Jean du Tillet and the French Wars of Religion: Five Tracts, 1562-1569.

As greffier civil [civil clerk] of the Parlement of Paris from 1530 until 1570, Jean du Tillet had a uniquely privileged vantage point from which to observe the making and execution of policy in France during the tumultuous period in which the monarchy struggled to contend with the growing problems of religious schism and political factionalism. Charged with recording the civil proceedings of Parlement, Du Tiller also assumed the tasks of verifying the royal edicts registered by the court and drafting remonstrances to be delivered to the king. In addition, at the request of Henry II and Charles IX, he compiled a series of Recueils that collected and analyzed royal ordonnances and other texts pertinent to the history of the French crown and its prerogatives. If his official tasks required him to silence his own voice in order to speak in the name of France's highest sovereign court, this did not reduce Du Tillet to the role of a passive observer of the events that took place around him. Quite the contrary; in private, he wrote passionate and very personal responses to these same events. The five tracts published here, none of which has previously appeared in print, greatly enrich our understanding of the climate of opinion among members of Parlement during the mid-sixteenth century. Written between the beginning of the first War of Religion in the spring of 1562 and the end of the third war in August 1570, they display the reactions of a hard-line Catholic opposed to any compromise with religious dissidents. As Brown points out, Du Tillet's "dedication to what he believed to be orthodox, pure Catholicism exceeded that of many of his contemporaries, including the king and queen mother whom he served" (61). He was by no means alone, however, in the hard-line tactics he advocated. Rather, his opinions were shared not only by a number of his professional colleagues but also by a great many of his countrymen at all social levels.

The fourth tract, concerning the peace that would end the second war, offers a good sample of Du Tillet's sentiments. Addressed to the king (though Brown has found no evidence that it was ever presented to him [64]), it calls upon him to recognize that a king is "responsible to God for [his] subjects' infidelity" and insists that the only way to punish this infidelity is "to crush the rebels through open, fierce warfare, and without mercy" (140). "The rebels will not submit unless they are humiliated in war," Du Tiller insists, and he warns that the compromise peace made after the first war has weakened the allegiance of the king's Catholic subjects (140-41). The fifth tract echoes these themes but focuses particularly on legal measures that would weaken the rebels through the confiscation of their property. It also advocates "permitting Catholics to form leagues and associations against the rebels in each province, under leaders selected by the king" (166). The advice is prophetic, and also ironic. Du Tillet, who died in 1570, did not foresee that the Catholic League, once founded, would be used against the crown and not in its defense.

Historians can be grateful to Elizabeth A.R. Brown for recognizing the great interest of these writings and also for presenting them in this scrupulously edited and annotated volume. Brown's English-language summaries of these tracts are so extensive as to be virtual translations. Her introduction places the documents into historical context with admirable brevity, and her extensive citations display a thorough knowledge of relevant source materials and secondary works.

BARBARA B. DIEFENDORF Boston University