CHAP. IX.

EVENTS AT NEWFOUNDLAND.

115

natives, who were becoming very hostile. The country, he said, did not seem very fertile, and there were no mines of precious stones and valuable minerals. A few "diamonds"-quartz crystals-which he had gathered, and a small quantity of gold, were all that he had to show of mineral wealth, and he advised De la Roque to go no further, for he could never make a colony on the St. Lawrence profitable to himself or his king. The Viceroy regarded this advice as selfish, believing Cartier's object to be to bear all the honor of his discoveries, and the glory of founding a new empire, himself. De la Roque therefore determined to go on, and ordered Cartier to go with him to the St. Lawrence, not doubting that their united forces might overawe the Indians and secure peace and prosperity. But the Pilot resolved not to submit to the Viceroy. With apparent compliance with the commands of his superior, he returned to his ship. At twilight he secretly conferred with the captains of his two other vessels, and at midnight, when the heavens were cloudy and moonless and the darkness was intense, he escaped from the harbor with his little squadron and sailed for St. Malo. Cartier was then about fifty years of age, and seems to have abandoned the sea, for he afterward lived quietly at St. Malo and at a little village near, alternately. When and where he died is not known. It is believed that he lived in comparative poverty, and died soon after his return from his third voyage to Canada.

Toward the end of June, De la Roque left Newfoundland for the St. Lawrence, passing through the straits of Belle Isle. He did not stop at Quebec, for he found the natives very hostile, as Cartier had told him they were. He went further up the river, probably to the place where the Pilot's vessels were anchored when he sent the two ships back to France the previous year. There De la Roque built a fort, but there is no record of what else he did in Canada, excepting that he and his companions suffered severely during the following winter, and early in June, 1543, made an exploring voyage to the Saguenay, where one of his vessels was lost. In the autumn of that year he returned to France. Finding his king again warring fiercely with his old enemy Charles, against whose empire he had hurled five different armies at as many points, the Viceroy abandoned all projects of foreign colonization and re-entered the military service in which he had often before distinguished himself. Six years later, when Francis was dead (having perished because of his personal excesses at the age of fifty-three years), and Henry the Second, who had married Catharine de Medici, was on the throne of France, the Lord of Robertval again sailed for the St. Lawrence, and was never heard of afterward.

CHAPTER X.

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION~~THE

HUGUENOTS OR FRENCH

PROTESTANTS---COLIGNI AND CATHARINE DE MEDICI-PERMISSION GRANTED FOR A FRENCH PROTESTANT SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA A SETTLEMENT PLANTED ON THE COAST OF SOUTH CAROLINA THE COLONY NEGLECTED-HELPED BY THE NATIVESA HUGUENOT COLONY IN FLORIDA-FRIENDSHIP OF THE NATIVES-THEY BUILD A FORT ON THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER-APPEARANCE THERE OF A SPANISH FLEET-THE COLONISTS WARNED CONCERNING IT-THE SPANIARDS LAND AT THE SITE OF ST. AUGUSTINE-FRUITLESS EXPEDITION AGAINST THEM.

N

OW was the period of those earnest theological discussions and intense theological antagonisms in Europe, known as the Era of the Reformation. There had been a revolt in Germany, led by Luther and Melancthon, against the Italian hierarchy or rulers in the Christian Church whose head was the Bishop or Pope of Rome. A similar revolt had broken out in Switzerland, led by Zuingliss. It was a movement in favor of intellectual liberty-the perfect equality of all men, in Church and State, in the exercise of the inalienable rights of private judgment in matters of religion and politics. When, at a Diet or Congress held at Spires, in 1529 (at which Luther and several princes who were in sympathy with him appeared), the Church, by a decree, was made master in both spiritual and temporal affairs, the reformers entered a solemn protest. So they acquired for their party the name of protest-ants, or PROTESTANTS. They found the Church so strong that they soon afterward formed a league for mutual defence, and so first organized the Reformation as an aggressive moral power. This led to theological and political combinations which resulted, twenty-five years later, in the freedom of the Germans from the domination of the Italian Church. So popular were the doctrines of the reformers, in Germany, that as early as 1558 not more than one-tenth of the people there were adherents of the Church of 'Rome.

But that Church was not disposed to yield its supremacy without a struggle, and it put forth all its energies for the maintenance of its power. By the mighty agencies of its traditions, its vantage-ground of possession, the Order of Jesuits which it had just created, and the Inquisition which it had re-established with new powers, its warfare was keen and terrible, and its

CHAP. X.

COLIGNI AND CATHARINE DE MEDICI.

117

victories were many. Those of its enemies were postponed. In the heat of that conflict, which has continued ever since, have been evolved the representative government, the free institutions, and the liberty, equality and fraternity which are the birth-rights of every American citizen of whatever hue or creed.

In France the Reformation met enemies in the court, the Church and a majority of the people, and its progress was slow and fitful. John Calvin was the chief reformer, and was ban

ished. He took refuge in Switzerland, where he died in 1564. But he left devoted followers in France. Among these, Admiral Coligni, a favorite of Catharine de Medici when she was acting regent, was one of the most conspicuous leaders of the Huguenots, as the French Protestants were called. All parties admired him for his valor and his virtues and his eminent deeds in the service of his country. He persuaded Catharine to attempt to reconcile, by a conference, the con tending religious factions. He failed When the peace conference ended in a quarrel, war ensued. The Duke of Guise, a descendant of Charle magne, and claimant of the French throne, whom Catherine feared and hated, led the Roman Catholics. The Prince of Condé led the Protestants. The latter being greatly in the minority suffered much. Grieved because of their forlorn condition, Coligni resolved to procure an asylum for them in the milder regions of North America, far removed from civilized men, where they might enjoy perfect religious and civil freedom, unmolested by foreign powers or hostile factions.

Dangy

MARTIN LUTHER.

Coligni sought an audience with Catharine. It was readily granted. That proud and unprincipled daughter of Lorenzo de Medici, was then a little more than forty years of age, stout and fair, and was wielding power

with a prodigal hand. Coligni found her seated on a rich divan covered with blue damask satin. On her head was a coronet sparkling with a single large diamond. Around her plump neck glittered a circlet of gold and pearls, emeralds and rubies. She wore a skirt of gold embroidered white silk, and over this a rich robe of royal purple velvet, trimmed with a narrow band of ermine at the front and bottom, and with a close-fitting bodice edged at the top with rich lace. Her full puffed sleeves were of the finest linen and lace, with brilliant gems at the wrists. A gold chain fastened at her bosom with a diamond brooch extended to her feet and terminated in a golden cross studded with seed pearls. Near her, and playing with a fawncolored Italian greyhound, was her royal son, who had lately ascended the throne of France as Charles the Ninth. The king's hair hung in ringlets about his shoulders, for he was a boy only ten or twelve years of age, and his fair complexion was heightened by his rich suit of royal purple velvet, with slashed sleeves, revealing white linen beneath. Only a single minister of state was present, and he and a young woman, a court favorite and cousin of the King of Navarre, who sat by a vine-trailed window embroidering, were the only companions of royalty when the Admiral entered the room.

Coligni was tall, elegant in figure and deportment, grave in aspect, with flowing hair and beard slightly streaked with gray, for he was about fortyfive years of age. He was dressed in the uniform of his rank, and carried in his hand a rich green velvet cap, bearing a long ostrich plume. His doublet of crimson velvet with short skirt was sprinkled with golden lilies, and encircled with a belt from which depended a straight sword. The sleeves terminated at the elbows, and the rest of the arm to the wrist was covered with embroidered linen. His trunk-hose of velvet extended to the middle of the thighs, and was slashed and elegantly embroidered with gold thread. Up to this, tight-fitting stockings wrought of fine white wool, extended, and on his feet were buskins of polished russet leather, sparkling with diamond buttons that fastened silk rosettes to the insteps. From his shoulders hung an open short Spanish cloak of blue velvet, and around his neck was a modest ruff. A massive gold chain, bearing the Order of St. Louis, was seen upon his breast. Such was the group who appeared in the audience-chamber of the Regent of France, late in the year 1561, to confer upon the subject of discoveries, and the planting of a Protestant colony in America.

That conference was short. In few words Coligni set forth the happiness which the carrying out of his scheme would confer upon his suffering countrymen; and he dwelt specially upon the fact that it might redound to the glory of France. Catharine, who was a pauper in moral and religious convictions, and had espoused the cause of the Protestants only as a measure

CHAP. X.

COLIGNI'S EXPEDITION TO FLORIDA.

IIQ

of state policy, was then the friend of Coligni. She readily granted all that he desired, in the name of the little king then playing with the greyhound; and the child's signature, hardly legible, was afterward placed to the charter given to the admiral, by which he was authorized to send an expedition to Florida and establish a colony there.

Coligni lost no time in making use of his privilege. He quickly fitted out two vessels of the character of Spanish caravels, chiefly for a voyage of discovery, and placed them under the

command of John Ribault, an experienced mariner of Dieppe, who was an earnest Protestant. Ribault sailed from Havre de Grace on the 18th of February, 1562, with sailors and soldiers, and a few gentlemen of fortune who were prompted by curiosity, the love of adventure, or the prospect of gain, to accompany him. They arrived off the coast of Anastacia. Island (it is supposed) below the site of St. Augustine, at the close of April. Sailing along the "sweet-smelling coast" northward, the two vessels entered the broad mouth of the River St. John, where the company landed and were most kindly received by the natives. The Frenchmen were delighted with everything-the soft climate; the sweetest blossoms; the magnificent trees festooned from root to top with grape-vines; birds of gay plumage and sweetest notes; and mulberry trees, on "the boughs of which were silkworms in marvelous numbers," and with people of finest forms and kindliest natures. They seemed to have entered a paradise. "It is a thing unspeakable," wrote Captain Ribault, "to consider the things that be seen there, and shall be found more and more in this incomparable land, which, never yet broken with plough irons, bringeth forth all things according to its first nature, wherewith the eternal God endowed it.”

D.

DUKE OF GUISE,

Under the shadow of a wide-spreading magnolia tree laden with blossoms at the edge of a green savannah, with half-naked men, women and children, painted and decorated with gold and pearls-wondering sun-worshippers