d by their frequent recurrence, and not less by the
new series of sanguinary laws running through the reign of Henry. An
edict from Paris, on the nineteenth of November, 1549, endeavored to
remove all excuse for remissness on the part of the prelates, by
conferring on the ecclesiastical judges the unheard-of privilege of
arresting for the crime of heresy, the exclusive right of passing
judgment upon simple heresy, and conjoint jurisdiction with the civil
courts in cases in which public scandal, riot, or sedition might be
involved.[569] Less than two years later, when Henry, uniting with
Maurice of Saxony and Albert of Brandenburg, received the title of
Defender of the Empire against Charles the Fifth, and was on the point
of making war on Pope Julius the Third, he issued an edict forbidding
his subjects, under severe penalties, from carrying gold or silver to
Rome.[570] But, to convince the world of his orthodoxy, he chose the
same time for the publication of a new and more truculent measure, known
as the _Edict of Chateaubriand_ (on the twenty-seventh of June, 1551),
directed against the reformed.[571] This notable law reiterated the old
complaint of the ill-success of previous efforts, and the statement of
the impossibility of attaining the desired end save by diligent care and
rigorous procedure. Its most striking peculiarity was that it committed
the trial of heretics to the newly appointed "presidial" judges, whose
sentence, when ten counsellors had been associated with them, was to be
final.[572] Thus was it contemplated to put an end to the vexatious
delays by means of which the trial of many a reputed "Lutheran" had been
protracted and not a few of the hated sect had in the end escaped. But
the large number of additional articles exhibit in a singular manner the
extent to which the doctrines of the Reformation had spread, the means
of their diffusion, and the method by which it was hoped that they might
be eradicated. Prominent among the provisions appear those that relate
to the products of the press. Evidently the Cardinal of Lorraine and the
other advisers of the king were of the same mind with the great advocate
of unlicensed printing, when he said: "Books are not absolutely dead
things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that
soul was whose progeny they are.... I know they are as lively and as
vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown
up and down, may chan