Coligny, to
appoint impartial judges for this purpose, and to execute exemplary
justice upon the guilty. Not satisfied with claiming the annulling of all
judicial proceedings, the destruction of all monuments erected to
perpetuate the memory of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, and the
abolition of processions instituted by the parliaments of Paris and
Toulouse with the same end in view, they call on Charles to make a
declaration "that justly and for good reasons have 'those of the
religion' taken arms, resisting and warring in these last troubles, as
constrained thereto by the violent acts with which they have been assailed
and driven to distraction." They next demand those concessions which alone
can make the position of the Protestants in France secure and
endurable--freedom of worship and church discipline established by
perpetual provision, irrespective of place or time; the right of honorable
burial; immunity from taxation for the support of Roman Catholic
ceremonies; admission to schools and colleges; just regulations as to
marriage; amnesty; the power to hold civil office, etc. They request
permission to levy a sum of one hundred and twenty thousand livres among
themselves to pay off the indebtedness incurred by them in past wars. And
they go so far as not only to stipulate that the King of France shall
renounce all leagues he may have contracted with the enemies of his
Protestant subjects for their destruction, but even to propose that he
shall conclude a defensive alliance with the Protestant states of Germany,
Switzerland, England, and Scotland. Meanwhile, in order to prevent the
recurrence of "a conspiracy and Sicilian Vespers," of which the Huguenots
would be the victims, they ask to be permitted to hold forever the guard
of those cities which they now have in their possession, and in addition
some other cities in each of the provinces of the realm. The Protestant
cities, it is stipulated, shall retain their walls and munitions, and the
royal governors shall enter them accompanied only by a small retinue. The
observance of these articles the Huguenots insist shall be solemnly sworn
in privy and public council, and by the inhabitants of all places, the
oath to be renewed every five years.[1321]

Such stout demands did the Protestants of the south and south-west address
to Charles the Ninth on the first anniversary of the fatal matins of
Paris. They were, it must be admitted, somewhat different from what