[Sidenote: Fruitless intercession of Margaret.]

Francis determined to return to Paris for the purpose of superintending in person a search for the culprits. It is true that the Queen of Navarre attempted to moderate his anger by suggesting that it was not unlikely that the placard, far from being composed by the "Lutherans," was the cunning device of their enemies, who thus sought to insure the ruin of the innocent. But the king appears not unreasonably to have rejected the suggestion as improbable; although, seven years later, Margaret reminded him of her surmise, and maintained that the sequel had strongly confirmed its accuracy.[339]

[Sidenote: Francis abolishes the art of printing.]

Far, indeed, from yielding to his sister's persuasions, Francis in his anger took a step which he would certainly have been glad himself, a few months later, to be able to forget, and of which his panegyrists have fruitlessly striven to obliterate the memory. On the thirteenth of January, 1535, after the lapse of nearly three months from the date of the publication of the placards—an interval that might surely be regarded as sufficiently long to permit his overheated passions to cool down—the king sent to the Parliament of Paris an Edict absolutely prohibiting any exercise of the Art of Printing in France, on pain of the halter! It was no secret from whom the ignoble suggestion had come. A year and a half earlier (on the seventh of June, 1533), the theologians of the Sorbonne had presented Francis an urgent petition, in view of the multiplication of heretical books, wherein they set forth the absolute necessity of suppressing forever by a severe law the pestilent art which had been the parent of so dangerous a progeny.[340] The king was now acting upon the advice of his ghostly counsellors!

[Sidenote: He suspends the disgraceful edict.]

Happily for Francis, however, whose ambition it had hitherto been to figure as a modern Maecenas, even a subservient parliament declined the customary registration. The king, too, coming to his senses after the lapse of six weeks, so far yielded to the remonstrances of his more sensible courtiers as to recall his rash edict, or, rather, suspend its operation until he could give the matter more careful consideration. Meanwhile he undertook to institute a censorship. The king was to select twelve persons of quality and pecuniary responsibility, from a list of twice that number of names submitted by parliament; and this commission was to receive the exclusive right to print—and that, in the city of Paris alone—such books as might be approved by the proper authorities and be found necessary to the public weal. Until the appointment of the twelve censors the press was to remain idle! Nor was the suspension of the prohibitory ordinance to continue a day longer than the term required by the monarch to decide whether he preferred to modify its provisions or leave them unchanged. "Albeit on the thirteenth day of January, 1534,"[341] wrote this much lauded patron of letters, "by other letters-patent of ours, and for the causes and reasons therein contained, we prohibited and forbade any one from thenceforth printing, or causing to be printed, any books in our kingdom, on pain of the halter: nevertheless, we have willed and ordained that the execution and accomplishment of our said letters, prohibitions and injunctions, be and continue suspended and surcease until we shall otherwise provide."[342]

[Sidenote: Vigorous proceedings of parliament.]

Meantime, parliament had not been slack in obeying the command to search diligently for the authors and publishers of the placards. Many reputed "Lutherans" had been arrested, some of whom, it was given out, pretended to reveal the existence of a plot of the reformers to fall upon the good Christians of the metropolis while assembled in their churches for divine worship, and assassinate them in the midst of their devotions! The credulous populace made no difficulty in accepting the tale. Paris shuddered at the thought of its narrow escape, and some hundreds of thousands of men and women reverently crossed themselves and thanked heaven they had not fallen a prey to the blood-thirsty designs of a handful of peaceable and unarmed adherents of the "new doctrines!" As for Francis himself, a grave historian tells us that his apprehensions were inflamed by the very mention of the word "conspiracy."[343]

[Sidenote: Abundance of victims.]

The investigation had been committed to practised hands. The prosecuting officer, or lieutenant-criminel, Morin, was as famous for his cunning as he was notorious for his profligacy. Moreover, the judicious addition of six hundred livres parisis to his salary afforded him a fresh stimulus and prevented his zeal from flagging.[344] The timidity or treachery of one of the prisoners facilitated the inquest. Terrified by the prospect of torture and death, or induced by hope of reward, a person, obscurely designated as le Guainier, or Gueynier,[345] made an ample disclosure of the names and residences of his former fellow-believers. The pursuit was no longer confined to those who had been concerned in the distribution of the placards. All reputed heretics were apprehended, and, as rapidly as their trials could be prosecuted, condemned to death. There was a rare harvest of falsehood and misrepresentation. No wonder that innocent and guilty were involved in one common fate.[346]

It does not come within the scope of this history to give an edifying account of the courage displayed by the victims of the frenzy consequent upon the placards. The very names of many are unknown. Among the first to be committed to the flames was a young man, Barthelemi Milon, whom paralysis had deprived of the use of the lower half of his body.[347] His unpardonable offence was that copies of the placard against the mass had been found in his possession. A wealthy draper, Jean du Bourg, had been guilty of the still more heinous crime of having posted some of the bills on the walls. For this he was compelled before execution to go through that solemn mockery of penitence, the amende honorable, in front of the church of Notre Dame, with but a shirt to conceal his nakedness, and holding a lighted taper in his hand; afterward to be conducted to the Fontaine des Innocents, and there have the hand that had done the impious deed cut off at the wrist, in token of the public detestation of his "high treason against God and the king." A printer, a bookseller, a mason, a young man in orders, were subjected to the same cruel death. But these were only the first fruits of the prosecution.[348] However opinions may differ respecting the merits of the cause for which they suffered, there can be but one view taken of their deportment in the trying hour of execution. In the presence of the horrible preparatives for torture, the most clownish displayed a fortitude and a noble consciousness of honest purpose, contrasted with which the pusillanimous dejection, the unworthy concessions, and the premeditated perjury of Francis, during his captivity at Madrid not ten years before, appear in no enviable light. The monarch who bartered away his honor to regain his liberty[349] might have sat at the feet of these, his obscure subjects, to learn the true secret of greatness.

[Sidenote: The great expiatory procession.]

The punishment of the persons who had taken part in the preparation and dissemination of the placards was deemed an insufficient atonement for a crime in the guilt of which they had involved the city, and, indeed, the whole kingdom. As the offence excelled in enormity any other within the memory of man, so it was determined to expiate it by a solemn procession unparalleled for magnificence. Thursday, the twenty-first of January, 1535, was chosen for the pageant. Along the line of march the streets had been carefully cleaned. A public proclamation had bidden every householder display from his windows the most beautiful and costly tapestries he possessed. At the doors of all private mansions large waxen tapers burned, and, at the intersection of all side streets, wooden barriers, guarded by soldiers, precluded the possibility of interruption.

Early on the appointed morning, the entire body of the clergy of Paris, decked out in their most splendid robes and bearing the insignia of their respective ranks, assembled in Notre Dame, and thence in solemn state marched to the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, to meet the king. Sixteen dignitaries bore aloft the precious reliquary of Sainte Genevieve; others in similar honor supported the no less venerated reliquary of Saint Marcel. Those skilled in local antiquities averred that never before had the sacred remains of either saint been known to be brought across the Seine to grace any similar display.

At Saint Germain l'Auxerrois—that notable church under the very shadow of the Louvre, whose bell, a generation later, gave the first signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day—the royal court and the civil and municipal bodies that had been permitted to appear on so august an occasion, were in waiting. At length the magnificent column began its progress, and threading the crowded streets of St. Honore and St. Denis, made its way, over the bridge of Notre Dame, to the island upon which stood and still stands the stately cathedral dedicated to Our Lady. Far on in the van rode Eleonore, Francis's second queen, sister to the emperor, conspicuous for her dignified bearing, dressed in black velvet and mounted on a palfrey with housings of cloth of gold. In her company were the king's daughters by his former wife, the "good Queen Claude," all in dresses of crimson satin embroidered with gold; while a large number of princesses and noble ladies, with attendant gentlemen and guards, constituted their escort.

The monastic orders came next. Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Carmelites, all were there, with burning tapers and highly prized relics. The parish churches were represented in like manner by their clergy; and these were followed by the chapter of the cathedral and by the multitudinous professors and scholars of the university. Between this part of the procession and the next, came a detachment of the Swiss guards of the king, armed with halberds, and a band of skilled musicians performing, on trumpets, hautboys, and other instruments, the airs of the solemn hymns of the church.

An honorable place was held by the ecclesiastics of the "Sainte Chapelle," originally built by Louis the Ninth, in the precincts of his own palace, for the reception of the marvellous relics he brought home from Holy Land. Those relics were all here, together with the other costly possessions of the chapel—the crown of thorns, the true cross, Aaron's rod that budded, the great crown of St. Louis, the head of the holy lance, one of the nails used in our Lord's crucifixion, the tables of stone, some of the blood of Christ, the purple robe, and the milk of the Virgin Mary—all borne in jewelled reliquaries by bishops.

Four cardinals in scarlet robes followed—Givri, Tournon, Le Veneur, and Chatillon—an uncongenial group, in which the violent persecutor and the future partisan of the Reformation walked side by side. But the central point in the entire procession was occupied not by these, but by Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, bearing aloft a silver cross in which was enclosed the consecrated wafer of the eucharist, whose title to adoration it was the grand object of the celebration to vindicate. The king's three sons—the dauphin, and the Dukes of Orleans and Angouleme—with a fourth prince of the blood—the Duke of Bourbon Vendome—held the supports of a magnificent canopy of velvet, sprinkled with golden fleurs-de-lis, above the bishop and his sacred charge. Francis himself walked behind him, with a retinue of nobles, officers of government, judges of parliament, and other civilians closing the line. The king was naturally the object of universal observation.

Dressed in robes of black velvet lined with costly furs, he devoutly followed the elevated host, with uncovered head, and with a large waxen taper in his hands. Several stations had, at great expense, been erected along the designated route. At each of these the procession halted, and the Bishop of Paris placed the silver cross with its precious contents in a niche made to receive it. Then the king, having handed his taper to the Cardinal of Lorraine at his side, knelt down and reverently worshipped with joined hands, until a grand anthem in honor of the sacrament had been intoned. The scene had been well studied, and it made the desired impression upon the by-standers. "There was no one among the people," say the registers of the Hotel de Ville in unctuous phrase, "be he small or great, that did not shed warm tears and pray God in behalf of the king, whom he beheld performing so devout an act and worthy of long remembrance. And it is to be believed that there lives not a Jew nor an infidel who, had he witnessed the example of the prince and his people, would not have been converted to the faith."[350]

[Sidenote: Memorable speech of the king.]

At the conclusion of the mass—the most brilliant that had ever been celebrated within the walls of the cathedral, Francis proceeded to the episcopal palace, to dine in public, with the princes his children, the high nobility, cardinals, ambassadors, privy counsellors, and some of the judges of the Parliament of Paris. Here it was that he delivered a speech memorable in the history of the great religious movement of the time. Addressing parliament and representatives of the lower judiciary, Francis plainly disclaimed all sympathy with the Reformation. "The errors," he said, "which have multiplied, and are even now multiplying, are but of our own days. Our fathers have shown us how to live in accordance with the word of God and of our mother Holy Church. In that church I am resolved to live and die, and I am determined to prove that I am entitled to be called Very Christian. I notify you that it is my will that these errors be driven from my kingdom. Nor shall I excuse any from the task. Were one of my arms infected with this poison, I should cut it off! Were my own children contaminated, I should immolate them![351] I therefore now impose this duty upon you, and relieve myself of responsibility." Turning to the doctors of the university, the king reminded them that the care of the faith was entrusted to them, and he therefore appealed to them to watch over the orthodoxy of all teachers and report all defections to the secular courts.

[Sidenote: Constancy of the sufferers.]

Francis had spoken in the heat of passion, but, in the words of a contemporary, "if his fury was great, still greater was the constancy of the martyrs."[352] Of this, indeed, the king did not have to wait long for a proof. For, after having witnessed, in company with the queen, the amende honorable of six condemned "Lutherans" or "Christaudins," which took place on the square in front of the cathedral, Francis, as he returned to the Louvre, passed the places where these unfortunates were undergoing their supreme torments—three near the Croix du Tiroir, in the Rue St. Honore, and three at the Halles. The first were men of some note—Simon Fouhet, of Auvergne, one of the royal choristers, supposed to have been the person who posted the placard in the castle of Amboise, Audebert Valleton, of Nantes, and Nicholas L'Huillier, from the Chatelet of Paris. The others were of an inferior station in life—a fruitster, a maker of wire-baskets, and a joiner. All, however, with almost equal composure, submitted to their fate as to the will of Heaven, rather than the sentence of human judges; scarcely seeming, in their firm anticipation of an immortal crown, to notice the tumultuous outcries of an infuriated mob which nearly succeeded in snatching them from the officers of the law, in order to have the satisfaction of tearing their bodies to pieces.[353]

[Sidenote: Ingenious contrivance for protracting torture.]

It would seem, however, that the most relentless enemy could scarcely have complained that any womanish indulgence had been shown to the persons singled out to expiate the crime of posting the placard against the mass. To delay the advent of death, the sole term of their excruciating sufferings, an ingeniously contrived instrument of torture was put in play, which if not altogether novel, had at least been but seldom employed up to this time. Instead of being bound to the stake and simply roasted to death by means of the fagots heaped up around him, the victim was now suspended by chains over a blazing fire, and was alternately lowered into it and drawn out—a refinement of cruelty whose principal recommendation to favor lay in the fact that the diversion it afforded the spectators could be made to last until they were fully satisfied, and the executioner chose to allow the writhing sufferer to be suffocated in the flames.[354] So satisfactory were the results of the Estrapade, that it came to be universally employed as the instrument for executing "Lutherans," with the exception of a favored few, to whom the privilege was accorded of being hung or strangled before their bodies were thrown into the fire. Such was, soon after this time, the fate of a woman, a school-teacher by profession, found guilty of heresy. In any case, the judges took effectual measures to forestall the deplorable consequences that might ensue from permitting the "Lutherans" to address the by-standers, and so pervert them from the orthodox faith. The hangman was instructed to pierce their tongue with a hot iron, or to cut it out altogether; just as, at a later date, the sound of the drum was employed to drown the last utterances of the victims of despotism.[355]

[Sidenote: Flight of Marot.]

The flames of persecution were not extinguished with the conclusion of the solemn expiatory pageant. For months strangers sojourning in Paris shuddered at the horrible sights almost daily meeting their eyes.[356] The lingering hope that a prince naturally clement and averse to needless bloodshed, would at length tire of countenancing these continuous scenes of atrocity, seemed gradually to fade away. Great numbers of the most intelligent and scholarly consulted their safety in flight; the friendly court of Renee of France, Duchess of Ferrara, affording, for a time, asylum to Clement Marot, the poet, and to many others. Meantime the suspected "Lutherans" that could not be found were summoned by the town-crier to appear before the proper courts for trial. A list of many such has escaped destruction of time.[357] Fortunately, most of them had gotten beyond the reach of the officers of the law, and the sentence could, at most, effect only the confiscation of their property.

[Sidenote: Royal declaration of Coucy, July 16, 1535.]

As summer advanced, however, the rigor of the persecution was perceived to be somewhat abating. Finally, on the sixteenth of July, the king so far yielded to the urgency of open or secret friends of progress among the courtiers, as to issue a "Declaration" to facilitate the return of the fugitives. "Forasmuch," said Francis, "as the heresies, which, to our great displeasure, had greatly multiplied in our kingdom, have ceased, as well by the Divine clemency and goodness, as by the diligence we have used in the exemplary punishment of many of their adherents—who, nevertheless, were not in their last hours abandoned by the hand of our Lord, but, turning to Him, have repented, and made public confession of their errors, and died like good Christians and Catholics—no further prosecution of persons suspected of heresy shall be made, but they will be discharged from imprisonment, and their goods restored. For the same reason, all fugitives who return and abjure their errors within six months will receive pardon. But Sacramentarians[358] and the relapsed are excluded from this offer. Furthermore, all men are forbidden, under pain of the gallows, and of being held rebels and disturbers of the public peace, to read, teach, translate or print, whether publicly or in private, any doctrine contrary to the Christian faith."[359] The concession, it must be confessed, was not a very liberal one; for the exiles could return only on condition of recanting. Yet the new regulations were mild in comparison with the previous practice, which consigned all the guilty alike to death, and left no room for repentance. Consequently, there were not a few, especially of the learned who had been suspected of heresy, that were found ready to avail themselves of the permission, even on the prescribed terms.

[Sidenote: Alleged intercession of Pope Paul III.]

In explanation of this change in the policy of Francis, the most remarkable rumors circulated among the people. Not the least strange was one that has been preserved for us by a contemporary.[360] It was reported in the month of June, 1535, that Pope Paul the Third, having been informed of "the horrible and execrable" punishments inflicted by the king upon the "Lutherans," wrote to Francis and begged him to moderate his severity. The pontiff did, indeed, express his conviction that the French monarch had acted with the best intentions, and in accordance with his claim to be called the Very Christian King. But he added, that when God, our Creator, was on earth, He employed mercy rather than strict justice. Rigor ought not always to be resorted to; and this burning of men alive was a cruel death, and better calculated to lead to rejection of the faith than to conversion.[361] He therefore prayed the king to appease his anger, to abate the severity of justice, and grant pardon to the guilty. Francis, consequently, because of his desire to please his Holiness, became more moderate, and enjoined upon parliament to practise less harshness. For this reason the judges ceased from criminal proceedings against the "Lutherans," and many prisoners were discharged both from the Conciergerie and from the Chatelet.

That this extraordinary rumor was in general circulation appears from the circumstance that it is alluded to by a Paris correspondent of Melanchthon; while another account that has recently come to light states it not as a flying report, but as a well-ascertained fact.[362] Its singularity is shown from its apparent inconsistency with the well-known history and sentiments of the Farnese Paul. It is difficult to conceive how the pontiff who approved of the Society of Jesus and instituted the Inquisition in the kingdom of Naples, could have been touched with compassion at the recital of the suffering of French heretics. Yet the paradoxes of history are too numerous to permit us to reject as apocryphal a story so widely current, or to explain it away by making it only a popular echo of the convictions of the more enlightened as to the views that were most befitting the claimant to a universal episcopate.

[Sidenote: Clemency again dictated by policy.]

Francis himself, however, made no such statement to the Venetian ambassador at his court. Marino Giustiniano, who gave in his report to the doge and senate this very year, was informed by the French king that, on hearing of the suspension by the Emperor Charles the Fifth of all sentences of death against the Flemish heretics, he had also himself ordered that against every species of heretics, except the Sacramentarians, proceedings should indeed be held as before, but not to the extremity of death.[363] It is evident, therefore, that the suppression of the most cruel features of the persecution had no higher motive than political considerations. Francis had worked himself into a frenzy, and counterfeited the sincerity of a bigot, when it was necessary to make the Pope a friend, and a show of sanguinary ardor seemed most adapted to accomplish his object. He now became tolerant, on discovering that the course he had entered upon was alienating the Protestant princes of Germany, upon whose support he relied in his contest with Charles the Fifth. The turning-point appears to have been coincident with the time when he found that the emperor was endeavoring to outbid him by offering a short-lived toleration to the Netherlanders.

[Sidenote: Francis writes to the German princes.]

Only eleven days after the solemn propitiatory procession, and while the trial and execution of the French reformers were still in progress, Francis had written to his allies beyond the Rhine, in explanation of the severe punishment of which such shocking accounts had been circulated in their dominions. He justified his course by alleging the disorderly and rebellious character of the culprits, and laid great stress upon the care he had taken to secure German Protestants from danger and annoyance.[364]

[Sidenote: Melanchthon entreated to come to France.]

A month later, Vore de la Fosse was on his way to Wittemberg, on a private mission to Melanchthon. He was bearer of a long and important letter from John Sturm. The learned writer, a German scholar of eminence and a friend of the reformed doctrines, was at this time lecturing in Paris, and after his departure from Francis's dominions, became rector of the infant university of Strasbourg. He contrasted the hopeful strain in which he had described to his correspondent the prospects of religion, a year since, with the terrors of the present situation. Crediting the king with the best intentions, he cast the blame of so disastrous a change upon the insane authors of the placards, who had drawn on themselves a punishment that would have been well deserved, had it been moderate in degree. But, unhappily, the innocent had been involved with the guilty, and informers had gratified private malice by magnifying the offence. Francis had, it was true, been led, at the intercession of Guillaume du Bellay and his brother, the Bishop of Paris, to interpose his authority and protect the Germans residing in his realm. But, none the less, he begged Melanchthon to fly to his succor, and to exert an influence over the king which was the result of Vore's continual praise, in putting an end to this unfortunate state of things. Francis, he added, was willing to give pledges for the reformer's safety, and would send him back in great honor to his native land, after the conclusion of the proposed conference. "Lay aside, therefore," wrote Sturm, "the consideration of kings and emperors, and believe that the voice that calls you is the voice of God and of Christ."[365] Vore followed up this invitation with great earnestness both in personal interviews and by letter.[366]

[Sidenote: His perplexity.]

What answer should the reformer give to so pressing an invitation? In his acknowledgment of Sturm's letter, Melanchthon confessed that no deliberation had ever occasioned him so much perplexity. It was not that domestic ties retained him or dangers deterred him. But he was harassed by the fear that he would be unable to accomplish any good. If only this doubt—amounting almost to despair—could be removed, he would fly to France without delay. He approved—so he assured his correspondent—of checking those fanatics who were engaged in sowing absurd and vile doctrines, or created unnecessary tumults. But there were others against whom no such charge could be brought, but who modestly professed the Gospel. If through his exertions some slight concessions were obtained, while points of greater importance were sacrificed, he would benefit neither church nor state. What if he secured immunity from punishment for such as had laid aside the monk's cowl? Must he then consent to the execution of those conscientious men who disapproved of the evident abuses of the mass and of the worship of the saints? Now, as it was precisely the expression of this disapprobation that had caused the present massacres, he trembled with fear lest he should be put in the position of one that justified these atrocious severities. In short, it was his advice, he said, in view of the cunning devices by which the "phalanxes" of monks were wont to play upon the hopes and fears of the high-born, that Francis, if honestly desirous of consulting the glory of Christ, and the tranquillity of the church, be rather exhorted to assemble a general council. Other measures appeared to him, not only useless, but fraught with peril.[367]

[Sidenote: Formal invitation from the king.]

At this point the king himself took a direct part in the correspondence. On the twenty-third of June, 1535, he sent Melanchthon a formal request to visit his court, and there dispute, in his presence, with a select company of doctors, concerning the restoration of doctrinal unity and ecclesiastical harmony. He assured the reformer that he had been prompted by his own great zeal to despatch Vore with this letter—itself a pledge of the public faith—and besought him to suffer no one to persuade him to turn a deaf ear to the summons.[368] Sturm, Cardinal du Bellay, and his brother, all wrote successively, and urged Melanchthon to come to a conference from which they hoped for every advantage.[369]

[Sidenote: Melanchthon consents.]

No wonder that, after receiving so complimentary an invitation, Melanchthon concluded to go to France, and applied (on the eighteenth of August) to the Elector John Frederick for the necessary leave of absence. He briefly sketched the history of the affair, and set forth his own reluctance to enter upon his delicate mission, until provided with the elector's permission and a safe conduct from the French monarch. Two or three months only would be consumed, and he had made arrangements for supplying his chair at Jena during this short absence.[370] It appears, however, that Melanchthon felt less confident of obtaining a gracious reply to his request than his words would seem to indicate. Consequently, he deemed it prudent to ask Luther to write first and urge his suit. The latter did not refuse his aid. "I am moved to make this prayer," said Luther in his letter to the elector, "by the piteous entreaty of worthy and pious persons who, having themselves scarcely escaped the flames, have by great efforts prevailed upon the king to suspend the carnage and extinguish the fires until Melanchthon's arrival. Should the hopes of these good people be disappointed, the bloodhounds may succeed in creating even greater bitterness, and proceed with burning and strangling. So that I think that Master Philip cannot with a clear conscience abandon them in such straits, and defraud them of their hearty encouragement."[371]

[Sidenote: The elector refuses to let him go.]

But even the great theological doctor's intercession was unavailing. The very day the elector received "Master Philip's" application, he wrote to Francis explaining his reasons for refusing to let Melanchthon go to Paris. It is true that the letter was not actually sent until some ten days later;[372] but no entreaties could move the elector to reconsider his decision. Melanchthon indignantly left the court and returned to Jena.[373] Here he subsequently received a written refusal from John Frederick, couched in language far from agreeable. The elector expressed astonishment that he should have permitted matters to go so far, and that he continued to apply for permission even after his prince's desire had been intimated. The danger to be apprehended for the peace of Germany was far greater than any possible advantage that could be expected from his mission. And the writer hinted very distinctly that little confidence could be reposed in Francis's professions, where the Gospel was concerned, as public history sufficiently demonstrated.[374]

[Sidenote: Melanchthon's chagrin.]

The most ungrateful of tasks was reserved for Melanchthon himself—the task of explaining his inability to fulfil his engagement. In a letter to Francis, he expressed the hope that the delay might be only temporary, and he exhorted the king to resist violent counsels, while seeking to promote religious harmony and public tranquillity by peaceable means. To Du Bellay and Sturm he complained not a little of the "roughness" of his prince, whom he had never found more "harsh." He thought that the true motive of the elector's refusal was to be found in the exaggerated report that he had given up everything, merely because he had spoken too respectfully of the ecclesiastical power. "I am called a deserter," he writes. "I am in great peril among our own friends on account of this moderation; as moderate citizens are wont in civil discords to be badly received by both sides. Evidently the fate of Theramenes impends over me; for I believe Xenophon, who affirms that he was a good man, not Lysias, who reviles him."[375]

[Sidenote: The proposed conference reprobated by the Sorbonne.]

Meanwhile the proposed conference encountered no less decided reprobation from the Sorbonne, to which Francis had submitted his project. For the "articles" drawn up by Melanchthon, a year before, in a spirit of conciliation much too broad to please the Protestants, when placed in the hands of the same theological body, in a modified form, and without the name of the author, were returned with a very unfavorable report. The Parisian doctors suggested that, as an appropriate method of satisfying himself whether there was any hope of accommodation, Francis might propound such interrogatories as these to the German theologians from whom the articles emanated: "Whether they confessed the church militant, founded by divine right, to be incapable of erring in faith and good morals, of which church, under our Lord Jesus Christ, St. Peter and his successors have been the head. Whether they will obey the church, receive the books of the Bible[376] as holy and canonical, accept the decrees of the general councils and of the Popes, admit the Fathers to be the interpreters of the Scriptures, and conform to the customs of the church?" As an insufferable grievance they complained that the "articles" were not a request for pardon, but actually a demand for concessions.[377]

The plan to entrap Melanchthon and some considerable portion of the German Protestants into conciliatory proposals which Luther and the more decided reformers could not admit, having failed through the abrupt and tolerably rude refusal of the Elector of Saxony to permit his theological professor to comply with the invitation of Francis, the latter appears to have determined to put the best appearance upon the affair. Accordingly, he promptly signified to the Sorbonne his approval of its action, and he seems even to have suffered the rumor to gain currency that he was himself dissuaded from bringing Melanchthon to France, by the skilful arguments of the Cardinal of Tournon.[378]

In spite of the rebuff he had received, however, Francis made an attempt to effect such an arrangement with the Protestant princes of Germany as would secure their co-operation in his ambitious projects against Charles the Fifth. To compass this end he was quite willing to make concessions to the Lutherans as extensive as those which Melanchthon had offered the Roman Catholics.

[Sidenote: Du Bellay's representations at Smalcald.]

Four months had not elapsed since the unsuccessful issue of his first mission, before Du Bellay was again in Germany. On the nineteenth of December, he presented himself to the congress of Protestant princes at Smalcald. Much of his address was devoted to a vindication of his master from the charge of cruelty to persons of the same religious faith as that of the hearers. The envoy insisted that the Germans had been misinformed: If Francis had executed some of his subjects, he had not thereby injured the Protestants. The culprits professed very different doctrines. The creed of the Germans had been adopted by common consent. Francis admitted, indeed, that there were some useless and superfluous ceremonies in the church, but could not assent to their indiscriminate abrogation unless by public decree. Ought not the Protestant princes to ascribe to their friend, the French king, motives as pure and satisfactory as those that impelled them to crush the sedition of the peasants and repress the Anabaptists? As for himself, Francis, although mild and humane, both from native temperament and by education, had seen himself compelled, by stern necessity and the dictates of prudence, to check the promptings of his own heart, and assume for a time attributes foreign to his proper disposition. For gladly as he listened to the temperate discussion of any subject, he was justly offended at the presumption of rash innovators, men that refused to submit to the judgment of those whose prerogative it was to decide in such matters as were now under consideration.

[Sidenote: He makes, in the name of Francis, a Protestant confession.]

Not content with general assurances, Du Bellay, in a private interview with Brueck, Melanchthon, and other German theologians, ventured upon an exposition of Francis's creed which we fear would have horrified beyond measure the orthodox doctors of the Sorbonne.[379] He informed them, with a very sober face, that the king's religious belief differed little from that expressed in Melanchthon's "Common Places." His theologians had never been able to convince him that the Pope's primacy was of divine right. Nor had they proved to his satisfaction the existence of purgatory, which, being the source of their lucrative masses and legacies, they prized as their very life and blood. He was inclined to limit the assumption of monastic vows to persons of mature age, and to give monks and nuns the right of renouncing their profession and marrying. He favored the conversion of monasteries into seminaries of learning. While the French theologians insisted upon the celibacy of the priesthood, for himself he would suggest the middle ground of permitting such priests as had already married to retain their wives, while prohibiting others from following their example, unless they resigned the sacerdotal office. He would have the sacramental cup administered to the laity when desired, and hoped to obtain the Pope's consent. He even admitted the necessity of reform in some of the daily prayers, and reprehended the want of moderation exhibited by the Sorbonne, which not only condemned the Germans, but would not hesitate on occasion to censure the cardinals or the Holy Pontiff himself.

[Sidenote: The Germans are not deceived.]

We cannot find that Du Bellay's honeyed words produced any very deep impression. Princes and theologians knew tolerably well both how sincere was the king's profession of friendliness to the "Lutheran" tenets, and what was the truth respecting the persecution that had raged for months within his dominions. The western breezes came freighted with the fetid smoke of human holocausts, and not even the perfume of Francis's delicately scented speeches could banish the disgust caused by the nauseating sacrifice. The princes might listen with studied politeness to the king's apologetic words, and assent to the general truth that sedition should be punished by severity; but they took the liberty, at the same time, to express a fervent prayer that the advocates of a reformed religion and a pure gospel might not be involved in the fate of the unruly. And they disappointed the monarch by absolutely declining to enter into any alliance against the Emperor Charles the Fifth. The French ambassador returned home, and Francis so dexterously threw aside the mask of pretended favor to a moderate reformation in the church, that it soon became a disputed question whether he had ever assumed it at all.[380]

[Sidenote: Efforts of the French Protestants in Switzerland and Germany.]

Meantime the French Protestants were unremitting in their efforts to obtain a more satisfactory solution of the religious question than was contained in the Declaration of Coucy. They wrote to Strasbourg, to Berne, to Zurich, to Basle, imploring the intercession of these states. Particular attention was drawn to the severe treatment endured by their brethren in Provence and Dauphiny. The writers declared themselves to be not rebels, but the most loyal of subjects, recognizing one God, one faith, one law, and one king. They were not "Lutherans," nor "Waldenses," nor "heretics;" but simply Christians, accepting the Decalogue, the Apostles' Creed, and every doctrine taught in either Testament. It was unreasonable that they should be compelled by fines, imprisonment, or bodily pains, to abjure their faith, unless their errors were first proved from the Bible, or before the convocation of a General Council.[381]

[Sidenote: An appeal from Strasbourg and Zurich.]

The Swiss and Germans made a prompt response. The Senate of Strasbourg addressed Francis, praising his clemency, but calling his attention to the danger all good men were exposed to. "If but a single little word escape the mouth of good Christian men, directed against the most manifest abuses, nay, against the flagitious crimes of those who are regarded as ecclesiastics, how easy will it be, inasmuch as these very ecclesiastics are their judges, to cry out that words have been spoken to the injury of the true faith, the Church of God, and its traditions?"[382]

Zurich, going even further, made the direct request of its royal ally, that hereafter all persons accused of holding heretical views should be permitted by his Majesty to clear themselves by an appeal to the pure Word of God, and no longer be subjected without a hearing to torture and manifold punishments.[383] Berne and Basle remonstrated with similar urgency.

[Sidenote: An embassy receives an unsatisfactory reply.]

Receiving no reply to their appeal, in consequence of the king's attention being engrossed by the war then in progress with the emperor, and by reason of the dauphin's unexpected death, the same cantons and Strasbourg, a few months later, were induced to send a formal embassy. But, if the envoys were fed with gracious words, they obtained no real concession. Francis assured the Bernese and their confederates that "it was, as they well knew, only for love of them that he had enlarged the provisions of his gracious Edict of Coucy, by lately[384] extending pardon to all exiles and fugitives"—that is, "Sacramentarians" and "relapsed" persons included. This, it seemed to him, "ought to satisfy them entirely."[385] It was a polite, but none the less a very positive refusal to entertain the suggestion that the abjuration of their previous "errors" should no longer be required of all who wished to avail themselves of the amnesty. Nor did it escape notice as a significant circumstance, that Francis selected for his mouth-piece, not the friendly Queen of Navarre, but the rough and bigoted Grand-Maitre—Anne de Montmorency, the future Constable of France.[386]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 328: Melanchthon to Du Bellay, Aug. 1, 1534, Opera (Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum), ii. 740.]

[Footnote 329: This is only a brief summary of the most essential points in these strange articles, which may be read entire in Melanch. Opera, ubi supra, ii. 744-766.]

[Footnote 330: Ibid., ii. 775, 776.]

[Footnote 331: See the interesting letter of a young Strasbourg student at Paris, Pierre Siderander, May 28, 1533, Herminjard, Correspondance des reformateurs, iii. 58, 59. The refrain of one placard,

"Au feu, au feu! c'est leur repere! Faiz-en justice! Dieu l'a permys,"

gave Clement Marot occasion to reply in a couple of short pieces, the longer beginning:

"En l'eau, en l'eau, ces folz seditieux." ]

[Footnote 332: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Ed. of 1560), fol. 64.]

[Footnote 333: Bulletin, ix. 27, 28.]

[Footnote 334: Merle d'Aubigne, on the authority of the hostile Florimond de Raemond, ascribes it to Farel. But the style and mode of treatment are quite in contrast with those of Farel's "Sommaire," republished almost precisely at this date; while many sentences are taken verbatim from another treatise, "Petit Traicte de l'Eucharistie," unfortunately anonymous, but which there is good reason to suppose was written by Marcourt. The author of the latter avows his authorship of the placard. See the full discussion by Herminjard, Correspondance des reformateurs, iii. 225, note, etc.]

[Footnote 335: Courault was foremost in his opposition. Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fols. 64, 65.]

[Footnote 336: "Qui estes pire que bestes, en vos badinages lesquels vous faites a l'entour de vostre dieu de paste, duquel vous vous jouez comme un chat d'une souris: faisans des marmiteux, et frappans contre vostre poictrine, apres l'avoir mis en trois quartiers, comme estans bien marris, l'appelans Agneau de Dieu, et lui demandans la paix."]

[Footnote 337: This singular placard is given in extenso by Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. (Doc.) 60-67; Haag, France prot., x. pieces justif., 1-6; G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er, Appendix, 464-472.]

[Footnote 338: Journal d'un bourgeois, 442. Not Blois, as the Hist. ecclesiastique, i. 10, and, following it, Soldan, Merle d'Aubigne, etc., state. Francis had left Blois as early as in September for the castle of Amboise, see Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 231, 226, 236.]

[Footnote 339: "Ne me puis garder de vous dire qu'il vous souviengne de l'opinion que j'avois que les vilains placars estoient fait par ceux guiles cherchent aux aultres." Marg. de Navarre to Francis I., Nerac, Dec., 1541, Genin, ii. No. 114. Although Margaret's supposition proved to be unfounded, it was by no means so absurd as the reader might imagine. At least, we have the testimony of Pithou, Seigneur de Chamgobert, that a clergyman of Champagne confessed that he had committed, from pious motives, a somewhat similar act. The head of a stone image of the Virgin, known as "Our Lady of Pity," standing in one of the streets of Troyes, was found, on the morning of a great feast-day in September, 1555, to have been wantonly broken off. There was the usual indignation against the sacrilegious perpetrators of the deed. There were the customary procession and masses by way of atonement for the insult offered to high Heaven. But Friar Fiacre, of the Hotel-Dieu, finding himself some time later at the point of death, and feeling disturbed in conscience, revealed the fact that from religious considerations he had himself decapitated the image, "in order to have the Huguenots accused of it, and thus lead to their complete extermination!" Recordon, Protestantisme en Champagne, ou recits extraits d'un MS. de N. Pithou (Paris, 1863), 28-30.]

[Footnote 340: A. F. Didot, Essai sur la typographie, in Encyclop. moderne, xxvi. 760, apud Herminjard, iii. 60.]

[Footnote 341: That is, 1535 New Style. For it will remembered that, until 1566, the year in France began with Easter, instead of with the first day of January. Leber, Coll. de pieces rel. a l'hist. de France, viii. 505, etc.]

[Footnote 342: "Combien que ... nous eussions prohibe et defendu que nul n'eust des lors en avant a imprimer ou faire imprimer aulcuns livres en nostre royaulme, sur peine de la hart." As neither of these disgraceful edicts was formally registered by parliament, they are both of them wanting in the ordinary records of that body, and in all collections of French laws. The first seems, indeed, to have disappeared altogether. M. Crapelet, Etudes sur la typographie, 34-37, reproduces the second, dated St. Germain-en-Laye, February 23, 1534/5, from a volume of parliamentary papers labelled "Conseil." Happily, the preamble recites the cardinal prescription of the previous and lost edict, as given above in the text. M. Merle d'Aubigne carelessly places the edict abolishing printing after, instead of before, the great expiatory procession. Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, iii. 140.]

[Footnote 343: Felibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 997.]

[Footnote 344: Soissons MS., Bulletin, xi. 255.]

[Footnote 345: I. e., gainier, sheath-or scabbard-maker. Hist. ecclesiastique, i. 10; Journal d'un bourgeois, 444; see Varillas, Hist. des revol. arrivees dans l'Eur. en matiere de rel., ii. 222.]

[Footnote 346: "Qui ad se ea pericula spectare non putabant, qui non contaminati erant eo scelere, hi etiam in partem poenarum veniunt. Delatores et quadruplatores publice comparantur. Cuilibet simul et testi et accusatori in hac causa esse licet." J. Sturm to Melanchthon, Paris, March 4, 1535, Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum, ii. 855, etc.]

[Footnote 347: The name and the affliction of this first victim give Martin Theodoric of Beauvais an opportunity, which he cannot neglect, to compare him with a pagan malefactor and contrast him with a biblical personage. "Hunc gladium ultorem persenserunt quam plurimi degeneres et alienigenae in flexilibus perversarum doctrinarum semitis obambulantes; inter alios, paralyticus Lutheranus Neroniano Milone perniciosior. Cui malesano opus erat salutifer Christus, ut sublato erroris grabato, viam Veritatis insequutus fuisset. At vero elatus, in funesto sacrilegi cordis desiderio perseverans, flammis combustus cum suis participibus seditiosis Gracchis, exemplum sui cunctis haereticis relinquens deperiit. Et peribunt omnes sive plebeii, sive primates," etc. Paraclesis Franciae (Par. 1539), 5.]

[Footnote 348: The Journal d'un bourgeois, 444-452, gives an account, in the briefest terms and without comment, of the sentences pronounced and executed. See also G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Francois I^er, 111-113.]

[Footnote 349: The real message sent by Francis I. to his mother, after the disaster of Pavia, was quite another thing from the traditional sentence: "Tout est perdu sauf l'honneur." What he wrote was: "Madame, pour vous avertir comme je porte le ressort de mon infortune, de toutes choses ne m'est demeure que l'honneur et la vie sauve," etc. Papiers d'Etat du Card, de Granvelle, i. 258. It is to be feared that, if saved in Italy, his honor was certainly lost in Spain, where, after vain attempts to secure release by plighting his faith, he deliberately took an oath which he never meant to observe. So, at least, he himself informed the notables of France on the 16th of December, 1527: "Et voulurent qu'il jurast; ce qu'il fist, sachant ledict serment n'estre valable, au moyen de la garde qui luy fust baillee, et qu'il n'estoit en sa liberte." Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois franc., xii. 292.]

[Footnote 350: Registres de l'hotel de ville. Felibien, pieces justif., v. 345. In the preceding account these records, together with those of parliament (ibid., iv. 686-688), the narrative of Felibien himself (ii. 997-999), and the Soissons MS. (Bulletin, xi. 254, 255), have been chiefly relied upon. See also Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er, 113-121.]

[Footnote 351: "En sorte que si un des bras de mon corps estoit infecte de cette farine, je le vouldrois coupper; et si mes enfans en estoient entachez, je les vouldrois immoler." Voltaire (Hist. du parlement de Paris, i. 118), citing the substance of this atrocious sentiment from Maimbourg and Daniel, who themselves take it from Mezeray, says incredulously: "Je ne sais ou ces auteurs ont trouve que Francois premier avait prononce ce discours abominable." M. Poirson answers by giving as authority Theodore de Beze (Hist. eccles., i. 13). But on referring to the documentary records from the Hotel de Ville, among the pieces justificatives collected by Felibien, v. 346, the reader will find the speech of Francis inserted at considerable length, and apparently in very nearly the exact words employed. The contemporary Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er, giving the fullest version of the speech (pp. 121-12), attributes to the king about the same expressions.]

[Footnote 352: Histoire eccles., i. 13.]

[Footnote 353: Histoire eccles., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 354: "Une espece d'estrapade ou l'on attachoit les criminels, que les bourreaux, par le moyen d'une corde, guindoient en haut, et les laissoient ensuite tomber dans le feu a diverses reprises, pour faire durer leur supplice plus longtems." Felibien, ii. 999.]

[Footnote 355: Gerdes, Hist. Evang. renov., iv. 109. For the nature of the penalty, see Bastard D'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 425, note on punishments.]

[Footnote 356: When John Sturm wrote, March 4th, eighteen—when Latomus wrote, somewhat later, twenty-four—adherents of the Reformation had suffered capitally. Bretschneider, Corp. Reform., ii. 855, etc. "Plusieurs aultres hereticques en grant nombre furent apres bruslez a divers jours," says the Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er, p. 129, "en sorte que dedans Paris on ne veoit que potences dressees en divers lieux," etc.]

[Footnote 357: G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er, 130-132; Soissons MS. in Bulletin, etc., xi. 253-254. We may recognize, among the misspelt names, those, for example, of Pierre Caroli, doctor of theology and parish priest of Alencon, already introduced to our notice; Jean Retif, a preacher; Francois Berthault and Jean Courault, lately associated in preaching the Gospel under the patronage of the Queen of Navarre; besides the scholar Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples, and Guillaume Feret, who brought the placards from Switzerland.]

[Footnote 358: Under the head of Sacramentarians were included all who, like Zwingle, denied the bodily presence of Christ in or with the elements of the eucharist.]

[Footnote 359: "De ne lire, dogmatiser, translater, composer ni imprimer, soit en public ou en prive, aucune doctrine contrariant a la foy chretionne." Declaration of Coucy, July 16, 1535, Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois franc., xii. 405-407. See also a similar declaration, May 31, 1536, ibid., xii. 504.]

[Footnote 360: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 458, 459.]

[Footnote 361: Neantmoins Dieu le createur, luy estant en ce monde, a plus use de misericorde que de rigueur, et qu'il ne faut aucunes fois user de rigueur, et que c'est une cruelle mort de faire brusler vif un homme, dont parce il pourroit plus qu'autrement renoncer la foy et la loy. Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 362: "Et le tres-crestien et bon roy Francois premier du nom, a la priere du pape, pardonna a tous, excepte a ceulx qui avoient touche a l'honneur du saint sacrement de l'autel." Soissons MS., Bulletin, xi. 254. Sturm to Melanchthon, July 6, 1535, says: "Pontificem etiam aiunt aequiorem esse, et haud paulo meliorem quam fuerunt caeteri. Omnino improbat illam suppliciorum crudelitatem, et de hac re dicitur misisse [literas ad Regem]." Herminjard, iii. 311. Cf. Erasmus Op., 1513.]

[Footnote 363: "Sapendo, come sua Maesta m'ha detto, che Cesare in Fiandra aveva sospeso ogni esecuzione di morte contro questi eretici, ha anche egli concesso che contra ogni sorte di eretici si proceda come avanti, ma citra mortem, eccetto i sacramentarii." Relazione del clarissimo Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Venete, i. 155.]

[Footnote 364: Francis I. to the German Princes, February 1, 1535, Bretschneider, Corpus Reform., ii. 828, etc.]

[Footnote 365: Sturm to Melanchthon, March 4, 1535, Bretschneider, Corpus Reform., ii. 855, etc.]

[Footnote 366: A letter of Vore is found in Bretschneider, ubi supra, ii, 859.]

[Footnote 367: Melanchthon to Sturm, May 5, 1535, ibid., ii. 873.]

[Footnote 368: Ibid., ii. 879. The address was, "Dilecto nostro Philippo Melanchthoni."]

[Footnote 369: "Nihil est quod de vestro congressu non sperem," are Cardinal du Bellay's words, June 27th. Ibid., ii. 880, 881.]

[Footnote 370: Ibid., ii. 904, 905. The university had been temporarily removed from Wittemberg to Jena, on account of the prevalence of the plague.]

[Footnote 371: Luther to the Elector of Saxony, Aug. 17, 1535, Works (Ed. Dr. J. K. Innischer), lv. 103.]

[Footnote 372: August 28, 1535. The reasons alleged to Francis were, the injurious rumors the mission might give rise to, and the damage to the university from Melanchthon's absence. At some future time, the elector said, he would permit Melanchthon to visit the French king, should his Majesty still desire him to do so, and present hinderances be removed.]

[Footnote 373: "Subindignabundus hinc discessit." Luther to Justus Jonas, Aug. 19.]

[Footnote 374: "Daneben was eurer Person halb, dessgleichen auch in Sachen des Evangelii fuer Trost, Hoffnung oder Zuversicht zu dem Franzosen zu haben, ist wohl zu bedenken, dieweil vormals wenig Treue oder Glaube von ihm gehalten, wie solches die oeffentliche Geschicht anzeigen." Letter of Aug. 24, 1535. The elector expressed himself at greater length to his chancellor, Dr. Brueck (Pontanus). Such a mission would appear suspicious when the elector was on the point of having a conference with the King of Hungary and Bohemia. Melanchthon might make concessions that Dr. Martin (Luther) and others could not agree to, and the scandal of division might arise. Besides, he could not believe the French in earnest; they doubtless only intended to take advantage of Melanchthon's indecision. For it was to be presumed that those most active in promoting the affair were "more Erasmian than evangelical (mehr Erasmisch denn Evangelisch)." Bretschneider, ii. 909, etc.]

[Footnote 375: See the three letters, and other interesting correspondence, Bretschneider, ii. 913, etc. However it may have been with M., Luther's regret at the elector's refusal was of brief duration. As early as Sept. 1st he wrote characteristically to Justus Jonas: "Respecting the French envoys, so general a rumor is now in circulation, originating with most worthy men, that I have ceased to wish that Philip should go with them. It is suspected that the true envoys were murdered on the way, and others sent in their place(!) with letters by the papists, to entice Philip out. You know that the Bishops of Maintz, Luettich, and others, are the worst tools of the Devil; wherefore I am rather anxious for Philip. I have therefore written carefully to him. The World is the Devil, and the Devil is the World." Luther's Works (Ed. Walch), xxi. 1426.]

[Footnote 376: That is, including the apocryphal books.]

[Footnote 377: "Qui est, Sire," they observe with evident amazement at the bare suggestion, "demander de nous retirer a eux, plus qu'eux se convertir a l'Eglise." The articles having been submitted through Du Bellay, August 7, 1535, the Faculty's answer was returned on the 30th of the same month, accompanied by a more elaborate Instructio, the former in French, the latter in Latin. Both are printed among the Monumenta of Gerdes, 75-78, and 78-86.]

[Footnote 378: Florimond de Raemond (l. vii. c. 4), and others writers copying from him, represent Tournon as purposely putting himself in the king's way with an open volume of St. Irenaeus in his hands. Obtaining in this way his coveted opportunity of portraying the perils arising from intercourse with heretics, the prelate enforced his precepts by reading a pretended story related by St. Polycarp, that the Apostle John had on one occasion hastily left the public bath on perceiving the heretic Cerinthus within. Soldan (Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 163) sensibly remarks that little account ought to be made of the statements of a writer who associates Louise de Savoie—in her later days a notorious enemy of the Reformation, who had at this time been four years dead—- with her daughter Margaret, in "importuning" the king to invite Melanchthon.]

[Footnote 379: Some years earlier, Du Bellay had, while on an embassy, set forth his royal master's pretended convictions in favor of the Reformation with so much verisimilitude as to alarm the papal nuncio, who dreaded the effect of his speeches upon the Protestants. "Non e piccola murmoration qui en Corte, ch'l Orator Francese facea piu che l'officio suo richiede in animar Lutherani." Aleander to Sanga, Ratisbon, July 2, 1532, Vatican MSS., Laemmer, 141.]

[Footnote 380: Sleidan, De statu rel. et reipubl., lib. ix., ad annum 1535. The Jesuit Maimbourg rejects the secret conference of Du Bellay as apocryphal, in view of Francis's persecution of the Protestants at Paris, and his declaration of January 21st. But Sleidan's statement is fully substantiated by an extant memorandum by Spalatin, who was present on the occasion (printed in Seckendorff, Gerdes, iv. 68-73 Doc., and Bretschneider, ii. 1014). It receives additional confirmation from a letter of the Nuncio Morone to Pope Paul III., Vienna, Dec. 26, 1536 (Vatican MSS., Laemmer, 178). Morone received from Doctor Matthias, Vice-Chancellor of the Empire, an account of Francis's recent offer to the German Protestants "di condescendere nelle loro opinioni," on condition of their renouncing obedience to the emperor. He reserved only two points of doctrine as requiring discussion: the sacrifice of the mass, and the authority and primacy of the Pope. The Protestants rejected the interested proposal of the royal convert.]

[Footnote 381: The authorship of this interesting document, and the way it reached its destination, are equally unknown. It is published—for the first time, I believe—in Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Opera Calvini (1872), x. part ii. 55, 56.]

[Footnote 382: Senatus Argentoratensis Francisco Regi, July 3, 1536, ibid., x. 57-61.]

[Footnote 383: Senatus Turicensis Francisco Regi, July 13, 1536, ibid., x. 61.]

[Footnote 384: Edict of Lyons, May 31, 1536, Herminjard, iv. 192.]

[Footnote 385: Francois I^er aux Conseils de Zurich, Berne, Bale et Strasbourg, Compiegne, Feb. 20, and Feb. 23, 1537, Basle MSS., ibid., iv. 191-193. Cf. the documents, mostly inedited, iv. 70, 96, 150.]

[Footnote 386: Le Conseil de Berne au Conseil de Bale, March 15, 1537, ibid., iv. 202, 203, Sleidan (Strasb. ed. of 1555), lib x. fol. 163 verso. It must, however, be remarked that the "evangelical cities" would not take the rebuff as decisive, and, within a few months, were again writing to Francis in behalf of his persecuted subjects of Nismes and elsewhere. Le Conseil de Berne a Francois I^er, Nov. 17, 1537, Berne MSS., Herminjard, iv. 320.]



CHAPTER VI.

CALVIN AND GENEVA.—MORE SYSTEMATIC PERSECUTION BY THE KING.

[Sidenote: The placards of 1534 mark an epoch in the history of the Huguenots.]

In the initial stage of great enterprises a point may sometimes be distinguished at which circumstances, in themselves trivial, have shaped the entire future. Such a point in the history of the Huguenots is marked by the appearance of the "Placards" of 1534. The pusillanimous retreat of Bishop Briconnet from the advanced post he had at first assumed, robbed Protestantism of an important advantage which might have been retained had the prelate proved true to his convictions. But the "Placards," with their stern and uncompromising logic, their biting sarcasm, their unbridled invective, directed equally against the absurdities of the mass and the inconsistencies of its advocates, exerted a far more lasting and powerful influence than even the lamentable defection of the Bishop of Meaux. Until now the attitude of Francis with respect to the "new doctrines" had been uncertain and wavering. It was by no means impossible that, imitating the example of the Elector of Saxony, the French monarch should even yet put himself at the head of the movement. Severe persecution had, indeed, dogged the steps of the Reformation. Fire and gibbet had been mercilessly employed to destroy it. The squares of Paris had already had the baptism of blood. But the cruelties complained of by the "Lutherans," if tolerated by Francis, had their origin in the bigotry of others. The Sorbonne and the Parisian Parliament, Chancellor Duprat and the queen mother, Louise of Savoie, are entitled to the unenviable distinction of having instigated the sanguinary measures of repression directed against the professors of the Protestant faith, of which we have already met with many fruits. The monarch, greedy of glory, ambitious of association with cultivated minds, and aspiring to the honor of ushering in the new Augustan age, more than once seemed half-inclined to embrace those religious views which commended themselves to his taste by association with the fresh and glowing ideas of the great masters in science and art. More than once had the champions of the Church trembled for their hold upon the sceptre-bearing arm; while as often their opponents, with Francis's own sister, had cherished illusory hopes that the eloquent addresses of Roussel and other court-preachers had left a deep impress on the king's heart.

[Sidenote: The orthodoxy of Francis no longer questioned.]

But the "Placards" effectually dissipated alike these hopes and these fears. There was no longer any question as to the orthodoxy of Francis. Apologists for the Reformation might seek to undeceive his mind and remove his prejudices. His own emissaries might endeavor to persuade the Germans, of whose alliance he stood in need, that his views differed little from theirs. But there can be no doubt that, whatever his previous intentions had been, from this time forth his resolution was taken, to use his own expression already brought to the reader's notice, to live and die in Mother Holy Church, and demonstrate the justice of his claim to the title of "very Christian." The audacity of the Protestant enthusiast who penetrated even into the innermost recesses of the royal castle, and affixed the placards to the very chamber door of the king, was turned to good account by Cardinal Tournon and other courtiers of like sentiments, and was adduced as a proof of the assertion so often reiterated, that a change of religion necessarily involved also a revolution in the State. The free tone of the placards seemed to reveal a contemptuous disregard of dignities. The ridicule cast upon the doctrine of transubstantiation was an assault on one of the few dogmas respecting which Francis had implicit confidence in the teachings of the Church. Henceforth the king figures on the page of history as a determined opponent and persecutor of the Reformation, less hostile, indeed, to the "Lutherans," than to the "Sacramentarians," or "Zwinglians," but nevertheless an avowed enemy of innovation. The change was recognized and deplored by the Reformers themselves; who, seeing Francis in the last years of his reign give the rein to shameful debauchery, and meantime suffer the public prisons to overflow with hundreds of innocent men and women, awaiting punishment for no other offence than their religious faith, pointedly compared him to the effeminate Sardanapalus surrounded by his courtezans.[387]

[Sidenote: Change in the courtiers.]

While so marked a change came over the disposition of the king, it is not strange that a similar revolution was noticed in the sentiments of the courtiers—a class ever on the alert to detect the slightest variation in the breeze to which they trim their sails. The greater part of the high dignitaries, the early historian of the reformed churches informs us, adapting themselves to the king's humor, abandoned the study of the Bible, and in time became violent opponents of practices which they had sanctioned by their own example. Even Margaret of Navarre is accused by the same authority—and he honestly represents the belief of the contemporary reformers—of having yielded to these seductive influences. She plunged, like the rest, he tells us, into conformity with the most reprehensible superstitions; not that she approved them, but because Gerard Roussel and similar teachers persuaded her that they were things indifferent. Thus, allowing herself to trifle with truth, she was so blinded by the spirit of error as to offer an asylum in her court of Nerac to Quintin and Pocques, blasphemous "Libertines" whose doctrines called forth a refutation from the pen of Calvin.[388]

[Sidenote: The French Reformation becomes a popular movement.]

[Sidenote: Geneva the centre of activity.]

The French Reformation was thus constrained to become a popular movement. The king had refused to lead it. The nobles turned their backs upon it. Its adherents, threatened with the gallows and stake, or driven into banishment, could no longer look for encouragement or direction toward Paris and the vicinage of the court. The timid counsels of the high-born were to be exchanged for the bold and fiery words of reformers sprung from the people. Excluded from the luxurious capital, the Huguenots were, during a long series of years, to draw their inspiration from a city at the foot of the Alps—a city whose invigorating climate was no less adapted to harden the intellectual and moral constitution than the bodily frame, and where rugged Nature, if she bestowed wealth with no lavish hand, manifested her impartiality by more liberal endowments conferred upon man himself. Geneva henceforth becomes the centre of reformatory activity, of which fact we need no stronger evidence than the severe legislation of France to destroy its influence; and the same causes that gave the direction of the movement to the people shaped its theological tendencies. Under the guidance of Francis and Margaret, it must have assumed much of the German or Lutheran type; or, to speak more correctly, the direct influence of Germany upon France, attested by the name of "Lutherans," up to this time the ordinary appellation of the French Protestants, would have been rendered permanent. But now the persecution they had experienced, in consequence of their opposition to the papal mass, confirmed the French reformers in their previous views, and disinclined them to admit even such a "consubstantiation" as Luther's followers insisted upon.

[Sidenote: Geneva secures its independence.]

The same complicated political motives that led Francis to relax his excessive rigor against the Protestants of his realm, in order to avoid provoking the anger of the German princes, prompted him to assist in securing the independence of Geneva, which, at the time, he little dreamed would so soon become the citadel of French Protestantism. After a prolonged contest, the city on the banks of the Rhone had shaken off the yoke of its bishop, and had bravely repelled successive assaults made by the Duke of Savoy. The first preachers of the Reformation, Farel and Froment, after a series of attempts and rebuffs for romantic interest inferior to no other episode in an age of stirring adventure, had seen the new worship accepted by the majority of the people, and by the very advocates of the old system, Caroli and Chapuis. If the grand council had thus far hesitated to give a formal sanction to the religious change, it was only through fear that the taking of so decided a step might provoke more powerful enemies than the neighboring duke. The latter, being fully resolved to humble the insubordinate burgesses, had for two years been striving to cut off their supplies by garrisons maintained in adjoining castles and strongholds; nor would his plans, perhaps, have failed, but for the intervention of two powerful opponents—Francis and the Swiss Canton of Berne.

[Sidenote: with the assistance of Francis I.]

Louise de Savoie was the sister of Duke Charles. Her son had a double cause of resentment against his uncle: Charles had refused him free passage through his dominions, when marching against the Milanese; and, contrary to all justice, he persistently refused to give up the marriage portion of his sister, the king's mother. Francis avenged himself, both for the insult and for the robbery, by permitting a gentleman of his bedchamber, by the name of De Verez, a native of Savoy, to throw himself into the beleaguered city with a body of French soldiers.

[Sidenote: and the Bernese.]

While Geneva was thus strengthened from within, the Bernese, on receipt of an unsatisfactory reply to an appeal in behalf of their allies, came to their assistance with an army of ten or twelve thousand men. Discouraged by the threatening aspect his affairs had assumed, Charles relaxed his grasp on the throat of his revolted subjects, and withdrew to a safe distance. His obstinacy, however, cost him the permanent loss not only of Geneva, but of a considerable part of his most valuable territories, including the Pays de Vaud—a district which, after remaining for more than two hundred and fifty years a dependency of Berne, has within the present century (in 1803), become an independent canton of the Swiss confederacy.[389]

[Sidenote: Calvin the apologist of the Protestants.]

The horrible slanders put in circulation abroad, in justification of the atrocities with which the unoffending Protestants of France were visited, furnished the motive for the composition and publication of an apology that instantly achieved unprecedented celebrity, and has long outlived the occasion that gave it birth. The apology was the "Institutes;" the author, John Calvin. With the appearance of his masterpiece, a great writer and theologian, destined to exercise a wide and lasting influence not only upon France, but over the entire intellectual world, enters upon the stage of French history to take a leading part in the unfolding religious and political drama.

[Sidenote: His birth and training.]

[Sidenote: Studies at Paris;]

[Sidenote: also at Orleans and Bourges.]

John Calvin was born on the tenth of July, 1509, at Noyon, a small but ancient city of Picardy. His family was of limited means, but of honorable extraction. Gerard Cauvin, his father, had successively held important offices in connection with the episcopal see. As a man of clear and sound judgment, he was sought for his counsel by the gentry and nobility of the province—a circumstance that rendered it easy for him to give to his son a more liberal course of instruction than generally fell to the lot of commoners. It is not denied by Calvin's most bitter enemies that he early manifested striking ability. In selecting for him one of the learned professions, his father naturally preferred the church, as that in which he could most readily secure for his son speedy promotion. It may serve to illustrate the degree of respect at this time paid to the prescriptions of canon law, to note that Charles de Hangest, Bishop of Noyon, conferred on John Calvin the Chapelle de la Gesine, with revenues sufficient for his maintenance, when the boy was but just twelve years of age! Such abuses as the gift of ecclesiastical benefices to beardless youths, however, were of too frequent occurrence to attract special notice or call forth unfriendly criticism. With the same easy disregard of churchly order the chapter of the cathedral of Noyon permitted Calvin, two years later, to go to Paris, for the purpose of continuing his studies, without loss of income; although, to save appearances, a pretext was found in the prevalence of some contagious disease in Picardy. Not long after, his father perceiving the singular proficiency he manifested, determined to alter his plans, and devoted his son to the more promising department of the law, a decision in which Calvin himself, already conscious of secret aversion for the superstitions of the papal system, seems dutifully to have acquiesced. To a friend and near relation, Pierre Robert Olivetanus, the future translator of the Bible, he probably owed both the first impulse toward legal studies and the enkindling of his interest in the Sacred Scriptures. Proceeding next to Orleans, in the university of which the celebrated Pierre de l'Etoile, afterward President of the Parliament of Paris, was lecturing on law with great applause, Calvin in a short time achieved distinction. Marvellous stories were told of his rapid mastery of his subject. Not only did he occasionally fill the chair of an absent professor, and himself lecture, to the great admiration of the classes, but he was offered the formal rank of the doctorate without payment of the customary fees. Declining an honorable distinction which would have interfered with his plan of perfecting himself elsewhere, he subsequently visited the University of Bourges, in order to enjoy the rare advantage of listening to Andrea Alciati, of Milan, reputed the most learned and eloquent legal instructor of the age.

[Sidenote: His studies under Wolmar.]

Meanwhile, however, Calvin's interest in biblical study had been steadily growing, and at Bourges that great intellectual and religious change appears to have been effected which was essential to his future success as a reformer. He attached himself to Melchior Wolmar, a distinguished professor of Greek, who had brought with him from Germany a fervent zeal for the Protestant doctrines. Wolmar, reading in the young law student the brilliant abilities that were one day to make his name illustrious, prevailed upon him to devote himself to the study of the New Testament in the original. Day and night were spent in the engrossing pursuit, and here were laid the foundations of that profound biblical erudition which, at a later date, amazed the world, as well, unfortunately, as of that feeble bodily health that embittered all Calvin's subsequent life with the most severe and painful maladies, and abridged in years an existence crowded with great deeds.

[Sidenote: Translates Seneca "De Clementia."]

The illness and death of his father called Calvin back to Noyon,[390] but in 1529 we find him again in Paris, where three years later he published his first literary effort. This was a commentary on the two books of Seneca, "De Clementia," originally addressed to the Emperor Nero. The opinion has long prevailed that it was no casual selection of a theme, but that Calvin had conceived the hope of mitigating hereby the severity of the persecution then raging. The author's own correspondence, however, betrays less anxiety for the attainment of that lofty aim, than nervous uneasiness respecting the literary success of his first venture. Indeed, this is not the only indication that, while Calvin was already, in 1532, an accomplished scholar, he was scarcely as yet a reformer, and that the stories of his activity before this time as a leader and religious teacher, at Paris and even at Bourges, deserve only to be classed with the questionable myths obscuring much of his history up to the time of his appearance at Geneva.[391]

[Sidenote: Calvin's escape from Paris to Angouleme.]

The incident that occasioned Calvin's flight from Paris was narrated in a previous chapter. Escaping from the officers sent to apprehend him as the real author of the inaugural address of the rector, Nicholas Cop, Calvin found safety and scholastic leisure in the house of his friend Louis du Tillet, at Angouleme. If we could believe the accounts of later writers, we should imagine the young scholar dividing his time in this retreat between the preparation of his "Institutes" and systematic labors for the conversion of the inhabitants of the south-west of France. Tradition still points out the grottos in the vicinity of Poitiers, where, during a residence in that city, Calvin is said to have exclaimed, pointing to the Bible lying open before him: "Here is my mass;" and then, with uncovered head and eyes turned toward heaven, "Lord, if at the judgment-day thou shalt reprove me because I have abandoned the mass, I shall reply with justice, 'Lord, thou hast not commanded it. Here is thy law. Here are the Scriptures, the rule thou hast given me, wherein I have been unable to find any other sacrifice than that which was offered upon the altar of the cross!'"[392]

[Sidenote: He resigns his benefices.]

[Sidenote: He reaches Basle.]

The caverns bearing Calvin's name may never have witnessed his preaching, and the address ascribed to him rests on insufficient authority;[393] but it is certain that the future reformer about this time took his first decided step in renouncing connection with the Roman Church, by resigning his benefices, the revenues of which he had enjoyed, although precluded by his youth from receiving ordination.[394] Not many months later, finding himself solicited on all sides to take an active part as a teacher of the little companies of Protestants arising in different cities of France, he resolved to leave France and court elsewhere obscurity and leisure to prosecute undisturbed his favorite studies.[395] Accordingly, we find him, after a brief visit to Paris and Orleans, reaching the city of Basle, apparently toward the close of the year 1534.[396]

[Sidenote: Apologetic character given to his great work.]

It was here that Calvin appears to have conceived for the first time the purpose of giving a practical aim to the great work upon the composition of which he had been some time busy. In spite of his professions of unsullied honor, Francis the First had not hesitated to disseminate, by means of his agents beyond the Rhine, the most unfounded and injurious reports respecting his Protestant subjects. It was time that these aspersions should be cleared away, and an attempt be made to touch the heart of the persecuting monarch with compassion for the unoffending objects of his blind fury. Such was the object Calvin set before himself in a preface to the first edition of the "Institutes," addressed "To the Very Christian King of France."[397] It was a document of rare importance.

[Sidenote: The preface to the "Christian Institutes."]

[Sidenote: Eloquent peroration.]

He briefly explained the original design of his work to be the instruction of his countrymen, whom he knew to be hungering and thirsting for the truth. But the persecutions that had arisen and that left no place for sound doctrine in France induced him to make the attempt at the same time to acquaint the king with the real character of the Protestants and their belief. He assured Francis that the book contained nothing more nor less than the creed for the profession of which so many Frenchmen were being visited with imprisonment, banishment, outlawry, and even fire, and which it was sought to exterminate from the earth. He drew a fearful picture of the calumnies laid to the charge of this devoted people, and of the wretched church of France, already half destroyed, yet still a butt for the rage of its enemies. It was the part of a true king, as the vicegerent of God, to administer justice in a cause so worthy of his consideration. Nor ought the humble condition of the oppressed to indispose him to grant them a hearing; for the doctrine they professed was not their own, but that of the Almighty himself. He boldly contrasted the evangelical with the papal church, and refuted the objections urged against the former. He defended its doctrine from the charge of novelty, denied that miracles—especially such lying wonders as those of Rome—were necessary in confirmation of its truth, and showed that the ancient Fathers, far from countenancing, on the contrary, condemned the superstitions of the day. He refuted the charge that Protestants forsook old customs when good, or abandoned the only visible church; and in a masterly manner vindicated the Reformation from the oft-repeated charge of being the cause of sedition, conflict, and confusion. He begged for a fair and impartial hearing. "But," he exclaimed in concluding, "if the suggestions of the malevolent so fill your ears as to leave no room for the reply of the accused, and those importunate furies continue, with your consent, to rage with bonds and stripes, with torture, confiscation, and fire, then shall we yield ourselves up as sheep appointed for slaughter, yet so as to possess our souls in patience, and await the mighty hand of God, which will assuredly be revealed in good time, and be stretched forth armed for the deliverance of the poor from their affliction, and for the punishment of the blasphemers now exulting in confidence of safety. May the Lord of Hosts, illustrious king, establish your seat in righteousness and your throne with equity."[398]

[Sidenote: Has no effect in allaying persecution.]

[Sidenote: Calvin achieves distinction.]

The learned theologian's eloquent appeal failed to accomplish its end. If Francis ever received, he probably disdained to read even the dedication, classed by competent critics among the best specimens of writing in the French language,[399] and must have regarded the volume to which it was prefixed as a bold vindication of heresy, and scarcely less insulting to his majesty than the placards themselves. Others, better capable of forming a competent judgment, or more willing to give it a dispassionate examination, applauded the success of a hazardous undertaking that might have appalled even a more experienced writer than the French exile of Noyon. The Institutes gave to a young man, who had scarcely attained the age at which men of mark usually begin to occupy themselves with important enterprises, the reputation of being the foremost theologian of the age.