e
members of the house of Lorraine and the Chancellor L'Hopital be
removed from all offices as not having been appointed by the Estates.
In August {598} of the same year, thirty-nine representatives of the
three Estates of thirteen provinces met, contemporaneously with the
religious Colloquy of Poissy, at Pontoise, and there voiced with great
boldness the claims of constitutional government. They demanded the
right of the Estates to govern during the minority of the king; they
claimed that the Estates should be summoned at least biennially; they
forbade taxation, alienation of the royal domain or declaration of war
without their consent. The further resolution that the persecution of
the Huguenots should cease, betrayed the quarter from which the popular
party drew its strength.

But if the voices of the brave deputies hardly carried beyond the
senate-chamber, a host of pamphlets, following hard upon the great
massacre, trumpeted the sounds of freedom to the four winds. Theodore
Beza [Sidenote: Beza] published anonymously his _Rights of
Magistrates_, developing Calvin's theory that the representatives of
the people should be empowered to put a bridle on the king. The pact
between the people and king is said to be abrogated if the king
violates it.

[Sidenote: Hotman, 1573]

At the same time another French Protestant, Francis Hotman, published
his _Franco-Gallia_, to show that France had an ancient and inviolable
constitution. This unwritten law regulates the succession to the
throne; by it the deputies hold their privileges in the Estates
General; by it the laws, binding even on the king, are made. The right
of the people can be shown, in Hotman's opinion, to extend even to
deposing the monarch and electing his successor.

[Sidenote: Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, 1577]

A higher and more general view was taken in the _Rights against
Tyrants_ published under the pseudonym of Stephen Junius Brutus the
Celt, and written by Philip du Plessis-Mornay. This brief but
comprehensive survey, addressed to both Catholics and Protestants,
{599} and aimed at Machiavelli as the chief supporter of tyranny,
advanced four theses: 1. Subjects are bound to obey God rather than the
king. This is regarded as self-evident. 2. If the king devastates the
church and violates God's law, he may be resisted at least passively as
far as private men are concerned, but actively by magistrates and
cities. The author, who quotes from the B