[Footnote 167: "Et supplie la Cour qu'il soit interroge en pleine cour, et non par Commissaires." Registres du parlement, Oct. 20, 1525, ibid., iv. 103.]

[Footnote 168: Registres du parlement, Nov. 29, 1525, where the Bishop of Meaux is ordered to pay 200 livres parisis for the trial of the heretics, prisoners from Meaux (Preuves des Libertez, iii. 166), and the receipt for the same (Ibid., ubi supra). This was, however, merely an application of the general prescription of Nov. 24, 1525, requiring all prelates to defray the expenses of the trial of any heretics discovered in their dioceses, with the right to indemnify themselves from the property of the convicted heretics (Ibid., iii. 165). So the Archbishop of Tours contributed to the expenses incurred in the trial of Jean Papillon, Feb. 5, 1526 (Ibid., iii. 167).]

[Footnote 169: Daniel, x. 23, 24; Gaillard, vi. 409-411.]

[Footnote 170: Neither the reason nor the precise time of his departure is known. It was apparently as early as 1523.]

[Footnote 171: See Haag, La France protestante, art. Farel; Dr. E. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Hagenbach, Leben d. Vaeter und Begruender der Reformirten Kirche, vii. 3, etc. A brief but very accurate sketch in Herminjard, i. 178, etc.]

[Footnote 172: MS. Seminary of Meaux, January 11, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. 220.]

[Footnote 173: "Plusieurs peigneurs, cardeurs et autres gens de meme trempe, non lettres."]

[Footnote 174: MS. Seminary of Meaux, February 6, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. 220.]

[Footnote 175: Compare for the date, Herminjard, i. 378, 389, 401. Gerard Roussel was ordered by parliament to be seized wherever found, etiam in loco sacro. So, too, were Caroli and Prevost. Jacques Lefevre was cited to appear. Registres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des Libertez de l'Egl. gall., iii. 102, 103.]

[Footnote 176: Farel to Pellican, 1556, Herminjard, i. 481.]

[Footnote 177: "Ita invigilent Verbo ecclesiarum ministri, ut, nulla pene hora diei, suum desit pabulum et quidem syncerum, ut nulla subsit palea aut fermenti pharisaici commissura."]

[Footnote 178: Roussel to Briconnet, Strasbourg, Dec, 1525, Herminjard, i. 406, 407.]

[Footnote 179: Roussel to Farel, Meaux, Aug. 24, 1524, Herminjard, i. 271—a document that throws a flood of light upon the motives of the conduct of both Roussel and Lefevre. A letter of the same date to Oecolampadius is, in some respects, even more instructive. Notice the pitiful weakness revealed in these sentences: "Reclamabunt episcopi, reclamabunt doctores, reclamabunt scholae, assentiente populo, occurret Senatus (parliament). Quid faciet homuncio adversus tot leones?" Herminjard, i. 278. A reference to the book of Daniel might have enabled the Canon of Meaux to answer his own question.]

[Footnote 180: Pierre Toussain to Oecolampadius, Malesherbes, July 26, 1526, Herminjard, i. 447.]

[Footnote 181: Mandement de Guillaume Briconnet an clerge de son diocese, le 21 janvier, 1525, Herminjard, i. 320, etc.]

[Footnote 182: It may seem surprising that Jean Leclerc escaped the stake in punishment of his temerity. But the reason is found in the circumstance that he was tried, not for heresy, but for irreverence. This appears from the Registres du parlement for March 20, 1524/5. The interesting discussions of that session, printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, iii. (1854) 23, etc., establish the fact that the reformed doctrines were already making formidable headway in Paris and the adjoining towns. A brother of Bishop Briconnet took a prominent part in the debate, and gave a deplorable view of the prevalence of impiety and heresy in the higher circles of society.]

[Footnote 183: For a description of the punishment, see Bastard d'Estang, Les parlements de France.]

[Footnote 184: "Vive Jesus Christ et ses enseignes!"]

[Footnote 185: Histoire ecclesiastique des eglises reformees, attributed to Theodore Beza (Ed. of Lille, 1841), i. 4; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum (Geneva, 1560), fol. 46; Haag, La France protestante, art. Leclerc; Daniel, x. 23, who finds no more suitable epithet for Leclerc than "ce scelerat."]

[Footnote 186: At this time a city of the Empire, and not conquered by France until the reign of Henry II. (1552).]

[Footnote 187: The story of Leclerc's fortunes is told both by Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 46, and by the Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 4; but, strange to say, both these early authorities fall into the same error: they place the first arrest of Leclerc in 1523, and his death a year later. Almost all subsequent writers have implicitly followed their authority. The Registres du parlement de Paris, already referred to, March 20, 1524/5, fix the former event as having occurred only three days before—"depuis trois jours" (p. 27); while Francois Lambert's letter to the Senate of Besancon, dated August 15, 1525, expressly states that Leclerc was burned Saturday, July 22, 1525. Herminjard, i. 372. Jean Chatellain had been executed at Vic, in Lorraine, six months earlier (January 12, 1525). See P. Lambert to the Elector of Saxony, Herminjard, i. 346.]

[Footnote 188: In accordance with the uncertain orthography of the age, the name is variously written—Pauvan, Pauvant, Pavanne, or Pouvent.]

[Footnote 189: Pauvan's propositions, with the vindication by Saunier (or Saulnier) are recapitulated in the censure of the theological faculty, dated Dec. 9, 1525, and published in extenso among the documents appended to Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 36, etc. Professor Soldan (i. 107) and others are incorrect in placing the propositions and their condemnation by the Sorbonne subsequent to the abjuration, which in this very document the Sorbonne demands.]

[Footnote 190: Ibid., iv. 47.]

[Footnote 191: "You err, Master Jacques," Crespin tells us that Mazurier used to say, "You err, Master Jacques; for you have not looked into the depth of the sea, but merely upon the surface of the waters and waves." "You err, Master Jacques" became a proverbial expression in the mouths of the inhabitants of Meaux for a generation or more. Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 52 verso.]

[Footnote 192: "Tout nud, en sa chemise, criant mercy a Dieu et a la vierge Marie." Journal d'un bourgeois, ubi infra.]

[Footnote 193: His sentence seems to have been seven years' imprisonment in the priory of St. Martin des Champs, and it was the prior that denounced him to parliament. Ibid., ubi infra.]

[Footnote 194: Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 53; Hist. eccles., i. 4; Haag, France prot., s. v. On the 26th of August, 1526, if, as is likely, he is the "jeune filz, escolier beneficie, non aiant encore ses ordres de prestrise, nomme maistre ... natif de Therouanne, en Picardie," whom the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris refers to—page 291—as having abjured on Christmas eve, 1525, and been burned "le mardi 28^e aoust, 1526." At any rate, as M. Herminjard has remarked, Beza and Crespin are certainly wrong in placing Pauvan's recantation and execution respectively a year too early (in 1524 and 1525, instead of 1525 and 1526). The date of the Sorbonne's judgment is decisive on this point.]

[Footnote 195: Our authority for the remark of the Parisian doctor, Pierre Cornu, is Farel, in a MS. note to a hitherto inedited letter of Pauvan, and in his speech at the discussion at Lausanne. Herminjard, i. 293, 294. Farel's application was not without pungency: "Votre foi est-elle si bien fondee qu'un jeune fils, qui encore n'avoit point de barbe, vous ait fait tant de dommage, sans avoir tant etudie ne veu, sans avoir aucun degre, et vous etiez tant?" The admirer of heroic fortitude will scarcely subscribe to the words of the Jesuit Daniel, Hist. de France, x. 24: "On ne donne place dans l'histoire a ces meprisables noms, que pour ne laisser ignorer la premiere origine de la funeste contagion," etc.]

[Footnote 196: Histoire eccles., i. 4.]

[Footnote 197: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le regne de Francois I^er, April 14, 1526, p. 284.]

[Footnote 198: Crespin, Actiones et monimenta, fol. 118.]

[Footnote 199: Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefevre; Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel. Bayle (Diet. s. v. Fevre) maintains, on the authority of Melchior Adam's Life of Capito, that Lefevre and Roussel were sent by Margaret of Angouleme on a secret mission to Strasbourg. Erasmus, in a letter of March, 1526, and Sleidan (lib. v. ad fin.) know nothing of this, and speak of the trip as merely a flight.]

[Footnote 200: Haag, ubi supra, vi. 507, note.]

[Footnote 201: Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefevre; Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 411. The boy, at this time Duke of Angouleme, did not assume the name of Charles until after his eldest brother's death. The Swiss cantons, acting as his sponsors, had given him the somewhat uncommon Christian name Abednego (Abdenago)! Herminjard, ii. 17, 195.]

[Footnote 202: The Duke of Orleans may have had sincere predilections for Protestantism. At least, it is barely possible that the very remarkable instructions given to his secretary, Antoine Mallet, when on the 8th of September, 1543, Charles sent him to the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, were something besides mere diplomatic intrigue to secure for his father's projects the support of these Protestant princes. See, however, a fuller discussion of this incident farther on, Chapter VI.]

[Footnote 203: Margaret to Anne de Montmorency, Genin, Lettres de Marguerite d'Angouleme, i. 279, and Herminjard, ii. 250.]

[Footnote 204: "Come un cavallo ch' ha un apostema stringendoli il naso non sente il cauterio."]

[Footnote 205: "Una retrattationcella." The letter of the Nuncio to Sanga, secretary of Clement VII., Brussels, December 30, 1531, appeared in H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana (ex Tabulariis Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae Secretis), Friburgi Brisgoviae, 1861. I have called attention to its importance in the Bulletin de la Societe de l'hist. du prot. franc., xiv. (1865), 345. M. Herminjard has given a French translation, ii. 386.]

[Footnote 206: This incident has been rejected as apocryphal by Bayle, and, after him, by Tabaraud (in the Biographie universelle), as well as more recently by Haag (France protestante). It has rested until now on the unsupported testimony of Hubert Thomas, secretary of the Elector Palatine, Frederick II., whom he accompanied on a visit to Charles V. in Spain. On his return the Elector fell sick at Paris, where he received frequent visits from the King and Queen of Navarre. It was on one of these occasions that Margaret related to him this story, in the hearing of the secretary. (It is reproduced in Jurieu, Histoire du Calvinisme, etc., Rotterdam, 1683, pt. i. 70.) Bayle objected that it was incredible that the reformers should have failed to allude to so striking and suggestive an occurrence. The objection has been scattered to the winds. With singular good fortune, M. Jules Bonnet has discovered among the hidden treasures of the Geneva Library an original memorandum in Farel's own handwriting, prefixed to a letter he had received from Michel d'Arande, fully confirming the discredited statements. "Jacobus Faber Stapulensis noster laborans morbo quo decessit, per aliquot dies ita perterritus fuit judicio Dei, ut actum de se vociferaret, dicens se aeternum periisse, quod veritatem Dei non aperte professus fuerit, idque dies noctesque vociferando querebatur. Et cum a Gerardo Rufo admoneretur ut bono esset animo, Christo quoque fideret, is respondit: 'Nos damnati sumus, veritatem celavimus quam profiteri et testari debebamus.' Horrendum erat tam pium senem ita angi animo et tanto horrore judicii Dei concuti; licet tandem liberatus bene sperare coeperit ac perrexerit de Christo." Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., etc., xi. 215; Herminjard, iii. 400.]

[Footnote 207: "Quo tandem ex hoc profundo limo, in quo non est substantia, eripi queam." Michel d'Arande to Farel (1536 or 1537), Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., ubi supra; Herminjard, iii. 399, etc.]

[Footnote 208: Speaking of Roussel's as yet inedited MS., "Familiere exposition du symbole et de l'oraison dominicale," Professor C. Schmidt, than whom no one has better studied the mysticism of the sixteenth century, remarks that the basis of the work is the doctrine of justification by faith, the sole authority invoked is that of the Scriptures, the only head of the church is Jesus Christ, the perfect church is the invisible church, the visible church is recognized by the preaching of the Gospel in its purity, and by the administration of the two sacraments as originally instituted. He adds that the doctrines of the Lord's Supper and of predestination are expounded in a thoroughly Calvinistic manner. See Professor S.'s excellent monograph, "Le mysticisme quietiste en France au debut de la reformation sous Francois premier," read before the Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., Bulletin, vi. 449, etc.]

[Footnote 209: Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina haereseon hujus saeculi (Col. 1614), lib. vii. c. 3, p. 392.]

[Footnote 210: E. g., Tabaraud, Biographie univ., art. Roussel.]

[Footnote 211: Haag, France protestante, art. Gerard Roussel; Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 418; Flor. de Raemond, ubi supra.]



CHAPTER III.

FRANCIS I. AND MARGARET OF ANGOULEME—EARLY REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS AND STRUGGLES.

[Sidenote: Francis I. and his sister.]

[Sidenote: The portrait of the king.]

Francis the First and his sister, Margaret of Angouleme, were destined to exercise so important an influence in shaping the history of the French Reformation during the first half of the sixteenth century, that a glance at their personal history and character seems indispensable. Francis Was in his twenty-first year when, by the extinction of the elder line of the house of Orleans, the crown came to him as the nearest heir of Louis the Twelfth.[212] He was tall, but well proportioned, of a fair complexion, with a body capable of enduring without difficulty great exposure and fatigue. In an extant portrait, taken five years later, he is delineated with long hair and scanty beard. The drooping lids give to his eyes a languid expression, while the length of his nose, which earned him the sobriquet of "le roi au long nez," redeems his physiognomy from any approach to heaviness.[213] On the other hand, the Venetian Marino Cavalli, writing shortly before the close of his reign, eulogizes the personal appearance of Francis, at that time more than fifty years old. His mien was so right royal, we are assured, that even a foreigner, never having seen him before, would single him out from any company and instinctively exclaim, "This is the king!" No ruler of the day surpassed him in gravity and nobility of bearing. Well did he deserve to succeed that long line of monarchs upon each of whom the sacred oil, applied at his coronation in the cathedral of Rheims, had conferred the marvellous property of healing the king's-evil by a simple touch.[214]

[Sidenote: His character and tastes.]

At his accession, the lively imagination of Francis, fed upon the romances of chivalry that constituted his favorite reading, called up the picture of a brilliant future, wherein gallant deeds in arms should place him among the most renowned knights of Christendom. The ideal character he proposed for himself involving a certain regard for his word, Francis's mind revolted from imitating the plebeian duplicity of his wily predecessor, Louis the Eleventh—a king who enjoyed the undesirable reputation of never having made a promise which he intended in good faith to keep. The memory of the disingenuous manner in which Louis, by winking at the opposition of the Parliament of Paris, had suffered the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction to fail, in spite of his own solemn engagements to carry it into execution, was, undoubtedly, one of the leading motives inducing the young prince, at the very beginning of his reign, to adopt the arbitrary measures already spoken of in a preceding chapter, respecting the papal concordat. Not for half his kingdom, he repeatedly declared, would he break the pledge he had given his Holiness. It is not difficult, however, to reconcile the pertinacity of Francis, on this occasion, with the frequent and well authenticated instances of bad faith in his dealings with other monarchs.

If his literary abilities were slender and his acquirements meagre, this king had at least the faculty of appreciating excellence in others. The scholars and wits whom, as we have seen, he succeeded in gathering about him, repaid his munificence with lavish praise, couched in all manner of verse, and in every language employed in the civilized world. Even later historians have not hesitated to rate him much higher than his very moderate abilities would seem to warrant.[215] The portrait drawn by the biographer of his imperial rival is, perhaps, full as advantageous as a regard for truth will permit us to accept. "Francis," says Robertson, "notwithstanding the many errors conspicuous in his foreign policy and domestic administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, generous. He possessed dignity without pride, affability free from meanness, and courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him. Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects as a monarch, and, admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of maladministration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions, would have seemed unpardonable."[216]

[Sidenote: Contrast between Francis I. and Charles V.]

Two monarchs could scarcely be more dissimilar than were Francis and the Emperor Charles. "So great is the difference between these two princes," says the Venetian Giustiniano, "that, as her most serene majesty the Queen of Navarre, the king's sister, remarked to me when talking on the subject, one of the two must needs be created anew by God after the pattern of the other, before they could agree. For, whilst the most Christian king is reluctant to assume the burden of great thoughts or undertakings, and devotes himself much to the chase or to his own pleasures, the emperor never thinks of anything but business and aggrandizement; and, whereas the most Christian king is simple, open, and very liberal, and quite sufficiently inclined to defer to the judgment and counsel of others, the emperor is reserved, parsimonious, and obstinate in his opinions, governing by himself, rather than through any one else."[217]

This diversity of temperament and disposition had ample scope for manifestation during the protracted wars waged by the two monarchs with each other. Fit representative of the race to which he belonged, Francis was bold, adventurous, and almost resistless in the impetuosity of a first assault. But he soon tired of his undertakings, and relinquished to the cooler and more calculating Charles the solid fruits of victory.[218]

[Sidenote: Francis's religious convictions.]

Of the possession of deep religious convictions I do not know that Francis has left any satisfactory evidence. That he was not strongly attached to the Roman church, that he thoroughly despised the ignorant monks, whose dissolute lives he well knew, that he had no extraordinary esteem for the Pope, all this is clear enough from many incidents of his life. It would even appear that, at one or two points, he might have been pleased to witness such a reformation of the church as could be effected without disturbing the existing order. To this he was the more inclined, that he found almost all the men distinguished for their learning arrayed on the side of the "new doctrines," as they were styled, while the pretorian legion of the papacy was headed by the opponents of letters.

[Sidenote: His fear of innovation.]

It will be found, however, that several circumstances tended to counteract or reverse the king's favorable prepossessions. Not least influential was a pernicious sentiment studiously instilled in his mind by those whose material interests were all on the side of the maintenance of the existing system—that a change of religion necessarily involves a change of government. We shall hear much during the century of this lying political axiom. When Francis, in his irritation at the Pope, suggested, on one occasion, to the Nuncio, that he might be compelled to follow the example Henry the Eighth, of England, had set him, and permit the spread of the "Lutheran" religion in France, the astute prelate replied: "Sire, to speak with all frankness, you would be the first to repent your rash step. Your loss would be greater than the Pope's; for a new religion established in the midst of a people involves nothing short of a change of prince."[219] And the same author that records this incident tells us that Francis hated the Lutheran "heresy," and used to say that this, like every other new sect, tended more to the destruction of kingdoms than to the edification of souls.[220] Nor must it be overlooked that Francis doubtless felt strongly confirmed in his persuasion, by the rash and disorderly acts of some restless and inconsiderate spirits such as are wont eagerly to embrace any new belief. Not the peasants' insurrections in Germany alone, but as well the excesses of the iconoclasts, and the imprudence of the authors of the famous placards of 1534, although their acts were distinctly repudiated by the vast majority of the French reformers, inflicted irretrievable damage, by furnishing plausible arguments to those who accused the Protestants of being authors or abettors of riot and confusion.

[Sidenote: His loose morals.]

A second reason of the early estrangement of Francis from the "new doctrines" has more frequently been overlooked. The rigid code of morals which the reformers established, and which John Calvin attempted to make in Geneva the law of the state, repelled a prince who, though twice married and both times to women devoted to his interests and faithful to their vows, treated his lawful wives with open neglect, and preferred to consort with perfidious mistresses, who sold to the enemy for money his confidential disclosures—a prince who, not satisfied with introducing excesses until then unheard of among his nobles, was not ashamed to bestow the royal bounty upon the professed head of the degraded women whom he allowed to accompany the court from place to place.[221]

[Sidenote: His anxiety to obtain the support of the Pope.]

If to these two motives we add a third—the desire of the king to avail himself of the important influence of the Roman pontiff upon the politics of Europe—we shall be at no loss to account for the singular fact that the brother of Margaret of Angouleme, in spite of his sister's entreaties and the promptings of his own better feeling—at times in defiance of his own manifest advantage—became during the later part of his reign the first of that long line of persecutors of whom the Huguenots were the unhappy victims.

[Sidenote: Studious disposition of Margaret.]

Margaret was two years older than her brother. Born April 11, 1492, in the city of Angouleme, she enjoyed, in common with Francis, all the opportunities of liberal culture afforded by her exalted station. These opportunities her keener intellect enabled her to improve far better than the future king. While Francis was indulging his passion for the chase, in company with Robert de la Marck, "the Boar of the Ardennes," Margaret was patiently applying herself to study. It is not always easy to determine how much is to be set down as truth, and how much belongs to the category of fiction, in the current stories of the scholarly attainments of princely personages. But there is good reason in the present case to believe that, unlike most of the ladies of her age that were reputed prodigies of learning, Margaret of Angouleme did not confine herself to the modern languages, but became proficient in Latin, besides acquiring some notion of Greek and Hebrew. By extensive reading, and through intercourse with the best living masters of the French language, she made herself a graceful writer. She was, moreover, a poet of no mean pretensions, as her verses, often comparing favorably with those of Clement Marot, abundantly testify. It was, however, to the higher walks of philosophical and religious thought that Margaret felt most strongly drawn. Could implicit credit be given to the partial praises of her professed eulogist, Charles de Sainte-Marthe, who owed his escape from the stake to her powerful intercession, we might affirm that the contemplation of the sublime truths of Revelation early influenced her entire character, and that "the Spirit of God began then to manifest His presence in her eyes, her expression, her walk, her conversation—in a word, in all her actions."[222]

[Sidenote: Her personal appearance.]

But, whatever may have been the precocious virtues of Margaret at the age of fifteen, it is certain that when, by her brother's elevation to the throne, she was introduced to the foremost place at court, it was her remarkable qualities of heart, quite as much as her recognized mental abilities, that called forth universal admiration. Her personal appearance, it is true, was a favorite subject for the encomium of poets; but her portraits fail to justify their panegyrics, and convey no impression of beauty. The features are large, the nose as conspicuously long as her brother's; yet the sweetness of expression, upon which Marot is careful chiefly to dwell in one of his elegant poetical epistles, is not less noticeable.[223]

[Sidenote: Her political Influence.]

In the conduct of public affairs Margaret took no insignificant part. Francis was accustomed so uniformly to entrust his mother and sister with important state secrets, that to the powerful council thus firmly united by filial and fraternal ties the term "Trinity" was applied, not only by the courtiers, but by the royal family itself.[224] Foreign diplomatists extolled Margaret's intelligent statesmanship, and asserted that she was consulted on every occasion.[225] It is a substantial claim of Margaret to the respect of posterity, that the influence thus enjoyed was, apparently, never prostituted to the advancement of selfish ends, but constantly exerted in the interest of learning, humanity, and religious liberty.

Margaret was first married, in 1509, to the Duke of Alencon, a prince whose cowardice on the battle-field of Pavia (1525), where he commanded the French left wing, is said to have been the principal cause of the defeat and capture of his royal brother-in-law. He made good his own escape, only to die, at Lyons, of disease induced by exposure and aggravated by bitter mortification. The next two years were spent by Margaret in unremitting efforts to secure her brother's release. With this object in view she obtained from the emperor a safe-conduct enabling her to visit and console Francis in his imprisonment at Madrid, and endeavor to settle with his captor the terms of his ransom. But, while admiring her sisterly devotion, Charles showed little disposition to yield to her solicitations. In fact, he even issued an order to seize her person the moment the term of her safe-conduct should expire—a peril avoided by the duchess only by forced marches. As it was, she crossed the frontier, it is said, a single hour before the critical time. The motive of this signal breach of imperial courtesy was, doubtless, the well-founded belief that Margaret was bearing home to France a royal abdication in favor of the Dauphin.[226]

[Sidenote: Margaret marries Henry of Navarre.]

Early in 1527, Margaret was married with great pomp to Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre.[227] The match would seem to have been prompted by love and admiration on her side; for the groom had performed a romantic exploit in effecting his escape from prison after his capture at Pavia.[228] In spite of the great disparity between the ages of Margaret and her husband,[229] the union was congenial, and added greatly to the power and resources of the latter. The duchies of Alencon and Berry more than equalled in extent the actual domain of the King of Navarre; for, from the time when Ferdinand the Catholic (in July, 1512) wrested from brave Catharine of Foix and her inefficient husband John[230] all their possessions on the southern slope of the Pyrenees,[231] the authority of the titular monarch was respected only in the mountainous district of which Pau was the capital, and to which the names of Bearn or French Navarre are indifferently applied. The union thus auspiciously begun lasted, unbroken by domestic contention, until the death of Margaret, in 1549;[232] and the pompous ceremonial attending the queen's obsequies is said to have been a sincere attestation of the universal sorrow affecting the King of Navarre and his subjects alike.

[Sidenote: She corresponds with Bishop Briconnet.]

It was through the instrumentality of the Bishop of Meaux that Margaret of Angouleme was first drawn into sympathy with the reformatory movement. Unsatisfied with herself and with the influences surrounding her, she sought in Briconnet a spiritual adviser and guide. The prelate, in the abstruse and almost unintelligible language of exaggerated mysticism, endeavored to fulfil the trust. His prolix correspondence still exists in manuscript in the National Library of Paris, together with the replies of his royal penitent. Its incomprehensibility may perhaps forever preclude the publication of the greater part;[233] but we can readily forgive the bishop's absurdities and far-fetched conceits, when we find him in his letters leading Margaret to the Holy Scriptures as the only source of spiritual strength, and enjoining a humble and docile reception of its teachings.

[Sidenote: Luther's teachings condemned by the Sorbonne.]

On the fifteenth of April, 1521, the University of Paris, whose opinion respecting Luther's tenets the entire Christian world had for two years been anxiously expecting, pronounced its solemn decision. It condemned the writings of the German monk to the flames, on the ground that they were seductive, insulting to the hierarchy, contrary to Scripture, and schismatic. It likened his latest production, De Captivitate Babylonica, to Alcoran. It branded as preposterous the notion that God had reserved the discovery of what is needful to the salvation of the faithful for Martin Luther to make; as though Christ had left his spouse, the Church, so many centuries, and until now, in the darkness and blindness of error. Such sentiments as he uttered were a denial of the first principles of the faith, an unblushing profession of impiety, an arrogance so impious that it must be repressed by chains and censures—nay, by fire and by flame, rather than refuted by argument.[234] A long list of heretical propositions selected from Luther's works was appended.[235]

[Sidenote: Melanchthon's defence.]

In the month of June following, Melanchthon replied to the Sorbonne's condemnation. He declared that, could the great Gerson and his illustrious associates and predecessors rise from the dead, they would fail to recognize in the present race of theologians their legitimate offspring, and that they would deplore the misfortune of the university as well as of the whole of Christendom, in that sophists had usurped the place of theologians, and slanderers the seat of Christian doctors. As for the silly letter prefixed to the decree, the reformer wrote, it is a feeble production full of womanish fury: "He pretends to the sole possession of wisdom. He contemns us. He is a Manichaean, a Montanist; he is mad. Let him be compelled by fire and flame." Who could refrain from derisive laughter at the unmanly and truly monkish weakness of such threats?[236]

[Sidenote: Regency of Louise de Savoie.]

In the summer of 1523 the king, in order to provide for the government of France during his expected absence from the capital, appointed his mother temporary regent—a dignity which Louise de Savoie enjoyed more than once during Francis's reign. The chancellor, Antoine Duprat, embraced the opportunity to persuade the queen mother that she could not better atone for the irregularities of her own life than by enforcing submission to the authority of the papal church. What causes had contributed to the very radical change apparently effected in her mental attitude to the established ecclesiastical system, since she had in the preceding December discovered the monks, of whatever color their cowl might be, to be arrant "hypocrites" and the most "dangerous generation of human kind"—if, indeed, any such change in her mental attitude had really taken place at all, and her present zeal was not altogether assumed from political motives—we have not the means of determining with certainty. However this may be, she was now induced to take a much more decided stand than Francis had ever taken in opposition to the reformed doctrines, of whose spread, not only in Meaux and other cities in the provinces, but even in Paris, both in the schools of learning and without, there began to be symptoms alarming to the hierarchy.

[Sidenote: The Sorbonne's recommendations for the extirpation of heresy.]

As a preliminary step, the regent sent her confessor, Friar Gilbert Nicolai, to the Sorbonne, with instructions to consult it respecting "the means to be employed for purging this very Christian realm of the damnable doctrine of Luther." It need scarcely be said that the message was received with great delight. The theological doctors soon replied, rendering thanks to Almighty God for having inspired Louise with the holy purpose of executing whatever might be found most likely to promote God's honor and the prosperity of France.[237] What measures did they propose to her as best calculated to accomplish this laudable end? Sermons, disputations, books, and other scholastic means, they write, may be employed in the refutation of the errors of Luther, as indeed they are every day employed, at the Sorbonne's instigation, and from this instrumentality some good effects may be expected; but since, after all, neither sermons nor books, however learned and conclusive, compel any person to renounce his heretical views, more practical and coercive measures must be adopted if the object is to be attained. All royal officers must be enjoined strictly to enforce every order promulgated against heretics. The prelates must be urged to demand, on pain of excommunication, the surrender of all books of Luther or his supporters found in their dioceses. Meanwhile, the highest ecclesiastical censures are to be directed against those who in any way uphold the heterodox belief. It is only in this way that hope can reasonably be entertained of suppressing this pernicious innovation, which may yet inflict still greater evils upon unfortunate France; since the Scriptures tell us that pestilence, famine, and war served as a rod for the punishment of God's chosen nation of old, whenever it forsook the pure precepts of the law given by the Almighty.

In reply to another inquiry made by the regent at the same time, the Sorbonne enters into greater detail. If any one complains that he is unjustly accused of favoring the heresy that has recently appeared, let him clear himself by following St. Paul's example, who, when brought to the knowledge of the truth, instantly undertook the defence of what he had ignorantly persecuted. Rumors that some persons in high places are friendly to the spread of the new errors have gained lamentable currency, both at home and abroad. They have obtained confirmation from the praise lately lavished by "some great personages" upon the doctrine of Luther, and the blame poured upon its opponents. The execution of the king's order for the burning of Luther's books has been singularly delayed. Worst of all have been the obstacles placed in the way of the pious efforts of the prelates, either without the consent of the king, or by him ill-advised—for example, in the proceedings of the Bishop of Paris against Louis de Berquin. Similar impediments have been interposed to prevent the condemnation by parliament and university of the printed works of this same Berquin and of Lefevre d'Etaples; while, as if to make the affair still more scandalous, two treatises lately written in refutation of Luther's doctrines have been seized in the name of the king and by his authority.[238]

[Sidenote: Wide circulation of Luther's works.]

Such were the complaints of the theological faculty, such the means suggested for the destruction of the new leaven that was already beginning to assert its mission to permeate society. There were certainly sufficient grounds for apprehension. The works of Luther, as we have before seen, had early been translated into French, and a contemporary writer confirms the statement that they had already been widely disseminated.[239] An order of parliament, referred to in its communication to the regent, had indeed been published, to the sound of the trumpet, throughout the city of Paris (August 3, 1521), strictly commanding all booksellers, printers, and others that might have copies in their possession, to give them up within the space of eight days, on pain of imprisonment and fine.[240] But even this measure failed to accomplish the desired result. The Reformation was silently extending its influence, as some significant events sufficiently proved.

[Sidenote: Lambert, the first French monk to embrace the Reformation.]

At Avignon, copies of several of the writings of Martin Luther fell into the hands of Francois Lambert, son of a former private secretary of the papal legate entrusted with the government of the Comtat Venaissin. He was a man of vivid imagination, keen religious sensibilities, and marked oratorical powers. He had at the age of fifteen been so deeply impressed by the saintly appearance of the Franciscans as to seek admission to their monastery as a novice. No sooner did he assume, a year later (1503), the irrevocable vows that constituted him a monk, than his disenchantment began. According to his own account, the quarrelsome and debauched friars no longer felt any of the solicitude they had previously entertained lest the knowledge of their excesses should deter him from embracing a "religious" life. A few years later Lambert became a preacher, and having, through a somewhat careful study of the Holy Scriptures, embraced more evangelical views than were held by most of his order, began to deliver discourses as well received by the people as they were hated by his fellow-monks. Great was the outcry against him when he openly denounced the misdeeds of a worthless vender of papal indulgences; still greater when copies of Luther's treatises were found in his possession. The books were seized, sealed, condemned, and burned, although scarcely a glance had been vouchsafed at their contents. It was enough for the monkish judges to cry: "They are heretical! They are heretical!" "Nevertheless," exclaims honest Lambert, kindling with indignation at the remembrance of the scene, "I confidently assert that those same books of Luther contain more of pure theology than all the writings of all the monks that have lived since the creation of the world."[241]

[Sidenote: He is also the first to renounce celibacy.]

Lambert had made full trial of the monastic life. He had even immured himself for some time in a Carthusian retreat, but found its inmates in no respect superior to the Franciscans. At last an opportunity for escape offered. In 1522, when a score of years had passed since he entered upon his novitiate, he was despatched with letters to the general of his order. Instead of fulfilling his commission, he traversed Switzerland, and made his way to Wittemberg, where he satisfied the desire he had long entertained, of meeting the great reformer to whose works he owed his own spiritual enlightenment. Full of zeal for the propagation of the doctrines he had embraced, Lambert, not long after (1524), established himself at Metz as a favorable point from which France might be influenced. But the commotion excited by his opponents—perhaps, also, his own lack of prudence—compelled him within a fortnight to flee to Strasbourg.[242] Here, more secure, but scarcely more judicious, he busied himself with sending over the French borders numbers of tracts composed or translated by himself, and addressing to Francis and the chief persons of his court appeals which, doubtless, rarely if ever reached their eyes.[243] In another field of labor, to which the Landgrave of Hesse called him, Francois Lambert performed services far more important than any he was permitted to render his native land. As the first French monk to throw aside his habit—above all, as the first to renounce celibacy and defend in a published treatise the step he had taken (1523), no French reformer, even among those of far greater abilities and wider influence, was regarded by the adherents of the Roman Catholic Church with so intense a dislike.[244]

The firm hold which the Reformation was gaining on the population of several places of great importance, close upon the eastern frontiers of the kingdom, was a portent of evil in the eyes of the Sorbonne; for Metz, St. Hippolyte, and Montbeliard, all destined to be absorbed in the growing territories of France, were already bound to it by close ties of commercial intercourse.

[Sidenote: Jean Chatellain, of Metz.]

In Metz the powerful appeals of an Augustinian monk, Jean Chatellain, had powerfully moved the masses. He was as eloquent as he was learned, as commanding in appearance as fearless in the expression of his belief.[245] The attempt to molest him would have proved a very dangerous one for the clergy of Metz to make; for the enthusiasm of the laity in his support knew no bounds, and the churchmen prudently avoided giving it an occasion for manifestation. But, no sooner had Chatellain been induced on some pretext to leave the safe protection of the walls, than a friar of his own order and monastery betrayed him to the bishop.[246] He was hurriedly taken to Nommeny, and thence to Vic for trial and execution. In vain did the Inquisitor of the Faith strive to shake his constancy. His judges were forced to liken their incorrigible prisoner to the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. As "a preacher of false doctrines," an "apostate" and a "liar toward God Almighty," they declared him excommunicated and deprived of whatever ecclesiastical benefices he might hold. The faithful compiler of the French martyrology gives in accurate, but painful, detail the successive steps by which Chatellain was stripped of the various prerogatives conferred upon him in ordination. I shall not repeat the story of sacred vessels placed in his hands only to be hastily snatched from them, of the scraping of his fingers supposed to remove the grace of consecration, of chasuble and stole indignantly taken away—in short, of all the petty devices of a malice at which the mind wearies and the heart sickens. It was perhaps a fitting sequel to the ceremony that the degrading bishop should hand his victim over to the representative of the secular arm to be put to death, with a hypocritical recommendation to mercy: "Lord Judge, we entreat you as affectionately as we can, as well by the love of God, as from pity and compassion, and out of respect for our prayers, that you do this wretched man no injury tending to death or the mutilation of his body."[247] The prayer was granted—according to the intent of the petitioner. On the twelfth of January, 1525, Chatellain was led to the place of execution, as cheerful in demeanor, the witnesses said, as if walking to a feast. At the stake he knelt and offered a short prayer, then met his horrible sentence with a constancy that won many converts to the faith for which he had suffered. At the news of the fate of their admired teacher, the citizens of Metz could not contain their rage. A tumultuous scene ensued, in which it was well that the ecclesiastics—there were more than nine hundred within the walls[248]—escaped with no greater injury at the hands of the angry populace than some passing insults. John Vedast, an evangelical teacher, was at that time in confinement, reserved for a similar doom to that of Chatellain. He was liberated by the people, who, in a body membering several thousand men, visited his prison and enabled him to escape to a safe refuge. It was not until a strong detachment of troops had been thrown into the city that the burgesses were reduced to submission.[249] "None the less," admits a Roman Catholic historian, "did Lutheranism spread over the entire district of Metz."[250]

[Sidenote: Tragic end of Wolfgang Schuch.]

At St. Hippolyte, a town near the Swiss frontier, dependent upon the Duke of Lorraine, similar success and a similarly tragic end were the results of the zealous labors of Wolfgang Schuch, a priest of German extraction. The "good duke" Antoine, having been led to confound the peaceable disciples of Schuch with the revolted peasants, whose ravages had excited widespread alarm throughout Germany, publicly proclaimed his intention of visiting the town that harbored them with fire and sword. To propitiate him by removing his misapprehension, Schuch wrote to the duke a singularly touching letter containing a candid exposition of the religion he professed;[251] but finding that his missive had been of no avail, he resolved to immolate himself in behalf of his flock. At Nancy, the capital of the duchy, whither he had gone to dissuade Antoine from executing his savage threats, he was thrown into a loathsome dungeon, while the University of Paris was consulted respecting the soundness of thirty-one propositions extracted from his writings by the Inquisitor of Lorraine. On the nineteenth of August, 1525—the theologians of the Sorbonne having some months before reported unfavorably upon the theses submitted to them—Wolfgang Schuch was consigned to the flames.[252]

[Sidenote: Farel at Montbeliard.]

Less sanguinary results attended the Reformation at Montbeliard, where the indefatigable Farel was the chief actor. One of those highly dramatic incidents, in which the checkered life of this remarkable man abounds, is said to have preceded his withdrawal from the city. Happening, on St. Anthony's day, to meet, upon a bridge spanning a narrow stream in the neighborhood, a solemn procession headed by priests chanting the praises of the saint whose effigy they bore aloft, Farel was seized with an uncontrollable desire to arrest the impious service. Snatching the image from the hands of ecclesiastics who were little prepared for so sudden an onslaught, he indignantly cried, "Wretched idolaters, will you never forsake your idolatry?" At the same instant he threw the saint into the water, before the astonished devotees had time to interfere. Had not some one just then opportunely raised the shout, "The saint is drowning," it might have gone hard with the fearless iconoclast.[253]

The Reformation was thus gaining a foothold in the bishopric of Metz, in the duchy of Lorraine, and the county of Montbeliard—districts as yet independent of France, in which country they were subsequently merged. But, if suffered to be victorious at these important points, it might readily cross the borders and spread with irresistible force to the contiguous parts of Francis's dominions. Nearer home, the reformatory movement at Meaux, though abandoned by the bishop who had fostered its first development, was not wholly suppressed. In Lyons and Grenoble, Friar Aime Maigret had preached such evangelical sermons—in French to the people and in Latin to the Parliament of Dauphiny—that he had been sent to Paris to be examined by the Sorbonne. The primate and his council had seen with solicitude that from the ashes of Waldo and the Poor Men of Lyons "very many new shoots were springing up,"[254] and called for some signal act of severity to repress the growing evil.

[Sidenote: Pierre Caroli lectures on the Psalms.]

In Paris itself the Sorbonne found reason for alarm. The sympathy of Margaret of Angouleme with the friends of progress was recognized. It had already availed for the deliverance of Louis de Berquin, whose remarkable history will find a place in the next chapter. Nor did the redoubted syndic of the theological faculty, Beda, or Bedier, reign without a rival in the academic halls. Pierre Caroli, one of the doctors invited by Briconnet to Meaux, a clever wrangler, and never better pleased than when involved in controversy, albeit a man of shallow religious convictions and signal instability, wearied out by his counter-plots the illustrious heresy-hunter. When forbidden to preach, Caroli opened a course of lectures upon the Psalms in the College de Cambray. Having then been interdicted from continuing his prelections, he made the modest request to be permitted to finish the exposition of the 22d Psalm, which he had begun. This being refused, the disputatious doctor posted the following notice on the doors of the college: "Pierre Caroli, wishing to conform to the orders of the sacred faculty, ceases to teach. He will resume his lectures (when it shall please God) where he left off, at the verse, 'They pierced my hands and my feet.'"[255]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre.]

I have reserved for this place a few remarks respecting the Heptameron of Margaret of Angouleme, which seem required by the disputed character or this singular work. I have spoken at length of the virtues of the Queen of Navarre, and I may here add a statement of my strong conviction that the accusation is altogether groundless which ascribes a sinister meaning to the strong expressions of sisterly affection so frequent in her correspondence with Francis the First (see M. Genin, Supplement a la notice sur Marg. d'Angouleme, prefixed to the second volume of the Letters). Nor do I make any account of the vague statement of that mendacious libertine, Brantome, who doubtless imagined himself to be paying the Queen of Navarre the most delicate compliment, when he said, that "of gallantry she knew more than her daily bread."

But, whatever the purity of Margaret's own private life, the fact which cannot be overlooked is that a book of a decidedly immoral tendency was composed and published under her name. Her most sincere admirers would hail with gratification any satisfactory evidence that the Heptameron was written by another hand. Unfortunately, there seems to be none. On the contrary, we have Brantome's direct testimony to the effect that the composition of the book was the employment of the queen's idle hours when travelling about in her litter, and that his grandmother, being one of Margaret's ladies of honor, was accustomed to take charge of her writing-case (Ed. Lalanne, viii. 126). Equally untenable is the view taken by the historian De Thou (liv. vi., vol. x. 508), who makes the fault more venial by representing the Heptameron to have been composed by the fair author in her youth. (So, too, Soldan, i. 89.) I am sorry to have to say that the events referred to in the stories themselves belong to a period reaching within a year or two of Margaret's death.

The facts, then, are simply these: The tales of Boccaccio's Decameron were read with great delight by Margaret, by Francis the First, and by his children. They resolved, therefore, to imitate the great Italian novelist by committing to writing the most remarkable incidents supplied by the gossip of the court (see the Prologue to the Heptameron). Francis and his children, finding that Margaret greatly excelled in this species of composition, soon renounced the unequal strife, but encouraged her to pursue an undertaking promising to afford them much amusement. Apportioning, after the example of Boccaccio, a decade of stories, illustrative of some single topic, to each day's entertainment, the Queen of Navarre had reached the seventh day, when the death of her brother, the near approach of her own end, and disgust with so frivolous an occupation, induced her to suspend her labors. The Heptameron, as the interrupted work was now called, was not apparently intended for publication, but was, after Margaret's death, printed under the auspices of her daughter, the celebrated Jeanne d'Albret.

As to the stories themselves, they treat of adventures, in great part amorous and often immodest. In this particular they are scarcely less objectionable than those of Boccaccio. They differ from the latter in the circumstance that the author's avowed purpose is to insert none but actual occurrences. They are distinguished from them more especially by the attempt uniformly made to extract a wholesome lesson from every incident. The prevalent vices of the day are portrayed—with too much minuteness of detail, indeed, but only that they may be held up to the greater condemnation. It is particularly the monks of various orders who, for their flagrant crimes against morality, are made the object of biting sarcasm. The abominable teachings of these professed instructors of religion are justly reprobated. For example, in the Forty-fourth Nouvelle, Parlamente, while admitting that some Franciscans preach a pure doctrine, affirms that "the streets are not paved with such, so much as marked by their opposites;" and she relates the attempt of one of their prominent men, a doctor of theology, to convince some members of his own fraternity that the Gospel is entitled to no more credit than Caesar's Commentaries. "From the hour I heard him," she adds, "I have refused to believe the words of any preacher unless I find them in agreement with God's Word, which is the true touchstone to ascertain what words are true and what false" (Ed. Soc. des bibliophiles, ii. 382-384).

Modern French litterateurs have not failed to eulogize the author as frequently rivalling her model in dramatic vividness of narration. At the same time they take exception to the numerous passages wherein she "preaches," as detracting from the artistic merit of her work. It is, however, precisely the feature here referred to that constitutes, in the eyes of reflecting readers, the chief, if not the sole, redeeming trait of the Heptameron. As a favorable example, illustrating the nature of the pious words and exhortations thrown in so incongruously with stories of the most objectionable kind, I translate a few sentences from the Prologue, in which Oisile (the pseudonym for Margaret herself) speaks: "If you ask me what receipt I have that keeps me so joyful and in such good health in my old age, it is this—that as soon as I rise I take and read the Holy Scriptures. Contemplating there the goodness of God, who sent His Son to earth to announce the glad tidings of the remission of all sins by the gift of His love, passion, and merits, the consideration causes me such joy that I take my psalter and sing in my heart as humbly as I can, while repeating with my lips those beautiful psalms and hymns which the Holy Ghost composed in the heart of David and other authors; and the satisfaction I derive from this does me so much good that all the ills that may befall me through the day appear to me to be blessings, seeing that I bear in my heart Him who bore them for me. In like manner, before I sup, I withdraw to give sustenance to my soul in reading, and then at night I recall all I have done during the past day, in order to ask for the pardon of my faults and thank God for His gifts. Then in His love, fear and peace I take my rest, assured from every ill. Wherefore, my children, here is the pastime upon which I settled long since, after having in vain sought contentment of spirit in all the rest.... For he that knows God sees everything beautiful in Him, and without Him everything unattractive." Prologue, 13-15.

If any one object that no quantity of pious reflections can compensate for the positive evil in the Heptameron, I can but acquiesce in his view, and concede that M. Genin has been much too lenient in his estimate of Margaret's fault. It is a riddle which I leave to the reader to solve, that a princess of unblemished private life, of studious habits, and of not only a serious, but even a positively religious turn of mind—in short, in every way a noble pattern for one of the most corrupt courts Europe has ever seen—should, in a work aiming to inculcate morality, and abundantly furnished with direct religious exhortation, have inserted, not one, but a score of the most repulsive pictures of vice, drawn from the impure scandal of that court.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 212: He was born at Cognac, Sept. 12, 1494.]

[Footnote 213: See the fac-simile in the magnificent work of M. Niel, Portraits des personnages francais les plus illustres du 16me siecle, Paris, 1848, 2 vols. fol.]

[Footnote 214: The envoy's description of Francis's curative power is interesting. "Ha una proprieta, o vero dono da Dio, come han tutti li re di Francia, di far guarire li amalati di scrofule.... E questo lo fa in giorno solenne, come Pasqua, Natale e Nostra Donna. Si confessa e communica; dipoi tocca li amalati in croce al volto, dicendo: 'Il Re ti tocca, e Iddio ti guarisca!'" Cavalli thinks there can be no doubt of the reality of the cures effected; otherwise, why should continually increasing numbers of sick folk come from the most distant countries, if they received no benefit? Relazioni Venete (Alberi), ser. i., i. 237. It must not be imagined, however, that the kings of France engrossed all virtue of this kind. The monarchs of England were wont to hallow on Good Friday certain rings which thenceforth guaranteed the wearer against epilepsy. These cramp-rings, as they were called, were no less in demand abroad than at home. Sir John Mason wrote from Brussels, April 25, 1555, that many persons had expressed the desire to obtain them, and begged Sir W. Petrie to interest himself in procuring him some of this year's blessing by Queen Mary. MSS. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 215: The small size of the brain and the depression of the forehead indicated in all the different contemporary portraits of Francis have been noticed by M. Niel (Portraits, i. 10), who dryly adds that in view of them he might have been inclined to withhold the eulogies he has inserted in his notice of the monarch, "had he not recollected in time that the laws of phrenology are not infallible."]

[Footnote 216: Robertson, Charles V., iii. 396.]

[Footnote 217: Relazione di Francia (1538), Alberi, i. 203, 204. It will be noticed that Giustiniano wrote at a period when the youthful ardor of Francis had somewhat cooled down.]

[Footnote 218: The French king's proverbial ill-success gave rise to the taunt that his was "un esser savio in bocca e non in mente," but Marino Cavalli is charitably inclined to ascribe his misfortune rather to the lack of the right men to execute his designs, than to any fault of his own. Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo, i. 282.]

[Footnote 219: "Sire, vous en seriez marri le premier, et vous en prendroit tres mal, et y perdriez plus que le pape; car une nouvelle religion, mise parmi un peuple, ne demande apres que changement du prince." Brantome, M. l'Admiral de Chastillon, Oeuvres, ix. 202.]

[Footnote 220: Brantome, Femmes illustres: Marguerite, reine de Navarre. Also Homines ill.: Francois premier (Oeuvres, vii. 256, 257).]

[Footnote 221: The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., v. 380, 381, publishes from a MS. in the library of the Louvre, an order from Francis I., countersigned by Bayard, directing his treasurer to pay to "Cecille de Viefville, dame des filles de joye suivans nostre court," the sum of forty-five livres tournois. This gift is to be shared with "les autres femmes de sa voccation," as she and they shall see fit, and to be received as "a New-Year's present for the first of January past, such as it has been customary from all time to make." The last clause may have been inserted for the purpose of palliating the disgraceful usage. This precious document is followed by Cecile's receipt, dated, like the order, Hesdin, February 18, 1539 (1540 New Style).]

[Footnote 222: Ch. de Sainte-Marthe, Oraison funebre, 1550, apud Genin, i. 3.]

[Footnote 223:

Une doulceur assise en belle face, Qui la beaulte des plus belles efface; D'un regard chaste ou n'habite nul vice;

. . . . . . . .

Tons ces beaulx dons et mille davantaige Sont en ung corps ne de hault parentaige, Et de grandeur tant droicte et bien formee, Que faicte semble expres pour estre aymee D'hommes et dieux.

—Ined. Epistle of Marot to Margaret, prefixed to Genin, Notice, xiii., xiv. One of the two crayons of Margaret by contemporary artists, reproduced by Niel, Portraits des personnages illustres, etc., tome ii., was taken in early life; the other represents her as wearing the sombre dress she preferred in her last years.]

[Footnote 224: Vie politique de Marg. d' Angouleme, by Leroux de Lincy, prefixed to the Heptameron (Ed. of the Soc. des bibliophiles), i. p. lxiv.]

[Footnote 225: "La serenissima regina di Navarra ... e donna di molto valore, e spirito grande, e che intervienne in tutti i consigli." Relaz. di Francesco Giustiniano, 1538, Alberi, i. 203.]

[Footnote 226: The document contained a proviso that, should Francis be liberated, the Dauphin was to restore to him the sovereignty for the term of his natural life. It was dated Madrid, November, 1525. Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois, etc., xii. 237-244.]

[Footnote 227: "Le mercredy penultiesme jour de janvier, au dict an, ils furent espousez an diet lieu de Saint Germain (en Laye). Apres furent faictes jouxtes et tournois et gros triomphes par l'espace de huict jours ou environ." Journal d'un bourgeois, 302. Olhagaray states the date differently, viz., January 24th; ubi infra, 488.]

[Footnote 228: See Olhagaray, Histoire de Foix, Bearn, et Navarre (Paris, 1609), 487.]

[Footnote 229: He was born April, 1503, and was consequently eleven years younger than Margaret.]

[Footnote 230: Catharine's bitter reproach addressed to her husband has become famous: "Had I been king, and you queen, we had been reigning in Navarre at this moment." Prescott, Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. 353. Olhagaray gives another of her speeches: "O Roy vous demeures Jean d'Albret, et ne penses plus au Royaume de Navarre que vous avez perdu par vostre nonchalance." Ubi supra, 455.]

[Footnote 231: The Spanish conquest of Navarre is narrated at length by Prescott, Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. 347-367. See also Olhagaray, 454, etc., and Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrenees, iv. 233-271. It will be borne in mind that the great crime of John d'Albret was his adhesion to Louis XII. of France, in his determined struggle with Julius II.; and that Ferdinand's title was justified by a pretended bull of this Pope giving the kingdoms of his enemies to be a prey to the first invader that might seize them in behalf of the Pontifical See. The bull, however, is now generally admitted to be a Spanish forgery. See Prescott, ubi supra. Baron A. de Ruble observes (Mem. de La Huguerye, 1, note): "On sait aujourd'hui que cette bulle est apocryphe."]

[Footnote 232: Brantome does, indeed, accuse Henry of using severity toward his wife, on account of her religious innovations, until threatened with the displeasure of Francis; but the truth seems to be that the King of Navarre was himself not ill-disposed to the religious reformation.]

[Footnote 233: M. Herminjard has been criticised for inserting too many of Bishop Briconnet's epistles in the first volume of his Correspondance des reformateurs dans les pays de langue francaise. M. Genin also gives specimens of the bishop's bombast, observing maliciously: "Si Briconnet argumenta en pareil style aux conciles de Pise et du Latran, il dut embarrasser beaucoup ses adversaires." Lettres de Marg. d'Angouleme, i. 128.]

[Footnote 234: "O impiam et inverecundam arrogantiam," etc. See chapter I., p. 24.]

[Footnote 235: Determinatio Facultatis, etc., Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 10, etc.; Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum (Opera Melanchthonis), i. 366, etc., 371, etc.]

[Footnote 236: Adversus furiosum Parisiensium theologastrorum decretum Philippi Melanchthonis pro Luthero apologia, Bretschneider, i. 399-416.]

[Footnote 237: Lettre de la faculte de theologie a la reine, Oct. 7, 1523, Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 16, 17.]

[Footnote 238: Articules concernans les responces que apres meure deliberation a fait la faculte de theologie. Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 17-21.]

[Footnote 239: "Qui [les livres de Luther] furent imprimez et publiez par toutes les villes d'Alemaigne et par tout le royaume de France." Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 94.]

[Footnote 240: Ibid., 104.]

[Footnote 241: "Ego confidenter loquar, credens in Domino quod verum sit, quod plus syncerioris theologiae in libris praedictis continetur, quam in omnibus scriptis omnium monachorum, qui a principio fuerunt."]

[Footnote 242: A contemporary song (1525) denouncing woes against Strasbourg for harboring the "Lutherans," contains these doggerel lines:

"Ce faulx Lambert, heretique mauldict, Te fait prendre la dance De l'infemal deduyt."

Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., ix. (1860) 381.]

[Footnote 243: Margaret of Angouleme, out of all patience, at last sent word requesting him to desist from these untimely letters to her brother—"qu'il n'escripva plus ny au Roy ny a aultres." Toussain to Farel, December 17, 1524, Herminjard, i. 313.]

[Footnote 244: Witness the malignant satisfaction exhibited by the Nuncio Aleander when noting the reported death of Lambert and his entire family: "Mi ha detto hoggi, che Francesco Lamberto d'Avignon, qual fugito dal monasterio, et ito astar un tempo con Luther ha scritto infiniti libri contra la Chiesa di Dio, quest' anno in terra del Langravio di Hassia insieme con la moglie et figliuoli tutti miserabilmente, et come da miracolo, in gran calamita son crepati." Aleander to Sanga, Brussels, November 25, 1531, Vatican Library, Laemmer, Monumenta, 90. See Lambert's autobiographical sketch, entitled: "Rationes propter quas Minoritarum conversationem habitumque rejecit," Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 21-28, and translated, Herminjard, i. 118, etc.; F. W. Hassencamp, Fr. Lambert von Avignon; Haag, France prot., s. v.; Baum, Lambert von Avignon.]

[Footnote 245: So says Lambert, who states: "Novi ilium ex intimis; fuit enim mihi perinde atque Jonathas Davidi." Praef. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium antiquarium, vi. 490.]

[Footnote 246: The Bishop of Metz was John, Cardinal of Lorraine, uncle of the more notorious Cardinal Charles. Chatellain had written a poetical chronicle of Metz reaching to the year 1524. A friendly hand continued it, and recorded the fate of Chatellain, described as

"Augustin, grand Docteur Qui estoit grand predicateur."

The chronicle, which certainly possesses no striking literary merit, is printed among the Preuves of Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine (Nancy, 1748), iii. pp. cclxxii., etc.]

[Footnote 247: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 44-46.]

[Footnote 248: "Quorum (Antichristi prophetae) faex in eadem civitate tam multa est, ut eosdem nongentos esse ferant." Lamberti praef. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium Antiq., vi. 485, etc.]

[Footnote 249: Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 250: Hist. de l'eglise gallicane, apud Gaillard, vi. 404.]

[Footnote 251: The letter is given by Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 50; also Gerdes., iv. (Doc), 48-50.]

[Footnote 252: Gerdes., iv. 51; Crespin, fol. 49-52; Haag, s. v.]

[Footnote 253: The incident, it must be confessed, is by no means above suspicion (see Kirchhofer, Life of Wm. Farel, London ed., p. 40, and Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, p. 6), although, as Merle d'Aubigne observes, Hist. of the Reformation, bk. xii. c. 13, it is in keeping with Farel's character. Oecolampadius, foreseeing the possibility of his indulging in such inconsiderate words and actions, warned him, as early as Aug. 19, 1524, to temper his zeal with mildness, and to treat his opponents rather as was most expedient, than as they deserved to be treated. Herminjard, i. 265-267.]

[Footnote 254: "Ceste heresie lutherienne, qui commance fort a pulluler par deca. Et jam plures de cineribus valde (Valdo) renascuntur plantulae." Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Noel Beda, January 23, 1525. The title of primate was assumed both by the Archbishop of Sens and the Archbishop of Lyons, the former having apparently the better claim and enjoying nominally a Wider supremacy (as "Primat des Gaules et de Germanie"); but the latter gradually vindicated his pretension to spiritual authority over most of France. See Encyclopedie methodique, s. v. Sens, and Lyon.]

[Footnote 255: Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 408.]



CHAPTER IV.

INCREASING SEVERITY.—LOUIS DE BERQUIN.

[Sidenote: Captivity of Francis I.]

The year 1525 was critical as well in the religious as in the political history of France. On the twenty-fourth of February, in consequence of the disaster at Pavia, Francis fell into the hands of his rival—Charles, by hereditary descent King of Spain, Naples, and Jerusalem, sovereign, under various titles, of the Netherlands, and by election Emperor of Germany—a prince whose vast possessions in both hemispheres made him at once the wealthiest and most powerful of living monarchs. With his unfortunate captivity, all the fanciful schemes of conquest entertained by the French king fell to the ground. But France felt the blow not less keenly than the monarch. One of the most gallant armies that ever crossed the Alps had been lost. The kingdom was by no means invulnerable, for the capital itself might easily reward a well-executed invasion from the side of Flanders. The recuperative energies of the country could be put forth to little advantage, so long as the place of the king—fons omnis jurisdictionis, as the French legists styled him—was filled by a woman in the capacity of regent. France bade fair to exhibit to the world the inherent weakness of a despotism wherein all power, in fact as well as in theory, centres ultimately in the single person of the supreme ruler as autocrat. For it was his standing boast that he was "emperor" in his own realm, holding it of none other than God, and responsible to God alone, and that as king and emperor he had the exclusive right to make ordinances from which no subject could appeal without rendering himself liable to the penalties pronounced upon traitors.[256] Now that the head was taken away, who could answer for the harmonious action of the body which had been wont to depend upon him alone for direction?

[Sidenote: Change in the religious policy of Louise de Savoie.]

Louise de Savoie, to whom the direction of affairs had been confided during her son's absence in Italy, had, for greater convenience, transferred the court temporarily to the city of Lyons, where, under the protection of Margaret of Angouleme, the most evangelical preachers of France had been allowed to proclaim the tenets of the reformers within the churches and in the hearing of thousands of eager listeners. The queen mother had not yet ventured decidedly to depart from the tolerant system hitherto pursued by the crown.[257] But the announcement of the capture of Francis effected a complete revolution in her policy. There is no inherent improbability in the story that Chancellor Duprat—the statesman and ecclesiastic who had gained so strong an ascendancy over the mind of Louise that he was shortly promoted to the Archbishopric of Sens and rewarded with the rich abbey of Saint Benoit-sur-Loire—insinuated to the queen mother that the misfortunes befalling France were tokens of the Divine displeasure. Had Francis spared no exertions to destroy the first germs of the heresy so insidiously introduced into his kingdom, he would not now, said the churchman, be languishing in the dungeons of Milan or Madrid. Nor could hopes be entertained of his deliverance, and of a return of Heaven's favor, unless the queen mother bestirred herself to retrieve his mistake by the introduction of new measures to crush heresy. Thus is the chancellor said to have argued, and to have earned the cardinal's hat at the Pope's hands. However this may be, it is certain that motives of policy were no less influential than the pious considerations which, perhaps, might have carried full as much conviction had they come from the lips of a more exemplary prelate.[258] The regent was certainly not ignorant of the fact that the support of Clement the Seventh, now specially needed in the delicate diplomacy lying immediately before her, could best be secured by proving to the pontiff's satisfaction that the house of Valois was clear of all suspicion of harboring or fostering the "Lutheran" doctrines and their adherents.

The ordinary appliances for the suppression of heresy—a duty entrusted by canon law, so far as the preliminary search and the trial of the suspected was concerned, to the bishops and their courts—had confessedly proved inadequate. The prelates were in great part non-residents, and could not from a distance narrowly watch the progress of the objectionable tenets in their dioceses. One or two of their number were accused of culpable sluggishness, if not of indifference or something worse. The question naturally arose, What new and more effective procedure could be devised?

[Sidenote: A commission appointed to try "Lutherans."]

After mature deliberation, the privy council resolved upon a plan which was virtually to remove the cognizance of crimes against religion from the clergy, and commit it to a mixed commission. The Parliament of Paris was accordingly notified that the bishop of that city stood ready to delegate his authority to conduct the trial of all heretics found within his jurisdiction to such persons as parliament might select for the discharge of this important function; and the latter body proceeded at once to designate two of its own members to act in conjunction with two doctors of the Sorbonne, and receive the faculties promised by the Bishop of Paris.[259] A few days later (March 29, 1525), in making a necessary substitution for one of the members who was unable to serve, parliament not only empowered the commission thus constituted to try the "Lutheran" prisoners, Pauvan and Saulnier, but directed the Archbishops of Lyons and Rheims, and the bishops or chapters of eight of the remaining most important dioceses, to confer upon it similar authority to that already received at the hands of the bishop of the metropolis.[260]

[Sidenote: The commission a new form of inquisition.]

[Sidenote: The inquisition hitherto jealously watched.]

It was, however, no ordinary tribunal which the highest civil court of the kingdom was erecting. The commission was in effect nothing less than a new phase of the Inquisition, embodying many of the most obnoxious features of that detested tribunal. It is true that the "Holy Office," in a modified form, had existed in France ever since the persecutions directed against the Albigenses and the bloody campaigns of Simon de Montfort. But the seat of the solitary Inquisitor of the Faith was Toulouse, not Paris, and his powers had been jealously circumscribed by the courts of justice and the diocesan prelates, both equally interested in rearing barriers to prevent his incursions into their respective jurisdictions. The Inquisitor of Toulouse was now only a spy and informer.[261] Parliament, in particular, had clearly enunciated the principle that neither inquisitor nor bishop had the right to arrest a suspected heretic, inasmuch as bodily seizure was the exclusive prerogative of the officers of the crown. The judges of this supreme court had summoned to their bar a bishop, and his "official," or vicar, and had exacted from them an explicit disavowal of any intention to arrest, in the case of a person whom they had merely detained, as they asserted, until such time as they could deliver him into the hands of a competent civil officer.[262] And it had become a maxim of French jurisprudence, that "an inquisitor of the faith has no power of capture or arrest, save with the assistance, and by authority, of the secular arm."[263]

[Sidenote: Parliament breaks down the safeguards of personal liberty.]

But the Parliament of Paris, at the instigation of the regent's advisers, and with the consent of the bishops, was breaking down these important safeguards of personal liberty. It not only accorded to the mixed inquisitorial commission, consisting of two lay and two clerical members, the authority to apprehend persons suspected of heresy, but removed the proceedings of the commission almost entirely from review and correction. A pretext for this extraordinary course was found in the delays heretofore experienced from the interposition of technical difficulties. "The commissioners," said parliament, "by virtue of the authority delegated to them, shall secretly institute inquiries against the Lutherans, and shall proceed against them by personal summons, by bodily arrest, by seizure of goods, and by other penalties. Their decisions shall be executed in spite of any and every opposition and appeal, save in case of the final sentence."[264] While conferring such extravagant privileges, parliament took pains to prescribe that the decisions of the commission should be executed precisely as if they had emanated from the supreme court itself. Such were the lengths to which the most conservative judges were willing to go, in the hope of speedily eradicating the reformed doctrines from French soil.

[Sidenote: The commission endorsed by Clement VII.]

The regent and her master-spirit, the chancellor, did not rest here. The commission was not irrevocable; and its authority might be disputed. The work of parliament must receive the papal sanction. For this Clement the Seventh did not keep them long waiting. He addressed to parliament (May 20, 1525) a brief conceived in a vein of fulsome eulogy, expressing his marvellous commendation of their acts—acts which he declared to be worthy of the reputation for wisdom in which the French tribunal was justly held. And he incited the judges to fresh zeal by the consideration that the new madness that had fallen upon the world was prepared to confound and overturn, not religion alone, but all rule, nobility, pre-eminence and superiority—nay, all law and order. The reader, it may be feared, will tire of the frequency with which the same trite suggestions recur. It is, however, not a little important to emphasize the argument which the Roman Curia, and its emissaries at the courts of kings, were never weary of reiterating in the ears of the rich and powerful. And as they seized with avidity every slight incident of disorder that could by any means be associated with the great religious movement now in progress, and presented it as corroboratory proof of the charge preferred against the "Lutherans," it is not surprising that they were generally successful in their appeal to the fears of a class which had so much at stake.

In addition to his endorsement of their pious zeal, Clement's brief informed the judges of parliament that they would find in the accompanying bull his formal confirmation of the inquisitorial commission.[265]

This "letter with the leaden seal," dated the seventeenth of May, might well have opened the eyes of less devoted subjects of the Roman See to the injury they were inflicting upon the French liberties, heretofore so cherished an object of judicial solicitude. Addressing itself to the four commissioners named by parliament, the bull recited the lamentable progress of the doctrines of that "son of iniquity and heresiarch, Martin Luther," and praised the ardor displayed to stay their dissemination in France. It next declared that the Pope, by the advice and with the unanimous consent of the cardinals, instructed the commissioners to proceed either singly or collectively against those persons who had embraced heretical views, "simply and quietly, without noise or form of judgment." He empowered them to act independently of the prelates of the kingdom and the Inquisitor of the Faith, or to call in their assistance, as they should see fit. They might summon witnesses, under pain of ecclesiastical censures. They might make investigations against and put on trial all those infected with heresy, even should the guilty be bishops or archbishops in the church, or be clothed with the ducal authority in the state. When convicted, such persons were to be punished by arrest and imprisonment, or cut off, "like rotten members, from the communion of the church, and consigned to eternal damnation with Satan and his angels." The commissioners were further authorized to grant permission to any one of the faithful who chose so to do to invade, occupy, and acquire for himself the lands, castles, and goods of the heretics, seizing their persons and leading them away into life-long slavery. From the sentence of the commissioners all appeal, even to the "Apostolic See" itself, was expressly cut off.[266]

[Sidenote: Its powers enlarged by the papal bull.]

Rome had made one of its most brilliant strokes. While adopting as his own the commissioners appointed by parliament, Clement had enlarged their already exorbitant prerogatives, and consummated their independence of secular interference. A new and more efficient inquisition was thus introduced into France, with its secret investigation and unlimited power of inflicting punishment. The Parliament of Paris had, however, committed itself too fully to think of demurring. Accordingly, it proceeded (June 10th) to enter on its records both the regent's letter and the bull of the Pope, to which the letter enjoined obedience.[267]

We have in a previous chapter seen some of the first fruits of the establishment of the inquisitorial commission, in the proceedings instituted against Lefevre d'Etaples, Gerard Roussel, and others who took part in the attempted reformation of the diocese of Meaux. But, chief among those whom it was sought to destroy, through the agency of the new and well-furbished weapon against heretics, was a nobleman of Artois, whose repeated and remarkable escapes from the hand of the executioner, viewed in connection with the tragic fate that at last overtook him, invest his story with a romantic interest.

[Sidenote: Character of Louis de Berquin.]

[Sidenote: He becomes a warm partisan of the Reformation.]

Louis de Berquin was a man of high rank, whom friends and enemies alike admired for his uncommon acuteness of mind and his great attainments in letters and science. A contemporary Parisian, whose diary has supplied us more than one of those graphic traits that assist much in bringing before our eyes the living forms of the great actors in the world's past history, seems to have been strongly impressed by the commanding appearance and elegance of dress of De Berquin, at this time in the very prime of life.[268] But the great Erasmus, his correspondent, stood in far greater admiration of his extraordinary learning, his purity of life—a rare excellence in a nobleman of the court of Francis the First—his kindness and freedom from all ostentation, his uncompromising hatred of every form of meanness and injustice,[269] and a fearless courage which, in the eyes of the timid sage of Rotterdam, appeared to fall little short of foolhardiness. Like most of the really earnest reformers, De Berquin was originally a very strict observer of the ordinances of the church, and was unsurpassed in attention to fasts, feast-days, and the mass. It was indignation and contempt for the petty persecution inaugurated by Beda and his associates of the Sorbonne that first led him to examine the tenets of Lefevre. From Lefevre's works he naturally passed to those of the German reformers. His curiosity turning to admiration, he began to translate and annotate the most striking treatises that fell into his hands. Not content with this, he set himself to writing books on the same topics, and incidentally depicted in no flattering colors the intolerance and ignorance of the Paris theologians. As he made no attempt at concealment, his activity was soon known.

[Sidenote: His first imprisonment.]

In the spring of 1523, De Berquin's house was visited, his books and papers were seized, and an inventory was made. Beda was the leader of the authorities in the whole affair. Parliament ordered the books and manuscripts to be examined and reported upon by the theological faculty. What the report would be, it was not hard to surmise. When such works were found in De Berquin's possession as that entitled "Speculum Theologastrorum," and another giving Luther's reasons for maintaining the universal priesthood of Christian believers; when the notes in De Berquin's own handwriting condemned as blasphemous, and as derogatory to the power of the Holy Ghost, the ascription of praise to the Virgin Mary as the "fountain of all grace"—but one answer could be expected to the requisition of parliament. The books and manuscripts were pronounced heretical; their author was commanded to retract. This De Berquin refused to do, and he was, consequently, shut up in the conciergerie—the civil prison within the walls of the ancient palace in which parliament sat. Four days later he was transferred to the dungeons of the Bishop of Paris, to be judged by him with the aid of two counsellors of parliament and of such theologians as he should see fit to call in.[270]

[Sidenote: He is released by order of the king.]

The case was fast becoming serious. De Berquin was made of sterner stuff than the weaklings who recant through fear of the stake; and the syndic of Sorbonne was fully resolved to have him burned if he remained constant. Happily, just at this critical moment the king interfered. From Melun, which he had reached on his way toward the south of France, he despatched an officer—one "Captain Frederick," as his name appears in the records—to demand the release of De Berquin, whose trial he had evoked for the consideration of his own royal council. Parliament attempted to interpose technical difficulties, and responded that the prisoner was no longer in its keeping. But "Captain Frederick" was provided against any quibbling. As his instructions were to break open whatever prison-doors might be barred against him, it was not long before the expected prey of the theologians was given into his custody. In the end De Berquin was set at liberty, such an examination of his case having been made by the king's council as courtiers are wont to institute when the accused is the favorite of the monarch.[271]

[Sidenote: Advice of Erasmus.]

It was about this time that Erasmus first made the acquaintance of Louis de Berquin. The Artesian nobleman took occasion to write to the great Dutch humanist, of whom he stood in great admiration, to inform him of the position assumed in reference to the writings of the latter by Beda and Du Chesne. Erasmus tells us that he was delighted with his new correspondent. But the constitutional timidity of the scholar compelled him to answer De Berquin by words of caution rather than of encouragement: "If you are wise, repress your encomiums; do not disturb the hornets, and spend your time in your favorite studies. At all events, do not involve me; for the consequences might be inconvenient for us both." But the dictates of worldly wisdom had no influence over De Berquin. Presently Erasmus was vexed to find that De Berquin in his writings was appealing to his friend's authority, and quoting the sentiments of the latter in defence of his own opinions. Now thoroughly alarmed at De Berquin's imprudence, Erasmus remonstrated, plainly intimating that whatever delight others might derive from conflicts such as he saw approaching, nothing was less grateful to himself.

[Sidenote: Berquin's second imprisonment.]

[Sidenote: Francis again orders his release.]

Meantime Louis de Berquin had retired to his own estates, in the expectation of pursuing his plans with less danger of interference than in the capital. Even there, however, he was not safe. The propitious moment for striking a decisive blow seemed to his enemies to have come when, the king being a captive, his mother, the regent, had permitted Pope and parliament to erect a tribunal for the summary trial and execution of heretics. The Bishop of Amiens, in whose diocese De Berquin's lands were situated, having applied to parliament, easily obtained the authority to seize him, disregarding even the ordinary rights of asylum.[272] After his arrest he was again transferred from the episcopal palace to the conciergerie at Paris, and his trial entrusted to the new inquisitorial commission. A series of propositions extracted from his writings, and censured by the Sorbonne, insured his condemnation as a relapsed heretic, and De Berquin was handed over to the secular arm for condign punishment. But again, at the very instant when his ruin was imminent, he met with unexpected deliverance. The sympathy of the king's sister was enlisted, and she used her influence with her mother to obtain an order adjourning all proceedings against De Berquin until the monarch should be released. Meanwhile she wrote urgent letters in his behalf to Francis and to his favorite, the grand master of the palace and future constable of France, Anne de Montmorency. The reply came in an order from the king, at Madrid, directing his parliament to cease from giving disturbance to Berquin and such men of learning.[273]