributed to Antoine Arnauld, a polemicist and avocat at the Navamst parlement at Tours. This tract did not mention the Jesuits by name but included one passage which revealed their growing role in the perceived Spanish plot against France. According to Arnauld, the Spanish king sent real colonies of Spanish hypocrites [i.e. the Jesuits], who spread the venom of conspiracy in the name of holiness (what a strange trick) and took advantage of the devotion of the French, who they had obligated to their league through secret sermons. And afterwards instead of teaching the people our Catholic Religion they blew the trumpets of war, burnt the torches of insurrection, protectors and defenders of massacres and robbery, in other words they sowed the foreign seeds of revolt among the people of France and changed their loyalty into disloyalty and rebellion, conducting so well their master's plans, that they managed to fill with fire, and blood, what was before a flourishing Kingdom ,...47

While La Flevr de Lys was not primarily concerned with the Society of Jesus, it, like Pasquier's account of the Barrière plot, promoted a new leadership role for the Jesuits in the League. By the spring of 1594 the Jesuits were an established subject of the polemic at the Navarrist parlement at Tours, and some important members of the court discussed punishing the Society for being minions of Spain and promoters of the League. Indeed, the Jesuit Father De Mena reported that, upon hearing the news that the king had recovered Paris, premier président Harlay 'said out loud in the

46 E. Pasquier, Les Œuvres d'Estienne Pasquier (Amsterdam, 1723), ii, 686. Pasquier did not date this letter but its content indicates that it was written after the death of Henri IV in 1610. 47 La Flevr de Lys, pp. 9-10.

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Parlement that without a doubt the Jesuits would leave it'.48 Harlay's statement was more than just rhetoric, as revealed by the initiative designed to force the Jesuits to take a loyalty oath to the king initiated shortly after the arrival of the exiled magistrates in Paris in April 1594. According to De Mena this initiative was led by members of the Parlement of Paris who believed that the Society 'would refuse it, because he [Henri IV] was not yet reconciled with the papacy, in order to find then a specious pretext for our expulsion'.49 An influential group of magistrates who had sat in the Navarrist parlements at Tours and Chalons returned to Paris determined to assist the monarch in asserting his authority through the re-establishment of royal justice and the regulation of potentially subversive bodies in its jurisdiction. In April 1594 the Society of Jesus was just one organization that the magistrates from Tours and Chalons were determined to place under their close supervision.50 However, the renewal of the 1564 court case between the University of Paris and the Jesuit College of Clermont would soon focus the Parlement of Paris's attention on the Society and its alleged responsibility for the disorder of the League. On 12 May 1594 Jacob Amboise, rector of the University of Paris, appeared before the Parlement of Paris to reactivate the long-dormant litigation against the Jesuit College of Clermont that had been suspended without verdict in 1564. According to the rector's written complaint, the primary justification for renewing the case was that the Society of Jesus ... at all times, but above all in these most recent commotions, showed itself wholly partial to and promoter of the Spanish faction to the desolation of this kingdom not only in the whole city of Paris but throughout the whole kingdom of France and beyond.51

48 AFCJ Prat 30, p. 171 : De Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603. On a number of occasions Harlay had publicly declared his opposition to the Jesuits, see ARSIGalliae 60, fo 12-12v°: JeanGuéret, 'VeraNarratio Expulsionis Societatis lesu è Regno Franciae'. 49 AFCJ Prat 30, pp. 171-173: De Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603. 50 Indeed the action against the Society was merely one part of a wider agenda related to the rapid development of an erudite Gallican ideology. Many Navarrist magistrates and jurists brought this new ideology to the reunited Parlement of Paris from {^parlements in exile at Tours and Chalons following Henri's pacification of Paris, see M. De Waele, Les Relations entre le parlement de Paris et Henri IV (Paris, 2000), pp. 249-386. See also Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate', pp. 193-201. 51 ARSI Galliae 60, fo 27: 'Libellus supplex Universitatis ad Parlamentum 12 Maii 1594 contra Societatis'.

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Further, the University asked 'That this sect might be expelled, not just from the University, but from the entire kingdom'.52 The seditious nature of the Jesuits was to be the basis for a case that had as its objective the expulsion of the Jesuits from the entire French kingdom.53 Amboise's oration, which accompanied the written complaint, provided the rationale for this far-reaching attack upon the Jesuits. According to Amboise, the Jesuits had to be expelled because they were a dangerous foreign influence: ... for the past forty years no conspiracy has been born or risen up without them, no Spaniards, no Neapolitans, or Belgians were introduced into this city without their help, or other secret writings fabricated, or other Fault, Blow, or Cruelty provoked without their pestilential advice ,...54 Amboise accused these foreign priests of working to advance the power of the Spanish monarch at the expense of his French counterpart by abusing their influence over Catholics, especially during the administration of the sacraments.55 The substance and purpose of this oration were these general attacks on the Society and its alleged involvement in the sedition of the religious wars. Even University concerns over Jesuit teaching, which in the past had dominated University criticism of the Jesuits, were reshaped by Amboise to address his new purpose. Thus, Amboise presented an image of the University as a loyal French institution shaping good Frenchmen through its curriculum. He contrasted this vision with one of subversive Jesuits when he noted: 'they [the University] complain that the young with their tender nature have been tainted with Spanish bile, they complain of the panic terrors incited by [the Jesuits], the firebrands of war kindled by them'.56 The central accusations of Amboise's oration alleged that the Society used its influence

52 ARSI Galliae 60, fo 27: 'Libellus supplex Universitatis ad Parlamentum 12 Maii 1594 contra Societatis'. 53 Amboise's precise accusations may be linked to the University of Paris's efforts in this same period to put its participation in the League behind it. By declaring its teachings orthodox and blaming the Society of Jesus for fomenting rebellion, the University may well have hoped to remove attention from the declaration by the Sorbonne in 1589, which declared Henri III deposed and urged armed resistance against the king. 54 J. Amboise, lacobi Ambosii academice rectoris amplissimi, et regii medid orationes duae in Senatu habitœ, pro vniuersis Academiae ordinibus, in Claro-montenses, quise lESVITAS dicunt, Xllmaij & XIII lui. (Paris, 1594), p. 7. 55 Amboise, Orationes, pp. 6-7. 36 Amboise, Orationes, pp. 10-11.

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in France to sow disunity in French society and advance the affairs of the chief enemy of France, Spain. In the summer of 1594 Amboise framed the University's grievances with reference to the new anti-Jesuit polemic emanating from erudite Gallican circles. Amboise could count on his accusations against the Society resonating with some in the Parlement of Paris. Yet, Amboise's arguments moved beyond the concern to protect University teaching rights which had provided his initial mandate to conduct litigation against the Society, and during the two-month delay between his oration and the pleading of the case on 12, 13 and 15 July 1594 much of his support in the University disappeared.57 Indeed, consensus publicly collapsed within the University with the Faculty of Theology, the Faculty of Arts and three of the four procureurs des nations issuing statements condemning the litigation just days before the case was pleaded.58 The official statement of the Faculty of Theology summarized the concerns of these bodies well when it asserted that 'while it wished that the Society of Jesus submit to the regulations and discipline of the University, it in no sense wished to hunt the Society from the kingdom'.59 While many in the University were willing to sanction a case against the College of Clermont to protect their corporate monopoly over teaching in Paris, they were not willing to countenance an attack on the right of the Society to exist in France. The abandonment of the case by many of the most influential corporate bodies and officials in the University was striking, since before Amboise presented his arguments these same groups had nearly unanimously supported the litigation. Amboise succeeded in continuing the case with the support of a group of parish priests in Paris who opposed the Society's right to offer the sacraments to their parishoners, but the University case had lost much of its initial backing by the date of its hearing and relied on support amongst parlementaires who advocated the anti-Jesuit polemic on which Amboise had based his case. Thus, by mid-July 1594 the case pleaded in the Parlement of Paris had become a platform on which the new anti-Jesuit rhetoric focused. Indeed, the case may be best understood as part of a wider campaign by an important group of jurists

37 The Jesuits and their allies felt that Amboise's arguments would drain away his support in the University. For more information on the Society's campaign to delay the case, see ARSI Galliae 93, fo 150: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 15 May 1594; ARSI Galliae 93, fos 182-183: Codreto to Acquaviva, 25 June 1594. 58 C.E, Du Boulay (éd.), Historia Vniversitatis Parisienses (Paris, 1673), vi, 867. 59 Du Boulay (éd.), Historia, vi, 867.

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associated with the Parlement to define and enforce the laws of the kingdom following their return to the capital.60 The Jesuit case became an opportunity both to provide a rationale for the recent breakdown of French government and to define the law so as to avoid further disorder. Arnauld, an outspoken member of the erudite Gallican circle and the lead avocat for the University, took the opportunity to define French law, to provide a means for French supporters of the Catholic League to reintegrate into French society and to present the most fully articulated attack on the Jesuits to date.61 Arnauld was noted as an eloquent and promising avocat at the Parlement of Paris before the League, and as a Navarrist pamphleteer during the League he had made his reputation as a defender of French interests against Spain.62 Four pamphlets attributed to Arnauld and published during the League provide evidence that this young avocat was both inclined and able to produce a definitive statement of Jesuit culpability along the lines presented by Amboise on 12 May 1594.63 Like Amboise in May, Arnauld in his plaidoyer went far beyond the original remit of the University case. The question of Jesuit teaching privileges in Paris was merely one aspect of a polemic that demanded that the Jesuits be expelled from the kingdom because they actively sought to undermine the laws and customs that defined the French church and state. For Arnauld, the disorder wrought by religious war could only be driven from France through the just punishment of its most influential proponent, the Society of Jesus. The opening lines of Arnauld's plaidoyer justified the University case by asserting: The Jesuits resisted several proceedings initiated by the University, with the support of those who dealt with them, to carry out their great and sad plans: since the day of the Barricades they have led imperiously in Paris: and they lit the insurrection in all the principal cities of the Kingdom, blaspheming without cease in their sermons and while hearing confession against the memory of the late King, and against the majesty of the reigning King, who they have attacked in all possible ways: and to

60 For a detailed account of the Parlement of Paris's actions following the pacification of Paris, see De Waele, Relations, pp. 249-386. 61 Dollé also offered ^plaidoyer on behalf of the parish priests of Paris which shared many of the same arguments with Arnauld's oration, but he applied these concerns more specifically to his client's grievences. For a copy of his plaidoyer, see Dollé, 'Plaidoyé', 852-866. 62 M. De Waele, 'Les Opinions politiques d'un avocat parisien sous Henri IV: Antoine Arnauld', Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, 17 (1993), 33-61. 63 De Waele, 'Les Opinions', p. 35.

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cap their impiety they have strived in all that was possible to have the King murdered ,...64

The opening statement set the agenda of this plaidoyer which was to prove that the Jesuits, under the direction of their Spanish masters, were responsible for the last three decades of French troubles: a theme that Arnauld repeated at several points in his discourse.65 Arnauld drew upon well-established themes in anti-League literature to help substantiate these accusations. It is impossible to do justice to Arnauld's relentless use of detail to reinforce his arguments. Through a flurry of historical examples, Arnauld labelled the Jesuits as leaders of the League, minions of Spain and seducers of the people.66 According to Arnauld, the Jesuits provided the direction and leadership for the movement and the Society's professed house of Saint Louis provided the meeting place for the League in Paris. Further, he argued that the Society's influence extended far beyond the capital to places like Perigueux, Rennes, Agen, Toulouse and Verdun where public Jesuit preaching and secret Jesuit plotting lay behind every League success and every failed uprising against the French monarchy and its officials. In Arnauld's account the Society were more than just determined enemies of the French state; for Arnauld the Society thrived on, even revelled in, disorder and civil war: 'The Jesuits have never seen in France a more agreeable time for them than these last wars, that they have willingly called it like Commodus, the golden century'.67 Throughout his plaidoyer Arnauld advanced the important argument that the Jesuits played a leading role in fomenting disorder during the entire religious war period. He reinterpreted the original confrontation between the University and the Jesuits in an effort to show that good Frenchmen had identified and understood the Jesuit danger when the Society first arrived in France. Arnauld never mentioned the controversies with the friars over the right of international religious orders to participate in the French Catholic church. Instead, nearly all his commentary drew on Pasquier's unique argument, first made in 1564, that the Jesuits were not just incompatible with French church structures but were also politically and morally

64

A. Arnauld, Plaidoyé de M. Antoine Arnavld Advocat en Parlement & cy deuant Conseiller & Procureur general de la defuncte Roine mere des Rois: Pour l'Université de Paris demanderesse, Contre les lesuites défendeurs. Des 12 & 13 Juillet 1594 (La Haye, 1594), fo 2. Italics in original. 65 For instance see Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fos 3 lv°-32. 66 For instance see Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fos 2, 3v°, 46. 67 Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fo 47.

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subversive to the nation both as individuals and as a unit. Arnauld drew on Pasquier's rhetoric to make the assertion that the Jesuits were not like the other Leaguers that the king had pardoned and that they had failed to fit into the French church since their arrival. But Arnauld placed Pasquier's concerns firmly in the context of the 1590s controversy when he argued: ... to see that again these traitors, these scoundrels, these assassins, these murderers of Kings, these public confessors of such father killers, are among us, they live, they inhale the air of France: How do they live? They are in the palaces, they are nurtured, they are sustained, they make all new leagues, factions and associations!68

In this passage, Arnauld reminded his listeners of alleged Jesuit involvement behind the scenes in the Barrière assassination plot of the previous year, asserted that the Society was behind a far wider set of secret plots, and argued that the Society remained a leading force in the leagues and factions which plagued France.69 For Arnauld, the Jesuits were the embodiment of religious, political and social disorder in the kingdom. Arnauld accused the Jesuits of rejecting, indeed polluting, the very foundations of the French state. Arnauld's plaidoyer held the Jesuits responsible for the religious wars and thus helped to provide a rationale for Henri's initiative to rehabilitate French participants in the League. The Jesuits, according to Arnauld, were responsible for persuading good Frenchmen to abandon their king on the grounds of religion. Jesuit culpability provided a rationale for pardoning compromised supporters of the League and reintegrating them into the ranks of loyal Frenchmen. Arnauld asserted the premise that Frenchmen, even those who had been temporarily misled by the subtle Jesuits, naturally shared a love for their king and country.70 Indeed, according to Arnauld, many Leaguers were not responsible for their actions as they were seduced as children when they attended Jesuit colleges.71 This point addressed the concern amongst some that the king was too clement toward Leaguers by presenting French Leaguers as deceived by the Jesuits and therefore still potentially able to be reintegrated into French society if Jesuit influence was removed from the

68

Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fo 22. Ranum, 'The French Ritual of Tyrannicide', pp. 63-82. See also Ranum, 'Guises, Henri III, Henri IV, Concini', pp. 36-44. 70 Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fos 34v°-35. 7 ' Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fo 23. 69

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scene. Arnauld returned to this theme at several critical points in his plaidoyer. Thus, in the opening passages Arnauld asserted that good Frenchmen who had resided in Paris during the League had rallied to the king: But these [the Jesuits] only whisper. And on the contrary we see a great and universal consensus from all good men, as much those who fled this town during the wars, as those who stayed, and who with great zeal and courage opened the Capital's gates to their king, .... We see (say-I) such a great devotion from all truly French souls, truly desirous of the grandeur and augmentation of this crown ,...72

Here Arnauld stressed that many Leaguer nobles and magistrates had already proved themselves good Frenchmen by returning Paris to their king. In the conclusion of his plaidoyer, Arnauld returned to this theme to emphasize that nobles and office holders could still symbolically break with the League through their rejection of the Jesuits: Courage therefore, brave and untamable French nobles, keep on rallying all to the same army: God protector of Kingdoms, God who always keeps his sympathetic eye on France during its greatest afflictions, will without a doubt sow love and concord amongst you. He will fill for you the forehead with horror, the arm with strength: he will send his angels to give you strength, to help you soon exterminate from Gaul all those obnoxious and haughty Castilians .... Besides, there are many people who pretend that they are servants of the King, and well know how to take advantage of his generosity: but from inside, they are all arrogant, all Spanish. These people who have relations with the Jesuits in order to carry out their dirty work, nevertheless [they] do not dare to say openly that they need to be driven out of France ,...73

Arnauld provided an opportunity for individuals to positively break with the past and support a cause which defined them as loyal Frenchmen. By placing the blame for the League exclusively on the Jesuits and their Spanish patrons, Arnauld constructed an acceptable theoretical framework for the réintégration of former Leaguers into French society in a way in which the king might have desired. At the same time, Arnauld provided a scapegoat for a section of French society that was patently guilty of participation in the League. Arnauld argued that Frenchmen who had participated in the League were redeemable through their natural love of French law and the French monarch but

72 73

Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fos 4v°-5. Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fo 29.

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that the foreign Society of Jesus was not redeemable. The Jesuits became the symbol of what was not acceptable in post-League France. Arnauld defined the monarchy as the essence of the French state and asserted that failure to obey the king and the laws that he embodied had resulted in the disorder of the religious wars. The Jesuits were, for Arnauld, the chief purveyors of tyrannicide theories and therefore the symbolic antithesis of the French state and French law. The Jesuits, according to Arnauld, were behind plots to assassinate Henri III and Henri IV of France, Edward VI of England and many others.74 To Arnauld, individual Frenchmen - like Jean Boucher the radical Leaguer preacher and parish priest of Saint Benoist in Paris during the League - who were proponents of tyrannicide theory were products of the Jesuit education system. Moreover, Arnauld argued that those who attempted to murder their king were misled by the Society who tricked or seduced disturbed individuals into doing their bidding.75 In contrast, Arnauld stressed that all good Frenchmen instinctively valued the king's life over all else and realized that he was so necessary to the kingdom that without him France would be 'covered in perpetual shadows' and become merely one of the provinces of Spain.76 All that was required to return France to its tranquil past was to remove the subversive foreign influence of the Jesuits. In these passages, Arnauld provided a path to political and social peace as he asserted that without the Society's insidious efforts all good Frenchmen would naturally defend their monarch and this would in turn secure the tranquillity of the kingdom. For Arnauld only expulsion could remove the subversive influence of the Jesuits. The Society was beyond rehabilitation. According to Arnauld, while good Frenchmen naturally supported the social hierarchy with the French king at the top, the Society of Jesus opposed it. The Jesuits were presented as subversive to even the most basic conceptions of hierarchy in France. To make this point Arnauld drew on a series of earlier court cases to present the Jesuits as dangerous to good order in the family. For instance, Arnauld cited a famous cause célèbre in which Pierre Ayrault, lieutenant criminel of Angers, went to court to regain custody of his

74

Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fos 19-21. Further, in his response to Arnauld, the Jesuit Father Pierre Barny, father procureur for the College of Clermont in Paris, indicates that in his oration before the Parlement Arnauld included even more examples of Jesuit assassination plots later dropped from the published version of his plaidoyer, see Du Boulay (éd.), Historia, vi, 882-884. 75 Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fos 9v°-10. 76 Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fo 22v°.

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son who had entered the Society of Jesus.77 Arnauld argued from such evidence that Jesuit efforts to subvert familial authority had symbolic parallels with the Society's efforts to destabilize the monarchy. Arnauld also argued that the Jesuits, due to their loyalty to Spain and the pope, could never integrate into French society. The Society's fundamental beliefs were summarized as 'ONE GOD, ONE POPE, AND ONE KING FOR ALL CHRISTIANITY, the great Catholic and universal king'.78 Here Arnauld skilfully drew the Jesuits into the well-established anti-Spanish rhetoric, which asserted that the Habsburg rulers of Spain aspired to be universal monarchs at the expense of other Christian princes. This phrase again emphasized Jesuit rejection of even the most sacred foundations of French society, in this case the fundamental French belief in une loi, un roi, une foi (one law, one king, one faith). As the Society could not possibly comply with, let alone support, traditional French law, Arnauld argued that the Parlement of Paris had to expel the Order from its jurisdiction. In the conclusion of his plaidoyer, Arnauld returned to the importance of the monarch and French law to the re-establishment of peace in the kingdom when he turned to the king's empty chair in the Parlement and addressed Henri directly. Key to this passage was his argument that the king must not offer clemency to the Jesuits as the entire nation relied upon his leadership to protect France from renewed disorder. Arnauld then turned to the audience physically present for his oration, to whom he asserted the importance of the expulsion of the Jesuits to the re-establishment of unity amongst the magistrates of the Parlement. To this end, in the final passages of his address he sought to emphasize the shared loyalties of both royalist and former Leaguer members of the Parlement: SIRE, if your generosity prevents you from worrying for your own safety at least fear for your servants. They abandoned wives, children, estates, houses, [and] comforts, to follow your fortune: the others stayed in the big cities and exposed themselves to the saddlers of the sixteen, to open the doors to you.79

This passage asserted that in different ways both those jurists who followed the king into exile and those who remained in Paris to participate in the Leaguer parlement had shown their loyalty to the monarchy. Arnauld in this statement 77 78 79

P. Ayrault, Qvœsitoris Andegavi, de Patrio ivre adfilium Pseudojesuitam (Paris, 1594). Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fo 18v°. Upper case in original. Arnauld, Plaidoyé, fo 51 -51 v°.

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argued that the punishment of the Jesuits promised to re-establish unity in the court, because strict action in this case provided a key opportunity for both royalist and former Leaguer magistrates to express their support for a shared set of values defined in part by their commitment to the enforcement of French law. Arnauld's carefully chosen and powerfully articulated arguments presented the Society of Jesus as the antithesis of the Gallican church. That many of the arguments presented by Arnauld had only tenuous links with reality was irrelevant. In his attacks upon the Jesuits, Arnauld created an explanation for the religious wars, a rationale for the réintégration of Leaguer Catholics into French society and an example of what should not be tolerated within the post-League French Catholic church. Arnauld's plaidoyer skilfully drew upon both ongoing fears of renewed disorder and the authority of French law and custom: two issues certain to find resonance in the Parlement of Paris and in the wider population. Arnauld's criticism of the Jesuits as minions of Spain was not original. Protestant anti-Jesuit rhetoric from France, England, the Dutch Republic and elsewhere provided material for Arnauld's plaidoyer.™ Moreover, earlier publications attributed to Pasquier and Arnauld had foreshadowed some of the accusations in the plaidoyer. Yet this text was the first full articulation of such a radical new interpretation of the Jesuits in the French Catholic context. Arnauld and his supporters consciously raised the stakes in the debate. They transformed the Jesuits into the chief cause of discord within the French Catholic church and the chief seducers of good Frenchmen. In Arnauld's rhetoric the Jesuits became a potent threat to French law, the French Catholic church and French institutions in general. Arnauld constructed his argument for wider consumption than the confines of the Parlement of Paris, and within days of the hearing book pedlars were selling a published version of his plaidoyer in the capital. By mid-July the University case had become a cause célèbre in Paris, and the accusations which labelled the Jesuits

80 Remarkably little scholarly attention had been devoted to anti-Jesuit polemic in Protestant Europe. However, the influence of Protestant polemic upon Arnauld is apparent in his choice of evidence. Etienne de Malescot provides a useful example of the Protestant publications from which Arnauld could have drawn material for his plaidoyer, see E. Malescot, Morologie des lesvites (Caen, 1593). For more on the cross-confessional development of anti-Protestant polemic see E. Nelson, 'The Jesuit Legend: Superstition and Myth-Making', in H. Parish and B. Naphy (eds), Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe (Manchester, 2002), pp. 94-115.

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as foreign and subversive were one important focus of debate amongst French Catholics during the summer of 1594. A stream of published pamphlets against the Society reflected the determination of their opponents to establish this new interpretation of the Jesuits amongst Catholics in France.81 Nevertheless, Arnauld's arguments failed to resonate with many.82 The Society had supporters who publicly defended their reputation, and some of Arnauld's wilder accusations even disturbed Pierre de l'Estoile, a long-standing critic of the Society, who felt that Arnauld's arguments brought the threat of renewed religious disorder rather than peace: That if he [Antoine Arnauld] had been more moderate and less passionate throughout his plaidoyer, [passion] which is usually driven by a need for control and envy, he would have received more support from those who do not like the Jesuits, and who wish to see them all in the Indies, to convert the infidels.83

L'Estoile saw in Arnauld's arguments the heated rhetoric of the religious wars. For L'Estoile, Arnauld's desire to expel the Jesuits was not appropriate in the climate of fragile and incomplete peace that Henri IV had barely started to establish. L'Estoile worried that Arnauld's proposals brought the possibility of renewed religious conflict - a prospect that only increased when several of the Society's powerful patrons, including Louis de Gonzague, duc de Nevers, and Cardinal Charles Bourbon-Vendôme, publicly supported the Order while the case was pleaded before the Parlement.84 L'Estoile's reaction indicates that Arnauld's clear and forceful articulation of Jesuit guilt failed to resonate even with some in his audience who were inclined to distrust the Society. This was not because these individuals necessarily believed that the Society was innocent, but because Arnauld's arguments threatened to disturb the tenuous peace brokered by the king a peace that required the oubliance of the past, not exemplary punishment of the guilty.

81 Advis et resolution de messieurs de l'assemblée du Clergé de France tenue à Poissi en l'an 1561 (n.pl., 1594). See also C. Du Moulin, Consultatio an Jesuitœ sint recipiendi in regno Franciœ et admittendi in Vniversitate Parisiensi (n.pl., 1594); Détermination de la faculté de théologie de Paris conclue le premier jour de Décembre 1554 (n.pl., 1594); E. Pasquier, Le Plaidoyé de M Pasquierpour l'Université de Paris (Paris, 1594); J.-B. Du Mesnil, Plaidoie defev M. L'Advocat du Mesnil, en la cause de rVniuersité de Paris & des Jésuites (n.pl., 1594). 82 J.-A. de Thou, Histoire universelle de Jacques-Auguste de Thou (Hague, 1740), viii, 466-468. See also ARSI Galliae 93, fo 230: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 6 August 1594. 83 L'Estoile, Mémoires, vi, 217. 84 De Thou, Histoire (1740), viii, 467.

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Arnauld's plaidoyer received a mixed reception within the Parlement of Paris as well.85 A number of important magistrates, including premier président Harlay and the influential président de Thou, strongly supported the University's case and, by implication, the assertions of erudite Gallican political thinkers which provided the basis for Arnauld's arguments.86 However, others in the milieu of the Parlement of Paris, including the avocat du roi Antoine Séguier and thé procureur général du roi Jacques de la Guesle, recognized, like L'Estoile, that the banishment of the Society had important implications for royal policy which relied on the selective enforcement of the law in order to broker peace.87 When an audience du conseil was convened at the Parlement of Paris on 16 July 1594 to discuss the University litigation, Séguier and La Guesle argued that the Parlement should act to suppress the case because punishment of the Jesuits could potentially harm both the king's campaign in Rome to secure absolution from the pope and Henri's ongoing efforts to pacify his kingdom.88 The concerns of these gens du roi reflected important ongoing considerations in royal policy. Henri had recently dispatched Cardinal Pierre Gondi, bishop of Paris, to Rome in a critical effort to convince Clement VIII to recognize his conversion to Catholicism and his title as King of France. Any action by the royal courts against the Society of Jesus could only undermine this mission. Moreover, the lack of papal recognition remained a central reason for continued resistance to Henri's regime by his Leaguer opponents. Thus, any hostile verdict against the Society also threatened to undermine Henri's efforts to pacify his kingdom. In the coming weeks some magistrates actively worked to delay any verdict through a series of procedural manoeuvres.89 If these officials believed Arnauld's arguments then they were willing to sacrifice strict enforcement of the law to support Henri's policy requirements.

85 AFCJ Prat 30, pp. 171-177: Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603; ARSI Galliae 93, fo 258: Du Puy to Acquaviva, 17 August 1594; ARSI Galliae 60, fo 12: Guéret, 'VeraNarratio Expulsionis Societatis lesu è Regno Franciae'. 86 For Harlay, see ARSI Galliae 60, fos 12-13: Guéret, 'VeraNarratio Expulsionis Societatis lesu è Regno Franciae'; AFCJ Prat 30, pp. Ill-Ill: Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603. For de Thou, see AN Xla 1731, fos 108-108v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 1 August 1594. De Mena asserts that most of the Society's opponents sat in the Tourne lie, but there is no way to verify this statement. 87 AN X1 a 1731, fos 108-108v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 1 August 1594. 88 AN Xla 1731, fo lv°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 16 July 1594. 89 AN XI a 1731, fo 29: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 18 July 1594; AN XI a 1731, fo 39: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 23 July 1594.

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Henri was absent from Paris at the siege of Laon during the opening weeks of July 1594; but, despite the distractions of war, Henri still reacted purposefully to developments in the University case.90 Since the pacification of his capital, Henri had worked behind the scenes to ensure that an attack on the Society did not compromise his wider policy goals; however, the University's demand that the Society be expelled from France effectively negated Henri's efforts by placing the subject at the centre of public debate.91 In the following months, Henri sought to minimize the impact of the University case on royal policy by ensuring that the court failed to issue a verdict hostile to the Society while at the same time avoiding a direct confrontation between himself and his Parlement of Paris. The concerns raised by Henri's gens du roi on 16 July 1594 about the effect of the case on relations with the papacy and the establishment of peace in the kingdom were indeed pressing issues for the monarchy. Few would have doubted that the prosecution of the Jesuits would only exacerbate these concerns. But, despite these important considerations, Henri preferred to avoid a direct confrontation with his Parlement over its jurisdiction. Important practical motivations dictated Henri's policy. The parlementaires, particularly those who had served him in exile during the League, remained important allies. In general, Henri supported their efforts to re-establish law and order in France. Moreover, their rapid registration of his increasingly irregular royal financial edicts remained of paramount importance for the successful pacification of his kingdom. Henri's actions in late July and early August 1594 reflect the careful balance that he sought to maintain between these competing policy goals. Henri informed the Parlement of Paris of his reaction to the University case in a letter to the court dated 28 July 1594 in which he explicitly recognized the Parlement's authority and its established role in dispensing royal justice. Henri, while recognizing the good intentions of those gens du roi and magistrates who sought to suppress the litigation, emphasized in this letter his desire that his court judge the case strictly on its merits:

90 For more information on Henri's activities in the summer of 1594 see Cheverny, Mémoires, pp. 537538. See also M. de Béthune, duc de Sully, Les (Economies royales de Sully, D. Buisseret and B. Barbiche (eds) (Paris, 1970), i, 472-492. See also J.-P. Babelon, Henri IV (Paris, 1982), pp. 598-599. 91 On Henri's behind-the-scenes policy see AFCJ Prat 30, p. 171 : Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603.

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THE JESUITS AND THE MONARCHY Having no other goal before our eyes but the fear of God, nor more recommended but the justice of our kingdom, we want and command you expressly to ignore [outside factors] in the judgment of this trial, ensuring the good law and justice to whom it is concerned, without any favour nor animosity, nor distinction of any person so that it relieves our conscience, God is praised and honoured through our good and holy intentions and through your actions and fair judgments according to what the Kings our predecessors and we have established.92

This passage acknowledged the sensibilities of HQWÍ's parlementaires by accepting the importance of impartial justice and by stressing the Parlement's long-standing role in interpreting French law. In this letter Henri courted his Parlement by flattering the corporate sensibilities of its members, especially those imbued with erudite Gallican ideas who viewed the enforcement of French law as the cornerstone of the French polity. Nevertheless, while in this letter Henri sought to flatter the sensibilities of his Parlement of Paris, he also sought to secure a verdict favourable to the Jesuits.93 The Society's rebuttal to the University case, which they presented with the support of Cardinal Bourbon-Vendôme to the monarch in late July 1594, focused on two demands: that the University substantiate its allegations and that less passionate magistrates judge the case.94 Henri's letter directly addressed both of the Society's concerns through his order that the case be judged according to 'the good law and justice' and 'without any favour nor animosity'.95 That Henri intended for his letter to support the Society's cause was confirmed by a dispatch from Henri to Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, which ordered his Protestant councillor to place behind-the-scenes pressure on influential members of the Parlement to come to a verdict favourable to the Society of Jesus in order to both protect the king's reputation as a good Catholic and to advance a broad set of royal policy goals reliant on this reputation.96 Henri's support of the Society's request for an impartial hearing addressed royal policy requirements well. By demanding a verdict based on 92

AN XI a 1731, fos 108-108v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 1 August 1594. The wording of Chancellor Cheverny's account of this event indicates that he believed that Henri had effectively protected the Society through this letter, see Cheverny, Mémoires, p. 639. 94 For a copy of Duret's plaidoyer for the Jesuits in the University case see Du Boulay (éd.), Historia, vi, 866 et passim. The Society maintained the same demand, that Arnauld substantiate his allegations in later defence documents, see Du Boulay (éd.), Historia, vi, 882-884. For more on Jesuit lobbying at court see AFCJ Prat 30, p. 177: Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603. For the Cardinal Bourbon-Vendôme's intercession with the king see Sully, (Economies royales, i, 460, 465-467. 95 AN XI a 1731, fos 108-108v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 1 August 1594. 96 Sully, (Economies royales, i, 466. 93

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the merits of the litigation, Henri hoped to secure a positive result for the Society without having to interfere directly in the litigation. Nevertheless, Henri took no chances with a case so important to his wider policy goals. At the same time that he wrote to the Parlement of Paris he also dispatched a letter to Phillipe Hurault, sieur de Cheverny and chancellor of France, ordering him to ensure that his court did not issue a verdict on this litigation without his knowledge.97 The Society's allies in the Parlement of Paris worked to advance the Jesuit cause along the lines advocated by the king. On 1 August 1594 avocat du roi Antoine Séguier, a long-standing supporter of the Society, recommended that the Parlement require both parties to substantiate allegations made in their presentations to the court.98 Through this counsel, Séguier sought to undermine the University case in the manner envisioned by the king. However, in his initiative Séguier also recommended that the dossier from the suspended 1564 court case be incorporated into the 1594 dossier so that the Parlement could come to a verdict on both cases at the same time. Here Séguier sought to advance the Society's cause as formal consideration of the 1564 court case brought the possibility that the verdict might sanction the long-standing Jesuit goal and central purpose of the 1564 court case: the incorporation of the Society's College of Clermont into the University of Paris. In compliance with the royal letter of 28 July 1594, both cases would be judged on the merits of the evidence rather than on the wider issues addressed by Amboise and Arnauld or the requirements of royal foreign and domestic policy as advocated by the king's men in the Parlement. The recommendation was accepted by the Parlement despite the objections of président de Thou, a supporter of Arnauld.99 Séguier's recommendation undermined the University's case as both Amboise and Arnauld proved unable or unwilling to substantiate their allegations. On 5 September 1594 Jérôme Angenoust, the rapporteur charged with compiling the dossier for the case, reported on the state of the litigation to the Grand' Chambre and the Tournelle assembled together. In the ensuing discussion between the magistrates and the gens du roi, the court was informed that Amboise had indicated that he did not wish to submit proofs and that, when the gens du roi had asked 97 Sully, (Economies royales, i, 476-477. This entry in Sully's memoirs includes an extract of Henri's letter to Cheverny. 98 AN X1 a 1731, fo 108v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 1 August 1594. 99 AN X1 a 1731, fo 108v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 1 August 1594.

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Arnauld to supply evidence to substantiate his allegations, he had responded that he had nothing to add and 'that what he had said was all well known'.100 As for the gens du roi, the procurer général La Guesle refused to offer his plaidoyer, instead he told the court that he only wished to offer his conclusions. The other gens du roi were ready to plead but saw no purpose as all they asked was that the case be tabled.101 At this point a verdict seemed unlikely as the University's allegations remained unsubstantiated; and, in view of the reluctance of fas procurer général to plead on the case, it might have been suspended like in 1564. However, an influential group of Arnauld's supporters in the Parlement secured from its assembled chambers an order that the procurer général furnish his plaidoyer the following day on the understanding that the court would proceed to judgment without his evidence if he failed to meet the deadline. In this response an influential group of magistrates revealed their determination to reach a verdict in this case which had taken on symbolic importance for those judges who sought to use the strict enforcement of French law as a basis for the re-establishment of peace in France. Four days later the procurer général still had not submitted a plaidoyer, and the Parlement of Paris had taken no action.102 At this juncture it again appeared that the supporters of the Society had succeeded in effectively suspending the case without judgment. But the Society's opponents were not defeated. On 12 September 1594 a group of parlementaires including premier président Harlay, who through his position possessed considerable influence over procedural issues in the Parlement, succeeded once again in bringing the University's litigation to the attention of the Grand' Chambre, which agreed to set aside time on 20 September, shortly before the court's scheduled autumn recess, to consider the case and issue a verdict.103 This manoeuvre reflected the influence and determination of those magistrates opposed to the Society, and several Jesuits feared that these magistrates would succeed in securing a verdict against the Society on 20 September.104 100 AN Xla 1731, fos 363-363v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 5 September 1594. The Society of Jesus did submit a piece to substantiate their case, see Du Boulay (éd.), Historia, vi, 882-884. 101 AN Xla 1731, fos 363-363v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 5 September 1594. The gens du roi asked the Parlement to "appointée au conseil' the case. 102 AN Xla 1731, fo 373: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 9 September 1594. 103 AN Xla 1732, fo 35v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 12 September 1594. For Harlay's role see ARSI Galliae 60, fos 12v°-13: Guéret, 'VeraNarratio Expulsionis Societatis lesu è Regno Franciae'. 104 AFCJ Prat 30, pp. 178-179: Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603; ARSI Galliae 93, fo 279: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 27 September 1594; ARSI Galliae 93, fo 281: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 1 October 1594.

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Ultimately the Society's opponents were unable to attempt to bring the case to a resolution as the planned meeting never took place. The king informed premier president Harlay through Chancellor Cheverny that he had pressing financial edicts for his Parlement to consider on 20 September.105 Chancellor Cheverny remarked in his Mémoires that the king's action meant that the Jesuits effectively escaped from the artifices of their determined enemies in the Parlement.106 However, as Cheverny's account implies, Henri carefully avoided directly interfering with the case. Henri did not publicly forbid his Parlement from hearing the case or order it suppressed. Instead, Henri merely ordered that the Parlement attend to other business during the time allotted for the University case. Father Clement Dupuy, the well-informed Jesuit father provincial for the French province, in a letter to Claudio Acquaviva, father general of the Society, offers a sense of the uncertainty surrounding the king's order when he wrote that he was unable to say whether the king's intervention was by chance or deliberately designed to protect the Jesuits.107 While Dupuy remained uncertain about the king's motivation, in the same letter he asserted with confidence that, even after 20 September, the Society faced a powerful and determined group of opponents in the Parlement and that the possibility that the Parlement of Paris would issue an expulsion arrêt in the future remained a serious concern.108 Dupuy maintained this view in a letter dated 25 October 1594 when he warned Acquaviva that the case could be renewed in a different form after the Parlement of Paris returned from recess.109 Thus, a group of parlementaires continued to promote and attempt to act upon Arnauld's accusations against the Society during the autumn of 1594, but these accusations were neither firmly established nor fully accepted, even amongst many who disliked the Society. This situation changed, with catastrophic implications for the Jesuits, following the attempted assassination of the king in December 1594.

105

AN Xla 1732, fo 88: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 20 September 1594. Cheverny, Mémoires, p. 639 [sic]. 107 ARSI Galliae 93, fo 281: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 1 October 1594. In his account of the events, Jesuit Father Jean Guéret indicates that Henri did seek to protect the Society, see ARSI Galliae 60, fo 13: Guéret, 'Vera Narratio Expulsionis Societatis lesu è Regno Franciae'. 108 ARSI Galliae 93, fo 281: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 1 October 1594. 109 ARSI Galliae 93, fo 302: Dupuy to Acquaviva, 25 October 1594. There is evidence that the father general took the threat seriously, see ARSI Franciae 1, fo 348: Acquaviva to Gondi, 5 November 1594. 106

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On 27 December 1594 Henri IV returned to Paris from Picardy where he had travelled to oversee the advanced preparations for war with Spain. Henri arrived at the Hôtel de Schomberg, his mistress Gabriel d'Estrées's residence, where Jean Chastel, a young man around twenty years old, took the opportunity to enter the palace by pretending to be a member of the household of one of the king's retinue.110 Chastel was a devout but deeply disturbed Catholic who planned to atone for his sins through the assassination of the relapsed heretic, Henri IV. However, while Chastel found his opportunity to strike in the Hôtel de Schomberg, his attempt to slash the king's throat failed and he only succeeded in lightly wounding Henri on the lip and breaking a tooth. The authorities apprehended Chastel at the scene of the attack and turned him over to the Parlement of Paris for interrogation and trial. Chastel's fate was never in question. He openly admitted his guilt and looked forward to execution as an escape from this world. But for many in the Parlement, the punishment of Chastel was not the central concern of their investigation. For these magistrates, Chastel's attempt was merely one manifestation of a wider problem: that during the wars of religion a fundamental law of the kingdom, the inviolability of the king's person, had been rejected by some members of the French polity who advocated a rival belief that it was licit under certain circumstances to kill a French monarch. Only the public rejection of this unacceptable belief, known as tyrannicide theory, and the punishment of those who promoted it would ensure that future assassins could not draw inspiration from such a dangerous foreign doctrine.111 Thus, an influential group in the Parlement of Paris focused their efforts on finding and punishing those who encouraged and supported Chastel in his attempt. For erudite Gallicans convinced that the strict definition and enforcement of French law was the best means to re-establish peace in the kingdom, upholding this fundamental law was of paramount importance. The inviolability of the monarch's person as established in law was a foundation stone on which political stability rested, while promotion of the alternative theory, that it was licit to kill some tyrannical princes, undermined the stability of the whole political system. These 110 See ARSI Galliae 60, fos 13-22: Guéret, 'VeraNarratioExpulsionis Societatis lesu è Regno Franciae'. For a modern account of the Chastel assassination see R. Mousnier, L'Assassinat d 'Henri IV (Paris, 1964), pp. 201-208. See also C. Sutto, 'Quelques conséquences politiques de l'attentat de Jean Chastel', Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, 1 (1977), 136-154. 111 For an overview of the development of tyrannicide theory in France see M. Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide de l'Antiquité à nos jours (Paris, 2001), pp. 418-480.

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men had reason to be concerned as the religious wars in France proved a particularly fertile environment for both the development of tyrannicide theory and the assassination of political leaders. Following the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, some members of the Huguenot minority publicly advocated resistance to the monarch on the grounds that he had acted tyrannically.112 Moreover, during the League, Catholic preachers had passionately preached tyrannicide theory in response to Henri Ill's assassination of the duc de Guise and the Cardinal de Guise. Some viewed the assassination of Henri III by Jacques Clement in 1589 as the result of this preaching.113 After the death of Henri III preachers continued to promote tyrannicide from Catholic pulpits, but this time in response to the prospect of the Protestant Henri IV acceding to the throne.114 Once again, many observers linked the public promotion of this theory to the series of assassination plots against Henri IV.115 During the final years of the religious wars, the idea that it was in some circumstances licit to murder a king had developed from a dangerous theory advocated by some amongst the Huguenot minority in France into a political reality carried out by members of the Catholic majority. Many in the court, particularly those who served in the Navarrist parlements at Tours and Chalons, were fully aware of the danger posed by regicide. Following Henri Ill's assassination the parlement at Tours ordered an ongoing investigation designed to punish all of Clement's accomplices, and members of the Parlement of Paris were well aware that in December 1594 many former Leaguer advocates of regicide remained in Paris, especially amongst the clergy.116 Arnauld's plaidoyer against the Jesuits reflected the ongoing concern for the safety of the king amongst erudite Gallicans when he accused the Society of being the chief promoters and teachers of tyranicide theory in France and elsewhere in Europe. Indeed, one of Arnauld's central accusations was that they were behind virtually every political

112

See Kingdon, 'Calvinism and Resistance Theory', pp. 206-214. For the influence of preaching on the League see C. Labitte, De la démocratie chez les prédicateurs de la Ligue (Paris, 1841). 114 See Salmon, 'Catholic Resistance Theory', pp. 219-233. 115 This link had become a widespread belief since the assassination of Henri III by Jacques Clement. Many magistrates believed that Clement had been influenced by Leaguer preaching in support of tyrannicide, see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, pp. 80-84, 89-90. 116 On the Parlement of Paris's concern to protect the monarch from assassination attempts see De Waele, 'Une question', pp. 280-281. Several members of the Faculty of Theology had been supporters of tyrannicide theory. Moreover, Roland Mousnier notes that some members of the Augustinian, Dominican, Capuchin and Jesuit Orders also supported the theory, see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, p. 206. 113

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assassination in the second half of the sixteenth century. In linking the Society to so many assassination attempts, Arnauld sought to label the Society of Jesus as the primary promoter of tyrannicide theory. Arnauld attempted to make the Jesuits wholly responsible for this distinctive religious war development as he did for other aspects of political and religious disorder. Henri's policy of douceur made punishment of all who supported tyrannicide theory impossible. However, the Parlement of Paris could make an example of those who inspired Chastel to carry out his attack. This allowed the Parlement to punish promoters of tyrannicide theory and make a clear statement that it was unacceptable to uphold such a doctrine in France. In the days following Chastel's attempt, the Society's opponents in the Parlement ensured that the Jesuits became the advocates of tyrannicide that were exemplarily punished for the teaching and promotion of this unacceptable theory. The accusations made against the Society during the University case made it an obvious focus for the Parlement. The Order's enemies in the Parlement used Chastel's assassination attempt to revive their efforts to banish the Society from France. Indeed, for some Chastel's attack was a vindication of their efforts to expel the Society in the summer. The failure to strictly enforce French law in September had predictably led to a further attempt on the king's life. From the start the Jesuits were the prime suspects in the Parlement's search for Chastel's accomplices, and their investigation focused almost exclusively upon Chastel and the Society. Within hours of the assassination attempt the Parlement ordered all of the Jesuits in Paris arrested and their foundations in the capital searched for evidence of Jesuit complicity.117 Chancellor Cheverny noted the zealousness, or perhaps over-zealousness, of the investigators' efforts to implicate the Jesuits when he wrote that 'their true enemies' were sent to search the Society's foundations 'where they truly found, or perhaps supposedly, as some thought, some texts particularly against the dignity of all the kings in general ...\118 Yet, despite the concerted efforts of the Society's opponents in the Parlement, they were unable to uncover any direct evidence of Jesuit complicity in the assassination attempt.

117

ARSI Galliae 60, fos 13-22: Guéret, 'VeraNarratio Expulsionis Societatis lesu è Regno Franciae'. See also Mousnier, L'Assassinat, pp. 204-205. 118 Cheverny, Mémoires, p. 541. Other scholars have noted the questionable methods of the investegators, see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, pp. 201-208. See also H. Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France (Paris, 1913), ii, 392-393.

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Instead, they produced only circumstantial evidence. Chastel's attendance at the Jesuit College of Clermont in Paris for two and a half years was perhaps the most important link between the Society and the assassin. However, the inference that the Society inspired, pressured or counselled Chastel to carry out the attack while a student was seriously undermined by Chastel's denial, even under torture, that the Society of Jesus or anyone else had encouraged him to attack the king.119 The search of the Society's foundations and the interrogation of individual Jesuits also failed to uncover any evidence of direct complicity. The most compromising materials discovered were the personal papers of the Jesuit Father Jean Guignard. Amongst the papers in Guignard's office were printed pamphlets and manuscripts, some in his own hand, from the period of the League that praised the murderer of Henri III and argued that the crown could pass to a monarch outside of the Bourbon line.120 While this material cost Guignard his life and linked the Society to the widely held view that tyrannicide was in some situations licit, it did not provide a direct link between the Jesuits and Chastel's assassination attempt.121 The only other evidence - several anagrams against the king; a few potentially subversive sermons; some passages dictated by grammarians at the Jesuit College of Clermont on compromising themes, including resistance to tyrants; and the revelation that some members of the Society had prohibited students to pray for the king's soul even after the pacification of Paris as he remained excommunicated from the Catholic church - again failed to directly link the Society in any way with Chastel's attack.122 This evidence did little more than reveal that during the League some Jesuits supported, or at least sympathized with, the idea that it might be licit in some circumstances to undertake an act of tyrannicide. This lack of direct evidence implicating the Jesuits in Chastel's attempted assassination was less important to their prosecutors than their image as the chief promoters of tyrannicide theory. While the Society's opponents in the Parlement of Paris would have undoubtedly welcomed conclusive evidence of Jesuit participation in the assassination, in reality the primary justification for the 119

For a detailed analysis of Chastel's interrogation see H. Fouqueray, 'Le Dernier interrogatoire et l'exécution de Jean Chastel d'après le procès-verbaux inédits', Études, 102 (1905), 88-107. 120 AV Francia 37, fo 259v°: Gondi to Clement VIII, 10 January 1595. 121 BN MS Fr 15798, fos 202-203v°: Interrogation of Jean Guignard. For a more complète description of the contents of Guignard's papers see BN MS Fr 15588, fos 167-169v°: Two sets of extracts from Guignard's papers. 122 Mousnier summarizes the evidence well, see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, p. 205.

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Society's punishment was the belief that the Jesuits were the chief promoters of tyrannicide theory in France: a belief first fully articulated in France during the University case in the summer of 1594. The trial of Chastel took place on 29 December 1594, two days after the assassination attempt. The Society of Jesus as a corporate body was tried alongside Chastel. A series of legal irregularities ensured the Society's ultimate conviction despite the lack of evidence directly linking the Society or any of its members to Chastel's actions.123 Crucially, no attempt was made to distinguish between innocent and guilty Jesuits. Instead, the Society was tried as a corporate body. Further, the Parlement prevented the Society from presenting a defence. In any case, no defence was possible because the Parlement failed to make specific accusations against the Society. Instead, the Society was punished for teaching and promoting the idea that under certain circumstances it was licit to kill a monarch. While this idea was held by many others in Paris and indeed was an orthodox theory within the wider Catholic church, it was the Society of Jesus that was punished and expelled as a message to others that French law rejected such a theory, at least with reference to the French monarch. Political and legal considerations mixed freely in this verdict. Jacques-Auguste de Thou recorded in his Histoire universelle a speech by the doyen of the Parlement, Etienne de Fleury, which provides some insight into the reasoning behind the disregard of legal procedure in the motion to try the Society with Chastel: What more do we expect, did he say? What other proofs do we wish against this poisonous sect? Were their accusers wrong, in believing that the safety of the King and the kingdom were linked to the interests of the University? What did all this attention brought over so many plots serve, if not to furnish them the opportunities to carry out a crime they had plotted for a long time? How unfortunate are princes! We only believe that their lives are in peril when we see them assassinated. Praise God for coming to the aid of these well intentioned, but too credulous, magistrates convincing them that the crime was for real while at the same time preventing its execution.124

Fleury's speech reflects the passion of the moment. The king was in danger. The theory which inspired Chastel was well known and the allegations that the Jesuits 123 ARSI Galliae 60, fo 17v°: Guéret, 'Vera Narratio Expulsionis Societatis lesu è Regno Franciae'. Mousnier also notes the irregularities in the trial, see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, pp. 206-207. 124 De Thou, Histoire (1740), viii, 535.

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were the chief promoters of the theory had already been established that summer in the University case - at least to Fleury's satisfaction. The Jesuits were clearly guilty of promoting tyrannicide theory even if the Parlement could not prove their participation in the most recent attempt upon the king. The Society rejected a fundamental law of the kingdom, the inviolability of the king, and through their promotion of this viewpoint were guilty of inciting attacks on the monarch. Fleury called for the Society's punishment not for any specific crime but rather for holding an unacceptable theological opinion that ran counter to the laws of France. Several members of the royal judiciary opposed the prosecution of the Society with Chastel on the grounds that it broke with legal procedure, but Fleury and his supporters carried the day.125 The inclusion of the Society in the trial of Chastel was a pretext to punish the acceptance and promotion of tyrannicide theory alongside the attempted act of regicide itself. The arrêt issued by the Parlement against Chastel and the Society confirms the motivations of the court. The decision was split into two parts. The first ordered the public execution of Chastel for the crimes of treason and parricide. The second ordered the banishment of all Jesuits from the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris as corrupters of the young, disturbers of the peace and enemies of the king.126 Moreover, the second part of the arrêt prohibited all subjects of the king living within the jurisdiction of the Parlement from sending their children to Jesuit schools.127 The Jesuits symbolically represented the promotion of an idea which ran counter to French law, and thus they were dangerous to the peace in France. The Society's banishment and the prohibition against study at Jesuit colleges were designed to ensure that the foreign idea of tyrannicide theory, which to many Gallicans subverted French law, could not be spread amongst the king's subjects. The Society's punishment was also intended as an example and a warning for other individuals and groups within the kingdom who held views similar to the Jesuits.

125 For Cheverny see Cheverny, Mémoires, p. 542. For avocat général Antoine Séguier see L'Estoile, Mémoires, vu, 5. For président Pierre Séguier see AFCJ Prat 30, pp. 195-197: Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603. 126 Cheverny describes this section of the arrêt as an addition to the Chastel arrêt, see Cheverny, Mémoires, p. 541. 127 Arrest de la Covr de Parlement contre lean Chastel escholier estudiant au Collège des lesuites, pour le parricide par luy attenté sur la personne du Roy (n.pl., 1595). See also Edict et Declaration dv Roy svr le bannissement des lesuites, avec I 'arrest de la Cour de Parlement de Rouen sur la verification d'iceluy (Caen, 1595).

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The crucial concern for the Society, however, was the king's response to the arrêt', because only the reversal of Henri IV s tacit support for the Jesuits since the pacification of Paris would ensure their expulsion. As a political question the expulsion of the entire Society from the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris was a finely balanced decision for the monarch. On the international stage Henri remained, as in the summer, concerned with his reputation in Rome. In late December 1594, Henri's increasingly secure political control of his kingdom strengthened his hand in Rome as he moved more aggressively to secure the lifting of the excommunication placed upon him by the pope in response to his relapse into the Protestant faith. However, the expulsion of the Society would provide Henri's enemies in Rome with evidence of his continued Protestant sympathies.128 In addition, by allowing the Parlement of Paris to expel the Society, Henri IV risked damaging his standing amongst important French Catholic interest groups who supported the Jesuits' activities, including several of the most important former Leaguer aristocrats who now supported his cause.129 Moreover, the decision to indiscriminately expel the whole Order from the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris, rather than punish those Jesuits implicated in the affair, could potentially be interpreted by observers as extreme or even unjust. A number of important figures in the royal judicial administration, including Chancellor Cheverny, avocat général Antoine Séguier and président Pierre Séguier, all publicly expressed their unease over the prosecution of the Society.130 They questioned both the decision to prosecute the Society alongside Jean Chastel and the decision to prosecute the Jesuits collectively for a crime in which only Guignard was in any way implicated. In this context, the prosecution of innocent Catholics could potentially lead to

128

Indeed, Henri's opponents in Rome immediately tried to take advantage of the expulsion, see AMAE CP Rome 13, fos 64-65: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 31 January 1595. 129 For instance, Louis de Gonzague, duc de Nevers, and François de la Rochefoucauld, bishop of Clermont, both publicly defended the Society in the months following their expulsion. For Nevers see P. Delattre (éd.), Les Établissements des jésuites en France depuis quatre siècles: répertoire topobibliographicque publié à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de lafondation de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1540-1590 (Enghien Belgium, 1949-1957), iii, col. 813. For Rochefoucauld see J. Bergin, Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld: Leadership and Reform in the French Church (New Haven CT, 1987), p. 27. For thé importance of religious sensibilities to the loyalty of important nobles see M. Wolfe, 'Piety and Political Allegiance: The duc de Nevers and the Protestant Henri IV, 1589-93', French History, 2 (1988), 1-21. 130 For Cheverny see Cheverny, Mémoires, p. 542. For avocat general Antoine Séguier see L'Estoile, Mémoires, vii, 5. Forpres/dew/Pierre Séguier see AFCJPrat30, pp. 195-197: Mena to Acquaviva, 19 July 1603.

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uncertainty about the king's promises of clemency to many former Leaguers who had already accepted the king's grâce in exchange for their obedience. On the other hand, Henri could expect to gain several important advantages if he allowed the Parlement of Paris to banish the Society. By acquiescing in the expulsion of one of the most effective Catholic missionary orders in France, Henri might expect to improve his relations with his Huguenot allies - relations which had been strained since his abrogation of the Protestant faith in 1593. Henri could also expect to improve his relations with the Society's enemies in the Parlement of Paris, many of whom felt that they were not adequately rewarded by the monarch for their loyalty when the Navarrist parlements at Tours and Chalons were reunited with its Leaguer counterpart in Paris. Henri might also have expected that the Parlement's action would provide a strong counterbalance to his own policy of pacification. In this context, the expulsion of the Jesuits would serve as a clear warning that, in the Parlement of Paris, Henri had an institution with both the power and the will to act on its own initiative to punish groups that continued to oppose Henri's rule. Henri may also have hoped that the expulsion of the Society from the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris would help rally his kingdom for war with Spain. By the end of December 1594 the collapse of the League had made open war with Spain an increasingly attractive option for the French crown. Many of Henri IV s influential Huguenot advisers advocated the policy, which they argued would help to bring the kingdom together in a war of national enterprise reminiscent of Henri IPs foreign policy.131 Moreover, Henri IV could expect that war against Spain would link even more closely Henri's Leaguer opponents with Spain, the traditional national foe, in the minds of Frenchmen who had not yet embraced his rule. On the international stage, an open declaration of war against Spain, if his Catholic subjects were willing to support it, also held out the opportunity for Henri to reassure his Protestant allies in the Holy Roman Empire that his foreign policy towards Spain had not changed with his religion. In any case, Henri and his advisers knew that action against Spain was required as Spanish troops continued to sustain the League in Brittany and Languedoc, and intercepted dispatches from Philip II revealed that the Spanish monarch was seriously

13

' For a general discussion of the Protestant position see M. Greengrass, France in the Age of Henri IV, 2nd edn (London, 1995), pp. 237-238.

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considering another invasion of northern France in the hopes of rallying League opposition to Henri's regime.132 While many devout Catholics would require a just cause for a war against a fellow Catholic monarch, the possibility of fanning popular anti-Spanish sentiment in France at the close of the League remained a tempting prospect for Henri. Chastel's assassination attempt came shortly after the king's decision to go to war with Spain and as preparations were being finalized for the first campaign.133 Thus, the expulsion of the Society may have been viewed with reference to the pressing requirements of the impending conflict. The expulsion of the Society offered the king a potentially powerful cause for going to war. Chastel's attempt upon the king's life, paired with the Spanish Jesuit minions of Arnauld's plaidoyer, provided an emotive reason for people to rally to the monarch against the traditional Habsburg enemy.134 Without Arnauld's assertions of alleged Jesuit influence over Frenchmen, Chastel was merely a religious fanatic with an incomprehensible desire to murder the king. However, by accepting the image of the Jesuits as portrayed by Arnauld in his plaidoyer, Chastel's attempt became a political act that struck at the foundations of French institutions and sovereignty. Jesuit institutional complicity was the proof of continued Spanish subversion directed against France and its new royal line. This was a strong rationale for good Frenchmen to rally to Henri IV's cause against the foreign enemy Spain. Thus, it is possible that Henri chose to allow the entire Society to be banished in order to draw on the same traditional enmity for Spain that polemicists had used to attack the Jesuits in the summer of 1594. The expulsion of the Jesuits from the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris presented Henri with a difficult political decision. The ambiguous policy pursued by the monarch reflected the competing interests at stake in the Jesuit expulsion. Henri allowed the Parlement of Paris to pass judgment on the case without royal interference, but he was content to maintain the Parlement's expulsion arrêt as a purely judicial matter. Thus, he chose not to issue a royal edict or other public 132 Greengrass, France, p. 237. See also M.P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion 1562-1629 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 161. Henri IV had already seen his military situation in northern France undermined by Spanish intervention in 1590 and 1592. For the importance of Spanish intervention in 1592 see H.A. Lloyd, The Rouen Campaign 1590-1592: Politics, Warfare and the Early-Modern State (Oxford, 1973). 133 Henri decided to go to war in the opening days of December, see PRO SP France 78/34, fo 283-283v°: Henri IV's declaration to those on the frontiers of France who are friendly to Spain or neutral, 7/17 December 1594. See also AMAE CP Rome 13, fos 57-62: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 5 December 1594. See also de Thou, Histoire (1740), viii, 530-531. Henri officially declared war on 15 January 1595. 134 DeWaele,fle/0//0«,s,p.283.

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confirmation of the order. Moreover, with the exception of the Parlement of Dijon, where local political considerations dominated his thinking, he did not lend his active support to the Parlement of Paris's demand that the provincial parlements pass similar expulsion decrees in their jurisdictions.135 In this context the Parlements of Bordeaux, Aix and Toulouse all conspicuously failed to register the expulsion arrêt thereby ensuring that the Society's expulsion remained partial.136 With this ambiguous stance, he was able to benefit from the expulsion without paying the full political price for the Jesuit banishment. Shortly after the departure of the Jesuits from Paris in January 1595, an allegorical engraving of the event appeared in print which advertised the new image of the Jesuits that had developed rapidly between the summer of 1593 and December of 1594.137 In the foreground of the image, avocat Antoine Arnauld drives a carriage containing allegorical Jesuit figures and pulled by six draught horses - each pair bearing the crest of a state hostile to the Society. A party of Jesuits carrying their belongings on their backs accompany the carriage along with a demon in the shape of a dog. Arnauld leads his charges along the Via ad S. Raspinum, the road to Saint Robber or Saint Raper, which perhaps better translates as the road to lawlessness and disorder. This party leaves behind a church engulfed in flames, an allegorical representation of the Society's influence on the French church. Ahead the road terminates at the Porte Saint Raspinum, a gate in the wall of a distinctly Flemish town. The inclusion of a Flemish community in the image fulfils two functions. It represents the initial destination of those Jesuits expelled from Paris, but it also allegorically represents the Habsburg dynastic empire which controlled Flanders during this period. Thus, in this image Arnauld returns the Society allegorically to the ultimate source of the troubles in France - Spain and its Habsburg monarchs or, more literally, Arnauld escorts the Jesuits back to their Spanish masters.

135 Dijon was in the process of submitting to his rule and Henri chose to take a firm line with the town authorities on the expulsion of the Society when he visited in 1595. For a narrative of the expulsion see J. Gazin-Gossel, 'Un contre-coup de la ligue en Bourgogne: l'expulsion et le retour des Jésuites de Dijon', Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France, 1 (1910), 515-526. 136 For more about the ongoing mission in the south of France see ARSI Aquitaniae 15, fos 32-58v°: Annual letters of the province of Aquitaine, 1596, 1599, 1600; ARSI Lugudunensis 28, fos 185-194v°: Annual letter of the province of Aquitaine, 1598. 137 I would like to thank Dr William Naphy and Dr Mike Broers for their help with interpreting this allegory.

Figure 3 Allegory of the Jesuit expulsion from France, ca. 1595 (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.)

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For their opponents the Society's expulsion was perfectly suited to an allegorical representation. Anti-Jesuit rhetoric since Amboise's oration the previous May had consciously used imagery that depicted the Jesuits as the embodiment of disorder and, under the direction of their Spanish masters, the chief promoters of the previous three decades of civil and religious war. The allegorical Jesuits seated in the cart embody the unbridled passions that many blamed for the past thirty years of disorder: P. Caldi (Father Hot-Headed), P. Forro (Father Fanatical), P. Rumer (Father Collie, Father Rumour or Father Sedition), P. Haynal (Father Hatred or Father Spiteful) and P. Collowrat (Father Red Faced).138 As the allegory implies, the banishment of the Jesuits who seduced good Frenchmen to commit acts of disorder and rebellion brought the promise of peace for France. Thus, on one level the allegory represents the image of the Jesuits established through their expulsion. However, Arnauld's role in the print also emphasizes the wider political considerations which drove erudite Gallicans in their campaign to expel the Jesuits. In this reading of the allegory, Arnauld represents the Parlement of Paris or, more specifically, the re-establishment of the full operation of royal public justice in France. By escorting these allegorical representations of disorder to the borders of the kingdom, Arnauld symbolizes the re-establishment of peace and social order in France through the strict enforcement of royal justice by the Parlement of Paris. Thus, the allegory also advertises the wider erudite Gallican political theories which lay behind the construction of a new Jesuit image in France and the successful campaign to remove the Society from the kingdom. In December 1594 the Society of Jesus became a central feature of the campaign by a powerful group of magistrates in the Parlement of Paris to define their political authority, and this allegory proclaimed the success of erudite Gallicans in using the Society's expulsion to advance their political agenda.

138 The final allegorical Jesuit in the carriage, P. Faninus or Father Templette, represents the parallel between the Society and the Knights Templar, another religious Order considered politically and morally subversive to French society. The French authorities had outlawed the Knights Templar several centuries earlier.

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Figure 4 The Pyramid, 1597. (Courtesy of the Archivum Romanum Societatis lesu.)

CHAPTER TWO

Recall

The expulsion of the Jesuits from the Parlement of Paris's jurisdiction provided erudite Gallicans with an important symbolic triumph in their campaign to reestablish social and religious peace in France through the definition and enforcement of French law. Their supporters sought to commemorate this victory by publicizing the expulsion in tracts and engravings - like the allegory examined at the conclusion of the preceding chapter.1 The magistrates of the Parlement of Paris publicly participated in this campaign when they ordered the erection of a large stone monument, known as the Pyramid, before the main entrance to the Palais du Justice on the cleared site of the Chastel family home. The Pyramid reminded all who passed of the trial and its verdict through both a programme of allegorical statues and a series of black marble plaques with gold lettering. Inscriptions on three sides of the monument were designed to both preserve the memory of the attack and to inspire terror amongst those who might consider undertaking similar enterprises in the future.2 The plaque on the fourth side contained the Parlement of Paris's arrêt against Jean Chastel and the Jesuits. Thus, the Pyramid proclaimed the enforcement of a fundamental law of the kingdom that of the inviolability of the king's person - through the commemoration of the justice dispensed by the Parlement. Perhaps equally important for the magistrates who sponsored its construction, the monument celebrated the triumph of a distinctly erudite Gallican set of ideas about the strict enforcement of law in the reestablishment of peace in the realm. Despite the Pyramid's elegance and size, the sense of permanence implied by this stone monument proved misleading. In reality Henri IV's acquiescence in the strict prosecution of the Jesuits in December 1594 reflected an extraordinary

1 For an example of a printed tract see Procedure faicte contre lean Chastel Escholier estudiant au College des Jésuites, pour le parricide par luy attenté sur la personne du Roy Tres-Chrestien Henry ////. Roy de France & Navarre (Paris, 1595). 2 J.-A. de Thou, Histoire universelle de Jacque Auguste de Thou depuis 1543jusqu 'en 1607 (London, 1734), xiv, 431.

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conjuncture of events rather than a permanent change in the king's approach to securing peace in France. Indeed, within months of the publication in 1597 of the broadsheet engraving of the Pyramid reproduced here, a different conjuncture of political circumstances left Henri inclined to rehabilitate the Jesuits through his own personal judgment and the arcana imperil of monarchy. The use of royal judgment and royal authority to pardon the Society contravened erudite Gallican theories on the enforcement of law that had secured the Society of Jesus's expulsion. By rehabilitating the Society, Henri and his advisers, like his erudite Gallican magistrates before him, used the Jesuit issue to assert their conception of how royal authority operated in France. Henri's decision to use this issue to make an important statement concerning royal authority is not surprising. The original expulsion of the Jesuits in 1594 had in many ways run counter to Henri's policy of using royal judgment and traditional royal attributes to offer clemency to his political opponents rather than making examples of them. Indeed, the expulsion of the Jesuits marked the most forceful manifestation of the campaign by erudite Gallican jurists associated with the Parlement of Paris to address what they perceived as Henri's reluctance to punish those most guilty of promoting the League. Through the Society's rehabilitation, Henri sought to establish a reinterpretation of traditional sacred elements of kingship and to assert that royal decision making was inscrutable because it was based on his personal judgment. Thus, through the rehabilitation of the Jesuits, Henri sought to assert features of Baroque monarchy that were central to his wider campaign to secure peace and order in his realm. In doing so, Henri both continued to reinvent and redefine his authority as king to make decisions related to the regulation of the Gallican church and provided the groundwork on which the Society could redefine its image in France as loyal and obedient subjects of the French monarchy. Henri publicly returned to the question of the Society's presence in France in the summer of 1599 when he received a delegation of Jesuit representatives at his court with whom he and his ministers discussed the problems surrounding their rehabilitation.3 However, to understand why Henri chose this moment to reopen 3 Henri IV originally agreed to allow a delegation to travel to his court in December of 1598, see AMAE CP Rome 13, fo 248v°: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 2 March 1599. But opposition in the Parlement of Paris to the registration of the Edict of Nantes led him to delay the actual issuing of the delegates' passports until early May 1599, see AMAE CP Rome supplément 3, fo 72: Brèves to Henri IV, 1 May 1599. For more on

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this question one has to place the issue of the Society's rehabilitation in the context of Henri's previous political successes during the year. In the spring and early summer of 1598, Henri's nearly decade-long campaign to secure political and military control over France paid important dividends. In March 1598, Henri accepted the submission of the last unreconciled Leaguer noble, Philippe Emmanuel de Lorraine, duc de Mercœur, which effectively brought the Catholic League as a political movement to an end.4 In May of the same year, Henri concluded hostilities with Spain through the Peace of Vervins, which ended open Spanish support for his enemies in France.5 Moreover, in April 1598, Henri sought to use his strengthened political position to reassert and redefine his authority as King of France to make decisions for the French church through the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes. This Edict and its related addenda granted limited rights of conscience, worship, access to the law and security to the Huguenot minority in order to re-establish peace and tranquility in the kingdom.6 Through this agreement, which he always viewed as temporary, Henri sought to establish the conditions through which the Catholic and Huguenot churches in France could reach an understanding and, ultimately, religious concord.7 With the arrival of political peace in 1598, Henri, who had resisted pressure by influential groups to address this issue for several years, took the opportunity to create a framework for the establishment of at least outward religious peace in order to help to secure his political gains. In crafting the Edict, Henri justified his policy by confounding personal and public decision making to contravene French law and to require royal institutions, like the parlements, to alter their structures to accommodate a religious minority. In 1594 erudite Gallicans had reacted to Henri's similar attempt to

the inclusion of the Archbishop of Aries see AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 111: Brèves to Henri IV, 23 September 1599. The sources do not reveal an exact date for the arrival of this Jesuit delegation at court, but indirect evidence points to either late July or early August, see AMAE CP Rome 19, fo 103: Henri IV to Brèves, 24 July 1599; AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 396v°: Henri IV to Brèves, 5 August 1599; AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 401v°: Henri IV to Brèves, 23 August 1599. 4 D. Buisseret, Henry IV (London, 1984), p. 69. 5 M. Greengrass, France in the Age of Henri IV, 2nd edn (London, 1995), pp. 238-239. For a fuller account of the national and international implications of the treaty see J.-F. Labourdette, J.-P. Poussou and M.-C. Vignal (eds), Le Traité de Vervins (Paris, 2000). See also P. Laffleur de Kermaigant, L'Ambassade de France en Angleterre sous Henri IV, mission de Jean de Thumery, sieur de Boissise (1598-1602) (Paris, 1886), i, 121-226. 6 The Edict of Nantes and its related documents are reprinted in full in R. Mousnier, L'Assassinat d'Henri IV (Paris, 1964), pp. 294-334. 7 M.P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion 1562-1629 (Cambridge, 1995), pp.162-165.

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disregard French law in order to pardon his political opponents by securing the expulsion of the Jesuits whom they defined as the chief promoters and leaders of the League. In 1598 and 1599 erudite Gallican magistrates again opposed Henri's assertions of royal authority when asked to register the Edict of Nantes.8 Fierce opposition to the Edict from within the Parlement of Paris resulted in a bitter battle between the Parlement's magistrates and the king, and it was only after a series of contentious face-to-face meetings with the leaders of his Parlement in January and February 1599 that Henri succeeded in securing the Edict's registration.9 During these meetings Henri forcefully asserted that his political success required that his magistrates defer to his judgment and obey his commands concerning this Edict. Moreover, he asserted that the same inscrutable royal judgment which had allowed him to broker political peace also allowed him to contravene French law and to ignore the advice of traditional royal counsellors in order to broker an understanding with the Huguenots. In these meetings Henri pressed his conception of royal authority. He reinterpreted well-established medieval royal attributes using neo-stoic and Baroque political theory in order to justify his authority through ideas of quasi-divine inscrutable knowledge and political force. The Edict's ultimate acceptance by the Parlement was a significant victory for the king who, through the Edict, successfully established his authority as king to make this decision. The registration of the Edict of Nantes by the Parlement of Paris proved an important step in Henri's campaign to reassert and reinvent royal authority within the Gallican church from the summer of 1598. It also provided the political context through which the king and his Parlement approached the rehabilitation of the Jesuits. In the months following the registration of the Edict of Nantes by the Parlement on 25 February 1599, Henri publicly opened his campaign to secure the Society's rehabilitation through his royal authority. In this initiative Henri pressed once again both his right to make decisions for the church and the inscrutable nature of his decision-making processes. As with the question of Huguenot

8 For a complete account of the struggle over the registration of the Edict of Nantes see J. Garrisson, L'Editde Nantes: chronique d'une paix attendue (Paris, 1998), pp. 317-358. See also B. Cottret, 1598: L'Édit de Nantes (Paris, 1997), pp. 209-214, 221-236. 9 Henri IV's speeches on two of these occasions have been reprinted. For his speech on 7 January 1599 see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, pp. 334-337. For his speech on 16 February 1599 see Cottret, 1598, pp. 385388.

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recognition, the king carefully left open the possibility of using his authority to rehabilitate the Society. Henri accomplished this by prosecuting an ambiguous policy concerning the Jesuit presence in his kingdom during the mid-1590s, while working to secure his political position in France and abroad.10 Following his political successes, Henri and his advisers hinted from May 1598 that they intended to rehabilitate the Jesuits; however, they chose to delay taking formal public steps in this direction until they had secured the registration of the Edict of Nantes. Thus, during the autumn of 1598 Henri ensured that observers in both France and Rome became increasingly aware of the progressive softening of his attitude towards the Society.11 Unlike the question of the status of Huguenots in France which required immediate resolution in order to secure peace in the realm, no such pressing requirement forced Henri to secure the Society's return in 1599. Instead, Henri chose to make the Jesuit issue a priority in the months following the registration of 10

For an excellent examination of Henri IV's policy towards the Jesuits between 1595 and 1598 see AMAE CP Rome 13, fos 202-206: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 5 March 1598. In this letter D'Ossat reacts to a false rumour in 1598 that Henri planned to expel the Jesuits from south and west of his kingdom. While this rumour proved false, D'Ossat's unusually forceful letter in response to the rumour amounts to a subtle discussion of Henri's policy towards the Society of Jesus from the perspective of his trusted adviser and unofficial representative in Rome who was bewildered by apparent policy reversals. Henri's interactions with papal representatives reflect D'Ossat's understanding of royal policy, see the correspondence of Cardinal Alessandro de Medici, the papal nuncio to France, to his superiors in Rome, ARSI Galliae 60, fo 75 : Medici to Clement VIII, 1596; AV Francia 44, fo 48: Medici to Aldobrandini, 24 November 1596; AV Francia 45, fos 26-28: Medici to Clement VIII, 8 March 1597; AMAE CP Rome 13, fo 187: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 20 April 1597. 1 ' For instance, in the days following the signing of the Treaty of Vervins in May 1598 Henri IV ensured that the pope knew that he wished to address the Jesuit question, see Henri IV, Recueil des lettres missives de Henri IV, in B. Xivrey and J. Guadet (eds), Collection des documents inédits sur l'histoire de France, 1st ser. (Paris, 1843-1876), viii, 705: Henri IV to Piney-Luxembourg, 4 May 1598. Papal Nuncio Medici provides an account of this same conversation in ARSI Galliae 60, fo 89: Medici to Clement VIII, 1598. This copy of the letter is held in the Archivum Romanum Societatis lesu, which indicates that the Jesuit hierarchy was aware of the king's policy. Henri, however, kept his policy ambiguous towards the Jesuits in the summer of 1598 by taking strong action against allegations of subversive preaching by Jesuits in Bordeaux, see AMAE CP Rome 15, fo 175-175v°: Marquimort to Henri IV, 1 June 1598; ARSI Galliae 60, fo 135: d'Escoubleau de Sourdis to the Rector of the Jesuit College of Bordeaux, 24 June 1598; Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, viii, 710-711 : Henri IV to Piney-Luxembourg, 2 July 1598; AMAE CP Rome 15, fos 233v°-235v°: Henri IV to Piney-Luxembourg, 17 August 1598. Nonetheless, by the end of the summer Henri once again hinted to Jesuit supporters that they might be able to convince him to reconsider the merits of the Society's rehabilitation. See, for instance, ARSI Galliae 61, fos 26v°-27: Copy of a letter by Sourdis to unknown, 8 August 1598. Henri's hints became more pronounced as he closed in on securing the registration of the Edict of Nantes. Thus, in December 1598 Henri promised Clement VIII that he would issue passports to Jesuit representatives so that they could travel to his court, see AMAE CP Rome 13, fo 248v°: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 2 March 1599.

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the Edict of Nantes. The Society's rehabilitation became a question on which Henri sought to re-establish and expand both his political authority in France and his authority within the Gallican church. Nevertheless, Henri's wider international and domestic policy goals also stood to benefit from their rehabilitation, and this undoubtedly played a role in Henri's decision to secure their return. On the international stage, the Peace of Vervins signed in May 1598 resulted in the French and Spanish monarchies competing for influence in the courts of Catholic Europe rather than on the battlefield.12 As Henri IV attempted to re-establish French influence on the international stage after thirty years of civil war, Jesuit exclusion became a liability, especially in Rome. In the late 1590s, Pope Clement VIII was a key figure in Henri's foreign and dynastic policy. Clement had played an important role in negotiating the Peace of Vervins. Moreover, in 1599 and 1600 the pope acted as the chief intermediary between Henri and Charles-Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, in their contentious territorial disputes. In dynastic policy, Henri relied on Clement's continued goodwill to secure a divorce from Marguerite de Valois, a concession the pope granted on 24 October 1599. Moreover, Clement was also in a position to support Henri's efforts to negotiate a marriage between himself and Archduke Ferdinando of Tuscany's niece, Marie de Medici. Clement wanted a closer alliance with Henri. The pope had harboured hopes since 1595, when he absolved the excommunicated Henri, that France under a Bourbon dynasty could balance Spanish power in Rome and Italy.13 Active courting of the papal hierarchy promised Henri a renewed influence in Rome; but, in the months following the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, Clement left Henri in no doubt that he desired the rehabilitation of the Jesuits in France.14 Henri's correspondence to his

12 For a discussion of the new challenges in Europe see G. Parker, Europe in Crisis 1598-1648 (Brighton, 1980), pp. 115-130. See also Labourdette et al., Le Traité de Vervins. n V. Martin, 'La Reprise des relations diplomatiques entre la France et le Saint-Siège en 1595', Revue des sciences religieuses, 1 (1921), 371-378; V. Martin, 'La Reprise des relations diplomatiques entre la France et le Saint-Siège en 1595', Revue des sciences religieuses, 2 (1922), 233-270. 14 Clément VIII's comments to the king's representatives in Rome are particularly revealing, see AMAE CP Rome 15, fos 90-91 v°: Valerio to Henri IV, 7 May 1598; AMAE CP Rome 15, fos 150v°-l 51 v°: Valerio to Henri IV, 17 May 1598. See also Clement's letter to Henri IV, ARSI Galliae 61, fo 68-68v°: Clement VIII to Henri IV, 25 November 1598. The pope's views were expressed even before the Edict's official promulgation, see ARSI Franciae 30, fos 212-213v°: Clement VIII to Henri IV, 20 January 1597. Clement also wanted Henri to take several other actions in addition to the rehabilitation of the Jesuits. These included the promulgation of the Council of Trent in France and the securing of the conversion to the Catholic faith of both Henri's sister, Catherine de Bourbon, and the next in line to the throne, Henri II, prince de Conde. For the conversion of Henri's sister and the promulgation of the Council of Trent see

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representatives in Rome in the late 1590s indicates that, while he was not willing to sacrifice his broad policy goals just to placate the pope, he remained intent on securing the rehabilitation of the Society of Jesus in order to improve his relations with the papacy.15 The rehabilitation of the Jesuits also provided an opportunity for Henri to improve his standing and authority amongst some of his most sceptical and potentially rebellious subjects. The rise of the Catholic League as a viable political force during the 1580s had fractured the Catholic church as royalists and Leaguers battled over a set of intertwined religious and political issues.16 During these conflicts Leaguer theorists had established a powerful set of doctrines through which they sought to legitimize opposition to royal authority in religious affairs.17 While Henri's policy of pacification in the early 1590s had succeeded in drawing important Leaguers into political allegiance to the king, many of these same Leaguers made it clear in their submissions that they continued to hold their religious views and embraced Henri only because of his conversion.18 In 1598 some of Henri's subjects remained suspicious of his intentions and were capable of returning to open opposition to his rule if his commitment to the Catholic faith came under question. The Edict of Nantes did little to reassure these former Leaguers, but Jesuit rehabilitation provided a useful issue on which Henri could improve his Catholic credentials amongst this group. In the Edict, Henri had granted legal recognition to the Huguenots, but he had also promised his Catholic subjects that he would work

AMAE CP Rome 13, fos 173-176v°: D'Ossatto Henri IV, 19 February 1597. For the conversion of Conde see AMAE CP Rome 13, fo 38: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 23 December 1594. 15 Henri IV repeatedly expressed his goodwill towards the pope in his correspondence with Clement VIII, see for instance AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 412v°: Henri IV to Breves, 14 October 1599. See also AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 60: Breves to Henri IV, 30 June 1599; AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 377v°: Henri IV to Breves, 28 May 1599; AMAE MD Rome 15, fos 292-293v°: Henri IV to Béthune, August 1601. The connection between the Council of Trent, the rehabilitation of the Jesuits and Henri's effort to secure the goodwill of the pope is best revealed in Henri's diplomatic correspondence, see AMAE CP Rome 18, passim. Henri's need to press forward with the rehabilitation of the Jesuits increased when he recognized that securing the registration of the Council of Trent would prove too politically divisive, see AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 414: Henri IV to Breves, 14 October 1599. 16 For more on the fractured state of the French Catholic church see M. Wolfe, The Conversion of Henri IV: Politics, Power, and Religious Belief in Early Modern France (Cambridge, MA, 1993), pp. 159-187. 17 J.H.M. Salmon, 'Catholic Resistance Theory, Ultramontanism, and the Royalist Response, 15801620', in J.H. Burns (éd.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 219-253. 18 Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 167-172, 180-187.

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to convert the Huguenots to the Catholic faith. Support for the Jesuits, who were amongst the most active elements of the Catholic reformation in the south of France, offered Henri one possible way to fulfil his undertaking to the Catholic majority. The Society of Jesus continued to enjoy strong support in the south of France where Henri's rule remained fragile and the refusal of the Parlements of Bordeaux, Toulouse and Aix to register the Chastel arrêt allowed the Society to continue to operate in their jurisdictions. Further, the Society's educational, missionary and spiritual activities thrived in these areas where local Huguenot influence concerned Catholic notables.19 Their image in these regions remained that of teachers and preachers running local colleges, not fanatical foreigners intent upon undermining the kingdom. Henri was undoubtedly aware of the strength of support for the Jesuits in the south of his kingdom and the potential political advantage to be gained through their rehabilitation.20 Both domestic and international considerations undoubtedly played a role in attracting royal attention to the Jesuit issue. However, the precise actions that Henri took to secure the Society's rehabilitation along with the conditions that he imposed on their return provide evidence that Henri's campaign had important implications beyond merely courting and placating important domestic and international Catholic interests. Henri also used this contentious issue to further broaden and deepen royal authority to make decisions for the French church that lay beyond the scrutiny of his subjects. The rehabilitation of the Jesuits, like the registration of the Edict of Nantes, provided an important symbolic issue through which Henri sought to redefine royal authority in the church. The broader issues at stake in the Jesuit rehabilitation were apparent from the arrival at Henri's court in late July or early August 1599 of a delegation - led by Horatio del Monte, archbishop of Aries, and Father Lorenzo Maggio, an experienced Jesuit diplomat - charged with discussing the Jesuit rehabilitation. The

19

ARSI Aquitaniae 15, fos 32-58v°: Annual letters of the province of Aquitaine, 1596,1599,1600. See also ARSI Lugudunensis 28, fos 185-194v°: Annual letter of the province of Aquitaine, 1598. 20 For instance, shortly after the signing of the Peace of Vervins a group of local churchmen in Condom requested that Henri IV approve the foundation of a Jesuit college in their town, see ARSI Galliae 62, fos 178-179: Bishop and Canons of the Cathedral at Condom to Acquaviva, 20 May 1598. For a similar request from Vienne see P. Delattre (éd.), Les Établissements desjésuites en France depuis quatre siècles: répertoire topo-bibliographicque publié à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de la fondation de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1540-1940 (Enghien, Belgium, 1949-1957), v, cols 146-147.

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idea that Henri might secure the Society's return through an act of royal clemency was a subject of discussion in the initial meetings between Jesuit supporters and the king. The accounts of these first meetings in the correspondence of Papal Nuncio Gasparo Silingardi, bishop of Modena, emphasize this precise relationship. For instance, Silingardi recounted one such exchange when he noted that the king had told him that 'For such a difficult negotiation it is necessary to proceed with much maturity because of the Parlement's involvement'.21 Silingardi challenged this assertion by arguing that Henri's will alone could secure the Society's return: 'I replied that this kind of favour (the Jesuit return), came by grace, and not justice, and that his Majesty could achieve it without the Parlement's involvement'.22 In a later dispatch Silingardi indicated that Henri shared the nuncio's assessment of his authority when he reported that the king demanded that the Jesuits should ask, as others had who were guilty of offences during the League, for 'this clemency that he had extended to all the others'.23 Although, as would become apparent in the coming months, Henri required a slightly different exchange with the Society of Jesus than that required with former Leaguers, the nuncio was right to emphasize that Henri planned to secure the Society's return through a royal pardon. The facts alleged in the banishment arrêts of the parlements were not to be questioned, and the past was to be forgotten through the good offices of the clement monarch. At these initial meetings, Henri also indicated to Father Maggio that only obedience could secure an act of royal clemency.24 The king provided an appropriate gesture through which the Jesuits could reassure him of their intended obedience. Rumours had spread during the summer that the Jesuits were operating in provincial towns like Limoges, Beziers and Dijon without royal permission. The king's adviser Nicolas de NeufVille, sieur de Villeroy, reminded the Jesuits that their presence in such places made it appear as if they wished to undermine royal authority. In the same meeting, Villeroy indicated that if they took action to rectify this situation, it would go a long way to facilitating their return to the kingdom.25 Maggio promised that the Jesuits would put a stop to such activities, and the Society sought to assuage the king's concerns by soliciting a number of public

21 22 23 24 25

AV Francia 47, fo 99: Silingardi to Aldobrandini, 20 September 1599. AV Francia 47, fo 99: Silingardi to Aldobrandini, 20 September 1599. AV Francia 47, fo 103: Silingardi to Aldobrandini, 20 September 1599. ARSI Germaniae 122, fos 88v°-89v°: Maggio to Acquaviva, 21 September 1599. AV Francia 47, fo 99: Silingardi to Aldobrandini, 20 September 1599.

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letters from provincial royal officers which denied the veracity of the rumours.26 More important to the king were two direct orders from the Jesuit Father General Claudio Acquaviva to his provincials in France. The first ordered that all Jesuits withdraw from the towns in question, while the second ordered that the French fathers refuse to open any colleges without the king's approval.27 The father general's quick, positive response had important implications as noted by Henri IV in a letter to Acquaviva: In this you have shown your good judgment and expressed your desire that in similar matters, no enterprise be undertaken against my authority, for which I wish to thank you ... and to tell you that such a demonstration of your support of my intentions was quite appreciated, and will not be useless to those of your order.28 Acquaviva made it clear in his response to this letter that he understood that the Jesuits could only return to France through 'the fruits of his [Henri's] customary and praised clemency ,..'.29 Henri left no doubt in the minds of Jesuit representatives as to how he wished to proceed with the rehabilitation of the Society in his kingdom. Henri sought to draw upon royal clemency, a long established and inscrutable form of royal judgment, to pardon the Jesuits in exchange for their obedience in the future.30 In other words,

26

For Maggio's promise see ARSI Germaniae 122, fos 88v°-89v°: Maggio to Acquaviva, 21 September 1599, For the results of Maggio's promise see ARSI Germaniae 122, fo 93: Maggio to Acquaviva, 5 November 1599. For an example of a letter from a provincial officer see président syndic Maynard's from Brive la Gaillarde, BN Dupuy 63, fo 99: Maynard to Henri IV, 12 September 1599. See also ARSI Galliae 61,fo 142:HenriIVtoChateauneuf, 17 August 1599. A number of rumours concerning Jesuit involvement in disorder had been spread during the summer, see ARSI Aquitaniae 15, fo 53b-53bv°: Letter from the notables of the town hall of Agen denying any disorder in their town, 27 August 1599. 27 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 134-134v°: Acquaviva to Maggio, 20 October 1599; ARSI Galliae 60, fo 95: Acquaviva to fathers provincial in the kingdom of France, 20 September 1599. Acquaviva was determined to advertise his personal compliance with the king's demands, see AMAE CP Rome 13, fo 271 v°: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 20 October 1599; AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 128-128v°: Breves to Henri IV, 21 October 1599. 28 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 130: Henri IV to Acquaviva, 6 November 1599. Henri was careful to ensure that his complaints were not misunderstood and that his goodwill was quietly conveyed to the pope and Acquaviva, see AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 408v°: Henri IV to Breves, 18 September 1599. 29 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 130: Acquaviva to Henri IV, 15 December 1599. See also ARSI Franciae 1, fo 438-438v°: Acquaviva to Maggio, 15 December 1599. The pope also recognized what Henri required, see AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 128: Breves to Henri IV, 21 October 1599. 30 For a full discussion of the theory behind royal pardons see N.Z. Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, 1987). See also C. Gauvard, 'De grace especial'* Crime, état et société en France à la fin du Moyen Age (Paris, 1991), ii, 895-934.

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Henri asserted his intention to rehabilitate the Society using the very form of inscrutable royal judgment that had deeply concerned his erudite Gallican magistrates in the early 1590s and, in part, had inspired his jurists to make an example of the Jesuits through their expulsion in 1594. Henri's decision to use clemency to pardon the Jesuits once again framed the question of the Jesuit presence in France in a wider French political debate over the use of royal authority, public counsel and the best means to secure peace in his kingdom. In this context, Nuncio Silingardi correctly perceived the link between Henri's earlier use of clemency to transcend the letter of the law in order to pardon Leaguers and Henri's similar intention to use royal clemency to establish a new relationship with the Jesuits. However, in the case of the Jesuits Henri asserted his authority more strongly than during the pacification of his Leaguer opponents. Following the king's abrogation of the Protestant faith in 1593, Henri had rejected the idea of a simple pardon for former Leaguers.31 Instead he chose to recognize the claims made by many of his subjects that their religious concerns had inspired their opposition and that, following his conversion, Henri could now expect their full obedience. In this context, Henri chose to offer his pardon but also emphasized that he wished to consign their past actions to oblivion.32 Henri recognized the changing political context that his conversion created and, at least implicitly, sought to forgive the past actions of his subjects as he recognized the dilemma that his status as a heretic had caused for their consciences. In the case of the Jesuits, Henri offered a pardon to the Society for their past actions but did not consign their involvement in the Chastel affair to oblivion.33 Henri's clemency alone provided the authority behind the return of the guilty Jesuits rather than any exoneration of the Society for their alleged crimes. Inscrutable royal judgment was the source for the pardon of a corporation that had been convicted and remained guilty of

3

' For a fuller discussion of Henri IV's dealings with individual participants in the League and corporate bodies that supported the League see Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 159-187. 32 For more on the theory and practice ofoubliance see: D.C. Margolf, 'Adjudicating Memory: Law and Religious Difference in Early Seventeenth-Century France', The Sixteenth Century Journal, 27 (1996), 399-418. 33 AMAE MD Rome 15, fo 256: Directions to Ambassador Brèves, 8 January 1599. In this dispatch Henri IV instructed his new ambassador in Rome, Jean Savary, sieur de Brèves, to emphasize three things to the pope. First, he ordered Brèves to emphasize the Society's guilt for its past actions. Second, he ordered Brèves to emphasize his desire as King of France to maintain the Society's current foundations in the kingdom. Finally, he ordered Brèves to indicate that, despite the Society's guilt, he desired to eventually sanction the Society's return to the whole of his kingdom.

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breaking a fundamental law of the kingdom. Henri sought to assert his right to transcend the law through the rehabilitation of the Jesuits who, by 1599, had come to symbolize erudite Gallican ideas of the importance of law and the enforcement of law. Thus, from the start Henri framed the parameters of the Society's return in the context of his wider campaign to assert his reinterpretation of royal authority and royal judgment. As with the political pacification of the kingdom and the registration of the Edict of Nantes, Henri sought to use traditional sacred royal attributes associated with the arcana imperil of monarchy to make decisions for his kingdom which ran counter to established law and custom. He also sought to fold in aspects of personal and royal decision making in order to establish that his actions as king remained beyond the scrutiny of his subjects who lacked his comprehensive knowledge and judgment. From 1599 Henri sought to use the rehabilitation of the Jesuits as an opportunity to further deepen and define his authority in his kingdom. Henri established the groundwork for a royal rehabilitation of the Society in his initial meetings with Jesuit supporters, and this groundwork remained the basis for the Society's rehabilitation in 1603.34 Henri revived his interest in securing the Society's return in both December 1600 and November 1601; however, a combination of war with Savoy (1600), his marriage to Marie de Medici (1600) and the Biron conspiracy (1602) prevented him from brokering a resolution to the issue.35 Henri's reluctance to press forward with the rehabilitation of the Society

34 That Henri maintained the same conditions for the Society's return is apparent from the king's interview with Maggio shortly before his departure from the royal court in 1600, see ARSI Galliae 61, fos 194v°-200v°: Maggio to Acquaviva, 20 December 1600. 35 For Henri IV's renewed interest in securing the Society's return from December 1600 see ARSI Galliae 61, fo 203: Maggio to Acquaviva, 24 December 1600; ARSI Galliae 93, fo 391 : Maggio to Acquaviva, 22 January 1601. For Henri's renewed initiative in November 1601 see BN MS Fr 3484, fos 38-40v°: Henri IV to Philippe de Béthune, 18 November 1601. For the importance of the war with Savoy and the king's marriage to Marie de Medici to the negotiations surrounding the Society's return see ARSI Germaniae 122, fo 100: Maggio to Acquaviva, 20 January 1600; ARSI Germaniae 122, fo 101: Maggio to Acquaviva, 26 January 1600; ARSI Germaniae 122, fo 102: Maggio to Acquaviva, 6 March 1600. See also ARSI Germaniae 122, fo 119-119v°: Maggio to Acquaviva, 12 August 1600. For evidence that Henri consciously decided to delay his actions see AMAE CP Rome 13, fo 296v°: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 8 July 1600. In part, the king's inaction in 1602 can also be explained by silence from Rome over a provisional draft of the conditions for the Society's return which Acquaviva was reluctant to respond to, see BN MS Fr 3492, fo 18v°: Philippe de Béthune to Henri IV, 8 January 1602; BN MS Fr 3492, fo 26: Philippe de Béthune to Henri IV, 8 February 1602; BN MS Fr 3484, fos 84-85: Henri IV to Philippe de Béthune, 11 March 1602; BN MS Fr 3484, fo 81-81v°: Henri IV to Philippe de Béthune, 25 March 1602.

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while he was physically away from his capital or distracted by important political and dynastic considerations reflected the contentious nature of the Society's rehabilitation under the conditions defined by the king. Henri's decision to grant his personal clemency to the Society ran counter to the Parlement of Paris's decision to punish the Jesuits as a symbol of disorder in the kingdom. This assertion promised to bring determined opposition from the Parlement and thus required both the king's presence in Paris and a secure political environment in which he could assert his will. Nevertheless, Henri's desire to improve his relationship with Clement VIII continued to make the Society's rehabilitation an attractive proposition. When Henri publicly returned to the Jesuit issue in the spring of 1603, domestic and international peace again created a promising environment in which Henri could assert his will. Henri seized the opportunity, and over the summer and autumn of 1603 pressed royal claims to a manifestation of authority that drew on distinct ideas of the nature of royal judgment and the expression of the royal will. Henri's rehabilitation of the Jesuits further deepened and defined his distinct conception of kingship that had taken shape through his efforts to secure acceptance of his conversion and the political pacification of his realm in the early 1590s. It also advanced Henri's initiative to define his authority within the Gallican church which had taken shape from the summer of 1598. Henri's carefully conducted campaign reveals how Henri drew upon medieval royal attributes, neostoic thought, ideas about the royal use offeree and the Baroque sensibilities of his audience to assert his will over this issue. In this campaign, Henri defined his own alternative conception of royal authority and its operation to that established by erudite Gallicans through the expulsion of the Jesuits. Moreover, he defined a new relationship between the monarchy and the Society based on royal clemency which established a new Jesuit presence in France. A royal visit to the strongly Catholic and strategically sensitive eastern frontier of the kingdom in the spring of 1603 provided the forum in which the king publicly reopened the Jesuit issue.36 The Society continued to operate in areas of eastern France beyond the jurisdictions of the Parlements of Paris and Dijon, and their supporters at court arranged an interview between representatives of the Society and the king in one of these locales, the city of Metz, during the king's sojourn

36

For a full description of Henri IV's movements in early 1603 see Buisseret, Henri IV, p. 118.

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there. At the meeting, the Jesuit Father Provincial Ignace Armand made an eloquent discourse to the king in which he asked for Henri's clemency and emphasized the loyalty and obedience of Jesuits like himself as Frenchmen.37 Armand's carefully constructed oration amounted to a plea for the king to offer his clemency to the Jesuits who wished to become Henri's obedient subjects.38 In the spring of 1603 Father Armand sought to re-establish the language of clemency and obedience first defined in 1599 in order to encourage Henri to revive his initiative to secure the Society's return. Henri used the oration to advertise to observers that he wished once again to return to the Jesuit issue. Henri first signalled to those present his goodwill towards the Society when he responded graciously to Armand's oration and requested a copy of it.39 In the days following the oration, the king made his wish to resolve the question of Jesuit exclusion clear to the Society when he invited Jesuit Fathers Armand and Pierre Coton to return with him to Paris.40 While Henri's communications with the Jesuits remained private, Henri also signalled his renewed interest in the Jesuits to a wider audience. For instance, a week after the oration he singled out a Jesuit in a crowded antechamber, called the father over to him and exchanged friendly words.41 Later, when Fathers Coton and Armand arrived at Fontainebleau on 29 May 1603, the king publicly greeted them warmly.42 These initial displays of royal goodwill were important to the Jesuits. Every action taken by the king in the environment of the court had political implications, as the monarch embodied policy. These general signs of royal goodwill continued to develop through the sustained interaction between Armand, Coton and Henri in June, July and August 1603. They provide a revealing perspective of how the king sought to publicly gain knowledge of the Society and then to express his personal acceptance of them through his interactions with Jesuits in public and semi-public contexts at his court.

37

BI Godefroy 15, fo 75-75v°: Father Charles de la Tour to Martin, doctor of medicine, 24 April 1603; ARSI Galliae 61, fo 360-360v°: Armand to Maggio, 5 April 1603. For Maggio's account of the event see ARSI Germaniae 122, fos 140v°-141: Maggio to Acquaviva, 18 April 1603. 38 ARSI Galliae 61, fos 361-362: Oration offered to the king at Metz, 27 March 1603. 39 P.V. Palma-Cayet, Chronologie septénaire de l'histoire de la paix entre les roys de France & d'Espagne (Paris, 1605), fo 387v°. 40 ARSI Germaniae 122, fo 142: Maggio to Acquaviva, 18 April 1603. In this letter Maggio notes thé inclusion of Coton in Henri's invitation. 41 ARSI Galliae 94, fo 156: Armand to Acquaviva, 3 April 1603. 42 Palma-Cayet, Chronologie septénaire, fo 436v°.

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Since the early 1590s, Henri IV's actions at court had provided an important context through which he sought to advertise and justify his use of personal judgment to make public decisions for his realm. While in theory his personal judgment was based on a mystical quasi-divine form of grâce that allowed a king to make decisions based on instinct, during the 1590s Henri had sought to carefully advertise his personal knowledge of an issue before he publicly asserted his judgment. In these quasi-theatrical interactions, Henri allowed observers at court to catch glimpses of his growing interest in and knowledge of an affair, even if his full understanding, and thus his reasoning, remained beyond the sight of even his closest courtiers. In these interactions Henri maintained secrecy and inscrutability in royal decision making, which helped to keep royal actions outside the realm of public debate. At the same time Henri prepared his audience for imminent royal action of some sort.43 Henri had first established the inscrutability of the reasoning behind his decisions during the carefully conducted campaign to gain acceptance of the sincerity of his conversion to the Catholic faith.44 In the months leading to his abrogation of the Protestant faith, Henri chose to advertise the knowledge - if not the exact reasoning - behind his decision to embrace the Catholic faith in order to combat claims made by his opponents that he would cynically fake his conversion to secure the throne. From January 1593, Henri sought to advertise a growing interest in becoming informed about the teachings of the Catholic faith.45 Thus, in March, observers reported that Henri had informally met with Huguenot and Catholic clergymen in a semi-public forum at his court to discuss points of doctrine. During the same period, Henri also took time to speak at length in private with influential Catholic churchmen, including the future cardinal Jacques Davy Du Perron, which again observers at court noted with interest. By April 1593, the king had publicly established his desire for instruction, and he further advertised his interest by attending at least two public debates at Mantes between Du Perron and

43 The best single discussion of the importance of secrecy to political action during the Baroque period is Louis Marin's introduction to the republication of Gabriel Naude's seventeenth-century work on princely coup d'états, see G. Naudé, Considérations politiques sur les coups d'État (Paris, 1988), pp. 15-65. 44 Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 115-133. 45 Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 124-125.

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prominent Protestants where he let it be known that he had been very impressed with Du Perron's arguments.46 Only after months of interactions designed in part to advertise his increasing knowledge of the Catholic faith did Henri declare himself convinced of the merits of Catholic beliefs. He then duly took steps to convert, which culminated in July with meetings with four prominent Catholic clergymen at Saint Denis who completed his instruction through a private catechism.47 In one sense the series of public, semi-public and private (but well advertised) interactions with Catholic clergy, even if sincere, were theatrical productions designed to provide observers with a reason for the king's change of heart. Royal polemicists asserted that the arguments of Catholic clergymen - which for devout Catholics represented the pure word of God - proved persuasive to the king. This rationale was bolstered by some royal polemicists who argued that Henri's access to royal judgment tied to his accession to the throne had made the true arguments of the Catholic clergy undeniable to the king.48 While even amongst royalist polemicists the exact forces at work in the king's conversion remained a subject of dispute, his effort to engage with Catholic doctrine before his conversion provided evidence that the king had really been persuaded to embrace the Catholic faith even if his subjects could never be certain of his sincerity.49 Despite his stronger political position in 1603, Henri again found it useful to advertise his knowledge - if not his exact reasoning - when he expressed his judgment on the question of Jesuit rehabilitation. Moreover, as in his decision to convert, Henri relied on personal interaction rather than the formal advice of traditional royal counsellors to provide the basis for his decision. Thus, Henri's personal impressions and judgments based on personal knowledge of the issue defined a form of understanding that would allow him to reject the advice of established counsellors. In this way, his actions in 1603 were reminiscent of his meetings with Catholic clergy in the months before his abrogation of the Protestant faith. But through the Jesuit issue, Henri sought to test the limits of his personal judgment further than he had through his conversion, because in sanctioning the rehabilitation of the Jesuits Henri sought to use his personal judgment to make a

46 47 48 49

Wolfe, Conversion, p. 125. Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 139-145. Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 155-158. Michael Wolfe addresses the question of the king's sincerity, see Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 167-172.

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wider decision for the whole church rather than a decision for just his own conscience. To accomplish this, Henri drew on his personal understanding of the Jesuits advertised through quasi-theatrical interactions with members of the Society at the royal court to make the decision to pardon the Society and partially rehabilitate the Order in his kingdom. In this development lay the broadening and deepening of his assertion of royal authority through the folding-in of personal and public decision making. Within days of the arrival of Fathers Coton and Armand at his court on 29 May 1603, Henri created a series of public and semi-public contexts where the Jesuits could convince him that he should become their patron and advocate. One important aspect of Henri's policy was his sponsorship of Jesuit preaching. In this context, Henri worked to maximize the impact of Jesuit preaching by personally requesting that Coton be part of the Jesuit mission to his court. Henri and his advisers singled out Coton for inclusion because the Jesuit father already possessed a reputation as an eloquent and moving preacher in court circles.50 Henri worked to strengthen this reputation from Coton's first public appearance at court by advertising his approval of both Coton and his preaching. The memoirist and courtier Pierre-Victor Palma-Cayet noted that the king was very affectionate to Father Coton from the moment they met and that the king ensured that he preached at Fontainebleau first. Palma-Cayet, a perceptive observer of Henri IVs actions, then noted in an aside that the king did this because the royal chapel was the best place for the Jesuits to be seen by all the members of his court.51 Palma-Cayet's observations reveal Henri's success in providing a stage for the Society to make a dramatic impact as orthodox and learned religious teachers following their arrival at his court. The king's support of Coton's preaching continued throughout the summer of 1603 and by mid-July the king had commissioned Coton to preach on all the feast days and Sundays at court and in the pulpits of important churches across Paris.52

50 For the king's request that Coton be included as a member of the delegation see ARS1 Galliae 94, fos 156v°-l 57: Armand to Acquaviva, 3 April 1603. For more on the awareness at court of Coton's reputation see Brèves's account of Coton's success preaching to the important Huguenot nobleman François de Bonne, duc de Lesdiguières, and a number of other Huguenots in Grenoble, AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 277: Brèves to Henri IV, 8 July 1600. 51 Palma-Cayet, Chronologie septénaire, fo 436v°. 52 ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33-33v°: Coton to Baltazar, 24 June 1603; ARSI Galliae 64, fos 33v°-34: Coton to Baltazar, 3 July 1603. See also Palma-Cayet, Chronologie septénaire, fo 436.

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Coton's preaching provided an important context through which Henri could express his impression of the Jesuits. For instance, after a sermon on 14 June, the king publicly stated that 'he had never heard anything like it, and that, if his affairs permitted him, he wished to hear an hour of Coton's preaching every day'.53 Whether the king was as completely moved as observers indicated was less important than the fact that he gave this impression. The ability of eloquent preaching to move and persuade the soul of the listener was a common belief in the theory of late Renaissance and Baroque rhetoric.54 Thus, the public reactions of Henri to Coton's preaching drew upon a powerful line of contemporary thought to provide a rationale for the royal decision to sanction the return of the Jesuits. Henri's enthusiastic response to Coton's sermons provided a foundation on which the king could both be convinced and then publicly convince others of the Society's merits. Aside from sponsoring and approving Coton's preaching, the king held public conversations with Jesuits. In this context, Henri offered the Jesuits an opportunity to convince him that their rehabilitation posed no insurmountable regulatory problems. Henri discussed with Coton and Armand important topics like the Jesuit constitutions, finances and teaching practices in the very public forum of the king's dinner table, and pronounced his satisfaction with the Society in front of those present.55 These public discussions were augmented by private conversations initiated by Henri. For instance, in mid-July Coton reported that after dinner the king took him by the hand and led him to the king's chambers where Henri and Coton spoke in private.56 These conversations advertised the king's increasing interest in the Jesuits while at the same time obscured the king's full knowledge of the Jesuits from the public's gaze. Finally, Henri used public discussions to advertise his increasing goodwill. For example, Coton wrote that The King spoke to us on a number of occasions at the Tuilleries, before and after mass ... and

53 ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33: Coton to Baltazar, 24 June 1603. See also ARSI Galliae 94, fo 9: Armand to Acquaviva, 22 June 1603. For more about Coton's preaching obligations see ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33v°: Coton to Baltazar, 3 July 1603. 54 Q. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy ofHobbes (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 120-127. For more on the Jesuit school of rhetoric which Coton drew upon see M. Fumaroli, L 'Age de l'éloquence (Geneva, 1980), pp. 257-264. 55 ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33: Coton to Baltazar, 24 June 1603. 56 ARSI Galliae 64, fo 34v°: Coton to Baltazar, 23 July 1603.

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always with much goodwill: one time notably he spoke with us for more than onehalf hour, in the presence of the principal members of his court and Paris'.57 Henri's interactions with the Jesuits at court provided a forum in which he publicly expressed a change in his personal opinion of the Society. At the same time, the exact reasoning why Henri warmed to the Society remained outside the comprehension of even his closest courtiers. Henri's approach to public decision making in this context bears comparison to the Baroque style of government pursued by his successors during the seventeenth century. Henri sought through his actions at court to express his personal interest in the Jesuits and to offer signs or signals of an imminent change in royal policy. However, he carefully hid from view the full reasoning behind the decision, which in any case relied on royal judgment and lay beyond the comprehension of his observers. Henri's courtiers were quick to notice and act upon Henri's actions. By the end of June 1603 Coton reported that 'All the Princes, bishops and seigneurs are affectionate to us and no one in the court dares speak badly of the Jesuits ...'. Coton felt that 'The principal cause was the king himself...'.58 Within a month of the arrival of Armand and Coton at court, Henri started to actively defend the Jesuits from their detractors, thereby signalling a change in royal judgment rather than just a general interest in the Society. In doing so Henri used the theatrical nature of his interactions at court to personally promote and defend the Society. For instance, in front of a large crowd at court the king asked a Huguenot woman why she had not attended Coton's sermon at Monceaux. When she responded that she was not able to accommodate herself to the Jesuits, Henri replied 'Neither was I before what I learned of them but I have very much changed and [have had] a high opinion and affection for them since; when you get to know them you will become like me'.59 Coton also recorded that when a group of gentlemen spoke badly of the Jesuits within earshot of the king he criticized them: 'Silence-you, ... you speak with animosity and without knowledge of them'.60 Coton's observations reveal that Henri sought to display a change in royal judgment to members of his court through these public defences of the Society.

57

ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33 : Coton to Baltazar, 24 June 1603. For more examples see ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33v°: Coton to Baltazar, 3 July 1603; ARSI Galliae 64, fo 34-34v°: Coton to Baltazar, 18 July 1603. 58 ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33: Coton to Baltazar, 24 June 1603. 59 ARSI Galliae 64, fo 34: Coton to Baltazar, 18 July 1603. 60 ARSI Galliae 64, fo 34: Coton to Baltazar, 18 July 1603.

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Once again Henri used a distinctly Baroque conception of how monarchs communicated decisions in these individual interactions. Henri's full intentions along with his reasoning remained shrouded in secrecy even as members of his court became increasingly aware of Henri's willingness to defend the Society. In July 1603, Henri actively sought to display a change in royal judgment based upon his unique knowledge of the Jesuits established over the previous month. While Henri's growing knowledge of the Jesuits was clear for all to see, the personal reasoning which inspired his change of judgment remained cloaked in secrecy. For Henri and his advisers his actions at court in June and July provided the basis on which Henri would rehabilitate the Society in France through royal clemency. Henri's personal decision had been informed both by his interactions with Jesuits at court and by his unique comprehension of the issues at stake conferred by his position as the anointed first son of the Catholic church and Clovis's successor.61 This was a powerful combination of knowledge and authority that was difficult to directly question, because the inspiration behind his judgment came from his special understanding of the situation drawn from his access to the arcana imperil of monarchy ,62 Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully and important Huguenot member of Henri's royal council, made this precise point well when he noted in his (Economies royallés that, as a member of the king's council, he viewed the decision to rehabilitate the Jesuits as beyond his comprehension: I will say to you that in matters of Religion no men are my oracles, but only the word of God, no more than in political affairs and affairs of State I no longer have any [oracle] than the will of the king; of which I wish to be well informed before I conclude anything on an affair of such importance and subject of a variety of considerations ,...63

61

For a discussion of the theoretical powers granted to a French king through his coronation see J. Le Goff, 'Reims, City of Coronation', in P. Nora (éd.), Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past (New York, 1998), iii, 193-251. 62 Michael Wolfe argues that Henri IV used a similar combination of knowledge and judgment to promote his return to the Catholic faith, see Wolfe, Conversion, pp. 115-191. Denis Crouzet has argued that Henri IV actively tried to promote his image as 'king of reason' throughout his reign, see D. Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu: la violence au temps des troubles de religion vers 1525-vers 1610 (Paris, 1990), ii, 541-619. 63 M. de Béthune, duc de Sully, Mémoires des sages et royallés œconomies d'estât ...de Henry le Grand ... (Amsterdam, 1640), ii, 293 [sic].

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In this statement Sully deliberately juxtaposed the word of God on matters of faith with the word of the monarch on affairs of state. For Sully both remained inscrutable as he rejected human interpretation of the scripture and human interpretation of royal judgment. In Sully's thinking, even Henri's closest advisers were unable to pass judgment on the king's decisions and were merely depositories of the king's pronouncements that came from his inscrutable will. In the summer of 1603, Henri used the stage at court to define and assert a conception of royal authority and royal judgment through which he wished to secure the Society's return: a conception of authority and judgment which also had important implications for the drafting of a formal edict defining their return. On 1 September 1603 Henri IV promulgated the Edict of Rouen, which translated his personal judgment and personal goodwill towards the Jesuits into a formal decree that redefined the Society's legal standing in France. The Edict consisted of a preamble in which Henri sanctioned a limited rehabilitation for the Jesuits in France and a series of nine articles through which he provided the framework for a potentially very strict regulatory regime for the Society's participation in the French church.64 In the preamble, Henri confirmed the Society's legal right to operate its current foundations in the south and west of the kingdom. The preamble also sanctioned the reopening of Jesuit colleges in Dijon and Lyon, both of which had shut in 1595 following the Society's expulsion from these regions. Finally, it sanctioned the opening of a new Jesuit college, under royal patronage in La Flèche, a town within the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris from which the Society was officially banished. Through these passages at the opening of the Edict, Henri offered the Jesuits a partial rehabilitation in France that defined a legal standing for their Society in his kingdom. In the nine articles, Henri addressed a number of regulatory and legal concerns voiced by the Society's opponents in the campaign to secure their expulsion in 1594. Thus, Henri in part addressed questions concerning the authority of French institutions to regulate the Society's activities in France by including two articles that placed the Jesuits under the jurisdiction of both his royal courts and the French church hierarchy. Along the same lines he included further articles which regulated the inheritance rights of Jesuits, limited the Society's privileges in France to those

64

ARSI Galliae 61, fos 314-315: Copy of the Edict of Rouen.

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enjoyed by other religious orders, and required that Henri personally approve any further expansion of the Society's foundations in France. Moreover, in response to concerns about the Society's loyalties to foreign powers, Henri included stipulations that required that Jesuits working in France be French citizens and that every Jesuit take an oath of loyalty to the monarch upon entry into a French foundation. This final article in particular was designed to address concerns that the Society's loyalties lay with the papacy because all full members of the Society took a vow promising obedience to the pope. In theory the Edict of Rouen was just a formality. Royal judgment decided the status of the Jesuits in France and the Edict, which made this judgment official, merely ratified a royal decision. Henri sought to make this very point by starting to implement the Edict in the weeks following its promulgation without waiting for the Parlement of Paris to register it.65 In reality though, Henri and his advisers expected opposition from erudite Gallican magistrates to this important assertion of Henri's conception of royal authority. Thus, they carefully drafted an Edict that both advanced Henri's wider campaign to secure his assertion of royal judgment and helped to secure the registration of the Edict by recognizing a number of legal and regulatory concerns of the Society's opponents. With reference to Henri's assertion of authority within the French church, the Edict of Rouen advanced a similar assertion of authority to make decisions for the Gallican church that Henri had asserted in 1598 through the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes. In both cases he used claims to an uniquely comprehensive perspective on the situation to justify his decisions.66 Moreover, he also issued a formal Edict granting these groups specific privileges within his kingdom that defined their positions vis-a-vis existing corporations but also made the king the explicit guarantor of their privileges and the principal source of any further privileges. Through these formal agreements, Henri sought to re-establish himself and his successors in a central position as arbiters of disputes within the French church. Moreover, he sought to expand on

65

Henri's effort to convince the Jesuits in France to immediately begin implementing the conditions of the Edict paid dividends, see ARSI Galliae 61, fo 379: Maggio to fathers provincial in the kingdom of France, 3 October 1603. Henri encouraged the Society to actively implement the Edict by offering it the right to open two more colleges before the Parlement of Paris registered the Edict, see ARSI Galliae 94, fos 28-29: Armand to Maggio, 3 September 1603. For the king's determination to begin work on the college at La Flèche see ARSI Galliae 61, fo 378: Coton to Maggio, 4 September 1603. See also ARSI Galliae 61, fos 151-171: Dossier on the re-establishment of the Jesuits in France. 66 Cottret, 1598, pp. 209-212.

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traditional ideas about royal authority by making claims about his personal judgment that redefined traditional sacred royal attributes. It was these assertions of royal authority that redefined the Society's presence in the kingdom. Nevertheless, the carefully crafted stipulations of the Edict also sought to limit opposition to Henri's assertion of authority by collectively defining only a partial rehabilitation of the Jesuits under the strict legal and regulatory supervision of French authorities. In the Edict of Rouen, Henri offered the Society a pardon rather than an exoneration for their past actions. This allowed Henri to rehabilitate the Jesuits through his personal grâce while at the same time requiring the Society to accept strict royal and French ecclesiastical supervision of their activities to ensure their loyal conduct in the future. In the Edict, Henri addressed several of the legal and regulatory issues raised by the Society's opponents since the first effort to secure legal recognition of the Society in France during the early 1550s. Thus, through the nine articles, Henri sought to address issues raised by his Parlement of Paris and members of the French church which legitimately fell within their jurisdictions and competencies by defining an important role for his courts and church institutions in regulating the Jesuits. However, Henri granted these concessions through his own judgment and not through any conception of public counsel or public authority as advocated by erudite Gallicans. Thus, while Henri proved responsive in his Edict to specific concerns of his courts and church institutions, he was careful to maintain his conception of royal justice and royal decision making which included an implicit rejection of erudite Gallican theories of royal authority. Moreover, he also defined the strict regulatory regime in the Edict as ultimately contingent on his personal judgment when he placed clauses in a number of articles, including the article concerned with the opening of further Jesuit colleges, that made limitations on Jesuit activities contingent on his will.67 From the summer of 1599 Henri and his advisers had carefully defined the Society's return as completely within the realm of royal judgment. Henri sought to use unquestionable royal authority, operating not through politics but a neo-stoic conception of royal grâce, to justify the rehabilitation of the Jesuits. As part of this initiative Henri carefully limited the number of formal opportunities for the jurists

67

See, for instance, the article concerning the presence of foreign Jesuits and the article concerned with the opening of new Jesuit colleges in France, ARSI Galliae 61, fo 314: Copy of the Edict of Rouen.

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of his Parlement of Paris to express their opposition to the Jesuits, and thus pamphlet literature produced by important French jurists between 1602 and 1604 provide the most complete account of their objections before the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen.68 It was through these tracts that a number of erudite Gallican jurists asserted an alternative conception of how royal judgment operated in public decision making. In these tracts, they emphasized the traditional role of public counsel and the public operation of royal justice in mediating the public actions of the monarchy. Two lines of argument dominated the anti-Jesuit polemic of the period.69 First, many opponents of the Society offered their own public counsel to the king and his advisers concerning problems surrounding the rehabilitation of the Jesuits. These tracts in effect questioned whether any regulatory framework devised by the king could protect French institutions and French society from the Jesuits. Second, some critics questioned Henri's use of clemency to justify the Society's rehabilitation because it undermined the strict enforcement of justice in his kingdom by overruling the legitimate conviction of the Jesuits by the Parlement of Paris for breaking French fundamental law. This issue lay at the heart of the controversy as, since 1594, the symbolic punishment of the Jesuits had played an important role for erudite Gallicans in establishing the justice of Henri's wider policy of clemency. The jurists associated with the Parlement of Paris who had secured the expulsion of the Society from their jurisdiction in 1594 proved the most vocal opponents of the Society's return. Le Catéchisme des lesvites, written by Etienne Pasquier - an avocat at the Parlement, leading erudite scholar and long-standing opponent of the Jesuits - was perhaps the single most influential tract produced during the period.70 Pasquier, who first published this text in 1602, sought through the Catéchisme to expand his plaidoyer against the Jesuits, first published in 1594, by including detailed critiques of the Society's constitutions and organization along with lengthy accounts of alleged Jesuit misdeeds. Pasquier wrote this encyclopaedic tract at the same moment that Henri and his councillors defined the

68 Henri only consulted his Parlement once — and even then informally — concerning the Society's rehabilitation, see ARSI Galliae 61, fo 172-172v°: Copy of the minutes of the meeting between Villeroy, Bellièvre and a delegation from the Parlement of Paris, January 1600. 69 For the monarchy's awareness of the opposition and their arguments see AMAE CP Rome 18, fos 413v°-414: Henri IV to Brèves, 14 October 1599. 70 E. Pasquier, Le Catéchisme des lesvites: ov examen de levr doctrine (Ville-Franche, 1602).

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conditions for the Society's return. His disparate accusations shared the same collective purpose: to explain why the monarch could not construct a legal framework that would succeed in regulating the Society in France. Thus, Pasquier's work argued that, while Henri possessed the theoretical authority to define the Society's legal status in France through his clemency, he could not in reality do so when he became aware - as his courts, church institutions and the University of Paris had - that the Jesuits were too subversive both in their organization and in their activities to be safely regulated. In the Catéchisme, Pasquier participated in the tradition of offering public counsel to his monarch on an issue with legal ramifications. Most anti-Jesuit pamphlets published during this period echo Pasquier's message and purpose. However, several other tracts also question Henri's use of the royal attribute of clemency, a topic absent from Pasquier's tract but essential for understanding opposition to the Edict.71 No one writing during this period denied that Henri possessed this attribute, but several of the most vehement anti-Jesuit polemicists did question Henri's judgment in using his clemency to rehabilitiate the Society in a way reminiscent of the questions surrounding Henri's pardons granted to former Leaguers after his abrogation of the Protestant faith in 1593. Le Franc et véritable discours au roi Henri IV, written by another leading erudite Gallican avocat at the Parlement of Paris, Antoine Arnauld, addressed this theme in detail.72 As in Pasquier's Catéchisme, Arnauld's tract recounted numerous examples of Jesuit subversion; and, indeed, he drew a number of his arguments from his earlier plaidoyer in favour of the Jesuit expulsion in 1594. Nevertheless, his rhetorical purpose and approach were very different in this later work. Arnauld no longer called loyal magistrates to action as he had in 1594 but rather took the king as his audience. The word Franc in the title emphasized that Arnauld intended to participate in the tradition of public counsel which required loyal subjects to offer unpleasant advice to their monarch for the sake of the king's well being. Arnauld's change of focus was an important indication of the king's success in reviving the

71 A. Arnauld, Le Franc et véritable discours au roi Henri IV. Sur le rétablissement des Jésuites, 1602, reprinted in J.A. Gazaignes (éd.), Annales de la société des soi-disans Jésuites; ou recueil historiquechronologique (Paris, 1764), i, 661-695. See also Prosopopee de la Pyramide du Palais (n.pl., n.d.); Complainte av Roy sur la pyramide (n.pl., n.d.); La Sibille française, ov dernière remonstrance au roy (Ville-Franche, 1602). 72 Arnauld, Franc, passim.

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monarch's role in these events. However, the reason that Henri had become the centre of the polemic was that the issue had also changed. As in 1594, the polemicists still rejected any Jesuit presence in France, but in 1603 these writers perceived the most serious threat to the enforcement of the banishment arrêt to be the ill-informed or misconceived use of royal authority. In effect, Arnauld questioned whether the king's clemency was an inscrutable attribute of the royal mystique or whether clemency in part operated through public counsel and the public operation of justice through his parlements. Arnauld asserted in no uncertain terms that the king should fully enforce the Parlement of Paris's 1594 expulsion arrêt: It is just, SIRE, that the Arrests of your Parlement, of your great Parlement, of the Parlement of France, are executed in France. In this lay the principal strength [force] of your State. Who is thus the one who counsels you, SIRE, to cut your own right arm from your body? In effect, under borrowed names it is King Philip who desires it, who pursues it, who wishes it.73

In this passage Arnauld expressed the central theme of his work; Henri's enforcement of the Parlement's arrêts provided the surest means to re-establish law and order in France. To undermine the work of his Parlement could only advance his enemy's designs. In this passage, Arnauld rejected Henri's exclusive claims to comprehensive knowledge on two levels. First, he implied that pro-Spanish advisers lay behind the royal judgment. In making this assertion Arnauld effectively argued that Henri had been influenced by his advisers rather than inspired by his personal knowledge and inscrutable judgment. Second, Arnauld implied that the Parlement also possessed special judgment by maintaining a clear separation between the king's personal and public bodies. In doing so Arnauld granted the parlements both a corporal and symbolic role as a part of the king's public body. Thus, Arnauld drew on long-established rhetorical and theoretical traditions when he described the Parlement of Paris as the king's right arm. In making this allusion he symbolically gave the Parlement a link to the king's judgment - represented in the king's public body - in a manner reminiscent of late medieval theorists.74

73

Arnauld, Franc, p. 693. In this passage 'King Philip' refers to Philip II of Spain. For more on medieval conceptions of the king's two bodies see the classic study E. Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957). See also J. Krynen, L 'Empire du roi. Idées et croyances politiques en France XHe-XVe siècle (Paris, 1993). 74

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Arnauld rejected Henri's effort to blur personal and public decision making. Arnauld implied that Henri's assertions of authority were innovations when he noted that Henri's predecessors, who also possessed the royal attributes which Henri claimed, never disregarded the arrêts of their parlements: Therefore it is just, Your Majesty, it is very-just to have the Arrêts handed down by your Parlement enforced; it is justice itself. We cannot be misled in following this great path; a path laid out by all your Ancestors, who have been more jealous in enforcing the Arrêts of their Parlement, than anything else in this world.73

According to Arnauld, to revoke the arrêt against the Society was to reject a longstanding royal tradition of following the advice and upholding the arrêts of the king's chief legal advisers in the Parlement of Paris.76 In other words, Arnauld argued that the public operation of royal justice and the public counsel of French institutions traditionally had a role to play in the execution of royal justice; and, in Arnauld's opinion, Henri was disregarding this advice in his decision to rehabilitate the Jesuits. Arnauld's tract expressed the fear of many jurists and royal officials that their king's misuse of clemency subverted the Parlement of Paris's effort to secure peace by strictly enforcing French law and regulating traditional French rights and privileges. Printed tracts during this period showed particular concern for Henri IV's use of the royal attribute of clemency. Arnauld perhaps most eloquently argued this point in his tract when he drew on erudite Gallican learning and rhetoric to cite examples from Roman history and Greek myth that warned Henri against listening to the seductive speeches of his enemies who asked for clemency. Arnauld argued that while clemency was always laudable when accompanied with judgment, it was not a virtue at all without judgment.77 A number of other tracts also expressed concerns over this same issue. The anonymous tract La Sibille française, ov dernière remonstrance au roy did not shy away from arguing that Henri IV's over-clement disposition could be dangerous for the nation: And flatterers call upon your clemency, It is to better deceive you, the worst men,

75 76 77

Arnauld, frawc, p. 681. Arnauld, Franc, p. 678. Arnauld, Franc, p. 687.

84

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Moreover, the anonymous tract Prosopopee de la Pyramide du Palais, argued that Henri had to use clemency in moderation: blaming you for too much clemency is praising you for a great virtue; that is if it is not too great. Clemency has its limits, like any other virtue: and although a man is never too virtuous, he can nevertheless often be too clement, besides forgiving the wicked too much, may be harmful to the good ,...79

For many erudite Gallicans and their supporters, the king's misuse of clemency threatened to undermine the enforcement of French law and with it peace in the kingdom. Thus, in 1603 a number of erudite Gallican polemicists questioned Henri's use of clemency, as they had in the early 1590s when similar concerns led magistrates to secure the Society's expulsion in order to address Henri's policy of pardoning his Leaguer opponents. These polemicists advocated an older conception of royal decision making that was mediated by public counsel from groups which embodied the laws and customs of the realm. In doing so they rejected Henri's assertion that his personal judgment made the reasoning behind his decision inscrutable. Instead they argued that Henri was misled by other advisers. Thus, these Jesuit opponents found themselves in the awkward position of scrutinizing an assertion of royal authority which Henri maintained was beyond their competency and comprehension. By the summer of 1603, Henri and his advisers were well aware of the opposition to royal policy expressed in the pamphlet literature. While they refused to moderate claims to inscrutable royal authority over the issue drawn from personal royal judgment, Henri used the flexibility inherent in a royal pardon to include two major concessions in the Edict of Rouen that acknowledged, in part, the objections of his jurists. The first addressed the public concern amongst his magistrates that the recall of the Society would undermine the authority of the Parlement of Paris's arrêts and, particularly, the enforcement of the law against

78 79

LaSibille,p.l. Prosopopee, pp. 5-6.

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regicide.80 In the Edict, Henri sought to assuage this concern by accepting the validity of the Parlement's original expulsion decree of 1594. The Edict did not exonerate the Society nor consign its past transgression to oblivion; rather Henri through his clemency forgave the Society for its past misdeeds. Thus, in the Edict, Henri maintained a careful balance between the assertion of royal authority and respect for the strict enforcement of French law symbolized by the Parlement's arrêt against Jean Chastel. Henri used the Society's guilt implied in his failure to overturn the expulsion arrêt as the basis for a second set of stipulations designed to address the concerns of his jurists in the Parlement. Many of the stipulations in the Edict required the Jesuits to accept regulation by French royal officers and French church authorities as a safeguard designed to thwart any further subversive actions by the Society. Through these stipulations, Henri explicitly recognized the role of his parlements in protecting the privileges of other French interests from encroachments by the Society and the right of bishops to decide what activities the Society could undertake in their dioceses. Thus, Henri attempted to address the assertion that no one could regulate the Jesuits in the kingdom by defining a strict set of provisions that limited their participation in France and granted oversight of their ministries to French institutions. Henri and his advisers included these conditions, which softened the legal implications of his decision. However, they did not negotiate with the Parlement of Paris concerning the authority on which Henri justified taking action. The Parlement only had an advisory role, and thus negotiations were unnecessary. As Henri noted in 1599 in a letter to his ambassador in Rome, Jean Savary, sieur de Brèves: I am going to Paris specially to confer about this topic [the Society's rehabilitation] with those of the Parlement, because although such grâce should have to come from me, nevertheless I want to hear their opinion, in order that they will not have occasion to complain that I failed to show the same care that they showed me and my authority in this matter, and also I want to have things done with more consideration and balance.81

80

AMAE CP Rome 18, fos 413v°-414: Henri IV to Brèves, 14 October 1599. AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 408-408v°: Henri IV to Brèves, 18 September 1599. See also AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 414: Henri IV to Brèves, 14 October 1599. 81

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Henri had no doubt that the 'grace' which would secure the Jesuits' return emanated from his person alone. In this statement Henri highlighted his role as the protector and interpreter of the public good in France with unique access to an infallible judgment. He contrasted his comprehensive authority with the Parlement of Paris's competence to advise the king only on questions of law. Despite the king's efforts to address some of the issues raised by his magistrates over Jesuit privileges and the regulation of the Order, strong opposition to the king's initiative formed in French legal circles from 1599 centred on the broader question of personal judgment defining public policy.82 While both the king and his magistrates established increasingly well-defined positions on the Society's rehabilitation from 1599, only the requirement in late 1603 that the Parlement of Paris register the Edict of Rouen for it to possess full legal status produced an open confrontation between the king and his jurists. When the Parlement of Paris reconvened from its autumn recess in early November 1603 the magistrates were well acquainted with the arguments put forth in the pamphlet literature. The parlementaires were also aware of Henri's promulgation of the Edict of Rouen on 1 September 1603 and the royal favour that the king had shown and continued to show to the Society. From the outset Henri IV defined the issue of the Parlement of Paris's registration of the Edict as a question of his authority over the church: an authority that the pamphlet polemicists granted the king in principle if not in practice. Thus, through messengers and meetings with its officers, the king steadily increased the pressure on the Parlement to register the Edict without delay or remonstrance.83 The king's message was consistent. His personal judgment, based on careful consideration of the attributes of the Society of Jesus, was legally and politically sound. Only the king could rise above the haze of prejudice at the end of the religious wars to provide unbiased judgment concerning the Society's presence in his kingdom. On a more subtle level, Henri's rhetoric implied that to question his judgment on the Jesuits was to question his judgment on other Leaguer enemies recently pardoned and, indeed, his own conversion. Neither the concessions included in the Edict nor Henri's personal pressure succeeded in silencing

82

AMAE CP Rome 18, fo 413v°: Henri IV to Brèves, 14 October 1599. BN MS Fr 15781, fo 315-315v°: Dossier on the Jesuit re-entry into France. For an example see AN Xla 1795, fos 261v°-262: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 20 December 1603. 83

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opponents in the Parlement, and it became clear that many magistrates, chief among them premier président Achille de Harlay, continued to oppose the king's initiative. On 22 December 1603 the Parlement considered the Edict in committee and voted to present remonstrances to the king as was their traditional right and duty.84 This formal opposition to the royal will led to Henri's formal defence of the Jesuits and his own authority. Henri IV's decision to call representatives of his Parlement of Paris before him in the Louvre on 24 December 1603 to give their remonstrances set the stage for one of the most dramatic scenes in the post-League assertion of royal authority over the church. Harlay, in his role as premier président, stood before the king to fulfil one of the Parlement's most important functions: to publicly counsel the king on the legality of a new edict. In this role, Harlay could call upon the long-established tradition that the Parlement was uniquely able to provide public counsel to the king on matters pertaining to French law.85 Harlay's carefully constructed oration framed the Parlement's concerns strictly in terms of legal issues. Nevertheless, it also reflected the wider concerns expressed in the anti-Jesuit literature since 1602 over the nature of royal authority and the role of public counsel in public decision making. Thus, Harlay moved beyond legal objections to the registration of the Edict of Rouen to warn the king against rejecting the counsel of French institutions and the just punishment of an organization guilty of lese-majesty in France. Harlay opened with and then continued to emphasize his central objection: that the Jesuits had been consistently opposed by important French institutions like the Parlement since their first arrival in the kingdom. Harlay justified the Parlement's reason for rejecting the Society as a concern to protect the authority and safety of the monarchy: 'we have judged [it] important for the good of your affairs and for the public safety which depends on your conservation ...\86 Using a series of wellestablished arguments, Harlay asserted that these traditional royal advisers had every reason to declare their opposition because the Jesuits had clearly plotted against French monarchs and the public good as the Society's ongoing support of

84

BN MS Fr 15781, fo 316-316v°: Dossier on the Jesuit re-entry into France. For more on the duty of the Parlement of Paris to present remonstrances see N.L. Roelker, One King, One Faith: The Parlement of Paris and the Religious Reformations of the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley, 1996), pp. 67-91. 86 A. de Harlay, 'Les Remonstrances sur le restablissement des soy disants Jesuistes', R. Couzard and A. Chamberland (eds), Revue Henri IV, 2 (1909), 246. 85

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tyrannicide proved.87 He concluded this line of argument with the simple assertion that 'They wish to subvert the foundations of your power and your royal authority'.88 The safety of Henri IV was the chief concern of all good Frenchmen. Peace could only be maintained through a strong monarch so the Parlement's opposition to the subversive and dangerous influence of the Jesuits was wellwarranted in terms of its own responsibility to advise the crown. But underneath these arguments lay a deeper objection, that Henri was ignoring the long-standing and uniform advice of traditional counsellors. Harlay asserted that the experience of French institutions since the 1550s had shown that the Society of Jesus could not be regulated in France for two reasons. First, the Society's organization and their beliefs ran counter to French customs and law. Second, the presence of the Society impinged on the rights and privileges of already established French institutions. The rejection of the Jesuits was nothing new. Harlay argued that the impossibility of integrating the Jesuits into French society had long been recognized by important French institutions who uniformly advised against their establishment in the mid-sixteenth century and continued to oppose their presence in the seventeenth century.89 While Harlay asserted with conviction that loyal French institutions were right to remind the king of the implicit dangers of allowing such a subversive organization to return, he avoided making any claim that the king's advisers in the Parlement of Paris had a right of veto over the king's will. In his conclusion, Harlay noted the personal nature of royal justice when he stated: 'Sire you are a King and a great King, who decides better what is just than all of your subjects taken together; your speech is justice itself.90 This comment echoed the assertion in August of the royal councillor Sully when he deferred judgment over the Jesuits to the king. But, unlike Sully, Harlay also made clear that it was not appropriate for a king to ignore such universally strong counsel against the Jesuits. Thus, after making such a powerful theoretical statement on the personal nature of royal justice, he noted in his very next sentence that French monarchs had long chosen to dispense justice only after receiving the remonstrances of their parlements, and that Henri's predecessors chose 'to regulate the affairs of justice by their {parlements'] counsel, 87 88 89 90

Harlay, 'Les Remonstrances', p. 248. Harlay, 'Les Remonstrances', p. 248. For these general points see Harlay, 'Les Remonstrances', pp. 246-256. Harlay, 'Les Remonstrances', p. 255.

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and although they were able to use absolute power nevertheless they had always chosen not to for this reason and reduced their will to the civility of the laws'.91 According to Harlay, royal action was best accomplished after receiving public counsel, and the king best enforced justice by supporting his parlements, not by overruling them. Thus, Harlay's oration opposed the king's initiative. In his oration, Harlay in effect questioned the wisdom and judgment of the monarch if he chose to press ahead with the rehabilitation of the Society despite uniform advice against such an action from his loyal magistrates and other advisers. For Harlay and his supporters, Henri had the authority to decree the Society's return, but Henri could not address the pressing legal concerns over regulation raised by his jurists. Some supporters of the Society who were present at the encounter feared that Harlay's eloquent speech had moved the king.92 However, Henri's verbal reply revealed his determination to defend his new conception of royal authority. Thus, in his response to his premier president's remonstrances, Henri emphasized both his jurists' limited, strictly legal, understanding of the Jesuit affair and his unique ability to make a judgment on this issue for his kingdom which balanced all competing interests. Henri opened his response by asserting this distinction in forceful terms: I am most grateful to you for the care you have for my person and my state, even though in the past you have shown remarkably little concern for the latter and still less for the former. I am perfectly aware of what goes on in your minds, though you are not aware of what I am thinking. You have laid before me what seem to you great and considerable difficulties without pausing to consider that everything you have said has been pondered and considered by me; some eight or nine years ago [through the expulsion of the Jesuits] you tried to display your statesmanship, but you had no more idea than I how to bring a case [in the Parlement].93

This powerful piece of rhetoric on the king's public role and responsibilities rejected the political and consultative decision making which Harlay had upheld in his remonstrances. Henri respected the Parlement's duty to advise the king, but its partial understanding of the issue was the central theme of this statement. The

91

Harlay, 'Les Remonstrances', p. 255. BN MS Fr 2761, fos 105v°-106: Dossier on the Jesuit re-entry into France. BN MS Fr 2761, fo 108: Response of Henri IV to the remonstrances of premier président Achille de Harlay, 24 December 1603. This translation is taken from R. Mousnier, The Assassination of Henri IV (New York, 1973), p. 370. This book was translated from French into English by Joan Spencer. 92

93

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Parlement was only able to advise the king on the legal implications of the Society's return, and Henri asserted that the Jesuit return was much more than a strictly legal question. In opposition to the Parlement's partial knowledge was Henri IVs authority to speak for a form of the general will.94 Thus, the king emphasized this confounding of his personal and public bodies as King of France through references to thoughts and considerations in his head. Henri asserted that only he had the comprehensive knowledge to balance the partial interest and particular concerns of different groups in France. The Parlement's advice dealt only with legal considerations; but, despite the arguments of erudite Gallicans, Henri asserted that the strict definition and enforcement of the law was not always the best course of action for the maintenance of his realm. Only the king had the authority and ability to judge what was appropriate for the kingdom as a whole. Henri's statement was an important assertion of his understanding of aspects of royal authority and the royal mystique first established in late medieval French political thought. Following this powerful statement of royal authority, Henri then devoted a majority of his speech to establishing his personal knowledge of the Society, which Henri and his advisers had advertised months earlier through his interactions with Jesuits at his court. Henri systematically rejected Harlay's accusations against the Jesuits by questioning the fundamental premise behind their expulsion in 1594: that the Jesuits were peculiarly dangerous and ambitious leaders of the League. Indeed, Henri played down Jesuit involvement by asserting that the Jesuits participated in the League 'with less bad faith than the others'.95 His purpose in rebutting Harlay's attacks on the Jesuits point by point was to display his own knowledge of the issues and to assert that the Parlement's interpretation was not the only one. The king implied that the Parlement lacked the dispassionate view which only he enjoyed. Moreover, he was not afraid to question the motives of his French advisers when, for instance, he rhetorically asked whether it might not be the case that the University of Paris rejected the Jesuits 'out of jealousy'?96 Once again Henri 94 For more on the king's ability to speak for the 'general will' see E. Meiksins Wood, 'The State and Popular Sovereignty in French Political Thought: A Genealogy of Rousseau's "General Will'", History of Political Thought, 4 (1983), 281-315. 95 BN MS Fr 2761, fo 109: Response of Henri IV to the remonstrances of \h.z premier président Achille de Harlay, 24 December 1603. 96 BN MS Fr 2761, fo 108v°: Response of Henri IV to the remonstrances of'the premier président Achille de Harlay, 24 December 1603.

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emphasized the public aspects of his persona as King of France in order to assert that his will transcended singular or selfish interests. Henri's knowledge of the issue was just one theme in his rebuttal. He also asserted that the royal justice, which flowed directly from his person, was based on forgiveness and grâce, unlike his magistrates' understanding of justice, which focused strictly on punishment and law. Henri forcefully made this point at the conclusion of his rebuttal when he contrasted his motives in pardoning the Jesuits to his Parlement's motives in maintaining their exclusion: ... God used the incident [the Chastel assassination attempt] to humiliate and then save me, and I give him thanks for it. He teaches me to forgive injuries and I do so gladly for love of Him, indeed I actually pray to God daily for my enemies, rather than trying to remember the evil they do me, as you beg me to do in a most unchristian manner, for which I certainly do not thank you. We all need the grace of God. I should be happy to accept it at such a small price as not to be deprived of my own. 97

In this passage Henri defined his rehabilitation of the Jesuits as an act of forgiveness in the tradition of Jesus's teachings. Henri's comparison of royal justice to the grâce and forgiveness that lay at the heart Jesus's sacrifice on the cross emphasized that his decision to pardon the Jesuits lay outside the full comprehension of his magistrates in a manner not dissimilar to God's decision to save mankind despite their sinfulness. Henri drove this point home when he compared his decision to grant clemency with the advice of his magistrates who encouraged him to neglect Christ's teachings in order to punish his enemies. In this passage, Henri separated the justice offered by the king from that enforced by his magistrates. Henri asserted that, through his anointment as King of France, he possessed access to justice that went beyond the mere enforcement of law; and that his magistrates, by their counsel, made it clear that they were only capable of enforcing the written law of the kingdom - a system of justice more in tune to the Old than the New Testament. For Henri the acceptance or rejection of the Society of Jesus had always been in the monarch's hands:

97 BN MS Fr. 2761, fo 111 : Response of Henri IV to the remonstrances of the premier président Achille de Harlay, 24 December 1603. This translation is taken from Mousnier, Assassination, p. 373. This book was translated from French into English by Joan Spencer.

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THE JESUITS AND THE MONARCHY If they were in France only on sufferance, then God has allowed me the privilege of establishing them now; if they were here on a purely provisional basis they will henceforward be here by decree and edict. It was the wish of my predecessors to keep them in France and it is my wish to establish them here.98

In this statement Henri IV stressed his royal prerogative in such matters. But, as his emphasis on 'by decree and edict' implied, Henri was doing more than asserting his prerogative, he was ordering his magistrates to establish a public legal standing for his personal judgment by registering it. The king returned in his closing to the question of his will and prerogative to emphasize that the time for remonstrances was over and that his mind was settled: *I shall find out all I wish about them and shall tell them only such details as I wish. Let me handle and manage this company as I wish. I have successfully mastered much more recalcitrant people than these; therefore I order you to do as I say'.99 For Harlay and other members of the Parlement, Henri's response must have sounded very familiar. On 7 January 1599, Henri had initiated another meeting at the Louvre where he had asserted a similar interpretation of his authority during his effort to secure the registration of the Edict of Nantes.100 Both the registration of the Edict of Nantes and of the Edict of Rouen lay at the heart of Henri's effort to make decisions for the Gallican church following the collapse of the Catholic League. Indeed, his rehabilitation of the Jesuits drew on many of the same ideas about the comprehensive knowledge of kings and the inscrutability of royal authority which Henri had asserted in his campaign to secure the registration of the Edict of Nantes in 1599. However, in 1599 Henri included throughout his speech barely veiled threats to use force if he did not obtain obedience through persuasion. Central to this line of argument was his assertion of the righteousness of any action he took to secure obedience. He contrasted his effort to play the role of the father with the possibility that, if his magistrates proved recalcitrant, he would have to use his prerogative as the King of France to force the registration of the Edict of Nantes

98 BN MS Fr 2761, fo 108v°: Response of Henri IV to the remonstrances of the premier président Achille de Harlay, 24 December 1603. This translation is taken from Mousnier, Assassination, p. 370. This book was translated from French into English by Joan Spencer. 99 BN MS Fr 2761, fo 111 v°: Response of Henri IV to the remonstrances of ihe premier président Achille de Harlay, 24 December 1603. This translation is taken from Mousnier, Assassination, p. 373. This book was translated from French into English by Joan Spencer. 100 For a transcription of this speech see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, pp. 334-337.

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through a formal lit de justice ceremony at the Parlement.101 Henri sought in his interview with his Parlement on 24 December 1603 to secure registration of the Edict of Rouen without an explicit threat to use force; however, continued opposition by the Parlement did ultimately bring threats of action from the king. Despite Henri's personal response several opponents of the Society remained unconvinced by the king's arguments. These officials, led by two avocats du roi, Louis Servin and Simon Marion, accepted Henri's determination to sanction the Society's return but sought to secure further restrictions on the Society's activités in France, including only a temporary right to return at least initially and a complete separation between the Society's French mission and their Roman headquarters.102 The first requested restriction limited the legal right of the Society to operate permanently in the kingdom, and the second addressed an increasingly important concern over the interference of foreign ecclesiastical authorities in the affairs of the French church.103 In requesting these alterations, the Society's opponents effectively conceded that the Edict of Rouen would become law but sought to further limit the Society's legal standing in France. Henri 'for the common satisfaction of all' sanctioned a final meeting to hear these remonstrances.104 But after the meeting Henri signalled an end to his patience when one report recounts: The King came out of his private chamber and bitterly rebuked them concerning their disobedience[,] reproaching them both for their natural and learned imperfections that each individual knew quite well[,] saying that they had several books but they had not yet studied well enough the ones concerning experience and disobedience[,] that he kept the first for himself and left the second to them ,...105

Henri pressed home his will by threatening to remove some magistrates from their offices and replace them with 'others who will be more useful and more obedient to me'.106 Through this threat, Henri returned to another foundation of royal power, which he had not explicitly noted in his speech to his jurists when he pressed for

101

Mousnier, L'Assassinat, p. 336. BN MS Fr 2761, fo 113: Dossier on the Jesuit re-entry into France. 103 For an examination of this general development see M. Armstrong, 'Spiritual Reform, Mendicant Autonomy, and State Formation: French Franciscan Disputes before the Parlement of Paris, 1500-1600', French Historical Studies, 25 (2002), 505-530. 104 BN MS Fr 2761, fo 113: Dossier on the Jesuit re-entry into France. 105 BN MS Fr 2761, fo 113-113v°: Dossier on the Jesuit re-entry into France. 106 BN MS Fr 2761, fo 113v°: Dossier on the Jesuit re-entry into France. 102

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the registration of the Edict of Rouen on 24 December 1603, but he had emphasized when he pressed for the registration of the Edict of Nantes. In doing so Henri drew upon a powerful aspect of royal authority, his right or even duty to take forceful action for the good of his state - a royal coup d'état.101 To take such action, Henri could draw on a tradition which dated back at least to François I, who in the early sixteenth century had made a similar threat to make his Parlement of Paris itinerant - or even to disband it altogether - if it failed to register the Concordat of Bologna.108 François, like Henri, sought through this threat to secure greater royal control over the regulation and operation of the Gallican church. For Henri the successful threat to take arbitrary political action was another important step in establishing obedience to his will following his pacification of France in the 1590s. The peculiar wording of the Parlement of Paris's arrêt on 2 January 1604 through which it registered the Edict of Rouen - indicates that the magistrates had accepted the king's specific assertions of authority to sanction a Jesuit return for the good of his kingdom. The magistrates defended as their duty the attempts to modify the Edict by appealing to their concern for the monarchy, but they also accepted that their concerns had been addressed 'by the mouth of the King'.109 The lengthy registration passage notes that Henri IV had many reasons to allow a Jesuit return and that he had provided stipulations which protected the kingdom by restricting Jesuit participation in the French church. The magistrates of the Parlement of Paris accepted that the king, because of considerations which were not within their remit, had chosen for the good of the kingdom to allow the Jesuits to return despite their public counsel.110 The registration passage makes it clear that many in the Parlement were still not convinced by Henri's reasons, but after having resisted the verification they felt obliged to register the Edict because it was commanded 'from

107

For more on the concept of royal coup d'états see Naudé, Considerations, passim. For an examination of the conflict between François I and the Parlement of Paris over the Concordat of Bologna see R. Doucet, Étude sur le gouvernement de François 1er dans ses rapports avec le Parlement de Paris (Paris, 1921), i, 77-148. 109 BN Dupuy 438, fo 64v°: Extract from the Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 2 January 1604. 110 BN Dupuy 438, fos 65-66: Extract from the Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 2 January 1604. It is interesting to note that the Parlement's registration parallels the concepts offered to justify royal actions in Bellièvre's speech before a delegation from the Parlement of Paris on 1 January 1600, see ARSI Galliae 61, fo 172-172v°: Minutes of the meeting between Villeroy, Bellièvre and a delegation from the Parlement of Paris, January 1600. 108

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the mouth of the king' and thus 'one has only to obey him'.111 Through this arrêt the Parlement reluctantly accepted Henri's conception of royal authority and his ability to make decisions within the church for the public good. The partial expulsion and ultimate rehabilitation of the Jesuits during the reign of Henri IV can only be fully understood in the context of a wider political debate in France over the nature and operation of royal authority. In this struggle the presence of the Jesuits in the kingdom became an important symbolic issue. Thus, the Jesuits were expelled by the Parlement in 1594 in an effort by erudite Gallicans to construct a distinctive political theory about the definition and enforcement of French law as the key guarantor of peace and social order in France. While this assertion ran counter to Henri's own policy of royal douceur towards his opponents, erudite Gallican magistrates secured the Society's expulsion in 1594 aided by a domestic and international political conjuncture. In 1603, through a very different political conjuncture, Henri rehabilitated the Society as part of his effort to regain authority over the French church. In the process of securing the Jesuit return, Henri further deepened and developed a powerful theory of Baroque 'absolute' monarchy which folded-in personal and royal decision making. Thus, the Jesuit presence in France provided the context in which two different conceptions of post-League political theory were defined. The implications of the Society's rehabilitation for the Parlement of Paris were considerable. The registration of the Edict of Rouen established royal authority and also provided a clear assertion of Henri's claim to inscrutable personal judgment over public affairs. Registration of the Edict confirmed that the clemency Henri publicly offered the Jesuits at court was indeed his to grant as the sovereign monarch of France. Moreover, Henri had established his right to transform his personal judgment into public law through the Edict's registration by the Parlement of Paris. Henri's reinterpretation of traditional sacred elements of kingship and his assertion that royal decision making was inscrutable because it was based on personal judgment helped lay the groundwork for a distinctly Baroque style of government which both his son and grandson would draw upon in coming decades. It also created a powerful rival conception of royal authority defined and advanced by the monarch which ran counter to the assertions of erudite Gallicans. 111

BN Dupuy 438, fo 64v°: Extract from the Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 2 January 1604.

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Henri's successful assertion of royal authority also had important implications for the Jesuit presence in France. The registration of the Edict of Rouen provided the Society a fully defined legal status in France for the first time. More importantly, their rehabilitation through a royal pardon based on royal judgment provided the groundwork for a new relationship with the French monarchy. Henri's active defence of the Jesuits and their mission during his struggle with the Parlement of Paris proved more than rhetoric as Henri used this opportunity to establish a close relationship with the Society. Henri's emergence as the Society's most important patron in the kingdom provided the basis for their existence and expansion in France. While the Jesuit hierarchy possessed real concerns about the restrictive stipulations of the Edict, Henri's goodwill, which ultimately defined their presence in France, provided a different context in which the Society of Jesus could construct a new image as a loyal and obedient religious Order within the French church.

CHAPTER THREE

Expansion

In the summer or early autumn of 1610, the Society of Jesus commissioned an engraving of the College of La Flèche both to commemorate the burial of Henri IV's heart in the college chapel and to advertise the Society's continued loyalty to the French monarchy. The engraving draws the viewer's eye from the college's impressive courtyards in the background to the three figures in the central foreground. To the left, Henri IV kneels with the regalia of France on a pillow before him while, to the right, his young son and current king of France, Louis XIII, takes up the same position. Between father and son stands their ancestor Saint Louis through whom the Bourbons traced their claim to the throne. In contrived Baroque style these figures, the symbols between them, and the Latin phrases issuing from their mouths advertise a dual message about the strength of the Bourbon royal line and the ongoing protection and patronage that the Jesuits enjoyed from their Bourbon patrons. By 1610, the close relationship advertised through allegorical figures, symbols and awkwardly worded Latin phrases in the foreground was perhaps even more clearly defined by the College of La Flèche in the background. Since its foundation in 1603, the College of La Flèche provided a clear example of the new relationship between the French Crown and the Jesuits which had been established through their rehabilitation. La Flèche was unmistakably Henri IV's foundation. The Edict of Rouen reflected the importance of this institution to Henri as it specifically stipulated that the Society could open only one new Jesuit educational foundation, the College of La Flèche.1 The siting of this new college in the small town of La Flèche on the lesser Loir river, which had never before supported a Jesuit

1 Henri IV had planned to found a new Jesuit college as part of their rehabilitation since at least 1601, but he had originally planned to found the new college in Vendôme, see ARSI Galliae 93, fo 391 : Maggio to Acquaviva, 22 January 1601.

Figure 5 The College of La Flèche with Louis IX, Henri IV and Louis XIII in the foreground, ca. 1610. (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.)

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foundation, further advanced Henri's purposes as it allowed the king to found a completely new Jesuit college exclusively linked to himself. From the start Henri's enthusiasm for the project was apparent to all. He ordered work to commence on the foundation in early September 1603, several months before the Parlement of Paris formally registered the Edict of Rouen.2 Henri also advertised his support for the project through the size of its endowment. By 1606 Henri had disbursed around 300,000 livres to construct and endow the institution, and by the close of his reign Henri had also secured the revenues of two abbeys - represented in the background of the engraving - to further augment the College's operations.3 Henri's patronage resulted in the construction of a flagship Jesuit college far larger than any other Jesuit institution in France. But Henri ensured that La Flèche was more than just an impressive royal foundation as he actively sought to symbolically link his person and his royal line to the college.4 Thus, Henri donated the chateau in which he was born to house the new foundation and ordered that, following their deaths, both his and his wife's hearts be interred in the college chapel.5 These dramatic gestures of royal affection made the College of La Flèche an unmistakable symbol of Henri's new attachment both to the Society and to their activities in his kingdom following their return in 1603. By 1610 La Flèche had become just one manifestation of the king's wider support for the Society. During the final years of his reign, Henri's patronage and support had a decisive influence in channelling Jesuit resources in the kingdom as Henri made increasing use of the Society in his efforts to re-establish his political authority and his Catholic credentials. Moreover, by Henri's death the Society's

2

ARSIGalliae 61, fo378: Coton to Maggio, 4 September 1603. See also, ARSIGalliae61,fos 151-171: Dossier on the re-establishment of the Jesuits in France. 3 For the funding of the college see BN MS Fr 2761, fos 135-136: A statement on individual disbursements made to the College of La Flèche by Henri IV, October 1606. For more on funding arrangements see ARSI Galliae 61, fos 464-465: Coton to Maggio, 13 February 1605; ARSI Galliae 61, fo 466: Coton to Maggio, 18 February 1605. For the initial foundation of the college see ARSI Galliae 69, fo 111: Henri IV to Clement VIII, 2 September 1603. See also M. de Burbure, Essais historiques sur la ville et collège de La Flèche (Angers, 1803), pp. 288-290. 4 Henri IV's desire to link this establishment exclusively to himself and his royal line can be seen in the foundation document. In this document he required that the Jesuits name the college and its library after him; that the ornaments of the church, which he donated money to purchase, feature his royal arms; and, finally, that the college accept no bequest from anyone but himself and his successors, see BN MS Fr 2761, fos 120-123 v°: Copy of the conditions for the foundation of the College of La Flèche. 5 BN MS Fr 2761, fos 120-120v°: Copy of the conditions for the foundation of the College of La Flèche.

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relationship with both their supporters and opponents in France had been redefined by Henri's active promotion of the Society. This chapter concerns itself both with Henri's role in defining the Society's activities and the impact that royal patronage had on the actions of the Society's supporters and opponents. But, before addressing these broader topics, the exact nature of the relationship between the king and the Jesuits on which these developments rested must be examined by returning to Henri's campaign to secure acceptance of the Edict of Rouen in 1603. On first reading, the Edict of Rouen offers little indication that it would provide the basis for the rapid expansion of the Jesuit mission in France or the close relationship between Henri and the Society that took shape during the final seven years of his reign. The restrictive stipulations of the Edict sanctioned only a partial rehabilitation of the Jesuit Order as it failed to exonerate the Society for its alleged role in the Chastel assassination attempt, provided for only a very limited return of the Society to much of the kingdom and required the Society to make extraordinary concessions of regulatory authority to French royal and church institutions which, if fully enforced, placed the Society at the mercy of its opponents.6 Indeed, upon initial examination in late September or early October 1603, Claudio Acquaviva, father general of the Society, found little in the stipulations of the Edict which inclined him to embrace it.7 However, Acquaviva's opposition to the Edict proved short lived. By mid-December 1603 he had chosen to embrace the Edict without alteration. The reasons for Acquaviva's reversal of policy provide important insight into why, despite its restrictive stipulations, the Edict proved the catalyst for the transformation of the Society's mission in France. The arrival at Jesuit Roman headquarters in late September 1603 of a copy of the Edict of Rouen and news of its public promulgation must have come as a surprise to Acquaviva. His earlier correspondence with Jesuits in France reflected an expectation that Henri would consult both the pope and the Jesuit central

6 For a detailed account of the Society's concerns see ARSI Franciae 30, fos 296 a-h: 'Considerations sur l'edit de notre rétablissement en France'. See also ARSI Franciae 30, fos 324-325v°: 'Nonulla responsiones data P. Generali difficult contra soc'. 7 ARSI Franciae 1, fos 487v°-489: Acquaviva to Armand, 20 October 1603; AMAE CP Rome 13, fo 445v°: D'Ossat to Henri IV, 20 October 1603; ARSI Franciae 1, fos 489-489v°: Acquaviva to Búfalo, 20 October 1603; ARSI Franciae 1, fo 490: Acquaviva to Henri IV, 20 October 1603; ARSI Franciae 1, fos 490v°-491: Acquaviva to Maggio, 21 October 1603; ARSI Franciae 1, fo 487: Acquaviva to Búfalo, 5 October 1603.

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administration before formally promulgating any rehabilitation of the Society in France.8 Henri's decision to issue the Edict without consultation left Acquaviva with little choice but to judge its merits by its precise stipulations and by the general promises of Henri's goodwill towards the Society offered by the king's emissaries in Rome. Under such circumstances, Acquaviva expressed serious reservations with three articles in the Edict. One required an oath from all Jesuits operating in France. The other two concerned the regulatory authority of French institutions over the Society's activities in the kingdom. The article concerning an oath ordered That all those [Jesuits] who are at present in our kingdom and [those] who will be received in the future into the aforementioned Society will take an oath before our local officers to do nothing against our service, the public peace and the repose of our kingdom without any exception nor reservation ....9

Acquaviva expressed concern that, since no other religious order in the kingdom was required to take such an oath, it brought 'great infamy' to the Society both within France and abroad as it implied that the Society had taken action against the king in the past.10 For Acquaviva the oath required the Society indirectly to confirm its conviction in the Chastel affair: a conviction that the Edict conspicuously failed to overturn. The reputation of the Society must have weighed heavily on his considerations. In the late sixteenth century the image of the Society as promoters of tyrannicide and even murderers of princes had developed into a common motif in both Protestant and Catholic anti-Jesuit polemic.11 Acquaviva believed that to embrace an Edict which failed to overturn the Society's conviction as accomplices in a political assassination plot left the Jesuits open to attack by their opponents,

8 For a description of how Acquaviva foresaw the negotiations over the Society's return taking shape see ARSI Galliae 61, fo 318-318v°: Acquaviva to Armand, 17 May 1603. In this letter Acquaviva ordered Armand to follow the same guidelines that he had given to Maggio in 1599 when Maggio first initiated discussions with Henri IV concerning a Jesuit return. These required the Society's representatives to consult Acquaviva before accepting any edict. 9 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 314v°: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. 10 ARSI Franciae 1, fo 488-488v°: Acquaviva to Armand, 20 October 1603. Another account of Acquaviva's objection to these three stipulations can be found in BI Godefroy 15, fos 132-133: 'Mémoire présenté par les Jésuites au Cardinal d'Ossat, touchant les articles de leur rétablissement en France', 1603. 11 E. Nelson, 'The Jesuit Legend: Superstition and Myth-Making', in H. Parish and B. Naphy (eds), Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe (Manchester, 2002), pp. 94-115.

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who could cite their willingness to take the oath as evidence of their acceptance of guilt in the Chastel affair. Acquaviva also strongly objected to the regulatory article which required that the Society respect the established rights and privileges of French bishops, chapters, curacies and universities in both the spiritual and temporal realms.12 For Acquaviva if this stipulation remained the Society would not 'BE ABLE TO UNDERTAKE OUR MINISTRY FREELY'.13 Acquaviva's use of capitals in his dispatch to Ignace Armand, Jesuit father provincial of the French Province, emphasized his concern that the Society's opponents in the Parlement of Paris, other royal courts and the French ecclesiastical hierarchy could use their jurisdiction over cases involving rival claims to privileges within the French church to undermine the Society's mission in France. Acquaviva also opposed a second regulatory article, which required a similar concession of authority, because it denied the Society the right to preach, administer the sacraments, or hear confession of those outside their Order without the permission of the local ordinary and parlement.14 Acquaviva offered two objections to this article: that the Council of Trent had already established the Society's relations with bishops and that the explicit jurisdiction of the parlements, as defined in the Edict, would allow the Society's enemies to undermine its activities through the courts. In his objections to these two regulatory articles, Acquaviva questioned the right of the French royal courts and the Gallican church hierarchy to regulate all aspects of the Catholic church in France. While Ignatius Loyola in the Jesuit constitutions had encouraged the Society to work with local secular and ecclesiastical authorities whenever possible, Acquaviva hesitated.15 He foresaw potential difficulties if the Society's opponents in these institutions exercised any influence over Jesuit works and apostolates. This was a particular concern with reference to the Parlement of Paris as it had consistently shown its opposition to the Society in France. In his initial examination of the Edict, Acquaviva interpreted several of its stipulations as restrictive to the Society's corporate privileges and detrimental to its international reputation. Thus, he asserted in his response to

12

ARSI Galliae 61, fos 314v°-315: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. ARSI Franciae 1, fo 488: Acquaviva to Armand, 20 October 1603. Upper case in the original. 14 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 315: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. 15 I. Loyola, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, G.E. Ganss (ed. and trans.) (Saint Louis MO, 1970), p. 337. 13

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Henri that he wished to negotiate the elimination or alteration of several articles before he accepted the king's offer of rehabilitation.16 However, despite the misgivings expressed in his public response to the Edict, Acquaviva avoided an outright rejection of Henri's initiative. He did not object to the six other articles in the Edict, which required Jesuits working in France to be French citizens, prohibited the opening of further colleges in France without express royal permission, regulated the inheritance rights of Jesuits and reduced the Society's privileges in France to those enjoyed by other religious orders.17 Moreover, Acquaviva recognized that several important concessions in the preamble could advance the Society's mission in France.18 Chief amongst these was Henri's confirmation of the Society's legal right to operate its foundations in the south and west of the kingdom where they had been protected by regional parlements following their partial expulsion. The preamble also sanctioned the reopening of Jesuit colleges in Dijon and Lyon, both of which had shut in 1595 following the Society's expulsion from these regions. Finally, Acquaviva would have undoubtedly viewed as positive the provision for the foundation of a new Jesuit college under royal patronage in La Flèche, a town within the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris from which the Society was officially banished. The opening or reopening of colleges in areas where the Society had been expelled established important precedents that might ultimately provide the basis for the Society's full rehabilitation. In October 1603, Acquaviva made it clear that, though he wished to accept the Edict, he found certain of its clauses unacceptable. With some justification, he noted in confidential letters to Innocenzo del Búfalo, bishop of Camerino and papal nuncio in France, and Ignace Armand, Jesuit father provincial for the French province, that the Edict restricted the Society's mission in France more effectively than the current partial banishment.19 Moreover, in an interview with Cardinal Arnaud d'Ossat, bishop of Bayeux and one of Henri's most influential representatives in Rome, Acquaviva reiterated for a French audience his strong

16

BI Godefroy 15, fos 132-133: 'Mémoire présenté par les Jésuites au Cardinal d'Ossat, touchant les articles de leur rétablissement en France', 1603. 17 ARSI Galliae 61, fos 314-315: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. 18 ARSI Franciae 1, fo 490: Acquaviva to Henri IV, 20 October 1603. 19 ARSI Franciae 1, fo 487: Acquaviva to Búfalo, 5 October 1603. See also ARSI Franciae 1, fo 488488v°: Acquaviva to Armand, 20 October 1603.

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reservations with the three articles that he found problematic. He explained that, if the king would not moderate these articles, then he would prefer that the Society remain in exile until the king was able to provide better conditions.20 Acquaviva interpreted the Edict with reference to the Society's corporate reputation and privileges and sought to negotiate with Henri over his reservations. For Acquaviva, the precise stipulations of the Edict were extremely important as they provided the parameters through which the Society would operate in France. Acquaviva's negative reaction to the Edict of Rouen, which reached Paris by the end of November 1603, left his subordinates in France little alternative but to present his objections directly to the king.21 Father Pierre Coton, the Society's representative at the French court, personally met with Henri, who rejected the possibility of negotiation as envisioned by Acquaviva over any article in the Edict. Henri refused to negotiate with the Jesuits over the exact terms of the Edict much as he refused to negotiate with members of his Parlement of Paris over their concerns. For Henri, his personal inscrutable judgment justified the conditions that he required because every article was necessary to balance the rival interests in his state. Nevertheless, the king's refusal to entertain Acquaviva's objections was not as strong a rejection of father general's concerns as it initially appeared. Indeed, Henri, while rejecting any form of negotiation, offered Acquaviva an alternative interpretation of the Edict and its stipulations, an interpretation that placed the restrictions in the context of a new relationship with Henri which would ultimately be the principal determinant of the Society's rights and privileges in France. Henri explained to Coton that he might grant further privileges to the Society, which would address Acquaviva's concerns, but that the royal goodwill on which these concessions might be based could only be cultivated through the obedience of the Jesuits, one aspect of which was their acceptance of the Edict without alteration.22 Henri defined a relationship where Jesuit participation in the French church was

20 BI Godefroy 15, fos 132-133: 'Mémoire présenté par les Jésuites au Cardinal d'Ossat, touchant les articles de leur rétablissement en France', 1603. For a more detailed account of Jesuit concerns see ARSI Franciae 30, fos 296 a-h: 'Considerations sur l'edit de notre rétablissement en France'. See also ARSI Franciae 30, fos 324-325v°: 'Nonulla responsiones data P. Generali difficult contra soc.'. 21 ARSI Franciae 1, fos 487v°-489: Acquaviva to Armand, 20 October 1603; ARSI Galliae 94, fo 41: Coton to Acquaviva, 28 November 1603. 22 ARSI Galliae 94, fo 41-41v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 28 November 1603.

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dependent on royal authority and thus royal goodwill rather than the precise conditions of the Edict. Henri followed up the interview with a concerted effort to persuade Acquaviva to embrace this alternative interpretation of Jesuit rehabilitation in France. The king wrote directly to Acquaviva to assure him that he had the best interests of the Society in mind.23 Moreover, Nicolas de NeufVille, seigneur de Villeroy and a close royal adviser, instructed Philippe de Béthune, the French ambassador in Rome, to explain Henri's position to Acquaviva and Pope Clement VIII.24 Villeroy instructed the ambassador to stress that all concessions required of the Jesuits were absolutely necessary to secure the Edict's registration in the face of opposition to the Society.25 Nevertheless, as Henri had emphasized in his meeting with Coton, Villeroy noted that the restrictive stipulations were not designed to impede the work of the Society in France and that the king would decide the number of Jesuit colleges and other establishments within his kingdom. The Society's acquiescence to the king's demands was the key to further royal preference and the moderation of the Edict's conditions.26 The carefully crafted wording of the Edict reveals Henri's intention to base the Society's future work in France on direct royal patronage rather than the stipulations of the Edict. As Henri and his advisers implied in their replies to Acquaviva's objections, the king had crafted an Edict that rehabilitated the Society; but in such a way that Henri, not the Edict, would be the central arbiter regarding the future shape of the Society's mission in France. The restrictive articles were strongly worded, but more important were the clauses that allowed the king to sanction the growth of the Jesuit mission without reference to the parlements or the French church. For instance, article two formally prohibited the presence of foreign Jesuits in France: 'That all those of the aforementioned Society of Jesus present in our Kingdom together [with] their rectors and headmasters will be native Frenchmen without any foreigner able to be admitted and to have a place in their colleges and residences'. But this strongly worded stipulation was followed by a

23

ARSI Franciae 30, fo 296: Henri IV to Acquaviva, 19 November 1603. Du Fos, the king's secretary, dispatched another letter to Acquaviva, see ARSI Franciae 30, fo 330-330v°: Du Fos to Acquaviva, 27 November 1603. See also ARSI Galliae 94, fo 41v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 28 November 1603. 24 BN MS Fr 3487, fo 186-188v°: Villeroy to Philippe de Béthune, 18 November 1603. 25 BN MS Fr 3487, fo 186v°: Villeroy to Philippe de Béthune, 18 November 1603. 26 BN MS Fr 3487, fo 187-187v°: Villeroy to Philippe de Béthune, 18 November 1603.

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crucial clause 'without our [the king's] permission', which explicitly granted the king the right to override the Edict if he chose.27 Moreover, Henri and his advisers worded the first article of the Edict, which prohibited the opening of further Jesuit foundations in France, as 'that they will not be able to erect any college or residence in any of the towns or places within our kingdom regions lands or seigneuries under our obedience without our [the king's] express permission'.28 Thus, the Edict explicitly forbade foreign Jesuits and the establishment of more Jesuit colleges; but, at the same time, recognized that the king had the authority to suspend or dispense with the Edict's articles. Henri had included a carefully crafted sub-text in the Edict: that the will of the king would decide the extent of the Jesuit mission in France. If the Society wished to maintain a mission beyond the very limited one explicitly defined in the Edict of Rouen, then it had to rely exclusively on royal goodwill. Henri had provided a model for a relationship based on his goodwill when, during the summer of 1603, he carefully cultivated cordial relations with two Jesuits, Pierre Coton and Ignace Armand, both of whom had taken up residence at his court in late May of that year.29 He carefully constructed a personal knowledge of the Society through interactions at court with these two Jesuits, and he rooted his future relations with the Order in his personal goodwill and patronage based on his understanding of the Society first established during this period.30 Moreover, his increasingly public attachment to the two Jesuits and to the Society in general over the course of the summer demonstrated the importance of his favour. A consistent theme in the correspondence from Paris was the king's increasing public goodwill towards the Jesuits in France and the Society as a whole. Lorenzo Maggio, father general's official visitor to the Jesuit Province of France, Father Coton, Nuncio Búfalo and Henri himself stressed over and over again in their letters that Acquaviva's concerns would eventually be satisfied through the king's goodwill.31 27

ARSI Galliae 61, fo 314: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. ARSI Galiiae 61, fo 314: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. For Henri's decision to invite a delegation of Jesuit representatives to his court see ARSI Galliae 94, fo 156: Armand to Acquaviva, 3 April 1603. 30 For examples of this interaction see ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33: Coton to Baltazar, 24 June 1603; ARSI Galliae 64, fo 33v°: Coton to Baltazar, 3 July 1603 ; ARSI Galliae 64, fo 34-34v°: Coton to Baltazar, 18 July 1603. 31 ARSI Galliae 61, fos 338-341 : Coton to Acquaviva, 13 October 1603; ARSI Galliae 94, fo 38: Coton to Acquaviva, 29 October 1603; ARSI Germaniae 122, fo 146: Maggio to Acquaviva, 30 September 1603. The nuncio also emphasized Henri's intention to improve conditions at a later date in his correspondence 28 29

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During the months following the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen, Henri also used his interactions with Father Coton to provide evidence of his intention to override the precise stipulations of the Edict and express his continued goodwill towards the Society. For instance, in response to Colon's initial promise in October 1603 that the Society intended to conform to the Edict as it awaited Acquaviva's formal response, the king accelerated the reopening of Jesuit colleges, held out the prospect of the Jesuit College of Clermont in Paris being reopened and hinted that the Pyramid, built in front of the Parlement of Paris as a reminder of Jesuit complicity in the Chastel assassination attempt, might be dismantled.32 Moreover, during the same period Henri demonstrated his personal attachment to the Society by ordering that his heart be buried in the chapel of the College of La Flèche.33 Each initiative provided evidence that Henri could alter the Edict of Rouen and that royal goodwill, which the Society currently enjoyed, was crucial in deciding the scope of the Jesuit mission in France. Leading Jesuits in France understood the importance of Henri's goodwill. Indeed, by appealing to the king, Armand and Coton received permission to open two more colleges shortly after Henri promulgated the Edict.34 Coton noted the importance of these personal relations in his reply of 29 October 1603 to Acquaviva's initial rejection of the Edict. Coton pointed out that, because of its many enemies within France, the Society could not hope to return except through Henri IV's goodwill and protection. After detailing the manifestations of Henri's goodwill, he concluded the letter by pleading with Acquaviva to provide evidence of Jesuit obedience and loyalty as this would provide Henri with more reasons to promote the Society's activities. Coton asserted that Henri's actions over the previous six months proved that the goodwill of the monarch would define the position of the Society in France and, therefore, that the Edict's strict stipulations would not interfere with the Jesuits' activities as Acquaviva feared.35 with Acquaviva, see ARSI Franciae 30, fo 320-320v°: Búfalo to Acquaviva, 3 November 1603. For Henri's promises see ARSI Franciae 30, fo 296: Henri IV to Acquaviva, 19 November 1603; BN MS Fr 3487, fos 186-188: Villeroy to Philippe de Béthune, 18 November 1603. 32 ARSI Galliae 61, fos 386-387: Coton to Maggio, 26 October 1603; ARSI Galliae 94, fo 38: Coton to Acquaviva, 29 October 1603; ARSI Galliae 61, fos 395-396: Coton to Búfalo, 30 October 1603; ARSI Galliae 64, fos 37-38v°: Coton to Armand, 2 November 1603. 33 This promise became the first article of the college's foundation edict, see BN MS Fr 2761, fo 120120v°: Copy of the conditions for the foundation of the College of La Flèche. 34 ARSI Galliae 94, fos 28-29: Armand to Maggio, 3 September 1603. 35 ARSI Galliae 94, fo 38: Coton to Acquaviva, 29 October 1603.

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Coton's letter advocated a course of action that he and other Jesuit superiors in France had already embraced. Lacking clear instructions from Acquaviva as to what to do if Henri promulgated an Edict without formal consultation, the experienced Jesuit diplomat Father Lorenzo Maggio decided to implement the Edict before receiving Acquaviva's instructions.36 Since his arrival in France in 1599, Maggio had been involved in discussions with Henri IV regarding the Society's rehabilitation. On 30 September 1603, he informed Acquaviva that he supported the Edict.37 Several days later, Maggio sent a circular letter to the provincials within the kingdom in which he ordered all Jesuits to promptly take the required loyalty oath and to conform to the conditions stipulated in the Edict, especially those concerned with submission to the authority of the French church hierarchy.38 Maggio, without instructions from Acquaviva, acted on his own authority as Henri wished to implement the Edict immediately after its promulgation on 1 September 1603. Henri's determination to act immediately reflected his own desire to present his parlements with an Edict already in the process of implementation when they reconvened in November, a veritable fait accompli.39 But his determination to act swiftly and the willingness of Jesuits in France to embrace his decision to act, had a second implication. If Acquaviva wished to press his objections to the Edict, he needed to address the reality of Jesuit compliance. On 16 December 1603, Acquaviva publicly declared his decision to work within the new reality in France rather than reject it. As Phillippe de Béthune, Henri's ambassador in Rome, reported, Acquaviva submitted to the king's will with the hope that Henri would, in the future, moderate the Edict's requirement that every Jesuit swear an oath of loyalty before entering a French foundation.40 At this meeting, Acquaviva chose not to raise his concerns over the regulatory concessions

36

ARSI Germaniae 122, fos 142v°-143: Maggio to Acquaviva, 20 July 1603. ARSI Germaniae 122, fo 146: Maggio to Acquaviva, 30 September 1603. 38 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 379: Maggio to fathers provincial in the kingdom of France, 3 October 1603. 39 Acquaviva's formal response to the Edict of Rouen did not arrive in France until November 1603. He did write to Armand on 8 September 1603 with more detailed instructions on future negotiations, but this dispatch did not arrive until long after the Edict had been promulgated and, in any case, did not address the possibility of the king promulgating an edict without consultation, see ARSI Franciae 1, fo 485-485v°: Acquaviva to Armand, 8 September 1603. 40 R. Couzard, De Edicto Rothomagensi Jesuítas in Galliam Restituentie Die 1 Septembris 1603 (Paris, 1900), document no. LXXI: Béthune to Villeroy, 16 December 1603. See also ARSI Franciae 1, fos 492v°493: Acquaviva to Armand, 20 December 1603. 37

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required but focused instead on the troublesome oath with its implications for the Society's reputation. Acquaviva's request for moderation of the oath provides the key to understanding the change of policy that this meeting established. In his October 1603 dispatches, when he rejected the Edict unless it was altered, Acquaviva had sought royal grâce but had asserted that the Society could not submit to the royal Edict before Henri had used his grâce to modify it. In December 1603, Acquaviva chose to submit to the king's Edict first and then request that Henri address the troubling issue of the loyalty oath through royal grâce. Henri's attempt to restrict Jesuit autonomy was not unique within the contemporary history of the Society of Jesus. Acquaviva had already conceded some regulatory control over the Society's mission in Venice and was under pressure to do so in Spain.41 The Society's Constitutions encouraged Jesuits to seek the benevolence of temporal rulers as a key 'to opening or closing the gate to the service of God and the good of souls'.42 But, as always, the question remained: how far could one go to gain this benevolence without seriously compromising the independent identity of the Society? In December 1603, Acquaviva chose to accept an Edict that stipulated regulation of the Jesuits in France by local church and secular authorities as a means of gaining the king's goodwill. In making this concession Acquaviva undoubtedly took heart from Henri's repeated promises to protect and support the Society's mission in France. Acquaviva henceforth publicly endorsed the Edict of Rouen and exhorted his subordinates in France to cultivate good relations with Henri IV. In a letter to all provincials in France dated 1 May 1604, Acquaviva noted appreciatively the Society's new role within the kingdom following the registration of the Edict: Periodically in these last days you [the provincials] have touched the heart and moved the mind of the Most Christian king toward the things of our Society, that not only is his Majesty content to restore us in his kingdom, but prepares the foundation of colleges and houses of probation, and approves the foundation of new colleges in the principal and most important cities of the realm: but more important, [his Majesty] has undertaken the protection and defence of the Society, ... with valour, and his true courage has resolved the difficulties that we face;... and silences

41

E. Nelson, 'Interpreting the Edict of Rouen: Royal Patronage and the Expansion of the Jesuit Mission in France', Archivum Historicum Societatis lesu, 72 (2003), 416-417. 42 Loyola, Constitutions, p. 337.

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our opponents. Truly we can now say that his Majesty will very soon be considered a founder of the Society throughout the kingdom generally, [as well as the founder of] some particular colleges.43

Acquaviva's emphasis in this letter on the role of the monarch in advancing the Society's activities in France contrasts sharply with his initial rejection of the Edict of Rouen. This change in emphasis reflected the basis for the new relationship between king and Society which defined their rapid expansion through royal patronage in the years following Acquaviva's acceptance of the Edict. The Society's activities in France, beyond the very limited ones sanctioned by the Edict, were to depend on the continued goodwill and patronage of Henri. In the years following the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen the new relationship between Crown and Society, first defined in the autumn and early winter of 1603, took shape. One key area in which royal sponsorship of Jesuit activities proved particularly fertile was the establishment of Jesuit colleges throughout the kingdom. The foundation of Jesuit colleges was the largest single Jesuit initiative embraced by Henri, and his sponsorship went far beyond the simple desire to promote better education in France. Rather, Henri's foundations were an important effort to reshape the nobility into the more service-minded and governable elite which became a feature of seventeenth-century French society.44 In this endeavour Henri found willing allies in the Society which, by the opening of the seventeenth century, had defined as one of its most important activities the operation of colleges dedicated to teaching a Catholic humanist curriculum that prepared pupils to make virtuous decisions based on Christian morality in their private and public lives. The College of La Fleche provides clear evidence of what Henri intended to accomplish through his promotion of Jesuit education in France. From its foundation, Henri sought to ensure that this royal college possessed the resources and social prestige required to make it a centre for the education of the French elite.

43

ARSI Galliae 61, fo 414: Acquaviva to the fathers provincial in the kingdom of France, 1 May 1604. For more on the service-minded elite that developed during the seventeenth century see J.M. Smith, The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the making of Absolute Monarchy in France, 16001789 (Ann Arbor MI, 1996). For the theories under which Henri IV operated see M. Greengrass, France in the Age of Henri IV, 2nd edn (London, 1995), pp. 234-235. For a more detailed account see E. Schalk, From Valor to Pedigree: Ideas of Nobility in France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Princeton, 1986), pp. 130-134. See also M. Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat: The Education of the Court Nobility 1580-1715 (Princeton, 1990). 44

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In its first years of operation, Henri endowed twenty-four scholarships specifically for the sons of his household officers and a further hundred for French noblemen more generally.45 He also explicitly sought to make the college a model for the restoration of the fortunes of the nobility after thirty years of civil war; or, in terms that contemporaries would have understood, Henri sought to found an institution dedicated to renewing the nobility's virtue.46 Henri made this desire explicit in a letter confirming the college's foundation edict at the time of its official opening. In this letter he noted that the cultivation of virtuous subjects 'depends in part on the education, direction and discipline of the young, who always feel the effects of the first habit, nourishment, impression that has been given to them in their most tender years'. With this in mind Henri noted that, since acceding to the throne, he had made it one of his principal concerns 'to find the means to spread commendable instruction in our kingdom, to make instruction in good letters, and to restore the love of the fruits of honour and virtue'. Henri also stressed his support for the Jesuits, whom, according to the letter, he had already identified through experience to be suitable to this undertaking because of 'the great profit that they have made as much by their doctrine as by good and sure examples, in many places in our kingdom'.47 Henri's statement reflected the concerns of writers during this period who emphasized the need to teach 'virtue' to the young nobility in order to ensure that their energies were channelled into productive activities rather than into vice.48 For their part, the Society found Henri's goals, as defined in the foundation edict, perfectly compatible with their purpose of training and educating youths to become good Catholics and leaders in their communities. Enrolments reflect Henri's success in attracting the sons of the court elite, important royal office holders and influential provincial families to La Flèche.49 For instance Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, the due d'Epernon's son and future cardinal, along with several sons from the influential and cosmopolitan Bonsi family matriculated at the College of La Flèche during its first years of operation.

45 BN MS Fr 2761, fo 120v°: Copy of the conditions for the foundation of the College of La Flèche. See also ARSI Galliae 94, fo 233-233v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 18 July 1604; ARSI Galliae 64, fos 43-44v°: Coton to Possevin, 16 August 1604. 46 Schalk, Valor to Pedigree, pp. 65-112. 47 Burbure, Essais historiques, pp. 288-289: Henri IV to the Jesuits at the College of La Flèche, May 1607. 48 Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat, p. 3. See also Schalk, Valor to Pedigree, pp. 130-134. 49 J. Bergin, The Making of the French Episcopate 1589-1661 (New Haven CT, 1996), p. 221.

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The college also taught the sons of leading royal officers from such important families as the NeufVille, Séguier, Zamet, de Vie and d'Attichy during this period.50 Sons from important provincial families also appear in the enrolment documents. For example, René de Rieux, son of an important Bretagne family of ancient lineage, left his college in the University of Paris to matriculate at the new Jesuit institution.51 Joseph Bergin has noted that individuals who had attended La Flèche and were nominated to bishoprics during the reigns of Henri IV and Louis XIII were relatively young in comparison to their peers who had not.52 This observation indicates both that the monarchy was inclined to reward those families who chose to send their children to this royal institution and that the college attracted students who had important connections within the royal court. Henri's active encouragement of further Jesuit foundations reflected his intention that La Flèche should provide a model on which provincial elites would base their own educational establishments. Henri, who had only recently reestablished peace in France, saw the advantages in sponsoring the education of a virtuous nobility through Jesuit colleges, especially as his war-ravished kingdom lacked the infrastructure and resources to pursue alternative schemes. In pursuit of this policy, Henri used his royal authority to override the restrictions in the Edict of Rouen, which had permitted the opening or re-opening of only three Jesuit colleges. In the weeks immediately following the Edict's promulgation, Henri approved the establishment of new Jesuit colleges at Brive, Moulins, Poitiers, Rouen and Vienne.53 Furthermore, in the months following Acquaviva's acceptance of the Edict, Henri authorized the opening or reopening of Jesuit colleges in Aix, Amiens, Billom, Bourges, Caen, Cahors, Châlons, Rennes, Tours and Troyes.54 More colleges followed as the Society demonstrated its loyalty to the monarchy. During the final years of his reign, Henri ordered the foundation, or refoundation, of colleges in Carpentras, Eu, Langres, Metz, Nevers, Orléans, Paris, Roanne and

50

For the NeufVille family see BI Godefroy 15, fo 221 : Charlet to Villeroy, 1 May 1612. For the Séguier, Zamet, de Vie, and d'Attichy families see Bergin, French Episcopate, p. 221. 51 Bergin, French Episcopate, p. 221. 52 Bergin, French Episcopate, p. 222. 53 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 338: Coton to Acquaviva, 13 October 1603. The proposed college at Brive never opened. See also ARSI Franciae 30, fo 307: Coton to [Acquaviva?], 28 October 1603. 54 ARSI Galliae 94, fo 199-199v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 27 January 1604.

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Saintes.55 Henri facilitated this expansion in 1608 when he lifted the prohibition on foreign Jesuits residing in France stipulated in the Edict of Rouen in order to help resolve the Society's chronic shortage of qualified teachers.56 Despite Henri's continued patronage, some of these colleges - including notably the College of Clermont in Paris - failed to open before Henri's death. Nevertheless, Henri's sponsorship transformed the limited rehabilitation as dictated by the Edict of Rouen into a blossoming of Jesuit educational institutions throughout France. The promulgation of the Edict of Rouen marked an unprecedented change in royal policy towards the Society based on the new relationship established during its registration. Prior to its promulgation in 1603, no French monarch had founded a Jesuit college; henceforth, however, new foundations would be linked to the monarchy.57 Royal support and patronage drove the rapid proliferation of Jesuit colleges which ultimately made the Jesuits the chief educators of the seventeenthcentury French Catholic elite. The king's consistent favour guaranteed the Society a role considerably greater than that dictated in the Edict of Rouen. The number of colleges founded transformed the Society's position in France, and numerous localities welcomed the Society as the chief educators in their communities. Moreover, while more research needs to be done on the subject of noble education in the first half of the seventeenth century, anecdotal evidence indicates that an increasing number of nobles attended Jesuit colleges during this period.58 Education was just one area in which the monarchy drew on the Society to advance a royal initiative. For instance, Henri also used his new relationship with the Jesuits to draw a willing Society into his efforts to convert the Huguenots. Relations with the Huguenots remained a sensitive area of royal policy. In 1598, Henri granted the Huguenots legal recognition in the Edict of Nantes in order to

^ H. Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France des origines à la suppression (15281762) (Paris, 1910-1925), iii, 96-151. 56 Henri IV, Recueil des lettres missives de Henri IV, in B. Xivrey and J. Guadet (eds), Collection des documents inédits sur l'histoire de France, 1st ser. (Paris, 1843-1876), vu, 514-516: Henri IV to Acquaviva, 10 April 1608. Since 1603 Henri had allowed foreign Jesuits to enter France but on a case-bycase basis, see the collected copies of lettres patentes issued by Henri IV to individual Jesuits, BN MS Fr 2761, fos 124-144. See also Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 96-120. 57 For instance see the published broadsheet that reproduced the foundation stone inscription for the Jesuit college of Lyon, ARSI Lugudunensis 28, fo 296. 58 Schalk, Valor to Pedigree, p. 197. See also Bergin, French Episcopate, pp. 221 -223. For a breakdown by social class of enrolments at the Jesuit college in Bordeaux in 1644 see B. Peyrous, La Réforme Catholique à Bordeaux. Le Renouveau d'un diocèse (1600-1719) (Bordeaux, 1995), i, 322.

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secure peace within his kingdom. At the same time he sought to maintain his Catholic credentials at home and abroad through a campaign to persuade them to convert to Catholicism.59 In the rehabilitated Society, Henri found a potentially valuable ally in this initiative and in his equally important efforts to convince Catholics of the sincerity of his initiative. The Jesuits had a strong reputation in France as effective missionaries amongst the Huguenots. Even during the years of their official exile from much of the kingdom after 1594, the Jesuits had supported the royal policy of conversion through persuasion in those areas of France where they continued to operate.60 For instance, in the years before travelling to the royal court to secure the Society's return to France in 1603, Coton had engaged in public debates with Protestant leaders at Nîmes and Grenoble in the hope of converting Huguenots to Catholicism.61 The Jesuit return to royal favour brought royal support for their missionary endeavours, which in turn served to complement the royal policy of persuasive conversion. Henri took an active public interest in the Society's conversion work, and his support of their initiatives became a significant aspect of the king's renewal of his Catholic credentials.62 An important component of this policy was royal sponsorship for Jesuit preaching missions to Huguenot strongholds. For instance, despite strong opposition from influential members of the Protestant church, Henri sent with his own personal backing the Jesuit Father Gaspard de Seguirán to the Huguenot

59 Following the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, Henri had supported the premise that French theologians could eventually reconcile Catholic and Calvinist dogma. For instance, on 24 September 1607 L'Estoile reported that a colleague had visited him in search of texts 'for the reform of the Church and the reunion of the two religions'. In this same entry, L'Estoile noted that this was a topic that a number of good men were working on with the support of the king, see P. de l'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux de Pierre de l'Estoile, P.O. Brunei (ed.) (Paris, 1888-1896), viii, 341-342. See also C. Vivanti, Lotta política e pace religiosa in Franciafra Cinque e Seicento (Turin, 1963), pp. 189-324; J. Garrisson, L'Édit de Nantes: Chronique d'une paix attendue (Paris, 1998). 60 Jesuit activities in their province of Aquitaine, including missionary activities amongst the Huguenots, are recounted in the annual letters of the province, see for instance ARSI Aquitaniae 15, fos 48-52: Annual letter of the Aquitaine province, 1599. For a history of Jesuit initiatives during this period see J.-M. Prat, Recherches historiques et critiques sur la Compagnie de Jésus en France du temps du P. Coton, 15641626 (Lyon, 1876-1878), i, 194-334, 357-705. 61 AFCJ Prat 60, pp. 1-621 : Collected documents on Colon's missionary work in the south of France. See also D. Charnier, Daniel Charnier. Journal de son voyage à la cour de Henri IV en 1607 et sa biographie, C. Read (éd.) (Paris, 1858), pp. 220-272. See also Fouqueray, Histoire, ii, 543-592. See also R. Sauzet, Contre-réforme et réforme Catholique en Bas-Languedoc au XVHème siècle: le diocèse de Nîmes de 1598 à 1694 (Lille, 1978), i, 142. 62 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 460v°: Coton to Clement VIII, 9 January 1605.

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stronghold of La Rochelle in January 1607 to preach to the Huguenot community.63 Further, in 1608 Henri sent the Jesuit Father Jean Gontery to preach during Lent at Dieppe, a port with a large Protestant population.64 Finally, Henri's decision to introduce the Jesuits into Beam despite the opposition of the Parlement of Pau provided another example of a significant missionary campaign sponsored by the monarch.65 Henri also encouraged the Jesuits to engage French Protestants in print.66 Jesuit Fathers Jacques Gaultier and Louis Richeome intended to please the king and to associate their purpose with the royal will through the dedication of theological works to Henri.67 Moreover, Father Coton often sought royal approval for his publications and espoused in public the royal view that representatives of the two

63 ARSI Franciae 30, fos490v°-491,492v°,498: 'Dicta quaedam memorabilia HenriciQuatri'. See also P. Duplessis-Mornay, Mémoires et correspondance de Duplessis-Mornay (Paris, 1824), x, 197-198: Duplessis-Mornay to the Huguenot Synod of France held at La Rochelle, 22 February 1607. L'Estoile offers a shorter version the same account, see L'Estoile, Mémoires, viii, 277. Sully states that Henri IV was unaware of the royal letters sent with Father Seguirán, but both Duplessis-Mornay and L'Estoile fail to corroborate this story. Thus, Sully's role as apologist for the Huguenot community is the most likely reason for this discrepancy, see M. de Béthune, duc de Sully, Mémoires des sages et royales Œconomies d'estat de Henri le Grand, in Collection des Mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France, M. Petitot (éd.) (Paris, 1821), vu, 164-167. See also AFCJ Prat 32, p. 967: Henri IV to the town of La Rochelle, 17 September 1606. For a brief account of the mission see P. Delattre (éd.), Les Établissement des jésuites en France depuis quatre siècles: répertoire topo-bibliographicque publié à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de la fondation de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1540-1940 (Enghien, Belgium, 1949-1957), ii, cols 992-993. 64 ARSI Franciae 31, fo 175-175v°: Annual letter of the French Province, 1609. See also Discovrs veritable de ce qvi s'estpassé a Dieppe, en Septembre dernier, sur le projet d'vne Conférence, entre les Ministres du lieu, & lean Gontery, lesuite. Auec la Refutation d'vn dudit le suite, sur ce suiet (n.pl., 1609). This tract recounts the conference held in September to clear up the controversy surrounding Gontery's visit to Dieppe during Lent. See also ARSI Franciae 47, letter 14: Henri IV to Gontery, 10 April 1608; ARSI Franciae 47, letter 15: Gontery to Henri IV, 22 April 1608. See also D. Asseline, Les Antiquitez et chroniques de la ville de Dieppe (Dieppe, 1874), ii, 139-143. For an account of another Gontery mission see J. Gontery, La Vrayeprocedvrepovr terminer le différent en matière de religion. Extraict des sermons faicts à Caen, par le R.P. I. Gontery, de la Compagnie de lesus (Caen, 1607). 65 BN MS Fr 2761, fos 190v°-192: A copy of the royal lettres patentes which grant the Society of Jesus the right to enter the principality of Beam, 1608. See also ARSI Aquitaniae 15, fos 90v°-91 v°: Annual letter of the province of Aquitaine to Acquaviva, 1609. See also Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 159-161. 66 A number of Jesuit fathers produced texts devoted to the persuasive conversion of the Huguenots during this period. For Gontery's numerous works see C. Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Louvain, 1960), iii, cols 1567-1574. For Richeome, see Sommervogel, Bibliothèque, vi, cols 1815-1831. For Gaultier, see J. Gaultier, Table chronographique de l'estât du Christianisme, depuis la naissance de Jésus-Christjusqu 'à l'année MDCVIII (Lyon, 1609). 67 Gaultier, Table chronographique. See also L. Richeome, L'Idolâtrie hvgyenote figurée av Patron de la vieille payenne diuisée en huict livres et dédiée au Roy tres-chrestien de France et Nauarre Henri III] (Lyon, 1608).

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faiths should debate subjects of disagreement.68 Coton's Institution Catholique provides a good example of how the royal agenda shaped Jesuit publishing.69 This substantial two-volume critique of John Calvin's Institution de la religion chrétienne, published shortly after Henri IV's death with the regent's permission, included an introductory letter which asserted that Henri had directed and encouraged Coton to write the work: 'Here is the book that, we can say, is posthumous to its first and principal author. It was the great Henri our King and your husband who gave it its first distinctive characteristics, and who since then has been responsible for its entire and perfect formation'.70 Henri's policy of conversion through persuasion was the inspiration for this text in which Coton sought to win Huguenots to the Catholic faith through an emphasis on the compatibility of Calvinist and Catholic dogma. The Jesuits also willingly took part in debates between Catholics and Protestants at court, which were part of the king's wider policy designed to place Huguenots under pressure to convert. These confrontations were an integral part of a conversion process which found a model in Henri's own conversion through persuasion. Henri personally sanctioned and promoted these exchanges. For instance, after a sermon in July 1608, Coton debated with Jean Gigord, a Protestant minister, over the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In a tract written by Coton to publicize the exchange, he reported that Henri returned from hunting to find the debate in progress and was pleased to see it.71 While Coton's interpretation of the debate as a clear victory for the Catholic cause might be viewed with suspicion, the general support by Henri for such debates was an accepted premise

68

AY Francia 53, fo 87: Ubaldini to Borghese, 5 August 1608. See also Charnier, Journal, p. 47. For an example of Coton's efforts to debate with the Huguenots see P. Du Moulin, Trente-deux demandes proposées par le Père Cotton. Auec les solutions adioustées au bout de chasque demande (La Rochelle, 1608). 69 P. Coton, Institvtion Catholiqve ou est déclarée & confirmée la vérité de lafoy. Contre les heresies et svperstitions de ce temps. Diuisee en quatre liures, qui seruent d'antidote aux quatre de l'Institution de Jean Caluin. (Paris, 1610). For more on Coton's Institvtion see J. Dagens, Bérulle et les origines de la restauration Catholique (1575-1611) (Paris, 1952), pp. 177-178. 70 Coton, Institvtion Catholiqve, p. aij. 71 P. Coton, Pourparlé entre le R. Père Coton, Prédicateur du Roy, de la Compagnie de Jésus, et le S. Gigord, ministre de la Religion Prétendue Reformée à Mont-pelier. Déclaré par une lettre Missive du Sieur d'Angenoud, Seigneur d'Avans, Conseiller au Roy, Président et Lieutenant General au Bailliage et Siège Presidial de Troyes, adresse a un sien amy. (Lyon, 1608). See also Du Moulin, Trente deux demandes, passim; Prat, Recherches, ii, 596-676. For a second high-profile confrontation see ARSI Franciae 30, fo 496-496v°: 'Dicta quaedam memorabilia Henrici Quarti'.

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of the account and reinforces other observations made by individuals present at the royal court during this period.72 The Jesuits were also responsible for many highprofile conversions amongst the provincial nobility.73 One of the best publicized victories for the Jesuits occurred in June 1606 when Jacques d'Hilaire, seigneur de Jovyac, his sons, an elder of the Huguenot church and some twenty other individuals converted to Catholicism after a disputation involving the Jesuits in the Vivarais. News of the disputation was published with a Jesuit monogram on the frontispiece in Tournon in 1607 and in Paris in 1608, and the conversion received public royal approval in the form of a letter from Henri to Jovyac congratulating the nobleman on his decision.74 Here the Jesuits once again promoted their Society as loyal supporters and dedicated promoters of the royal policy of conversion through persuasion. While Henri never relied exclusively upon the Jesuits to promote his policies, the Society of Jesus proved a useful ally in his campaign to convert his Huguenot subjects. Henri integrated pre-existing Jesuit initiatives into his campaign and recruited the Jesuits into other initiatives. Throughout he exerted a strong influence over their actions by channelling and directing Jesuit resources. The Jesuits for their part enthusiastically embraced and advocated these initiatives.75 Ignatius Loyola had established the missionary focus of the Society decades before Henri started to sponsor their work; and, in any case, the Jesuits had conducted similar missionary work in Huguenot communities even before Henri began to sponsor their activities. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that Henri's promotion of high-profile Jesuit missions, publications and disputations served to enhance the

72 For instance Coton told the Protestant minister Daniel Charnier that the king encouraged discussion at court, see Charnier, Journal, pp. 36-37. Since his arrival in 1603, Coton had advertised his desire to persuade the Huguenots at court, see L'Estoile, Mémoires, ix, 60. 73 See for instance ARSI Aquitaniae 15, fo 79-79v°: Annual letter of the Aquitaine province, 1605. See also Le Mercure français (Cologny, 1611-1618), i, fos 242-244: reprint of a letter from Gontery to Henri IV documenting his conversion of Madame de Mazencourt. 74 J. d 'Illaire, Remonstrance faite au roy très chrétien, pour la réunion des religions à lafoy catholique par Jacques d'Illaire, sieur de Jovyac en Viuarez. Auec le discours véritable des propositions par luy du depuis faictes sur ce subject, en ensuyvie sa catholization, et de plusieurs autres (Tournon, 1607). For a more accessible summary see Charnier, Journal, pp. 461-468. For a Huguenot response to this text see J. Valeton, Le Resveille-matin des apostats, svr la révolte de laques Illaire, en la Refutation des Escrits publiez au nom d 'ice lui sous le faux &fantastique titre de Connersion des Huguenots à lafoy Catholique (n.pl., 1608). For a copy of Henri's letter see Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, vii, 516: Henri IV to D'Illaire, 10 April 1608. 75 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 460-460v°: Coton to Paul V, 9 January 1605; AV Francia 53, fo 164v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 6 January 1609.

11 g

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Society's importance and the influence of their initiatives. As with Jesuit educational endeavours, Henri IV succeeded in linking Jesuit initiatives to royal policy. In turn, the Society's participation in royal policy legitimized the Jesuit participation in French society. Henri's new relationship with the Jesuits extended beyond their activities in France as he sought to secure a closer relationship with the Society of Jesus on the international stage as well. Foreign policy remained a central preoccupation of the Crown after the conclusion of the Peace of Vervins in 1598. The aggressive foreign policy of the Spanish monarch continued to threaten French interests beyond its frontiers. Moreover, Henri's internal opponents continued to rely on Spanish support and encouragement, as the Biron conspiracy in 1602 vividly demonstrated.76 The threat to internal order plus the traditional animosity between the French and Spanish Crowns ensured that Henri, despite the peace, continued actively to undermine Spanish power whenever the opportunity arose. For instance, Henri still subsidized the Dutch war effort against Spain and on occasion allowed the Dutch to raise mercenaries on French soil.77 Moreover, Henri's war with Savoy in 1599-1600 weakened an important Spanish ally on the French frontier and threatened the strategically important 'Spanish Road'.78 Finally, Henri's marriage alliance with the Medici, the ruling house in Tuscany, proved a significant step in rebuilding French influence on the Italian peninsula to counteract Spanish dominance in this strategically sensitive region.79 An important related component of French foreign policy since the Peace of Vervins in 1598 was Henri's efforts to gain influence in the international Catholic church at the expense of Spain. Again Henri exploited opportunities as they arose. For example, the king took the opportunity to assert his status as an important figure within the church when he negotiated a reconciliation between the Venetian Republic and Pope Paul V after the pope in May 1606 placed Venice under an interdict.80 Henri paid particular attention to increasing his influence in Rome where he actively sought, through his able ambassador Philippe de Béthune, to

76

D.BuissQKl, Henry IV (London, 1984), pp. 111-112. Buisseret, Henry IV, pp. 110-111. 78 G. Parker, Europe in Crisis 1598-1648 (Brighton, 1980), pp. 122-124. See also Buisseret, Henry IV, pp. 79-81, 83-86. 79 S. Mastellone, La Reggenza di Maria de ' Medici (Florence, 1962), pp. 131-132. 80 W. J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty (Berkley, 1968), pp. 339-482. See also, Mastellone, La Reggenza, pp. 130-131. 77

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increase French influence in the College of Cardinals.81 As these examples indicate, after 1598 Henri sought to re-establish French leadership in the church by challenging Spanish dominance in a variety of contexts: an initiative in which the Society of Jesus was to prove a useful ally. The timing of Henri IV's reconciliation with the Society of Jesus was favourable for royal efforts to increase French influence in Rome. At the opening of the seventeenth century the Roman hierarchy of the Jesuit Order resented the increasingly strong influence of both the Spanish monarch and the Spanish Jesuits over the international Order.82 Henri lost little time in presenting himself as an alternative patron and protector of the international Society of Jesus. This campaign took many forms. One public symbol of Henri's policy was his longrunning campaign to secure the canonization of two founding fathers of the Society, Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. This campaign began in the summer of 1604 when Henri wrote to Pope Clement VIII in their favour, and continued until Henri's death.83 In the past other Catholic sovereigns had also written in support of the two Jesuit fathers, but Henri's sustained campaign in the opening decade of the seventeenth century defined this issue as especially important to him.84 Henri identified the two fathers with his patrimony. Thus, in his first letter to the pope on the subject in 1604 he noted that the Jesuits were founded in Paris; and in a letter dated 27 July 1605 he pointed out that the two fathers were his subjects as they were born in Spanish Navarre, a territory that King Ferdinand of Spain had seized from his ancestors in 1512 but Henri still viewed as rightfully his.85 Henri failed to get either Jesuit canonized, although Ignatius Loyola was beatified on 3 December

81

R. Couzard, Une ambassade à Rome sous Henri IV (Paris, 1900). A.D. Wright, 'The Jesuits and the Older Religious Orders in Spain', in T. McCoog (éd.), The Mercurian Project: Forming Jesuit Culture, 1573-1580 (Rome, 2004), in press. See also G. Lewey, 'The Struggle for Constitutional Government in the Early Years of the Society of Jesus', Church History, 29 (1960), 141-160. 83 ARSI Galliae 94, fos 247-248; Coton to Acquaviva, 16 August 1604; ARSI Galliae 64, fos 43-44v°: Coton to Possevin, 16 August 1604; ARSI Galliae 64, fo 13 : Henri IV to Clement VIII, 1604; ARSI Galliae 94, fo 259: Coton to Acquaviva, 4 September 1604; AFCJ Prat 34, p. 541 : Henri IV to Brèves, 10 October 1608; AFCJ Prat 34, p. 545: Henri IV to Paul V, January 1608; Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, vii, 747-748: Henri IV to Paul V, July 1609; ARSI Galliae 69, fo 13: 'Pro canonizatione B. Ignati.', n.d. 84 ARSI Galliae 94, fo 247: Coton to Acquaviva, 16 August 1604. 85 For Paris see ARSI Galliae 69, fo 13: Henri IV to Clement VIII, 1604. This theme is mentioned again in Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, vii, 747-748: Henri IV to Paul V, July 1609. For Navarre see Henri IV, Lettres de Henri IV concernant les relations du Saint-Siège et de la France, B. Barbiche (éd.) (Vatican City, 1968), p. 100: Henri IV to Paul V, 27 July 1605. 82

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1609; nevertheless, the Jesuits in Rome reacted positively to his efforts. In 1608 Louis Richeome, the Jesuit father assistant at the Society's Roman headquarters, noted to Béthune, the French ambassador in Rome, that the king's initiatives had met with great contentment within the Society and that the Italian and Spanish Jesuits were as pleased as the king's own subjects.86 While Henri failed to make either Ignatius or Francis saints, he did succeed in improving his relations with the Society of Jesus and in reinforcing his credentials as a Catholic monarch. The beatification of Ignatius was only one of several developments which tied the international Society more closely to the French Crown. In 1607 and 1608, Henri provided effective political protection for the Order in Rome during a bitter theological depute with the Spanish Crown and the Spanish Dominicans.87 Further, during the same period Henri defended Acquaviva's authority from a Spanish Jesuit initiative to give greater autonomy to the Spanish Jesuit provinces, and also sought to protect Acquaviva from similar efforts to undermine his authority at the sixth Jesuit general congregation held in Rome.88 Tension between the Spanish Crown and the Jesuit Roman administration offered the French monarch an opportunity to strengthen his ties to the Society, and the Jesuits proved receptive to the king's initiatives. Indeed, the international leadership of the Jesuits altered the structure of the Society in order to provide the French Jesuits with influence at the Society's headquarters in Rome. Thus, the first decree of the Society's sixth general congregation ordered the creation of a father assistant for France, in effect a French

86 AFCJ Prat 34, p. 541: Brèves to Henri IV, 30 October 1608. See also ARSI Franciae 2, fo 213-213v°: Acquaviva to Henri IV, 18 August 1609. 87 AFCJ Prat 34, pp. 517-519: D'Alincourt to Henri IV, 2 April 1608. See also the two letters from Du Perron to Henri IV dated 23 January and 8 March 1606 in J.D. Du Perron, Les Ambassades et negotiations de l'Illustrissime & Reverendissime cardinal Du Perron (Paris, 1623), pp. 450-451, 457. Despite the king's continued support, this protection collapsed when Du Perron returned to France. 88 For more on the Spanish Jesuit issue see BI Godefroy 15, fo 61: On the Spanish Jesuit controversy, 1605. See also J. Mariana, Discovrs dv Pere lean Marian lesvite Espagnol Des grandes défauts qui sont en la forme du gouuernement des Jésuites, Traduict d'Espagnol en François (n.pl., 1625). For a general account see H. Kamen, Spain 1469-1714: A Society in Conflict, 2nd edn (London, 1991), pp. 179-181. A useful study of related issues is provided in M. de Certeau, 'Crise sociale et réformisme spirituel au début du XVII siècle: une "nouvelle spiritualité" chez les jésuites français', Revue d'ascétique et de mystique, 41 (1965), 339-386. On Henri's concern for the general congregation see ARSI Galliae 71, fo 26: Coton to Acquaviva, 28 June 1607: ARSI Galliae 71, fo 27: Coton to Acquaviva, 8 August 1607. See also Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, vii, 391 : Henri IV to the General Congregation of the Society of Jesus in Rome, 28 November 1607.

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ambassador at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome.89 In creating this position the Society sought to satisfy their new patron's desire for a French representative within the Order.90 In the spring of 1608, Acquaviva appointed to the post Father Louis Richeome, a very capable French father provincial and author of numerous theological and apologetic texts.91 This development pleased Henri, who showed his satisfaction by revoking the prohibition upon foreign Jesuits working in French foundations defined in the Edict of Rouen, exempting the Jesuits from clerical taxes and promising to open the College of Clermont in Paris.92 Richeome held the post of father assistant for the remainder of Henri's reign and proved a committed advocate for French policies in Rome, particularly as war over the succession to the duchies of Juliers, Clèves and Mark approached.93 Thus, as Henri IV's reign progressed, the king secured increasing influence amongst the Jesuits in Rome, who proved useful allies in the international church. Patronage of Jesuit missions to convert the infidel also provided Henri with a useful platform on which to challenge the Spanish king's dominance of the international Catholic church. In 1607 Henri publicly sponsored two important Jesuit evangelical missions to convert infidels in foreign lands. One initiative, a mission to Constantinople, came to fruition during his reign.94 The official reason for Henri's mission was 'the propagation of the Christian faith'.95 Nevertheless, renewed emphasis upon Henri's image as the Most Christian King and the cultivation of the pope's goodwill were both important considerations in the decision to sponsor the conversion of the Ottomans. The mission, launched in the autumn of 1609 with royal funding, succeeded in establishing itself in

89

J. Padberg (éd.), For Matters of Greater Moment: The First Thirty Jesuit General Congregations (St Louis MO, 1994), p. 217. 90 ARSI Galliae 71, fos 27-36: Coton to Acquaviva, 8 August-9 October 1607. 91 ARSI Galliae 71, fos 41-42v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 22 March 1608. See also ARSI Franciae 2, fo 141 v°: Acquaviva to Henri IV, 14 April 1608. For further indication of Jesuit favour towards Henri IV see ARSI Galliae 69, fos 1 -2: Panegyric to Henri IV, 1607. For more on Louis Richeome see C. Sutto, 'Le Père Louis Richeome et le nouvel espirit politique des Jésuites français', in G. Demerson et al. (eds), Les Jésuites parmi les hommes auxXVIe et XVIIe siècles (Clermont Ferrand, 1987), pp. 175-184. 92 Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, vu, 514-516: Henri IV to Acquaviva, 10 April 1608. 93 BI Godefroy 15, fo 227-227v°: Richeome to Henri IV, 31 March 1610; AFCJ Prat 32, p. 1256: Henri IV to Brèves, 11 May 1610. 94 Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, vu, 426-427: Henri IV to D'Alincourt, Paul V and Acquaviva, 1607; Henri IV, Lettres, p. 119: Henri IV to Paul V, 1 February 1607. On the problems involved see ARSI Galliae 71, fo 33: Coton to Acquaviva, 8 October 1607. 95 See Henri IV, Lettres, p. 119: Henri IV to Paul V, 1 February 1607.

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Constantinople despite Venetian opposition, and thus greatly improved the king's reputation as a growing force in the international Catholic church.96 Once again, in the Society Henri found enthusiastic partners who viewed a mission to Constantinople as particularly attractive because it echoed the spirit of Ignatius and his early companions who had intended to devote themselves to a mission in the Holy Land upon leaving Paris in the 1530s. Jesuit expertise and enthusiasm for overseas missions also made them willing participants in a proposed mission to Canada, again sponsored by Henri. This mission only set sail after his death, but Henri publicized his initial intentions in the summer of 1607 and committed a generous endowment of 2000 livres income in rentes for the new project.97 For Henri a mission to Canada offered the opportunity to break the monopoly held by the Spanish Habsburgs over the evangelization of the New World: a monopoly that they had enjoyed since the incorporation of the Portuguese colonies into their empire in the 1580s. It also provided another useful high-profile example of his ambition to take a new role in the Catholic church and reinforce his Catholic credentials on the international stage. Thus, in the years following his rehabilitation of the Jesuits, Henri used the receptive Society of Jesus to challenge both Spain's dominance in Catholic Europe and Spain's previously unrivalled prestige in the field of overseas conversion missions. While only one part of a much wider programme, the Jesuits were well placed in the international Catholic church to aid the king and they proved a willing and able ally in his efforts. This provided the Society with a new importance to the king and his advisers as the challenge to Spain's dominance in the Catholic church was one of the most important aspects of Henri's foreign policy during this period. Moreover, the king's successful efforts to integrate the Society into his foreign policy helped the Jesuits establish and redeem themselves with domestic opinion in

96 ARSI Galliae 71, fos 41-42v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 22 March 1608; ARSI Aquitaniae 18, fo 22: Gordon to Acquaviva, 4 March 1608. See also Prat, Recherches, v, 258-260: Salignac to Henri IV, 20 September 1609; Prat, Recherches, v, 260-261 : Salignac to Henri IV, 2 November 1609; Prat, Recherches, v, 264-265: Salignac to Henri IV, 8 December 1609; Prat, Recherches, \, 266-269: Salignac to Henri IV, 10 May 1610. For the king's reputation in Rome see Prat, Recherches, v, 262-263: Brèves to Villeroy, 29 November 1609. 97

ARSI Galliae 71, fo 39: Coton to Acquaviva, 5 March 1608. See also A. Coté, Relations des Jésuites contenant ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable dans les missions des pères de la Compagnie de Jésus (Québec, 1858), i, 24-29.

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France, because Henri's policy to renew French prestige and authority on the international stage was popular in court and aristocratic circles. From 1603, Henri increasingly channelled the Society's resources into his initiatives to their mutual benefit. Aside from the important initiatives already considered, Henri also sponsored Jesuit preachers who advanced royal policies on issues like duelling and took Father Coton as his personal confessor, which signalled Henri's increasing attachment to Jesuit spiritual teachings.98 For Henri, his patronage and association with Jesuit activities both improved his Catholic credentials and helped to re-establish royal political and religious authority. For the Society the new relationship legitimized its activities in France and provided the Order with a powerful protector from its enemies. On paper, the Edict of Rouen imposed strict limits and controls on the size and scope of the Jesuit mission in France. In reality, the Society's new relationship with Henri ensured that royal goodwill, not the Edict's stipulations, defined their presence in the kingdom. Henri played a key role in defining the Society's mission in France from 1603. However, in order to fully understand how royal support transformed the Society's presence in the kingdom, one must also consider how other groups in France, encouraged by the king's change of policy towards the Jesuits, helped to define the Society's rapidly expanding activities. Allies of the Society were particularly important in securing individual foundations. Petitions from local elites often provided the catalyst behind Henri's decision to found a Jesuit college in a particular town or city. Moreover, local support for a Jesuit foundation played an important role in shaping its success or failure. Local institutions in large part endowed the Society's colleges and played a central role in protecting the foundation from its opponents. It was this local patronage, encouraged and sanctioned by the king, that ensured that the Society became the largest single organization educating the Catholic elite in France by 1610. Between 1603 and 1610 the Society's educational network had grown from just thirteen colleges concentrated in the jurisdictions of the Parlements of Bordeaux and Toulouse to thirty-six colleges across all of France. These colleges offered the Society more

98 See for instance AV Francia 53, fo 203-203v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 31 March 1609; ARSI Galliae 94, fo 234v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 18 July 1604. See also L'Estoile, Mémoires, ix, 180,242. For periodic updates see ARSI Franciae 30, fos 490-499: 'Dicta quaedam memorabilia Henrici Quatri'. For more on Coton's appointment as confessor see Prat, Recherches, iii, 1-10.

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than just a physical presence in France. Some of their students chose to join the Jesuits, strengthening the Society and helping to address its long-standing image as a foreign religious Order. Many other students became patrons and allies of the Society when they took up important positions in the church, the royal government and their local communities. Local interests supported Jesuit educational foundations for a wide variety of reasons, all of which helped to shape the Society's mission in France. Exact motivations varied and several factors were often at work behind a request. Nevertheless, the struggle to provide quality education within a community provided a central focus for most initiatives to secure Jesuit foundations. Many of the towns which requested Jesuit colleges had supported schools run by private scholars or local churchmen in the past. However, as towns struggled to recover after the disruption of the religious wars they often found it impossible to find and retain quality teachers for their municipal schools. In Condom, for instance, the town council first considered opening a Jesuit college when their schoolmaster disappeared one day in September 1596 and his replacement, while possessing sufficient knowledge to head the school, became far more intent upon practising his skills as a medical doctor than teaching his charges." For cities and towns like Condom struggling to provide education for their citizens, a Jesuit school offered an attractive solution. The Society's colleges retained a strong reputation for the quality of their teaching and the orthodoxy of their Catholic curriculum. Moreover, the Society was a stable institution unlikely to leave town unexpectedly. Finally, while the Society required a significant endowment before agreeing to open a school, once established the college required no ongoing payments for its services. To many towns struggling to recover after the religious wars the Society provided an attractive alternative to the more traditional municipal school, especially once Henri made clear that the royal government approved and even advocated the Society's teaching activities.100 Petitions for Jesuit schools also regularly cite the improved provision of Catholic teaching and Catholic rites within a town as a major consideration in the decision to fund Jesuit colleges. Many town councils asserted in their foundation

99

Delattre, Les Établissements, i, cols 1538-1539. For example, see the reasons presented by those seeking the foundation of Jesuit colleges in Bourges, Mauriac, Moulin and Vienne in Delattre, Les Établissements, i, cols 868-869; iii, cols 159-162,624; v, cols 146-148. 100

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requests that they viewed a Jesuit college as more than just a teaching institution. By 1603, in areas of the south of France where the Society continued to operate, Jesuit education extended beyond the classroom to catechism classes in local churches and instruction to local clergy on the faith and teaching of Catholic doctrine to the laity. Moreover, Jesuit Marian congregations and pious networks also thrived.101 Promoters of Jesuit colleges often cited these contributions to the local community along with the provision of Jesuit preachers and confessors as indirect benefits of a Jesuit college.102 Jesuit preaching was often the first direct contact town officials had with the Society. In Sisternon for instance, community leaders cited the impression made by a Jesuit preacher and the promise of further preaching when the Society took up a permanent presence in their community as critical in swaying the town's notables to back a request for a college.103 Thus, by securing a Jesuit foundation, town officials also often expected to improve the religious life of their communities. Funding came from a cross-section of the community.104 Typically, the town council and individual bequests by leading figures in the community provided a significant portion of the funding. Churchmen and church corporations also typically contributed to the college, and the transfer of church endowments or ecclesiastical livings frequently provided a significant component of the funding package.105 Aristocratic patrons sponsored some colleges, usually within their hereditary lands. For instance, the house of Guise sponsored the Jesuit college at Eu and the house of Nevers sponsored the Society's college at Nevers.106 More often, important aristocrats like Jean-Louis de Nogaret, due d'Epernon, and Henri de Montmorency-Damville, Constable and Governor of Languedoc, participated by supporting a city's initiative within their hereditary lands or provincial

101 For instance see the account of Jesuit activities at the college of Rodez in Delattre, Les Établissements, iv, cols 468-470. 102 For instance the towns of Cahors, Moulin and Mauriac all cite these potential benefits, see Delattre, Les Établissements, i, col. 1011; iii, cols 159-162, 624. 103 Delattre, Les Établissements, iv, col. 1114. 104 The Jesuit colleges in Mauriac, Moulin and Rennes provide good examples of the mixed funding arrangements in local communities, see Delattre, Les Établissements, iii, cols 159-160,624-625; iv, 348350. 105 The proposed Jesuit colleges at Orléans, Rennes and Roanne provide good examples of the transfer of church resources, see Delattre, Les Établissements, iii, col. 1002; iv, cols 349,431. 106 For the Jesuit college at Eu see Delattre, Les Établissements, ii, cols 411-422. For the Jesuit college at Nevers see Delattre, Les Établissements, iii, cols 813-818.

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governorship by securing the approval of the king for a new foundation.107 Whatever the exact motivation of each town or alliance of patrons, the endowment of Jesuit colleges had an important impact on the Society's position in France. Towns across the kingdom took a vested interest in the Society's success. Substantial endowments funded the Society's presence and rapid growth in vocations during the period. Moreover, Jesuit teaching and preaching, along with the organization of Jesuit confraternities, sodalities and other pious organizations within local communities established a set of relationships between the Society and local notables on a scale never before achieved in France. In localities across the kingdom, active royal sponsorship of Jesuit educational endeavours encouraged natural supporters of the Society and its activities to secure Jesuit teaching foundations for their communities. Public royal support for the Society's activities from 1603 also encouraged many reform-minded church figures and institutions to integrate the Society into the nascent seventeenth-century French Catholic reformation taking shape across the kingdom.108 For instance, François de la Rochefoucauld, bishop of Clermont and future cardinal; Gabriel de Laubespine, bishop of Orléans; Aymar Hennequin, bishop of Rennes; Siméon-Étienne de Popian, bishop of Cahors; and Honoré Du Laurens, bishop of Embrun all sponsored colleges in their dioceses.109 For bishops these educational establishments encouraged orthodox Catholic beliefs and practices amongst students, and its graduates provided a pool of well-educated young men for the priesthood.110 Bishops were also important sponsors of the Society's missionary activities. Both Popian and Du Laurens viewed the Society's colleges as important tools in battling the widespread influence of the Huguenot church in their dioceses. François d'Escoubleau de Sourdis, cardinal archbishop of 107 For D'Epernon's support of the Saintes college see Delattre, Les Établissements, iv, cols 628-629. For Montmorency's sponsorship of the Tournon college see Delattre, Les Établissements, iv, col. 1413. 108 Although G. Huppert overstates the lack of local support for the Society, he is right to note the considerable support amongst churchmen for these foundations, see G. Huppert, Public Schools in Renaissance France (Chicago, 1984), pp. 104-115. 109 For the activities of the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld see J. Bergin, Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld: Leadership and Reform in the French Church (New Haven CT, 1987), pp. 33-34,90-91. See also Delattre, Les Établissements, i, cols 703-704; ii, cols 159-163. For Bishop Laubespine see AFCJ Prat 32, pp. 11691171: Coton to Laubespine, 2 February 1609; AFCJ Prat 32, pp. 1173-1175: Coton to Laubespine, 17 February 1609; AFCJ Prat 32, pp. 1199-1205 : Coton to Laubespine, 17 May 1609. For bishops Hennequin and Du Laurens see Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 49, 97. Cardinal Joyeuse amongst others also supported the Jesuits, see ARSI Franciae 31, fo 196: Joyeuse to Acquaviva, 30 March 1610. 110 See for instance the case of the Jesuit college in Cahors in Delattre, Les Établissements, i, col. 1011.

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Bordeaux and long-time supporter of the Society, sponsored a Jesuit noviciate in 1606 and a professed house in 1610 to promote the faith amongst his parishioners.111 Moreover, Pierre Valernod, bishop of Nîmes, promoted Jesuit missionaries to combat the historically strong Huguenot presence in his diocese.112 The widespread sponsorship of Jesuit colleges and missionary activities by French churchmen marked continuity not a break with the past. The sponsorship of churchmen had secured a majority of the Jesuit foundations established before their expulsion in 1594, but the Society's ability to teach and conduct missionary work within their dioceses took on renewed importance as a new generation of bishops took over pastoral responsibilities across France in an environment of religious competition fostered by the Edict of Nantes. From 1603 the Society enjoyed broader support amongst French bishops than before their expulsion. The royal sanction of the Society's return allowed both the Society's long-standing clerical supporters in the kingdom and a number of new patrons amongst the reforming bishops to actively promote new Jesuit colleges and residences in their dioceses. The reputations of individual Jesuit fathers as holy men and directors of consciences along with royal support for the Society's activities also attracted the patronage of important reforming abbesses. The first decade of the seventeenth century witnessed a period of renewal in aristocratic French nunneries and the Society of Jesus played a prominent role in supporting their renewal through preaching and confession.113 Several powerful abbesses including Éléonore de Bourbon, abbess of Fontrevault and aunt of Henri IV, and Charolotte-Flandrine de Nassau, princesse d'Orange and abbess of Saint Croix de Poitiers, embraced the Society as part of their reform efforts.114 Indeed, in some cases Father General

111 Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 107-108. See also Peyrous, La Réforme Catholique, i, 324. The professed house did not open until 1624. 112 Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 119-120. See also Sauzet, Contre-réforme et réforme Catholique, i, 144-146. Examples of support by French ecclesiastics for Jesuit foundations are numerous, see for instance ARSI Franciae 47, letter 18: Jacobus Perordus to Acquaviva, 20 October 1608. This letter notes that René de Bourgneuf, bishop of Nantes, was interested in opening a college in his diocese. 113 For a recent overview of convents in Paris see B. Diefendorf, 'Contradictions of the Century of Saints: Aristocratic Patronage and the Convents of Counter-Reformation Paris', French Historical Studies, 24 (2001), 469-499. 114 For Éléonore de Bourbon see BI Godefroy 15, fo 214: Éléonore de Bourbon to Henri IV, 23 October 1603. See also Delattre, Les Établissements, ii, cols 496-498. For Charolotte-Flandrine de Nassau see ARSI Aquitaniae 18, fo 14-14v°:Charolotte-Flandrine de Nassau to Acquaviva, 28 June 1607; ARSI Aquitaniae 18, fo 16-16v°: Charolotte-Flandrine de Nassau to Acquaviva, 15 October 1607; ARSI Aquitaniae 18, fo 18-18v°: Charolotte-Flandrine de Nassau to Acquaviva, 13 February 1608; ARSI Aquitaniae 18, fo 31:

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Acquaviva had to ensure that the Society avoided becoming too closely involved in the reform of female monastic houses. That was the case when Marie de Beauvillier, abbess of Montmartre near Paris, asked Acquaviva to send Jesuit fathers to conduct a visitation of her house. While Acquaviva declined this invitation as outside the scope of the Jesuit ministry, he did offer to send Jesuit preachers and confessors.115 Thus, upon its return in 1603 the Society found strong demand for its services from a number of reform-minded abbesses in France. The recruitment of the Society by important individuals and institutions within the Gallican church to support efforts at reform and renewal placed the Society in a strong position to participate in the nascent seventeenth-century French Catholic reformation. The efforts of bishops and abbesses to reform their dioceses and convents were just one feature of a wider renewal in the French Catholic church that in many instances also embraced the Society of Jesus. New forms of Catholic devotion developed rapidly during the period between 1590 and 1620, and many of those most inclined to the new piety chose to accept and sponsor the Society as one aspect of this new movement.116 The late religious war and Leaguer spirituality based on an active immanent God and the participation of devout Catholics in the protection of the pure church from contamination was rapidly discredited amongst many of the faithful. In its place quickly sprung a more internal and contemplative spirituality advocated by such influential figures as Barbe Avrillot d'Acarie and Pierre de Bérulle: a spirituality which became closely associated with the nascent seventeenth-century French Catholic reformation. The development of this new pious movement in France had two important implications for the Society. First, it made the Society's activities and constitutions less distinctive in the French Catholic church. Second, many participants embraced the Society during this early period of the movement, thus securing an influential position for the Jesuits within this powerful new spiritual tradition in France.

Charolotte-Flandrine de Nassau to Acquaviva, 21 August 1611; ARSI Aquitaniae 18, fo 33: CharolotteFlandrine de Nassau to Acquaviva, 11 May 1612. 115 ARSI Franciae 2, fo 140v°: Acquaviva to Beauvillier, 1 April 1608. 116 D. Richet, 'La Contre-réforme Catholique en France dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle', in D. Richet, De la Réforme à la Révolution: études sur la France moderne (Paris, 1991), pp. 83-95. See also J. Dagens, Bérulle et les origines de la restauration Catholique (1575-1611) (Paris, 1952). For a discussion of piety during the late religious wars and the reign of Henri IV see D. Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu: la violence au temps des troubles de religion vers 1525-vers 1610 (Paris, 1990), ii, 287-619.

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One central feature of and-Jesuit polemic since the 1550s had been the charge that the Society of Jesus did not fit within the regulatory framework of the French church and therefore was peculiarly dangerous to French doctrines and institutions. However, during the period between 1604 and 1610 a series of reformed religious orders and new Catholic-Reformation orders, which shared many distinctive features with the Society of Jesus, entered or rapidly grew in France, undermining the argument that the Jesuits presented a peculiar threat to the French church.117 For instance, the reformed Franciscan Récollets received royal permission to found a house in a suburb of Paris in 1603.118 Moreover, in the same year the Capuchins, who arrived in France in 1564 through the patronage of the Charles de Guise, Cardinal de Lorraine, started to construct a large new house on the Rue St-Honore in Paris despite the widespread distrust of these reformed Franciscans by many Gallicans for reasons similar to those which defined Gallican opposition to the Jesuits.119 To these examples one could add the Barnabites, who Henri IV invited to Beam in 1608, and the Brothers of Charity, who also entered the French church during Henri's reign.120 Several new female religious orders also established themselves in France during the years following the Jesuit return. The Carmelites and the Ursulines founded houses in Paris during this period.121 These female religious orders assimilated into the French church from abroad, but others possessed French roots, including Jeanne de Lestonnac's Filles de Nôtre-Dame in Bordeaux who were dedicated to educating Catholic girls.122 These new orders operated within the community and possessed a number of the traits that had hindered the efforts of magistrates to regulate the Society of Jesus. Thus, these new foundations diluted the peculiar threat of the Jesuits to the French church structure as they took up similar positions in the French church hierarchy.

117 Dagens, Bérulle, p. 175. Dagens argues that this development reflected royal support. For a general discussion of religious life in Paris at the turn of the seventeenth century see R. Pillorget, Nouvelle histoire de Paris: Paris sous les premiers Bourbons 1594-1661 (Paris, 1988), pp. 473-577. 118 Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 177. 119 For the foundation of the Capuchin monastery see P. Larousse (éd.), Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1867), iii, 341. Also see Pillorget, Nouvelle histoire de Paris, pp. 501-504. 120 For these two orders see Buisseret, Henry IV, p. 123. 121 Dagens, Bérulle, pp. 191 -204. See also M. Houssaye, M. de Bérulle et les Carmélites de France (Paris, 1872); M.-A. Jegou, Les Ursulines du faubourg Saint-Jacques à Paris 1607-1662 (Paris, 1981). 122 E. Rapley, The Dévotes: Women and the Church in Seventeenth-Century France (London, 1990), pp. 43-48. See also Peyrous, La Réforme Catholique, i, 424-438; Histoire des Religieuses Filles de NôtreDame (Poitiers, 1697-1700).

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These new orders also represented the increased influence in the French church of organizational structures and active ministries long associated with the Jesuits. The rapid growth of new active Catholic reformation religious orders represented genuine support amongst an important section of the French church and French society for these groups. After 1603 the Jesuits were publicly embraced by many of those most inclined towards the new piety. Indeed, following Henri IV s rehabilitation of the Order, the Jesuits quickly became an important force in this new pious movement. For instance, the young Pierre de Bérulle considered joining the Society of Jesus and viewed Coton as a protector, confidant and spiritual adviser.123 Coton's role as assistant at the first meeting of Bérulle's nascent organization, the Oratoire, reflected the Jesuit father's strong influence over the future cardinal.124 The Jesuits exerted a similar influence over female manifestations of Catholic renewal. For instance, in Paris, Coton was a spiritual adviser to Madame d'Acarie and the Carmelite nunnery, while a group of Jesuit fathers dominated the spiritual life of the Ursuline nunnery.125 The Jesuits also influenced the development of female religious organizations away from the capital. In Bordeaux they were closely involved with the foundation of Jeanne de Lestonnac's Filles de NôtreDame - an organization dedicated to teaching girls with techniques borrowed from Jesuit pedagogy.126 These examples reveal how Henri's decision to encourage Jesuit participation in France allowed the leaders of the nascent seventeenthcentury French Catholic reformation to integrate the Society into this rapidly developing movement. The popularity of the French Catholic reformation and the support that this new movement provided the Society was evident in the private correspondence of Jacques Gillot, conseiller at the Parlement of Paris, opponent of the Society and important erudite Gallican. Gillot perhaps best expressed his concern for protecting French identity from the foreign influences of the new Catholic piety when he wrote to the humanist Joseph-Juste Scaliger that he had devoted himself through his 123

Dagens, Bérulle, pp. 178-179. For Bérulle's consideration of a Jesuit vocation see Dagens, Bérulle, pp. 180-190. See also P. de Bérulle, Correspondance du Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle, J. Dagens (éd.) (Paris, 1937), i, 76, 96-97, 100-101. 124 Dagens, £én///É?, p. 179. 125 For Acarie see Prat, Recherches, ii, 365-375. For the Carmelites see Prat, Recherches, ii, 391 -396. For the Ursulines see Jegou, Les Ursuline s, pp. 129-145. 126 Rapley, The Dévotes, pp. 43-48. See also Peyrous, La Réforme Catholique, i, 327, 427-428.

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scholarship to leaving some 'monuments and relics of our poor nation, the most rebuked and enslaved by the Jesuits, Feuillants, and Capuchins, as ever was a nation'.127 In this passage Gillot identified the Jesuits as one of a number of foreign religious orders that he believed threatened the integrity of the French church and French society. Gillot's lament reflected the growing success of the French Catholic reformation, a reformation which many of his colleagues and peers supported and a reformation in which the Society - with both royal and local support - was to play an important, but not unique, role. The new relationship between Crown and Society, which encouraged supporters of the Jesuits to sponsor the Order's activities, also had an important impact on how Catholic opponents of the Jesuits in France dealt with the Order and the wider legal and constitutional issues closely associated with the Society since the early 1590s. While opponents of the Society continued to privately oppose the Order's presence in France, royal support for the Jesuits largely limited public opposition amongst Catholics to specific questions of Jesuit privileges and the regulation of the Order within French law. Indeed, from January 1604 there were few public attacks on the Society and Protestants produced much of the anti-Jesuit material which generated the greatest interest in the capital.128 After the significant set of works published between 1602 and early 1604 by important authors, like Etienne Pasquier and Antoine Arnauld, in order to persuade the king not to allow the Jesuits to return, the number of published texts produced in France which criticized the Jesuits declined dramatically. Between 1605 and 1610 Pierre de l'Estoile occasionally noted the appearance of a secretly produced anti-Jesuit publication. Nevertheless, the tracts printed in France were notable for their rarity. Moreover, the secret nature of their publication underlined the new environment in which these texts were distributed.129 While these works still attracted readers, their marginal presence in the debate was reflected in the publication of the one Catholic tract which received significant attention both in Paris and at court: César de Plaix's Le Passe-par-tovt

127

P. Burmannus, Sylloges epistolarum a viris illustribus scriptarum (Leiden, 1727), ii, 370. See for instance BN MS Fr 2761, fos 194v°-197: 'Mémoire envoyé par Monsieur de la Force touchant un eschollier Jesuiste Espagnol fugitifs en France', 1608. See also Sully (Economies royales, viii, 37-42, 44-45; BN Dupuy 678, fo 111-11 lv°: Printed broadsheet Qvœstiones spiritvi immvndo adexplicandvm propositœ (n.pl., n.d.). 129 L'Estoile, Mémoires, viii, 201, 253, 348; ix, 197; x, 8, 30. 128

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des Peres lesuites, first published in 1607.130 This tract, which provided a burlesque, satirical account of the Jesuits and their educational activities rather than a serious attack on their political or religious doctrines, was published secretly without the author or publisher's name and, according to Philippe DuplessisMornay, an important Protestant figure at court, irritated Henri IV.131 Public opposition to the Society's return remained muted until Henri's assassination in 1610. However, Henri's decision in 1605 to remove the monument known as the Pyramid - which since its construction in 1595 had commemorated the punishment of Jean Chastel and his accomplices, the Society of Jesus, for attempted regicide - indirectly drew the Jesuits back into the public controversy over royal authority and the enforcement of public law in France. Nevertheless, the debate surrounding the Pyramid's removal reveals the reluctance of magistrates to raise the issue of the Society's presence in the kingdom. Underneath the public debate over the Pyramid's removal both supporters and opponents implicitly acknowledged that the Pyramid had been built as and remained a monument against the Society's presence in France.132 This symbolic meaning of the monument inspired a campaign at the royal court by the Society and its allies to secure its removal. It also seems likely that at least some opponents of the Society interpreted the Parlement of Paris's spirited opposition to the Pyramid's removal as a protest against the rehabilitation of the Jesuits through the Edict of Rouen. Nevertheless, while this underlying theme concerning the Jesuits almost certainly helped to define the conflict, the arguments used to oppose the king's initiative to remove the Pyramid reveal a new post-Edict of Rouen relationship between French magistrates and Society. Throughout the controversy, the Society's opponents in the Parlement of Paris sought to minimize the explicit conflation of the Pyramid controversy with the rehabilitation of the Jesuits in France. Instead, erudite Gallican jurists framed the demolition of the Pyramid in terms of the wider controversy over the definition and enforcement of public law, which had proven an important issue in both the

130

The full title of the tract is C. de Plaix, Le Passe-par-tovt des Peres Jésuites, apporte d'Italie par le docteur de Palestine gentilhomme Romain, ensemble L'A. Banny du François et nouuellement traduit de l'Italien imprimé à Rome (n.pl., 1607). 131 Duplessis-Mornay, Mémoires, x, 197: Duplessis-Mornay to Rivet, 23 January 1607. 132 J.-A. de Thou, Histoire universelle de Jacque Auguste de Thou depuis I543jusqu 'en 1607 (London, 1734),xiv,431.

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expulsion and subsequent rehabilitation of the Jesuits. In his account of the Pyramid controversy, président Jacques-Auguste de Thou stressed the Parlement's concern for potential public disorder amongst good Frenchmen who would view the removal of the Pyramid as a victory for those who wished to plot against the king. Moreover, de Thou also emphasized the concern that many who viewed the destruction of the Pyramid would interpret the king's action as a reversal of the law against tyrannicide or a rebuke to the Parlement of Paris.133 Thus, de Thou presented the Parlement's defence of the Pyramid as essentially a defence of public law. The Parlement's spokesmen uniformly argued that the Pyramid was a symbolic embodiment of public law on regicide. Many members of the Parlement of Paris argued that the king had made it clear in the Edict of Rouen that he had not revoked the Parlement's arrêt against Chastel nor for that matter the Parlement's arrêt against the Society of Jesus. Instead Henri had forgiven the Society its past misdeeds through royal clemency. Thus, to destroy the Pyramid sent a misleading and dangerous message to those who witnessed its destruction: that the fundamental law of the kingdom which the Pyramid represented had been revoked or weakened. De Thou summarized this understanding of the controversy well when, in a passage describing the destruction of the monument, he wrote: 'It was noticed that the statue of justice which adorned the Pyramid, was removed first as if it was important to overthrow justice, before destroying a barrier which had given a semblance of security to the throne'.134 De Thou framed the opposition of the Parlement strictly on issues unrelated to the Jesuits or their mission in France. For de Thou the removal of the Pyramid symbolically subverted the law as enforced by the Parlement, a subject which undoubtedly concerned many jurists regardless of their private views about the Jesuits. The ongoing search for a compromise between the king and the Parlement of Paris revealed little inclination by either side in the controversy to draw the question of the Society's presence in France into the Pyramid crisis. When Henri first sought to resolve the Pyramid issue in the summer of 1604, he initially viewed

133

De Thou, Histoire (1734), x, 27-28. De Thou, Histoire ( 1734), x, 31. Premier président Harlay drew on these same arguments during an exchange with Chancellor Sillery, see H. Rybeyrette, 'Documents inédits. Récit des choses arrivées en France à la Compagnie de Jésus sous le règne du roy Henry le Grande', in A. Carayon (éd.), Documents inédits concernant la Compagnie de Jésus (Poitiers, 1863), ii, 70. 134

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favourably a compromise which would have removed the plaques that many believed both directly and indirectly attacked the honour of the Society from the Pyramid but would have maintained the Pyramid as a structure.135 The Parlement rejected this compromise as unacceptable, but in his Histoire de Thou wrote that the Parlement offered to remove the one plaque that carried a transcription of the arrêt against the Society of Jesus.136 This offer by the Parlement reflected an important distinction that the judges wished to make. They accepted the Society's new legal position in France, as established by the Edict of Rouen, and thus were willing to countenance the removal of a plaque that advertised a ruling which the king had made redundant through his clemency. However, the Parlement would not countenance the removal of the other plaques which advertised and defined the law against regicide in France. As the controversy continued, the Parlement of Paris offered an alternative compromise to the monarch: that the king's men remove the Pyramid at night.137 This solution was unacceptable to the king and his advisers as it implied that the action was in some way less than completely just.138 Nevertheless, this compromise would have partially addressed what the Parlement viewed as its most important concern: that the king avoid publicly rejecting the law symbolized by the Pyramid through the public destruction of the monument. By removing the monument under the cover of darkness, the Parlement believed that the action would possess less symbolic meaning. The Parlement's proposed compromise carefully defined the issue at stake as the compromising of the public law against regicide, not the survival of a symbol of Jesuit guilt. Undoubtedly, premier président Achille de Harlay, président de Thou and others hoped that observers of the controversy continued to associate the Pyramid with the Society of Jesus; but, nonetheless, they carefully avoided making this link the central feature of this debate. This was a difficult balance to maintain as can be seen in de Thou's speech before the Parlement where he strongly voiced his belief that the Jesuits and their supporters

135

70. 136

ARSI Galliae 94, fo 234v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 18 July 1604. See also Rybeyrette, 'Documents', ii,

DeThou,//wto/re(1734),x,27. DeThou,/fo/oire(1734),x,31. 138 This compromise undoubtedly reminded the king and his advisers of the Cross of Gastines incident during the religious wars when the removal of the cross at night became a symbol of the monarchy's weakness, see B. Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris (Oxford, 1991), pp. 84-88. 137

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would be responsible for any further attempts on the monarch's life if the Pyramid was removed, but nevertheless maintained that the monument's meaning was strictly concerned with the law on tyrannicide: Because, it was said at the time, that if one knocked over a monument which seemed to be one of the foundations, and one of the strongest symbols of public tranquility, it troubled this same tranquility; therefore if France once again received a blow as deadly as the one carried out by Chastel, this crime will justly be attributed to the Society, and we will then be able to say that the Jesuits, who maintain, if one believes it of them, that they returned to France only for the good of the kingdom, would have caused its misfortune and its fall.139

In this statement, de Thou, a long-standing opponent of the Society, chose to couch his criticism in such a way as to avoid conflating their rehabilitation directly with the question of the Pyramid's removal. In the end no compromise was possible because Henri IV was determined to define the issue as an assertion of his authority and judgment, much like his rehabilitation of the Society of Jesus.140 He returned to the issue in February 1605 when he ordered the demolition of the Pyramid in his royal council. In a letter to Father Maggio, Father Coton provided an account of the decision and the royal purpose in destroying the Pyramid: 'The King himself has resolved to demolish the Pyramid not at night but during the day, having informed the Parlement and signified this to be his will'.141 Henri IV's intentions as reported by Coton were reflected in the removal of the Pyramid in daylight by the king's men in May or early June 1605.142 For Henri the Parlement of Paris's resistance was opposition to his 'will'.143 The issue was not about law but rather about authority and obedience. Henri IV's ability to demolish the Pyramid without formally consulting the Parlement whose arrêt it symbolized underlined royal authority.

139

De Thou, Histoire (1734), x, 27-28. There is evidence that Henri IV may have been willing to compromise early in the controversy, see ARSI Galliae 94, fo 234v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 18 July 1604. See also Rybeyrette, 'Documents', ii, 70. However, continued opposition hardened the king's stance on the issue, and by February 1605 he had rejected compromise in favour of a clear assertion of his authority. 141 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 466: Coton to Maggio, 18 February 1605. 142 ARSI Galliae 71, fo 8: Coton to Acquaviva, 20 June 1605. For the view of many magistrates in the Parlement of Paris see de Thou, Histoire (1734), x, 27-30. 143 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 466: Coton to Maggio, 18 February 1605. 140

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While the Parlement of Paris failed to persuade Henri with their objections, the court's public opposition provides an excellent opportunity to explore the evolution of opposition to the Society in France. Harlay, de Thou and undoubtedly many other parlementaires who had opposed the Society in the past chose to articulate important concerns about public law raised in the Pyramid controversy without reference to the Society of Jesus. Direct opposition to the Society's presence in France was no longer on the agenda. Privately, these jurists might have promoted such a link, but publicly they sought to distance the two issues. Thus, the recorded reactions of important members of the Parlement during the Pyramid controversy provide evidence of an evolving public relationship between the Jesuits and the Parlement. The Parlement accepted the Society's existence in the kingdom. It had registered the Edict of Rouen after a clear articulation of the royal will; and, following the registration, those who had opposed the Society accepted, at least publicly, the new situation. Royalist polemic since the early 1590s had argued that even a king who acted unjustly needed to be obeyed for the sake of peace and order.144 Many magistrates who had argued this point in support of Henri IV's campaign to pacify his kingdom were also opponents of the Society. Now the king required them to accept his will with reference to the Jesuits and nearly all were willing to maintain their public silence on this issue. It was in this context that the Society received an opportunity to integrate itself more firmly into the French church and French society. The lack of public opposition also reflected the tendency amongst parlementaires to remain silent in public on issues surrounding the Jesuits' presence in France, a silence frequently resorted to when the Parlement received lettres patentes from the king ordering the opening of new Jesuit foundations within their jurisdiction beyond those explicitly sanctioned in the Edict of Rouen. In the case of these colleges the Parlement chose neither to formally register nor oppose the king's initiatives. One can draw two broad conclusions from the Pyramid controversy. First, following the registration of the Edict of Rouen, the Society's right to operate in the kingdom was no longer an issue of sustained public debate amongst Catholics in

144 Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, ii, 554-566. For a good discussion of the same topic in English see D. Crouzet, 'Henri IV, King of Reason?', in K. Cameron (éd.), From Valois to Bourbon: Dynasty, State and Society in Early Modern France (Exeter, UK, 1989), pp. 73-106. For a more general discussion of the intellectual movement which promoted this neo-stoic interpretation of political action see R. Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572-1651 (Cambridge, 1993).

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France. Second, the collapse of direct public opposition to the Society did not reflect a transformation in the private attitudes of individuals toward the Society of Jesus or toward the important theoretical issues about the operation of public law which opponents had associated with the Jesuits since 1594. For example, the return of the Jesuits failed to address the underlying concerns over the possible assassination of a king as royal authorities continued to regularly uncover plots against Henri's life during the final years of his reign.145 Nevertheless, the concern of many Frenchmen for the king's safety and their ongoing distrust of the Society and its presence in France did not lead to a conflation of the two issues. The absence of the Jesuits from the polemic is all the more striking as there was no shortage of public controversies that their opponents could have associated with the Society. For instance, erudite Gallican scholars intent on establishing the historical context for their beliefs prepared new editions of important texts on theories of papal authority and regicide including those of Jean Gerson, the Paris theologian who had defended the inviolability of a monarch's life against Jean Petit at the opening of the fifteenth century.146 The Edict of Rouen failed to exonerate the Jesuits who remained modern advocates of Petit's theories, yet no author chose to make this connection when publishing new editions of these works. Moreover, the period between 1604 and 1610 also witnessed a series of new publications, by authors such as Jacques-Auguste de Thou and Jacques Leschassier, designed to provide a more detailed framework of historical scholarship devoted to defining and substantiating French law and privileges, especially with reference to the pope.147 But again no author chose to link the Jesuits to these works. The Venetian Interdict crisis and the loyalty oath demanded of all English Catholics by James I following the Gunpowder Plot - both of which entered the public debate in 1605 also attracted the interest of French scholars. The Venetian Interdict crisis hinged upon the question of papal authority and church regulation within the Venetian 145

Buisseret, Henry IV, pp. 56-57. J.C. de Gerson, loannis Gersonii... opera; auctiora & castigatiora; inque partes quator distibua. Accessit vita Gersonii (Paris, 1606). See also B. Guenée, Un meurtre, une société: l'assassinat du duc d'Orléans 23 Novembre 1407 (Paris, 1992), pp. 189-264. See also R. Vaughan, John the Fearless (London, 1966), pp. 210-212. 147 See for instance J.-A. de Thou, Historiarvm svi temporis partis primœ (Paris, 1604). See also J. Leschassier, De la liberté ancienne et canoniqve de l'église Gallicane, aux Cours souueraines de France (Paris, 1606). See also J. Leschassier, Instructions et missives des Roys Tres-Chrestiens de France et de levrs ambassadeurs: et autres pièces concernants le Concile de Trente (n.pl., 1608) and thé tract attributed to Jacques Gillot entitled Traictez des droicts et libériez de l'église Gallicane (Paris, 1609). 146

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state while the Gunpowder Plot dealt directly with the question of regicide. These foreign controversies, which inspired repressive policies against the Society and strong anti-Jesuit polemical campaigns in both Venice and England, provided new contexts in which issues central to the anti-Jesuit rhetoric of 1594 were debated, but the Society of Jesus was absent as a significant factor in this polemic in France. During this period, the Jesuits in France worked to encourage the separation of the Society from such discussions of papal authority and tyrannicide. For instance, despite the concerted efforts of Papal Nuncio Roberto Ubaldini, the French Jesuit Fathers Coton and Fronton du Duc refused to publish treatises against James F s text on papal authority, Apologia pro iur amento fidelit ails ^ Du Due's response to Ubaldini's request is revealing as he refused to write on the topic in part because he was busy working on an edition of the Greek church fathers and in part because he did not see how he could write on the topic in a manner that satisfied both his conscience and the truth without becoming the centre of controversy.149 The Jesuits were unwilling to become involved in such a conflict as they wished to distance themselves from the controversies that led to their original expulsion. Indeed, Coton was only willing to enter the controversy when Henri IV legitimized his participation by appointing him to a committee charged with examining James I's book.150 Thus, although the occasional theoretical work by a foreign Jesuit, most notably the Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mariana, associated the Society with these controversies, the Jesuits in France worked to separate themselves from this debate.151 This desire to distance the Society in France from controversial theories about papal authority and tyrannicide extended even to the defence of some French scholars who published studies on French liberties. For instance, Louis Richeome, the French Jesuit father assistant in Rome, promised de Thou that he would work

148 AV Francia 53, fos 259v°-260v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 27 July 1609; AV Francia 53, fo 268: Ubaldini to Borghese, 4 August 1609; AV Francia 53, fo 285: Ubaldini to Borghese, 18 August 1609; AV Francia 53, fo 295-295v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 20 September 1609. See also James I, Apologia pro iuramento fidelitatis. Denuô édita. Cui prœmissa est Prœfatio monitoria Cœsari Rodolphoii (London, 1609). 149 AV Francia 53, fo 285: Ubaldini to Borghese, 18 August 1609. 150 BN MS Fr 18004, fos 247v°-248: Brèves to Henri IV, 5 August 1609. 151 Mariana's work was published in Spain in the late 1590s but was not condemned in France until shortly after Henri IV's death in 1610, see J. Mariana, De rege et régis institutione (Toledo, 1599).

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for the removal of the president's Histoire universelle from the Roman Index of Prohibited Books.152 Despite the Society's efforts, many individuals in France continued to distrust the Jesuits, as was reflected in their opponents' private actions.153 But the most vocal opponents of the Society's return were careful after 1603 to maintain silence in public on this issue. De Thou's Histoire universelle provides a clear example of how one erudite Gallican magistrate maintained a private distrust of the Jesuits even as he publicly respected the royal decision to allow the Jesuits to establish themselves in France.154 Although de Thou did not write the final books of his Histoire until 1612, he started organizing the material for these books from 1609 at the latest, and perhaps as early as 1607.155 This material repeatedly returned to the theme of Jesuit interference in sovereign states across Europe and the disorder and destruction that their interference caused.156 He drew much of the material for his Histoire from the news and rumours circulating in Paris during this period. His consistent recording of this material reflected both his continued distrust of the Society and the circles in which anti-Jesuit material privately circulated. Nevertheless, his research betrays a private as opposed to public assertion of his distrust of the Jesuits. De Thou gave no indication that he intended to publish the later books of his Histoire and to his death he respected in public the royal decision to allow the Jesuits to return.157 Thus, during the period between 1604 and Henri IV's assassination in 1610, individuals like de Thou continued to write about and debate important theoretical issues of law and political theory which had in 1594 and 1603 provided foci for attacks on the Society of Jesus's presence in France. Moreover, a number of individual magistrates continued to express their personal mistrust of the Society. But in the public debate these individuals chose not to combine their concerns for royal sovereignty with their suspicion of the Jesuits.

152

BOD Carte 101, pp. 78-80: Richeome to de Thou, 22 June 1610. For an example of continued private opposition to the Jesuits see Gillot's correspondence to Scaliger in Burmannus, Sylloges epistolarum, ii, 370. 154 J.-A. de Thou, Histoire universelle de Jacques-Auguste de Thou (The Hague, 1740). 155 S. Kinser, The Works of Jacques-Auguste de Thou (The Hague, 1966), pp. 83-84. 156 On the Jesuits see de Thou, Histoire (1740), ix, 706; x, 26-31. On England see de Thou, Histoire (1740), ix, 656-660; x, 57-73. On Moscow see de Thou, Histoire (1740), x, 46-57. On Danzig and Thorn see de Thou, Histoire (1740), x, 89-90. On Venice see de Thou, Histoire (1740), x, 136-188. On Transylvania and Poland see de Thou, Histoire (1740), x, 160-161. 157 Kinser, The Works of Jacques-Auguste de Thou, pp. 83-84. 153

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Nevertheless, while opposition to the Society for its political and religious teachings was largely absent from the public debate following the registration of the Edict of Rouen, the Jesuits were the subject of strong public opposition on issues of privilege and regulation. The conflicts which fall into this broad category provide a contrast with the rare appearance of the Society in debates over papal versus royal authority and regicide. These varied forms of local opposition shared the same general purpose: to protect existing French rights and privileges from the encroachments of the Society of Jesus and the royal authority which sustained them. This opposition was primarily concerned with regulating the Order and provided a substantively different challenge to the Jesuits in France from what they had faced in 1594 or 1603. By their very nature these conflicts implied an acceptance that the Society existed and would continue to exist in France, but they also reflected opposition from groups that had not previously opposed the Society's presence in the kingdom. This new tension and the emergence of new enemies is not surprising. Early modern France was a society built on a complex web of rights and privileges which defined the statuses of both corporations and individuals. As the periodic conflicts between the University of Paris and the Society of Jesus indicate, privileges were defended vigorously by interested parties through the royal courts. The Society, with its new corporate rights granted by Henri IV, proved particularly disruptive as it rapidly expanded with authorization from the royal government into localities across the kingdom. The conflicts were in part inspired by the types of foundations established by the Society under royal direction. The Society's activities in education and the spiritual life of local communities were bound to threaten the rights, privileges and authority of local groups. By Henri IV's death in May 1610 the Jesuits had created a new province in France and could boast of forty-five foundations, mostly colleges, employing 1,379 fathers.158 This rapid expansion brought the Jesuits a greatly enhanced role in the French church but also resulted in the Society coming into conflict with a number of local privileged groups. These disputes over privilege and regulation took a number of different forms. For instance, while Henri IV's lettres patentes provided the authority for the new Jesuit foundations, the king rarely provided the funding. The Jesuits usually relied upon allies amongst the clergy, nobles and/or a section of the local community to 158

Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 151-152.

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contribute a substantial portion of the endowment required to open a college, but royal demands for additional monies to complete the funding of an establishment often met with hostility from other members of the local community.159 The Jesuits were frequently portrayed as outsiders, and Jesuit reliance in certain circumstances on the royal will to secure their foundation is clearly shown in Father Coton's letter to the local authorities in Caen dated 1 December 1608. In this letter, Coton dealt with local objections by noting that 'The King who does not easily take these decisions, decided so and made it clear to Your Deputies as you will also read in his lettres patentes'.160 Further, Henri IV's policy of suppressing abbeys to help fund colleges also created tense relations between the Jesuits and many clergymen in the French church.161 Already in the summer of 1604, Coton wrote to Acquaviva about the clergy's hostility.162 Henri in effect transferred resources from the French church to a new religious order. While such transfers were nothing new, the financial state of the French church at the end of the religious wars meant that his initiative met with greater hostility than normal. In addition, the sequestering of French benefices for the Society only re-emphasized the long-running difficulties in regulating new religious orders. Local notables also opposed the Jesuits for a variety of other reasons. One focus for opposition was that Henri sanctioned Jesuit foundations in several cities that possessed long traditions of municipal education. In some instances, this

159 See for instance Discovrs veritable de ce qvi s'est passé en la ville de Troyes, sur les poursuites faites par les lesuites pour s'y establir, depuis l'an 1603. lusques au mois de Juillet 1611 (n.pl., 1612), p. 7. See also A. Carayon (éd.), Documents inédits concernant la Compagnie de Jésus (Poitiers, 1863), i, 128: Henri IV to Présidial of Caen, 23 December 1607. Tensions could continue even after a college opened, see for instance ARSI Lugudunensis 2, fos 136v°-137: Acquaviva to citizens of Beziers, 13 December 1605. 160 AFCJ Prat 32, p. 1081 : Coton to mayor and échevins of Caen, 12 March 1608. See also AFCJ Prat 32, p. 1083: Coton to M. Martin de Rouen, 7 December 1608; AFCJ Prat 32, pp. 1169-1175: Coton to Laubespine, 2 February 1609. 161 For examples of suppressed abbeys see Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, vii, 171-172: Henri IV to Paul V, 9 April 1607; Henri IV, Recueil des lettres, vii, 313: Henri IV to Paul V, 10 July 1607. See also ARSI Franciae 30, fos 495v°-496: 'Dicta quadam memorabilia Henrici Quarti'. See also Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 55, 58; Peyrous, La Réforme Catholique, i, 323; Delattre, Les Établissements, ii, cols 278-280,1452; v, col. 68. For insight into the tensions spawned by suppression see ARSI Lugudunensis 2, fo 212: Acquaviva to Nicholas II Boucherat, father general of the Cistercian Order, 14 April 1608. 162 ARSI Galliae 94, fo 247v°: Coton to Acquaviva, 16 August 1604. See also I. del Búfalo, Correspondance du nonce en France Innocenzo del Búfalo, évêque de Camerino, 1566-1610, in J. Lestocqouy and P. Blet (eds), Acta Nuntiaturae Gallicae (Rome, 1964), iv, 662-663: Búfalo to Aldobrandini, 10 February 1604. For an example of the issues brought up see BN MS Fr 2761, fos 181184: Documents concerning the resignation by Philibert Du Sault of benefices to the Jesuits, May 1605March 1606.

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encroachment on local traditions resulted in strong opposition to a proposed Jesuit foundation. For instance, in 1607 François Pithou, a prominent erudite Gallican scholar, expressed in his well-publicized last will and testament his opposition to a proposed Jesuit college by leaving a bequest to found a municipal school not under Jesuit supervision in his native Troyes.163 Local interests also complained about the length of time that had elapsed since the Jesuits had promised to open a college.164 These demands were sometimes followed by a request for royal approval of a municipal school instead. In addition, the Jesuits experienced strong local opposition to other aspects of their mission in France, but these objections also revolved around questions of regulation and the relationship between the Jesuits and other privileged groups in the French church. Thus, L'Estoile noted that in January 1605: The Parish Priest of St Paul, in Paris, went to the Jesuits' [professed house], near the little Saint-Anthoine, during the morning, where, having found in the church the cloths placed on the table for communion with great anger removed the aforementioned cloths, and with a harsh and severe remonstrance exhorted the people to come to communion each in their own parish, and not there [the Jesuit house] where they could not take [communion] without permission of their parish priest, [and] menaced excommunication for those of his parishioners whom he found there....165

The clergy of Paris had long battled against both mendicant and new religious orders in their struggle to maintain control over the care of their parishioners' souls. Indeed, the parish priest of Saint Paul took the opportunity during this same tirade to attack membership in, and the practices of, some confraternities - another devotional tradition that had long been a source of mendicant influence over the laity.166 These long-running battles found renewed purpose as the Jesuits and other religious orders increasingly tempted parishioners to their foundations to 163 BN MS Fr 2761, fos 204-207: Testament de Maistre Francois Pithou, Extraict des registres du greffe du bailliage et presidial de Troyes'. 164 For Poitiers see ARSI Franciae 30, fo 490: 'Dicta quadam memorabilia Henrici Quarti'. See also Sully (Economies royales, vu, 168-170. For Troyes see Discovrs véritable de ce qvi s'estpassé en la ville de Troyes (n.pl., 1611), pp. 1-12. Acquaviva often had to tell even powerful patrons that he lacked the resources to open or expand their proposed foundations. See for instance ARSI Franciae 2, fo 127: Acquaviva to madame de Guise, 16 October 1607. See also ARSI Franciae 2, fo 141v°: Acquaviva to due deNevers, 16 April 1608. 165 UEsto'ÚQ, Mémoires, viii, 167. 166 L'Estoile, Mémoires, viii, 167.

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participate in new Catholic-Reformation pious devotions. The parish priest of Saint Paul, whose church was located just a few hundred metres from the popular, royally patronized Jesuit church of Saint Louis, clearly felt that he was in the front line of this struggle.167 Thus, while the Society of Jesus benefited enormously from royal patronage, the nature of royal initiatives often created foundations imposed on the locality by either central authorities or one faction within the local power structure.168 Jesuit foundations threatened local privileges and diverted local resources which ensured that the Society met with opposition in many communities.169 These conflicts, however, were substantively different from the controversies of 1594 or 1603. The opposition argued over the limits of Jesuit participation in French society and not over the Society's right to exist in France. Indeed, these disputes helped to define the corporate rights of the Jesuits first established in the Edict of Rouen and thus served to further legitimize their position in the kingdom. In the years following the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen the Society's presence and activities in France developed rapidly. At the basis of the Society's success lay their new relationship with Henri IV: a relationship reliant upon his continued goodwill. After 1603 Henri channelled Jesuit resources into initiatives endorsed by the monarchy to their mutual benefit. Each Jesuit success added lustre to Henri's Catholic credentials. Moreover, his successful transformation of an Order, considered by many as one of his most dangerous opponents in the 1590s, into eager collaborators in the first years of the seventeenth century bolstered his own political and religious authority in France. For the Jesuits, royal approval through the Edict of Rouen finally legitimized their existence in the kingdom and provided them with a powerful protector against their many opponents. Jesuit acceptance of royal sponsorship shaped their self identity, influenced their 167

Preaching against the devotional practices of the Jesuits and other new religious orders was a feature of life in Paris throughout the period. For instance, Ubaldini reported in 1614 that a number of preachers had used the pulpit to oppose frequent communion at Jesuit foundations and the houses of other religious orders, see AY Francia 56, fo 46-46v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 25 March 1614. 168 A good example of this problem is Moulins where Henri IV promised the Jesuit college 5000 livres a year from new rentes drawn on the town, see ARSI Lugudunensis 2, fo 108v°: Acquaviva to the citizens of Moulins, 1 November 1604; ARSI Franciae 40, fo 300: 'Remonstrance à messieurs de Moulins', 1611. Another good example is Orléans, see AFCJ Prat 32, pp. 1169-1171: Coton to Laubespine, 2 February 1609; AFCJ Prat 32, pp. 1173-1175: Coton to Labubespine, 17 February 1609. 169 Huppert, Public Schools, pp. 110-111, 114-115.

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apostolic priorities and accelerated their growth within the realm. Moreover, Henri's support for the independence of the father general and his sponsorship of overseas missions also made the French Crown an influential patron of the international Society. Key to this development was the establishment of an understanding between the king and the Jesuits through the embracing of the Edict of Rouen by the Society of Jesus. On paper, the Edict imposed strict limits and controls on Jesuit strength and works in the kingdom. In reality, Henri used his royal authority in such a way that the Society did not suffer from these restraints but rather found their activities in France reliant upon his continued goodwill instead of the stipulations of the Edict. The restrictive aspects of the Edict were never enforced. The goodwill proffered by Henri as part of a settlement that included Jesuit acceptance of an apparently unsatisfactory Edict proved a turning point for the Society's mission in France. This specific understanding allowed the Society to establish a closer relationship with the king and become the most responsive of all the active religious orders in France to the royal will. As such the Society became an important partner and ally in Henri's education and conversion activities in France. By the time of his assassination in May 1610, Henri had established and promoted a new role for the Society as a loyal and obedient religious order within the French church with close links to the Bourbon monarchy. This relationship provided the foundation on which the Society established itself in France both amongst potential allies and opponents. Henri's active promotion of the Society encouraged many local French interests to patronize the Jesuits and allowed many leaders of the nascent seventeenth-century French Catholic Reformation to embrace the Society of Jesus as part of their wider campaign for Catholic renewal in France. At the same time Henri's support silenced direct public opposition to the Society's mission. While not heralding the end of hostility, Henri's support did create a situation where the question of the Society's right to participate in the French church was largely absent from public debate. Instead, the Jesuits' opponents concerned themselves with protecting French privileges in the face of a rapidly expanding Society. Henri IV s premature death at the hands of an assassin in May 1610 represented a blow for the Jesuits as they lost their most important patron and protector in the kingdom only seven years after their rehabilitation. The regency years under Marie de Medici would test the security of the Society's much-changed position in

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France; but, by 1610, as the engraving of the College of La Flèche reproduced at the opening of this chapter sought to emphasize, the Society of Jesus had transformed itself into a religious order that enjoyed strong ties to the monarchy - a position that the Society had never before enjoyed in France.

Figure 6 The assassination of Henri IV and the execution of François Ravaillac, ca. 1610. (Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.)

CHAPTER FOUR

Regicide

On the afternoon of 14 May 1610, Henri IV set out from the Louvre with the intention of visiting Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, at the Arsenal. Two reasons inspired Henri to make this trip across his capital. First, he wished to consult with Sully about the final preparations for war with Spain over the disputed succession to the territories of Juliers, Clèves and Mark.1 Second, en route he wished to view the preparations for the queen's official royal entry into Paris scheduled for 16 May. Marie's entry, the culmination of a series of ceremonies surrounding her official coronation as Queen of France at Saint Denis on 12 May, was also closely tied to Henri's decision to go to war. As the decorations under construction along Henri's route emphasized, the coronation affirmed Marie's authority associated with her dual positions as queen and mother to the dauphin.2 Henri wished to bolster his queen's authority so that she could take on the important role of regent when he embarked for the frontier and the uncertainties of military conflict beyond the borders of France. However, Henri's fateful decision to travel to the Arsenal without his royal guards as an escort threw all of these carefully constructed plans into disarray. Henri's carriage came to a stop in traffic at a notorious bottleneck on the rue de Ferronerie next to the Cimetière Saint-Innocent in the heart of his capital. With his footmen distracted, the Catholic fanatic François Ravaillac took his opportunity to attack the king seated in his carriage.3 As depicted in the contemporary image reproduced here, Ravaillac leaned through the open frame of the carriage, which had its awnings drawn to allow the king to view the preparations for Marie's entry, and stabbed Henri three

1

A. Anderson, On the Verge of War: International Relations and the Jülich-Kleve Succession Crisis (Boston, 1999), pp. 74-108. 2 For a discussion of the plans for Marie's coronation ceremony see E.A. McCartney, 'Queens in the Cult of the French Renaissance Monarchy: Selected Studies in Public Law, Royal Ceremonial, and Political Discourse, 1484-1610' (University of Iowa Ph.D. thesis, 1998), pp. 423-428. 3 For the best modern account of the assassination see R. Mousnier, L'Assassinat d 'Henri IV (Paris, 1964), pp. 1-6.

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times. The first blow just grazed a rib and the third was deflected by the cloak of one of Henri's companions, but the second proved fatal puncturing a lung and cutting the king's aorta. In the chaos that ensued three of Henri's companions in the carriage seized Ravaillac who, as later questioning would reveal, was motivated by a variety of personal reasons and his opposition to the 'heretic' Henri's policy of war with another Catholic monarch.4 Meanwhile the awnings of the carriage were drawn and Henri, blood flowing from his mouth, soon lost consciousness. He died during the journey back to the Louvre. In this brief moment, Ravaillac changed the political landscape of France. As the pictorial account of the event emphasizes, upon Henri's death the young Louis (depicted in the oval to the right of the scene) became the ruler of France and Marie, his mother, (depicted in the oval to the left) became his regent. This development gave new immediacy to those partially completed scenes and decorations that dotted the route of Marie's planned procession into Paris: scenes and decorations that sought to stress a French queen's special authority as regent in the event of a king's incapacitation. In the coming days Marie became regent for her son and actively sought to claim the authority asserted in these displays. Over the next four years her authority and that of the monarchy were put to the test as France entered a lengthy period of regency government. In the weeks following Henri's assassination the population of Paris braced itself for further disorder. Many believed that Ravaillac's attack was not an isolated event but rather part of a wider plot by Spanish agents or domestic opponents of the monarchy. Thus, despite the smooth transition of power to the regency, rumours of further plots to assassinate the royal family and conspiracies against the regency government continued to punctuate the relative calm in Paris. The dispatches of the English Ambassador Thomas Edmondes and the journal entries of Pierre de l'Estoile reflect the uncertainty in the capital as both continued to note with great interest the arrest of even the most unlikely individuals suspected of plotting further assassination attempts.5 L'Estoile articulated the ill-defined unease in the capital well when he wrote

4

For more on Ravaillac's motivations see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, pp. 7-19. PRO SP France 78/56, fos 169v°-170: Edmondes to Salisbury, 12 June 1610. P. de l'Estoile, Mémoires-Journaux de Pierre de l'Estoile, P.G. Brunei (éd.) (Paris, 1888-1896), x, 238-239,241,244247,280,282. See also Le Mercurefrançois (Cologny: 1611-1618), i, fos 361v°-362,428. For the rumours of a far-reaching plot see Mousnier, L'Assassinat, pp. 20-31. See also B. Zeller, La Minorité de Louis XIII: Marie de Médicis et Sully (1610-1612) (Paris, 1892), pp. 35-37. 5

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on the day of the assassination that the king's death would open the door to further attempts 'in a city like Paris, full of countless vagrants, robbers, traitors, members of the League, and other opponents of this state'.6 The continued fear of further assassinations maintained the threat of political disorder as a focus of unease in Paris. Alongside the concern over further seditious acts, the regency also faced daunting political challenges. On the international stage, the death of Henri occurred just as he mobilized troops for war with Spain, and this placed Marie's government in a difficult political situation. Marie's decision to maintain her husband's alliances with several Protestant states during that summer's military campaign strained relations with Pope Paul V. Moreover, while war with Spain could serve to unite the kingdom under the regency, losses on the battlefield potentially brought their own dangers to Marie's position as regent.7 Within the kingdom, no issue threatened internal order more than the uneasy religious compromise brokered by Henri. His carefully crafted Edict of Nantes had brought at least outward religious peace to the kingdom since 1598, but the Edict defined only a personal agreement between Henri and his Huguenot subjects. Upon his death, Marie as regent had to reaffirm, modify or reject the Edict with the potential for opposition, or even rebellion, from either her Catholic or Protestant subjects depending on her decision. Aside from major international and domestic policy challenges the regent could also expect factional problems at court and even personal challenges to her authority as important aristocratic figures in the kingdom jockeyed for influence in the royal government. Observers viewed Marie's government in light of the troubled regency of Marie's aunt, Catherine de Medici, during the religious wars when aristocratic factions dominated the court and fostered civil disorder. Contemporaries understood from experience that, whatever the theoretical pretensions of a queen regent, in reality she lacked the same authority as an adult monarch. An important aspect of this understanding was that a regency government in France conceded to the princes of the blood and, to a lesser extent, other aristocratic and ecclesiastical figures the duty to advise the monarch during his minority. Fortunately for Marie, the figure with the best claim to a significant position on the council - Henri de Bourbon, prince de Conde was absent from Paris in May 1610 because of a dispute with her late husband. This 6

L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 222. For a brief survey of the domestic and international political situation in the months following Henri IV's death see Y.-M. Bercé, The Birth of Absolutism: A History of France 1589-1661 (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 27-41. 7

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offered her a short window of opportunity to establish the legitimacy of her government before her rivals could organize. Nevertheless, the claims of a number of important French aristocrats to influence royal policy making remained a problem for Marie throughout her regency; and, indeed, already in May 1610 Edmondes, the English ambassador in Paris, identified aristocratic factions as the chief threat to the new regency government.8 Henri's assassination also had profound implications for French law. The episodic account of Ravaillac's execution for parricide, depicted in the corner panels of the image reproduced at the opening of this chapter, reminds the observer of the return in 1610 of regicide to the centre of French political affairs. The depiction of Ravaillac's death in three of the corner panels recounts a careful piece of judicial drama through which the Parlement of Paris intended to send a clear message to its audience. The state made an example of Ravaillac as a deterrent to others and as a symbolic rejection of regicide. Through his public execution the Parlement sought to purify the community and reject what they defined as a foreign idea, regicide, from the French polity. Indeed, by all accounts the audience at the event supported and even sought to contribute to its message by drawing on the traditional roles of the crowd at public executions. Thus, at the conclusion of the execution the people broke through the line of archers and, as the panel in the bottom right hand corner of the image recounts, took parts of Ravaillac's body to the neighbourhoods and suburbs of Paris where they were burnt or hanged from buildings extending in both space and time the message proffered in the execution. Nevertheless, despite its success as a piece of theatre, Ravaillac's punishment could not banish the idea of regicide from the kingdom. Regicide had returned to the centre of public consciousness in France with an intensity not experienced since 1594. Renewed interest in France paralleled wider European developments over the previous decade that had made the question of regicide a contentious issue across much of western Europe. The controversy had focused at various points on dramatic political events, like James I of England's demand for a loyalty oath from all English Catholics following the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1603 and the Venetian Interdict Crisis which culminated in 1606 with the dramatic excommunication of the citizens

8 PRO SP France 78/56, fo 133: Edmondes to Salisbury, 26 May 1610. See also Bercé, Birth of Absolutism, pp. 43-51.

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of Venice by Pope Paul V.9 Many Frenchmen maintained a keen interest in these controversies during Henri IV s reign. Moreover, the attention of an even wider group of Frenchmen returned to the subject when, on 14 November 1609, the Roman Inquisition placed on its Index of Prohibited Books the Parlement of Paris's arrêt against Jean Chastel because the arrêt denied the pope's power to excommunicate and, if needed, sanction the deposition of a ruler. Thus, the vexing issue of regicide remained in the French public consciousness in the months before Henri's assassination. Henri's death produced difficult challenges for the French polity. It also threatened the Jesuit mission in France. Since their return in 1603 the Society had relied on the support of Henri IV to maintain and augment their mission and legal standing in the kingdom. While Marie de Medici, like her husband, proved a loyal ally of the Society, her inability to defend the Jesuits from their opponents as effectively as her husband left them exposed at times to the attacks of their enemies.10 Thus, from May 1610 the Society of Jesus found its political position in France less secure than at any time since the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen in 1603. Ultimately, the weakness of the regency forced the Jesuits in France to deal directly with the Parlement of Paris to secure their legal and regulatory position in the kingdom even as they continued to rely on their personal relationship with the French royal family for patronage and support. This constitutes an important underlying theme in relations between the Jesuits and the Parlement from the death of Henri IV to the Estates General of 1614. The Society's mission in France also faced renewed threat from the return of regicide to the centre of the French political discourse - an unwelcome development for the Jesuits who, in the eyes of their opponents, were the chief promoters of this foreign theory in France. Since the Society's expulsion from France in 1594 controversies in England, Venice and elsewhere had inspired large numbers of tracts for and against the rights of subjects under certain circumstance to take the life of a tyrannical ruler. While no French Jesuit publicly participated in the debate, Jesuits outside of France were active participants and produced some of the most important 9 For a brief account of the Gunpowder plot see R. Lockyer, The Early Stuarts: A Political History of England 1603-1642,2nd edn (New York, 1999), pp. 194-196. For the Venetian Interdict Crisis see W.J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty (Berkeley, 1968). 10 L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 272. For an example of the regent's support for the Society and the Order's attempt to assert its innocence see the royal permission to publish granted to Coton in P. Coton, Lettre declaratoire de la doctrine des Peres Jésuites confronte aux decrees du Concile de Constance (Paris, 1610).

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and controversial works on the topic.11 These theoretical texts combined with the perceived unity of the centrally organized Society raised questions about the doctrinal beliefs of the Jesuits in France and the Society as a whole. Nevertheless, the Jesuit contribution to the debate must not be viewed as monolithic or even coherent as there was no consensus amongst the Jesuits, although many of their works sanctioned the possibility of tyrannicide in at least some limited form. Most Jesuit theorists focused on papal authority versus that of secular rulers and argued that the pope either possessed direct authority to remove a tyrant from his office or more limited indirect authority as a consequence of his spiritual authority to release subjects from their duties to a heretical ruler in some circumstances. Most of these texts were written to specifically deal with the question of a heretical ruler who threatened the salvation of his Catholic subjects by prohibiting their right to practise their faith. In this context some Jesuits were willing to make a strong case for papal authority. But, perhaps even more controversially in the French context, a minority of Jesuit theorists, like Juan de Mariana in Spain and Robert Parsons in England, focused their writings on the constitutional right of citizens to remove a tyrant from power if the tyrant broke his agreement with his subjects concerning the parameters of his authority.12 These texts were written for the particular circumstances in Spain and England but found a wider readership across Europe. In the summer of 1610 all Jesuit theorists who supported regicide potentially undermined the position of their brethren in France. Those who wrote in favour of papal power to depose a heretical ruler were criticized by erudite Gallican writers, especially after the condemnation of the Chastel arrêt by the Roman Inquisition in November 1609. While the intention of these theorists was to protect Catholics in Protestant kingdoms, their doctrines also contradicted the assertion by some Gallicans that the monarchs of France possessed absolute temporal authority over their realm. Moreover, tracts by several Jesuits on the constitutional rights of subjects to resist tyrants proved even more compromising, because these writings could be construed as sanctioning exactly the sort of attack carried out by the private subject Ravaillac. The circumstances surrounding Henri's death and the prominent role of Jesuit thinkers in the European debate over the legality of regicide and tyrannicide brought the 1

' M. Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide de l'Antiquité à nosjours (Paris, 2001), pp. 473-480, 535-552. For Mariana see Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide, pp. 473-480. For Parsons see J.H.M. Salmon, 'Catholic Resistance Theory, Ultramontanism, and the Royalist Response, 1580-1620', in J.H. Burns (éd.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 242-243. 12

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possibility that those who distrusted the Society and its mission in France would once again seek to use concerns over regicide as a reason to limit the Society's mission or even expel the Order completely from the kingdom. This fear proved founded, and in the years following Henri's assassination the Parlement of Paris condemned several Jesuit texts that dealt with regicide. Nevertheless, the ultimate result of the assassination of Henri IV was the construction, through a series of court cases, of a regulatory understanding between the Parlement of Paris and the Society of Jesus in France that separated the writings of foreign Jesuits from the Society's French mission. This understanding strengthened their legal position in France and helped to lay the groundwork for their expanded presence in the kingdom after 1615. In the summer of 1610 members of the Society in France had good reason to fear that their mission would, as in 1594, become implicated in the attack on the French monarch. Although even under torture Ravaillac denied having any accomplices, the suspicion remained that Ravaillac, an unsuccessful solicitor from Angoulême, was incapable of acting alone and it took little time for some preachers and polemicists in Paris to publicly cast the Jesuits in the role of co-conspirators in Ravaillac's plot.13 Despite the lack of any credible evidence linking the Society of Jesus to Ravaillac's attack, their expulsion for complicity in the attempted assassination of Henri IV in 1594 and the production by Jesuit writers of numerous texts sanctioning tyrannicide provided enough circumstantial evidence to fuel their accusations. Within two weeks of Henri's death opponents publicly accused those Jesuits who advocated tyrannicide in their writings of inspiring impressionable Catholics like Ravaillac to commit regicide.H By 6 June 1610 some of the most outspoken Jesuit opponents took a further step by implying the Society's direct complicity in Ravaillac's plot.15 By the end of June some polemicists, mostly in anonymous manuscripts circulating in Paris, had developed this theme further to directly implicate Jesuits in Paris both as the intellectual inspiration behind Ravaillac's attack and as his secret partners in the

13

PRO SP France 78/56, fos 136-137v°: Bêcher to Salisbury, 20 May 1610. For an example of the information circulating around Paris during this period see PRO SP France 78/56, fo 80: Copy of Ravaillac's interrogation. See also the letter by avocat Bondole who worked at the Parlement of Aix, BI Godefroy 15, fo 51: Bondole to Sillery, 1610. 14 L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 254. 15 L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 270. See also Mercure français, i, fo 349v°.

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crime.16 The rapid evolution of accusations of Jesuit complicity from indirect responsibility to direct corporate responsibility for the attack posed a serious threat to the Society's mission in France. These frequent attacks collectively formed a campaign to shape public perceptions by linking the Jesuits operating in France to the subversive theories of their foreign brethren and to Ravaillac himself.17 However, the Society and their allies opposed these accusations both in print and from the pulpit.18 Moreover, the Jesuits could count on strong support amongst a group of French bishops, royal officials and members of the regent's court for their efforts.l9 In this context, writings surreptitiously circulating amongst elites and fiery sermons from the pulpits of Paris were unlikely to threaten the Society's position in France unless the ongoing public effort to protect the monarchy and to maintain political stability in the aftermath of the attack on Henri became focused on the Society and its perceived threat to the kingdom as it had in 1594. The likely venue for such a development lay once again in the Parlement of Paris where, in the summer of 1610, a complex set of issues concerning the Parlement's authority, its role in the defence of French law during a regency and, ultimately, the extent of responsibility of the Society of Jesus for the writings of its members became enmeshed with the Parlement's overriding concern to define and defend the fundamental law on the inviolability of a French monarch's person. While royal officials across France worked together to ensure the stability of the kingdom following Henri's assassination, no royal institution outside the regent and her council had a more important role than the Parlement of Paris in safeguarding the state in the summer of 1610. During a regency this Parlement traditionally took on a more substantial role in protecting royal authority and the fundamental laws of the kingdom.20 The regency of Louis XIII proved no different. Marie and her government 16 L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 313-320. For a full, if later, account of Jesuit complicity see Emond Richer's description of Ravaillac's assassination in BN MS Latin 9947, fos 124-129: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. 17 For evidence of a coordinated effort amongst the Society's enemies see L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 270. See also Mercure françois, i, fo 349v°. 18 For Jesuit preachers see L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 276-277. For an example of a preacher who supported the Jesuits see Acquaviva's letter to Radolphus Gazilus, parish priest of Saint Jacob, ARSI Franciae 2, fo 265: Acquaviva to Gazilus, 22 June 1610. For Jesuit publications see Coton, Lettre declaratoire. 19 See for instance L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 272-273. 20 Both Roger Doucet and Edouard Maugis argue that the Parlement of Paris first asserted these rights in 1525 as a consequence of their growing sense of identity as royal office holders, see R. Doucet, Étude sur le gouvernement de François 1er dans ses rapports avec le Parlement de Paris (Paris, 1926), ii; É. Maugis, Histoire du Parlement de Paris de l'avènement des rois Valois à la mort d'Henri 7F(Paris, 1913).

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reaffirmed this increased authority within days of Henri's assassination when it symbolically promoted an active role for the Parlement by holding an unprecedented lit de justice at the Parlement to declare the regency instead of dispatching lettres patentes for the Parlement's approval.21 From Marie's perspective this was a calculated move to flatter the Parlement and to secure its support for her government by publicly accepting the Parlement's traditional role in affirming such an arrangement during a regency. Thus, for Marie this ceremony was part of a wider campaign to cultivate support for her government before her chief rival, the prince de Conde, returned to France from exile in Milan. But the regent's actions also encouraged the Parlement to once again define its authority broadly and to take strong measures to protect the authority of the monarchy. The Parlement of Paris moved quickly in the weeks following the lit de justice to assert its position as protector of French law during a regency. On 27 May 1610 the Parlement condemned Ravaillac to death for the crime of regicide and ensured through their detailed instructions that Ravaillac's punishment would also serve to remind French subjects of the law in France against such attacks.22 To many in the Parlement, Ravaillac's execution provided a means of contrasting French law with the foreign idea of tyrannicide accepted in some other Catholic states. For a majority of the parlementaires, Ravaillac's attack confirmed, as did Chastel's in 1594, that these foreign concepts had recently gained currency in France; and thus it became a pressing matter for the court to reaffirm customary French teachings on the subject in order to refute and drive the new ideas from the kingdom. On the same day that the Parlement issued Ravaillac's execution arrêt, it also sought to re-establish the doctrinal precedent that underpinned the fundamental law on the inviolability of the French monarch. The Parlement's initiative sought to secure Christopher Stocker offers a much more convincing argument that the magistrates did not want to check royal power but rather sought to secure their rights as a unique source of royal authority in the absence of the king, see C. Stocker, 'The Politics of the Parlement of Paris in 1525', French Historical Studies, 8 (1973), 191-212. 21 For an account of the ceremony see AN XI a 1829, fos 227-233v°: Registers of the Paris Parlement, 15 May 1610. For an account of the period see ARSI Franciae 31, fos 194-194 v°: Jaquinot to Suffren, May 1610. For a more detailed account of the lit de justice ceremony see McCartney, 'Queens in the Cult of the French Renaissance Monarchy', pp. 450-488. For an alternative explanation of the ceremony see S. Hanley, The Lit de Justice of the Kings of France: Constitutional Ideology in Legend, Ritual, and Discourse (Princeton, 1983), pp. 254-280. See also président Gillot's account published in P. Dupuy, Bref discourse des pompes, ceremonies, et obsèques funèbres de très-haut, très-puissant, très-excellent prince Henri le Grande (Paris, 1610), pp. 475-495. 22 BN Dupuy 90, fo 17-17v°: 'Arrest contre François Ravaillac', 27 May 1610.

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the reissuing of a theological decision first made by the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris in 1413 and later confirmed by the fifteenth session of the Council of Constance in 1415.23 This decision rejected the proposition that 'It is licit for any subject without any mandate or command, according to the moral, natural and divine law, to kill or have killed any tyrant ,..'.24 The Faculty of Theology had first issued this statement in response to Jean Petit, a theologian, who had defended the assassination of the king's brother Louis de Valois, the duc d'Orléans, by Jean sans Peur, duc de Bourgogne.25 For many members of the Parlement in 1610, the decree provided an important precedent drawn directly from the French tradition that dealt explicitly with the sanctity of royal blood. It also confirmed the doctrinal legitimacy in the Catholic tradition of the Parlement's arrêts against both Jean Chastel and François Ravaillac. Premier président Achille de Harlay highlighted why many Gallican magistrates believed that this reaffirmation of a fifteenth-century theological decision was necessary in a speech on 28 May 1610 before the Grand' Chambre of the Parlement of Paris and a delegation of the Faculty of Theology, which had been summoned to appear before the Parlement to hear his speech.26 According to Harlay, the French monarchy relied on church institutions like the Faculty of Theology to judge and condemn theological texts which advocated regicide. He emphasized the pressing relevance of this jurisdictional issue when he noted that in recent times France had been exposed to books full of false teachings on this proposition and amongst these works were those of a clerical character that were exempt from all secular, that is royal judicial, jurisdiction.27 Thus, Harlay argued that in order to defend the fundamental law of the kingdom and the young monarch himself, the Parlement of Paris had to ensure that the Faculty of Theology continued to enforce vigilantly the decree against regicide entered in the Faculty's registers and confirmed at the Council of Constance. By turning to another French corporate body with strong claims to authority over

23

The Council of Constance's confirmation of the decree was largely a result of a French initiative led by Jean Gerson, a theologian and Chancellor of the University of Paris. 24 Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide, p. 323. The idea of requesting this reaffirmation from the Faculty of Theology was first suggested at the meeting on 27 May at which the magistrates decided to reissue the Petit arrêt, see AMAE MD France 44, fo 84v°: 'Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le liure de Jean Mariana Jésuite en iuing 1610'. 25 B. Guenée, Un meurtre, une société: l'assassinat du duc d'Orléans 23 Novembre 1407 (Paris, 1992), pp. 189-264. 26 AN Xla 1829, fo 355v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 28 May 1610. For another account of the event see Mercure français, i, fos 325-326. 27 AN Xla 1829, fo 355v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 28 May 1610.

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theological matters, the Parlement sought to further strengthen the enforcement of the law against regicide in France. The Faculty of Theology's delegation, led by its syndic, the erudite Gallican theologian and polemicist Emond Richer, agreed to place the Parlement's request before a full congregation of University theologians. Richer's confrontational personality and his tenacious defence of his own extreme understanding of the rights of the Gallican church had made him many enemies amongst both French ecclesiastics and members of faculty at the University, but they also made him a committed advocate for the Parlement's initiative. At a series of public and private meetings, Richer and his allies met with two serious obstacles to the Parlement's request that the Faculty reaffirm the Council of Constance decree.28 One obstacle was juridical. Henri Gondi, bishop of Paris, unsuccessfully tried to evoke the issue to his own jurisdiction, arguing that it was a matter of church doctrine and that the Parlement of Paris had no right to initiate deliberations of the Faculty of Theology on such a matter. Richer overcame Gondi's initiative by appealing to the corporate sensibilities of the Faculty. However, Gondi's assertion that the Parlement lacked the authority it claimed in its actions had real merit and found a sympathetic hearing amongst some theologians in the Faculty. Indeed, the Parlement's assertions would remain a source of contention in the months and years that followed. The second obstacle for Richer and his allies originated within the Faculty of Theology. Several members strongly advocated a rival legal tradition that asserted the pope's right to free subjects from their obligations to a tyrant, in particular a heretical tyrant. In reaction to this challenge, Richer and his allies carried the day by appealing both to the Faculty's historic support for the Council of Constance decree and the volatile political situation in France. Having overcome these two objections, Richer ensured that the Faculty of Theology reissued its decision in compliance with the Parlement's request, and it was signed by the Doctors and Bachelors of the University of Paris on 4 June 1610.29 Four days later, Richer returned to the Parlement of Paris to confirm that the Faculty had reaffirmed its decree. The court reporter Jean Courtin noted that Richer's

28

For a detailed account of the debate in the Faculty of Theology see BN MS Latin 9947, fos 130-133v°: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. 29 For an account of the debate within the Faculty of Theology see BN MS Latin 9947, fos 129-140: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. See also AN MM 251, fo 18-18v°: Registers of the Faculty of Theology, 4 June 1610. This decision was well publicized, see Censvre de la sacrée Facvlté de Théologie de Paris, contre les impies & exécrables parricides des Rois & des Princes (Paris, 1610).

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submission was handed over to the avocats du roi who a few hours later reported their conclusions on Richer's submission to the Grand' Chambre. In this assembly the avocats du roi requested that the court register the Faculty's decree, order that the Faculty publicly renew this decree each year through a public reading, and that the court order the burning of three recent works - Juan de Mariana's De rege et régis institutione, Carolus Scribanus's Amphitheatrum honoris, and Emanuel Sâ's Aphorismi confessariorum - because they espoused theories opposed to the Parlement's arrêt against Petit and the decree of the Council of Constance just reaffirmed by the Faculty of Theology.30 From a Jesuit perspective this final request transformed the regicide debate in the Parlement. Up to this point the confirmation of two-century-old decrees against regicide had caused few problems for the French mission, but the request that the Parlement formally condemn three modern texts, all written by members of the Society, potentially placed the Society of Jesus squarely back at the centre of the debate over regicide in France. The editor who organized Jacques-Auguste de Thou's papers for the final volume of his Histoire universelle credits Richer with instigating this attempt to link Jesuit theorists to the Parlement's efforts to re-establish the fundamental laws of the kingdom.31 Richer undoubtedly found a sympathetic hearing from the avocat général du roi Louis Servin, another committed erudite Gallican and long-standing opponent of the Jesuits. A careful reading of the sources also indicates that there was a strong desire amongst some influential members of Parlement to link the Society of Jesus and its theorists to the reaffirmation of the fundamental law on tyrannicide from at least late May 1610. Premier président Harlay's speech before the Parlement and the delegation from the Faculty of Theology on 28 May - in which he formally asked the Faculty to reaffirm the Council of Constance decree - possessed a second carefully coded sub-text that asserted that the Society of Jesus was amongst the chief promoters of the theories currently threatening French sovereignty. A central theme of Harlay's speech focused on the foreign origin of tyrannicide theories and the ongoing threat to French law and French society from the writings of foreigners on this subject. At the 30 AMAE MD France 44, fo 87v°: 'Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le Hure de Jean Mariana Jésuite en iuing 1610'. The full bibliographie citations for these books are as follows: J. de Mariana, De rege et régis institutione (Toledo, 1599); E. Sa, Aphorismi confessariorum ex doctorum sententiis collecti. Ed. nov. (Cologne, 1609);C. Scribanius, Clari Bonarscii Amphitheatrum honoris, in quo Caluinistarum in Societatem lesu criminationes iugulatiœ (Antwerp, 1605). 31 J.-A. de Thou, Histoire universelle de Jacques-Auguste de Thou (The Hague, 1740), x, 303-304.

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culmination of this part of his address Harlay asserted that one cleric in particular, 'an Iberian impostor', had written with the express permission of his superiors that it was licit to kill a tyrant.32 Here Harlay carefully avoided directly declaring the identity of this 'Iberian impostor', but his audience would have instantly recognized that this statement referred to the Jesuit Mariana and his work entitled De rege et régis institutione. Gallican thinkers had known for a number of years about Mariana's text, first published in 1599; and, although few examples of the work had surfaced in Paris, extracts from the text had circulated widely. Harlay ' s statement reaffirmed his long-standing distrust of the Jesuits and his belief that they promoted regicide theory; but, more importantly, Harlay also explicitly implicated the Society as a corporate body in the publication of this text when he noted that the 'Iberian impostor' had the express permission of his superiors. Harlay's statement reveals the potential threat to the Society's position in France that accompanied the return of regicide to the political agenda. The duty to publicly reject regicide offered an opportunity for opponents of the Society in the Parlement once again to link the Society and its mission in France to the promotion of this foreign concept. Such a link potentially threatened the Society's legal status in the kingdom because the Edict of Rouen required that the Jesuits comply with all the laws and customs of France or risk expulsion. In other words, this accusation potentially paved the legal ground for the expulsion of the Society under the terms of the Edict of Rouen. When on 8 June the avocats du roi placed the condemnation of Jesuit theoretical works on the agenda, Harlay and his supporters took the opportunity to press for the immediate condemnation of Mariana's De rege et régis institutione. However, Harlay had indirectly identified this text as a theological tract and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the Parlement in his speech on 28 May. Moreover, the Faculty of Theology had not formally called for the Parlement to take action against this text. Thus, the decision of the premier président and his supporters to focus their efforts on condemning just this tract on 8 June requires explanation. While no direct evidence survives that reveals why Harlay and his colleagues in the Parlement now identified Mariana's text as within their jurisdiction, evidence does survive that in the weeks following Harlay's speech the full extent of Mariana's arguments became widely known in Paris for the first time. Magistrates during this 32

AN Xla 1829, fo 355v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 28 May 1610.

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period acquired full copies of the text, rather than relying on extracts of its most controversial passages; and examination of the full text seems to have provided the key to this change in the Parlement's understanding of the tract.33 Mariana, an important theologian and preacher in Toledo, had written the text at the request of the tutor to the future King Phillip III of Spain as an instructional work for the young heir apparent. As such Mariana wrote it for a Spanish audience; and thus Mariana's views on royal authority were shaped by consideration of a Spanish monarch who lacked the theoretically absolute authority of a French monarch.34 In the Spanish context, Mariana argued in favour of the constitutional right in contractual government of a private subject under certain circumstance to kill a tyrant. Thus, unlike the theological texts of Scribanus or Sa, De rege et régis institutione sustained a set of secular arguments over constitutional rights that fell more firmly within the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris. Indeed, Emond Richer highlighted the importance of this set of arguments to its condemnation by the Parlement in his manuscript account of the affair by physically underlining a passage which noted that the Parlement sought to condemn Mariana for advocating that a 'private authority' could legitimately kill a tyrant.35 Only in early June did erudite Gallicans in the Parlement of Paris seem to have fully grasped the arguments of Mariana's text and, in doing so, come to the realization that it fell within the authority of their court as it presented secular propositions in opposition to what the Parlement had interpreted as the French legal tradition. In Mariana's work, Harlay and his supporters found a clear link between a Jesuit author and the law that the Parlement was determined to enforce in the aftermath of Henri's assassination. What this link meant for the Society of Jesus in France depended on how the Parlement chose to frame its condemnation of the text. No one in the Parlement was willing to publicly defend Mariana's arguments, and an overwhelming majority of the magistrates agreed that they must suppress the tract to defend French law.36 The real focus of contention in the ensuing discussion in the Grand' Chambre concerned the 33 On the lack of direct knowledge of the text amongst Paris magistrates see F.-T. Perrens, L'Église et l'état en France sous le règne de Henri IVet la régence de Marie de Médicis (Paris, 1872), i, 410. For a short summary of Mariana's arguments in De rege et régis institutione see Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide, pp. 473-480. 34 For more on the Spanish king's authority see H. Kamen, Spain 1469-1714: A Society in Conflict, 2nd edn (London, 1991), pp. 147-151. 35 For Harlay's statement see AN Xla 1829, fo 355v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 28 May 1610. For Richer's account see BN MS Latin 9947, fo 138-138v°: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. 36 AMAE MD France 44, fo 88: 'Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le Hure de Jean Mariana Jésuite en iuing 1610'.

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relationship between the Society of Jesus as a corporation and the ideas advanced by Mariana in the text. For some members of the Parlement, Mariana's text was not only dangerous because of the theories it advocated, it was also an indictment of the Society's teachings and provided a compelling reason to restrict its activities in France. Indeed, L'Estoile reported that some magistrates proposed that public pulpits be protected from the Jesuits through an order which sanctioned Jesuit preaching only in their own assemblies and congregations.37 Thus, some magistrates made a direct link between the condemnation of Mariana's theories and the Society's activities in France in a manner similar to, although less vehement than, the approach taken at the time of the 1594 expulsion. According to these critics the Parlement should silence the Society in order to prevent it from promoting unacceptable theories on regicide. However, L'Estoile reports in his journal that the Society had both friends and enemies in the Parlement and that the limitation of Jesuit activités in France was strongly opposed by a number of magistrates, including ^president, who spoke 'with such passion and animosity, that he said out loud that he took from that moment on leave of the Parlement, never to return to the Palais, if the Parlement took this action'.38 This passionate speech by a président, almost certainly Antoine Séguier, provides a sense of the conflicts which raged within the Parlement.39 Séguier also stated to the Parlement that the Faculty of Theology, and by implication the Parlement, should condemn Mariana's text only in conjunction with Henri Gondi, bishop of Paris, as he possessed absolute authority in his diocese to condemn such works. Séguier's comment found little support from his colleagues, but his assertion reminds the observer of the important issues of jurisdiction and authority that surrounded this question in 1610.40 The court reporter Courtin, a close associate of Harlay and other erudite Gallicans, summarized the compromise reached by the magistrates after lengthy deliberations when he wrote that

37

L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 271. L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 271. 39 In the marginal comment of another copy of this document Godefroy identifies the speaker as président Antoine Séguier, see BI Godefroy 15, fos 236-242v°: 'Relation de ce qui se passa en la cour de Parlement Juin 1610 au Louvre et fort de pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le Hure de Jean Mariana Jésuite'. 40 AMAE MD France 44, fo 88: 4 Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le Hure de Jean Mariana en iuing 1610'. 38

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the majority of the company without getting into the Jesuits' discourses nor anything else that was not relevant to the topic, condemned the doctrine that nobody dared to support, and approved the Sorbonne's decree as true and old Doctrine, and gave their opinion as far as the safety of the King and of the public without any forgetting that it was a foreign Doctrine which came from Spain [and] which was only forced on our Kings of France.41

Courtin concluded his summary by noting What undermined the authority of the arrêt was that they forgave the Jesuits and the Spaniards, and that they did not put Jean Mariana Spaniard of the Society of Jesus, or so called of the Society in order to avoid contention and delaying the arrêt, and the Jesuits were completely saved from what they knew themselves was the fair condemnation of their doctrines.42

The tone of Courtin's summary of these proceedings in the registers of the Parlement indicates that some magistrates found the failure to link Mariana to the Society unjust. Nevertheless, the official condemnation arrêt provides no hint of this controversy as it fails to mention Mariana's position as an important Jesuit theologian or give any indication that Mariana's tract represented the Society of Jesus's teachings. Instead, the Parlement chose explicitly to link the condemnation of Mariana's text to the longstanding arrêt against Petit.43 The Parlement chose to draft its arrêt to emphasize the threat of Mariana's tract to French law, not to associate the Society of Jesus as a corporate body to the theories of their Spanish member. To explain how the Society avoided inclusion in the Mariana arrêt, one has to place the Mariana condemnation into a wider context. Mariana's text potentially offered an opportunity for the Parlement to accomplish three things. First, it allowed the Parlement to condemn a specific contemporary expression of tyrannicide theory as a means of re-enforcing the Petit arrêt. Second, it offered the parlementaires an opportunity to assert their right as representatives of the French monarch's authority to enforce the law on regicide in France even in the case of a text written by a cleric.

41 AMAE MD France 44, fo 88v°: 'Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le Hure de Jean Mariana en iuing 1610'. 42 AMAE MD France 44, fo 90: 'Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le Hure de Jean Mariana en iuing 1610'. 43 Arrest de la Covr de Parlement, ensemble la censvre de la Sorbonne, contre le hure de lean Mariana, intitulé De Rege & Regis Institutione (n.pl, 1610). See also ARSI Franciae 31, fo 253: Copy of the arrêt against Mariana, 8 June 1610.

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Finally, it provided an opportunity to punish the Society of Jesus for the persistent advocation of tyrannicide by members of the Order. The first two of these issues were central to the Parlement's understanding of its own authority and position in France. The Parlement in the Chastel condemnation of 1594 had asserted that the king had received absolute temporal authority in his kingdom directly from God and that ChasteP s attempted assassination of the king defied this fundamental law of France. Implicit in this arrêt was also an expression of the Parlement's authority to enforce this law in France. In 1594 several individuals had challenged the Parlement's interpretation of its authority, and more recently the papacy, on 14 November 1609, had once again placed into question the Parlement's pretensions when it added the Chastel arrêt to its Index of Prohibited Books. By placing the Parlement's decree on the Index the papacy asserted that the Parlement's definition of the fundamental law on tyrannicide ran counter to church doctrine on the subject. The Roman Inquisition effectively asserted that, as Henri IV in December 1594 remained excommunicated from the church and thus a heretic, he had no right to rule Catholic France and thus his murder as a tyrant would have been licit.44 This assertion by the Roman Curia inspired passionate responses from many jurists in France who rejected its premises. Nevertheless, the Parlement faced a real challenge to its authority from the Inquisition's action. The condemnation of Mariana's text provided the Parlement with an opportunity once again to assert its authority to judge and punish those guilty of advocating regicide in France, at least when the text concerned issues of secular law. But the disputed authority claimed by the Parlement through the Mariana condemnation was far from universally accepted even by its own members, as shown, for instance, by president Séguier's strong opposition on jurisdictional grounds to the proposed condemnation.45 With their authority challenged and with - as they understood the situation - the safety of the monarch at stake, the majority of thz parlementaires sought carefully to separate the condemnation of regicide, which was central to defining the Parlement's authority on this important issue, and the more contentious question of whether the Society of Jesus as a corporate entity was responsible for the writings of its individual members. Two reasons seem to have motivated the Jesuits' opponents to abandon their

44

For a full account of the 1609 controversy see Perrens, L'Eglise et l'état, i, 338-366. AMAE MD France 44, fo 88: 'Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le Hure de Jean Mariana en iuing 1610'. 45

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efforts to explicitly link the Society of Jesus as a corporate entity to the condemnation of Mariana's text. First, the Parlement needed to remain united if it hoped to defend its authority. As the Parlement's reporter Courtin noted at the conclusion of his account of the debate, the Parlement purposely avoided all references to the Jesuits and Spain 'to avoid contention and delay of the arref.46 Courtin implied in this passage that the Parlement sought unity in the face of a serious challenge to its authority. Thus, in order to avoid a split with those parlementaires willing to actively defend the Parlement's authority but not general Jesuit culpability for the promotion of tyrannicide, those judges who drafted the arrêt included no reference to the Society. This compromise offered something to both parties as it neither exonerated nor condemned the Society but rather studiously ignored the issue. A second reason to exclude the Jesuits from the arrêt centred on the potential conflict with ecclesiastical authorities over the Parlement's disputed right to condemn Mariana's text. Roberto Ubaldini, papal nuncio to France, and Henri Gondi, bishop of Paris, were likely to interpret the text as a theological work and thus under the church's jurisdiction. Nicholas de Neufville, sieur de Villeroy and influential adviser to the regent, and Marie herself would undoubtedly play central roles in arbitrating such a dispute. Therefore, the magistrates would have known that to include the Society in the arrêt would undermine their effort to assert their authority as both Marie and Villeroy had long supported the Society's mission in France and would undoubtedly react with hostility to any punishment of the Society along with Mariana's text. Royal policy since the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen in 1603 had rejected exactly the sort of link that some in the Parlement wished to construct between the Society as a corporation and the promotion of tyrannicide by individual members. In addition, the regent, who had recently appointed the Jesuit Father Pierre Coton as Louis XIII's confessor, showed little sign of supporting such a change. In any case, to secure her rule Marie needed the support of important ecclesiastical and aristocratic figures at her court who were also committed patrons of the Jesuits more than she needed the Parlement. Thus, any radical change in royal policy towards the Jesuits remained unlikely. Therefore, the inclusion of the Jesuits in the arrêt would almost certainly undermine the magistrate's influence in the regency council, which was essential for their wider assertion of authority.

46 AMAE MD France 44, fo 90: 'Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le Hure de Jean Mariana en iuing 1610'.

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Whatever combination of concerns motivated individual parlementaires to support the careful exclusion of the Jesuits from the condemnation, the regent and her councillors made it clear in the coming days that Marie would sanction no such link. On 9 June 1610, one day after the condemnation of Mariana's text, the regent called a delegation of the Parlement led by premier président Hañay, président de Thou and avocat général du roi Servin, to an interview before her, her advisers and a group of important churchmen at the Louvre.47 At this interview, Marie sought to address the Parlement's claim that it possessed the authority to condemn Mariana's tract rather than the issue of whether the text should be condemned.48 Speaking for the church Henri Gondi, bishop of Paris, argued that the court had no jurisdiction over Mariana's tract as it was an ecclesiastical matter, by which he meant a theological question addressed by a cleric.49 Papal Nuncio Ubaldini argued the much more contentious point that the Parlement of Paris's decree amounted to an usurpation of the church's authority over dogma because this arrêt rejected Mariana's assertion 'that it is permitted to kill tyrannical kings for heresy'.50 Thus, according to Ubaldini the Parlement 'usurped [ecclesiastical authority] to condemn a proposition as heretical, as they did in the arrêt against Jean Chastel'.51 Ubaldini chose a much more confrontational line of argument than Gondi when he explicitly linked the question of the Mariana condemnation to the issues of authority and jurisdiction raised by the Roman Inquisition's prohibition of the Chastel arrêt in 1609, Mariana touched on this issue when he discussed the assassination of King Henri III of France in his work and Ubaldini's comment consciously addressed the contentious ongoing dispute between the Parlement of Paris and Catholic ecclesiastical authorities over jurisdiction in cases

47 BN MS Latin 9947, fo 138: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. For more on the churchmen present see AV Francia 54, fo 92: Ubaldini to Borghese, 23 June 1610. See also L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 272. 48 Ubaldini identified two jurisdictional matters in his letter to Rome: (i) whether the Parlement of Paris possessed the authority to order the parish priests in Paris to publicize the Mariana arrêt from the pulpit each year; and (ii) whether the Parlement had the authority to condemn theological texts on the subject of tyrannicide, see AV Francia 54, fos 91v°-92: Ubaldini to Borghese, 23 June 1610. Gondi's support for the Jesuits is expressed in a letter to Acquaviva, see ARSI Franciae 31, fo 241 : Gondi to Acquaviva, 26 June 1610. 49 L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 271. 50 AV Francia 54, fo 91v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 23 June 1610. 51 AV Francia 54, fo 92v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 23 June 1610.

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concerning regicide.52 On this point the Parlement received some support from Chancellor Nicholas Brûlait de Sillery and the regent's adviser Villeroy for its role in protecting the public good as they noted that Mariana's book dealt primarily with the authority of a private citizen to murder a ruler and not with the theological question of a subject's obligation to their ruler when their sovereign had been excommunicated by the pope.53 Ultimately the regent chose not to directly refute the Parlement's claim to authority in this matter when she suspended the publication of the arrêt indefinitely.54 Marie's pronouncement dissatisfied many in the Parlement, but they could take heart in her decision as it did not directly deny the Parlement's authority or oppose their judgment. Thus, while the Parlement's delegation left the Louvre on 9 June without a complete victory, it had received some satisfaction on the question of the Parlement's authority. Further, while Marie's decision did detract from the Parlement's arrêt, the magistrates still succeeded in publicizing their decision. The previous evening they had publicly burnt Mariana's text and supporters of the arrêt ensured that it appeared, albeit illegally, in print during the coming weeks. On the question of the Jesuits though, Marie, in this interview, established her determination to protect the Society. As Ubaldini and L'Estoile noted, when in the interview Harlay strayed from strictly legal and jurisdictional issues to the question of the Society of Jesus's responsibility for the text, Marie and Jean-Louis de Nogaret, due d'Epernon, member of the royal council and important aristocratic patron of the Society, actively defended the corporation and rebuked the magistrates. Marie replied to Harlay's accusation that the actions of the Jesuits were very dangerous to the kingdom by stating that the doctrine of these Fathers, conforms in all things to that of the Catholic church which acknowledges their good deeds, which consists of the direction of souls to redemption, and with regard to the censure of the book which the aforementioned

52 Several weeks later, when news of the condemnation reached Rome, Pope Paul V did not dispute the decision to condemn the work, but he made it clear that he believed that it would have been better if the bishop of Paris or the French cardinals had issued the condemnation, see BN MS Fr 18005, fo 244: Brèves to Marie de Medici, 8 July 1610. 53 BN MS Latin 9947, fo 138: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. 54 AMAE MD France 44, fos 91v°-92: 'Ce qui se passa en la cour pour la condamnation de la doctrine de tuer les rois et princes et contre le liure de Jean Mariana en iuing 1610'.

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Spaniard Mariana wrote against the state, it was a just thing to censure it, but it was unreasonable to leave the others [the Jesuits] without protection.55

For Marie, to take action against the Society as a corporation for the writing of Mariana made little sense: 'it was like if one of the Parlement would write something against the kingdom and all the other unfortunate members would also be suppressed' ,56 Marie expected the Parlement of Paris to treat Mariana as an individual and not as a spokesman for the Society of Jesus. The due d'Epernon further defined the demarcation between acceptable and unacceptable action by the Parlement when, according to L'Estoile, he stated in the interview before Marie that 'it was not enough to do just things, if they are not done justly'.57 Like Marie, he did not attack the Parlement's decision to ban Mariana's text but rather warned the delegation against using the text to attack the Society of Jesus. He made this distinction clear when he followed his comment on justice with a call to remove any cleric who had preached specifically against the Jesuits from their pulpits.58 Thus, Marie and her advisers made it clear in this interview that the Parlement could expect some support from the regency for its assertion of authority over the crime of regicide but not for an attack on the Society of Jesus and its mission in France. The Parlement's decision to remain silent on the relationship between the Society of Jesus and individual Jesuits who published on theories of tyrannicide had important implications for the Jesuits in France. If the Society could maintain the distinction between individual foreign Jesuits who advocated unacceptable doctrines and the Order's members in France, then its ministries and activities in the kingdom would not be threatened as they had been in 1594. Nevertheless, despite the positive aspects of the Mariana condemnation, the Society remained concerned about its position in Paris. The Jesuits were aware of the hostility of many magistrates towards the Society and the continued dissemination in Paris of sermons, poems and tracts which implicated the whole Society in both Ravaillac's attack and the promotion of regicide.59 The Society's actions reflected their concerns. Even before the Mariana case they had

55 56 57 58 59

AV Francia 54, fo 92-92v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 23 June 1610. AV Francia 54, 92v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 23 June 1610. L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 273. L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 273. AFCJ Prat 33, pp. 57-59: Coton to Richeome, July 1610.

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begun a series of initiatives designed to present the Order as a loyal French organization. Father General Claudio Acquaviva ordered that Jesuits across France offer masses and private prayers for the late king and for the maintenance of peace and tranquillity.60 Further, Acquaviva accepted the validity of the Parlement of Paris's condemnation against Mariana on 6 July 1610, and soon after the Parlement reached its verdict Acquaviva took the important step of publicly reissuing his circular letter forbidding any member of the Society to publish on the issue of papal authority.61 The Society's leaders in France also took their own initiatives. They used the burial of Henri IV s heart at the College of La Flèche as an opportunity to advertise the Society's loyalty to the dynasty.62 Moreover, the Jesuits in France publicized their support for the French monarchy in print through public laments over the loss of their benefactor.63 Thus, the Jesuits organized a coherent campaign to distance themselves from Henri IV's assassination and to emphasize their acceptance of French law and their loyalty to the French monarchy. In addition to these general initiatives, the Jesuits in France sought to build on the specific distinction between Mariana as an individual and the Society as a whole. On 12 July 1610, Coton, the chief spokesman for the French Jesuit mission, published a definitive statement of Jesuit beliefs about tyrannicide and the authority of French monarchs in a pamphlet dedicated to the regent entitled Lettre declaratoire.64 In this

60 ARSI Franciae 2, fos 262-262v°: Acquaviva to Baltazar, 24 May 1610; AFCJ Prat 33, p. 25: Acquaviva to Jesuit fathers provincial in France, 29 May 1610. 61 AN M 243, fo 17: Le Décret dv reverend père Claude Aquaviua general de la Compagnie de lesvs (n.pl., 1610). This printed edition appeared in the autumn of 1610 to publicize Acquaviva's action. Acquaviva's letter was part of a wider campaign to distance the Society from Mariana's tract in which Acquaviva accepted the condemnation as valid, see ARSI Franciae 2, fos 270v°-271 : Acquaviva to Joyeuse, 6 July 1610. 62 Mercure français, i, fos 33 l-333v°. This source recounts the numerous ceremonies surrounding the burial of Henri IV's heart. The Society used many of these ceremonies to link itself with the king and to display its ongoing loyalty to the French monarchy. See also ARSI Franciae 31, fo 194-194v°: Jacquinot to Suffren, May 1610; ARSI Franciae 31, fos 203v°-204: Annual letter of the French Province, 1610; L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 264-266. Finally see P. Calendini, 'Cœurs de Henri IV & Marie de Médicis à La Flèche', Revue Henri IV, 1 (1905), 8-14. 63 A good example is L. Richeome, Consolation envoyée à la royne, mère du roy et régente en la France, sur la déplorable mort du feu roy trés-chrestien de France et de Navarre Henri IV, son treshonoré Seigneur et mary (Lyon, 1610). For a later example see P. Coton, Oraison funèbre pour l'anniversaire du feu Roy Henri le Grand (La Flèche, 1611). 64 Coton, Lettre declaratoire. For the date of its first appearance see Mer curefrançais, i, fo 3 50v°. There is a strong possibility that the text was circulating, perhaps in manuscript form, from around the end of June because the English Ambassador Edmondes claimed that he enclosed a copy (now lost) of the text in his dispatch dated 27 June 1610, see PRO SP France 78/56, fo 197v°: Edmondes to Salisbury, 27 June

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text Coton argued that the writings of individuals like Mariana did not represent the beliefs of the Order. To substantiate this claim, Coton listed a series of well-known Jesuit figures including Cardinals Roberto Bellarmine and Francesco Toledo whose writings contradicted Mariana's arguments. He also noted that the Jesuit leadership had condemned Mariana for exceeding the limits of common doctrine and had punished him accordingly.65 Like his father general but unlike the Papal Nuncio Ubaldini and many French bishops, Coton supported the Parlement's decision to condemn Mariana's tract. Moreover, Coton accepted the Faculty of Theology's declaration on 4 June 1610 against regicide and noted that the Jesuits also accepted the teachings of the Council of Constance, including the decree prohibiting regicide.66 By embracing these past pronouncements Coton emphasized the Jesuit intention to defend and promote French teachings on regicide. Further, Coton offered fifteen distinct statements in support of the French monarch's authority that he defined as orthodox Jesuit belief.67 Coton asserted in this tract that the Society of Jesus accepted as orthodox French law on regicide and condemned any of its own members who advocated tyrannicide. These statements did not satisfy critics of the Society who argued that numerous 'equivocations' were hidden within Coton's points.68 For instance, Richer, the syndic of the Faculty of Theology and outspoken critic of the Society, noted that Acquaviva's decree only prohibited Jesuitsfrompublicly supporting - not privately believing - that tyrannicide in some instances was permissible.69 Nevertheless, Richer's argument that Acquaviva possessed jurisdiction over the private thoughts of his subordinates along with their public actions contradicted a basic principle of canon law and, thus, was unlikely to move readers outside a core group of committed Jesuit opponents. Indeed, the need for critics to turn to theories of a hidden or unstated agenda to explain why Coton's points were unacceptable indicates that these fifteen points appealed to French sensibilities.

1610. Emond Richer also dates the writing of the tract to late June, see BN MS Latin 9947, fo 142: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. For a discussion of how this tract fits into the general debate on tyrannicide see Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide, pp. 535-543. 65 Coton, Lettre declaratoire, pp. 4-10. 66 Coton, Lettre declaratoire, p. 20. 67 Coton, Lettre declaratoire, pp. 16-20. 68 Anticoton, ov refutation de la lettre declaratoire dv Père Coton: Liure où estprouué que les lesuites sont coulpables & autheurs du parricide exécrable commis en la personne du Roy tres-CHRESTIEN HENRIIV(Paris, 1610), pp. 55-65. 69 BN MS Latin 9947, fo 163v°: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis.

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Coton's Lettre declaratoire sought to secure the acceptance of the French Jesuit mission as a separate entity from Jesuit theorists like Mariana. As Coton emphasized in his conclusion, the Society wished to build upon the Parlement's decision not to mention the Jesuits in the condemnation of Mariana: That after mature and wise consideration, from both the Court of Parlement and the Sacred College of the Sorbonne, their decisions and decrees did not make any mention of Jesuit doctrine; Knowing very well, as fair Judges and Doctors, that the mistakes are personal, that there would be no innocence in the world if the guilt of one was attributed to the other, and that this had been a deplorable and incommunicable characteristic of the sin committed by the first man ....70

Evidence that Coton's efforts had some impact on the literature surrounding the Mariana condemnation can be found in the Antimariana, written by Michel Roussel.71 In the 540-page Antimariana, Roussel, who was not a member of the Jesuits, devoted himself to a point by point condemnation of Mariana's theories. However, Roussel was careful to qualify his criticism of Mariana with a defence of the French Jesuits and Coton's articles: 'In these articles we are able to see in substance the condemnation of the doctrine of other foreign Jesuits by a French Jesuit, because the community is it not composed of individuals who wish to obey and to endure'?72 In this passage Roussel accepted Coton's argument that observers should reject the link implied by the Society's opponents between theories produced by individual foreign Jesuits and the views held by the Society of Jesus in France. Maintaining the distinction between individual theorists and the Society of Jesus was the central preoccupation of leading members of the Jesuit mission in France during this period. In print and from the pulpit, Jesuits in France emphasized their own rejection of Jesuit scholars who published on tyrannicide.73 The Society actively sought an understanding with the Parlement of Paris based on the Mariana condemnation in the summer of 1610; but, as it had since its return to France in 1603, the Order also continued to rely heavily on support from the royal family and important figures at court to secure their legal standing in France. In the months

70 71 72 73

Coton, Lettre declaratoire, p. 22. M. Rovssel, Antimariana ov refutation des propositions de Mariana (Paris, 1610). Rovssel, Antimariana, p. 429. For instance, see L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 276.

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following Henri's death, Marie proved a strong and effective supporter of the Society. Her protection of the Society reflected the regent's own religious inclinations, the need to maintain good relations with Jesuit patrons amongst French churchmen and nobles, and her advisers' decision to support a Society which remained a loyal ally of the monarchy.74 Observers could not mistake the regent's backing for the Society in the weeks following Henri's assassination when she publicly maintained the Jesuits as a feature of the royal church through the appointment of Coton as Louis XIII's confessor.75 Moreover, the regency government also advertised its favour towards the Society when, during the Mariana affair, Marie reprimanded Harlay for labelling the Society of Jesus in France as dangerous to the state.76 Marie and her advisers augmented these initial signs of continued goodwill in August 1610 with more active measures to silence the Society's detractors. One important example of the regent's support was the recruitment of Jean Du Bois, the most vehement anti-Jesuit critic during the summer of 1610, to articulate the distinction between individual foreign Jesuit theorists and the Jesuits in France.77 In August 1610 the royal government provided Du Bois with a pension of 600 ecus and the possibility of benefices in the future.78 In return, Du Bois retracted his attacks upon the Jesuits and promoted the regency's efforts to separate the Society of Jesus in France from the writings of their foreign brethren. The regent required Du Bois to support this distinction repeatedly in printed tracts.79 The dedicatory letter by Du Bois to the regent at the opening of his printed funeral oration for Henri IV provides an example of what the regent secured: / do not deny, MADAME, that in my Sermons I have been pushed by great zeal to destroy Mariana's propositions, [Mariana] who teaches subjects, under the cover of dealing with tyrants, how to murder their Kings, or at least to rebel against them: but I do deny that what I said against him was, as people want to say and to make believe,

74 For a description of Marie's religious inclinations see Perrens, L'Église et l'état, i, 367-369. For the conservative outlook of the regent's counsellors see J.M. Hayden, France and the Estates General of 1614 (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 1-3. 75 ARSI Galliae 71, fo 48-48v°: Coton to Richeome, May 1610. 76 AY Francia 54, fo 92-92v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 23 June 1610. 77 For the role of royal counsellors see J. Du Bois, Aux bons François (n.pl., n.d.), pp. 8-10. 78 F.-T. Perrens, 'Le Premier Abbé Dubois: épisode d'histoire religieuse et diplomatique d'après des documents inédits', Revue historique, 74 (1900), 260. 79 J. Du Bois, Le Povrtraict royal de Henry Le Grand qvatriesme dv nom (Paris, 1610).

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in order to slander the good people, to accuse the Innocents, and to make the Jesuit Fathers look odious.80

This tract, published with royal permission, provided a public clarification of Du Bois's previous assertions. While Du Bois continued to surreptitiously attack the Society, his statements reveal that the regency government was willing to use patronage to control a critic who went beyond acceptable criticism of the Society.81 Nevertheless, the regent's enthusiastic support for the Jesuits also embroiled the Society in another dangerous conflict when in August 1610 she reissued, in the name of the young Louis XIII, Henri IV's lettres patentes of 1608 that ordered the reopening of the Jesuit College of Clermont in Paris. This decision drew the Society into another dangerous court case with the University of Paris before the Parlement of Paris. The revival of this long-running dispute held risks for the Society, especially because of the monarchy's uncertain authority during a regency. However, it also had the potential to bolster the Society's legal position in France as it advertised the monarchy's continued support for an expansion of the Jesuit mission in the kingdom. Moreover, the regent and her advisers had a number of reasons to press for a Jesuit college in Paris at this point. First, the lettres patentes required only a straightforward reissuing of Henri IV's previous concession; and, therefore, their authority to reopen the college was strengthened by a direct appeal to the former king's will. Second, the Parlement of Paris's condemnation of Mariana without reference to the Jesuits in France and their teaching credentials gave reason to think that the Parlement would not bring the two issues together in a case over the narrow issue of teaching privileges in the kingdom. Third, the influential président de Thou, the important critic of the Society who was lobbying to become the next premier président, indicated that he would view a Jesuit application to teach in Paris favourably, and indeed was conveniently absent along with the anti-Jesuit avocat général du roi Servin on the day that the Society submitted the royal lettres patentes to the Parlement of Paris.82 Finally, a bitter internal conflict within the University of Paris, which important Jesuit allies actively managed for the benefit of the Society, resulted in the University's faculties of Medicine, Law and Theology initially lending the Jesuit request strong public

80 81 82

Du Bois, Le Povrtraict, p. 3. Italics and upper case in original. For Abbé Jean Du Bois's covert campaign against the Society see L'Estoile, Mémoires, x, 293. AV Francia 54, fo 98v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 14 September 1610.

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support, in part, through a submission to the Parlement.83 Therefore, despite the uncertainties over royal authority, the timing appeared favourable to secure the longdisputed opening of a Jesuit teaching college in Paris. The Jesuits presented the lettres patentes to the Parlement on 23 August 1610, but a coalition of Parisian interests including the University's Faculty of Arts, several heads of colleges at the University, a group of Parisian parish priests and the professors of the Collège de France informed the court that they wished to oppose their registration. A sympathetic Parlement scheduled a date to hear the case in November after its autumn recess, which gave the opponents of the Society time to organize their opposition to the lettres patentes.u The weeks following the renewal of the Jesuit case revealed that the regent, the Jesuits and their allies had misjudged the ease with which the Jesuits could integrate into the Parisian corporate educational structure. During the Parlement's autumn recess the University elected Jean Granger as rector, a man who brought the faculties together in opposition to the Jesuit request. At the same time the Society's opponents in the Faculty of Theology, led by Richer, succeeded in rallying members of the Faculty against the Society by emphasizing longstanding corporate interests.85 Moreover, the Society's opponents lost little time in transforming the Jesuit case into a focus for anti-Jesuit rhetoric in France. Within weeks of their submission, the Jesuits faced public accusations from their opponents that potentially threatened the entire Jesuit mission in France. The danger to the Society's position was most fully articulated in pamphlet literature published during the autumn of 1610.86 Opponents wrote these texts to support the University's case, and they were the first instance since the autumn of 1603 in which the Jesuits were subjected to a sustained barrage of critical published

83 AN M 69a, no. 18: 'Consensus facultatum sorbonae & decretorum'. For a detailed account of how Jesuit allies in the Faculty of Theology succeeded in securing this statement see BN MS Latin 9947, fo 174-174v°: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. See also Mer cure français, i, fos 312-315. 84 BN MS Fr 15782, fo 391: Copy of the Jesuit lettres patentes sanctioning the opening of the Jesuit College of Clermont. For a discussion of the decision to delay the case see BN Dupuy 90, fos 53-54v°: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jesuits à Paris..., 1610'. 85 Mercure français, i, fo 315. See also BN MS Latin 9947, fos 167-182: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. 86 Numerous tracts were published in France despite the best efforts of the regency government to suppress them. The conviction of a Paris publisher for printing a banned tract provides an indication of the regent's determination to regain some degree of control over book production in the capital, see ARSI Franciae 31, fos 254-254v°: Extract from an arrêt of the Parlement, 27 September 1610.

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pamphlets.87 Arguments that linked general mistrust of the Society to the specific concerns of the University dominated these tracts. Indeed, many of the general concerns emphasized in these pamphlets echoed earlier anti-Jesuit rhetoric from 1594 and 1603 as L'Estoile, who avidly collected them, noted: 'In effect, all these fine books, that I have read and seen, speak much and say little'.88 In one sense L'Estoile was correct because the pamphlet literature in 1610 drew many of its rhetorical devices and examples from works printed in 1594 and 1603, but it was the combination of this established rhetoric and the focus provided by the University case that threatened to revive the sort of arguments that had produced the rationale for the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1594. The anonymous tract Anticoton, the most influential of the anti-Jesuit polemics written in the early autumn of 1610, provides a clear indication of why the new pamphlet publications posed a potentially serious threat to the Society's position in France.89 The first four chapters follow a clear progression towards the goal of establishing that the Society of Jesus had taught and continued to teach and support subversive theories on papal authority and tyrannicide. Chapter one returned to the condemnation of Mariana's tract in the summer to argue that Mariana was not a misled individual but rather that his theories were representative of the Society's teachings. Chapter two reviewed a series of past assassination plots, some first presented in Antoine Arnauld's plaidoyer against the Jesuits in 1594 and others drawn from more recent events, to assert that the Society acted on its theories.90 Chapter three attempted 87

In the summer of 1610 manuscripts rather than printed tracts predominated with the exception of Du Bois, Aux bons Francois. However, from the autumn a series of published anti-Jesuit tracts appeared including Mystère des Jésuites pourprendre resolvtion de tuer les Roys (n.pl., 1610); Les lesvites estábiles et restablis en France, et lefruict que en est arriué à la France (n.pl., 1610); Complainte de l'Vniversité de Paris, contre avcvns estrangers nouuellement venus, surnommez lesuites (n.pl, 1610); Coppie d'vne lettre escrite à Monseigneur Pavino autrefois dataire, soubs le Pontificate de Clément VIII. d'heureuse mémoire, ou sont contenus plusieurs artifices & ruses de pères lesuites (n.pl., 1610). 88 L'Estoile, Mémoires, xi, 26. 89 Anticoton, ov réfutation de la lettre declaratoire dv Père Coton: Liure où estprouué que les lesuites sont coulpables & autheurs du parricide exécrable commis en la personne du Roy tres-CHRESTIEN HENRI IV (Paris, 1610). The influence of this tract can also be seen in the large number of responses to it. For instance see P. Coton, Response apologetiqve a l'Anticoton et a ceux de sa suite. Présentée a la Royne, mere dv Roy, regente en France. Ov il est monstre, qve les Autheurs anonymes de ces libelles difamatoires sont attaints des crimes d'Hérésie, leze Majesté, Perfidie, Sacrilège, & tres-enorme Imposture. (Pont, 1610). See also A. Behotte, Response a l'Anticoton, de point en point, pour la défense de la doctrine & innocence des Pères lesuites (Paris, 1611). 90 A. Arnauld, Plaidoyé de M. Antoine Arnavld Advocat en Parlement & cy deuant Conseiller & Procureur general de la defuncte Roine mère des Rois: Pour l'Vniversité de Paris demanderesse, Contre des lesuites défendeurs. Des 12 & 13 luillet 1594 (La Haye, 1594).

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to apply these themes to Henri IVs assassination by arguing that the Society had plotted against him in the past and was at least indirectly responsible for his assassination because of its continued promotion of tyrannicide theory. Through a critique of Coton's Lettre declaratoire, chapter four condemned as 'equivocal' Jesuit efforts since Henri IV's death to distance themselves from theories of tyrannicide. All of these chapters sought to establish the link between Mariana and the Society as a whole that the Jesuits had struggled to keep separate throughout the summer. Chapter five of the Anticoton provided the culmination of the argument in a call for action in the pending University case. In this final chapter, the author of the Anticoton criticized the Jesuits for seeking to dominate the French church rather than integrating into it.91 He also argued that the best means to protect France from the Society and its doctrines was to prevent the Jesuits' great wealth and influence, which he asserted that they possessed, from destroying the University of Paris. He placed the University in opposition to the Jesuits when he argued that only the good French orthodox teaching of the young would save France from the dangerous subversive theories advocated by the Society.92 The rhetoric branded the Jesuits as subversive and put forward the University as a loyal alternative. By emphasizing both the foreign doctrines of the Jesuits and the need to protect French institutions, the author of the Anticoton addressed themes that had resonated in the past with erudite Gallicans and French jurists generally. Moreover, the Anticoton's objections led the reader to conclude that the Jesuits not only endangered the University but also threatened the entire French polity.93 The text of the Anticoton expressed this view in the 'QVATRAINA LA ROYNE' at the conclusion of the tract: If you want your State to be strong, Drive these inhuman Tigers far away, Who shortened their King's reign Having paid themselves his heart by their own hands.94

While only this quatrain openly called for the expulsion of the Society from the kingdom, the arguments in the text strongly supported the concluding verse. The Anticotorfs primary purpose was to defend University privileges; nevertheless, to 91 92 93 94

Anticoton, pp. 65-70. Anticoton, pp. 71-72. Anticoton, pp. 67-74. Anticoton, p. 74. Italics and upper case in original.

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support his argument that the Jesuits could not replace the University, the author attempted to convince the reader that the Society taught dangerous foreign doctrines in contrast to the University's orthodoxy. For the first time since the assassination a tract which argued for the expulsion of the Society from France because of their doctrine appeared in print. While the Anticoton did not demand expulsion as explicitly as Arnauld*s plaidoyer in 1594, the underlying message was the same. A flood of other pamphlets appeared in the autumn of 1610, most of which shared with the Anticoton the same basic organization and arguments, although a few, including the anonymous Remonstrance à Messieurs de la Covr de Parlement, openly called for the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in the body of the text.95 Aside from the rapid appearance of a series of new publications, the Jesuits in France must also have been concerned that Harlay's remonstrances presented to the king on 24 December 1603 appeared in print for the first time.96 The publication of Harlay's remonstrances was another significant threat to the Society because it placed into question the Edict which established the Society's legal right to operate in much of France and returned attention to the expulsion of the Society in 1594. Moreover, the publication of this tract emphasized the increasing relevance of these past arguments to the current debate. A summary of the pamphlet literature made by a member of the French Jesuit mission and sent to the Jesuit headquarters in Rome clearly shows that the French mission was particularly sensitive to the way in which the pamphlet literature linked the Society of Jesus's French mission to issues of regicide and complicity with Ravaillac.97 The publication of Louis de Montgommery's, Le Fleav d'Aristogiton and the anonymous Advis de Maistre Gvillavme, both written by supporters of the Society of Jesus in the weeks following the appearance of the Anticoton, exacerbated the danger of the anti-Jesuit publications to the Order.98 These texts surrendered the polemical agenda of the court case to the anti-Jesuit authors by responding to the Anticoton with 95 See for instance Remonstrance à Messieurs de la Cour de Parlement sur le parricide commis en la personne du Roy Henry le Grand (n.pl., 1610). See also A la Royne Régente, et a Monseignevrs les Princes & Seigneurs du Conseil (n.pl., n.d.). 96 A. de Harlay, Remonstrance s fait av roy Henry Le Grand, par Messievrs de la Cour de Parlement de Paris, le 24 Décembre 1603, Pour le dissuader de I'Edict par lequel les Jésuites ont este depuis rappel et restablis en France (n.pl., 1610). 97 ARSI Franciae 32, fo 75-75v°: 'Summarium libelli, 1610'. 98 Mercure françois, i, fo 354v°. See also L. de Montgommery, Le Fleav d'Aristogiton (n.pl., 1610); Advis de Maistre Gvillavme nowellementretovrne de l'autremonde, sur le subjet de l'Anticoton, composé par P.D.C. c 'est a dire, Pierre du Coignet, iadis mort, & depuis n 'a gueres resucité (n.pl., 1611).

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little reference to the still-pending University case. The authors of these texts sought to refute the Anticoton's assertions of Jesuit culpability in the assassination of monarchs. With the publication of these tracts the polemical debate had shifted almost exclusively to whether the Society supported papal authority in temporal affairs, whether it promoted regicide and whether the Jesuits were responsible for the assassination of Henri IV. The satirical anonymous tract Le Remerciment des beurrieres, which appeared in response to the Aristogiton, reflected the evolution in the polemical discourse. This tract did not mention the University case at all but rather focused on the assertion that the Society of Jesus was responsible both for the theories of tyrannicide produced by its members and, indirectly, for Henri IV s death through their promotion of tyrannicide." The anti-Jesuit polemic developed rapidly out of the renewed University case to create the possibility that the Society's opponents would present the same arguments that had justified the Society's expulsion in 1594 to the Parlement of Paris when the University court case resumed in November 1610. Throughout the autumn, University polemicists sought to undermine attempts by the Society to distance itself from the theories of individual Jesuits. Establishing this point was crucial because the promotion of the University as protector of orthodox French teachings relied, like in Arnault s plaidoyer against the Society in 1594, upon the Jesuits presenting a serious threat to French law and hierarchy. Not only did this line of reasoning appeal to the belief of many in the Parlement of Paris that the court possessed a central role in protecting the rights and privileges of French institutions, but it also insulated the University from accusations of opposing a Jesuit college only because of self-interest. By early November 1610 the polemicists who wrote in support of the University had developed a set of arguments for the expulsion of the Society from France and the Mercure français noted the extent to which these arguments had spread amongst the political elite when it noted that these dangerous tracts were 'very freely on the tables of the best families in France'.100 The Jesuits were once again in a position where the Society as a whole could become entangled in the polemical discourse with theories of tyrannicide and papal authority over the temporal affairs of kingdoms: a set of theories that placed the Society outside the bounds of French law and French custom as defined by the Parlement of Paris.

99 100

Le Remerciment des beurrieres de Paris au Sieur de Courbouzon Montgommery (n.pl., 1610). Mercure français, i, fo 354v°.

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Nevertheless, the situation for the Jesuits in 1610 was different from their position in the summer of 1594. The Society drew upon the regent's continued goodwill as it secured a suspension of the University case when the Parlement reconvened in November 1610. The Papal Nuncio Ubaldini understood the Society's situation and supported the Jesuit initiative. In a letter to Rome he noted that the hostile new University rector Granger and his avocats would undoubtedly extend the Jesuit litigation to touch on the debate over the authority of popes versus church councils as well as papal authority in the temporal affairs of princes in order to argue that Jesuit doctrine on these subjects was prejudicial to the Gallican church and the French state.101 In other words, the Society's enemies would attack the Jesuits, as in 1594, for advocating restrictions on royal sovereignty that made the assassination of Henri as a tyrant a theoretical possibility. Even if the purpose of the case remained limited to the rejection of Jesuit claims to the right to teach in Paris rather than their expulsion from the kingdom, the Society had no desire to grant their opponents the opportunity to link the Order once again to these accusations. Neither did the regency wish to allow a case connected with such a difficult issue to proceed. Thus, Marie sent word on 25 November to premier président Harlay stating that she did not wish the case heard at this time.102 The regent's suspension of the case prevented the University's grievances from becoming a focus for more general action against the Jesuits. However, by late November the pamphlet literature against the Society had established a number of related issues that opponents of the Jesuits could raise independently of the University case. The avocat général du roi Servin used the Parlement's time freed by the suspension of the University hearing to address one such issue, the Italian Jesuit Cardinal Bellarmine's tract entitled Tractatus depotestate summipontificis in rebus temporalibus adversus Gulielmum Barclaium.m This text had become a cause célèbre in the pamphlet literature associated with the University case, but the quick condemnation of the text in the Parlement of Paris on 26 November 1610 transformed

101

AV Francia 54, fo 133v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 10 November 1610. BN Dupuy 90,54v°: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jesuits à Paris ..., 1610'. 103 R. Bellarmine, Tractatus depotestate summi pontificis in rébus temporalibus adversus Gulielmum Barclaium (Cologne, 1610). The nuncio provided the names of those magistrates and royal officials most implicated in the Bellarmine controversy in a letter to Cardinal Borghese dated 4 December 1610: AV Francia 54, fo 160-160v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 4 December 1610. 102

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it into a focal point for the ongoing campaign against regicide by Paris jurists.104 The debate over Bellarmine's tract centred on constitutional questions of political authority during a regency rather than the Society and its activities in the kingdom. Nevertheless, the ongoing conflict between the regent and Parlement ultimately aligned even more closely the political interests of the Jesuits, papacy, influential French ecclesiastics and the royal government. Thus, the condemnation of Bellarmine's tract is worth further consideration in the context of this study. On the morning of 26 November 1610, the avocat général du roi Servin presented Bellarmine's text, written in response to James I of England's assertions regarding temporal sovereignty, to the Parlement of Paris for condemnation. Once again a text written by a Jesuit became the focus for the Parlement's efforts to protect the French monarch's claim to absolute authority. However, Servin's decision to single out Bellarmine's relatively moderate text, while ignoring texts that advocated more radical propositions, reveals the underlying purpose behind the initiative: to create an opportunity for the Parlement to test the limits of its authority to protect France from subversive texts on regicide. The Parlement could make a strong case in June 1610 that Mariana's constitutional theories fell within its secular jurisdiction; but, by condemning Bellarmine's tract, the Parlement sought to assert a much wider jurisdiction. Bellarmine, cardinal and leading Catholic controversialist of his generation, based his text firmly on two theological tenets - Saint Peter's plenitude of power as granted by Jesus and the primacy of spiritual authority over temporal authority. He argued that, because of the exact nature of the pope's spiritual authority, the pontiff possessed indirect authority over temporal rulers in the Christian west. Bellarmine ' s arguments were theological in nature and extended far beyond the narrow legal arguments made by Mariana because he sought to address the authority of popes over Catholics. Moreover, observers in Europe viewed Bellarmine as a moderate in the contemporary debate; and, indeed, his effort to make papal authority palatable to Catholic princes while still giving the pope the ability to take action against heretical rulers drew the ire of Pope Sixtus V, who placed on the Roman Index of Prohibited Books an earlier work by Bellarmine that advocated the same doctrine.105

104

BN Dupuy 708, fo 42: Casaubon to de Thou, 16 November 1610. See also Anticoton, p. 9. H. Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France (Paris, 1922), iii, p. 254. The Collège of Cardinals secured the book's removal from the Roman Index following Pope Sixtus V's death. 105

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In the Tractatus de potestate, Bellarmine advocated neither the right of private citizens like Ravaillac to kill a tyrant on their own volition nor even direct papal authority to remove a ruler from his position. Instead, Bellarmine defined papal authority within narrow limits. He granted the pope sovereign jurisdiction over all Christians and over all temporal matters when they impacted on spiritual matters. But he carefully distinguished between ordinary direct jurisdiction, which the pope enjoyed over bishops and cardinals, and the extraordinary jurisdiction, which the pope possessed over secular rulers. According to Bellarmine, the pope possessed temporal authority over secular rulers only to protect the souls of the faithful and only after he had exhausted all other remedies. Even then the pope's power remained indirect, that is the pope possessed his authority only as a consequence of his absolute spiritual authority. He could admonish, excommunicate and, if all else failed, even remove subjects from their obligations to their secular ruler, but Bellarmine firmly held that the pope under no circumstances could actually work to remove a ruler from power. Nevertheless, by freeing a subject from his oath of obedience to a ruler Bellarmine clearly opened the door to actions by a ruler's subjects to remove him. It was Bellarmine's effort under these extreme circumstances to grant the pope the indirect authority necessary to combat heretical rulers that potentially infringed on the French monarch's absolute authority in his kingdom. As Servin emphasized to the Parlement, Bellarmine's text still contained the proposition that a ruler lacked absolute temporal authority within his kingdom and thus ran counter to a fundamental law of France.106 Servin's decision to present Bellarmine's text to the Parlement, rather than a text that granted the pope wider powers to directly remove secular rulers, reveals the determination of Servin and his allies to define as broadly as possible the Parlement's authority to defend the inviolability of French monarchs from any effort, even in a relatively moderate theological text, to limit or undermine their sovereignty. Servin and his allies originally intended to secure a doctrinal condemnation of Bellarmine's text from the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris before moving to formally condemn the text in the Parlement. However, their allies in the Faculty could not rally sufficient support amongst their colleagues to secure the condemnation of a text written by a cardinal.107 This required Servin to advocate that the Parlement make the even more contentious assertion that it possessed the authority to defend French

106 107

AN Xla 1833, fos 187-213: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 November 1610. AV Francia 54, fos 132-138: Ubaldini to Borghese, 10 November 1610.

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fundamental law regardless of whether the offending text contained issues of church doctrine. Thus, Servin and his allies used Bellarmine's work to press both the theoretical and jurisdictional limits of the Parlement's authority. In his speech before the Parlement on 28 May 1610 requesting the confirmation of the Council of Constance decree against regicide, premier président Harlay had defined the condemnation of texts dealing with church doctrine as outside the Parlement's control. But in December 1610 avocat général du roi Servin sought to establish the Parlement's jurisdiction over just such a text. What was less clear was how this new initiative would affect the Society's mission in France. Once again this depended on whether the conseillers of the Parlement chose to condemn the whole Society or its French mission for the unacceptable writings of Bellarmine, a single member of the Order. In the summer of 1610 the Parlement failed to make this same connection between Mariana and the Society as a whole, but the rhetoric of the autumn provided a context in which such action was more probable if still far from certain. In late November and December 1610, opponents of the Society sought to establish this connection in another stream of anti-Jesuit published literature. These publications borrowed heavily on the autumn's polemic and advocated punishment of the whole Society in response to Bellarmine's work.108 There were a number of individuals both inside and outside the Parlement who supported a broad attack upon the Society of Jesus and members of the Order needed no reminders of the hostility that could be tapped by their opponents. However, the official actions of the Parlement offer no reference to the argument that the Society should be punished as a whole for the writings of one of their members. The threat to the Jesuits found articulation only on the margins of the debate, primarily in anonymous polemical tracts. The Parlement chose to justify their condemnation of Bellarmine's tract strictly on a series of very specific legal issues that carefully avoided any link with general attacks on the Society of Jesus. Avocat général du roi Servin, in a lengthy oration before the combined chambers of the Parlement, framed the legal reasons for the condemnation of Bellarmine's text

108 See, for instance, N. le Jay, Le Tocsin. Au Roy, à la Royne Regente mere du Roy, aux Princes du Sang, à tous les Parlemens, Magistrats, Officiers & bons & loyaux Subjects de la Couronne de France. Contre le Liure de la Puissance Temporelle du Pape, mis n 'agüeres en lumière par le Cardinal Bellarmin lesuite (n.pl., 1610). See also Considerations à la France, Sur la consolation enuoyée de Rome, à la Reyne mère du Roy Régente en France: Par Louis Richeôme, lesuite (n.pl., 1611).

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by the Parlement of Paris.109 Servin constructed the body of his oration to appeal explicitly to erudite Gallican premises about the rule of law and the importance of historical precedent as authority.110 Servin opened his oration with a point by point attack upon Bellarmine's arguments. His purpose was to assert that French law defined in clear terms that the monarch had no superior save God in the temporal sphere. Therefore, Bellarmine's argument that in some limited circumstances a pope could remove a French subject's obligation to his monarch threatened the very foundations of the French state through its subversion of the French monarch's claim to absolute sovereignty. Servin then substantiated his assertions through a detailed discussion of historical precedents in France.111 He drew heavily upon histories of France and the Parlement's registers, both of which erudite Gallicans defined as unassailable sources of authority for the definition of French law. For instance, with a keen eye for the rhetorical moment, Servin noted that his predecessor, the avocat du roi Jean le Coque, stood before the same Parlement over two centuries earlier on 20 March 1392 to state 'That the king of France recognized no sovereign in the temporal affairs of his kingdom'.112 Le Coque's speech was only one of many historical examples drawn on by Servin, but his decision to place Le Coque's statement in all upper-case letters in the published version of this text indicates that this short passage embodied the central argument that these numerous references to French precedent established - that the king of France had in past centuries and remained in 1610 subject only to God in his own kingdom.113 Servin's arguments sought to reaffirm the same interpretation of fundamental law which justified the condemnation of Mariana's text in the summer. Servin's central purpose in citing French legal precedents in such detail was to argue that French law affirmed in clear terms the king's absolute sovereignty in temporal affairs and that the Parlement had to condemn Bellarmine's text as the

109 This oration remains a classic of the erudite Gallican genre. For a close examination of Servin's career and relationship to the Jesuits see S. Mastellone, La Reggenza di Maria de ' Medici (Florence, 1962), pp. 33-121. 110 AN Xla 1833, fos 187-213: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 November 1610. 111 AN Xla 1833, fos 203-213: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 November 1610. 112 AN Xla 1833, fo 204: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 November 1610. 113 L. Servin, Remonstrances et conclvsions des gens dv Roy et Arrest de la Covr de Parlement 26. Nouembre M DCX. (n.pl., 1610), p. 43. Jean le Coque's statement was just one expression of a set of influential ideas from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, see A. Bossuat, 'La Formule "le roi est empereur en son royaume". Son emploi au XVe siècle devant le Parlement de Paris', Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 39 ( 1961 ), 3 71 -3 81. See also J. Krynen, L'Empire du roi. Idées et croyances politiques en France XIIe-XVe siècle (Paris, 1993), pp. 403-414.

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theories espoused in the work ran counter to French law. However, Servin also used his appeal to historic precedents to accomplish a second purpose: to assert the Parlement's authority especially during a regency to define and to defend the sovereignty of the monarch. Servin made this point repeatedly in his oration. For instance, Servin stated: if at all times it is holy, it is just, it is honourable, and is of courage and of love of the French towards their King, and their Kingdom to respect the principles of truth, and to defend the Gallican exemption and Gallican liberty, certainly it has to be principally crucial during the young age of the reigning King under the happy Regency of the Queen, his mother.114

In this passage, turgid with emotive rhetoric on the honour and duty of magistrates, Servin made the important link between the minority of the king and the role of the Parlement: a link which had also been advocated that summer through the Parlementé efforts to reissue the Council of Constance decree against regicide. According to Servin, the king's loyal servants had a duty to defend the inviolable laws of the French monarchy when the monarch was unable to defend them himself. For Servin this responsibility fell particularly heavily upon the Parlement' s shoulders as he made clear in a later passage when he asserted that the magistrates in the Parlement would not be forgiven 'not only today, but in the future, when the king will come of age, if instead of accepting this complaint as just, they allow to pass such pernicious writings, without bringing about its proper censure'.115 In this passage, Servin argued that once the king reached maturity he would judge his Parlement on its success in defending his laws during his minority. In making this argument, Servin also asserted that the flexibility that Henri IV had shown in his interpretation of the fundamental laws was out of place during the regency. Only the careful and exact defence of French law could protect the monarch's sovereignty until the next king took personal control of the kingdom and once again dispensed justice in his own name. These two statements on the Parlement's responsibilities during a regency are crucial for any understanding of the Parlement's concern with Bellarmine's work and the Parlement's exchanges with the regent over its condemnation of the tract. Servin argued that only an adult monarch could interpret the fundamental laws. Further,

114 115

AN XI a 1833: fo 203: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 November 1610. AN Xla 1833: fo 204v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 November 1610.

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Servin contended that the Parlement had to defend certain French customs and laws, including his uncompromising definition of royal authority, as fundamental to the state and dynasty, especially when the monarch could not defend the laws himself. These themes lay at the heart of his discourse. However, despite Servin's outspoken opposition to the Society of Jesus, one theme that failed to appear at any point in Servin's oration was that of Jesuit corporate responsibility for the propositions of their most famous controversialist Bellarmine.116 Thus, despite the increase in anti-Jesuit polemical literature that autumn, the debate in the Parlement focused exclusively on fundamental law and the Parlement's authority, not Jesuit corporate responsibility for the advocation of regicide. The Parlement reviewed Bellarmine's text, accepted Servin's interpretation and duly condemned the work because it contained doctrines contrary to those accepted in France concerning the authority of the monarch.117 The only recorded mention of the Society of Jesus during the entire affair occurred when a number of parlementaires called for the book to be burned immediately 'in order to avoid the obnoxious queries and solicitations of the Nuncio as well as those who favour him and this doctrine like the Jesuits'.118 This comment reflected the grave mistrust of the Society by a number of parlementaires. However, it also serves to emphasize the absence of the Society from the official pronouncements of the Parlement. Servin's decision to avoid all reference to the Society of Jesus in the condemnation of Bellarmine's tract was indicative of the effort by many in the Parlement to separate the important constitutional issues, which Servin carefully pleaded, from the distraction of the Jesuit controversy. The Parlement was willing to use the Bellarmine text, which had become a subject of debate thanks to the pamphlet literature associated with the University case in the autumn, to define a very limited set of issues on royal sovereignty and the Parlement's authority. However, the Parlement displayed little desire to attack the Jesuit mission in France through the tract as advocated in pamphlet literature in late November and December 1610. This is not to say that men like Servin had softened their stance towards the Jesuits, but rather that the definition of royal sovereignty and the Parlement's authority to defend royal sovereignty dominated their concerns in December 1610. 116

For Servin's interaction with the Society of Jesus see Mastellone, La Reggenza, pp. 33-121. AN Xla 1833, fos 213-214: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 November 1610. 118 BN Dupuy 90, fo 55v°: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jésuites à Paris..., 1610'. 117

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For the parlementaires the central issue which united the corporation in the condemnations of both Mariana and Bellarmine's tracts was the authority of the Parlement to enforce the king's laws during a regency. To attack the Society at the same time would have been counter-productive to this central concern. As during the Mariana condemnation, many magistrates, including influential figures like président Séguier, were inclined to support the Society, and thus opposition within the Parlement to a condemnation of the Order would have limited the Parlement's ability to speak with one voice on the issue of its authority over fundamental law.119 Further, the royal will, through Henri IV's Edict of Rouen and the late king's favour, had established the right of the Jesuits to participate in the kingdom in no uncertain terms. Even some opponents of the Society within the milieu of the Parlement recognized this reality. This is perhaps best revealed in an anonymous legal brief written during the period that sought not the expulsion of the Society but the strict enforcement of the articles in the Edict of Rouen that defined the Society's mission in France.120 It was the defence of the fundamental laws and the role of the Parlement in that defence, not opposition to the Society of Jesus, that inspired the magistrates to return to the issue of papal authority in December through Bellarmine's tract. However, while the Parlement carefully avoided drawing the Society into its condemnation, the judges directly sought in their arrêt to confront the question of jurisdiction over those texts concerned with both church doctrine and royal authority. The sharp exchanges between the regent and her magistrates over the Bellarmine condemnation confirm that the question of jurisdiction lay at the heart of the conflict. On the day that the court handed down its arrêt members of the Parlement had called for the quick burning of the text because of continued concern that outside influences might impinge upon its ruling. Nevertheless, despite overwhelming support for this action amongst magistrates, Harlay ordered the burning delayed as earlier in the day Marie had specifically instructed him to do so.121 On 27 November 1610, one day after the Parlement issued its arrêt, it became apparent that the fears of the parlementaires were well founded. As rumours spread that the regent planned to take action against the arrêt, premier président Harlay prepared to defend the Parlement's decree and

119 Evidence for this potential split can be found in BN Dupuy 90, fo 55v°: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le restablissement du Collège des Jésuites à Paris ..., 1610'. 120 BN MS Fr 2761, fos 74-78: Memoir against the Jesuits, 1610. 121 BN Dupuy 90, fo 55v°: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jésuites a Paris..., 1610'.

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asked the avocat général du roi Servin to publish the arrêt quickly. L'Estoile reported that Servin accomplished this task 'with such promptness, that from the evening of the same day, the town was filled with printed matter, as many placards as half-sheets'.122 At the same time, Servin published his oration and the Parlement took the unusual step of including his entire oration in the Parlement's official register entry.123 These steps ensured that the condemnation of Bellarmine's tract reached a wide readership and was preserved in the official record of the Parlement. This second development was especially important to erudite Gallicans and their conceptions of authority and law. It is thus interesting to note that none of these publications nor the Parlement's register entry make either explicit or implicit reference to the Jesuits or even mention Bellarmine's affiliation with the Society. As with Mariana's tract, the magistrates avoided allowing their primary concern with fundamental law and the Parlement's responsibility for it to be conflated with an attack on the Jesuits. The fear that the Parlement's opponents could convince the regent to suppress or alter the Parlement's verdict caused many magistrates to press for quick action to execute the arrêt. However, around a dozen parlementaires, led by président Séguier, opposed the arrêt. Members of this group raised two alternative responses to Bellarmine's book: that the Parlement ask the queen or the chancellor to pressure the pope to condemn the work himself, or that the court consider deferring its judgment on this issue to the king and the queen regent as the arrêt was really an affair of state.124 These suggestions raised issues of jurisdiction and authority that rapidly became the foci for heated debate between magistrates from the Parlement, representatives of the church and the regency government. In a series of tense meetings at the Louvre, the regent sought to arbitrate between the Parlement and representatives of the church over issues that tested the limits of her authority.125 The task of 122

L'Estoile, Mémoires, ix, 30. See also Extraict des registres. Contre le Hure intitulé, Tractatus de potestate summi pontificis in temporalibus aduersus Guillelmum Barclaium, auctore R. Bellarmino Sanctœ Ecclesiœ Romance CARDINALI BELLARMINO (26 nov. 1610) (n.pl., 1610); Servin, Remonstrances et conclvsions. 123 AN Xla 1833, fos 187-213: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 November 1610. See also Servin, Remonstrances et conclvsions. 124 BN Dupuy 90, fo 55v°: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jésuites a Paris ..., 1610'. See also AV Francia 54, fos 132-138: Ubaldini to Borghese, 10 November 1610. 125 For accounts of the negotiations at the royal court see AV Francia 53, fo 166: Ubaldini to Marie de Medici, 29 November 1610; AFCJ Prat 34, pp. 826-827: Ubaldini to Marie de Medici, 2 December 1610; AN Xla 1833, fos 270-273v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 1 December 1610; L'Estoile, Mémoires, xi, 30-31; AV Francia 53, fos 149-161v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 4 December 1610. For the position of an important French ecclesiastic on this issue see BI Godefroy 15, fos 275-276v°: Cardinal Du Perron to Pope

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formulating a compromise acceptable to both the Parlement and the Church while maintaining the regent's position as an effective arbiter fell to Marie's experienced councillors Villeroy and Sillery. Their solution came in the form of an order from the royal council that reflected the delicate situation when it decreed 'that the publication of the aforementioned Arrêt shall be held in suspension until otherwise ordered by his Majesty ,..'.126 This compromise removed the issue from the Parlement's jurisdiction without threatening its authority to rule on the text during a regency by merely suspending its publication until the king's council ordered otherwise. The order acknowledged to some degree the concerns expressed by the Parlement; and, although in no way explicitly asserted in the council's order, the suspension rather than the suppression of the arrêt may have even implied that the regency wished to defer judgment on the issue until Louis XIII was of age. In any case, suspension of the arrêt failed to directly challenge Servin's argument that fundamental laws could only be interpreted by an adult monarch. The Council's decision seems to have met with initial acceptance by Harlay and other leading magistrates because it did not infringe on the Parlements theoretical authority to pass judgment on the text and left open the possibility that the Parlement could condemn a similar text in the future. However, the council's decision proved less acceptable to the church because it only suspended publication not execution of the arrêt. As Papal Nuncio Ubaldini noted, the Parlement had already succeeded in publishing its arrêt on 27 November, and thus by not suppressing the execution of the arrêt the regent's decision lacked any meaning. Perhaps an even more serious issue to Ubaldini was that in conceding the execution of the arrêt, the regency council effectively conceded to the Parlement jurisdiction over theological texts and questions of doctrine. Under pressure from Ubaldini, Chancellor Sillery altered the text of the royal council's decision to include the word 'execution'; but, despite royal orders prohibiting discussion of the affair, the legality of this highly questionable initiative by the chancellor inspired strong opposition in the Parlement.127 Finally, on 9 December 1610 Marie was forced to order that a delegation from the Parlement appear before her in the Louvre. At this meeting Paul V, 18 December 1610. For the angry reaction within the College of Cardinals in Rome to this situation see BN MS Fr 18005, fos 417-418: Brèves to Villeroy, 23 December 1610. 126 BN Dupuy 90, fo 61 : 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jésuites a Paris..., 1610'. 127 A hint of the support amongst some magistrates in the Parlement for the idea of publicly opposing the queen can be found in the Parlement's registers, see AN Xla 1833, fos 346v°-347: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 10 December 1610.

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she took responsibility for the rewording of the arrêt. Moreover, she called upon the magistrates to respect her judgment because reasons of state, which the Parlement lacked competency to understand, inspired her actions. In other words, she demanded silence on this affair in a manner reminiscent of her late husband.128 The change of wording in the Council's decree placed in question the Parlement's authority to condemn Bellarmine's text. The delegation from the Parlement openly vented their anger at the regency council's action. In the interview the présidents present refused to speak to the queen regent about the addition of 'execution' to the decree, while the avocat général du roi Servin, speaking for the delegation, read extracts from Bellarmine's work and then openly accused Councillor Villeroy of never having read the cardinal's text.129 Many jurists in the Parlement shared their delegation's opposition to the compromise proposed by the regency government. Members of the first Chambre des Enquêtes were so concerned that they informed the third and fourth chambers that they believed acceptance of the regency council's decree effectively forced the Parlement to accept that the regency council could interfere with the authority of the Parlement which is [also] the authority of the King greatly under attack and undermined. That this Arrêt from the regency Council in fact broke the one of the Parlement which could not be corrected nor suspended by the regency Council not being superior in any way to the Parlement founded by Kings and ordinances, [over which] the former [the regency council] had neither power nor jurisdiction.130

The king's authority was not the authority of the king's advisers nor even the regent. Some members of the fourth chamber deliberately confounded the largely uncontroversial claim that the chancellor had no authority to overturn such an arrêt of the Parlement with the very radical claim that a regency council had no such authority either. Thus, the fourth chamber argued that the Parlement should make

128

BN Dupuy 90, fo 63: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jésuites a Paris..., 1610'. 129 BN Dupuy 90, fo 63: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jésuites a Paris..., 1610'. 130 BN Dupuy 90, fo 63: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jésuites a Paris..., 1610'.

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a protestation against the so called Chancellor because he abused his authority and that of the Queen when he betrayed the public cause, and during the young age and minority of the King he appeared a deserter of his Majesty instead of a defender against the Pope's usurpations and plans abandoning like a coward his duty as Chancellor of France which consisted in maintaining the authority of the Kings and the laws of France, and that everyone saw and blamed him [the pope] and Monsieur Villeroy for depriving a minor of his power and Royal authority and transferring it to Rome [thereby] establishing France under the power of the Pope against all the rights and liberties of the Kingdom and the Gallican church.131

These heated statements, while ultimately rejected by the Parlement as a whole, show the depth of feeling in the Parlement. The addition of the term 'execution' to the Council's decree struck at the heart of the Parlement's authority. The condemnation of Bellarmine's text by the Parlement of Paris was an important political event during the months following Henri IV s assassination. For the Society of Jesus, the condemnation revealed the reluctance of their opponents to use the issue to attack the Society as a whole and re-enforced the nascent understanding established between Society and Parlement during the Mariana condemnation in the summer. For erudite Gallicans, the condemnation of this text represented one of the most ambitious efforts to define and assert the Parlement's jurisdiction over theological texts that touched on questions of royal authority: an issue with wider implications for the authority and enforcement of royal law in the kingdom. For Marie and her advisers this issue tested the limits of a regent's authority in relation to that of an adult monarch. Finally, the condemnation and the debate that followed also resulted in the convergence of the political interests of the regency government, papacy, French prelates and Jesuits. This alignment continued to define related disputes leading up to the Estates General of 1614. In the months following the suspension of the Bellarmine arrêt, the Society had reason to believe that it had survived the worst problems raised by Henri's assassination and that its position in France was strengthening rather than weakening. In April 1611 the Society of Jesus benefited from the retirement of premier président Harlay from the Parlement of Paris and his replacement, at the nomination of the Crown, by Nicholas

131 BN Dupuy 90, fo 63v°: 'Ce qui passa au Parlement pour le reestablissement du Collège des Jésuites a Paris..., 1610'.

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de Verdun, the Jesuit-educated premier président of the Parlement of Toulouse.132 Harlay had repeatedly used his influential position to ensure that litigation against the Society received full hearings before the Parlement. Moreover, he used his responsibility as spokesman for the Parlement to voice his opposition to the Jesuits. Verdun proved a figure more sympathetic to the Society who, in general, was able to provide some protection for the Jesuits from their opponents. In the spring of 1611, the Society could also take heart in their partially successful effort to distance their mission from the theoretical controversies over regicide and papal authority which continued to rage in Paris. Father General Acquaviva renewed his efforts to prevent the publication of further tracts by members of his Society on regicide or papal authority over secular rulers.133 Meanwhile, members of the Society in France worked to distance the French mission from the accusations of the previous autumn through the publication of substantial apologetic tracts. Several of these tracts addressed the issue of papal authority in such moderate language that they drew criticism from the papal nuncio.134 At the same time as the Jesuits in France sought to disengage themselves from the debate over papal authority and royal sovereignty, new controversies with no connection to the Society arose that served to marginalize the Jesuits in the public debate. The most important of these developments was a series of public disputations over the nature of papal authority held at a general convocation of the Dominican Order in Paris in May 1611. This convocation attracted leading Dominican theologians from across Europe and resulted in a series of sharp exchanges between these friars and several Gallican jurists and theologians. In these exchanges, leading erudite Gallicans, including Servin and Richer, sought to defend Gallican beliefs about royal authority from alternative ideas espoused in these disputations by both French and foreign Dominicans.135 Further, the disputation inspired Richer to 132

BN MS Latin 9947, fos 240-242: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. See also L'Estoile, Mémoires, xi, 90-91. See also AV Francia 54, fos 226-227v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 29 March 1611. 133 BN MS Fr 18006, fo 192-192v°: Breves to Marie de Medici, 13 May 1611; BN MS Fr 18006, fos 32v°- 33: Brèves to Marie de Medici, 6 February 1611; AV Francia 54, fos 202v°-204: Ubaldini to Borghese, 17 February 1611; AFCJ Prat 33, pp. 85-91: Jaiquinot to Acquaviva, 28 August 1611. 134 Coton, Response apologetiqve a lyAnticoton et a ceux de sa suite. See also Behotte, Response a l'Anticoton. For Nuncio Ubaldini's concern about the moderate tone of some of these texts see AV Francia 55, fo 35v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 19 January 1612. 135 BN MS Fr 18006, fos 181-183v°: Villeroy to Breves, 10 May 1611; BN MS Fr 18006, fo 292v°: Breves to Marie de Medici, 9 July 1611. For an account of the controversy see BN Dupuy 37, fos 58-61v°: 'Récit veritable de ce qui s'est passé en la dispute publicque du chapitre general des Religieux de St. Dominique à Paris', 27 May 1611. See also E. Puyol, Emond Richer: étude historique et critique sur la rénovation du gallicanisme au commencement du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1876), i, 163-216.

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publish his Libellus de ecclesiastica et política potestate, which was the source of another contentious debate not linked to the Society of Jesus.136 The Jesuits, while still part of the regicide debate in May 1611, no longer found themselves the central focus of the controversy. Despite these positive developments, the Society's enemies within the Parlement of Paris, the Paris clergy and the University of Paris continued to attack the Order and its mission in France. Ubaldini reported that the Society remained a subject of attack from the pulpits of Paris, and Richer made several attempts to secure the condemnation of pro-Jesuit texts in the Faculty of Theology.137 However, as in the summer of 1610, none of these developments seriously threatened the Society's mission in France until once again the question of Jesuit teaching at the College of Clermont provided the Society's opponents with another opportunity to raise before the Parlement the issue of Jesuit doctrines alongside that of Jesuit educational, sacramental and missionary work in France. The determined leadership of Emond Richer, syndic of the Faculty of Theology, and Pierre Hardivillier, rector of the University, over the summer and autumn of 1611 secured the hearing in the Parlement of Paris.138 Premier président Verdun with the support of the regency government succeeded in thwarting efforts by the Society's opponents in the University to link the issue of Jesuit teaching in Paris with two cases before the Parlement in July and October 1611 involving youths boarding at Jesuit foundations. But Richer and Hardivillier did succeed in securing a hearing in December 1611. Verdun had little choice but to grant this hearing because Richer and Hardivillier carefully crafted their complaint to focus on the rights and privileges of the University.139 The protection and

136

Puyol, Emond Richer, i, 217-271. For attacks on the Society from the pulpit see AV Francia 54, fo 174v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 4 January 1611. For Richer's initiative in February see BN MS Latin 9947, fos 240-242: E. Richer, Historia Academiae Parisiensis. See also L'Estoile, Mémoires, xi, 90-91. See also AV Francia 54, fos 226-227v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 29 March 1611. For Richer's initiative in October see AN MM 251, fo 28-28v°: Registers of the Faculty of Theology, 1 October 1611. See also AN MM 251, fos 30-31: Registers of the Faculty of Theology, 14 November 1611. 138 Hardivillier became rector of the University of Paris in the autumn of 1611. 139 The first case centred on the efforts of the private physician of the duc de Lorraine, M. Leurcheon, to regain custody of his son who was recruited to join the Society while studying at the Jesuit college in Nancy, see BN Dupuy 74, fo 134: 'Arrêt contre les Jésuites de Nancy', 29 July 1611. The Parlement of Paris possessed an acknowledged jurisdiction over the Barrois despite it being part of the duc de Lorraine's territories. In a public denunciation on August 1611, Emond Richer linked this case to the possible reopening of the Jesuit College of Clermont as a full teaching college within the University of Paris, see BN MS Latin 9947, fos 259v°-260v°: E. Richer, Historia Academiae Parisiensis. The second case involved 137

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regulation of the rights and privileges of French institutions, including those within the Gallican church, was a key aspect of the Parlement's jurisdiction and one that it fiercely defended against other authorities.140 Thus, by accusing the Jesuits of illegally organizing classes at their Paris hostel that infringed on the University's teaching monopoly in Paris, the University secured a new court case pleaded before a combined session of the Parlement of Paris's chambers on the more important question of the royal lettres patentes issued on 20 August 1610 ordering the opening of the Jesuit College of Clermont. From the start this case promised to touch upon wider questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the role of the Society in France, as was reflected by the attendance of three French peers at the proceedings: René Potier, bishop of Beauvais, Charles de Balsac, bishop of Noyon, and Henri II, prince de Conde.141 In a lengthy plaidoyer delivered before the Parlement on 17 and 19 December 1611, Pierre Martelliere, avocat for the University, drew heavily, as his patron Richer had in the past, on historical documentation to sustain the University's case.142 Martelliere's oration returned to the well-worn arguments in support of the University first fully articulated by Arnauld in 1594 and reaffirmed by the author of the Anticoton in 1610. Thus, Martelliere presented the University as a loyal, orthodox, French institution with long-standing rights and privileges in the kingdom. He contrasted the University with the foreign Jesuits who had recently infiltrated into the capital where they sought to illegally teach their subversive doctrines. Martelliere, like Arnauld before him, offered an impassioned encyclopaedic attack on the Society drawing upon the now well-established repertoire of accusations concerning Jesuit misdeeds; but, unlike Arnauld in 1594, Martelliere never went beyond the remit of the case to call explicitly for the expulsion of the Jesuits from France. Nevertheless, his oration placed in question the Society's status in France because it asserted that the Jesuits failed to boarders at the Jesuit student hostel located in the buildings of the former College of Clermont in Paris. Little is known about the exact details of this case. For the most complete discussion see Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 121, 278. It seems that the University of Paris used the case to raise questions about the legality of the one theology class that the Society had received permission to teach in Paris annually. Henri granted this privilege to the Society in 1609 as a first step towards reopening the College of Clermont; and, thus, it had implications for University's teaching rights. For a full description of how the University shaped its complaint in December 1611 see AV Francia 54, fos 399-400: Ubaldini to Borghese, 7 December 1611. 140 J.H. Shennan, The Parlement of Paris, 2nd edn (London, 1998), pp. 78-85. 141 BN MS Latin 9948, fo 3: E. Richer, Historia Academias Parisiensis. 142 P. Martelliere, Plaidoyé de Me Pierre de la Marteliere, advocat en la Cour, fait en Parlement assisté de Mes. Antoine Loisel Denis Boutillier, Orner Talion ancien Aduocats, Les Grand Chambre, Tournelle, & de VEdict assemblées les 17. & 19. Décembre 1611 (Paris, 1612).

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abide by French law and taught French children false doctrines. Martelliere, like the author of the Anticoton, indirectly raised the wider issue of Jesuit participation in French society. In his conclusion, he indirectly acknowledged the Society's legal standing, as defined by the Edict of Rouen and the accommodation between the Society and the Parlement established in the Mariana and Bellarmine cases, when he noted that the Jesuits in France had promised in the past to observe French law and privileges. However, Martelliere concluded that the Jesuits had broken their promises.143 Martelliere sought to secure the restriction or expulsion of the Jesuits from France by linking their educational mission in the kingdom with the writings of their foreign brethren on tyrannicide. If the Parlement took up this idea then the entire Jesuit mission in France, as in 1594, was threatened. However, the reaction of the Parlements jurists to the case secured a very different outcome for the Society, one that built upon the accommodation first defined the previous year in the Mariana and Bellarmine cases. To understand the Parlement of Paris's ruling one must consider a final plea, that of the avocat général du roi Servin.144 In December 1611 Servin remained a committed opponent of the Society. Nevertheless, when he rose to address the Parlement in his capacity as defender of royal interests, he chose to offer a very different line of argument from Martelliere, Instead of seeking the rejection of the Society's mission in France, he framed his arguments with reference to the Edict of Rouen and the Parlement's condemnation of Mariana and Bellarmine's texts. Thus, while Servin made no specific reference to the Edict in his plaidoyer, his arguments uniformly sought to define and enforce the important stipulation in the Edict that required that the Society 'also be subject to all and everywhere the laws of our Kingdom and the magistrates in our Courts and in the same manner as the other Ecclesiastics and Religious are subject to them'.145 At its core, Servin's plaidoyer focused on the regulation of a corporation possessing a legal right to operate in France. Thus, the avocat général ultimately pleaded in favour of the Society's application to open a college in Paris, but only if the Jesuits made a clear statement in support of the Gallican doctrines at the centre of the condemnations of Mariana and Bellarmme's works and explicitly accepted that the Parlement of Paris possessed the right to

143 144 145

Martelliere, Plaidoyé, 123. AN Xla 5333, pp. 2-8: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. BN MS Fr 2761, fo 100v°: Copy of the Edict of Rouen, 1603.

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regulate the Society's mission and foundations in France. Servin undoubtedly expected the terms he defined to be unacceptable to the Society. Nevertheless, his arguments deserve more detailed consideration as they had an important impact on the Parlement's deliberations and reflected the new parameters of the debate over Jesuit participation in France. The first half of Servin's oration defined the conditions under which he believed that the Parlement should sanction the Society's request to open a teaching college in Paris. Thus, early in his plaidoyer Servin made the important assertion that he believed that it was the Parlement's duty to ensure that a teaching organization which proposed to open a foundation in Paris conformed to French law on the important issue of the absolute temporal authority of the French monarch.146 Servin then proceeded to present four points which he asserted defined French fundamental law on the authority and inviolability of French monarchs. First, Servin defined the absolute authority of a monarch by asserting that under no circumstances - even religious or moral - did an individual have the spiritual or temporal authority to take the life of a sovereign ruler.147 Servin followed this uncompromising statement with a second more pointed assertion (which echoed back to the statement of Le Coque cited by Servin in his BeïïarmmQ plaidoyer) that the French king recognized no superior in temporal affairs than God alone and, thus, that the pope possessed neither direct nor indirect temporal authority over a French monarch.148 Third, Servin asserted that no authority on earth, not even a church council, could absolve a subject's oath of loyalty and obedience to his sovereign.149 Finally, Servin required a more general commitment from the Society that they would uphold in speech and writing the rights and liberties of the Gallican church and reject any foreign doctrines not accepted in France.150 In framing these four points, Servin carefully defined an uncompromising definition of royal authority based upon the most radical assertions of Gallican theorists which left no room for doctrinal ambiguity.151 Moreover, Servin established a definition of divine right royal authority that left no room for theological disputes over papal authority to impact on French law.

146

AN Xla 5333, p. 3: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. AN Xla 5333, pp. 3-4: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. AN Xla 5333, pp. 4-5: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. 149 AN Xla 5333, p. 6: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. 150 AN Xla 5333, pp. 6-7: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. 151 Ubaldini for one noted the important doctrinal issues in Servin's four points, including the supremacy of church councils over popes, see AV Francia 54, fo 418v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 22 December 1611. 147

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After establishing his definition of French fundamental law, Servin then turned to its enforcement when he requested that the Parlement require the Society to take an oath in the presence of a royal officer to uphold the law.152 In this passage, Servin asserted the contentious argument that the Parlement possessed the authority to require an oath from this religious organization even on a subject related to church doctrine. Servin drew on the premise that Henri IV had granted the Jesuits the right to participate in the French church only if they obeyed the laws of the kingdom, respected the rights and privileges of existing French corporations and accepted the regulation of their activities by French authorities. In reality, the Society had relied on a personal relationship with the French monarch to define and regulate most of its activities and ministries in France until 1610. But Servin's arguments sought to convince his audience that after Henri's death the Parlement had the obligation to take on the role envisioned for it in the Edict of Rouen by regulating the Society's activities through this oath. Oaths, like the one advocated by Servin, were commonly used across Europe at the opening of the seventeenth century to establish the loyalty of religious groups that were perceived as potential threats to a state.153 This development had influenced French jurisprudence through the oaths required of royal officials responsible for implementing peace edicts during the religious wars. Precedent also existed in French jurisprudence for magistrates to require oaths from Jesuits. Article four of the Edict of Rouen stipulated that every member of the Society upon entry into a foundation in France was required to take an oath of loyalty to the king. Through this proposed oath, Servin sought to draw on an enforcement mechanism in contemporary jurisprudence to publicly establish the Parlement's right to regulate the Society's teaching institutions in France and to ensure that the fundamental laws were respected. Despite pleading in favour of the Jesuit request to open a teaching college in Paris, Servin remained a bitter enemy of the Society. He almost certainly believed that his four points would prove doctrinally unacceptable to the Jesuits, who would be forced to admit that they opposed the theory of a French monarch's absolute temporal sovereignty. Servin revealed his continued opposition to the Society in his plaidoyer when, after framing the conditions under which he would sanction a Jesuit teaching college in Paris, he vented his enmity towards the Order through a polemic that 152

AN Xla 5333, pp. 7-8: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. The use of oaths in England has received the most scholarly attention to date, see M.C. Questier, 'Loyalty, Religion and State Power in Early Modern England: English Romanism and the Jacobean Oath of Allegiance', The HistoricalJoumal, 40 (1997), 311-329. 153

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examined whether the Jesuits were well suited for teaching the young and whether their instruction would be useful to the state.154 In this part of his plaidoyer, he chronicled the long-standing opposition of French institutions since the 1550s to the Society's teaching of French children and previous Jesuit actions that ran counter to the principles established in his four points. Moreover, Servin also singled out a recent Jesuit text on confession - again a question of church doctrine - because the Jesuit author asserted that under all circumstances, even when a plot to assassinate a ruler was revealed, the secrecy of confession remained inviolable. As de Thou noted, Servin had forgotten nothing of what one could say against the Jesuits.155 However, as in the condemnation of Bellarmine's text, Servin was constrained from advocating that the Parlement take stronger action against the Society by the lack of support in the Parlement or the regency government for the expulsion or restriction of the Jesuit mission. Thus, he concluded by finding in favour of the Jesuits and against the University, but he asked that the court order that the question of the lettres patentes be placed in deliberation and the Jesuits be forbidden to teach in Paris until the Society submitted the requested oath. Servin's plaidoyer confirmed the important shift in the Parlement's treatment of the Society since the promulgation and registration of the Edict of Rouen. Instead of arguing for the expulsion of the Jesuits as a symbol of unacceptable ultramontane doctrines, Servin now proposed to allow for the possibility of the Society's integration into the Parisian educational network if the Order publicly affirmed a series of principles that protected French fundamental law. Servin certainly opposed Jesuit integration, but a call for their expulsion from the kingdom was no longer on the agenda. The demands made of the Society did not question their rights and privileges in France. Instead, they were designed to ensure that the Society abided by the conditions laid down in the Edict of Rouen, that they accepted an extreme set of Gallican beliefs and that they accepted the Parlement's jurisdiction over their mission in France. The Parlement acted on Servin's arguments rather than Martelliere's and embraced again the accommodation implied in the Mariana and Bellarmine condemnations: that the Parlement under certain strict conditions was prepared to recognize the Society's rights as stipulated in the Edict of Rouen to participate in the French church and to operate educational institutions. The University case in 1611 154 155

AN Xla 5333, pp. 10-19: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. BN Dupuy 707, fo 14-14v°: de Thou to Casaubon, 27 December 1611.

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provided another excellent opportunity to punish the Society for promoting tyrannicide; however, once again the Parlement did not make this link but rather used the case to explicitly establish its regulatory control over the Jesuit mission in France. When asked to respond to Servin's plea, the Jesuit spokesman, Father Provincial Christophe Balthazar, stated that the Society did not wish to reply to the insults and accusations of their opponents. Nor, according to Balthazar, were they able to respond to assertions on church doctrine as they were not competent to make any judgments on such issues.156 However, the representatives present at the hearing did respond to Servin's request for an oath. On this issue they sought to accommodate rather than reject the avocat général's demands. Balthazar indicated that they could not give a final answer until they had consulted with their father general but that their constitutions stipulated that the Society should strive to accommodate doctrines held in the area in which they operated as long as the doctrines were not contrary to a matter of faith or morality.157 Jacques de Montholon, avocat for the Jesuits, then made the stronger assertion that the Jesuits wished to abide by the rules of the University and the doctrine of the Faculty of Theology but first had to consult their father general.158 At this point Richer, the University syndic, jumped to his feet to interrupt proceedings. In a heated outburst he rejected the premise that the Society could operate in France and maintain its constitutions as he asserted that the Jesuits promised two contrary things: 'the one to conform to the Doctrine of the Sorbonne; the other, to observe their Constitutions in defending the absolute authority of the Pope in spiritual and temporal affairs ,..'.159 For Richer, Balthazar's words were mere sophistry because it was inconceivable that the Jesuits, whose constitutions required them to embrace the uncompromising definition of papal authority in temporal affairs promoted by the papacy, could conform to Servin's equally uncompromising definition of Gallican liberties. While Balthazar may not have satisfied Richer or his supporters, the Parlement accepted the sincerity of his statement. Premier président Verdun, after regaining control of the chamber following Richer's outburst, established that the 156 There is some disagreement in the sources as to who spoke for the delegation of Jesuits present in the Parlement. Father Balthazar is the most likely figure as Acquaviva specifically charged him with handling the Society's case with the University, see ARSI Franciae 2, fo 346v°: Acquaviva to Jacquinot, 20 December 1611. 157 AV Francia 55, fos 4v°-5: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612. 158 AN Xla 5333, pp. 8-9: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. See also BN MS Latin 9948, fos 17v°-18: E. Richer, Historia Academiae Parisiensis. 159 AV Francia 55, fo 5-5v°: Ulbaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612.

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Parlement accepted the Society's initial positive response and ordered that they should submit Servin's proposed oath in writing to the court once they received the approval of their father general. The arrêt issued by the Parlement on the same day followed all of Servin's recommendations by tabling the question of the lettres patentes and banning any teaching at the College of Clermont until the Society gave its undertaking in writing to uphold the four points made by Servin.160 Balthazar's carefully crafted statement before the Parlement enraged Richer but also unsettled the long-standing ally of the Society in France, Papal Nuncio Ubaldini. By December 1611 Ubaldini had earned a well-deserved reputation as a tenacious advocate of papal prerogatives in France that usually placed him in opposition to Richer. But on this issue the two agreed. Ubaldini had advised the Society in strong terms to reject Servin's attempt to force the Society to take the oath as he had opposed earlier attempts by Servin and his supporters to limit papal authority in France.161 Ubaldini was determined to ensure that the Society did not take the oath required by Servin as it had important implications for papal authority in France. Ubaldini took quick action to secure the suppression or at least moderation of the arrêt. He made it clear to the regent that the arrêt jeopardized relations between France and the papacy and that the four points espoused by Servin threatened schism within the church.162 At the same time Ubaldini rallied significant support at court, especially amongst important ecclesiastics who also found Servin's demands unacceptable because they dealt with issues of church doctrine.163 Ubaldini used his influence at court and amongst French churchmen to ensure that the plan to have Servin's four points approved by the Faculty of Theology failed.164 Moreover, Ubaldini also placed direct pressure upon premier président Verdun to ensure that important alterations were made between what Servin demanded the Jesuits

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AN Xla 5333, pp. 8-9, 18, 19: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. AV Francia 55, fo 17-17v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612. This letter has appeared in print, see P. Blet, 'Jésuites et libertés gallicanes en 1611', Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu, 24 (1955), 165-188. 162 AV Francia 55, fo 6v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612. Pope Paul V also held these concerns. For Paul V's reaction when word of the Parlement's actions arrived in Rome see Perrens, L'Église et l'état, ii, 8991. 163 Ecclesiastics were particularly concerned that Servin rejected the privacy of confession. For more on Ubaldini's allies see AV Francia 55, fos 15v°-16: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612. On the essential aspects of the compromise brokered see AV Francia 55, fos 4v°-6: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612; AV Francia 55, fo 29-29v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 19 January 1612. 164 AV Francia 55, fos 6-10, 14-17: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612. 161

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abide by on 22 December and what appeared in the Parlement's register.165 These proposed alterations reflect Ubaldini's initial concern that the explicit claims to Gallican authority - which placed unacceptable limits on papal authority and the prerogatives of the clergy - not appear in the Parlementas register.166 He accomplished this by securing from premier président Verdun, after some resistance, the removal of the four points espoused by Servin and their replacement with the less precise: 'to conform to the doctrine of the College of the Sorbonne itself as far as maintaining the sacred person of the Kings, maintaining their royal authority and the liberties of the Gallican Church for all times and for a long time secured and enforced in this Kingdom'.167 Ubaldini pushed for the insertion of this traditional formula long tolerated by the papacy as it proved vague enough to defy exact definition and thus limited the possibility of schism over church doctrine between the papacy and the Parlement of Paris. In addition, supporters of the papacy viewed the inclusion of a clause that required the Jesuits to abide by only long-held Gallican doctrines as effectively excluding the supposedly new innovations found in Servin's four points. Although the Parlement in reaction to Ubaldini's meddling took the unusual step of including a transcription of Servin's entire plaidoyer in its registers, this alteration was important for Ubaldini and the pope as the offending passages failed to appear as an official pronouncement of the Parlement.168 The initial effort by Ubaldini protected papal authority but did not settle the affair as the question of regulatory authority over the Society of Jesus remained in the balance. Thus, Ubaldini also worked to ensure that the Jesuits could avoid submitting a written confirmation of even the altered oath. For Ubaldini, if the Society submitted to even this oath it created a precedent that might result in the Society taking ever more specific oaths in the future. In other words, such an explicit acceptance of the Parlement' s authority to regulate what doctrine the Society's mission in France upheld undermined the pope's authority over the Jesuits and could ultimately have resulted in the Society taking a further oath accepting a much more specific set of Gallican doctrines - like the four points set out by Servin. On 19 January 1612, in a dispatch to Cardinal Scipione Borghese in Rome, Ubaldini indicated that he had secured

165 166 167 168

AV Francia 55, fos 10-12: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612. Blet, 'Jésuites et libertés', 169-171. AN Xla 5333, pp. 18-19: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611. AN Xla 5333, pp. 3-19: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611.

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assurances that the Society would not be forced to confirm the oath.169 Ubaldini's dispatches to Rome in late December 1611 and early January 1612 reveal the difficult negotiations that he had to engage in to secure these concessions. The impression one gains from these letters is that the stalemate Ubaldini engineered could only be viewed as a success by a nuncio who felt that it was unlikely that papal prerogatives would be upheld in France until Louis XIII reached maturity.170 Ubaldini was a strong and able defender of papal interests and his actions would appear to confirm Richer's heated assertion in the Parlement that the oath demanded by Servin could not be accepted by the Jesuits who swore absolute obedience to the pope. Ubaldini found support for his efforts from the Society's own father general who also rejected the possibility that the Jesuits in France could take the oath demanded in the Parlement's arrêt. In a series of letters dispatched on 21 and 31 January 1612 to important Jesuits and church leaders in France, Acquaviva expressed his strong opposition to any written confirmation of the oath proposed by Servin on 22 December 1611.171 Acquaviva, like Ubladini, identified Servin's four points as addressing dogmatic questions with important implications for the authority of the pope and the church. Acquaviva noted that the Society, like the Parlement, lacked competency to make such doctrinal judgments and ordered his subordinates to consult and obey their superiors in the church before making any further statements to the Parlement. He described their statement to the court on 22 December as imprudent and ordered that in the future his brethren avoid all discussion of controversial points of church doctrine and secure the approval of the papal nuncio for all of their actions. Acquaviva also emphasized that the opening of a college in Paris mattered little in comparison to the issues of doctrine and church authority at stake in the controversy. Thus, Acquaviva clearly ordered that the Society's brethren in France maintain their obedience to doctrine as defined by the church hierarchy. When leading Jesuit figures in France wrote to their father general a second time in late January 1612 asking whether it might be acceptable to take the more general oath negotiated by Ubaldini to replace Servin's four points, Acquaviva responded that he stood by the orders issued in his 169

AV Francia 55, fos 29v°-30: Ubaldini to Borghese, 19 January 1612. AV Borghese m 4c, fo 106: Ubaldini to Borghese, 14 February 1612. ARSI Franciae 2, fos 348v°-349: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 21 January 1612; ARSIFranciae 2, fos 351-352: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 31 January 1612; ARSI Franciae 2, fos 352v°-353: Acquaviva to Coton, 31 January 1612; ARSI Franciae 2, fo 353v°: Acquaviva to Du Perron, 31 January 1612; ARSIFranciae 2, fo 354: Acquaviva to Gonzaga, 31 January 1612; ARSI Franciae 2, fo 354v°: Acquaviva to Ubaldini, 31 January 1612. 170 171

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previous dispatches.172 He explained that the issues of doctrine at stake were of great importance for the church. If Ubaldini and Cardinal Du Perron both agreed that the oath in no way compromised church doctrine then he would support their submission to it, but under no circumstances were they to take the oath on their own volition. Once again Acquaviva ordered the Jesuits in France to remain obedient to the church hierarchy on questions of church doctrine whatever the consequences might be for their mission. However, despite the counsel of both the nuncio in Paris and their father general in Rome, on 22 February 1612 a delegation of Jesuits led by their Father Provincial Baltazar, and with the explicit blessing of the king's Jesuit confessor Coton, appeared before the officials of the greffe at the Parlement of Paris. There they registered a written declaration which indicated, in accordance with the arrêt of 22 December 1611, that the Jesuits 'could conform and are conforming themselves to the doctrine of the Church of the Sorbonne itself on that which concerns the conformation of the sacred person of the kings ,..'.173 In the same submission the Jesuits also asserted their willingness to accept the traditional teachings of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris on royal authority and the liberties of the Gallican church.174 Through this submission the Jesuits took the less precise oath inserted into the arrêt at Ubaldini's behest, despite the nuncio's successful campaign to ensure that they did not need to take this oath. Ubaldini could barely contain his anger in letters written to Acquaviva and Borghese a few days after the Jesuit declaration.175 For Ubaldini the Society's action was a betrayal. Ubaldini reported that the Jesuits who submitted the declaration had taken their decision without asking anyone and noted that their decision ran counter to the specific advice of himself, Cardinal Du Perron, Bishop Gondi and their own father general.176 In no uncertain terms, Ubaldini asserted that, by taking this action against his general advice and without further consultation, these 172 ARSI Franciae 2, fos 354v°-355: Acquaviva to Coton, 14 February 1612; ARSI Franciae 2, fo 355: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 14 February 1612. 173 BI Godefroy 15, fo 220: 'Déclaration des Jésuites au Parlement, promettant de reconnaître la doctrine de la Sorbonne contre les parricides', 21 [sic] February 1612. See also ARSI Franciae 31, fo 374: Extract from the Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 February 1612. 174 BI Godefroy 15, fo 220: 'Déclaration des Jésuites au Parlement, promettant de reconnaître la doctrine de la Sorbonne contre les parricides', 21[sic] February 1612. See also ARSI Franciae 31, fo 374: Extract from the Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 February 1612. 175 AV Francia 55, fo 62-62v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1612; AV Francia 55, fos 69v°-71: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1612. 176 AV Francia 55, fo 62-62v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1612.

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Jesuits were guilty of breaking their vows of absolute obedience to the pope. For Ubaldini all the leaders of the Jesuit mission in France, including the king's confessor Coton, were guilty of disobedience: a serious issue in church discipline. In the same letter Ubaldini also asserted that Jesuit disobedience extended beyond their vow to the pope to include disobedience to their own father general.177 The surviving evidence supports Ubaldini's accusation. The sources do not reveal whether the Jesuits who submitted the declaration had received any of the letters from Acquaviva rejecting their proposed actions by 22 February when they arrived at the Parlement.178 However, indirect evidence indicates that they had at least received Acquaviva's January correspondence. In a letter responding to dispatches from his brethren in Paris justifying their decision and in a letter from the same period to Ubaldini, Acquaviva did not at any point indicate that his subordinates claimed to be ignorant of his orders.179 Moreover, in a letter to Cardinal Borghese, Ubaldini indicated that the Jesuit leaders in France actively plotted against Acquaviva's opposition when he asserted that they believed that their father general would have an easier time accepting the oath as afait accompli.1®* Whether or not the Jesuits who submitted the oath intentionally ignored Acquaviva's orders as explicitly as Ubaldini asserted, all the scenarios indicate that they consciously struck out on their own policy initiative. If they had received Acquaviva's dispatches then they directly defied his clear instructions. If the Jesuits took the oath before receiving a response from their leader, which they knew would arrive within days, then they were guilty of acting without due consultation, especially as Ubaldini had ensured that there was no immediate pressure upon the Society to make their submission. Upon receiving word of his subordinate's actions, Acquaviva dispatched a sharp letter to Provincial Balthazar, which explained perhaps even more clearly than Ubaldini's dispatch the issues compromised by the actions of the Jesuits in France.181

177

AV Francia 55, fo 62: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1612. They almost certainly had not received Acquaviva's letter of 14 February requiring the Jesuits in France to secure explicit approval from Cardinals Ubaldini and Du Perron before making even the more general submission which excluded Servm's four points. However, if the time it took for correspondence to reach Ubaldini from Rome is any indication, they should have received letters written in January from Acquaviva. 179 ARSI Franciae 2, fos 360-361: Acquaviva to Baltazar, 28 February 1612; ARSI Franciae 2, fo 360: Acquaviva to Coton, 28 February 1612; ARSI Franciae 2, fos 369-370: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 27 March 1612; ARSI Franciae 2, fo 370: Acquaviva to Ubaldini, 26 March 1612. 180 AV Francia 55, fo 63-63v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 18 February 1612. 181 ARSI Franciae 2, fos 360-361: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 28 February 1612. 178

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Acquaviva accepted Balthazar's assertion that the oath taken by the Society avoided conceding the doctrinal points demanded by Servin. Although the evidence is unclear, Acquaviva may also have accepted that it was not an oath of obedience at all but simply an act of entering into evidence in a case concerning the regulation of the Society's participation in the University of Paris. But for Acquaviva, the dangerous aspect of the submission was not its wording or its role in the case but the precedent it set. In his letter to Father Balthazar, Acquaviva focused on the precedents that he argued the submission of the written oath established. For Acquaviva the key concession made by the Jesuits in the oath granted the Parlement of Paris the right to demand submissions from the Jesuits - submissions that the Parlement could use to require the Society to define and to account for their beliefs on matters of church doctrine. Moreover, Acquaviva noted that the wording of the submission required the Jesuits to teach all the doctrines held by the University of Paris, rather than merely promising not to teach any doctrine contrary to the teachings of the University. The precise wording of this submission was important for the father general because it effectively placed the Society's doctrine under the regulation of the University. Acquaviva feared that, by making a formal submission to the Parlement, the Society set a precedent concerning regulation that opened the way for its enemies to seek ever more specific submissions from the Order on questions like papal authority versus the authority of church councils or the authority of the pope in relation to French monarchs.182 By ignoring the orders of their superiors both in Paris and Rome, the Jesuit leaders in France had effectively altered the regulatory framework for the Society's French mission. Acquaviva had long concerned himself with the possibility that French institutions might use the pretext of regulation to undermine the Society's ministries within their jurisdictions and alter the relationship between the father general and his brethren in France. In 1603, Acquaviva had expressed similar concerns over this issue of regulation when he first considered the Edict of Rouen. Indeed, he had even asserted that he preferred to delay the Society's rehabilitation rather than submit the French mission to regulation by French institutions.183 In 1603, he had ultimately embraced Henri's promise of protection, and in 1612 Acquaviva stressed the advantages for the Society of continuing to rely upon royal patronage to establish its 182 183

For Acquaviva's views see ARSI Franciae 2, fos 360-361: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 28 February 1612. ARSI Franciae 1, fo 488-488v°: Acquaviva to Armand, 20 October 1603.

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colleges, even if this approach delayed the expansion of their presence in the kingdom.184 In his letter of 28 February 1612, Acquaviva asserted in strong terms that he believed that only through its relationship with the monarchy would the Society ultimately succeed in opening its college in Paris.185 He took a strong line in the conclusion of the letter when he threatened to excommunicate in the future any Jesuit in Paris who took an oath without consulting his superiors in the church. Ultimately, however, the father general chose not to seek a retraction of the submission made by his subordinates. The reactions of both Ubaldini and Acquaviva leave little doubt that by taking the oath the Jesuits in France struck out on their own initiative. The decision to effectively ignore the express council of the pope's representative in Paris and the direct orders of their father general requires explanation. No first-hand account by a leading figure in the French mission survives. However, Acquaviva's responses to the now lost letters of his Jesuit subordinates in France and Ubaldini's account of an interview with Coton following the declaration of 22 February provide significant evidence concerning the motivations of the Jesuits in France. In their defence the French brethren pointed both to the doctrinal ambiguity of the oath which they took and the pressure placed on the Society to submit the oath in the first months of 1612.186 Both of these factors surely played a role in their decision; however, the sources also reveal that their submission was closely related to their recent efforts to distance their French mission from the wider debates over royal versus papal authority that had plagued their operations in France. Both Acquaviva and Ubaldini note in their correspondence that the Jesuits in France sought to protect their colleges and perhaps secure the right to teach in Paris through their submission to the Parlement of Paris.187 By willingly accepting French regulation, rather than having it forced upon them, they expected to create a stronger relationship with the Parlement through which they hoped to establish their mission on firmer legal and regulatory foundations.188 In his interview with Ubaldini, Coton asserted that the Jesuits in France viewed their declaration as the surest way to secure their teaching rights in the kingdom without compromising their doctrines and 184

ARSI Franciae 2, fos 360-361: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 28 February 1612. ARSI Franciae 2, fo 360v°: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 28 February 1612. 186 For instance see ARSI Franciae 2, fos 360-361 : Acquaviva to Balthazar, 28 February 1612; AV Francia 55, fo 63-63v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1612. 187 AV Francia 55, fos 62v°-63v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1612; ARSI Franciae 2, fos 360-361 : Acquaviva to Balthazar, 28 February 1612. 188 ARSI Franciae 2, fo 361: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 28 February 1612. 185

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constitutions. At the core of Colon's reasoning was the assertion that Jesuit corporate interests in France were separate from the wider controversies over sovereignty that defined Ubaldini's agenda. When asked what inspired their change of policy, Coton emphasized that important allies in the Parlement of Paris, including their longstanding supporter président Séguier, advised them to accept French regulatory jurisdiction through the oath.189 Ubaldini rejected this advice, but one might speculate that the French origins of many of the most important Jesuit leaders in Paris and their family connections at court or amongst the magistrates of the capital might have increased the pressure on these members to submit to French jurisdiction.190 Whatever their motivation, the decision of the Jesuits in France to take the advice of allies in the Parlement of Paris provides a key to understanding why the Jesuits chose to take the oath. Allies in the Parlement provided viable intermediaries for the Society as it attempted to maintain its position during a period when its most important patron, the monarch, proved unable to protect its interests as successfully as in the past. In taking this advice, the Jesuits in France sought to build a new identity for the Society of Jesus that separated them from the polemic which labelled them as partisans of the nuncio and promoters of foreign doctrines. The decision to take the oath was not as incomprehensible as it no doubt seemed to Ubaldini and Acquaviva. Through their submission, the Jesuits in France sought to detach the Society from debates over papal authority - a goal that they had pursued since 1604. The written oath of February 1612 proved an important watershed for the Jesuits in France. While the lettres patentes ordering the reopening of the College of Clermont remained in conseil - that is effectively suspended - despite the Society's affirmation of the oath, their submission did coincide with a period of relative calm in relations with the French authorities. The oath was not as specific as Servin would have liked; and, indeed, the French mission defined traditional Gallican liberties in a way that Servin and Richer would have rejected. But it did underline the desire of Jesuits in France to operate within the French church and their acceptance of the Parlement's jurisdiction over their affairs.191 Moreover, their action served to separate 189

AV Francia 55, fo 64v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1612. AV Francia 55, fo 64v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 February 1612. Pierre Acarie noted that this was his impression of the approach of the Jesuits in France in a letter to Jean Lorini, see BI Godefroy 230, fo 463-463v°: Acarie to Lorini, n.d. While undated, the content of this letter indicates that it was written in the months following the submission by the Jesuits of the written oath to the Parlement. 190

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the Jesuits in France from papal concerns in this public controversy. The Jesuits in France disregarded the orders of their own father general to reaffirm the Society's position in the kingdom, a position first defined in the Mariana and Bellarmine condemnations the previous year. The period between May 1610 and February 1612 produced a series of potentially dangerous crises for the Society of Jesus. The king's assassination revived deep-seated concerns over the inviolability of the French monarch and those theories of papal authority that appeared to threaten the king's sovereignty. The Society, which had been expelled in 1594 for its perceived support of these theories, had good reason to be anxious over the security of its position in the kingdom. However, the Jesuits with the support of their allies in the Parlement of Paris and at court managed to defuse the controversies that could have projected the general anxieties about royal authority onto the Society in France. This was in part because of the previous king's favour; in part because of the residual legitimacy that his favour granted the Society; in part because of the continued support of the regent and other influential figures in France; and in part because of the Society's willingness to accept an accommodation with the Parlement over its jurisdiction. Their enemies sought to link the Society with controversial theories about tyrannicide and papal authority, but the formal resolutions of the Parlement failed to take up their opponents' arguments and the Jesuits worked to avoid the establishment of any link between the Society as a whole and the questions of royal sovereignty which French jurists remained determined to defend. The royal will as expressed in the Edict of Rouen proved a powerful advocate on behalf of the Society. The death of Henri IV allowed a number of dangerous old ideas to resurface which had characterized anti-Jesuit rhetoric in 1594. Nevertheless, many magistrates in the Parlement who could have acted on this renewed polemic chose to obey the royal will as expressed in the Edict of Rouen until the new monarch was of age to pass his own judgment. The opponents of the Society in the Parlement continued to mistrust the Jesuits, but wider concerns over the defence of fundamental law and the Parlements authority during a regency resulted in magistrates focusing their efforts on a strict and careful enforcement of the conditions of the Edict of Rouen: a policy on which friends, and most enemies, of the Society could agree. Thus, while vehement anti-Jesuit rhetoric appeared in pamphlets, manuscripts and sermons from May 1610, this polemic must be viewed as froth underneath which opposed parties came to an accommodation in the Parlement.

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The written oath taken by the Jesuits in February 1612 did not resolve their difficulties in France. The Society continued to be involved in numerous disputes over regulation. For instance, a number of preachers used the pulpit to criticize the Jesuits and other newly established religious orders for infringing on the rights of parish priests over the care of their parishioners' souls.192 Moreover, the Society's growing presence across the kingdom ensured continued regulatory conflict with local interest groups over the expansion of their activities in individual communities.193 These issues of regulation and privilege dominated the anti-Jesuit polemic from 1612 and represented the continued friction between the Society and local interests over a range of issues in France. However, the French Jesuit oath did remove the University of Paris's court case from the polemical agenda and distanced the Jesuits from the centre of the debate over papal authority. The Society of Jesus remained on the margins of the polemic in the years 1612 and 1613 when Emond Richer's writings and his removal from the position of syndic of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris provided an alternative subject for debate over papal authority in France.194 Indeed, the Jesuits in France were remarkably successful in avoiding these bitter disputes, with the relative peace only broken by an occasional reference to the writings of individual foreign Jesuits and a short controversy in the spring of 1613 over a text written in the Spanish Netherlands by the Jesuit Father Martin Becan, a native of Brabant.195 By the opening of 1614, the Society of Jesus had enjoyed two years on the margins of the ongoing dispute over papal authority and royal sovereignty. 192

AV Francia 56, fo 46-46v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 25 March 1614. For an example of the sort of conflicts that involved the Society see BN MS Fr 2761, fos 63v°-72: A series of letters between Maran and Joyeuse, January 1614. See also C.M. Jourdain, Histoire de l'Université de Paris au XVIIe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1862), pièces justificatives, p. 40: Letter from the University of Paris to the University of Toulouse, n.d. See also Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 363-383. 194 Puyól, Emond Richer, i,2ll-423. 195 M. Becan, Controversia Anglicana de potestate régis et pontificis, contra Lancelottum Andream (Mainz, 1612). For an account of the controversy see Recveil de ce qyi s'est fait en Sorbonne et aillevrs, contre vn Liure de Becanus, lesuite (N.pL, 1613). Becan was perhaps more extreme in his theory of papal sovereignty than Mariana or Bellarmine, but his tract did not provoke a full condemnation by the Parlement of Paris as Pope Paul V censured the work before action was taken in France. The question of whether the Parlement needed to condemn a work already condemned by the pope had important implications for ecclesiastical versus parlementary jurisdiction but had little impact on the Society's mission in France. For a more detailed discussion of the reception of Becan's tract in France see Fouqueray, Histoire, iii, 301-305. See also Perrens, L'Église et l'état, ii, 209-215. Despite the relative calm, the leadership of the Society remained concerned about anti-Jesuit activities in France. This is best reflected in a series of letters from Acquaviva to Jesuit patrons in France, see ARSIFranciae 3, fo 17: Acquaviva to Du Perron, 12 September 1612; ARSIFranciae3, fo 17-17v°: Acquaviva to Marie de Medici, 12 September 1612; ARSIFranciae 3, fo. 17v°: Acquaviva to Ubaldini, 12 September 1612. 193

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Figure 7 Peter Paul Rubens, The Majority of Louis XIII, ca. 1622-1625. (© Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY.)

CHAPTER FIVE

Accommodation

Peter Paul Rubens's The Majority of Louis XIII, commissioned in the early 1620s by Marie de Medici, offers an allegorical portrayal of the return of full royal authority to France in 1614. Marie's chief purpose in commissioning this canvas was to advance a favourable representation of her stewardship over her son's kingdom and of her ongoing influence over royal government. In Rubens's depiction, Marie hands over the ship of state in calm waters with a benign sky in the background. Four virtues 'Strength', 'Valour', 'Justice' and 'Religion' - identified by the symbols on their shields vigorously power the ship of state. By the mast, a graceful figure representing France stands confidently with sword and orb in hand. Rubens's painting allegorically depicts a morally sound and politically tranquil France at the conclusion of Marie's regency. The picture also implies that Marie had not yet fully relinquished her role in guiding the ship of state in 1614 as Louis's gaze focuses upon his mother while she intently watches her son's hand upon the rudder of state. By the 1620s when Rubens executed this commission, it was possible to view Louis's official majority declared on 2 October 1614 in allegorical terms. Louis XIII had taken firm control of his kingdom and the ship of state was once again in safe waters. However, few in October 1614 would have associated the declaration of Louis's majority with anything other than the increasingly desperate efforts of the queen mother to maintain the monarchy's faltering authority in an atmosphere of stormy factional politics amongst the French court nobility. The young age of Louis XIII upon his father's death had forced Marie to head a regency for over four years. By early 1614, Marie had spent the reserves of authority and money that she had inherited from her husband. The spring of 1614 brought political crisis in the form of open rebellion by important French aristocrats over long-standing grievances concerning the regent's leadership and the narrowness of her influential inner circle.1 The rebellion ultimately

1

J.M. Hayden, France and the Estates Genéralo/1614 (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 54-73. See also Y.-M. Bercé, The Birth of Absolutism: A History of France (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 43-51. See also J.-P. Desprat, Les Bâtards d'Henri IV: l'épopée des Vendômes 1594-1727 (Paris, 1994), pp. 161-169.

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forced Marie to convoke an Estates General, a consultative gathering of representatives from the three estates of the realm that had historically proven notoriously difficult for the monarchy to control. The declaration of Louis's majority in October of 1614 was an attempt to bolster royal authority before the meeting began in order to counter potential support for the rebellious nobles at this unpredictable gathering. Marie was hardly handing over the ship of state moving purposefully through calm seas as depicted by Rubens. For the Society of Jesus the increasingly vehement disputes between the regent and leading aristocrats threatened to renew public debate over how best to protect royal sovereignty. In such a context the Society could rightfully fear being drawn back into the political debates of the kingdom after two years on the sidelines. Two developments in 1614 contributed to Jesuit concerns. First, the arrival in Paris of the Jesuit Francisco Suarez's text on royal versus papal authority in June 1614 resulted in the Parlement of Paris's condemnation of another work by a foreign Jesuit theologian. Second, the first article proposed by the Third Estate at the Estates General for its cahier provided the focus for a bitter controversy between royal magistrates and French ecclesiastics over the limits of a French monarch's temporal authority in his kingdom, the limits of papal authority in France, the competency of magistrates to deal with topics related to church doctrine and the inviolability of the king's person. Modern scholars have tended to interpret these two events as part of a long-running campaign to secure the Society's permanent expulsion from France, a campaign that had begun in the early 1590s.2 This interpretation contains a kernel of truth. A group of magistrates, primarily drawn from the milieu of the Parlement of Paris and deeply imbued with hard-line erudite Gallican ideas, remained in 1614 committed to limiting the Society's presence and activities in France. Moreover, this group played a role in both securing the Suarez condemnation and drafting the first article. But by overemphasizing the agenda of these hardliners, whose influence amongst French royal magistrates had weakened over the previous decade, scholars have underemphasized a more important development for the Jesuits in France during 1614 : the further strengthening of the accommodation between the Society and French royal

2 Perhaps the most influential historian of these events remains P. Blet, 'L'Article du Tiers aux états généraux de 1614 ', Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 2(1955),81-106. See also H. Fouqueray, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France des origines à la suppression (1528-1762) (Paris, 1922), iii, 305-316,344-355. Fouqueray, while still viewing the first article as an attack on the Society, also notes its important implications for the church as a whole.

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magistrates which had been progressively established since 1610. This development took shape in tandem with a significant shift in the wider political debate that resulted in an influential group of French ecclesiastics, rather than the Jesuits, becoming the chief focus of concern for erudite Gallicans intent on defending their distinctive conception of absolute royal authority in both spiritual and temporal affairs. In this context, the Jesuit accommodation with the Parlement of Paris between 1610 and 1614 became a model on which royal magistrates sought to broaden their efforts to define and defend theories about royal authority in France. On 26 June 1614, in the midst of preparations for the Estates General, the gens du roi, led by avocat général Louis Servin, brought before the Parlement of Paris a request to condemn the Defensio fidei, published the previous year by the Jesuit Father Francisco Suarez who held the theology chair at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.3 Suarez, at the behest of Pope Paul V, wrote his work in response to the heretic James I of England's claim to absolute temporal and spiritual authority within his kingdom - the same subject which the Jesuit Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine had addressed in his work condemned by the same Parlement three-and-a-half years earlier. Although not addressed to a French audience, Suarez's theories, like Bellarmine's, undermined the fundamental tenants which defined the uncompromising claims by some Gallican thinkers that the King of France possessed absolute temporal authority above all other authority on earth within his kingdom. Like Father Juan de Mariana, a fellow Jesuit from Spain whose work on the same subject had been burned by the Parlement four years earlier, Suarez wrote with the Iberian monarchical tradition in mind. He embraced the conviction that no ruler, aside from the pope, received his authority directly from God and, thus, that no secular ruler could possess absolute temporal or spiritual authority. Instead, a ruler derived his authority from his subjects, and if a ruler acted tyrannically the pope, who received his position directly from God, possessed both direct and indirect authority to release subjects from their obligations to that ruler and even to seek that ruler's removal from power. Perhaps Suarez's most contentious argument for French readers was his assertion that the Council of Constance's decree of 6 July 1415 against tyrannicide banned citizens from

3

ANXla 1864, fos 133-138v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 June 1614. The work that Servin sought to condemn was F. Suarez, Defensio fidei catholicœ et apostólicos adversus Anglicanœ sectœ errores, cum responsione ad apologiam pro juramento fidelitatis (Coimbra, 1613).

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murdering a tyrant on their own volition unless public authorities had legitimately deposed the ruler or if the pope declared the ruler a heretic. For Suarez, in these two contexts attacks on a sovereign were legitimate because under such circumstances a ruler was redefined as a tyrant of usurpation.4 Suarez wrote his tract to attack the pretensions of heretical rulers, but his arguments also ran counter to the basic tenets of hard-line Gallican theories on the authority of a French monarch and even questioned an important source for Gallican doctrinal views through his reinterpretation of the Council of Constance's condemnation of tyrannicide. Suarez published his work in 1613, but only in the early summer of 1614 did extracts, followed by full copies of the tract, arrive in Paris where Suarez's theories ensured that his text received a hostile reception.5 As in the past, the balance of power in the University of Paris's Faculty of Theology and in the Parlement of Paris decided how the authorities in France dealt with the text. Papal Nuncio Roberto Ubaldini reported to Paul V that the removal of the hard-line erudite Gallican Emond Richer from his position as syndic of the Faculty of Theology in 1612 left him confident that no formal action would be taken by that institution.6 However, Ubaldini indicated that he was less certain about the reaction of the Parlement of Paris where Servin, now the leading voice amongst hard-line erudite Gallicans, continued to wield considerable influence and had the ability to shape the Parlement's agenda through his orations in his role as avocat général du roi. Ubaldini read the situation well in both the Faculty and the Parlement; and, as the controversy developed, he lobbied for assistance from Marie and her ministers to restrain Servin.7 Chancellor Nicolas Brûlait, sieur de Sillery, who undoubtedly wished to avoid further controversy in the run up to the Estates General, sought and received repeated assurances from Servin and the other gens du roi that they would simply seek the condemnation of Suarez's book without drawing the Society of Jesus into the affair. That is, Sillery demanded that Servin seek to maintain the status quo by dealing with Suarez's text in the same manner as the works of Mariana and Bellarmine.8

4 For a good summary of Suarez's arguments see M. Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide de l'Antiquité à nos jours (Paris, 2001), pp. 543-552. 5 AV Francia 56, fos 73v°-74: Ubaldini to Borghese, 5 June 1614. 6 AV Francia 56, fo 74: Ubaldini to Borghese, 5 June 1614. 7 For Ubaldini's detailed account of who he believed were his allies at the royal court see AV Francia 56, fo 85: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 July 1614. 8 For Servin's assurances to Chancellor Brûlart see AV Francia 56, fo 74: Ubaldini to Borghese, 5 June 1614; AV Francia 56, fos 82v°-83: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 July 1614.

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Nevertheless, despite repeated assurances to Chancellor Sillery that he would ask only for the simple suppression of the work, Servin once again used his position to press the Parlement to take strong action to establish its jurisdiction and to secure further detailed professions of doctrine from the Jesuits.9 Servin's plaidoyer demanded that the Parlement condemn Suarez's text; but, unlike in 1610 when Servin carefully avoided directly implicating the Society in his oration on Bellarmine's text, every aspect of his plaidoyer in 1614 sought to advertise the link between the Society in France and the work by their foreign colleague in Portugal. Servin based his decision to directly link the Society with the writings of Suarez on what he believed was a juridical understanding progressively established between the Society and the Parlement of Paris since 1610. At the base of this new understanding were two submissions made by the Jesuits to the Parlement. The first was Jesuit Father General Claudio Acquaviva's written promise in 1610 that no Jesuit would publish on questions of papal versus temporal authority or the legality of tyrannicide. The second was the written oath submitted to the Parlement on 22 February 1612 by the Society promising to uphold Gallican doctrine on these issues in all of its writings and teachings. For Servin, Suarez's text clearly broke the understanding established through these two submissions to the Parlement. Thus, Servin sought to address Suarez's text within the regulatory framework created by previous court cases. First, he requested that the Parlement order Suarez's text burnt in the presence of Jesuit representatives before the entrances of the three Jesuit foundations in Paris. This piece of judicial street theatre would, for Servin, publicly reaffirm that both the Jesuits in France and their father general in Rome disowned the theories of Suarez despite the publication of his work. Second, he requested that the Parlement call a delegation of Jesuits before it for interrogation on the Society's doctrines. Through this stipulation, Servin sought to force the Society to define its doctrines on the authority of the pope and the French monarch in greater detail to reassure the Parlement that it rejected the doctrines advocated by Suarez and upheld the doctrine and customs of the Gallican church. By pressing for this second requirement, Servin undoubtedly hoped that the Parlement would force the Society's delegation explicitly to affirm the four points that Servin envisioned comprising their original oath in 1612. The Society never took this

9 Servin's views are recorded in AN Xla 1864, fos 133-138v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 26 June 1614. They are also recorded in AV Francia 56, fos 83-84: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 July 1614.

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oath because premier prés ¿dent Nicholas de Verdun, underpressure from Ubaldini and Marie's ministers, had removed Servin's precise stipulations from the text in favour of a less exact commitment to uphold traditional Gallican doctrine and customs on the conservation of the king's person, the maintenance of royal authority and Gallican liberties within the Catholic church.10 Through this demand, Servin once again returned to an important jurisdictional issue when he asked the Parlement to interrogate a group of ecclesiastics on matters related to church doctrine. This was a duty that the pope and bishops of France had long claimed as a church prerogative; but, through its actions in the Bellarmine case in 1610 and the University case against the opening of the College of Clermont in 1611, the Parlement had asserted its right to question churchmen when the subjects of regicide or royal authority were at issue. In his plaidoyer Servin argued that the Parlement should take direct action beyond a simple prohibition of Suarez's text to regulate the Society's doctrinal views following their submission to the Parlement's regulatory jurisdiction. Servin based his argument and his enforcement measures on what he believed was a new regulatory framework created by the oath of 1612. Servin's approach found some support in the Parlement. According to Papal Nuncio Ubaldini, Servin's argument received a sympathetic hearing from a number of conseillers in the Chambres des Enquêtes, who proposed that the Parlement should accept Servin's conclusions in their entirety. Some magistrates in the Enquêtes even sought to take action beyond what Servin requested when they called for the Parlement to prohibit Jesuits from hearing confession or preaching in France as punishment for this latest failure to keep their promises.] * Thus, although even these committed opponents of the Society chose not to call for their outright expulsion, some members of the Enquêtes sought the punishment of the Jesuits in France for the writings of one of their foreign brethren. However, it is easy to overemphasize the importance of Servin and his supporters' demands as only Servin's arguments survive intact in the historical record. A careful examination of the Parlement's registers and other manuscript sources shows that the Parlement of Paris failed to act on Servin's agenda, and that a group of magistrates in the Parlement succeeded in controlling the proceedings in order to engineer a very different outcome to the case than that envisioned by Servin. Magistrates in the

10 AN Xla 5333, pp. 18-19: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 22 December 1611 ; AV Francia 55, fos 10-12: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 January 1612. 11 AV Francia 56, fo 84v°: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 July 1614.

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Parlement of Paris's Grand' Chambre, Chambre de l'Édit and Tournelle blocked Servin's supporters in thé Chambres des Enquêtes from participating in deliberations on the Suarez condemnation.12 Moreover, Papal Nuncio Ubaldini noted that the Parlement ignored Servin's most controversial proposals and instead acted on the advice of the other gens du roi who followed Chancellor Sillery's instructions and asked only for suppression of the work 'without scandal or any danger of the expulsion of the [Jesuit] Fathers'. ° Servin had demanded that the Parlement order the work burnt in front of the three Jesuit foundations in Paris as a symbolic link between the tract and the Order. The Parlement decided, as with the Mariana text, to ban the work and to burn the copies in their possession, but it made no effort to link the Society's mission in France to the condemnation when it ordered that the book be burnt in the courtyard of the Palais du Justice.14 Moreover, the Parlement went out of its way to avoid emphasizing Jesuit culpability when it ordered that 'the Preachers and Teachers of the College of Clermont, and of the four Mendicant orders' must not teach anything about the topic.15 This passage from the arrêt hardly reflected Servin's demand that the Parlement single the Society out for punishment; rather, it pointedly provided a more general admonition to the members of the teaching orders of France who traditionally had been difficult to regulate. The judges also ignored Servin's request that the Parlement secure precise professions of doctrine from the Society. Instead, the Parlement demanded that the Society take action against Suarez's text. The same day that the Parlement passed judgment it called a delegation of Jesuits before it to demand that the Society condemn the work - a requirement that the Jesuit delegation readily complied with.16 During this meeting with the Jesuit delegation, the judges also turned to a second central concern. The magistrates observed that the Society had made declarations against the theories in Suarez's work before, and that in 1610 their father general had issued a decree that appeared to prohibit any member of their Society from writing, debating, teaching or

12

AN Xla 1864, fo 225: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 25 June 1614. See also AV Francia 56, fo 84: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 July 1614. 13 AV Francia 56, fos 83v°-85: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 July 1614. 14 AN Xla 1864, fo 227v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 27 June 1614. 15 AN Xla 1864, fo 228: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 27 June 1614. It is important to note that, although the Jesuits were allowed to board students in the buildings that once made up the College of Clermont, the college remained officially closed during this period and had no official legal recognition in Paris as a teaching institution. 16 AV Francia 56, fos 85v°-86: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 July 1614.

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supporting such maxims and propositions. However, the magistrates noted that, despite all these assurances, the Suarez text had not only been published, but its author claimed that a Jesuit father provincial in Spain had approved the text.17 When the Jesuits responded by denying that the Society had sanctioned Suarez's work, the magistrates criticized the Society's negligence. According to the judges, Acquaviva had failed to fulfil his undertaking to the French authorities following the Mariana condemnation. Nevertheless, the report of the encounter in the registers of the Parlement reveals no interest amongst the magistrates to take this opportunity, as Servin suggested, to extract more precise statements of Jesuit doctrine from the Society nor, as some members of the Chambres des Enquêtes sought, to punish the Society as a whole for its failure to police its own members. Instead, the Parlement demanded that Acquaviva renew his decree by ensuring that it was republicized in every Jesuit foundation so that no one in his Order would hold, write, dispute or teach these ideas in any form.18 Though this demand represented strong criticism of the Society's inability to police its own members, the judges avoided directing their concerns exclusively towards the Jesuits. Instead, as in the arrêt itself, premier président Verdun took the opportunity of this formal encounter with Jesuit representatives to re-emphasize the Parlement's jurisdiction over all publications and international groups that promoted such ideas by also ordering that any Augustinians or Jacobins who held Suarez's tenets be prosecuted as well.19 Through this statement the Parlement reasserted its authority to regulate all religious orders on this matter, even as it carefully avoided becoming further embroiled in questions of church doctrine. Thus, both the arrêt and the public meeting with Jesuit delegates served to maintain the jurisdictional authority that the Parlement had established in the Mariana, Bellarmine and University court cases. The initial Jesuit response to the Parlement at the meeting revealed that the Society remained prepared to accept the Parlement's jurisdictional claims. The registers of the Parlement of Paris summarize the response of Father Ignace Armand, spokesman for the Society at the meeting, as: 'that in order to stop such writings he had made a trip to Rome to their General, and another to Flanders, that they would continue to do better in the future, in such a way that the Court would not have any miscontentment

17 18 19

AN Xla 1864, fo 233: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 27 June 1614. AN Xla 1864, fo 233-233v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 27 June 1614. AN Xla 1864, fo 233v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 27 June 1614.

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from them'.20 Furthermore, Armand promised that the Jesuit hierarchy would do everything possible to enforce Acquaviva's prohibition of any discussion by the Society's members of the pope's temporal authority or tyrannicide. Thus, the delegation of Jesuits clearly restated their acceptance of the jurisdiction and the authority of the Parlement of Paris, as established in their 1612 oath. The Parlement in turn accepted the Society's good intentions and willing reaffirmation of the Parlement's role in regulating written works within its jurisdiction. At the conclusion of the meeting, the court affirmed its arrêt, which ordered that within six months Acquaviva reissue his decree of 1610 that had prohibited Jesuits from engaging in the debate over tyrannicide; that the Jesuits not allow the publication of any more works on these themes; and that they avoid encouraging people to embrace a contrary doctrine. The only hint of punishment in the Parlement's arrêt occurred at its conclusion when the Parlement ordered that the Jesuits must meet the court's demands: 'Otherwise the Court will proceed against those contravening as guilty of lese-majesty and disturbors of the public peace'.21 Thus, the judges in the Parlement accepted, as they had in the Mariana condemnation, that as long as the Society submitted itself to their jurisdiction, disowned unacceptable works by their foreign brethren and sought to stop their brethren from publishing further tracts on this subject, then the court would not interpret the writings of a single theorist as representative of the beliefs of the Society as a whole. The Jesuits in France kept their promises to the Parlement. On 29 June 1614, Armand dispatched a circular letter to all the fathers provincial in Italy and Spain that clearly spelt out the difficulties that publications by members of the Society on papal authority and tyrannicide posed for the Jesuits in France.22 Moreover, in the weeks following the Suarez condemnation the Jesuit hierarchy in Rome accepted the response of the French mission to the Parlement's arrêt and acted to comply with the Parlement of Paris's demands. Although in private Acquaviva expressed his frustration with the settlement, he issued a letter to all Jesuit fathers provincial dated 1 August 1614 that reiterated that the Society opposed the taking of a monarch's life under any

20

AN Xla 1864, fo 233v°: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 27 June 1614. Le Mercure français (Cologny, 1611-1618), iii, fo 307. 22 A copy of Armand's circular letter to the other fathers provincial survives, see ARSI Franciae 31, fos 413-414: Armand to the fathers provincial of Spain and Italy, 29 June 1614. 21

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circumstances and prohibited all members of the Order from publishing on this issue.23 Through these actions, the Society publicly reaffirmed the understanding established with the Parlement of Paris since the assassination of Henri IV. The Society's willingness to accept the Parlement's authority and its judgment stood in sharp contrast to Pope Paul V and a number of important French churchmen who, through the summer and autumn of 1614, continued to oppose the Suarez condemnation. Papal Nuncio Ubaldini's correspondence during the initial controversy in the Parlement reflected the extent to which Jesuit policy diverged from that of the papacy. Ubaldini understood the Society's difficult position in France and strongly encouraged Acquaviva to comply with the Parlement's demand that he reissue his pronouncement of 1610. Nevertheless, in the same letter he also lamented his inability to prevent the condemnation of Suarez's text and the timidity of some Jesuits who had too easily disowned important tenets of papal authority.24 As in the past, Ubaldini's primary concern was to defend the theories of papal authority advanced in Suarez's text by securing the revocation, or at least the suspension, of the Parlement's condemnation. Ubaldini received the full backing of the pope, who, once informed of the case, found the condemnation of Suarez's text unacceptable.25 For the papacy the Parlement's most recent action raised a vexing jurisdictional issue over church doctrine as the pope asserted once again that the Parlement's pretensions gravely undermined his authority in the church.26 As a result, the issue of Suarez's condemnation dominated correspondence between the queen mother and the pope for the next six months until Louis XIII and his councillors offered a satisfactory suppression of the condemnation in mid-December 1614.27 For the pope this matter 23 Acquaviva expressed his frustration in a letter to the Jesuit Father Pierre Coton, see ARSI Franciae 3, fo 118v°: Acquaviva to Coton, 1 August 1614. See also ARSI Franciae 3, fos 114v°-l 16v°: Acquaviva to Balthazar, 1 August 1614. A copy of the circular letter survives, see BN MS Latin 9758, fo 255-255v°: Circular letter from Acquaviva, 1 August 1614. Acquaviva's letter was also published in France, see C. Acquaviva, Le Décret dv reverend père Clavde Aqvaviva General de la Compagnie de lesvs. Contre la pernicieuse doctrine d'attenter aux sacrées personnes des Roys (Paris, 1614). See also BN MS Fr 18009, fo 247-247v°: Tresnel to Puisieux, 16 August 1614. 24 AV Francia 56, fos 84v°-86: Ubaldini to Borghese, 3 July 1614. See also, Mémoires et advis povr rendre les lesuites vtiles en France (n.pl., 1614), p. 35. 25 PRO SP France 78/62, fo 224v°: Edmondes to Winwood, I December 1614. 26 AV Francia 56, fo 103-103v°: Ubaldini to Villeroy, 26 August 1614. 27 For thé importance of the Suarez condemnation in the correspondence between France and Rome see BN MS Fr 18009, fos 247-326: Collected diplomatie correspondence with Rome, 16 August-23 November 1614; AV Francia 56, fos 92-129v°: Collected correspondence of Ubaldini to Borghese, July-November 1614. For the suppression of the case see BN MS Fr 18009, fo 322: Danozet to Puisieux, 23 Novemberl614; BN MS Fr 18010, fo 8: Tresnel to Marie de Medici, 7 January 1615. See also ARSI

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was of the utmost importance, and Ubaldini conducted a determined campaign on his behalf at court throughout the autumn designed to pressure the regent into suppressing the Parlement's arrêt.2* The pope and his nuncio found significant support amongst important figures within the French church including Cardinals Jacques-Davy Du Perron, François de la Rochefoucauld and François de Joyeuse, all of whom personally interceded with Marie on behalf of the pope.29 As in the Bellarmine and University cases, the nuncio drew his most reliable support from amongst these important ecclesiastics who were willing to defend Suarez's doctrines as orthodox. Their opposition reflected a growing conviction amongst many important churchmen in France that only submission to the Catholic church could protect the monarchs of France from the threat of tyrannicide.30 Indeed, the willingness of French churchmen to defend Suarez's radical doctrines concerning the assassination of tyrants despite there being no evidence of real support for these ideas amongst the French clergy reflected the increasingly hard-fought confrontation between some erudite Gallicans and churchmen over broad questions of authority.31 This challenge to erudite Gallican claims that the definition and enforcement of French law and custom provided the surest means to guarantee the stability of the monarchy underpinned the objections of some clerics who opposed the condemnation of Bellarmine's work in 1610. But the objections of ecclesiastics took on new force in 1614 as French churchmen sought to assert their role in protecting the weakened regency government.32 This wider conflict between magistrates and churchmen continued to rage in the autumn of 1614 as the nuncio, the pope and their allies in the French church sought a suspension or revocation of the Suarez arrêt by the regent. The conflict also became the focus for a contentious controversy in the Estates General where erudite Gallican delegates in the Third Estate sought to address

Franciae 31, fo 411-41 lv°: Armand and Coton to Acquaviva, 18 December 1614. 28 BN MS Fr 18009, fos 251-253: Tresnel to Puisieux, 5 August 1614; BN MS Fr 18009, fo 274v°: Tresnel to Puisieux, 3 September 1614; BN MS Fr 18009, fo 279: Tresnel to Puisieux, 14 September 1614; BN MS Fr 18009, fo 285v°: Tresnel to Puisieux, 27 September 1614. See also AV Francia 56, fos 103104v°: Ubaldini to Villeroy, 26 August 1614. 29 AV Borghese II243, fo 76: Ubaldini to Borghese, 28 August 1614. 30 This conviction was part of a more general set of developments amongst French clerics that had taken shape in the 1590s, see J. Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate in Early Modern France: Politics, Ideology and the Gallican Liberties 1550-1615' (Johns Hopkins University Ph.D. thesis, 1997), pp. 327-390. 31 On the lack of clerical support for Suarez's specific doctrines see Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate', pp. 367-368. 32 Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate', pp. 359-399.

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the question of royal inviolability and the regulation of the church in order to press the claims of royal magistrates against those of important clerics. In the context of this open controversy between a committed group of royal magistrates and an influential collection of powerful churchmen, the Jesuits feared that they might once again find themselves at the centre of a bitter debate over the nature of royal sovereignty in France when the Estates General convened in October 1614. The Estates General provided an ideal forum for airing precisely those issues of sovereignty and authority that had become the focus of the Suarez controversy in the summer and had proven problematic for the Society in France since the early 1590s. Acquaviva expressed his concern that the Society's enemies could take this opportunity to undermine his Order's position in France in a series of letters to Jesuit allies amongst the French ecclesiastical and political elite in which he once again sought protection for the Society from sympathetic figures with influence in the royal government.33 Nicholas de Neufville, sieur de Villeroy and one of the Society's most important allies in the regent's inner council, responded to Acquaviva's concerns by reasserting his support for the Society and expressing his confidence that the Jesuits would not become embroiled in the controversies at the Estates.34 Acquaviva might have been excused for viewing Villeroy's assurances as hopeful thinking from a member of the royal council who needed to appear in control of the situation. But Villeroy's reading of the political climate in France proved prescient. The accommodation between the Society and royal magistrates that provided the framework for solving the Suarez crisis in the summer also defined their experience at the Estates General. The importance of the Society's accommodation with royal magistrates was perhaps most apparent in the contentious controversy surrounding the infamous first article of the Third Estate, which dominated the proceedings of the whole Estates General for several weeks in late December 1614 and early January 1615. The first article burst onto the political stage in mid-December 1614, when the Third Estate,

33 For a list of the Jesuit allies that Acquaviva wrote to see ARSI Franciae 3, fo 118v°: Acquaviva to Coton, 1 August 1614. One of these letters survives, see BI Godefroy 15, fo 427: Acquaviva to Villeroy, 2 August 1614. See also J.D. Du Perron, Les Ambassades et negotiations de l'Illustrissime & Reuerendissime Cardinal Dv Perron (Paris, 1623), p. 707. For a positive response to Acquaviva's request see ARSI Franciae 47, fo 24: Brèves to Acquaviva, 8 October 1614. 34 BI Godefroy 15, fo 272: Villeroy to Acquaviva, 12 September 1614.

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dominated by provincial royal office holders, commenced the drafting of a general cahier for presentation to the king. The delegates voted to use the Île-de-France provincial cahier as a model for the general cahier and on 15 December the first article of the opening section of the Île-de-France document, concerned with the fundamental laws of the kingdom, was read before the Third Estate: That, to arrest the course of the pernicious doctrine which was introduced several years ago by seditious spirits against kings and sovereign powers established by God and which troubles and subverts them: the King shall be asked to declare in the assembly of his Estates as a Fundamental Law of the Kingdom, which shall be inviolable and known to all: that since he is known to be sovereign in his state, holding his crown from God alone, that there is no power on earth whatever, spiritual or temporal, which has any authority over his kingdom, to take away the sacred nature of our kings, to dispense [or absolve] their subjects of the fidelity and obedience which they owe them for any cause or pretext whatsoever. That all subjects, of whatever quality or condition they might be, shall hold this Law to be holy and true as conforming to the word of God, without distinction, equivocation or any limitation. This shall be sworn to and signed by all the deputies of the Estates and in the future by all who hold benefices and all officers of the kingdom before they take possession of their benefices or receive their offices. All tutors, regents, doctors, and preachers shall be required to teach and publish this. That the contrary opinion, that it is lawful to kill and depose our kings, to rise up and rebel against them, to shake off the yoke of their obedience, for whatever reason, is impious, detestable, against truth, and against the establishment of the State of France, which is responsible only to God. All books which teach such a false and perverse opinion shall be held to be seditious and damnable. All foreigners who shall write and publish such are sworn enemies of the crown. All subjects of His Majesty who hold to this, of whatever quality and condition they might be, shall be rebels and violators of the fundamental laws of the kingdom and guilty of treason in the first degree. And if any book or discourse is found which contains a proposition directly or indirectly contrary to this law written by [a] foreigner, cleric or not, the clerics of the same order[s] established in France will be obliged to respond to it, impugning and contradicting it incessantly without deference, ambiguity or equivocation, under pain of receiving the same punishment as above, as abettors of the enemies of this state. And this first (present) article shall be read [in] each year in the Sovereign Courts and in the courts of the bailliages and sénéchaussées of the said (this) kingdom at the opening of the sessions so that it will be guarded with all severity and rigor.35

35

This translation is taken from Hayden, France and the Estates General, pp. 131-132. Hayden translated the copy of the first article found in F. de Rapine, Recueil très-exact et curieux de tout ce qui s'est fait et passé de singulier et mémorable en l'assemblée des Estais, tenus à Paris en l'année 1614 et particulièrement en chaque séance du tiers ordre (Paris, 1651 ). However, Hayden also compared this copy with a second one that Guy Goualt, a deputy in the Third Estate, sent to his brother and is now held in the Archives Départmentales, Morhiban 87 G 4. The words in brackets are in Rapine's copy but not in Goualt's copy; the words in parenthesis are in Goualt's copy but not in Rapine's copy. For another copy

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This article, one of the most important erudite Gallican statements of absolute royal sovereignty in the opening decades of the seventeenth century, was essentially a legal document that provided a clear definition of the French monarch's authority in his kingdom, a means for ensuring that all public officials affirmed the statement, and a series of enforcement clauses which labelled any contravention of the statement in word or action as treason. The first article marked a concerted effort by members of the Third Estate to define as a fundamental law of the kingdom a powerful synthesis of erudite Gallican assertions on divine right theory. As such one could be excused for assuming that the article must in some way be directed against the Society's presence in the kingdom. After all, controversies related to the Society's presence in France and the writings of their foreign brethren had provided the chief foci over the previous twenty years for erudite Gallicans intent on defining royal authority with relation to the church. However, this interpretation does not stand up to closer scrutiny as participants in the Estates fail at any point to make this connection. Despite a bitter and extended debate that dominated the proceedings of the whole Estates General for several weeks, no figure on either side of the controversy chose to conflate either directly or indirectly the issue of the article with that of the Society of Jesus's presence in the kingdom.36 of the Article see F. de Rapine, 'Assemblée générale des trois états, tenue à Paris dedans les Augustins en l'an 1614; et tout ce qui s'y est fait & passé de plus singulier & mémorable en chacune séance', in C.J. Mayer (éd.), Des Etats généraux et autres assemblées nationales (The Hague, 1788-1789), xvi, 285-287. 36 For thé importance of the first article see V. Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le clergé de France (Paris, 1929). These and subsequent observations were drawn from a consideration of the following material: PRO SP France 78/62, fos 247-279 and PRO SP France 78/63, fos 8-44: Dispatches from Edmondes to England, 30 December 1614-30 January 1615; AV Francia 56, fos 140v°-143: Ubaldini to Borghese, 18 December 1614; AV Francia 56, fos 152-157: Ubaldini to Borghese, 17 January 1615; Rapine, 'Assemblée', xvi, 285-221 [sic]; P. Behety and A. Bretville, 'Procès-verbal contenant les propositions, deliberations et résolutions prises et reçus en la Chambre Ecclésiastique des Etats Généraux du royaume de France ....', in Lalourcé and Duval (eds), Recueil des pièces originales et authentiques, concernant la tenue des États-Généraux (Paris, 1789), vi, 261-356; C. Molle(ed.), 'Journal de ce qui s'est passé en la chambre du tiers état aux états généraux de 1614', Recueil des travaux de la société libre d'agriculture, sciences, arts et belles lettres de l'Eure, 8 (1889-1890), 495-597; R. Montcassin, 'Recueil de ce qui s'est passé et observé durant la tenue des Etats généraux, à Paris, convoqués par le commandement du Roi....', in Lalourcé and Duval (eds), Recueil des pièces originales et authentiques concernant la tenue des États-Généraux (Paris, 1789), vu, 157-168 [sic]; P. Clapisson, 'Recueil journalier de ce qui s'est négocié et arrêté en la chambre et compagnie du tiers-état de France ....', in Lalourcé and Duval (eds), Recueil des pièces originales et authentiques concernant la tenue des États-Généraux (Paris, 1789), viii, 94-150; R. Arnauld d'Andilly, Journal inédit d'Arnauld d'Andilly, 1614-1620, A. Halphen (éd.) (Paris, 1857), pp. 23-37; J.D. Du Perron, 'Harrangve faitte de la part de la Chambre Ecclésiastique en celle du tiers Estât, sur l'Article du Serment, 1615', in Les Diverses œwres de l'illvstrissime Cardinal

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No Third Estate delegate made such a connection. The two most active leaders of the Third Estate on this issue, Robert Mirón and Pierre Marmiesse, fail to allude in any way to the Jesuits in their orations defending the article. Moreover, although many had already given serious consideration to the issue while drafting their provincial cahiers and came from regions where the Jesuits enjoyed strong support, no Third Estate delegate, whose views are recorded, noted any relationship between the first article and the Society of Jesus.37 Indeed, two well-informed and well-connected observers of this controversy who represented figures with strong interests in the affair - Papal Nuncio Ubaldini and Thomas Edmondes, the English ambassador in France - make no mention at any point that a Third Estate delegate sought to associate the Jesuits with the first article.38 The same is true for the First Estate which was dominated by important clerics, many of whom were staunch supporters of the Jesuits. Despite their determination to oppose the article, there is no record of any member of the First Estate raising in public or private the prospect that the first article threatened the Society of Jesus or its mission in France. Indeed, such notable churchmen as Cardinal Du Perron, Cardinal de Joyeuse and Archbishop Paul Hurault de l'Hospital of Aix make no mention of the Jesuits in their orations on the article39 Equally interesting neither Cardinal Du Perron, Cardinal de Joyeuse, nor Nuncio Ubalidini raised the spectre of the first article threatening the Society's position in France in their discussions with the queen mother and the royal council where one might expect these churchmen to raise the issue as Marie remained sympathetic to the Society.40

du Perron (Paris, 1622), pp. 593-647; Mercure français, iii, fos 306-634. 37 Rapine, 'Assemblée', xvi, 287-1 [sic 293]. See also Hayden, France and the Estates General, pp. 133134. 38 For Ubaldini see AV Francia 56, fos 140v°-143 : Ubaldini to Borghese, 18 December 1614; AV Francia 56, fos 152-157: Ubaldini to Borghese, 17 January 1615. For Edmondes see PRO SP France 78/62, fos 247-279 and PRO SP France 78/63, fos 8-44: Dispatches from Edmondes to England, 30 December 161430 January 1615. 39 Du Perron, 'Harrangve faitte de la part de la Chambre Ecclésiastique', pp. 593-647. For the comments of the other clerics see Behety and Bretville, 'Procès-verbal', vi, 261-356. See also Mer cure français, iii, fos 306-634. 40 For Du Perron's ongoing support of the Society see AFCJ Prat 32, pp. 765-767: Coton to Du Perron, 12 July 1604. See also Du Perron, Les Ambassades et negotiations, p. 707. For Du Perron's comments to the council see Behety and Bretville, 'Procès-verbal', vi, 334-336. For de Joyeuse see Behety and Bretville, 'Procès-verbal', vi, 343-345. For Ubaldini see AV Francia 56, fos 152-157: Ubaldini to Borghese, 17 January 1615.

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The initial reaction of ecclesiastics to the article also provides a strong indication that participants at the Estates interpreted it as a challenge to clerical authority rather than the Society of Jesus. For the delegates of the First Estate it was clear upon first hearing the article that: among these good and just things, and with the appearance of concern and care for the protection of the person and authority of the king, which should be very-dear and precious to all his subjects, it [the first article] mixes other peculiar and impertinent propositions, and such propositions which are invented and diffused through the ruses and plans of heretics and their trouble-makers, they seek to introduce and give rise to a schism and division amongst catholics, and to place on the scales the authority of the Pope and that of the king ....41

From the start clerical delegates defined the oath as another attempt by members of the royal judiciary to usurp the authority of the church, not as an attack upon the Society of Jesus. The First Estate asserted that, while the Catholic church supported the oath's goal of protecting the monarch, the first article addressed a question of church doctrine which only the church possessed the authority to interpret and that, if the article was not suppressed, it would cause schism as much 'between the Catholics of France, as between them and the rest of Christianity'.42 The reaction of the members of the First Estate to the first article indicates that the clergy understood it with reference to the efforts of French ecclesiastics with the support of the papal nuncio to oppose erudite Gallican efforts to assert their conception of absolute royal authority.43 During the regency influential French churchmen had developed an increasingly strident defence of the church as the natural protector of royal authority. They often accomplished this through their public support of the theories of foreign Jesuit writers like Bellarmine and Suarez even after the Society had publicly disowned these works. Through their defence of tracts authored by Jesuits, clerics had challenged erudite Gallican assertions that the enforcement of law and tradition provided the surest means of guaranteeing the stability of the monarchy. Instead they argued that divine revelation interpreted through revealed reason by the church provided the only sure means of protecting the king and his

41 42 43

Behety and Bretville, Troces-verbal', vi, 261, 262. Behety and Bretville, 'Procès-verbal', vi, 276. Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate', pp. 361-399.

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state.44 Thus, over the previous five years French ecclesiastics had emerged as the most articulate and dangerous opponents of erudite Gallican conceptions of royal authority: a status only confirmed by the success of churchmen in securing the suspension of the Suarez arrêt days after the first article burst onto the political stage.45 Those members of both the First and Third Estates whose views on the first article were recorded define their understanding of the first article in terms of this rapidly developing confrontation between rival conceptions of how royal authority was defined and, by implication, who was responsible for maintaining it in France. In the end, neither group could claim a complete victory as Louis XIII, with great difficulty, removed the article from public debate through a compromise whereby the king accepted the first article for consideration but prohibited the Third Estate from including it in its general cahier?6 Nonetheless, the positions taken by French clerics and magistrates during the first article controversy continued to define the polemical agenda in the months and years that followed. One result of this confrontation between magistrates and clerics over the broader issue of royal authority was the repositioning of the Society of Jesus within the debate. That is not to say that opposition to the Jesuits disappeared in 1614, but rather that an influential group of Gallican magistrates who dominated the Third Estate failed to define any role for the Society as proponents of unacceptable rival theories of royal authority in the first article controversy. Indeed, these magistrates sanctioned a first article that accomplished the exact opposite as it implicitly confirmed the Jesuits' current position in the kingdom and, in effect, even advocated the Parlement of Paris's experience in regulating the Society of Jesus as a model for the regulation of both royal office holders and French clerics. The role of the Jesuits as a model was perhaps most clearly displayed in the regulatory passages of the first article. These passages took their inspiration from the regulatory accommodation established between the Parlement of Paris and the Society over the previous decade. The chief enforcement element in the article - the oath which affirmed support for the king's absolute temporal authority from all individuals who held royal, ecclesiastical or teaching positions in France — reflected an important element in the long-running efforts by French authorities to regulate the Society of 44

Parsons, 'Church and Magistrate', pp. 350-351, 356-358, 370-371. BN MS Fr 18009, fo 322: Danozet to Puisieux, 23 November 1614; BN MS Fr 18010, fo 8: Tresnel to Marie de Medici, 7 January 1615. 46 Hayden, France and the Estates General, pp. 144-148. 45

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Jesus. Oaths had provided a distinctive component in the campaign to regulate the Jesuits since their rehabilitation. Uniquely amongst all religious orders in the kingdom, the Jesuits, in compliance with article four of the Edict of Rouen, had since 1603 sworn an oath upon entering a French foundation 'to do nothing against our [the king's] service, the public peace and the repose of our [the king's] Kingdom'.47 The Parlement of Paris had embraced the idea of using an oath to regulate the loyalty of the Jesuits in 1612 when it had demanded and received a written oath from the Society's leaders promising to obey the teaching of the University of Paris's Faculty of Theology on the specific issue of tyrannicide. The use of an oath in the first article to secure public affirmation of the absolute inviolability of the king bears a close resemblance to these earlier efforts to secure the Society's public acceptance of the same conception of royal authority. The second major enforcement passage in the article established a broader precedent by drawing heavily on the established understanding between the Jesuits and the Parlement of Paris concerning publications produced by foreign members of the Society. In the final draft of the article this initiative was asserted in the heavily reworked and awkwardly worded passage: 'if any book or discourse is found which contains a proposition directly or indirectly contrary to this law written by [a] foreigner, cleric or not, the clerics of the same order[s] established in France will be obliged to respond to it'.48 In a slightly earlier draft, the clause was more precisely stated: 'And if the author is a foreign Regular ecclesiastic, the Ecclesiastics of the same Order established [in] the kingdom will be obliged to respond for it'.49 These passages echo the disputed authority claimed over the previous five years by the Parlement of Paris when it demanded that the Jesuits in France and their father general disown and reject publications by foreign Jesuits on the subject of royal versus ecclesiastical authority. The first article clearly asserted the jurisdiction of French royal magistrates over the publication of texts outside the kingdom and the requirement that French members of a religious order disown the writings of their colleagues abroad. That is, the first article's passage on foreign publications simply 47

ARSI Galliae 61, fo 314v°: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. Hayden, France and the Estates General, pp. 131-132. 49 AMAE MD France 45, fo 119: 'Autre sur le serment de fidélité deu au roy'. Another copy of this version exists, see BN Dupuy 91, fo 136: 'Autre sur le serment de fidélité deu au roy'. While one cannot be certain why the awkward phrase 'cleric or not' was added to the definitive version, it may have been in response to new religious groups, like the Oratoire, which failed to fit into traditional legal categories. Pierre Blet first pointed out the significant difference between these drafts, see Blet, 'L'Article', p. 94. 48

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reflected the actions of the Parlement during the Suarez condemnation when the Parlement required the Society to appear before the court, take responsibility for the text and then disown it. The similarities between the resolution of the Suarez case and this enforcement clause in the first article is unsurprising. After all, magistrates at the Parlement of Paris had already expressed their determination to interpret this regulatory understanding with the Jesuits as applying to a wider group of ecclesiastics in the arrêt against Suarez, which explicitly asserted that the condemnation also applied to any writings by members of the four mendicant orders. A third earlier draft of the article provides further evidence that the inspiration for this passage on publications was the specific understanding between the Parlement of Paris and the Society of Jesus. In this draft the same passage states 'And it is still and remains the obligation of all religious orders in France to refute both in writing and orally books containing the opposite doctrine [on tyrannicide] made or made in the future by those of their order being within or outside the Kingdom'.50 The crucial phrase 'it is still and remains the obligation' implies that the requirement of French religious orders to take responsibility for the writings of their foreign brethren had already been established in French law. This earlier version of the article indicates that those drafting the original article consciously drew on precedent to define this passage.51 This development provides further evidence that the Society's accommodation with French authorities was the inspiration for the article because the most important and relevant precedents for this precise assertion were the condemnations of Mariana, Bellarmine and Suarez's tracts by the Parlement of Paris. Once again the understanding reached between the Jesuits and French magistrates provided the basis on which the more general law defined in the first article was modelled. Erudite Gallicans in the Parlement of Paris further acknowledged the importance of the Jesuit regulatory model for the drafting of the first article during the course of the debate following its adoption by the Third Estate. As the debate raged between members of the First and Third Estates over the first article, the Parlement, in an effort to assert its long-disputed confirmatory role over decisions made by the Estates, issued

50

PRO SP France 78/62, fo 220v°: Draft of the first article of the Third Estate enclosed in a dispatch from Edmondes to Winwood, 8 November 1614. 51 E. Nelson, 'Defining the Fundamental Laws of France: The Proposed First Article of the Third Estate at the French Estates General of 1614', The English Historical Review, 115 (2000), 1216-1230.

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an arrêt on 2 January 1615,52 This arrêt cited eight previous arrêts that supported the first article's assertions. All but one of these arrêts were directly or indirectly associated with the campaign to regulate the Society of Jesus and the works of foreign Jesuit authors over the previous twenty years. The Parlement made clear through this arrêt that the regulatory model established between the Parlement of Paris and the Society of Jesus provided an important source for legal precedents underpinning the first article. In its effort to assert its confirmatory role for all decisions made by the Estates, the Parlement implicitly approved and promoted the accommodation established between the Jesuits and itself as a model for the first article. The first article controversy provides evidence of an important repositioning of the Society of Jesus in the debates surrounding the nature and operation of royal authority in France. Since 1594, the Society's most committed opponents amongst erudite Gallicans had consistently defined a leadership role for the Society as promoters of conceptions of papal authority and tyrannicide theory that ran counter to the fundamental laws of France. In 1614, Gallican magistrates in the Third Estate chose not to identify the Jesuits as important promoters of these theories. Indeed, far from being an important source of false doctrines, the regulation of the Society's participation in the French church was implicitly identified as a model for ensuring that no French royal officer or cleric promoted subversive ideas concerning royal authority. The Society had become a part of the solution to the problem of regulating beliefs, particularly those of clerics. Members of the Third Estate now identified a group of French ecclesiastics as the chief threat to their conception of royal authority. That is not to say that the Society's committed opponents no longer opposed the Jesuit presence and activities in France, but rather that they no longer identified the Jesuits as the chief or most important threat to erudite Gallican conceptions of royal authority. The Society's flexibility in accepting French jurisdiction over its activities provided the context in which the Jesuits participated in the French Catholic church despite their reputation as an important international Catholic reform organization whose doctrines and teachings many Gallicans found suspect. The broad repositioning of the Society in the first article controversy implied that the Jesuits increasingly appeared as just another religious organization operating within

52 AN Xla 1867, fos 114-115: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 2 January 1615. See also AN Xla 1867, not paginated: Registers of the Parlement of Paris, 31 December 1614.

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the French church rather than as committed enemies of the state who were one of the primary conduits for the spread of foreign subversive theories in France. All three estates included articles dealing directly with the Jesuits in their general cahiers submitted to the king at the conclusion of the meeting. These confirm this broad repositioning of the Jesuits in the political debate of the period. The Society received direct mention in four articles. Two articles in the Third Estate cahier sought to define Jesuit inheritance rights and the appointment process for Jesuit leaders in France. The other two articles, one in the First Estate cahier and the other in the Second Estate cahier, addressed Jesuit teaching rights. No one copy of the Third Estate general cahier enjoys universal acceptance as the definitive edition; but, even if one considers all the extant copies of the Third Estate cahier, only two articles directly address the Jesuits, both in the section concerned with the church.53 One article dealt with the inheritance rights of the Society's members. The Third Estate restated a long-standing assertion of the French royal courts: That three years after any of them became a Jesuit, they would not be eligible for direct or collateral successions, nor would they even be allowed to dispose of any estate that they had had beforehand, and that after that period, they could not be dismissed from the Order, without the house from which they had been dismissed giving them the means to live.54

This article followed one which did not mention the Jesuits but did prohibit young people from joining religious orders who were 'under the age of twenty-five years, without the knowledge and consent of the fathers and mothers of the aforementioned

53 On the merits of various editions see Hayden, France and the Estates General, pp. 187-189. Cahiers généraux des articles résolus et accordez entre les députez des 3 estais (Paris, 1615) is perhaps the least accurate source because it lacks articles included in other copies and offers fictitious royal answers to particular articles. The best manuscript copy is the one signed by Jacques Hallé, the secretary of the Third Estate, see Lalourcé and Duval (eds), Recueil des cahiers généraux des trois ordres aux Etats Généraux (Paris, 1789) iv, 270-292. This collection was published in the run up to the Estates General of 1789 because of the renewed interest in the precedents and procedures of earlier Estates Generals. Another published edition in C. J. Mayer's collection of documents from national assemblies offers a full but slightly different set of articles, see M. Miron, 'Cahier general du tiers-état, présenté au roi par M. Mirón, président dudit ordre, à la clôture des états généraux de son royaume, le lundi 23 février 1615, dans la salle de Bourbon', in C.J. Mayer (éd.), Des États généraux et autres assemblées nationales (The Hague, 17881789), xvii, 229-138 [sic]. 54 Lalourcé and Duval (eds), Recueil, iv, 282. See also, Miron, 'Cahier', xvii, 245-246.

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minors ,...'.55 These two issues had been the source of a series of recent causes célèbres involving the Jesuits that had been tried in the royal courts, but these issues had an even longer history as a concern for royal magistrates if one considers the efforts of royal courts to regulate other religious orders in the kingdom.56 The conflict between ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction over such issues had long been of special interest to the mid-level French magistrates who dominated the Third Estate, and their interest in Jesuit inheritance rights is best understood with reference to this long-term struggle for jurisdiction over these cases between royal and ecclesiastical courts. The second article in the Third Estate's general cahier to explicitly address the Society requested that the king ensure that the Society remained subject to the same laws as other religious orders, that Jesuit leaders in France be subjects of the French monarch and that their leaders be elected by all Jesuits in France who had been born subjects of the French king. According to the article the Jesuits must be constrained by the same civil and political laws as any other Religious established in France, that they accept that they are subjects of Your Majesty, and that they cannot have Provincials other than French citizens; and elected by French Jesuits, having taken their first vows.57

Once again this was an article created by delegates who were concerned with French law and custom along with the maintenance of secular authority. The requirement that French Jesuits hold positions of authority in French Jesuit foundations merely echoed the Edict of Rouen. Indeed, this article seems to have been an effort to assert that this stipulation in the Edict remained intact - even though in 1608 Henri had overridden another passage from the same article when he allowed foreign members of the Society to enter French Jesuit foundations in order to ensure enough teachers for their rapidly

55

Mirón, 'Cahier', xvii, 245. For the cause célèbres which undoubtedly inspired these articles see P, Ayrault, Qvœsitoris Andegavi, de Patrio ivre adfilium Pseudojesuitam (Paris, 1594). See also the Leurcheon case recounted in BN Dupuy 74, fo 134: 'Arrêt contre les Jésuites de Nancy', 29 July 1611. See also the case of Louis Mairat of Troyes in P. Delattre (éd.), Les Établissements des jésuites en France depuis quatre siècles: répertoire topobibliographicque publié à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de lafondation de la Compagnie de Jésus (Enghein, Belguim, 1949-195 7), iv, col. 1464. For the wider implications of these issues see M. Armstrong, 'Spiritual Reform, Mendicant Autonomy, and State Formation: French Franciscan Disputes Before the Parlement of Paris, 1500-1600', French Historical Studies, 25 (2002), 505-530. 57 Lalourcé and Duval (eds), Recueil, iv, 283. 56

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expanding network of colleges in the kingdom.58 Meanwhile, the stipulation for election of Jesuit leaders highlighted the continued sympathy of French magistrates for Gallican electoral principles in the church: a set of principles which the French parlements had gained a strong claim to jurisdiction over during the previous century.59 These specific requirements along with the article's demand that the Society conform to French civil law reflected the concerns of magistrates that secular law adequately regulated what was essentially becoming one religious order amongst others. The inclusion of these two articles in the general cahier reasserted the role of the royal magistrates who dominated the Third Estate in the regulation of the Society's activities in France as defined in the seventh article of the Edict of Rouen.60 The Third Estate's general statement of jurisdictional control over the Society of Jesus in the cahier, along with their specific concern for one notable difficulty, the inheritance rights of Jesuit novitiates, were intended to prevent the Society from acquiring a special, exalted position in France above the normal laws of the kingdom. However, these demands did not single out the Jesuits as peculiarly dangerous. Indeed, by asserting that 'the Jesuits must be constrained by the same civil and political laws as any other Religious established in France', the cahier effectively states that the Jesuits possessed the same legal standing as other established religious orders in France.61 Like the Third Estate, the First and Second Estates made reference to the Jesuits in their general cahiers, but their articles concerned the defence of Jesuit privileges rather than the regulation of the Society. The First and Second Estates asked that the king allow the Society to open its college of Clermont as part of the University of Paris, and called for the king to place the Society directly under the jurisdiction of the royal council in this affair.62 These articles were in part a reaction to an unofficial 58 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 314: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. For Henri's decision to allow foreign Jesuits to enter French foundations see Henri IV, Recueil des lettres missives de Henri IV, in B. Xivrey and J. Guadet (eds), Collection des documents inédits sur l'histoire de France, 1st ser. (Paris, 1843-1876), vii, 514-516: Henri IV to Acquaviva, 10 April 1608. 59 For a good overview of these developments from the perspective of the Franciscans see Armstrong, 'Spiritual Reform', pp. 505-530. 60 ARSI Galliae 61, fo 315 v°: Copy of the Edict of Rouen. 61 Lalourcé and Duval (eds), Recueil, iv, 283. A set of remonstrances, almost certainly drawn up by a Jesuit, deals with both of the Third Estate articles with reference to Jesuit rights and privileges established by the Edict of Rouen, see BI Godefroy 15, fos 269-271 : 'Remonstrances sur deux articles proposés en la chambre du tiers estât concernens les Jesuistes & sont pour renuers le spirituel & temporel de leur Religion'. 62 ARSI Franciae 32, fos 14-15: 'Avviso delli stato délia Francia per la compagnia', 1615.

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cahier published by Emond Richer and his allies in the University of Paris that condemned Jesuit teaching.63 Richer's initiative met with hostility in the First Estate, which chose to respond to the attack in its own cahier and succeeded in persuading the Second Estate to include a similar article in its cahier. The articles included by the clergy and the nobility were an important statement of support for the Society's educational mission in France. The clergy's version requested: Your Majesty is thus very humbly entreated to re-establish your Universities, especially the one in Paris, to reform them well, and to enforce the good Rules, to put the Jesuit fathers back [into the Universities], and to subject them to the laws of your said University: For the re-establishment in its first dignity and splendour it may please Your Majesty to appoint as much from your Council, as from your Sovereign Courts, people of knowledge and singular experience.64

In this passage the clergy explicitly supported the establishment or re-establishment of the Jesuits with full corporate rights in French Universities including the University of Paris. They also sought to ensure that members of the king's council served in any reform of the Universities in order to counteract the influence of erudite Gallican magistrates from the Sovereign courts. This second point was undoubtedly a reaction to the recent reform of the University of Paris in the late 1590s by a royal commission headed by président Jacques-Auguste de Thou. This article was important for two further reasons. First, the wording of the article indicates the First Estate's support for the Society's return was in part a response to the meddling of the royal magistrates in affairs which the clergy felt were strictly their own. Thus, the traditional questions of jurisdiction and privilege first associated with the Jesuits in the 1560s, but marginalized in the 1590s, returned in 1615 to dominate the debate. Second, the request by the clergy that the monarch take the Jesuit issue into his own competence was a request that the now mature Louis XIII assert his personal judgment on this issue in a manner reminiscent of his late father Henri IV. This

63

For more on the origins of the cahier and its reception at the Estates General see Rapine, 'Assemblée', xvi, 207-208 [sic]. See also Le Cayer general des remonstrances qve l Université de Paris a dressé, pour presenter au Roy nostre souuerain Seigneur, en l'Assemblée Générale des trois Ordres de son Royaume, qui de présent se tient à Paris: iceluy Cayer delibré, & receu tant du Recteur, que des Doyens & Docteurs des Facultez, & des Procureurs des Nations, en la congrégation solemnelle de ladicte Vniuersité tenue aux Mathurins, le 13. Décembre. 1614 (n.pl., 1615), p. 11. 64 Mercure françois, iii, fo 110 [sic 510]. For a second more detailed account of the clergy's demands see ARSI Franciae 32, fo 17: 'Article extraict du cahier general du clergé', 1615. For a copy of the nobility's article see ARSI Franciae 32, fo 18: 'Article extraict du cahier general de la noblesse', 1615.

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statement emphasized the importance of royal authority as a defining feature of this debate. This second point is also interesting as the reopening of the Jesuit College of Clermont in 1618 was implemented by an arrêt from the king's council that cited the request of the Estates as justification for this royal decree.65 Thus, while the Jesuits were the central focus of several articles in the general cahiers of 1614, each of these articles was concerned with issues of jurisdiction and privilege. These articles reflect the regulatory concerns of the Estates General over the Society's presence and activities in France, not broader questions of their existence in the kingdom or their political and religious doctrines. Moreover, there is little evidence in the printed polemic - a medium that Jesuit opponents had previously used to attack the Society - of a campaign to draw the Jesuits into the wider political debate during the Estates General. The abundant pamphlet literature of this period provides a good source for an analysis of how polemicists chose to link or not link the Society with the wider issues that dominated the political debate in 1614 and early 1615. The pamphlet literature surrounding the Estates General of 1614 was vast in both the numbers of printed tracts and the topics covered in these texts. The royal government had virtually no control over the press, even in Paris.66 Thus, the polemicists of the period were able to publish on whatever subjects were central to the political debate, and consequently the pamphlet literature surrounding the Estates provides an indication of the Society's importance to the debate surrounding the most contentious political and religious controversies of the period. Few scholars have addressed the Society of Jesus in the pamphlet literature during the Estates General beyond the level of impressionistic sampling.67 The only study that has devoted any consideration to the Jesuits is Denis Richet's article 'La Polémique politique en France de!612àl615', which examined a sample of forty-one texts from the period.68 Richet based his interpretation of the Society's role in the pamphlet 65

Le Mercure français (Giverny: 1620), v, fos 12-13. PRO SP France 78/63, fo 30v°: Edmondes to Winwood, 12 January 1615. 67 There have, however, been several scholarly works which have examined this vast body of literature and found no need to examine these tracts with reference to the Jesuits. See J.K. Sawyer, Printed Poison: Pamphlet Propaganda, Faction Politics, and the Public Sphere in Early Seventeenth-Century France (Oxford, 1990). See also H. Duccini, 'Regard sur la littérature pamphlétaire en France au XVIIe siècle', Revue historique, 260 (1978), 313-337; H. Duccini, 'Pamphlets et censure en France au XVIIème siècle', Lendemains, 13 (1979), 93-102. 68 D. Richet, 'La Polémique politique en France de 1612 à 1615', in R. Chartier and D. Richet (eds), Représentation & vouloir politiques autour des Etats-Généraux de 1614 (Paris, 1982), pp. 151-195. 66

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debate exclusively on one exchange of pamphlets written during the Estates General and inspired by the widely disseminated tract Le Catón français av Roy, written by Jacques Gillot, a conseiller in the Parlement of Paris, a long-standing opponent of the Society and a leading figure amongst erudite Gallicans in France.69 Gillot composed the Catón as a piece of advice offered by an aged adviser in the Parlement to the young king on how to rule his kingdom. The Jesuits were not at the centre of the author's concerns. Instead, he focused his attention on defending the jurisdiction of the royal courts against the pretensions of the clergy and the new institution of venality for office holders.70 At no point did the tract mention the Jesuits by name; nevertheless, Gillot hinted at his distrust of the Society when in one passage he pleaded with the young monarch to hunt the killers of his father from the kingdom. Further, in a related passage Gillot made reference to Italian states [i.e. Venice] that secured their sovereignty by expelling such individuals [i.e. the Jesuits] from their territories.71 In these passages Gillot indirectly expressed his continued conviction that the Society was culpable in Henri IVs death and that their exclusion from France provided the best means of controlling their influence. L 'Image de la France, most likely written by a Jesuit, interpreted Le Catorfs veiled references as a direct attack upon the Society. The author of this tract provided a point by point refutation of the implied complicity of the Jesuits in the assassination of Henri IV.72 This text emphasized the Society's attempts to integrate into the French church and to distance themselves from theories of tyrannicide.73 The response to this Jesuit tract made in the anonymous Catón et Diogene François attacked L 'Image's claims of innocence by examining Jesuit theoretical texts and then linking the theories

69

J. Gillot, Le Catón français av Roy (n.pl., 1614). See also L'Image de la France représentée a Messievrs des estais auec la refutation d'vn libelle intitulé LE CATÓN FRANÇOIS, faict contre ceux gui maintiennent la Religion & l'Estât (n.pl., 1615). See also Declaration de l'institvt de la Compagnie de lesvs. En laquelle sont contenues par déduction les responses aux principles objections faites iusques a présent contre les Jésuites (Paris, 1615). See also Le Catón et Diogene François. Pour apologie contre vn traict de l'image de la France, où est représenté la réfutation du Catón François (n.pl., 1615). To this list one could add the republication of J. Davy, Apologie povr les peres lesvites (Paris, 1615). This work was originally written in late 1611 or perhaps early 1612 and was a general but thoughtful defence of the Society's presence in France. For the original composition of the tract see BI Godefroy 230, fo 463-463v°: Pierre Acarie to Jean Lorini, 1612. 70 For more on this tract see J. Parsons, The Roman Censors in the Renaissance Political Imagination', History of Political Thought, 22 (2001), p. 583. 71 Gillot, Catón, pp. 32-34. 72 L 'Image de la France, pp. 58-99. 73 L 'Image de la France, pp. 70-71, 74 [sic 83J-95.

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with the assassinations of both Henri III and Henri IV. In a now well-worn format, the actions by the Society were contrasted with the loyal service of the University and the Parlement, both of which protected their monarch regardless of the pope's wishes.74 A final tract, Declaration de l'institvt de la Compagnie delesvs, again almost certainly written by a Jesuit, was published shortly after the close of the Estates General.75 This text was also inspired by the veiled attack on the Jesuits in Le Catón français.16 However, instead of directly countering the Catón's attacks, the text defended various aspects of the Jesuit constitutions. This rather predictable exchange was perhaps most notable for the reluctance of Jacques Gillot to mention the Jesuits by name in the Catón rather than Richet's claim that 'The Jesuits ... are victims of violent attacks'.77 Indeed, a larger review of over twice as many tracts indicates that, unlike in 1594 or 1610, the Society failed to feature as a significant focus within the pamphlet literature of 1614 or 1615.78 In this review only two other Catholic tracts made substantive points regarding the Jesuits.79 Both were printed cahiers from fictitious or unofficial sources, each of which included a single article concerned with the Jesuits. First, in article thirty-five of its cahier, the Advis remonstrances et requestes aux Estats généraux tenus a Paris, 1614 rearticulated typical concerns about the Society's political ambitions and their activities in the kingdom: 'That the Jesuit Fathers will no longer haunt the Court following their fundamental institution, and will no longer mingle in this State other than in the fashion of the good Capuchin Fathers on pain of perpetual banishment and no longer going to the Garosse'.80 The second, an unofficial cahier - purportedly produced by the University of Paris but actually composed by Emond Richer, the former Gallican syndic of the University, and his allies - contained a lengthy article which, as expected, opposed Jesuit teaching in France.81

74

Catón et Diogene, pp. 29-36 [sic 38]. The approbation of the University of Paris's Faculty of Theology printed on the final page of the pamphlet is dated 15 March 1615. 76 Declaration de I'institvt, p. 3. 77 Richet, 'La Polémique', p. 174. 78 See the Appendix for a list of tracts consulted for this study. 79 Some Huguenot tracts focused upon the Jesuits but their themes were far removed from the Catholic debate. For instance see L 'Assasinat dv roy ov maximes dv vieil de la Montagne Vaticane & de ses Assasins, pratiquées en la personne de deffunct Henry le Grand (n.pl., 1614). 80 Advis remonstrances et requestes aux Estais généraux tenus a Paris, 1614. Par six paysans (n.pl., n.d.), pp. 29-30. 81 For more on the origins of the cahier and its impact on the Estates General see Rapine, 'Assemblée', xvi, 207-208 [sic]. See also Le Cayer general, p. 11. 75

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Aside from these two examples the Society was rarely mentioned for substantive reasons in the tracts reviewed for this study. For instance, in Le Pacifiqve povr la defence dv Parlement the single reference to the Jesuits was: It is said quite loudly, Madame, but it does not seem to matter as: you have your eyes veiled, your ears Cottoned [Cottonnée] and your heart tied to the Anchor [l'Ancre]. And it seems to you that nothing could change your plans as long as you have the Feather [la Plume], the Wax [la Cire], the Cotton [le Coton] and the Anchor [l'Ancre].82 The useful dual meaning of Coton's name and his close relationship with Marie de Medici, as much as the danger of the Order that he represented, probably explains his cameo appearance in this tract. The Jesuits were most commonly associated with the first article controversy within the pamphlet debate through the works of Mariana, Bellarmine, Becan and Suarez; but these passages rarely noted the membership of these theorists in the Society of Jesus.83 Instead, these tracts emphasized the support of the clergy for the condemned doctrines advocated by these writers. Thus they associated the theories of foreign Jesuit writers with the increasingly strident support of some French ecclesiastics and the papacy for their theories. While one can find a few isolated references to the Society in the pamphlet literature surrounding the first article controversy, no tract examined made the Jesuits its focus. Indeed, no tract examined made more than one direct reference to the Jesuits, which reflects the lack of emphasis on the Society of Jesus as a chief or main protagonist in these works.84 The Catón controversy was a distinctive and unrepresentative pamphlet exchange. No other Gallican tract reviewed for this study made the Jesuits its primary focus. Indeed, perhaps the most striking feature of the pamphlet literature of 1614 and early 1615 was the Society's absence from issues with which it had been closely associated since 1594. One of the issues that anti-Jesuit polemicists had linked with the Society

82 Le Pacifiqve povr la defence dv Parlement (n.pl., n.d), p. 1. A second tract that includes Coton in a similar context is Advertissement dv Sievr de Brvscambüle svr le voyage d'Espagne (n.pl., 1615), p. 18. Another example of a single mention which failed to make any substantive attack on the Society can be found in Fovcade avx Estais (n.pl., 1615), p. 7. 83 The one exception to this statement was the Homélie sur ces mots de Sainct Matthieu chap. 16 vers 18TuesPatrus(n.pL, 1615), p. 17. 84 The one example of an isolated direct reference amongst the publications reviewed for this study was in De l'avthorité royale (n.pl., 1615), p. 23.

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in 1594, 1603 and 1610 was Spanish intrigue and foreign subversion; but, with the exception of the Catón exchange, the Society was completely absent from the polemic on these themes in the tracts reviewed for this study. For instance, a number of texts concentrated on the marriage contract of the king to a Spanish princess signed on 25 August 1612.85 Yet, despite the vehement rhetoric opposed to perceived Spanish influence in France, no polemicists linked the Jesuits to these controversial marriages. The Jesuits were not mentioned even in such tracts as Responce à la lettre d'vn gentilhomme, sur les pretextes de la guerre, which argued that the Spanish marriages would bring with them the introduction of the Spanish church and Inquisition into France.86 The Spanish marriage controversy is an important example of a general trend. No Catholic author reviewed for this study with the exception of the Catón exchange associated the Jesuits with international intrigue of any sort. This contrasts sharply with the pamphlet literature of 1594 and 1603 that included numerous tracts which labelled the Society as minions of Spain and the pope. Moreover, unlike in 1594 or 1603, no pamphlet writer outside the Catón exchange accused the Jesuits of promoting disorder in French institutions. For instance, in the Seianvsfrancois, au Roy, the author used Sejanus, the consul and head of the Roman guard who had plotted to take power during Tiberius's reign, to symbolize the rise of disorder in France.87 Thus, 'the divisions that Sejanus has sown in your State, and the authority that he has usurped there, put the crown on his head, made us slaves to his desires, and his disorderly passions, and made his reign here as a devoring Lion'.88 Sejanus was compared with various individuals and corporations in France who had betrayed royal interests. The rebellions of the nobility were noted. Further, the clergy were accused: The Clergy which is the order most holy and sacred, has bent, has weakened under the assurance of continuing its debaucheries, it has stiffened itself against your authority, and has agreed to have the sacred person of the Kings abandoned to the mercy of

85 Cassandrefrancoise (n.pl, n.d); Responce à la lettre d'vn gentil-homme, sur les pretextes de la guerre (Paris, 1615); Lettre dv Roy à Monsievr le Prince de Condé (n.pl., 1615); L'Accomplissement des alliances de France & d'Espagne (n.pl., 1615); Lettre escrite par vn bon François à vn Conseiller d'Estât, pour le secours que le Roy est obligé de donner au Duc de Sauoye & ses autres alliez (n.pl., 1615). 86 Responce à la lettre, pp. 10-11. The two marriages referred to were contracted between Prince Felipe of Asturias and Princess Elizabeth of France, and between King Louis XIII and the Spanish Infanta Aña. 87 Seianvsfrancois, au Roy (n.pl., 1615). 88 Seianvs, p. 3.

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assassins, as soon as they were assured about their benefices in favour of their coadjutors.89

For the author of the Seianvs, who clearly held strong erudite Gallican views, it was the clergy in general, rather than the Jesuits, who were responsible for advocating dangerous alternative theories on royal authority and sovereignty. In this tract the author of the Seianvs merely echoed the concerns of magistrates debating the first article at the Estates General. As the Society of Jesus successfully distanced itself from the controversy, the French clergy, led by the most important cardinals in the realm, became the chief advocates of papal authority in France. This pamphlet sought to contrast the Parlement, which was presented as a steadfast, loyal supporter of royal authority, against Sejanus in his many forms. Still it is remarkable that at no point did the author provide the Jesuits with even a small role in creating the disorder in the kingdom. Thus, even in the conclusion which stated that The sorcerers, the magicians, the Jews and the Anabaptists are established in your Louvre', the Jesuits were not deemed an appropriate example even though, unlike many of these other groups, a number of Jesuits actually were present in the Louvre.90 Despite the abundant and largely unregulated pamphlet literature of the period, there is little evidence that the Jesuits were the subject of sustained attack in the pamphlet debates of 1614 and the first months of 1615. The Society, through royal support and its submission to the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris, had secured a position for itself in the French church and French society by 1614. The success of this initiative was reflected in their absence from the polemic on issues that in 1594 and 1603 their opponents had used to define the Society as a symbol of disorder and subversion in France. The Suarez condemnation and the Estates General provide evidence that the Society of Jesus had, in large part, succeeded by 1615 in separating itself from French debates over regicide and royal authority. In 1594, their opponents expelled the Society from much of the kingdom as supporters of both papal authority in temporal affairs and regicide. By 1614 the Jesuits in France had in part succeeded in withdrawing themselves from the contentious public controversies over both of these issues. While Servin in his condemnation of the Suarez tract in the summer of 1614 attempted to

89 90

Seianvs, p. 6. Seianvs, p. 28.

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mobilize the continued distrust of the Jesuits in France, his efforts met with little success. Instead, in the Suarez condemnation the Parlement reaffirmed both its accommodation with the Jesuits and the royal legal and administrative framework that regulated the Society's presence in France. Moreover, the first article of the Third Estate served to highlight the strength of the accommodation by defining the Parlement of Paris's understanding with the Jesuits as a model for regulation of a larger group of French office holders, clerics and teachers. If one considers the general cahiers submitted by the three Estates to the king at the close of the meeting, those articles concerned with the Jesuits show that the delegates were concerned to define and regulate the Society's presence in France rather than reject it. Meanwhile, the pamphlet literature surrounding the Estates General provides further evidence of the Society's success in distancing itself from contentious debates in France. While a few scattered attacks on the Society appeared in the literature, the striking feature of these pamphlets and tracts was the lack of works that defined an important role for the Jesuits in the debate over the authority of the church and the lack of publications which accused the Society of being minions of foreign powers or a peculiar danger to French institutions. In 1614 the question of royal versus papal authority continued to play a central role in French political debate and an influential group of erudite Gallican magistrates remained capable on occasion of drawing the Jesuits back into this controversy. Indeed, the Society's opponents continued to attack the Jesuits as supporters of papal authority and tyrannicide theory into the 1620s.91 But by 1614, the Society's efforts to accommodate the demands of their Gallican critics had weakened their image as a duplicitous foreign Order dedicated to the destruction of the French state and French society. Instead, more articulate opponents amongst the French clergy increasingly attracted the attention of erudite Gallican magistrates. In this context, the Society, a powerful international manifestation of Catholic renewal, was able to secure through its flexibility and sensitivity to local requirements an important role in the rapidly developing French Catholic reformation.

91 The final attempt to condemn a tract on royal authority written by a foreign Jesuit occurred in 1626, see A.-G. Martimort, Le Gallicanisme de Bossuet (Paris, 1953), p. 106.

Conclusion

An appropriate place to conclude this study is where it began, at the church of Saint Louis in Paris. In the autumn of 1715, the Jesuits who administered the church were once again the recipients of a royal gift, this time in the form of Louis XIV's heart. In the days preceding his death, Louis had made it explicitly known that he wished his heart to be entrusted, like his father's and grandfather's hearts before his, to the care of the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits, in compliance with the late king's instructions, interred his heart in a specially constructed chapel opposite the burial place of the heart of their founder and benefactor, Louis XIII.1 The powerful symbolic statement of royal affection that this gift represented reaffirmed the now well-established relationship between Bourbon monarchs and the Society of Jesus which Louis XIV had embraced during his lifetime. As his Bourbon predecessors before him, Louis had ensured that during his reign Jesuit colleges continued to play a dominant role in educating the Catholic elite of France, and Jesuit confessors and preachers continued to play an influential role in defining the spiritual tradition in France most closely identified with the French monarchy.2 As his reign progressed, Louis also came to view members of the Society as amongst the most committed proponents of his uncompromising étatiste conception of royal authority in temporal affairs.3 By the death of Louis XIV, the Society's expulsion from much of France in 1594 for an act

1 J. Nagle, La Civilisation du cœur: histoire du sentiment politique en France, du XHe au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1998), pp. 34-35. 2 R. Briggs, 'Church and State from Henri IV to Louis XIV, in R. Briggs, Communities of Belief: Cultural and Social Tension in Early Modern France (Oxford, 1989), pp. 222-224. During the course of his reign, Louis XIV increasingly embraced a spiritual tradition closely identified with the Jesuits and opposed to the alternative Augustinian theory of human corruption promoted by individuals and groups in his kingdom that Louis increasingly identified as subversive. For a comparison of the two spiritual movements see R.M. Golden, The Godly Rebellion: Parisian Curés and the Religious Fronde 1652-1662 (Chapel Hill NC, 1981), pp. 16-17. It is important to note that multiple spiritual traditions existed within the Society of Jesus during the seventeenth century but that the one adopted by the kings of France proved increasingly influential amongst leading Jesuits during the later decades of the seventeenth century, see M. de Certeau, 'Crise sociale et réformisme spirituel au début du XVII siècle: une "nouvelle spiritualité" chez les jésuites français', Revue d'ascétique et de mystique, 41 (1965), 339-386. 3 O.K. Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution 1560-1791 (New Haven CT, 1996), pp. 53-55. See also, Briggs, 'Church and State', pp. 221 222.

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of lese-majesty was a distant memory. Nevertheless, the legacy of the Society's expulsion and subsequent rehabilitation continued to define its presence in France. Indeed, in many ways the Society's profound influence on the French church during the reign of Louis XIV was the culmination of a relationship with the monarchy first tentatively established by Henri IV's partial rehabilitation of the Society in 1603 through an act of royal clemency. The preceding chapters have re-examined the Society's experience in France during the first twenty-five years of Bourbon rule in order to define the foundations on which the Society built its influence in the kingdom. As we have seen, the Society established its presence in post-League France through a new relationship with the French monarchy that was first defined when Henri chose to make the Society's rehabilitation a central issue in his campaign to reassert and redefine royal authority following the collapse of the Catholic League. In one sense, Henri's pardon of the Society was part of a broad effort to revive royal authority within the church and, thus, can be understood in the context of the efforts of his predecessors over the previous two centuries to assert royal authority over aspects of church regulation that affected royal interests. However, Henri's rehabilitation of the Society was more than just a simple reassertion of royal authority as he sought to place the reasoning for his decision beyond the scrutiny of his subjects - a distinctive form of royal decision making that he first asserted when he sought to shield his personal conscience from public scrutiny during his abjuration of the Protestant faith. In the context of the Society's rehabilitation, Henri used the royal attribute of clemency - part of the arcana imperil of monarchy - to make a decision based on the same inscrutable personal judgment as his abjuration but for the whole church. Henri succeeded despite the determined opposition of a powerful group of erudite Gallican royalists who supported an alternative conception of royal authority that they had chosen to define in part through the Society's expulsion from the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris in 1594. By securing the Society's rehabilitation through his own clemency, Henri made the Jesuit presence in France a key issue on which he redefined royal authority and laid the groundwork for the more Baroque or absolutist decision making through which he and his Bourbon successors ruled France into the eighteenth century. Thus, one central assertion of this study has been that the Society's new relationship with Henri IV and their.symbolic importance to Henri's efforts to redefine royal authority provided a key foundation on which the Society transformed both its relationship with the French monarchy and its presence in France.

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But from the start the Society's rehabilitation under royal auspices provided the foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship between monarchy and Society that also played a central role in establishing and defining the Society's presence in ancien régime France. The Jesuits returned to France exclusively through the clemency of Henri IV, and this reality shaped their relationship with both the king and the Gallican church. Following their rehabilitation, Henri aggressively used patronage to foster a close relationship with the Society: a religious Order that he identified as both responsive to the royal will and able to contribute to royal religious and social policies. During the final years of his reign, Henri's relationship with the Society developed rapidly as the king supported and promoted important Jesuit missionary and educational activities in his kingdom that also advanced his own goals. For their part, the Jesuits actively embraced this new relationship with Henri which extended their own ministries and influence. Key to the Society's success was its willingness both to accept Henri's pardon, rather than exoneration, for their alleged role in the Chastel assassination attempt and to acquiesce in a series of restrictive conditions, which infringed on their privileges granted by the papacy. By making these concessions, they were able to re-establish themselves in the kingdom and foster a personal relationship with Henri IV. In theory, the restrictions placed on their return strictly limited the scope and size of their presence in France. In reality, their new relationship with Henri IV ensured that these restrictions were never enforced and that the scope of their activities in the kingdom depended primarily on their relationship with the monarchy. Henri's support for the Jesuits was part of the king's wider effort both to rebuild and to create new relationships between the monarchy and groupings within the church through which he could influence the Catholic church in post-League France. Thus, during the final years of Henri's reign, the Society became integrated into a relationship based on shared interests which reflected a key component in the king's wider efforts to rebuild royal authority in the post-League period. Henri's successors continued to strengthen the monarchy through these relationships, and the Society sustained their understanding based on shared interests with their Bourbon patrons into the eighteenth century. Thus, the Society's success in cultivating royal patronage along these lines defined a second foundation on which they established their presence in France. By Henri's death in 1610, the Society had fostered a new relationship with the French monarchy which provided the foundation for their long-term presence in France. During the regency of Marie de Medici, the Society succeeded in protecting

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and even expanding their presence and influence in the kingdom despite the weakening of royal power during Louis XIII's minority. Key to the Society's success was their ability to reach an accommodation with the magistrates of the Parlement of Paris over the regulation of their activities in the kingdom. As with their relationship with Henri, Jesuit flexibility concerning their privileges and corporate structure provided the basis on which the Society in France secured a regulatory accommodation with the Parlement of Paris that further defined their corporate status. In a series of court cases that progressively established a regulatory model, the Society accepted the jurisdiction of royal courts over the writings of their members on the issue of tyrannicide and the application of French law to some aspects of their ministries and temporal affairs. By the declaration of Louis XIII's majority, the Society had established a regulatory accommodation with French authorities that addressed the concerns of at least some moderate magistrates, as can be seen by its use as a model for the enforcement clauses of the first article of the Third Estate at the Estates General of 1614. This accommodation both further secured their presence in France and contributed to their growing influence within the French church. The Society's experience during the regency points to a third foundation on which the Jesuits defined their presence in post-League France, a conscious effort to accommodate the requirements of royal judicial authorities. When taken collectively, the Society's relationship with Henri IV from 1603 and their accommodation with the royal judiciary after 1610 offer insight into how the Society of Jesus, an important manifestation of the international Catholic reform movement, succeeded in operating within the well-established Gallican national church tradition during the seventeenth century. In analysing the Society's impact on the European Catholic reformation, scholars have quite rightly emphasized the Society's international outlook and distinctive centralized organization as keys to their ability to operate with an unprecedented sense of identity and purpose in varied contexts across Europe.4 These features continued to play an important role in their success during the seventeenth century. However, the Society's experience in France also points to the ability of the Jesuits to secure their position in the Gallican church by compromising certain aspects of their international outlook and hierarchy,

4 R.Po-chiaHsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540-1770 (Cambridge, 1998),pp.31-33;R.Bireley, The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450-1700 (London, 1999), pp. 43-44; M. Mullett, The Catholic Reformation (London, 1999), pp. 89-90, 98-100.

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particularly their privileges granted by the papacy and the regulation of the Society's ministries within the territories of the kings of France. At the same time, this study has shown that once the Society had succeeded in securing its position in the French church, it rapidly laid the foundations on which it would have a profound impact on both education and spiritual life in ancien régime France. The experience of the Jesuits during the decade following their rehabilitation in 1603 shows that French authorities played an important role in shaping their participation in the kingdom's Catholic reform movement; nevertheless, the Society still promoted a number of international Catholic renewal ideas and practices in France that influenced the course of this reformation. Thus, an important conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that, at least in France, the Society's willingness to accept some regulation of its activities by French authorities played a crucial part in securing it an influential role in shaping Catholic renewal in the kingdom through their distinctive activities and ministries. In this context, the entrustment of Bourbon hearts to the Society of Jesus provides a powerful symbol of how successful the Society was in operating within the limitations defined by increasingly strident Catholic secular authorities in seventeenth-century Europe.

APPENDIX

Pamphlet Literature 1614-1615 [ ] = Attributed to

L'Accomplissement des alliances de France & d'Espagne. N.pl., 1615. Advertissement avx français svr les cavses et conséquences des trovbles presens, et de l'intention du manifeste de Monsieur le Prince de Conde. N.pl., 1615. Advertissement dv Sievr de Brvscambille svr le voyage d'Espagne. N.pl., 1615. Advis à Monsievr le Prince. N.pl., 1614. Advis à Monsievr le Prince. N.pl., 1615. Advis donné av Roy en son Conseil par Monseigneur le Prince, sur l'Article du Tiers Estât, contradictions du Clergé, & Arrests du Parlement, le quatriesme de Januierl615.Jt.pL, 1615. Advis remonstrances et reqvestes aux Estais généraux tenus à Paris, 1614. Par six paysans. N.pl., n.d. Advis svr les ordonnances d'Orléans, art. 59. & de Moulins, art. 57. concernons la réduction des degrez des substitutions. N.pl., 1615. A la royne régente, et a nosseignevrs les princes et seignevrs dv conseil. N.pl., n.d. A Messieurs des Estâtes. N.pl., n.d. L'Anti-Mavr égard ov le fantasme de bienpvblic. N.pl., 1614. Arrest de la Covr de Parlement de Thoulouse, du Sabmedy 7. De Febu. 1615. les Chambres assemblez. N.pl., n.d. Arrest de la covr de Parlement du 2. lanuier 1615. Touchant la souveraineté du Roy au tempore, & contre sa pernicieuse doctrine d'attenter aux personnes sacrées des Roys. Rouen: David Gevffroy, 1615. Articles qve Monsieur de la Haye proposera à Messieurs de l'assemblée de Grenoble tant en son nom que des autres Princes, Officiers de la Couronne, & Seigneurs joincts auec nous. N.pl., 1615. L'Assasinat dv roy ov maximes dv vieil de la Montagne Vaticane & de ses Assasins, pratiquées en la personne de deffunct Henry le Grand. N.pl., 161. Le Bon navarrois avxpieds dv Roy. N.pl., 1615. Brief dis covrs contenant devx advis, l'vn povr faire cesser la vénalité des offices, & l'autre povr changer lafoule de la leuee & cotisation des taille. A Messievrs des Trois Estais dv Royaume, a présent assemblez en la ville de Paris. N.pl., 1615. Le Cabinet du Vulcan. N.pl., n.d. Cahiers généraux des articles résolus et accordez entre les députez des 3 estais. Paris, 1615.

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Cassandre française. N.pl., n.d. Le Catholiqve christianize. N.pl., 1615. Le Catón et Diogene François. Pour apologie contre vn traict de l'image de la France, où est représenté la réfutation du Catón François. N.pl., 1615. Le Cayer general des remonstrances ave l'vniversité de Paris a dressé, pour présenter au Roy nostre souuerain Seigneur, en l'Assemblée Générale des trois Ordres de son Royaume, qui de présent se tient à Paris: iceluy Cayer delibré, & receu tant du Recteur, que des Doyens & Docteurs des Facultez, & des Procureurs des Nations, en la congrégation solemnelle de ladicte Vniuersité tenue aux Mathurins, le 13. Décembre. 1614. N.pl., 1615. Le Censevr, discovrs d'est at. Pour faire voir au Roy, en quoy sa Majesté a este mal seruie. N.pl., 1615. Complainte de la France svr la rvmevr de la guerre ciuile. Addressee à Nosseigneurs les Princes retirez de la Cour. Paris: Antoine Champenois, 1614. Conférence tenve entre le Pape et le Roy d'Espagne, touchant les affaires de ce temps. Item. Dialogve dv Roy d'Espagne auec lean de Neye Moine, sur le pourparler des desdites affaires. N.pl., 1615. Le Conseiller fidèle a son roy. N.pl., n.d. Consvltation de M. I. Bédé de la Gormandiere, angevin, Aduocat av Parlement a Paris, svr la qvestion, si le Pape est svperievr dv Roy, en ce qui est dv temporel. Sedan: lean lannon, 1615. Copie de la harangve faicte en la présence du Roy à l'entée [sic] des estais, par les députez de La Rochelle, pour les Eglises reformées. Av raport de Matavlî. N.pl., 1615. Le Covrier covrtisans. Arrivé de Bovrdeavx. N.pl., 1615. Déclaration de la volonté dv Roy addressee a nos seignevrs de sa Cour de Parlement. N.pl., 1615. Déclaration de l'institvt de la Compagnie de lesvs. En laquelle sont contenues par déduction les responses aux principles objections faites iusques a présent contre les lesuites. Paris, 1615. Déclaration de Monsievr le Prince, envoyée au Roy. N.pl., 1615. De ravthorité royale. N.pl., 1615. Le Diogene français. N.pl., n.d. Discours de Maistre lean lovfflv sur les débats & diuisions de ce temps. N.pl., 1614. Discovrs svr l'alliance faicte par le Roy Tres-Chrestien, avec le Roy Catholique. N.pl., 1615. Discovrs svr la réception du Concile de Trente en France. N.pl., 1615. Discovrs svr les mariages de France et d'Espagne, contenant les raisons qui ont meu Monseigneur le Prince à en demander la surseance. N.pl., 1614. Du Perron, J., Brief discours sur qvelqves poincts concernans la police de l'Eglise & de TEst at: Et particulièrement sur la réception du Concile de Trente, & la vénalité d'offices. Paris: Antoine Estiene, 1615.

APPENDIX

.

247

Lettre de Monseignevr le Cardinal dv Perron a monseignevr le Prince. Caen, lacques Mangeant, 1614. Envis des paysans Champestres, addressez à la Royne Régente. N.pl., 1614. Extraict de l'inventaire qvi c 'est trowé dans les coffres de Monsieur le Cheuallier de Guise par madamoiselle d'Antraige, & mis en lumière par monsieur de Bassompierre. N.pl., 1615. Extraict d'vne lettre enuoyee à l'vn des grands de ce Royaume touchant la vénalité des offices. N.pl., n.d. Le Financier a Messievrs des Estais. N.pl., 1615. Fovcade avx Estais. N.pl., 1615. Franc et véritable discovrs svr la revocation du droict annuel. N.pl., n.d. Gazette des estais, & de ce temps. Du seigr.gio seruitour, de Pier a gros a. N.pl., 1615. [Gillot, J.]. Le Catón francois av Roy. N.pl., 1614. La Harangve d'Achior l'amonite svr vn advis donne a Monseignevr le Prince. N.pl., 1614. Harangve dernière des Députez de l'Assemblée de Nismes, au Roy, prononcée par la bouche du Sieur de Berteuille à la Roche-foucaut, le 3. Januier, 1616. N.pl., n.d. Harangve prononcée par Monsieur l'Archeuesque de Lion, à l'ouuerture des Estais tenus à Paris, en la sale du petit Bourbon, le vingt-sixiesme d'Octobre 1614. N.pl., 1615. H arrangée de l'amatevr de ivstice, avx trois estais. N.pl., 1615. Harrangve de Tvrlvpin le sovfretevx. N.pl., 1615. Harrangvefaicte par la noblesse de Champagne & de Brie. Insérée en ces Cay ers, & presentee à sa Majesté. N.pl., 1615. Homélie sur ces mots de Sainct Matthieu chap. 16 vers 18 Tu es Patrus. N.pl., 1615. L'Image de la France représentée a Messievrs des estais auec la réfutation d'vn libelle intitulé 'LE CATÓN FRANÇOIS \faict contre ceux qui maintiennent la Religion & l'Estât. N.pl., 1615. Kermadec, F. de. Relation véritable envoyée av serenissime roy de la Grand'Bretagne, deplvsievrs divers ivgemens faits en France. Sur le sujet de la Déclaration de S. M. pour le droit des Rois & I 'independence de leurs Couronnes. Nantes, 1615. Lettre de Monseignevr le Prince envoyée av Roy & à la Reynepar le Sieur de Marcognet.N.pl., 1615. Lettre de Monsievr de Vendosme, a la Royne, sur son entrée à Vannes le 15. luin 1614. Paris: Pierre Chevalier, 1614. Lettre de Monsievr le Marquis de Bonniuet escrit au Roy. N.pl., 1615. Lettre de Nostre S. Père le Pape, escrite à messievrs dv clergé députez aux Estais de ce Royaume. Avec la responce faictepar L.E.D. N.pl., n.d. Lettre dv Roy à Monsievr le Prince de Conde. N.pl., 1615. La Lettre dv Roy d'Espagne enuoyee à leurs Maiestez tres-Chrestiennes en la ville de

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Bordeaux. Paris: Anthoine de Brueil, 1615. Lettre dv Roy, envoyée à Monsieur le Premier President, sur l'accomplissement & consommation des Mariages: Ensemble les feux de joye faits en suitte d'iceux en la Ville de Bordeaux. Paris: Syluestre Moreau, 1615. Lettre escritepar vn bon François à vn Conseiller d'Estât, pour le secours que le Roy est obligé de donner au Duc de Sauoye & ses autres alliez. N.pl., 1615. Lettres envoyées av Roy et à la Royne, par l'Assemblée de Grenoble. N.pl., 1615 Ludovici de beav manoir expostvlatoria defensio ad senatvm Parisiensem pro societate lesv. In expositoriam Ludouici Seruini Régis Aduocati querelam contra Francisum Suarium ex eadem societate Theologum peruulgatem. N.pl., 1615. Mémoires povr présenter av Roy, svr la continuation du droict annuel, empeschant néanmoins le commerce & trafic des offices, & l'hérédité perpétuelle d'iceux en vne maison .... N.pl., 1615. L'Ombre de Henri Le Grand av Roy. N.pl., 1615. Le Pacifiqvepovr la defence dv Parlement. N.pl., n.d. Le Plaidoyer des préséances et difficvltez des estais. Recueillis à I'Hostel de Monseigneur le Prince, premier Pair de France, reuniateur des subjects du roy. N.pl., n.d. Le Protectevr des princes, a la Reyne. N.pl., n.d. Les Regrets de cendrin. N.pl., 1615. Remerciement des Poules. A Monsieur de Bovillon. N.pl., n.d. Repliqve delacqves Bon-Homme pay s an de beavvoisis. A son compère le Crocheteur. Paris: lean Brvnet, 1614. Les Résolutions et arrestez de la chambre du Tiers Estât touchant le premier article de leur cahier présenté au Roy. Paris, 1615. Responce à la harangue faite par l'illvstrissime Cardinal av Perron, à Paris l'an 1615. N.pl., n.d. Responce à la lettre d'vn gentil-homme, sur les prétextes de la guerre. Paris: Anthoine Champenois, 1615. La Sanglante chemise de Henry le Grand. N.pl., 1615. Seianvs francois, au Roy. N.pl., 1615. Les Sept derniers articles accordez par le roy & son Conseil, à Messieurs les Députez des trois Estais. Paris: Anthoine du Brueil, 1615. Le Svrveillant francois. N.pl., n.d. Tyrtœvs avx francois. N.pl., n.d.

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266

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Index

Acarie, Barbe Avrillot d' 128, 130 Acquaviva, Claudio (SJ) 43, 66, 100-110, 112, 120-21, 128, 141, 168-9, 190, 197, 200-203, 213, 216-18, 220, 226 Amboise, Jacob 27-30, 41, 55 Angenoust, Jérôme 41 Armand, Ignace (SJ) 70, 73-5, 102-3, 106-7, 216-17 Arnauld, Antoine 16, 52-5, 174, 176-7, 192 anti-Spanish writings 20, 26 Jesuit rehabilitation, opposition to 81-3, 131 University court case (1594) 30-38, 41-3, 45-6 Attichy family 112 Augustinians 216 Ayrault, Pierre 34 Balsac, Charles de (Bishop) 192 Balthazar, Christophe (SJ) 197-8, 201-3 Barnabites 129 Barrière, Pierre 13, 24-6, 32 Beauvillier, Marie de (Abbess) 128 Becan, Martin (SJ) 207, 236 Bellarmine, Roberto (Cardinal, SJ) 169, 178-89, 193–4, 196, 206, 211, 212, 214, 216, 219, 224, 227, 236 Bellièvre, Pomponne de 20 Bérulle, Pierre de (Cardinal) 128-9 Béthune, Maximilien de (duc de Sully) 40, 76-7, 88, 147 Béthune, Philippe de 105, 108, 118, 120 Biron Conspiracy 68, 118 Bodin, Jean 18-19 Bologna, Concordat of 15 Bonsi, family 111

Borghese, Scipione (Cardinal) 199, 201-2 Boucher, Jean 34 Bourbon, Éléonore de (Abbess) 127 Bourbon, Henri de (prince de Condé) 149, 155, 192 Bourbon-Vendôme, Charles (Cardinal) 37, 40 Brèves, sieur de, see Savary Brissac, comte de, see Crosse Brothers of Charity 129 Brûlart, Nicholas (sieur de Sillery) 166, 186-9, 212, 215 Búfalo, Innocenzo del (Nuncio) 103, 106 Caen Jesuit college, opposition to 141 Calvin, Jean 116 Capuchins 129, 131,235 Carmelites 129-30 Catholic League, see League Catholic Reformation France 7, 126-31, 144, 239, 243-4 Charles-Emmanuel (Duke of Savoy) 62 Chastel, Jean 2, 44, 46-50, 52, 57, 64, 67, 85, 100-102, 107, 132-3, 135, 151-2, 155-6, 163, 165, 242 Cheverny, sieur de, see Hurault clemency, see royal authority Clement, Jacques 45 Clement VIII 38, 62, 69, 105, 119 clergy, Catholic papal authority, defence of 165, 190, 198, 211, 218-19, 223-5, 227, 236-9 Clermont, College of 22, 27, 29, 41, 47, 107, 113, 121, 172-3, 191-2, 198, 205, 214-15, 231, 233 Commolet, Jacques (SJ) 25

268 Conde, prince de, see Bourbon Condom 124 Constance, Council of 156-8, 169, 181, 183,211-12 Coton, Pierre (SJ) 70, 73-5, 104-8, 113, 115-16, 123, 130, 135, 138, 141, 164, 168-71, 175, 201-2, 204-5, 236 Courtin, Jean 157, 161-2, 164 Crosse, Charles de (comte de Brissac) 11 Damville, sieur de, see Montmorency Dijon Jesuit college in 77, 103 Jesuit expulsion from 53 Dollé, Louis 16 Dominicans general convocation in Paris (1611) 190 Jesuits, opposition to 120 douceur, see royal authority — clemency Du Bellay, Eustache (Bishop) 22 Du Bois, Jean 171-72 Du Duc, Fronton (SJ) 138 Du Laurens, Honoré (Bishop) 126 Du Perron, Jacques Davy (Cardinal) 71-72, 201, 219, 223 Duplessis-Mornay, Philippe 132 Dupuy, Clement (SJ) 43 Edmondes, Thomas 148-50, 223 Edward VI (King of England) 34 England tyrannicide theory 152 Epernon, duc de, see Nogaret erudite Gallicanism, see Gallicanism Estates General (1614) 151, 189, 210-212, 220-239 first article of the Third Estate 210-211, 220-228, 236, 238-9, 243 First Estate 223-5, 229, 231-2 Second Estate 229, 231-2 Third Estate 220-223, 225, 227-31,

INDEX

239, 243 Estrées, Gabriel d' 44 Faculty of Theology, see University of Paris Faye d'Espesse, Charles 17 Faye d'Espesse, Jacques 17 Ferdinand of Aragon (King of Spain) 119 Ferdinando (Grand Duke of Tuscany) 62 Feuillants 131 Filles de Nôtre-Dame 129-30 Fleury, Etienne de 48-9 France, Collège de 173 Franciscan Récollets 129 François I 15, 94 Gallican Dominicans, debate with 190 erudite 30, 38, 40, 58, 95, 212, 234-5, 238 first article at Estates General (1614) 210, 220-222, 224-8 Huguenots 59-61 Jesuits 6, 8, 16-17, 20-27, 29, 55, 57-8, 68, 130, 132-9, 142, 158-60,175,210, 230-231, 234, 236, 239, 241 papal authority 152, 189, 190, 201-4, 210, 219, 236, 238-9 Parlement of Paris 82, 158, 161-2, 189, 210, 212, 227-8, 238, 241 regicide 24-5, 44-5, 85, 132-9, 157-8, 160-162, 212, 219-28 royal authority, inscrutable 6, 78-80, 83-4, 90, 94-6, 241 royal clemency 6, 19-20, 58, 59-61, 67-9, 81, 83-4, 94-96, 241 Spain 20 techniques, sources 14-17, 182, 186 Jesuits 129, 236 oath 193-207

INDEX

liberties 183, 194, 199, 201, 205, 214, 243 regicide 156, 159 religious orders 129 royalist 5, 14-16, 152, 211 Gaultier, Jacques 115 Gerson, Jean 137 Gigord, Jean 116 Gillot, Jacques 17, 130-131, 234-5 Gondi, Pierre (Bishop) 38, 157, 161, 164-5, 201 Gontery, Jean (SJ) 115 Gonzague, Louis de (duc de Nevers) 37 grâce, see royal authority - clemency Granger, Jean 173, 178 Guignard, Jean (SJ) 47, 50 Guise, Charles de (Cardinal) 129 Guise family 125 Gunpowder Plot 137-8, 150-151 Hardivillier, Pierre 191 Harlay, Achille de 17, 26, 38, 42-3, 87-90, 134, 156, 158-61, 165-6, 171, 176, 178, 181, 185, 187, 189-90 Hennequin, Aymar (Bishop) 126 Henri II 21, 51 Henri III 25, 34, 45, 47, 165, 235 Henri IV 4-5, 27, 232; see also royal authority abjuration of the Protestant faith 17-18, 71-72, 81, 241 assassination attempts on 2, 8, 24-5, 34, 44-5, 132, 137, 139, 147-8, 150-151, 153, 160, 163, 168, 175, 189, 234-5 burial 98, 168, 171 expulsion of the Jesuits 2, 50-53, 57-8, 64-69 France, pacification of 17-21, 32, 37-8, 46, 59, 65, 67, 81, 83, 92, 136 Jesuits, patronage of 6-7, 98-100, 103, 110, 123, 126, 130, 140, 143-4, 151, 185, 230, 242 canonizations 119-20

269 conversion of Huguenots 113-18, 242 education 110-113, 172, 242 mission to Canada 122 mission to Constantinople 121-2 Jesuits, rehabilitation of 2-3, 6, 58-70, 72-96, 100-110, 203, 240-241 Medici, marriage to Marie de 62, 68, 118 papacy 38-9, 62-3, 69 Paris, pacification of 11-13 Parlements 39-41, 43, 78, 82-96, 103-4, 132-139 Pyramid 132-9 Spain, war with 51-52, 59, 147 Spanish crown, competition with 118-23 Venice 118 Hilaire, Jacques d' (seigneur de Jovyac) 117 Holy See, see papacy Huguenot 23, 71, 75-6, 126-7 Jesuits 113-18 Nantes, Edict of 59-64 regency 149 Hurault, Phillippe (sieur de Cheverny, chancellor of France) 41, 43, 46, 50 Index of Prohibited Books, see papacy Jacobins 216 James I (King of England) 137-8, 150, 179, 211 Jean sans Peur (Duke of Burgundy) 156 Jesuits 4-6 assassination of Henri IV 168-70, 177, 234-5 assassins Barrière 24-5 Chastel 2, 46-9 Ravaillac 8, 153-4, 167, 176 Catholic renewal 7, 123-30, 239, 243-4 colleges 110, 112-13, 123-128

270 Clermont 22, 27, 29, 41, 47, 107, 113, 121, 172-3, 191-2, 198, 205, 214-15, 231, 233 Dijon 77, 103 Eu 125 La Flèche 77, 98-9, 103, 107, 110-112, 145, 168 Lyon 77, 103 Nevers 125 constitutions 109, 197, 235 erudite Gallican opposition 16-17, 20-27, 80-84, 87-9, 94-6, 131-9, 156-9, 175, 210, 230-231, 234 Estâtes General (1614) 220, 239 cahier articles 228-33 first article controversy 210, 220-228, 243 pamphlet literature 333-8 expulsion 5, 46-55, 57-8, 64, 161 France, mission in 1-2, 23-4, 64, 69, 123-30, 143-5, 151 Aquitaine, Provence of 24 foundations, local opposition to 140-142 funding, local opposition to 141-2 ministries, local opposition to 142-3 oath 195, 199-207 general congregation, sixth 120 Huguenots 59-61 League 2, 12-13, 21, 24-7, 30-33, 47, 90 Louis XIV burial of heart 240 Jesuits 240-241 Medici, Marie de Jesuits, patron of 116, 172-3 Jesuits, protector of 151, 164-7, 171-2, 242-3 papacy 21, 26, 35, 78, 174-8, 242, 244 Paris, Henry IV's pacification of 12-13

INDEX

Parlement of Paris, relations with during regency 151, 153—4, 158-70, 177-189, 193-200, 210-218, 225-7, 235, 238-9, 243 patronage 130 church 126-8 nobles 125-6 town 123-4 patronage, Henri IV 6-7, 98-100, 103, 110, 126, 130, 143-5, 151, 185, 241-2 canonizations 119-20 conversion of Huguenots 113-18, 242 education 110-113, 242 mission to Canada 122 mission to Constantinople 121—2 rehabilitation 2-3, 58-70, 72-96, 100-110, 133, 241-2 Spain 23-4, 26, 27-9, 31, 33, 35-6, 52-55, 237 tyrannicide; see also Barrière, Becan, Bellarmine, Chastel, Mariana, Ravaillac, Sa, Scribanus, Suarez, tyrannicide attempts to distance from 190-192 confession 196 constitutional theorists 152, 159-60, 179, 211-12 France, rehabilitation in 85, 88, 101 Jesuits as opponents of 168-70, 190, 201-6, 217-19 Jesuit as promoters of 34, 158-9, 163, 174-8, 206, 216 Parlement of Paris 8, 158-9, 243 Pyramid 132-4, 138-9 University court case (1564) 22-3 University court case (1594) 27-43 University court case (1610-11) 172-3, 214, 216, 219 court hearing 192-8 oath 195-207, 226

INDEX

271

polemic surrounding 173-8, 184 renewal of 191-2 suspension of 178 Jovyac, seigneur de, see Hilaire Joyeuse, François de (Cardinal) 219, 223 Juliers, Clèves and Mark 121, 147

239, 243 Louis XIV 3, 8, 240-241 Louis XV 8 Loyola, Ignatius (SJ) 1, 7, 102, 117, 119-20, 122 Lyon Jesuit college in 77, 103

La Flèche Jesuit college in 77, 98-9, 103, 107, 110-112, 145 La Guesle, Jacques de 38, 42 La Rochefoucauld, François de (Cardinal) 126, 219 Laubespine, Gabriel de (Bishop) 126 La Valette, Louis de Nogaret de (Cardinal) 111 League 3-5, 36, 128, 149, 241; see also Barrière Jesuits 2, 12-13, 21, 24-7, 30-33, 47, 90 Nantes, Edict of 63 pacification through clemency 17-20, 59, 63, 65, 67, 81, 84, 86 Paris, Henry IV's pacification 11-13 resistance theory 63 Spanish influence 20-21 tyrannicide 34, 45 Le Clerc, Jean 11 Le Coque, Jean 182, 194 LeoX 15 Leschassier, Jacques 137 L'Estoile, Pierre de 37-8, 131, 142, 148-9, 161, 166-7, 174, 186 Lestonnac, Jeanne de 129-30 L'Hospital, Paul Hurault de (Archbishop) 223 Lorraine, Philippe Emmanuel de (duc de Mercœur) 59 Louis IX 1, 98 Louis XIII 1, 3, 8, 98, 112, 148, 154, 164, 171-2, 183, 186-9, 200, 240, 243 after declaration of majority 209, 218, 223, 225, 230, 232, 234,

Maggio, Lorenzo (SJ) 64-5, 106, 108, 135 Maldonado, Juan de (SJ) 23 Mariana, Juan de (SJ) 138, 152, 158-72, 174-5, 179, 181-2, 185-6, 189, 193, 196, 206, 211-13, 215-17, 227, 236 Marion, Simon 93 Marmiesse, Pierre 223 Martelliere, Pierre 192-3, 196 Medici, Catherine de 149 Medici, Marie de; see also regency government Huguenots 149 Jesuit, patron of 116, 172-4 Jesuit, protector of 151, 164-7, 171-2, 178, 196, 206, 236, 242-3 marriage 62, 68 papacy 218-19 Parlement of Paris 154-5, 164-7, 178 potential opponents in (1610) 149-50, 164 queen 147 queen mother 223 regent 5, 8, 144, 209-210, 219 authority 149-50, 172, 178-89, 206 Louis XIII, declaration of the majority of 209-10 opening of regency 148-9 Spain, war with 149 Medici family 118 Mena, ? de (SJ) 26-7 Mercœur, duc de, see Lorraine Mirón, Robert 223 Molé, Edouard 17

272

Monte, Horatio del (Archbishop) 64 Montgommery, Louis de 176 Montholon, Jacques de 197 Montmorency, Henri de (sieur de Damvüle, Constable) 125 Nantes, Edict of 59-64, 68, 78, 92, 94, 113, 127, 149 Nassau, Charolotte-Flandrine de (Abbess) 127 Neufville family 111 Neufville, Nicolas de (sieur de Villeroy) 65, 105, 164-5, 187-9, 220 Nevers, duc de, see Gonzague Nogaret, Jean-Louis de (duc d'Epernon) 125, 166-7 Oratoire 130 Orléans, duc de, see Valois Ossat, Arnaud d' (Cardinal) 103 Palma-Cayet, Pierre-Victor 73 papacy; see also Clement VIII, Leo X, Paul V authority 174-89, 199-200, 203-5, 210, 218-19, 220-228, 236; see also Becan, Bellarmine, Chastel, Mariana, Ravaillac, Sâ, Scribanus, Suarez, tyrannicide direct authority over temporal affairs 152, 157, 163, 165, 180, 194, 197, 211-12, 236 indirect authority over temporal affairs 152, 165, 179-80, 194, 197, 211-12, 236 College of Cardinals 119 ecclesiastical support in France 165-6, 198-9, 210, 219-20 erudite Gallicans 137, 152, 189, 190, 201-4, 210, 220-228 Henri IV, absolution of 38-9 Index of Prohibited Books 139, 179 arrêt against Jean Chastel 151-2, 163 Jesuits 21, 26, 35, 78, 174-8, 198-206, 218-19, 242, 244

INDEX

Roman Inquisition 151-2, 163, 165 royalist Gallicans 14-15 Venetian Interdict Crisis 137-8, 151 Paris; see also Clermont, France, Parlement of Paris, Saint Louis, University of Paris Henri IV's pacification of 11-13 parish priests 29, 34, 142-3, 173, 191 Parlement of Aix 53, 64; see also parlements Parlement of Bordeaux 53, 64, 123; see also parlements Parlement of Dijon 2, 53, 69; see also parlements Parlement of Paris; see also parlements Bellarmine condemnation 178-89, 193, 196, 206, 211, 213-14, 216, 219, 227 Bologna, opposition to Concordat of 15, 94 Chastel assassination attempt 2, 44-8, 64, 155-6, 163 condemnation of Chastel arrêt 151-2, 163, 165 Estates General (1614) first article of the Third Estate 225-8 exile at Tours and Chalons 25-6, 45 Henri's pacification policy, opposition to 17, 19 Jesuits, opposition to 26-7 Paris, arrival in 13, 27 French law, enforcement of 13-14, 81-90, 95, 132-9, 154-170, 177-89, 193-206, 210-211, 235, 243 Henri IV, assassination of 153-6 Jesuits, expulsion of 2, 49-55, 57-8, 69, 82, 85, 95, 161 Jesuits, initial opposition to (1552) 21-22 Jesuits, opposition to rehabilitation of 65, 69, 82-3, 86-9, 91, 102, 104, 176

INDEX

Jesuits, regulation during regency of 151, 153-4, 158-70, 177, 181, 185, 193-206, 210-219, 225-7, 238-9, 243 jurisdiction 103, 157, 177, 178-89, 191-2, 196-206, 210-219, 234, 243 Mariana condemnation 159—72, 179, 181, 193, 196, 206, 211, 213, 215-17, 227 Nantes, Edict of 60-61, 92-3 Pyramid 57-8, 107, 132-9 regency government 155, 178-189, 206, 214 regicide 8, 44-9, 132-9, 150-170, 177, 178-89, 210-219, 243 Rouen, Edict of 78-80, 82, 84-96, 99, 102, 132-7, 159, 185 Suarez condemnation 210-220, 225, 227, 238-9 traditionalist parlementaires 16-17 University of Paris court case (1564) 22-3, 27 University of Paris court case (1594) 27-43 University of Paris court case (161011) 172-3, 214, 219 court hearing 192-8 oath 195-207, 226 polemic surrounding 173-8, 184 renewal of 191-2 suspension of 178 Parlement of Pau 115; see also parlements Parlement of Rennes 2; see also parlements Parlement of Rouen 2; see also parlements Parlement of Toulouse 53, 64, 123, 190; see also parlements parlements 103, 105, 108 Parsons, Robert (SJ) 152 Pasquier, Etienne 16, 22—6, 31—2, 36, 80-81, 131 Paul V 118, 149, 151, 189, 199-200, 211-12, 218-19

273

Petit, Jean 137, 156, 158, 162 Phillip II (King of Spain) 82 Phillip III (King of Spain) 160 Pithou, François 142 Plaix, César de 131 Popian, Siméon-Étienne de (Bishop) 126 Potier, René (Bishop) 192 Pyramid 57-8, 107, 132-9 Rapin, Nicholas 17 Ravaillac, François 8, 147-8, 150, 152-5, 167, 176, 180 regency government 5, 8; see also Medici authority 149-50, 172, 178-189, 206 court nobility 149-50 Huguenots 149 Jesuits 144, 164-7, 170-173, 178, 191, 196, 214, 243 papacy 218-19 Parlement of Paris 154, 164-7, 178-89, 214, 218 Spain, war with 149 regicide, see tyrannicide Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis (Cardinal) 1 Richeome, Louis (SJ) 115, 120-121, 138 Richer, Emond 157-8, 160, 169, 173, 190-192, 197-8, 200, 205, 207, 212, 232, 235 Rieux,Renede 112 Roman Inquisition, see papacy Rouen, Edict of 2, 77-81, 84-7, 92-4, 98-110, 112-13, 121, 123, 132-4 136-7, 140, 143-4, 151, 159, 164, 176, 185, 193, 195-6, 203, 206, 226, 230-231 Roussel, Michel 170 royal authority 'absolute' monarchy 3, 95, 178-89, 194-5, 210-211, 221-2, 224, 241 arcana imperil 18, 58, 68, 76, 241

274

Baroque political theory 3, 58, 60, 69, 75-6, 95, 241 clemency Henry IV's offer to Parisians 12-13 Jesuits 2, 6, 64-70, 76, 78-86, 89-92, 95-6, 104, 109, 133-5, 241-2 opposition to royal clemency 6, 13, 19-20, 35, 80-84, 88-9, 133-5 royal clemency to Leaguers 17-19, 46, 51, 81, 84, 86 theories behind royal clemency 18-19, 71, 76, 85-86, 89-91, 95 coup d'etat 94 French law 5-6, 17-19, 60, 66-8, 95, 178-89 inscrutable decision making 6, 58, 69, 71-8, 83-6, 89-91, 94-5, 104, 132-9, 241 neo-stoic ideas 60, 69 personal judgment abrogation of Protestant faith 71-2, 241 assertion of 70-71, 83-6, 89-91, 95-6, 104, 135, 183, 232, 241 regency, limitation on during 149-50, 172, 178-89 rehabilitation of the Jesuits 6, 72-6, 78-86, 89-96, 104, 109, 133-5, 172, 185, 241-2 Rubens, Peter Paul 209-10 Sâ, Emanuel(SJ)158, 160 Saint Louis, professed house (Paris) 1-2,8,31, 142-3, 240 Sainte Union, see League Savary, Jean (sieur de Brèves) 85 Savoy, war between France and 62, 68, 118 Scaliger, Joseph-Juste 130 Scribanus, Carolus (SJ) 158, 160 Séguier, Antoine 38, 41, 50, 161, 163,

INDEX

185-6, 205 Séguier family 112 Séguier, Pierre 21-2, 50 Seguirán, Gaspard de 114 Servin, Louis 16, 93, 158, 165, 172, 178-84, 186-8, 190, 193-200, 203, 205, 211-16 Silingardi, Gasparo (Nuncio) 65, 67 Sillery, sieur de, see Brûlait Sixtus V 179 Society of Jesus, see Jesuits Sorbonne, see University of Paris Faculty of Theology Sourdis, François d'Escoubleau de (Cardinal) 126 Spain 30, 34, 118 assassination of Henri IV 148-9 Catholic church 118-23 colonial empire 122 France, war with 51-52, 59, 147-9 Jesuits 23-4, 26-9, 31, 33, 35-6, 52-5, 109, 120-121 League 20-21 marriages 237 tyrannicide theory 152, 160, 162, 164, 211 Suarez, Francisco (SJ) 210-220, 224-5, 227, 236, 238-9 Sully, duc de, see Béthune Thou, Jacques-Auguste de 17, 38, 41, 48, 133-9, 158, 165, 172, 196, 232 Thumery, Jean de 17 Toledo, Francesco (Cardinal, SJ) 169 Trent, Council of 7, 102 tyrannicide; see also Barrière, Chastel, Gerson, Gallicanism, Jesuits, Mariana, Parlement of Paris, Petit, Ravaillac, Sâ, Scribanus, Suarez, Franciso constitutional theories 152, 159-60, 162 French law 44-7, 154-170, 178-89, 221-2 Jesuits

INDEX

confession 196 constitutional theory 152, 159-60, 162, 179, 211-12 League 34 opponents of 168-70 promoters of 34, 158-9, 163, 174-8 rehabilitation in France 85, 88, 101 theorists 151-52, 158-170, 210-212 League 34, 45 papal authority direct 152, 157, 163, 165, 180, 194, 197, 211-12, 238 indirect 152, 165, 179-80, 194, 197, 211-12, 238 Parlement of Paris, opposition to 8, 45-9, 154-70, 178-89, 210-212 Protestant theories 45 Pyramid 132-9 University of Paris 156-8 Ubaldini, Roberto (Nuncio) 138, 164-6, 169, 178, 184, 187, 190-191, 198-202, 204-5, 212, 214-15, 218-19, 223-4 University of Paris 90, 112, 140, 180, 212; see also Richer, Emond Faculty of Theology Bellarmine 180 Council of Constance 156-7 Jesuit court case (1610-11) 172-3, 191 Jesuit oath 197, 199, 201, 203 Mariana 159, 161-2 Servin's four points 198

275

tyrannicide 156-8, 169 loyalty to the monarchy 235 Jesuits, court case against (1564) 22-3, 27 Jesuits, court case against (1594) 27-43, 46, 48-9 Jesuits, court case against (1610-11) 172-3, 214, 216, 219 court hearing 192-8 oath 195-207, 226 polemic surrounding 173-8, 184 renewal of 191-2 suspension of 178 Jesuits, initial opposition to (1552) 22 Jesuit, teaching in Paris 203, 231-2 reform of 232 Ursulines 129-30 Valernod, Pierre (Bishop) 127 Valois, Louis de (duc d'Orléans) 156 Valois, Marguerite de 62 Varade, Ambroise (SJ) 13, 24 Venice Interdict Crisis 118, 137-8, 150-151 Jesuits 109, 122, 234 Verdun, Nicholas de 189-91, 197-9, 214, 216 Vervins, Peace of 59, 62, 118 Vic family 112 Villeroy, sieur de, see Neufville Xavier, Francis (SJ) 1, 119-20 Zamet family 112