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ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
Provence, the news from Lyons and the corpses that came down in the poisoned waters of the Rhone a wakened nothing but horror and compassion. 1 Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham that in England "the minds of the most number are much alienated from that nation, even of the very Papists." 2 At Rome itself Zuñiga pronounced the treachery of which the French were boasting unjustifi- able, even in the case of heretics and rebels; 3 and it was felt as an outrage to public opinion when the murderer of Coligny was presented to the Pope.' The Emperor was filled with grief and indignation. He said that the King and Queen-mother would live to learn that nothing could have been more iniquitously contrived or executed: his uncle Charles V., and his father Ferdinand, had made war on the Protestants, but they had never been guilty of so cruel an act. 5 At that moment Maximilian was seeking the crown of Poland for his son; and the events in France were a weapon in his hands against his rival, Anjou. Even the Czar of Muscovy, Ivan the Terrible, replying to his letters, protested that all Christian princes must lament the barbarous and needless shedding of so much innocent blood. It was not the rivalry of the moment that animated Maximilian. His whole life proves him to have been an enemy of violence and cruelty; and his celebrated letter to Schwendi, written long after, shows that his judgment remained unchanged. It was the Catholic Emperor who roused the Lutheran Elector of Saxony to something like resentment of the butchery in France. 6
1 S(lmmaire de la Pélonie commise à Lyon. A contemporary tract reprinted by Gonon, 1848, p, 221. 2 On this point Smith may be trusted rather than Parker (Corresþondence, p. 399)' 3 Bulletills de Bruxelles, xvi. 249, 4 Qui è venuto queUo che dette l' archibusata all' ammiraglio di Francia, et è stato condotto dal Cardinal di Lorena et daU' Ambasciator di Francia, al papa, A molti non è piaciuto che costui sia venuto in Roma (Prospero Count Arco to the Emperor, Rome, Nov, IS, 1572; Vienna Archives), 5 Zuñiga to Philip, March 4, 1573; Arch. de l'Empire, K. 153 1 , B. 35, 70. Zuñiga heard it from Lorraine, 6 Et est toute la dispute encores sur les derniers évènemens de la France, contre lesquels l'Electeur est beaucoup plus aigre qu'il n'estoyt à mon aultre voyage, depuys qu'il a esté en l'escole à Vienne (Schomberg to Brulart, May 12, 1573; Groen. iv, App, 76).
