Henry the Second was still on the throne. The lance of
Montgomery had not yet rid France of that infliction. To win a share in
the rich domain of the New World, of which Portuguese and Spanish
arrogance claimed the monopoly, was the end held by Villegagnon before
the eyes of the King. Of the Huguenots, he said not a word. For Coligny
he had another language. He spoke of an asylum for persecuted religion,
a Geneva in the wilderness, far from priests and monks and Francis of
Guise. The Admiral gave him a ready ear; if, indeed, he himself had not
first conceived the plan. Yet to the King, an active burner of
Huguenots, Coligny too urged it as an enterprise, not for the Faith, but
for France. In secret, Geneva was made privy to it, and Calvin himself
embraced it with zeal. The enterprise, in fact, had a double character,
political as well as religious. It was the reply of France, the most
emphatic she had yet made, to the Papal bull which gave all the western
hemisphere to Portugal and Spain; and, as if to point her answer, she
sent, not Frenchmen only, but Protestant Frenchmen, to plant the
fleur-de-lis on the shores of the New World.
Two vessels were made ready, in the name of the King. The body of the
emigration was Huguenot, mingled with young nobles, restless, idle, and
poor, with reckless artisans, and piratical sailors from the Norman and
Breton seaports.
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