RELIGIOUS WARS.

Macon is a city of France upon the Saone, in the duchy of Burgundy. Caesar mentions it, who calls it Matisco. About five hundred years ago, by an ordinary transposition of letters, Matisco was changed into Mastico, from whence came the name Mascon, which is now pronounced Macon. This city was treated cruelly during the disorders which the wars about religion produced in France in the 16th century. The Reformed set up a church there in 1560, and they multiplied there so fast, that they easily made themselves masters of the city, when the massacre at Vassi obliged them to consult their own safety. It was about the beginning of May, 1562, that they made themselves masters of it, without much violence or effusion of blood. Three days after, they heard that the images were broken down in the city of Lyons, and it was impossible for the ministers and elders of the city to hinder the common people of Macon from doing the like, and from that time the exercise of the Romish religion was suppressed there. Tavannes made several attempts to retake this city, but without success: at last, by the help of secret intelligence, he surprized it, August 19, 1562. He made himself master of it, after some hot skirmishes with the inhabitants in the streets. All sorts of plunderings and cruelties were committed, and then

happened the celebrated leaps of Macon. I shall use the very words of the historian: Beza, Hist. Eccles. lib. xv. pag. 429. ⁶⁰ “The exercise of the Romish religion was presently restored there, and the priests and monks returned to their former state, together with the brothel houses. To complete the misfortunes, St Poinct, a man of a sanguinary and cruel temper, ( whose mother had declared in open court, to clear her conscience, that he was the son of a priest, whom she named ) was left by Tavannes, governor of the city, who for his pastime, after he had feasted the ladies, was used to ask whether the force, which was from that time called ‘ the force of St Poinct was ready to be acted. This was, as it were, the watch word, upon which his people were wont to bring out of prison one or two prisoners, and sometimes more, whom they carried to the bridge of the Saone; and he being there with the ladies, after he had asked them some ’pretty and pleasant questions, he caused them to be thrown down headlong, and drowned in the river. It was also a usual thing to give false alarms, and upon that pretence to drown or shoot some prisoner, or any other whom he could catch, of the reformed religion, charging them with a design to betray the city.” He was killed by one Achon, with whom he quarrelled, as he was returning from his house near the city, whither he had carried about 20,000 crowns of plunder. It was a little after the pacification of the month of March, 1563. D’Aubigné D’Aubig. Hist. tom. i. page 216. ⁶¹ admirably describes the barbarity of the man, under the picture of a school, wherein, during the last service at table, while the fruit and sweetmeats are eating, the young men and maids were taught to see the Huguenots put to death without pity. He says elsewhere, “that St Poinct played the buffoon at the execution of his cruelties, and that, at the conclusion of his feasts, he entertained the ladies with the pleasure of seeing some persons leap from the bridge into the water.” The conduct of this governor was much more cruel than that of Lucius Flaminius, who gave order, during the time of dinner, that a criminal should be put to death in his presence, to please the object of his infamous amours, who had never seen any person killed. Plutarch in Flamin. p. 379. ⁶² But on the other side, the conduct of these ladies of Macon was much more to be blamed than that of the vestals, whom a Christian poet has so much censured for the pleasure they took in seeing the gladiators killed.

. . . . . . . . . . . consurgit ad ictus:
Et quoties victor ferrum jugulo inserit ilia,
Delicias, ait esse suas, petusque jacentis
Virgo modesta jubet con verso pollice rumpi.

Prudentius, lib. ii. in Symmach. ver. 1095.

Nor turns the modest virgin from the sight,
But, with strange cruelty, enjoys the light,
And, when at length she sees the prostrate foe,
By signals bids the victor strike the blow.

I doubt not but St Poinct alleged, in his excuse, the leaps of the soldiers of Montbrison by Des Adrets, See the Article Partizans. ⁶³ as the latter pleaded in his excuse the cruelties that were exercised at Orange. Thus we see how one bad example draws on another, almost without end: “abyssus abyssum invocat;” wherefore they are most to blame who set the example, and in justice they should be punished for all the crimes which follow. D’Aubigné had not well consulted the dates, when he says, “that the baron Des Adrets, being offended with the sacking of Orange, and the throwing men headlong at Mâcon, marched to Pierrelate, made himself master of several towns,

and at last came to Montbrison.” For it appears by Theodore Beza that Pierrelate and other towns had been subdued by Des Adrets before the 26th of June, and that the soldiers of Montbrison leaped the 16th of July, and that Macon was taken by Tavannes the 19th of August.

For the honour of the French name, and of the Christian name, it were to be wished that the memory of these inhuman proceedings had been utterly abolished, and that all the books which mention them had been thrown into the fire. Those who seem to find fault with histories, because they serve only to teach the readers all sorts of crimes, have in some respects much reason to say so, with regard to the history of the religious wars; for it seems well calculated to nourish in the minds of men an irreconcileable hatred, and it astonishes me to see that the French of different religions have lived, since the edicts, in so much brotherly love, though they had continually in their hands the histories of our civil wars, wherein they meet with nothing but sacking of towns, profanation of holy things, massacres, overturning of altars, assassinations, perjuries, and outrageous actions. This good correspondence had been less worthy of admiration, if all private persons had been ignorant of the stories which each party objects to the other. May it not, therefore, be said to me, that I seem to have a design to revive the passions of men, and to add fuel to the fire of hatred, by spreading every where in my work the cruellest actions that the history of the sixteenth century mentions; an abominable century, and, in comparison of which, the present generation might pass for the golden age, as much a stranger as it is to true virtue. It is fit I should clear up this difficulty. I say then, that 1 am so far from having any design to excite in the breasts of my readers these storms of wrath, that I should willingly consent that this sort of events might never be remembered, provided that

by this means every one would learn better things, and do his duty better, without indulging his passions; but as these things are dispersed in a great number of books, I would not lay myself under a restraint, in hopes the affectation of saying nothing of them in this might do any good, and I thought myself at liberty to make use of whatever lay in my way, and to follow the connection there may be between subjects. I ought not to forget either, that as every thing has two handles, so it were to be wished, for very good reasons, that the memory of these terrible barbarities were carefully preserved. Three sorts of persons ought to view them every day, and consider them well. Those who govern should employ a page every morning to say to them: “Disturb no person for his opinions in religion, and extend not the power of the sword over conscience. See what Charles IX and his successor got by it. It is a miracle that the French monarchy was not destroyed by their zeal for the Catholic religion. Such miracles do not happen every day, and depend not upon them. They would not suffer the, edict of January to continue, and after more than thirty years’ desolation, and a torrent of blood, and many thousand perjuries and conflagrations, they were obliged to grant one more favourable.” Those who conduct ecclesiastical affairs are the second sort of people, who ought to remember well the sixteenth century. When they hear any one speak of toleration they fancy they hear a most frightful and monstrous opinion, and to interest the secular power on the side of their passions, they cry, “that this is to deprive the magistrates of the best flower of their crown, if they are not allowed at least to imprison and banish Heretics.” But if they would duly consider what is to be feared from a religious war, they would be more moderate. “You will not,” may we say to them, allow this sect to pray to God in its own way, nor preach its opinions; but take heed, if you come to an open war, lest, instead of speaking or writing against your opinions, they overturn your temples and endanger your own persons. What have you gained in France and Holland by advising persecution? Trust not to your great numbers. Your sovereigns have neighbours, and consequently your sectaries will not want protectors and assistants, though they were Turks. Lastly, let those turbulent divines, who take so much pleasure in innovations, continually have in view the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The reformers were the innocent cause of them, for, according to their principles, there was no medium: they must either suffer the Papists to be damned eternally, or convert them to Protestantism. But that people, who are persuaded that an error does not damn at all, should have no regard to possession, and rather disturb the public peace than suppress their own private opinions, is a thing that cannot be too much detested.

There is no probability that any party should arise among the Protestants to reform their religion after the same manner as they reformed the Romish church, that is, as a religion we must necessarily forsake except we will be damned. Thus the disorders that might be feared from any innovating party, would be less terrible than those of the last century; the animosities would be less violent than at that time, especially since none of the parties could destroy any sensible object of superstition in the other; there would be no topical deities or tutelar] saints to be broken, or coined into money; no reliques to be thrown away, no pixes or altars to be overturned. There might, therefore, be some differences between Protestant and Protestant, without fearing all the outrages that appeared in the quarrels between Protestant and Catholic; but still the mischief would be fatal enough to deserve our endeavours to prevent it.

To conclude, the leaps of Mâcon have been more

immortalized than those of the isle of Caprea. And yet a famous historian has inserted them in his work, and the place was shown as one of the curiosities of the isle. " Carnificinæ ejus (Tiberii) ostenditur locus Capreis, unde damnatos post longa et exquisita tormenta praecipitari coram se in mare jubebat, excipiente classiariorum manu et contis atque remis elidente cadavera, ne cui residui spiritus quidquam in esset.— In Caprea they shew the place where Tiberius exercised his cruelties; when after long and exquisite tortures, he ordered the condemned to be thrown headlong into the sea, a body of mariners receiving them in their falls, and dashing to pieces their bodies with poles and oars, to prevent their escaping alive.” But in short, I do not believe that the ancients are to be compared with the moderns, in transferring the same things from one book to another, and so the leaps of Macon are to be read in more places, and have more monuments for pledges of their immortality than those of the emperor Tiberius. It was not for the credit of those who made use of such a punishment in the sixteenth century that they followed the steps of such a tyrant. Art. Macon.