The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

A grand inquisitor was appointed to take care of the faith in Lyons, and the daily burnings on the Place de Grève went on simultaneously with the preparations in the arsenals, and no less vigorously. Thus the King was enabled to enter on this war with a safe conscience. Montmorency,[57] unwilling always to oppose the Emperor, was compelled, lest he should seem less patriotic than his rivals, to add his voice also in favor of the project that promised the realization of the views of Charles VII and Francis I that the natural boundary of France was the Rhine.

To return to Germany and the Emperor—whose complicated affairs are so entangled with those of France that they cannot be wholly separated, each in some measure forming the complement of the other. The command-in-chief of the German army was given to Maurice of Saxony—an able general, full of resource, daring and dauntless in the field, crafty and cautious in the cabinet as Charles himself. Throughout the winter he secretly assembled troops, preparing to take the field early in the spring, yet adroitly concealing his projects, and lulling into security "the most artful monarch in Europe."

The Emperor had left Augsburg for Innspruck that he might at the same time watch over the council and the affairs of Germany and Italy. He was suffering from asthma, gout, and other maladies, chiefly brought on by his excesses at table, and rendered incurable by his inability to put any restraint on his immoderate appetite.

In his retreat some rumors had reached him that the movements of Maurice of Saxony were suspicious, and that he was raising troops in Transylvania. But he gave little heed to this, or to warnings pressed on him by some of his partisans. For Maurice, to serve his own ambitious views, had in fact, though professing the reformed faith, aided Charles to acquire that power and ascendency, that almost unlimited despotism in Germany he now proposed to overthrow. For his services he had obtained the larger part of the electoral dominions of his unfortunate relative, John Frederick of Saxony, whose release, as also that of the Landgrave, now formed part of his programme for delivering Germany from her fetters ere the imperial despot could—as Maurice saw he was prepared to do—rivet them on her. To renew the Protestant league, to place himself at its head and defy the despot, was more congenial to Maurice's restless, aspiring mind than to play the part of his lieutenant.

The winter passed away without any serious suspicions on Charles' part. To throw him off his guard Maurice had undertaken to subdue the Magdeburgers. The leniency of his conduct toward "those rebels" with whom he was secretly in league did at last excite a doubt in Charles' mind. Maurice was summoned to Innspruck, ostensibly to confer with him respecting the liberation of his father-in-law, the Landgrave of Hesse. But Maurice was far too wary to put himself in his power, and readily found some plausible excuse to delay his journey from time to time. But when, early in March, at the head of twenty-five thousand men, thoroughly equipped, he announced that he was about to set out on his journey, the information was accompanied with a declaration of war. "It was a war," he said, "for the defence of the true religion, its ministers and preachers; for the deliverance of prisoners detained against all faith and justice; to free Germany from her wretched condition, and to oppose the Emperor's completion of that absolute monarchy toward which he had so long been aiming."

To this manifesto was appended another from the King of France. Therein Henry announced himself the "defender of the liberties of Germany, and protector of her captive princes"; further stating "that, broken-hearted [le cœur navre] at the condition of Germany, he could not refuse to aid her, but had determined to do so to the utmost power of his ability, even to personally engaging in this war, undertaken for liberty and not for his personal benefit." This document—written in French—was headed by the representation of a cap between two poniards, and around it the inscription "The Emblem of Liberty." It is said to have been copied from some ancient coins, and to have been appropriated as the symbol of freedom by Cæsar's assassins. Thus singularly was brought to light by a king of the French Renaissance that terrible cap of liberty, before which the ancient crown of France was one day destined to fall.

The declaration of the German princes and that of their ally, the King of France, fell like a thunderbolt on the Emperor—so great was his astonishment and consternation at the events so unexpected. With rapid marches Maurice advanced on Upper Germany, while other divisions of the army, headed by the confederate princes, hastened on toward Tyrol, by way of Franconia and Swabia, everywhere being received with open arms as "Germany's liberators." Maurice reached Augsburg on April 1st, and took possession of that important city—the garrison offering no resistance, and the inhabitants receiving him joyfully. There, as in other towns on his march which had willingly opened their gates to him, the Interim was abolished; the churches restored to the Protestants; the magistrates appointed by the Emperor displaced, and those he had rejected reinstated. Money, too, was freely offered him, and the deficiency in his artillery supplied. At Trent the news that the Protestant princes, joined by several of the Catholics and free states, "had taken up arms for liberty," caused a terrible panic. The fathers of the council, Italian, Spanish, and German, at once made a precipitate retreat, and this famous council, without authority from pope or emperor, dissolved itself, to reassemble only after even a longer interval than before. When Maurice began his march Henry II had joined his army at Châlons, and was on his way to Lorraine. Toul, on his approach, presented the keys of the city to the constable commanding the vanguard—the King afterward making his entry, and receiving the oath of fidelity from the inhabitants, having previously sworn to maintain their rights and privileges inviolate. After this easy conquest the French army continued its march toward Metz. This old free republican city did not so readily as Toul yield to the French. The municipal authorities very politely offered provisions to the army, but declined to deliver the keys of the city to the constable. They were, however, willing to admit the King and the princes who accompanied him within their walls. "Troops were not permitted to enter Metz, whatever their nation." This was one of their privileges.