126
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
The French churches had often resounded with furious declamations; and they after\vards rang with canticles of unholy joy. But the French clergy does not figure prominently in the inception or the execution of the sanguinary decree. Conti, a, contemporary indeed, but too distant for accurate knowledge, relates that the parish priest ,vent round, marking with a white cross the dwellings of the people who were doomed. 1 He is contradicted by the municipal Registers of Paris. 2 Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, though he had resigned the seals which he received from L'Hôpital, still occupied the first place at the royal council. He was consulted at the last moment, and it is said that he nearly fainted with horror. He recovered, and gave his opinion with the rest. He is the only French prelate, except the cardinals, whose com- plicity appears to be ascertained. But at Orleans, where the bloodshed was more dreadful in proportion than at Paris, the signal is said to have been given, not by the bishop, but by the King's preacher, Sorbin. Sorbin is the only priest of the capital who is distinctly associated with the act of the Government. It was his opinion that God has ordained that no mercy shall be shown to heretics, that Charles was bound in conscience to do what he did, and that leniency would have been as censurable in his case as precipitation was in that of Theodosius. What the Calvinists called perfidy and cruelty seemed to him nothing but generosity and kind- ness. s These were the sentiments of the man from \vhose hands Charles IX. received the last consolations of his religion. It has been related that he \vas tortured in his last moments with remorse for the blood he had shed. His spiritual adviser \vas fitted to dispel such scruples. He tells us that he heard the last confession of the dying
1 Natalis Comes, Historiae sui temporis, 512, 2 Capefigue, iii. 15 0 , 3 Pourront-ils arguer de trahison Ie feu roy, qu'ils blasphèment luy donnant Ie nom de tyran, veu qu'il n'a rien entrepris et exécuté que ce qu'il pfJllvoit faire par l'expresse parole de Dieu . . . Dieu cornman de qu'on ne pardonne en façoIl que ce soit aux inventeurs ou sectateurs de nouvelles opinions ou hérésies. ' , . Ce que vous estimez cruauté estre plutôt vraye magnanimité et doulceur (Sorbin, Le Vra.y resveille-matin des Calvinistes J 157 6 , pp, 7 2 , 74. 78),
