CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 



Catholic preachers who rose in all directions to defend the Church against the 

 efforts of the Protestants were, for the most part, unequal to their mission, for 

 a few only, such as Claude Despence and the Cardinal de Lorraine (Figs. 

 404 and 405), distinguished themselves by real oratorical talent. Many others, 

 such as Vigor and Seneschal, were only remarkable for the violence and 

 hastiness of their rejoinders. It may be said that by the end of the sixteenth 

 century true religious eloquence had disappeared, and then were renewed in 

 France the pulpit scandals of the epoch of the Bxirgundians and the 

 Armagnacs. The preachers of the League, who claimed to be inspired and 

 authorised by Pope Sixtus Quintus (Fig. 406), went to excesses which not 

 even the disorders of that time could excuse. 



But we may turn from this unedifying spectacle to consider what was the 



Fig. 407. Portrait of Fig. 408. Portrait of Pibrac. Fig. 409. Portrait of 



B. Dumesnil. J. Faye. 



Fac-simile of Line Engravings by Leonard Gaultier, from the Series known as " Chronologic 

 collee." In the L : brary of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris. 



condition of civil oratory during this troubled period. The bar, as it shook 

 off the yoke of scholasticism, had gradually undergone a complete literary 

 transformation. The classic renaissance of the sixteenth century naturally 

 made its influence first felt in the courts, but unfortunately the advocates 

 were addicted to prolix discourses, and to an unstinting use of the flowers of 

 rhetoric. From the year 1550 the reopening of the sessions of the Parliament, 

 after its annual vacations, was made the occasion for harangues carefully 

 prepared. In 1557 Baptiste Dumesnil delivered an oration upon Asconius 

 Pedianus, while in the following year Guy du Faur de Pibrac spoke, being suc- 

 ceeded by Jacques Faye (Figs. 407 to 409), and the illustrious Jacqiies-Auguste 



