But it was Pope Gregory XIII.above all who manifested the keenest satisfaction.He had a medal struck to commemorate the happy event,[2] ordered joy-fires to be lit and cannon fired, celebrated several masses, and sent for the painter Vasari to depict on the walls of the Vatican the principal scenes of carnage.Further, he sent to the King of France an ambassador instructed to felicitate that monarch upon his fine action.It is historical details of this kind that enable us to comprehend the mind of the believer.The Jacobins of the Terror had a mentality very like that of Gregory XIII.
[2] The medal must have been distributed pretty widely, for the cabinet of medals at the Bibliotheque Nationale possesses three examples: one in gold, one in silver, and one in copper.
This medal, reproduced by Bonnani in his Numism.Pontific.
1
(The word strages may be translated by carnage or massacre, a sense which it possesses in Cicero and Livy; or again by disaster, ruin, a sense attributed to it in Virgil and Tacitus.)Naturally the Protestants were not indifferent to such a hecatomb, and they made such progress that in 1576 Henri III.was reduced to granting them, by the Edict of Beaulieu, entire liberty of worship, eight strong places, and, in the Parliaments, Chambers composed half of Catholics and half of Huguenots.
These forced concessions did not lead to peace.A Catholic League was created, having the Duke of Guise at its head, and the conflict continued.But it could not last for ever.We know how Henri IV.put an end to it, at least for a time, by his abjuration in 1593, and by the Edict of Nantes.
The struggle was quieted but not terminated.Under Louis XIII.
the Protestants were still restless, and in 1627 Richelieu was obliged to besiege La Rochelle, where 15,000 Protestants perished.Afterwards, possessing more political than religious feeling, the famous Cardinal proved extremely tolerant toward the Reformers.
This tolerance could not last.Contrary beliefs cannot come into contact without seeking to annihilate each other, as soon as one feels capable of dominating the other.Under Louis XIV.the Protestants had become by far the weaker, and were forced to renounce the struggle and live at peace.Their number was then about 1,200,000, and they possessed more than 600 churches, served by about 700 pastors.The presence of these heretics on French soil was intolerable to the Catholic clergy, who endeavoured to persecute them in various ways.As these persecutions had little result, Louis XIV.resorted to dragonnading them in 1685, when many individuals perished, but without further result.Under the pressure of the clergy, notably of Bossuett, the Edict of Nantes was revoked, and the Protestants were forced to accept conversion or to leave France.
This disastrous emigration lasted a long time, and is said to have cost France 400,000 inhabitants, men of notable energy, since they had the courage to listen to their conscience rather than their interests.
6.The results of Religious Revolutions.
If religious revolutions were judged only by the gloomy story of the Reformation, we should be forced to regard them as highly disastrous.But all have not played a like part, the civilising influence of certain among them being considerable.
By giving a people moral unity they greatly increase its material power.We see this notably when a new faith, brought by Mohammed, transforms the petty and impotent tribes of Arabia into a formidable nation.
Such a new religious belief does not merely render a people homogeneous.It attains a result that no philosophy, no code ever attained: it sensibly transforms what is almost unchangeable, the sentiments of a race.
We see this at the period when the most powerful religious revolution recorded by history overthrew paganism to substitute a God who came from the plains of Galilee.The new ideal demanded the renunciation of all the joys of existence in order to acquire the eternal happiness of heaven.No doubt such an ideal was readily accepted by the poor, the enslaved, the disinherited who were deprived of all the joys of life here below, to whom an enchanting future was offered in exchange for a life without hope.But the austere existence so easily embraced by the poor was also embraced by the rich.In this above all was the power of the new faith manifested.
Not only did the Christian revolution transform manners: it also exercised, for a space of two thousand years, a preponderating influence over civilisation.Directly a religious faith triumphs all the elements of civilisation naturally adapt themselves to it, so that civilisation is rapidly transformed.Writers, artists and philosophers merely symbolise, in their works, the ideas of the new faith.
When any religious or political faith whatsoever has triumphed, not only is reason powerless to affect it, but it even finds motives which impel it to interpret and so justify the faith in question, and to strive to impose it upon others.There were probably as many theologians and orators in the time of Moloch, to prove the utility of human sacrifices, as there were at other periods to glorify the Inquisition, the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, and the hecatombs of the Terror.
We must not hope to see peoples possessed by strong beliefs readily achieve tolerance.The only people who attained to toleration in the ancient world were the polytheists.The nations which practise toleration at the present time are those that might well be termed polytheistical, since, as in England and America, they are divided into innumerable sects.
Under identical names they really adore very different deities.
The multiplicity of beliefs which results in such toleration finally results also in weakness.We therefore come to a psychological problem not hitherto resolved: how to possess a faith at once powerful and tolerant.
The foregoing brief explanation reveals the large part played by religious revolutions and the power of beliefs.Despite their slight rational value they shape history, and prevent the peoples from remaining a mass of individuals without cohesion or strength.Man has needed them at all times to orientate his thought and guide his conduct.No philosophy has as yet succeeded in replacing them.
