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conflicting religious and political opinions between the moderate and conservative Catholics.
Originating during the Wars of Religion, the forty-year civil conflict over the rights of
Protestants waged during the sixteenth century, the differences between the two groups centered
on the best method of dealing with the heretical religion. Seeking to eliminate completely the
Protestant faith, the conservatives believed that the most effective way of achieving their goal
was to form alliances with the pope and other Catholic powers to create a united Europe that
would be effective in combating heresy. 3 Known for their ardent support of the pope, the
conservatives viewed the pontiff as having supreme authority over the Church, even when it
infringed upon the right of the French monarch.
By the time Maria de’ Medici became regent, Parisian conservatives were embodied by
the dévots, a group made up of clerics and lay persons that sought to participate actively in the
Catholic Reformation. 4 Among the ways the dévots brought change to the French church was
through fostering the establishment of numerous reformed religious foundations, which included
groups such as the Society of Jesus, the Discalced Carmelites, and the French Oratorians. The
rate at which these and other religious organizations formed institutions in Paris is astonishing.
Indeed, fifty houses were founded in Paris between 1598 and 1640, and the majority of royal
patronage was devoted to the churches built for these religious groups.
In contrast to the conservatives were the moderate French Catholics, loyalists to the
crown. They believed in tolerating the existing rights of the Protestants and securing the
autonomy of the state. 5 In addition to limiting the growing authority of other Catholic powers,
notably the Habsburgs and Spain, the moderates sought to preserve the traditional liberties of the
Gallican church, with the king, not the pope, holding a number of privileges pertaining to control
of the French Church. Although they recognized the pope as sovereign in spiritual matters, they
did not believe he had any jurisdiction in temporal affairs. In their view papal power was second
to that wielded by the king, the leader of the Gallican church. The authority of the sovereign
derived from the illustrious history of French kingship, which included among others King Louis
IX (1226-1270), who in1297 was canonized and became the model for the ideal monarch. St.
Louis was even addressed by the papal chancery as a “most Christian king,” an epithet
appropriated by subsequent French leaders that came to signify the sovereignty of the ruler and
the privileged status of the state. 6
3