[Sidenote: Dilatory measures of parliament.]

It is suggestive of the delays attending even the execution of the will of so arbitrary a prince as Francis, that, although De Berquin was thus delivered from the immediate prospect of death, months passed before he regained his liberty. Successive royal orders were required to secure any alleviation of his hard confinement. Thus, when his health suffered from want of exercise and pure air, parliament grudgingly permitted him to leave his solitary cell for an hour morning and evening, at such time as the court might be clear of other prisoners whom he could contaminate. And when De Berquin complained that his books and writing materials had been denied him, the extent of the parliament's generosity was to grant him "the epistles of St. Jerome and some other Catholic books." At length, the king's patience becoming exhausted by the court's procrastination and technical objections, he sent (November 21, 1526) the Provost of Paris forcibly to remove De Berquin from the conciergerie to the Louvre, where he was soon restored his freedom.[274]

[Sidenote: Hopes of Margaret of Angouleme.]

The return of Francis from Madrid, and the rescue of Berquin, Lefevre, Roussel, and others, from the dangers to which they had been exposed, encouraged the more sanguine reformers to hope that now at length the king would declare himself openly in favor, if not of the evangelical doctrines, at least of some form of religions toleration. Margaret of Angouleme had certainly labored piously and assiduously to open her brother's eyes to the true character of his fanatical advisers. In a letter still preserved and apparently written even before Francis had been removed from Italy to Spain, she begged him to regard his misfortune as only a mark of the Divine love, and intended to give him time for reflection and consecration. This end being accomplished, Heaven would gloriously deliver him and make him a blessing to all Christendom—nay, even to infidel nations to be converted by his means.[275]

However fanciful these brilliant anticipations may now appear, they did not seem unreasonable at the time. It was not improbable that the example of the illustrious German princes, his allies, who had embraced the Reformation, might incline Francis decidedly to the same side. Margaret had conceived great expectations, based upon a projected visit to the French court by Count Von Hohenlohe, Dean of the Cathedral of Strasbourg—a nobleman, who, having become a Protestant, was anxious to turn to the advantage of his new convictions the influence secured to him by high social rank. The correspondence of Francis's sister with the zealous German noble opens a suggestive page of history. At first, Margaret, while applauding the count's design and building great hopes upon it, advises him to defer his visit until the king's return from Spain. Two months later, she is even more anxious to see Hohenlohe in Paris, but feels constrained to tell him that his friends have, for a certain reason, concluded that the proper time has not yet arrived. A third letter, dated after the restoration of Francis to his throne, informs us what that certain reason was. "I cannot tell you all the grief I feel," Margaret writes, "for I clearly see that the state of things is such that your coming cannot be productive of the comfort you would desire. The king would not be glad to see you. The reason that your visit is deemed inadvisable is the deliverance of the king's children, which the king esteems as important as the deliverance of his own person."[276]

[Sidenote: Francis I. violates his pledges to Charles V.]

Here was the secret! Unfortunately for the Reformation, policy was supposed to make it an imperative duty to conciliate the favor of the Pope, no less after the release of Francis than while he was yet a prisoner. There were the young princes sent by the regent as hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty with Charles of Spain, for whose liberation measures were to be devised. And there was the oath—to the shame of Francis, it must be added—from the binding force of which the king hoped to be relieved by authority of the Roman bishop; for scarcely had Francis set foot on his own dominions, when he unblushingly retracted all his treaty stipulations. He announced to the emperor that the cession of Burgundy, the Viscounty of Auxonne, and other territories, which had been made by his imperial captor the indispensable condition of his release, was entirely out of the question; and that his promises, extorted while he was in duress, were of no validity! Nevertheless, he offered, in lieu thereof, the payment of a larger ransom than had ever been proffered by a king of France. Indignant at a perfidy somewhat flagrant, even for an age tolerably well accustomed to breaches of faith, the emperor refused the substitute. The arms recently laid aside were resumed. Clement the Seventh and Venice became the allies of Francis, who for the present figured as the champion of the papacy; while his rival, by suffering the traitor Constable de Bourbon with an army of German soldiers to besiege the pontiff in his capital, became responsible in the eyes of the world for all the atrocities of the famous sack of the city of Rome. When, at length, after three years of hard fighting, peace was concluded by the treaty of Cambray (July, 1529), the terms agreed upon at Madrid were virtually carried into effect; but the emperor consented to receive the sum of two millions of Crowns—ecus-au-soleil—in place of Burgundy, and on payment to restore to the French the dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, the future Henry the Second, so long detained as hostages in Spain.

[Sidenote: The king's necessities.]

[Sidenote: A despotic course suggested.]

Meantime the revenues of the royal domain, having during the late wars been subjected to a long and unremitting drain, had proved utterly inadequate to meet the extraordinary demand of treasure for the resumption of the hostilities following close upon Francis's release. Recourse must be had to the purses of the king's subjects. The right to levy taxes resided in the States General alone, and Francis was reluctant, at so critical a juncture, to trample on a time-hallowed principle. He did not, indeed, hesitate to admit that he had been gravely counselled by some of his advisers to resort to a more despotic course; for they maintained that, in so praiseworthy an undertaking as the effort to recover the young princes, the king was warranted by all laws, divine and human, in laying under contribution every one of his subjects, of whatever rank or condition.[277] But, as the same ends might be attained by methods more agreeable to law and precedent, Francis preferred to have recourse to them.

[Sidenote: An assembly of notables.]

On the sixteenth of December, 1527, one of those anomalous political bodies was convened in the palace of the Parisian parliament to which the name of an assembly of notables is given. All the orders of the state were represented; but the form of a meeting of the States General (as we have seen, most distasteful to the despotic monarch) was studiously avoided.[278] In reply to a very full exposition of the present condition of the kingdom and of the incidents of his capture, made by Francis in person to the assembled clergymen, nobles, jurists, and burgesses of Paris, each order in turn gave its opinion. All united in approving the refusal of the king to surrender Burgundy to the emperor, and in expressing their unwillingness to allow his Majesty to return to Spain and thus redeem the promise he had given in case the treaty failed to be carried into effect. All likewise professed their readiness to contribute, according to their ability, to the necessities of the crown.

The first president, M. de Selve, in the name of parliament, delivered a discourse which the clerk of the assembly, no doubt aptly, describes as "crammed with Latin and with quotations from Scripture, to prove that the treaty of Madrid was null and void."[279] His grounds were that the king could neither dispose of his own person, which belonged to the state, nor alienate Burgundy, which, being a fief of the first rank and a bulwark of the kingdom, was inseparable from France. But probably the whole prodigious mass of classic lore, and of scriptural quotation, even more unfamiliar to most of his hearers, which the pedantic president forced upon the digestion of the unfortunate notables, was required to prove to their satisfaction that Francis had in this affair played the part of the "gentilhomme" he boasted of being.

[Sidenote: Speech of the Cardinal of Bourbon.]

The speech of the Cardinal of Bourbon was especially important. He announced the willingness of the representatives of the French clergy cheerfully to supply the 1,300,000 livres asked of their order, although at the same time he suggested the propriety of first convoking provincial councils, in which the church might be more fully consulted. With this gracious concession, however, the cardinal coupled three requests, of which the first and third concerned the liberation of the Pope from his imprisonment and the conservation of the liberties of the Gallican church; but the second had a pointed reference to the Reformation: he prayed "that the king might be pleased to uproot and extirpate the damnable and insufferable Lutheran sect which had, not long since, secretly entered the realm, with all the other heresies that were multiplying therein." By thus acting, he assured him, Francis "would perform the duty of a good prince bearing the name of Very Christian King."

[Sidenote: Francis promises to prove himself "Very Christian."]

The gratified monarch, delighted with the complaisance of his clerical subjects, did not hesitate to accede to all the petitions the Cardinal offered, and declared that, "so far as concerned heresies, he was determined not to endure them, but would cause them to be wholly extirpated and driven from his kingdom," inflicting on any found tainted therewith such exemplary punishment as to demonstrate his right to the honorable title he bore.[280]

It was a rash promise that Francis had made. Like many other absolute monarchs, he expected without trouble to bring the religious convictions of his subjects into conformity with the standard he was pleased to set up.[281] He had yet to learn that there are beliefs which, when they take root in the hearts of humble and illiterate peasants or artisans, are too firmly fixed to be eradicated by the most excruciating tortures man's ingenuity has been able to contrive. Through fire and sword, the victim now of persecution, again of open war, the faith denominated heresy was yet to survive, not only the last lineal descendant of the king then sitting on the throne of France, but the rule of the dynasty which was destined to succeed to the power, and reproduce not a few of the mistakes, of the Valois race.

[Sidenote: The provincial council of Sens.]

In accordance with the suggestion of the Cardinal of Bourbon, three provincial councils were held early in the ensuing year (1528). The most important was the council of the ecclesiastical province of Sens, which met, however, in the Augustinian monastery at Paris. It was scarcely to be expected that a synod presided over by Antoine Duprat, who, to the dignity of cardinal and the office of Chancellor of France, added the Bishopric of Albi and the Archbishopric of Sens, with the claim to be Primate of the Gauls and of Germany, should discuss with severity the morals of the clergy, or issue stringent canons against the abuse of the plurality of benefices. As an offset, however, the Council of Sens had much to say respecting the new reformation. The good fathers saw in the discordant views of Luther and Carlstadt, of Melanchthon and Zwingle, proof positive that the new doctrines the reformers advanced were devoid of any basis of truth. They ridiculed the claim of the Protestants to the presence of the Spirit of God. But they reserved their severest censures for the practice of holding secret conventicles, and, with an irony best appreciated by those who understand the penalties inflicted by the law on the discovered heretics, they gently reminded the men and women to whom the celebration of a single religious service according to the dictates of their conscience would have insured instantaneous condemnation and a death at the stake, that God hates the deeds of darkness, and that Christ himself said, "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light."[282]

[Sidenote: The punishment of heretics.]

More practical were the prescriptions of the council's decrees respecting the punishment of offenders against the unity of the faith. Heretics who, after conviction, refused to be "united to the church," were to be consigned to prison for life, priests to be degraded, the relapsed to be given over to the secular arm without a hearing. Heretical books, including translations of the Bible, were to be surrendered to the bishop. Indeed, it was stipulated that every book treating of the faith, and printed within the past twenty years, should be submitted to him for examination. Nor was the council satisfied to leave the discovery of heresy to accident. It was particularly enjoined upon every bishop that he, or some competent person appointed by him, should visit any portion of his diocese in which the taint of unsound doctrine was reported to exist, and compel three or more persons of good standing, or even the entire body of the inhabitants of a neighborhood, to denounce under oath those who entertained heretical views, the frequenters of secret conventicles, and even those who merely held aloof from the conversation of the faithful. Lest this stimulus to informers should prove insufficient to extract the desired knowledge, the threat was added that persons refusing to testify would be treated as suspected, and themselves proceeded against.[283]

[Sidenote: The councils of Bourges and Lyons.]

Not less severe toward the "Lutheran" doctrines did the other two provincial councils show themselves. At the Council of Bourges, the Cardinal of Tournon presided as archbishop—a prelate who was to attain unenviable notoriety as the prime instigator of the massacre of Merindol and Cabrieres, of which an account will be given in a subsequent chapter. Besides the usual regulations for the censure of heretical books and the denunciation of "Lutherans," the decrees contain the significant direction that the professors in the University of Bourges shall employ in their instructions no authors calculated to divert the students from the ceremonies of the church—a caution deriving its importance from the circumstance that the university, under the patronage of Margaret of Angouleme, now Duchess of Berry as well as Queen of Navarre, had become a centre of reformatory activity.

The letter in which the king had called upon the Archbishop of Lyons to convene the clergy of his province, declared that Francis had ever held the accursed sect of the "Lutherans" in hatred, horror, and abomination, and that its extirpation was an object very near his heart, for the accomplishment of which he would employ all possible means;[284] and the Council of Lyons responded by cordial approval and by the enactment of fresh regulations to suppress conventicles, to prevent the farther dissemination of Luther's writings, and, indeed, to forbid all discussion of matters of faith by the laity. At the same time the council unconsciously revealed the necessity imposed on the private Christian to investigate for himself the nature and grounds of his belief, by strongly reprobating the disastrous custom of admitting into sacred orders a host of illiterate, uncultivated persons of low antecedents—beardless youths—and by confessing that this wretched practice had justly excited the contempt of the world.[285]

[Sidenote: Financial help bought by persecution.]

Everywhere the clergy conceded the subsidy required by the exigencies of the kingdom. But they left Francis in no doubt respecting the price of their complaisance. This was nothing less than the extermination of the new sect that had made its appearance in France. And the king comprehended and fell in with the terms upon which the church agreed to loosen its purse-strings. No doubtful policy must now prevail! No more Berquins can be permitted to make their boast that they have been able, protected by the king's panoply, to beard the lion in his den!

[Sidenote: Insult to an image.]

An incident occurring in Paris, before the adjournment of the Council of Sens, gave Francis a specious excuse for inaugurating the more cruel system of persecution now demanded of him, and tended somewhat to conceal from the king himself, as well as from others, the mercenary motive of the change. Just after the solemnities of Whitsunday, an unheard of act of impiety startled the inhabitants of the capital, and fully persuaded them that no object of their devotions was safe from iconoclastic violence. One of those numerous statues of the Virgin Mary, with the infant Jesus in her arms, that graced the streets of Paris, was found to have been shockingly mutilated. The body had been pierced, and the head-dress trampled under foot. The heads of the mother and child had been broken off and ignominiously thrown in the rubbish.[286] A more flagrant act of contempt for the religious sentiment of the country had perhaps never been committed. The indignation it awakened must not be judged by the standard of a calmer age.[287] In the desire to ascertain the perpetrators of the outrage, the king offered a reward of a thousand crowns. But no ingenuity could ferret them out. A vague rumor, indeed, prevailed, that a similar excess had been witnessed in a village four or five leagues distant, and that the culprits when detected had confessed that they had been prompted to its commission by the promise of a paltry recompense of one hundred sous for every image destroyed. But, since no one seems ever to have been punished, it is probable that this report was a fabrication; and the question whether the mutilation of the Virgin of the Rue des Rosiers was the deliberate act of a religious enthusiast, or a freak of drunken revellers, or, as some imagined, a cunning device of good Catholics to inflame the popular passions against the "Lutherans," must, for the present, at least, remain a subject of profound doubt.

[Sidenote: Expiatory processions.]

But, whoever may have been the author, pains were taken to expiate the sacrilege. Successive processions visited the spot. In one of these, five hundred students of the university, chosen from different colleges and belonging to the first families, bore lighted tapers, which they placed on the temporary altar erected in front of the image. The clergy, both secular and regular, came repeatedly with all that was most precious in attire and relics. To add still more to the pomp of the propitiatory pilgrimages, Francis himself took part in a magnificent display, made on the Fete-Dieu, or Corpus Christi (the eleventh of June). He was preceded by heralds and by the Dukes of Cleves and Ferrara and other noblemen of high rank, while behind him walked the King of Navarre, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Ambassadors of England, Venice, Florence, and other foreign states, the officers of parliament, and a crowd of gentlemen of the king's house, archers and persons of all conditions bringing up the rear. On reaching the spot where the mutilated statue still occupied its niche, Francis, after appropriate religious exercises, ascended the richly carpeted steps, and reverently substituted an effigy in solid silver, of similar size, in place of the image which had been the object of insult.[288]

[Sidenote: Other icoconoclastic excesses.]

From this time forward, iconoclastic demonstrations became more common. Paintings, also, when exposed to the public view, shared the perils to which unprotected statues were subjected. The Virgin, and such reputable saints as St. Roch and St. Fiacre, depicted on the walls of the Rue St. Martin, were wantonly disfigured, some two years later; so that at last, the Parliament of Paris, in despair of preventing the repetition of the act, or of discovering its authors, adopted the prudent course of forbidding that any sacred representation should be placed on the exterior walls of a house within ten feet of the ground![289]

[Sidenote: Berquin's third arrest.]

[Sidenote: He disregards the cautions of Erasmus.]

The repeated assurances whereby Francis had conciliated the clergy, and secured their contributions to the exchequer, embarrassed him in the exercise of leniency toward Louis de Berquin, now for the third time arraigned for heresy. Moreover, the audacity and violence of the iconoclasts, characteristics assumed by him to be indicative of a disposition to overturn all government, probably took away any inclination he would otherwise have had to interfere in the intrepid nobleman's behalf. De Berquin had no sooner been released from his former imprisonment than he set himself to prepare for new conflicts with his bigoted antagonists. He even resolved to assume the offensive. In vain did Erasmus entreat him to be prudent, suggest the propriety of his temporarily going abroad, and propose that he should apply for some diplomatic commission as a plausible excuse for absenting himself. Beda, he told him, was a monster with many heads, each breathing out poison, while in the "Faculty" he had to do with an immortal antagonist. The monks would secure his ruin were his cause more righteous than that of Jesus Christ. Finally, the tremulous scholar begged him, if no consideration of personal safety moved him, at least not to involve so ardent a lover of peace as Erasmus in a conflict for which he had no taste. But his reasoning had no weight with a man of high resolve and inflexible principle, who could see no honorable course but openly meeting and overthrowing error. "Do you ask," wrote Erasmus to a correspondent interested in learning De Berquin's fate, "what I accomplished? By every means I employed to deter him I only added to his courage."[290] If we may believe Erasmus's strong expressions—for his own writings have very nearly disappeared—De Berquin assailed the monks with a freedom almost equal to that employed by the Old Comedy in holding up to merited derision the foibles of Athenian generals and statesmen. He even extracted twelve blasphemous propositions from Beda's utterances, and obtained a letter from the king enjoining the Sorbonne either to pass sentence of condemnation on their syndic's assertions, or to prove their truth from the Holy Scriptures.[291] The Dutch philosopher, aghast at his friend's incredible temerity, besought him instantly to seek safety in flight; and, when this last appeal proved as ineffectual as all his frequent efforts in the past, he confessed that he almost regretted that a friendship had ever arisen which had occasioned him so much trouble and disquiet.[292]

A third time Louis de Berquin was arrested, on application of the officer known as the Promoteur de la foi. His trial was committed to twelve judges selected by parliament, among whom figured not only the first president and the vicar-general of the Bishop of Paris, but, strange to say, even so well-disposed and liberal a jurist as Guillaume Bude, the foremost French scholar of the age for broad and accurate learning.[293] The case advanced too slowly to meet De Berquin's impatience. In the assurance of ultimate success, he is even accused by a contemporary chronicler of having offered the court two hundred crowns to expedite the trial.[294] It soon became evident, however, from, the withdrawal of the liberties at first accorded, that Be Berquin would scarcely escape unless the king again interposed—a contingency less likely to occur in view of the incessant appeals with which Francis was plied, addressed at once to his interest, his conscience, and his pride. But the more desperate the cause of Berquin, and the more uncertain the king's disposition, the more urgent the intercessions of Margaret of Angouleme, whose character is nowhere seen to better advantage than in her repeated letters to her brother about this time.[295]

[Sidenote: Berquin sentenced to public penance, branding, and imprisonment.]

The sentence was rendered on the sixteenth of April, 1529. De Berquin, being found guilty of heresy, was condemned to do public penance in front of Notre Dame, with lighted taper in hand, and crying for mercy to God and the blessed Virgin. Next, on the Place de Greve, he was to be ignominiously exhibited upon a scaffold, while his books were burned before his eyes. Taken thence in a cart to the pillory, and again exposed to popular derision on a revolving stage, he was to have his tongue pierced and his forehead branded with the ineffaceable fleur-de-lis. His public disgrace over, De Berquin was to be imprisoned for life in the episcopal jail.[296]

[Sidenote: He appeals, is sentenced to death, and is executed.]

More than twenty thousand persons—so intense a hatred had been stirred up against the reformers—assembled to witness the execution of a sentence malignantly cruel.[297] But, for that day, their expectation was disappointed. Louis de Berquin gave notice that he appealed to the absent king and to the Pope himself. It was no part of the programme, however, that the thrice-convicted heresiarch should gain a fresh respite and enlist powerful friends in effecting his release. No sooner were the judges satisfied that he persisted in his appeal, in spite of the secret and urgent advice of Bude and others, than they rendered a new and more severe sentence (on the seventeenth of April): he must pay the forfeit of his obstinacy with his life, and that, too, within a few hours.[298]

The cause of this intemperate haste is clearly set forth by a contemporary—doubtless an eye-witness of the execution—all whose sympathies were on the side of the prosecution. It was "lest recourse be had to the king, or to the regent then at Blois;"[299] for the delay of even a few days might have brought from the banks of the Loire another order removing De Berquin's case from the commission to the royal council.

The historian must leave to the professed martyrologist the details of the constant death of Louis de Berquin, as of the deaths of many other less distinguished victims of the intolerant zeal of the Sorbonne. Suffice it to say that although, when he undertook to address the people, his voice was purposely drowned by the din of the attendants, though the very children filled the air with shouts that De Berquin was a heretic, though not a person was found in the vast concourse to encourage him by the name of "Jesus"—an accustomed cry even at the execution of parricides—the brave nobleman of Artois met his fate with such composure as to be likened by a by-stander to a student immersed in his favorite occupations, or a worshipper whose devout mind was engrossed by the contemplation of heavenly things.[300] There were indeed blind rumors, as usual in such cases; to the effect that De Berquin recanted at the last moment; and Merlin, the Penitentiary of Notre Dame, who attended him, is reported to have exclaimed that "perhaps no one for a hundred years had died a better Christian."[301] But the "Lutherans" of Paris had good reason to deny the truth of the former statement, and to interpret the latter to the advantage of De Berquin's consistent faith—so great was the rejoicing over the final success attained in crushing the most distinguished, in silencing the boldest and most outspoken advocate of the reformation of the church. For, in the eyes of the theological faculty and of the clergy of France, Louis de Berquin merited to be styled, by way of pre-eminence, a heresiarch.[302]

[Sidenote: Francis treats with the Germans.]

Three years had not elapsed since the blow struck at the "Lutheran" doctrines in France, in the execution of their most promising and intrepid representative, before the hopes of the friends of the Reformation again revived from a consideration of the king's political relations. Disappointed at the contemptuous reception of their confession of faith by the Emperor at Augsburg, the Protestant princes of Germany had formed a defensive league. Francis, having basely abandoned his former allies, was left alone to combat the gigantic power of a rival between two portions of whose dominions his own kingdom lay exposed. Every consideration of prudence dictated the policy of lending to the German Protestants, in their endeavor to humble the pride of their common antagonist, the most efficient support of his arms. Under these circumstances religious differences were impotent to prevent the union. Accordingly, in May, 1532, through his ambassador, the sagacious Du Bellay, Francis promised the discontented Elector of Saxony and his associates the contribution of a large sum to enable them to make a sturdy resistance. But the peace shortly concluded with Charles rendered the proffered aid for a time unnecessary.[303]

[Sidenote: and with Henry VIII. of England.]

Equally unproductive of advantage to the professors of the reformed faith was the alliance for mutual defence between Francis and Henry the Eighth of England. Both monarchs were inspired with the same hatred of the emperor, and each had equal reason to complain of the insatiable rapacity of the Roman court. But neither at the pompous interview of the two kings at Boulogne, nor afterward, could Henry prevail upon Francis to take any decided measures against the Pope such as the former, weary of the obstacles thrown in the way of his divorce from Catharine of Aragon, was ready to venture. In his intercourse with the English king, Francis is said to have adopted for his guiding principle the motto, "Ami jusqu'a l'autel,"[304] and declined to sacrifice his orthodoxy to his interests. But the truth was that, in the view of Francis, his interests and his orthodoxy were coincident; and the difficulty experienced by the two kings in coming to a common understanding lay in the fact that, as has been well remarked, while in the enmity of Francis it was not the Pope but the emperor that occupied the foremost place, it was just the reverse with Henry.[305]

[Sidenote: Meeting of Francis I. and Clement, at Marseilles.]

[Sidenote: Marriage of Henry of Orleans to Catharine de' Medici.]

Francis had no thought of throwing away so valuable an auxiliary in his Italian projects, or of permanently attaching to Charles so dangerous an opponent as the papal power. And thus it happened that, a year from the time of his consultation with Henry, Francis proceeded to Marseilles to extend a still more cordial welcome to Clement himself. The wily pontiff had so dazzled the eyes of the king, that the latter had consented to, if he had not actually proposed, a marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans, his second son, and Catharine de' Medici, the Pope's niece.[306] The match was not flattering to Francis's pride; but there were great prospective advantages, and the bride was less objectionable because the bridegroom, as a younger son, was not likely to ascend the throne. But here again the king was destined to be disappointed. Clement's death, soon after, destroyed all hope of Medicean support in Italy; and the death of Francis, the dauphin, made Henry of Orleans heir apparent to the throne. It was not long before the French people, with the soundness of judgment generally characterizing the deliberate conclusions reached by the masses, came to the opinion, expressed by one of the Venetian ambassadors two years after the wedding: "Monseigneur of Orleans is married to Madam Catharine de' Medici, to the dissatisfaction of all France; for it seems to everybody that the most Christian king was cheated by Pope Clement."[307] Such were the evil auspices under which the Italian girl, only fourteen years of age,[308] entered a country over whose destinies she was to exert a pernicious influence.

[Sidenote: Francis refuses to join in a crusade against heresy.]

There was another part of the Pope's designs in the execution of which he was less successful. He could not persuade Francis to join in a general scheme for the extermination of heresy. In the very first interview, Clement had sounded his host's disposition respecting the propriety of a new crusade. He had bluntly submitted for consideration the question, "Ought not Francis and the pious princes of Germany, with the emperor at their head, to gather up their forces, enlist troops, and make all needful preparations, to overwhelm the followers of Zwingle and Luther; in order that, affrighted by the terrible retribution visited upon their fellows, the remaining heretics should hasten to make their submission to the Roman Church?" At the same time he threw out hints of his ability to assist in the good work if only the French monarch would not refuse his co-operation. But Francis was not ready for so sanguinary an undertaking. Unmoved by the Pope's repeated solicitations, he replied that it seemed to him that "neither piety nor concord would be promoted by substituting an appeal to arms for the appeal to the Holy Scriptures, to whose ultimate decision both Zwinglians and Lutherans professed themselves at all times anxious to submit their doctrines and practice." He added the unpalatable advice that the matters in dispute be considered by a free and impartial council, and declared that, when the council had rendered its verdict, he would spare no pains to sustain it. All the usual pontifical artifices proved abortive. Francis, while valuing highly the friendship of Rome, was not willing to forego the advantages of alliance with the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse.[309]

While the fickle monarch was thus drawn in opposite directions by conflicting political considerations—at one time strengthening the hands of the Protestant princes of Germany, at another, making common cause with the Pope—the same diversity characterized the internal condition of France.

[Sidenote: Execution of Jean de Caturce at Toulouse.]

At Toulouse, the seat of one of most noted parliaments, Jean de Caturce, a lawyer of ability, was put to death by slow fire in the summer of 1532. His unpardonable offence was that he had once made a "Lutheran" exhortation, and that, in the merry-making on the Fete des Rois—Epiphany—he had recommended that the prayer, "May Christ reign in our hearts!" be substituted for the senseless cry, "The king drinks!" No more ample ground of accusation was needed in a city where the luckless wight who failed to take off his cap before an image, or fall on his knees when the bell rang out at "Ave Maria," was sure to be set upon as a heretic.[310]

[Sidenote: Le Coq's evangelical sermon.]

In striking contrast with the tragedy enacted in the chief city of the south was the favor openly showed to the reformers by the Queen of Navarre, not only in her own city of Bourges, but in Paris itself. The intercessions she had addressed to her brother for the victims of priestly persecution had long since betrayed her secret leaning; and the translation of her "Hours" into French by the Bishop of Senlis, who, by her direction, suppressed all that most directly countenanced superstitious beliefs, was naturally taken as strong confirmation of the prevalent suspicion. But, when she introduced Berthault, Courault, and her own almoner, Roussel, to the pulpits of the capital, and protected them in their evangelical labors, the case ceased to admit of doubt.[311] She even persuaded the king to listen to a sermon in which Le Coq, curate of St. Eustache, argued with force against the bodily presence of Christ in the eucharist, and maintained that the very words, "Sursum corda" in the church service, pointed Him out as to be found at the right hand of God in heaven. Indeed, the eloquent preacher had nearly convinced his royal listener, when the Cardinals of Tournon and Lorraine, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded in destroying the impression he had received, and, it is said, in inducing Le Coq to make a retraction.[312] But the opposition to the public proclamation of the reformed doctrines was too formidable for their advocates to stem. Beda and his colleagues in the Sorbonne left no device untried to silence the preachers; and, although the restless syndic was in the end forced to expiate his seditious words and writings by an amende honorable in front of the church of Notre Dame, and died in prison,[313] Roussel and his fellow-preachers had long before been compelled to exchange their public discourses for private exhortations, and finally to discontinue even these and retreat from Paris.[314]

[Sidenote: Margaret attacked in the College of Navarre.]

Even so, however, the theologians could not contain their indignation at the insult they had received. In the excess of their zeal they went so far as to hold up the king's sister to condemnation and derision, in one of those plays which the students of the College de Navarre were accustomed annually to perform, as a scholastic exercise in public oratory (on the first of October, 1533). A gentle queen was here represented as throwing aside needle and distaff, at the crafty suggestion of a tempting fury, and as receiving in lieu of those feminine implements a copy of the Gospels—when, lo! she was suddenly transformed into a cruel tyrant. It was perhaps hard to detect the exact connection between the acceptance of the holy book and so disastrous a change of character—neither the students of the College de Navarre nor their teachers thought it worth while to trouble themselves about such trifles—but there was no difficulty in recognizing Margaret in the principal actor of the play, or in deciphering the name of Master Gerard Roussel—Magister Gerardus—in Megaera, the fury with the flaming torch, that seduced her. On complaint of his sister, Francis, in some indignation, ordered the arrest of the author of the insipid drama, as well as of the youthful performers. The former could not be found, and the latter, thanks to the queen's clemency, escaped with a less rigorous punishment than the insult deserved.[315]

[Sidenote: Her Miroir de l'ame pecheresse.]

An equally audacious act was the insertion of a work published by Margaret, under the title of Le miroir de l'ame pecheresse, in a list of prohibited books. When the university, to whom the censorship of the press was entrusted, was called to account by the king, all the faculties promptly repudiated any intention to cast doubt upon the orthodoxy of his sister, and even the originator of the offensive prohibition was forced to plead ignorance of the authorship of the volume in question. The rector of the university terminated the long series of disclaimers by rendering thanks to Francis for his fatherly patience.[316]

[Sidenote: Rector Cop's address to the university.]

Just a month after the unlucky dramatic representation of the College de Navarre, the city was furnished with fresh food for scandal. On All Saints' day (the first of November, 1533), the university assembled according to custom in the church of the Mathurins, to listen to an address delivered by the rector. But Nicholas Cop's discourse was not of the usual type. Under guise of a disquisition on "Christian Philosophy," the orator preached an evangelical sermon, with the First Beatitude for his text, and propounded the view that the forgiveness of sin and eternal life are simple gifts of God's grace that cannot be earned by man's good works.[317]

[Sidenote: Its extraordinary character.]

Never had academic harangue contained sentiments savoring so strongly of the tenets of the persecuted reformers. True, the rector had not omitted the ordinary invitation to his hearers to join him in the salutation of the Virgin.[318] But even this mark of orthodox Catholicity could not remove the taint of heresy from an address the whole drift of which was to establish the cardinal doctrine of the theology of Luther and Zwingle. It was a bold step. The doctors of the Sorbonne could not suppress their indignation, and Franciscan monks denounced the rector to the Parliament of Paris. When summoned to appear before the court to answer the charges brought against him, Cop at first endeavored to arouse in the university the traditional jealousy of this invasion of scholastic privileges, claiming that these were violated by his being cited to parliament before he had been in the first instance tried by his peers. And, indeed, after a tumultuous meeting of the university, called at the Mathurins a fortnight after the delivery of Cop's address (the nineteenth of November), the Faculty of Arts came to the same conclusion.[319] But, although the "Four Nations," and apparently the Faculty of Medicine also, promised their support, the Faculties of Theology and Law refused, and Cop did not venture to press his point. Warned of his danger by a friendly tongue, when already on his way to the Palais de Justice, in full official costume and accompanied by his beadles, he consulted his safety by a precipitate flight from the city and from the kingdom.[320]

[Sidenote: Calvin the real author.]

The incidents just narrated derive their chief interest from the circumstance that they bring to our notice for the first time a young man, Jean Cauvin, or Calvin, of Noyon, soon to figure among the most important actors in the intellectual and religious history of the modern world; for it was not many days before the authorship of the startling theological doctrines enunciated by the rector was directly traced to his friend and bosom companion, the future reformer of Geneva. In fact, Calvin seems to have supplied Cop with the entire address—a production not altogether unworthy of that clear and vigorous intellect which, within less than two years, conceived the plan of and matured the most orderly and perfect theological treatise of the Reformation—the "Institution Chretienne." Between the sketch of Christian Philosophy in the discourse written for the rector, and the Christian Institutes, there is, nevertheless, a contrast too striking to be overlooked. And if the salutation to the Virgin, in the exordium, was actually penned by Calvin, as is not improbable, the change in his religious convictions would appear to have been as marked and rapid as the development of his intellectual faculties. At any rate, the recent discovery of the complete manuscript of Nicholas Cop's oration ranks among the most opportune and welcome of antiquarian successes in our times.[321]

[Sidenote: He seeks safety in flight.]

Calvin was soon reduced to the necessity of following the rector's example in fleeing from Paris; for the part he had had in preparing the address had become the public talk. The young scholar—he was only in his twenty-fifth year—sought for by the sanguinary lieutenant-criminel, Jean Morin, barely made good his escape. Proceeding to Angouleme, he enjoyed, under the friendly roof of Louis de Tillet, a short period of quiet and an opportunity to pursue his favorite studies.[322]

[Sidenote: Francis rejects roughly the intercession of the Bernese.]

The incessant representations made to the king respecting the rapid progress of "Lutheran" doctrines in France, and perhaps also the occurrence of such incidents as that just mentioned, seem to have been the cause of the adoption of new measures against the Reformation and its professors. Already, in October, Francis had written a rough answer to the Council of the Canton of Berne, expressing extreme surprise that they had ventured to intercede for the relatives of Guillaume Farel, accused of heresy, and to beg him to give no credit in this matter either to the royal officers or to the inquisitors of the faith.[323] And he had used these significant words: "Desiring the preservation of the name of very Christian king, acquired for us by our predecessors, we have nothing in the world more at heart than the entire extirpation of heresies, and nothing could induce us to suffer them to take root in our kingdom. Of this you may rest well assured, and leave us to proceed against them, without your giving yourselves any solicitude. For neither your prayers, nor those of any one else whomsoever, could be of any avail in this matter with us."[324]

[Sidenote: Royal letter to the Bishop of Paris.]

On his return from the marriage of his son Henry to Catharine de' Medici, celebrated only four days before Cop's university harangue, Francis was induced to make new provisions for the detection and punishment of dissent. Alarmed by the progress of "Lutheran" sentiments in his very capital, as reported to him by parliament, he not only urged that body to renewed diligence, but directed the Bishop of Paris, the tolerant Jean du Bellay, who may have been suspected of too much supineness in the matter,[325] to confer upon two counsellors of parliament all the authority necessary to act for him, without prejudice to his jurisdiction in other cases.[326] Both parliament and bishop were at the same time notified of the receipt of two fresh bulls, kindly furnished by Pope Clement, at Francis's request, to help in the good work of extirpating "that accursed Lutheran sect."[327]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Elegies on Louis de Berquin.]

The number of extant poems on the death of Louis de Berquin attests very clearly the estimate placed upon him by the Roman Catholics as the most dangerous heretic—in fact, the heresiarch of the day. A stanza of eight lines, which seems to have been popular (for it has been discovered in MS. both in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Genin, i. 219, and in the library of Soissons, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., xi. 131), represents the four elements as conspiring, at God's bidding, to take vengeance upon him:

"Du faux Berquin et de ses documens Dieu s'est venge par les quatre elemens: Terre luy a desnie sepulture; Feu l'a destruit et sa fausse escripture; Tisons par eau pluviale arrosez Se sont plus fort esmeus et embrasez. Dont (pour la fin du malheureux comprendre) L'air par les vents en a receu la cendre."

I have been so fortunate as to discover two other poems on the same subject, in a little collection in my possession entitled Martini Theodorici Bellovaci Epigrammata (Parisiis, 1539), which seems to be of such rarity that these pieces may almost be viewed in the light of inedited documents. They are of special interest because of the singular circumstance that this collection of extremely "Catholic" effusions is dedicated to Odet de Coligny, Cardinal of Chatillon, Archbishop of Toulouse, Bishop and Count of Beauvais, elder brother of the more famous Admiral massacred on St. Bartholomew's day. Cardinal Chatillon, created such when only thirteen years old, was, at the time of the publication of this book, a youth of scarcely more than twenty-two, and a devout Roman Catholic, but subsequently, as elsewhere stated, became an avowed Protestant and a prominent Huguenot leader.

In the first of these poems, under the heading of Elegia Ludovici Berquuyni, the writer would almost seem to have had in mind the description by the ancient dramatists of the impious warfare of Capaneus breathing out boastful threats against Jove himself (Septem con. Theb., 416, etc.), or the Titans in conflict with the Gods.

"Occultum patuit quod non celarier ultra Debuit. Excellens Jupiter egit opus. Sublimi elatum dejecit sede potentem, Qui modo regnabat, qui modo jura dabat, Quique superbifico regalia limina gressu Tantum incedebat, pastus honore levi, Et cedrina petens famae monimenta perennis. Insigni optabat sanctior esse Numa. Lector, Ave, et causam properes dignoscere: casus Haereseos foeda labe volutus erat. Hoc impune nefas solida an ratione stetisset, Et Petri hausissent aequora vasta ratim, Inviolata fides aeterno permanet aevo. Percutit injustos ira molesta Dei; Quem neque praemeditans latuit Nero, funera cujus Distulit adversa in tempora longa vice. Occidit ergo miser, Divumque hominumque favore, Traduxitque illuc sors malesuada virum. Nil gravius pugnare Deo, pugnare feroci Fortunae. Vinci magnus uterque nequit."

The other elegy is shorter and less striking in conception, but gives a similar impression of the importance assigned to Louis de Berquin's activity and influence:

"Francia dum hymnidico resonet paeane juventus, Parisia extincto gaudeat hoste phalanx. Hic dudum, et nuper morbo scabiosus edaci, Francorum reliquas inficiebat oves. Cognitus haud potuit mundari errore nefando, Quin purgaretur lucidiore foco. Nam quamvis concessa esset clementia, durus Obstitit, et rapido malluit igne mori."

The library of Soissons contains a MS. lament from a Protestant source over the death of De Berquin, which is at once simple and touching. It is printed in the Bulletin, xi. 129-131.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 256: Registres du parlement, Feb. 26, 1417/8, Preuves des Libertez, i. 124, etc.]

[Footnote 257: Yet the trial of Aime Maigret had been specially committed by Louise to the Sorbonne, as early as January, 1525 (Letter of the Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Beda, Jan. 23, 1525, Herminjard, i. 326); and Zwingle knew, in March, of a more or less successful effort to convince the regent that the evangelical doctrines were subversive of peace—the proof alleged being drawn from Germany, where "everything was turned upside down." Dedication to Francis I., prefixed to De vera et falsa religione commentarius, Herminjard, i. 351.]

[Footnote 258: See Mezeray's unfavorable portrait of the unscrupulous Duprat, Abrege chron., iv. 584.]

[Footnote 259: The four were Philippe Pot, President in the chambre des enquetes, and Andre Verjus, a counsellor, from parliament, and Guillaume Du Chesne and Nicholas Le Clerc, doctors of theology. For the first on the list, Jacques de la Barde was soon after substituted. Registres du parlement, March 20, 1524/5, Preuves des Libertez, i. 164.]

[Footnote 260: Registres du parlement, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 261: Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 102.]

[Footnote 262: Registres du parlement, July 29, 1458, Preuves des Libertez, i. 138.]

[Footnote 263: "Un inquisiteur de la foi n'a capture ou arret en ce royaume, sinon par l'aide et autorite du bras seculier." Pithou, Essaie, art. 37.]

[Footnote 264: "Nonobstant oppositions ou appellations quelconques, semota executione a definitiva, si en est appelle." Registres du parlement, Preuves des Libertez, iii. 164.]

[Footnote 265: "Nos quoque comprobavimus ... sicut per alias nostras sub plumbo literas poteritis cognoscere." Registres du parlement, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 266: Recueil des anc. lois francaises, par Jourdan, Decrusy et Isambert, xii. 232-237.]

[Footnote 267: Isambert, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 268: The author of the anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 383, 384. His description, written in 1528, is interesting: "Ledict Barquin avoit environ 50 ans, et portoit ordinairement robbe de veloux, satin et damas, et choses (chausses) d'or, et estoit de noble lignee et moult grand clerc, expert en science et subtil, mais neantmoins il faillit en son sens." Erasmus makes him some seven years younger, Letter to Utenhoven, July 1, 1529, Opera, ii. 1206, seq.; and Herminjard, Correspondance des reformateurs, ii. 183, seq.]

[Footnote 269: His account is important, but too full for insertion here. See the letter above quoted.]

[Footnote 270: Arret du parlement, Aug. 5, 1523, Haag, France prot. s. v. Berquin.]

[Footnote 271: Felibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948; Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170; Haag, s. v.; Erasmus, Opera, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 272: "Etiam in loco sacro." Registres du parlement, January 8, 1526, Preuves des Libertez, iii., 166.]

[Footnote 273: Margaret's gratitude to Montmorency for his kind offices is very fully attested by a passage in an extant letter (Genin, Lettres de Marg. d'Ang., 1ere Coll., No. 54): "Vous merciant du plaisir que m'aves fait pour le pauvre Berquin, que j'estime aultant que si c'estoit moy mesmes, et par cela pouves vous dire que vous m'aves tiree de prison, etc." To Francis she expressed the assurance "que Celuy pour qui je croy qu'il a souffert aura agreable la misericorde que pour son honneur avez fait a son serviteur et au vostre." Ibid., 2de Coll., No. 35.]

[Footnote 274: The chief authorities for the first two imprisonments of De Berquin are the long and important letter of Erasmus, to which I shall have occasion again to refer (Opera, ii. 1206, seq.), Felibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948, 984, 985; Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170, 277, 278; Haag, s. v.]

[Footnote 275: It is somewhat amusing, in the light of subsequent events, to read such outbursts of sisterly enthusiasm as this: "O que bien-heureuse sera vostre brefve prison, par qui Dieu tant d'ames deslivrera de celle d'infidelite et esternelle damnacion." Lettres de Marg. d'Ang., 2de Coll., No. 5, Lyons, May 1525. See, too, 1ere Coll., No. 26, addressed to Montmorency.]

[Footnote 276: Margaret's letters to Count Hohenlohe were translated into Latin and published by himself. M. Genin has rendered them into French, and inserted them in his Lettres de Marg. d'Angouleme, 1ere Coll., Nos. 48-51. The letter of July 5, 1526, is the most important.]

[Footnote 277: This precious bit of special pleading deserves notice. In the instructions of the king to the Archbishop of Lyons, to be read at the council in that city, Francis thus expressed himself: "Et combien que pour ung tel et si bon oeuvre que celluy qui se offre de present, le dict sire fut conseille, que juridiquement et par tous droicts divins et humains, il pouvoit et debvoit raisonnablement mettre, subimposer et faire contribuer toutes manieres de gens, de quelque qualite, auctorite, condition qu'ils fuissent, soient d'eglise, nobles, ou du tiers et commun estat, au paiement de la ditte rancon, etc." Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1137.]

[Footnote 278: The reason assigned for not convoking the States General in proper form, viz., that time did not permit the necessary delay, must be considered scarcely sufficient to explain the irregularity. Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 279: "Fist un discours farci de latin et de citations de l'Ecriture, dans lequel il conclut que le traite de Madrid estoit nul." Isambert, xii. 299.]

[Footnote 280: The declaration is significant and noteworthy as the first of many similar assurances. Among the documents in Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois francaises, is a full account of the proceedings of the notables, xii. 292-301.]

[Footnote 281: If Francis was sanguine of success in suppressing the Reformation in his kingdom, there were others who went farther still. Barthelemi de Chassanee this very year (1527) chronicles the destruction of "Lutheranism" in France as an accomplished fact! The passage is not unworthy of notice. After explaining the significance of the fleurs-de-lis on the royal escutcheon by the wonderful efficacy of the lily as the antidote of the serpent's poison, and remarking that the kings of France had thrice extracted the mortal virus from the bite of Mohammed, "serpentis venenosi," the writer adds: "Et, his temporibus, videmus nostram fidem et religionem Christianam sanatam esse a morsu pestiferi serpentis Lutheri, qui infinitas haereses in fide Christiana seminavit, quae fuerunt extirpatae a Rege nostro Francisco Christianissimo, qui non cessat insudare, ut Clemens summus Pontifex a sua Sede ejectus restituatur, quem Carolus Borbonius dux exercitus Caroli Austriaci electi in Imperatorem, in urbe obsederat hoc anno Domini 1527 die 6 Maii." Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, fol. 143.]

[Footnote 282: Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1160.]

[Footnote 283: The reader may, if his patience will hold out, wade through the prolix decrees of the Council of Sens as published by Cardinal Duprat in 1529, and printed in Labbei Concilia (Venice, 1732), xix. 1149-1202. It is worthy of remark that the confiscation of the property of condemned heretics, if laymen, to the state, is ordered, "tanquam reorum laesae majestatis." Fol. 1159.]

[Footnote 284: Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1139.]

[Footnote 285: The words of the decree are sufficiently distinct: "Illam plurimum gravem et onerosam ecclesiis, laicis vero contemtibilem, sacerdotum multitudinem, qui solent plerumque illiterati, moribus inculti, servilibus operibus addicti, imberbes, inopes, fictitiis titulis ad sacros ordines obrepere, non sine magno status clericalis opprobrio." Ibid., xix. fol. 1128. The decrees of the councils of Bourges and Lyons are given in Labbei Concilia, xix. 1041-1048, and 1095 etc.]

[Footnote 286: The image was affixed to the house of the Sieur de Beaumont, at the corner of the Rue des Hosiers and the Rue des Juifs. Felibien, Hist. de Paris, iv. 676.]

[Footnote 287: The strong language of the author of the "Cronique du Roi Francoys I^er" (edited by G. Guiffrey, Paris, 1860) may serve as an index of the popular feeling: "La nuict du dimenche, dernier jour de may, ... par quelque ung pire que ung chien mauldict de Dieu, fut rompue et couppee la teste a une ymaige de la vierge Marie ... qui fut une grosse horreur a la crestiente." Page 66.]

[Footnote 288: The silver image, though protected by an iron grating, fared no better than its predecessor. Stolen before the death of Francis, it was succeeded by a wooden statue, and, when this was destroyed by "heretics," by one of marble! The detailed accounts of the expiatory processions in Felibien, ii. 982, 983, in the Registres du parlement, ibid., iv. 677-679, in G. Guiffrey, appendix to "Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er," 446-459, from MSS. Nat. Lib., in Gaillard, vi. 434, 435, and in the Journal d'un bourgeois, 348-351, give a vivid view of the picturesque ceremonial of the times. It must have been a very substantial compensation for the trouble to which the unknown author of the outrage of the Rue des Rosiers put the clergy, that the mutilated statue of the Virgin, having been placed above the altar in the church of St. Gervais, was said to have wrought notable miracles, and even to have raised two children from the dead! Journal d'un bourgeois, ubi supra. See also "Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er," 67, and especially the poem (Ibid., appendix, 459-464), in twenty-five stanzas of eight lines each, which, I fear, has nothing to recommend it, unless it be length!]

[Footnote 289: May, 1530. Felibien, ii 988, 989; Journal d'un bourgeois, 410.]

[Footnote 290: "Quaeris, quid profecerim? Tot modis deterrens, addidi animum."]

[Footnote 291: Erasmus to Utenhoven, ubi supra; also his letter to Vergara, Sept. 2, 1527, and Beda's Apology, Herminjard, ii. 38, 39, 40.]

[Footnote 292: Erasmus to Utenhoven, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 293: It was one of the great merits of Francis I., in the eyes of De Thou, the historian, that he had drawn Bude from comparative obscurity, and, following his wise counsels, founded the College Royale. Erasmus styled him "The Wonder of France" (De Thou, liv. iii., i. 233), and Scaevole de Ste. Marthe, "omnium, qui hoc patrumque saeculo vixere, sine controversia doctissimus" (Elog. 3). He was at this time one of the maitres de requetes. Crespin, fol. 58.]

[Footnote 294: Journal d'un bourgeois, 378.]

[Footnote 295: The series of letters ends with a prayer which it would have been difficult, we must suppose, for a brother to resist: "Il vous plera (plaira), Monseigneur, faire en sorte que l'on ne die (dise) point que l'eslongnement vous ait fait oblier vostre tres-humble et tres-obeissante subjette et seur MARGUERITE." Genin, 2de Coll., No. 52.]

[Footnote 296: A MS. of the Bibliotheque Nationale, printed by M. Genin (i. 218, etc.), and G. Guiffrey, Cronique, etc., 76, note, gives these and other interesting details, which are in part confirmed by Erasmus.]

[Footnote 297: Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 298: It was a slight suggestion of mercy that prompted the judges to permit him to be strangled before his body was consigned to the flames.]

[Footnote 299: "Ce qui fut faict et expedie ce mesme jour en grande diligence, affin qu'il ne fut recourru du Roy ne de madame la Regente, qui estoit lors a Bloys, etc." Journal d'un bourgeois, 383.]

[Footnote 300: For De Berquin's history, see Erasmus, ubi supra; Journal d'un bourgeois, 378, etc.; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (ed. of 1560), fol. 57-59; Histoire eccles., i. 5; Felibien, ii. 985; Haag, s. v.]

[Footnote 301: Journal d'un bourgeois, and Hist. eccles., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 302: So he is styled by Martin of Beauvais, writing some few months later, in a sufficiently bold plea for the use of fire and fagot: "Si vero haeresiarchae Berquini, et suorum sequacium pervicacia delibutus (haereticus) incorrigibilis videatur, ne fortassis plusquam vipereum venenum latenter surrepat, et sanos inficere possit, subito auferte eum de medio vestrum, execrantes atque aversantes illius perversitatem, et abscisum velut palmitem aridum (juxta Joannis sententiam) subjectis ignibus torrere facite." Paraclesis catholica Franciae ad Francos, ut fortes in Fide et Vocatione qua vocati sunt, permaneant, authore Martino Theodorico Bellovaco, Juris Caesarei Professore (Parisiis, 1539), p. 14.—See note at the end of this chapter.]

[Footnote 303: F. W. Barthold, Deutschland und die Hugenoten, i. 15; Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 115-120.]

[Footnote 304: Mezeray, Abrege chronologique, iv. 577.]

[Footnote 305: Soldan, i. 121.]

[Footnote 306: October 28, 1533.]

[Footnote 307: "Con mala sodisfazione di tutta la Francia, perche pare ad ogniuno che Clemente pontefice abbia gabbato questo re cristianissimo." Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Ven., Alberi, i. 191.]

[Footnote 308: Catharine de' Medici was born April 13, 1519.]

[Footnote 309: These interesting particulars are contained in a MS. letter in the Zurich Archives (probably written by Oswald Myconius to Joachim Vadian). The writer had them directly from the mouth of Guillaume du Bellay, the French ambassador, who was with the king at the interview of Marseilles. Du Bellay also gave some details of his own conversations with Clement. The latter freely admitted that there were some things that displeased him in the mass, but naturally wanted so profitable an institution to be treated tenderly and cautiously. Correspond. des reformateurs, iii. 183-186.]

[Footnote 310: The truth respecting Toulouse probably lies about midway between the censures of the Huguenot and the eulogy of the Roman Catholic historian. According to the author of the Histoire ecclesiastique, the parliament was the most sanguinary in France, the university careless of letters, the population jealous of any proficiency in liberal studies. According to Florimond de Raemond, writing somewhat later, Toulouse was worthy of eternal praise, because, notwithstanding a marvellous confluence of strangers from all parts, and in spite of being completely surrounded by regions infected with heresy, it had so persisted in the faith as to contain within its walls not a single family that did not live in conformity with the prescriptions of the church! Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina haereseon hujus saeculi, ii. 486.]

[Footnote 311: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 64.]

[Footnote 312: Florimond de Raemond, ii. 394, 395.]

[Footnote 313: March 6, 1535. Journal d'un bourgeois, 453.]

[Footnote 314: Hist. eccles., i. 9; Crespin, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 315: John Calvin gives a contemporary's account in a letter to Francois Daniel from Paris, October, 1533. Herminjard, Correspond. des reformateurs, iii. 106, etc.; and translated in Bonnet, Calvin's Letters, i. 36, etc. See also Jean Sturm's letter of about the same date, Herminjard, iii. 93.]

[Footnote 316: Calvin's letter above quoted, one of the oldest of his MS. autographs. Dr. Paul Henry, in his valuable Life and Times of John Calvin (Eng. trans., i. 37) inadvertently makes Cop rector of the Sorbonne, an office that never existed.]

[Footnote 317: A single sentence may serve to indicate the distinctness with which this is asserted: "Evangelium remissionem peccatorum et justificationem gratis pollicetur; neque enim accepti sumus Deo quod legi satisfaciamus, sed ex sola Christi promissione, de qua qui dubitat pie vivere non potest, et gehennae incendium sibi parat." Opera Calvini, Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, x. 34.]

[Footnote 318: Some officious pen has indeed stricken out from the MS. the sentence, "Quod nos consecuturos spero, si beatissimam Virginem solenni illo praeconio longe omnium pulcherrimo salutaverimus: Ave gratia plena!" But on the margin the sensible Nicholas Colladon, a colleague of Beza and an early biographer of Calvin, has written the words: "Haec, quia illis temporibus danda sunt, ne supprimenda quidem putavimus."]

[Footnote 319: "AEgre fert Facultas injuriam toti unversitati illatam, quod tractus fuerit ad superiorem Judicem ... summus suus magistratus, et, eam ob rem, censet Facultas ut ejus accusatores et qui supplicationem superiori Judici porrexerunt, citentur in facie universitatis, causas rei allaturi." Bullaeus, vi. 238, apud Herminjard, iii. 117, note. See many interesting particulars respecting the privileges claimed by the university, in Pasquier, Recherches de la France, liv. iii. ch. 29.]

[Footnote 320: He was to have been thrown into the Conciergerie. See Beza's preface to Calvin's Com. on Joshua, 1565, apud Herminjard, iii. 118, note. Parliament complained to Francis, and the latter in his reply, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, ordered proceedings to be instituted for the capture of Cop and the punishment of the person who had facilitated his flight by giving him warning. Francis to parliament, Herminjard, iii. 118. A reward of 300 crowns was accordingly offered for the apprehension of the fugitive rector, dead or alive. Martin Bucer to Amb. Blaurer, January, 1534, Herminjard, iii. 130.]

[Footnote 321: A fragment of Cop's address—about the first third—was discovered by M. Jules Bonnet in the MSS. of the Library of Geneva, bearing on the margin the note: "Haec Joannes Calvinus propria manu descripsit, et est auctor." This portion is printed in Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 418-420, and Calv. Opera, Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, ix. 873-876. Merle d'Aubigne used it in his Hist. of the Ref. in the time of Calvin, ii. 198, etc. Still more fortunate than M. Bonnet, Messrs. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss very recently found a complete copy of the same address in the archives of one of the churches of Strasbourg. The newly found portion is of great interest. Calvini Op., x. (1872), 30-36.]

[Footnote 322: Calvin to Fr. Daniel (1534), Bonnet, i. 41; Histoire eccles., i. 9.]

[Footnote 323: Francis I. to Council of Berne, Marseilles, Oct. 20, 1533, MS. Berne Archives, Herminjard, iii. 95, 96.]

[Footnote 324: Berne was accustomed to give and take hard blows. So, although the chancellor of the canton endorsed on the king's missive the words, "Rude lettre du Roi, ... relative aux Farel," the council was not discouraged; but, when sending two envoys, about a month later, to the French court, instructed them, among other things, again to intercede for a brother of Farel. Herminjard, iii. 96, note.]

[Footnote 325: Du Bellay was himself believed, not without reason, to have sympathy for the reformed doctrine, and it was under his auspices, as well as those of the King and Queen of Navarre, that the evangelical preachers had lately held forth in the pulpits of the capital. See, for instance, Bucer to Blaurer, Jan., 1534, Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 130.]

[Footnote 326: Francis I.'s letter to Du Bellay, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, MS. Dupuy Coll., Bibl. nat., Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., i. 437. His orders to parliament of same date, Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 114, etc.]

[Footnote 327: Francis to parliament, ubi supra, iii. 116.]



CHAPTER V.

MELANCHTHON'S ATTEMPT AT CONCILIATION, AND THE YEAR OF THE PLACARDS.

It appears almost incredible that, so late as in the year 1534, the hope of reuniting the discordant views of the partisans of reform and the adherents of the Roman Church should have been seriously entertained by any considerable number of reflecting minds, for the chasm separating the opposing parties was too wide and deep to be bridged over or filled. There were irreconcilable differences of doctrine and practice, and tendencies so diverse as to preclude the possibility of harmonious action.

[Sidenote: Hopes of reunion in the church.]

Not so, however, thought many sincere persons on both sides, and not less on the side of the Reformation than on that of the Roman Catholic Church. True, the claims of the papacy were insupportable, and the most flagrant abuses prevailed; but many of the reformers believed it quite within the bounds of possibility that the great body of the supporters of the church might be brought to recognize and renounce these abuses, and break the tyrannical yoke that had, for so many centuries, rested upon the neck of the faithful. The ancient fabric of religion, they said, is indeed disfigured by modern additions, and has been brought, by long neglect, to the very verge of ruin. But these tasteless excrescences can easily be removed, the ravages of time reverently repaired, and the grand old edifice restored to its pristine symmetry and magnificence. In a word, it was a general reformation that was contemplated—no radical reconstruction after a novel plan. And the future council, in which all phases of opinion would be freely represented, was to provide the adequate and sufficient cure for all the ills afflicting the body politic and ecclesiastic.

By some of the more sanguine adherents of both parties these flattering expectations were long entertained. With others the attempt to effect a religious reconciliation seems to have served merely as a mask to hide political designs; and at this distance of time it is among the most difficult problems of history to determine the proportion in which earnest zeal and rank insincerity entered as factors into the measures undertaken for the purpose of reconciling theological differences. Especially is this true respecting the overtures made by the French monarch to Philip Melanchthon, which now claim our attention.

[Sidenote: Melanchthon and Du Bellay.]

[Sidenote: A plan of reconciliation.]

Early in the spring of the year 1534 Melanchthon received a courteous visit at Wittemberg from an agent of the distinguished French diplomatist, Guillaume du Bellay-Langey, envoy to the Protestant princes of Germany. The interview paved the way for a long correspondence between Melanchthon and Du Bellay himself, in which the latter threw out suggestions of the practicability of some plan for bringing the intelligent and candid men in both countries to adopt a common ground in respect to religion. Finally, in response to Du Bellay's earnest request, his correspondent consented to draw up such a scheme as appeared to himself proper to serve for the basis of union. The result was a paper of a truly wonderful character, in which the reader scarcely knows whether to admire the evident charity dictating every line, or to smile at the simplicity betrayed in the extravagant concessions. In a letter accompanying his proposal Melanchthon set forth at some length both his motives and his hopes. In touching upon controverted points, he claimed to have exhibited a moderation that would prove to be not without utility to the church. He professed his own belief that an accommodation might be effected on every doctrinal point, if only a free and amicable conference were to be held, under royal auspices, between a few good and learned men. The subjects of dispute were less numerous than was generally supposed, and the edge of many a sharply drawn theological distinction had been insensibly worn away by the softening hand of time. By such a conference as he proposed the perils of a public discussion could be avoided—a form of controversy fatal, for the most part, to the peace of the unlearned. In fact, no radical change was absolutely required in the ancient order or in ecclesiastical polity. Not even the pontifical authority itself need necessarily be abolished; for it was the desire of the Lutheran party, so far as possible, to retain all the accustomed forms. In fine, he begged Du Bellay to exhort the monarchs of Europe to concord while yet there was room left for the counsels of moderation. What calamities might otherwise be in store! What a ruin both of church and state, should a collision of arms be precipitated![328]

But Melanchthon's ardor had carried him far beyond his true reckoning. No other reformer could have brought himself to approve the articles now submitted for the king's perusal; while it was certain that not even this unbounded liberality would satisfy the exorbitant demands of the Roman party.

[Sidenote: Melanchthon's concessions.]

Melanchthon not only admitted that an ecclesiastical system with bishops in many cities was lawful, but that the Roman pontiff might preside over the entire episcopate. He countenanced, to a certain extent, the current doctrine respecting human tradition and the retention of auricular confession. He discerned a gradual approach to concord in respect to justification, and found no difficulty in the divergent views of free will and original sin. He did, indeed, insist upon the rejection of the worship of saints, and advocate expunging from the ritual all appeals for their assistance. So, too, monks ought to be allowed to forsake the cloister, and monastic establishments could then be advantageously turned into schools of learning. The celibacy of the clergy should, in like manner, be forthwith granted. There was, however, in his view, one point that bristled with difficulties. How to remove them Melanchthon confessed himself unable to suggest. The question of the popish mass was the Gordian knot which must be reserved for the future council of the church to untie or cut.[329]

[Sidenote: His own misgivings.]

A faint suspicion seems, however, to have flitted through the Wittemberg reformer's mind, that possibly, after all his large admissions, his attempt was but labor lost! For, in a letter to Martin Bucer, written on the very day he despatched his communication to Du Bellay, he more than hinted his own despair of effecting an agreement with the Pope of Rome, and excused himself for his apparently lavish proffers, on the plea that he was desirous of making his good French friends comprehend the chief points of controversy![330]

[Sidenote: A favorable impression made on Francis.]

Melanchthon's articles, faithfully transmitted by Du Bellay, produced on the mind of Francis a favorable impression. The ambitious monarch welcomed the prospect of a speedy removal of the doctrinal differences that had previously marred the perfect understanding he wished to maintain with the Protestant princes of Germany. Whether, however, any higher motives than considerations of a political character weighed with him, may well be doubted.

Meantime, an unexpected occurrence for the time dispelled all thought of that harvest of conciliation and harmony which the more moderate reformers looked for as likely to spring up from the seed so liberally sown by Melanchthon.

[Sidenote: Indiscreet partisans of reform.]

If, among the advocates of the purification of the church, there was a party which, with Melanchthon, seemed ready to jeopard some of the most vital principles of the great moral and religious movement, in the vain hope of again cementing an unnatural union with the Roman system, there was another faction, to which moderation and half-way measures were utterly repulsive. Its partisans believed themselves warranted in resorting to open acts expressive of detestation of the gilded idolatry of the popular religion. For their views they alleged the Old Testament history as sufficient authority. Had not the servants of Jehovah braved the resentment of the priests of Baal, and disregarded the threats of kings and queens? Why treat the saints' images, the crucifixes, the gorgeous robes and manufactured relics, with more consideration than was displayed by Hebrew prophets in dealing with heathen abominations? So inveterate an evil as the corruption of all that is most sacred in Christianity could only be successfully combated by vigor and decision. Only under heavy and repeated blows does the monarch of the forest yield to the axe of the woodman.

Between the extremes of ill-judged concession and untimely rashness, the great body of those who had embraced the Reformation endeavored to hold a middle course, but found themselves exposed to many perils, not the result of their own actions, but brought upon them by the timidity or foolhardiness of their associates. A lamentable instance of the kind must now be noticed.

[Sidenote: Placards and pasquinades.]

For many months the street-walls of Paris had been employed by both sides in the great controversies of the day, for the purpose of giving publicity to their views. Under cover of night, placards, often in the form of pasquinades, were posted where they would be likely to meet the eyes of a large number of curious readers. So, in the excitement following the arrest and exile of Beda and other impertinent and seditious preachers, placards succeeded each other nightly. In one the theologians of the Sorbonne were portrayed to the life, and each in all his proper colors, by an unfriendly pencil. In another, "Paris, flower of nobility" was passionately entreated to sustain the wounded faith of God, and the King of Glory was supplicated to confound "the accursed dogs," the Lutherans.[331] Under the circumstances, it was not strange that the "Lutheran" placard was hastily torn down by some zealot, with the exclamation that the author was a heretic, while a crowd stood all day about the other transcribing its unpoetic but pious exhortations to burn the offenders against Divine justice, and no one attempted to remove it.

[Sidenote: Mission of Feret to Switzerland.]

The success of this method of reaching the masses, who could never be induced to read a formal treatise or book, suggested to some of the more ardent "Lutherans" of Paris the idea of preparing a longer placard, which should boldly attack the cardinal errors of the papal system of religion. But, the press being closely watched in the French capital, it was thought best to have the placard printed in Switzerland, where, indeed, the most competent and experienced hands might be found for composing such a paper. The messenger employed was a young man named Feret, an apprentice of the king's apothecary;[332] and the printing seems to have been done in the humble but famous establishment of Pierre Van Wingle, in the retired Vale of Serrieres, just out of Neufchatel, and on the same presses which, in 1533, gave to the world the first French reformed liturgy, and, two years later, the Protestant translation of the Bible into the French language by Olivetanus.[333] There is less certainty respecting the authorship, but it seems highly probable that not Farel, but an enthusiastic and somewhat hot-headed writer, Antoine de Marcourt, must be held responsible for this imprudent production.[334]

[Sidenote: The placard against the mass.]

Feret, having on his return eluded detection at the frontiers, reached Paris in safety. He brought with him a large number of copies of a broadside headed, "True Articles respecting the horrible, great and insupportable Abuses of the Papal Mass." Among those to whom the paper was secretly submitted, there were some who, more prudent than the rest, decidedly opposed its publication. It was too violent, they said. The writer's ill-advised severity would answer no good purpose. The tract would alienate the sympathy of many, and thus retard, instead of advancing, the cause it advocated.[335] Remonstrance, however, proved futile.

Early on the morning of the eighteenth of October, 1534, a placard was found posted upon the walls in all the principal thoroughfares of the metropolis. Everywhere it was read with horror and indignation, mingled with rage; and loud threats and curses were uttered against its unknown author.

The document that called forth these expressions and was the occasion of more important commotions in the sequel, had so direct and potent an influence upon the fortunes of the Reformation in France that it cannot be passed over without a brief reference to the general character of its contents. It began with a solemn address: "I invoke heaven and earth in testimony of the truth, against that proud and pompous papal mass, through which (if God remedy not speedily the evil) the world will be wholly desolated, destroyed, and ruined. For therein is our Lord so outrageously blasphemed and the people so blinded and seduced, that it ought no longer to be suffered or endured." Every Christian must needs be assured that the one sacrifice of Christ, being perfect, demands no repetition. Still the world has long been, and now is, flooded with wretched sacrificing priests, who yet proclaim themselves liars, inasmuch as they chant every Sunday in their vespers, that Christ is a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. Wherefore not only every man of sound understanding, but "they themselves, in spite of themselves, must admit that the Pope and all his brood of cardinals, bishops, monks, and canting mass-priests, with all who consent thereunto, are false prophets, damnable deceivers, apostates, wolves, false shepherds, idolaters, seducers, liars and execrable blasphemers, murderers of souls, renouncers of Jesus Christ, of his death and passion, false witnesses, traitors, thieves, and robbers of the honor of God, and more detestable than devils." After citing from the book of Hebrews some passages to establish the sufficiency of Christ, the writer addresses his opponents: "I demand then of all sacrificing priests, whether their sacrifice be perfect or imperfect? If imperfect, why do they deceive the poor people? If perfect, why need it be repeated? Come forward, priests, and reply if you can!"

The body of Christ cannot, it is argued, be contained in the host. It is above, whither also we are bidden raise our hearts and look for the Lord. To breathe or mutter over the bread and wine, and then adore them, is idolatry. To enjoin this adoration on others is a doctrine of devils. But these impudent heretics, not ashamed of attempting to imprison the body of Jesus in their wafer, have even dared to place this caution in the rubric of their missals, "If the body of our Lord, being devoured of mice or spiders, has been destroyed or much gnawed, or if the worm be found altogether within, let it be burned and placed in the reliquary." "O Earth! How dost thou not open and swallow up these horrible blasphemers! Wretched men, is this the body of the Lord Jesus, the true Son of God? Doth he suffer himself to be eaten of mice and spiders? He who is the bread of angels and of all the children of God, is he given to us to become the food of animals? Will ye make him who is incorruptible at the right hand of God to be the prey of worms and corruption? Were there no other error than this in your infernal theology, well would ye deserve the fagot! Light then your fires to burn yourselves, not us who refuse to believe in your idols, your new gods, and new Christs that suffer themselves to be eaten indifferently by animals and by you who are no better than animals!"[336] Closing with a vivid contrast between the fruits of the mass and those of the true Supper of our Lord, the writer finally exclaims of his opponents, "Truth fails them, Truth threatens and pursues them, Truth terrifies them; by which their reign shall shortly be destroyed forever."[337]

[Sidenote: The popular excitement in Paris.]

It would be difficult to exaggerate the effect produced upon the populace of Paris by this intemperate handbill. If any part of the ceremonial of the church was deeply rooted in the devotion of the common people, it was the service of the mass. And in attacking the doctrine of the Real Presence, the authors of this libel, distributed under cover of the darkness, had, in the estimation of the rabble, proved themselves more impious and deserving a more signal punishment than that sacrilegious Jew whose knife had drawn drops of miraculous blood from the transubstantiated wafer. Not the parish priests, nor the doctors of the Sorbonne, could surpass the infuriated populace in loud execrations of the wretch for whom burning alive seemed too mild a punishment.

[Sidenote: Anger of the king.]

But a second act of ill-timed rashness accomplished a result even more disastrous for Protestantism than the kindling of the fanatical zeal of the people; for it inflamed the anger of the king, and made him, what all the persuasions of the Roman court had hitherto failed to make him, a determined enemy and persecutor of the "new doctrines." A copy of the placard was secretly affixed by night to the very door of the royal bedchamber in the castle of Amboise,[338] where Francis and his court were at the time sojourning. If the contents of the tract offended the religious principles carefully inculcated upon the king by his spiritual instructors, the audacity of the person who, disregarding bars, bolts and guards, had presumed to invade the privacy of the royal abode and obtrude his unwelcome message, could not but be regarded in the light of a direct personal insult. Francis had not been in the habit of troubling himself about the private opinions of the learned on vexed points of theology; nor had he been inclined to permit his more fanatical subjects to harass any of those eminent scholars whose literary attainments added lustre to his brilliant court. Yet his claim to the right of enforcing uniformity of belief—and that uniformity a complete conformity to his own creed—had rather been held in abeyance than relinquished. Louis de Berquin had, at his cost, discovered that the royal protection could not be expected even by a personal favorite and a scholar of large acquisitions, when, not content with holding doctrines deemed heretical, he strove to promulgate them. The interposition of Margaret of Angouleme had proved unavailing in his behalf. The heretics who had now ventured to nail an expose of their dogmas on his bedchamber door could scarcely anticipate greater clemency.

[Sidenote: Political considerations.]

To personal motives were added political considerations. Indulgence to the perpetrators of an act so insulting to the Roman Catholic religion might drive the pontiff, whose friendship was an essential requisite of success in Francis's ambitious projects, to become the fast friend of the emperor, his rival. Pope Clement the Seventh had been succeeded by Paul the Third. The alliance cemented by the marriage of the Duke of Orleans to Catharine de' Medici had been dissolved by the death of the bride's uncle. The favor of the new Pope must be conciliated. Under such circumstances, what were the sufferings of a few poor reformers, when weighed in the balance against the triple crown of his Holiness?