When the President of the Parlement found these weighty and irregular
documents thrown into the scale, he temporised. The suit was suspended;
the Jesuits were provisionally allowed to teach. In the following
year, however, the University appealed to the Constable of France,
complaining that the professors were unable to keep discipline, as
a pupil went to the Jesuits the moment he was reprimanded. Then two
singular discoveries were made by the Jesuits, and they had the effect
of disarming many of their patriotic opponents. In 1567, Father Oliver
Manares, the Provincial, informed the court and the civic authorities
of Paris that the Huguenots had concerted a plot to sack and burn the
city; he had learned it from a Polish noble, who was visiting Paris and
had been warned to leave in time.[5] Paris flew to arms and scared the
supposed plotters; it was also grateful to Father Manares, and incensed
against the Huguenots. In the same year, Father Auger was fortunate
enough to discover a similar plot at Lyons. There is evidence of a
conspiracy at Lyons, but the historian must regard the "discovery"
of Manares with grave suspicion. The effect of the discoveries was
that the grateful King at once ordered that all opposition to the
Jesuits must cease, and all legacies to the Society must be valid in
law; and that the Catholics were soon ranged against the Huguenots in
open field. The ablest of the Jesuits, Auger and Possevin, ardently
stimulated the Catholics, accompanied the troops, and were even seen in
the thick of the battles.
A peace was arranged in 1570, to the disappointment of the Jesuits;
and the country still enjoyed this precarious peace when Alessandrini
and Borgia reached the court, at Blois, in the first month of 1572. In
regard to the discussions which took place we know only that France
declared itself unable to join in the crusade against the Turk, and
Charles's sister, Mary of Valois, was promised to Henri de Béarn
instead of to Sebastian of Spain, as the Pope wished. Alessandrini and
Borgia went back to Rome, to announce their failure to the dying Pope.
And on 24th August of that year took place the horrible massacre which
lays an eternal stain on the memory of Catherine de Medici. We have,
fortunately, neither to linger over the revolting details of that
outrage, nor to enter the larger controversy as to the responsibility
for it.[6] The general feeling of historians is that the massacre was
deliberately planned by Catherine; and, since the Jesuits had influence
with Catherine, we have to consider whether they may have been
implicated in the barbaric slaughter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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