[Sidenote: He revises the Bible of Olivetanus.]

Other studies invited Calvin's attention. Not content with perfecting himself in the original languages of the Holy Scriptures, he revised with care the French Protestant Bible, translated by his relation Olivetanus, of which we shall have occasion to speak in another chapter. Meanwhile, in an age of intense mental and moral awakening, no scholastic repose, such as he had pictured to himself, awaited one who had made good his right to a foremost rank among the athletes in the intellectual arena.

[Sidenote: Visits Italy.]

Before his unexpected call to a life of unremitting conflict, Calvin visited Italy. In the entire absence of any trustworthy statement of the occasion of this journey, it is almost idle to speculate on the objects he had in view.[400] Certain, however, it is that the court of the Duchess Renee, at Ferrara, offered to a patriotic Frenchman attractions hard to be resisted.

[Sidenote: The court of Renee de France.]

[Sidenote: Brantome's eulogy of Renee.]

The younger daughter of Louis the Twelfth resembled her father not less in character than in appearance and speech.[401] Cut off by the pretended Salic law from the prospect of ascending the throne, she had in her childhood been thrown as a straw upon the variable tide of fortune. After having been promised in marriage to Charles of Spain, heir to the most extensive and opulent dominions the sun shone upon, and future Emperor of Germany, she had (1528) been given in marriage to the ruler of a petty Italian duchy, himself as inferior to her in mind as in moral character.[402] As for Renee, if her face was homely and unprepossessing, her intellect was vigorous. She had turned to good account the opportunities for self-improvement afforded by her high rank. Admiring courtiers made her classical and philosophical attainments the subject of lavish panegyric, perhaps with a better basis of fact than in the case of many other princes of the time; while with the French, her countrymen, the generous hospitality she dispensed won for her unfading laurels. "Never was there a Frenchman," writes the Abbe de Brantome, "who passing through Ferrara applied to her in his distress and was suffered to depart without receiving ample assistance to reach his native land and home. If he were unable to travel through illness, she had him cared for and treated with the utmost solicitude, and then gave him money to continue his journey."[403] Ten thousand poor Frenchmen are said to have been saved by her munificent charity, on the occasion of the recall of the Duke of Guise, after Constable Montmorency's disastrous defeat at St. Quentin. Her answer to the remonstrance of her servants against this excessive drain upon her slender resources bore witness at once to the sincerity of her patriotism and to a virile spirit which no Salic law could extinguish.[404]

The brief stay of Calvin at Ferrara is involved in the same obscurity that attends his motives in visiting Italy. But it is known that he exerted at this time a marked influence not only on others,[405] but on Renee de France herself, who, from this period forward, appears in the character of an avowed friend of the reformatory movement. Calvin had from prudence assumed the title of Charles d'Espeville, and this name was retained as a signature in his subsequent correspondence with the duchess.

[Sidenote: Calvin leaves Ferrara.]

A point so close to the centre of the Roman Catholic world as Ferrara could scarcely afford safety to an ardent reformer, even if the fame of his "Institutes" had not yet reached Rome; and Ercole the Second was too dependent upon the Holy See to shrink from sacrificing the guest his wife had invited to the palace. Returning, therefore, from Ferrara, without apparently pursuing his journey to Rome or even to Florence, Calvin retraced his steps and took refuge beyond the Alps. Possibly he may have stopped on the way in the valley of Aosta, and displayed a missionary activity, which has been denied by several modern critics, but is attested by local monuments and tradition, and has some support in contemporary documents.[406]

[Sidenote: Revisits France.]

[Sidenote: Is recognized while passing through Geneva.]

[Sidenote: Farel compels him to remain.]

Once more in Basle, Calvin resolved, after a final visit to the home of his childhood, to seek out some quiet spot in Germany, there to give himself up to those scholarly labors which he fancied would be more profitable to France than the most active enterprises he might engage in as a preacher of the Gospel. He had accomplished the first part of his design, had disposed of his property in Noyon, and was returning with his brother and sister, when the prevalence of war in the Duchy of Lorraine led him to diverge from his most direct route, so as to traverse the dominions of the Duke of Savoy and the territories of the confederate cantons of Switzerland. Under these circumstances, for the first time, he entered the city of Geneva, then but recently delivered from the yoke of its bishop and of the Roman Church. He had intended to spend there only a single night.[407] He was accidentally recognized by an old friend, a Frenchman, who at the time professed the reformed faith, but subsequently returned to the communion of the Church of Rome.[408] Du Tillet was the only person in Geneva that detected in the traveller, Charles d'Espeville, the John Calvin who had written the "Institutes." He confided the secret to Farel, and the intrepid reformer whose office it had hitherto been to demolish, by unsparing and persistent blows, the popular structure of superstition, at once concluded that, in answer to his prayers, a man had been sent him by God capable of laying, amid the ruins, the foundations of a new and more perfect fabric. Farel sought Calvin out, and laid before him the urgent necessities of a church founded in a city where, under priestly rule, disorder and corruption had long been rampant. At first his words made no impression. Calvin had traced out for himself a very different course, and was little inclined to exchange a life of study for the perpetual struggles to which he was so unexpectedly summoned. But when he met Farel's request with a positive refusal, pleading inexperience, fondness for literary pursuits, and aversion to scenes of tumult and confusion, the Genevese reformer assumed a more decided tone. Acting under an impulse for which he could scarcely account himself, Farel solemnly prayed that the curse of God might descend on Calvin's leisure and studies, if purchased at the price of neglecting the duty to which the voice of the Almighty Himself, by His providence, distinctly called him.[409]

The amazed and terrified student felt—to use his own expression—that God had stretched forth His arm from heaven and laid violent hold upon him, rendering all further resistance impossible. He yielded to the unwelcome call, and became the first theological professor of Geneva. Somewhat later he was prevailed upon to add to his functions the duties of one of the pastors of the city.

[Sidenote: Farel's own recollections.]

If the scene impressed itself ineffaceably on the memory or one of the principal actors, its effect, we may be sure, was no less lasting in the case of the other. More than a quarter of a century after, Farel, on receiving the announcement that his worst apprehensions had been realized, in the death of his "so dear and necessary brother Calvin," wrote to a friend a touching letter, in which he referred in a few sentences to the same striking interview. "Oh, why am not I taken away in his stead, and why is not he, so useful, so serviceable, here in health, to minister long to the churches of our Lord! To Whom be blessing and praise, that, of His grace, He made me fall in with him where I had never expected to meet him, and, contrary to his own plans, compelled him to stop at Geneva, and made use of him there and elsewhere! For he was urged on one side and another more than could be told, and specially by me, who, in God's name, urged him to undertake matters that were harder than death. And albeit he begged me several times, in the name of God, to have mercy on him and suffer him to serve God in other ways, as he has always thus occupied himself, nevertheless, seeing that what I asked was in accordance with God's will, in doing himself violence he has done more and more promptly than any one else has done, surpassing not only others, but himself. Oh, how happily has he run an excellent race!"[410]

[Sidenote: Calvin becomes the head of the commonwealth.]

[Sidenote: His view respecting church and state,]

[Sidenote: and the punishment of heresy.]

For twenty-eight years the name of Calvin was inseparably associated with that of the city which owes its chief renown to his connection with it. Excepting the three years of exile, from 1538 to 1541, occasioned by a powerful reaction against his rigid system of public morality, he was, during the whole of this period, the recognized head of the Genevese commonwealth. A complete mastery of the principles of law, acquired by indefatigable study at Orleans and Bourges, before the loftier teachings of theology engrossed his time and faculties, qualified him to draw up a code to regulate the affairs of his adopted country. If its detailed prohibitions and almost Draconian severity are repugnant to the spirit of the present age, the general wisdom of the legislator is vindicated by the circumstance that he transformed a city noted for the prevalence of every form of turbulence and immorality into the most orderly republic of Christendom. Few, it is true, will be found to defend the theory respecting the duty of the state toward the church in which Calvin acquiesced. But the cruel deaths of Gruet and Servetus were only the legitimate fruits of the doctrine that the civil authority is both empowered and bound to exercise vigilant supervision over the purity of the church. In this doctrine the reformers of the sixteenth century were firm believers. They held, as John Huss had held a hundred years before, that Truth could appropriately appeal for support to physical force, under circumstances that would by no means have justified a similar resort on the part of Error. The consistent language of their lives was, "If we speak not the truth, we refuse not to die." "If the Pope condemns the pious for heresy, and furious judges unjustly execute on the innocent the penalty due to heretics, what madness is it thence to infer that heretics ought not to be destroyed for the purpose of aiding the pious! As for myself, since I read that Paul said that he did not refuse death if he had done anything to deserve it, I openly offered myself frequently prepared to undergo sentence of death, if I had taught anything contrary to the doctrine of piety. And I added, that I was most worthy of any punishment imaginable, if I seduced any one from the faith and doctrine of Christ. Assuredly I cannot have a different view with regard to others from that which I entertain respecting myself."[411] So wrote Farel, and almost all his contemporaries agreed with him. And thus it happened that the conscientious Calvin and the polished Beza were at the pains of writing long treatises, to prove that "heretics are justly to be constrained by the sword,"[412] almost at the very moment when they were begging the Bernese to intercede with their ally, King Henry the Second, of France, in behalf of the poor Protestants languishing in the dungeons of Lyons, or writing consolatory letters to Peloquin and De Marsac, destined to suffer death in the flames not many days before the execution of the Spanish physician at Geneva.[413]

[Sidenote: His fault the fault of the age.]

In truth, however, it was less Calvin than the age in which he lived that must be held responsible for the crime against humanity with which his name has come to be popularly associated. He did, indeed, desire and urge that Servetus should be punished capitally, although he made an earnest but unsuccessful effort to induce the magistrates to mitigate the severity of the sentence, by the substitution of some more merciful mode of execution.[414] But the other principal reformers of Germany and Switzerland—Melanchthon, Haller, Peter Martyr, and Bullinger gave their hearty endorsement to the cruel act;[415] while if any further proof were needed to attest the sincerity and universality of approval accorded to it, it is afforded by the last letters of the brave men who were themselves awaiting at Chambery, a few mouths later, death by the same excruciating fate as that which befell Servetus at Geneva.[416]

[Sidenote: Calvin shuns notoriety.]

The prominence obtained by Calvin as chief theologian and pastor of the church of Geneva, however, was foreign to his tastes. He was by preference a scholar, averse to notoriety, fond of retirement, and, if we are to believe his own judgment, timid and even pusillanimous by nature.[417] He had in vain sought seclusion in France. From Basle and Strasbourg he made a hasty retreat in order to preserve his incognito, and avoid the fame the Institutes were likely to earn for him.[418] Only Farel's adjuration detained him in Geneva, and he subsequently confessed that his fortitude was not so great but that he rejoiced even more than was meet when the turbulent Genevese expelled him from their city.[419] But not even then was he able to secure the coveted quiet, for Martin Bucer was not slow in imitating the urgency of Farel, and employed the warning example of the prophet Jonah seeking to flee from the will of the Almighty, to induce him to employ himself in the organization and administration of the French church at Strasbourg.[420] Not less decided was Calvin's reluctance to accede to the repeated invitations of the council and people of Geneva, that he should return and resume his former position.

[Sidenote: His character and natural endowments.]

[Sidenote: He is consulted by Protestants in every quarter of Europe.]

Such was the man who was called to take the reins of the spiritual direction, not only of a single small city, but of a large body of earnest thinkers throughout France, and even to distant parts of Christendom—a man of stern and uncompromising devotion to that system which he believed to be truth; of slender imagination, but of a memory prodigious in its grasp, of an understanding wonderfully acute, and of a power of exposition and expression unsurpassed by that possessed by any writer among his contemporaries. His constitution, naturally weak, had been still further enfeebled by excessive application to study. In his letters there are frequent references to the interruptions occasioned by violent pains in his head, often compelling him to stop many times in the writing of a single letter.[421] His strength was taxed to the utmost by the unremitting toil incident to his multifarious occupations. The very recital of his labors fills us with amazement. He preached twice every Sunday, besides frequent sermons on other days. He lectured three times a week on theology. He made addresses in the consistory, and delivered a lecture every Friday in the conference on the Scriptures known as the "Congregation." To these public burdens must be added others imposed upon him by his wide reputation. From all parts of the Protestant world, but especially from every spot in France where the Reformation had gained a foothold, the opinion of Calvin was eagerly sought on various points of doctrine and ecclesiastical practice. To Geneva, and especially to Calvin, the obscure and persecuted adherents of the same faith, not less than the most illustrious of the Protestant nobility, looked for counsel and direction. Under his guidance that system was adopted for supplying France with ministers of the Gospel which led the Venetian ambassador, near the end of the great reformer's life, to describe Geneva as the mine from which the ore of heresy was extracted.[422] How faithfully he discharged the trust committed to him is sufficiently attested by a voluminous correspondence, some portions of which have escaped the wreck of time; while the steady advance of the doctrines he advocated is an enduring monument to the zeal and sagacity of his exertions.

[Sidenote: Meets with bitter opposition,]

[Sidenote: but obtains the support of the people.]

In his arduous undertaking, however, Calvin had to encounter no little opposition in the very city of Geneva. It was this, even more than bodily infirmity, that bore severely upon his spirits, and robbed him of the rest demanded alike by his overtaxed body and mind. His advocacy of strenuous discipline procured him relentless enemies among the Genevese of the "Libertine" party. Those were stormy times for Calvin, when, in derision of the student, legislator, and theologian, deafening salutes were fired by night before his doors, and when the dogs were set upon him in the streets.[423] But, when we read of the violent antagonism elicited by the publication of the severe provisions of the "Ordinances," regulating even the minor details of the life of a Genevese citizen, it must not be forgotten that the unpopular system, although devised by Calvin, was not imposed by him upon unwilling subjects, but established by a free and decisive vote of the people, in the exercise of its sovereignty, and influenced to its adoption by the same considerations that had determined Calvin himself in devising it.[424]

[Sidenote: An estimate of Calvin by Etienne Pasquier.]

Such a man could not fail to secure the respect of his opponents, and the undisguised admiration of all who could regard his character and work with some degree of impartiality. Among the most virtuous of his contemporaries was the excellent Etienne Pasquier, who described him as he appeared in the eyes of men of culture—men who, without forsaking the Roman Catholic Church, were stanch friends of reform and of progress. "He was a man," says Pasquier, "that wrote equally well in Latin and in French, and to whom our French tongue is greatly indebted for having enriched it with an infinite number of fine touches. It were my wish that it had been for a better subject. He was a man, moreover, marvellously versed and nurtured in the books of the Holy Scriptures, and such that, had he directed his mind in the right way, he might have ranked with the most illustrious doctors of the church. And, in the midst of his books and his studies, he was possessed of the most active zeal for the progress of his sect. We sometimes saw our prisons overflowing with poor, misled people, whom he unceasingly exhorted, consoled, and comforted by his letters; and there were never lacking messengers to whom the doors were open, in spite of any exertions of the jailers to the contrary. Such were the methods by which he gained over step by step a part of our France."[425]

[Sidenote: Continued persecution.]

[Sidenote: The tongues of the victims cut out, and records burned.]

The flames of the persecution kindled by the publication of the placards continued to burn. From Paris, where Laurent de la Croix fell a victim to the rage of the priests, the conflagration spread to Essarts, in Poitou, where a simple girl was consigned to the fire for reproving a Franciscan monk; and to Macon, where an unlearned peasant underwent a like punishment, amazing his judges by the familiarity he displayed with the Bible. Agen, in Guyenne, and Beaune, in Burgundy, witnessed similar scenes of atrocious cruelty; while at Nonnay, Andre Berthelin was burned alive, because, when wending his way to the great fair of Lyons, he refused to kneel down before one of the many pictures or images set up by the roadside for popular adoration. At Rouen, four brave reformers were thrown into a tumbril, reeking with filth, to be drawn to the place of execution, one of them exclaiming with radiant countenance: "Truly, as says the apostle, we are the offscouring of the earth, and we now stink in the nostrils of the men of the world. But let us rejoice, for the savor of our death will be a sweet savor unto God, and will profit our brethren."[426] But the details of these executions are too horrible and too similar to find a place here. Nor, indeed, would it be possible to frame a complete statement of the case of each of the constant sufferers; for, from this time forward, it became a favorite practice with those who presided over these bloody assizes to cut out the tongues of their victims, lest their eloquent appeals should shake the confidence of the spectators in the established faith, and afterward to throw the official record of the trial of Protestants into the fire that consumed their bodies, in order to prevent its furnishing edifying material for the martyrology.[427]

[Sidenote: Failure of persecution.]

But, as usual, persecution failed utterly of accomplishing what had been expected of it. For a brief moment, indeed, Francis flattered himself that exemplary punishments had purged his kingdom of the professors of the hated doctrines.[428] But, in the course of a few years, he discovered that, in spite of continued severities, the "new faith" had so spread—partly by means of persons suffered to return, in virtue of the royal declaration of Coucy (on the sixteenth of July, 1535), and partly through the teachings of others who lay concealed during the first violence of the storm—that he had good reason to fear that the last errors were worse than the first.[429] What rendered the matter still more serious was the favor shown to the heretics by persons of high rank and influence.[430]

[Sidenote: Edict of Fontainebleau cuts off appeal, June 1, 1540.]

With the view of employing still more rigid means for the detection and punishment of the offenders, a fresh edict was published from Fontainebleau, on the first of June, 1540. In this long and sanguinary document the monarch—or the Cardinal of Tournon, who enjoyed the credit of a principal part in its preparation—enjoined upon the officers of all the royal courts, whether judges of parliament, seneschals, or bailiffs, to institute proceedings concurrently against all persons tainted with heresy. No appeal was to be permitted to delay their action. The examination of the suspected took precedence of all other cases. Tribunals of inferior jurisdiction were instructed to send prisoners for heresy, together with the record of their examination, to the sovereign courts of parliament, there to be tried in the "Chambre criminelle." The appeal to the "Grand' chambre," customarily allowed to persons claiming immunity on account of order or station, was expressly cut off, so as to render the course of justice more expeditious. Negligent judges were threatened with suspension and removal from office. The high vassals of the crown were ordered to lend to the royal courts their counsel and assistance, and to surrender to them all offenders as guilty of sedition and disturbance of the public peace—crimes of which the king claimed exclusive cognizance. Ecclesiastics were exhorted to show equal diligence in the prosecution of culprits that were in orders. In short, every servant of the king was bidden to abstain from harboring or favoring the "Lutherans," since the errors and false doctrines the latter disseminated, it was said, contained within them the crime of treason against God and the king, as well as of sedition and riot.[431] Every loyal subject must, therefore, denounce the heretics and employ all means to extirpate them, just as all men are bound to run to help in extinguishing a public conflagration.[432]

[Sidenote: Exceptional fairness of President Caillaud.]

The last injunction was not altogether unnecessary. Even among the judges of parliament there were fair-minded persons not inclined to condemn accused men or books on mere report. The ambassador of Henry the Eighth having, in 1538, denounced an English translation of the Holy Scriptures that was in press at Paris, the chancellor commissioned President Caillaud to investigate the case. The latter, finding that the printer's excuse was the scarcity of paper in England, quietly set about a comparison of the suspected version with accessible French translations. He said nothing to doctors of theology or royal prosecuting officers. "It seemed to me," he reported, "quite unnecessary to give the matter such notoriety. Moreover, I mistrusted that, without further investigation, without even looking into it, they would have condemned the English translation for the sole reason that it is in that tongue. For I have seen them sustain that the Holy Scriptures ought not to be translated into the French language or any other vernacular tongue. Nevertheless, the Bible in French was printed in this city so long ago as in 1529, and again this present year, and is for sale by the most wealthy printers. For my part I have seen no prohibition either by the church or by the secular authority, although I once heard some decretal alleged in condemnation." Unfortunately such judges as Louis Caillaud were rare—men that would take the pains to obtain the services of a person acquainted with the English language to translate aloud a Bible suspected of heretical teachings, while themselves testing its accuracy by scanning versions made from the Vulgate and the Hebrew original![433]

[Sidenote: Royal letters from Lyons, Aug. 30, 1542.]

Two years more had scarcely passed before fresh legislation against the Protestants demonstrated the impotence of all measures thus far resorted to. The interval had certainly been improved by their enemies, for the stake had its victims to boast of.[434] And yet the new religious body had its ministers and its secret conventicles, with an ever increasing number of adherents. Accordingly, on the thirtieth of August, 1542, Francis, then at Lyons, addressed new letters patent to the various parliaments, enjoining new vigilance and activity. Previous edicts had not borne all the fruit expected from them; for there was still a bad seed of error and damnable doctrines—so wrote the king—growing and multiplying from day to day. So exemplary a punishment must, therefore, be inflicted, as might forever terrify offenders.[435] The king even threatened delinquent prelates with seizure of their temporalities, in case they failed to exercise due diligence in so important a matter.[436]

[Sidenote: Audacity of the "Lutherans" of Bordeaux.]

[Sidenote: Francis I. and the Sacramentarians.]

King, bishops and parliaments were terribly in earnest. All were agreed that Protestantism must and should be crushed, however little they harmonized as to the reasons of its increase or the method of suppressing it. The Archbishop of Bordeaux denounced to the parliament of that city the growing audacity of the "Lutherans" of his diocese, who had even dared to preach their doctrines publicly. He accounted for this disorder by the fact that the prosecution and exemplary punishment of heretics had ceased to be the uniform rule; as if the experience of the past score of years had not demonstrated the futility of attempting to compel religious uniformity by the fear of human tribunals and ignominious death. He therefore begged the parliament to spare neither him nor his brother prelates in the matter of defraying the expense of bringing "Lutherans" to trial and death. The secular judges were of the same mind with the prelates, and both took new courage from a declaration of Francis himself, which the archbishop had recently heard with his own ears at Angouleme. In the presence of Cardinal Tournon and others, the king had assured him that "he desired that no sacramentarian should be permitted to abjure, but that all such heretics should be remorselessly put to death!"[437] By such pitiless measures did Francis still think to establish his unimpeachable loyalty to the doctrine of transubstantiation.

[Sidenote: Royal ordinance of Paris, July 23, 1543.]

But, as ill success continued to attend every attempt to crush the Reformation in France, it was necessary to find some plausible explanation of the failure. The ecclesiastical counsellors of the king alleged that they discovered it in the recent edicts themselves, which they represented as derogating from the efficiency of both prelates and inquisitors of the faith. To meet this new objection, Francis complaisantly published another ordinance (on the twenty-third of July, 1543), carefully defining the respective provinces of the lay and clerical judges. Prelates and inquisitors were authorized to proceed, in accordance with canon law, to obtain information alike against clergymen and laymen, in case of suspected heresy, and the secular judges were strictly enjoined to afford them all needed assistance in execution of their writs of summons and arrest. But all persons guilty of open heresy, and not actually in holy orders, must be given over, together with the documents relating to their offences, to the royal judges and to the courts of parliament, and by them tried as seditious disturbers of the peace and tranquillity of the commonwealth and of the king's subjects, secret conspirators against the prosperity of his estate, and rebels against his authority and laws.[438] In order, however, to secure to the ecclesiastical tribunals their full control over clergymen, it was provided that any churchman condemned to banishment, or any other punishment short of death, should immediately after the "amende honorable," and before execution of sentence, be remitted to his spiritual superiors to undergo deprivation of office, and such other penalties as canon law might prescribe.[439]

[Sidenote: Heresy to be punished as sedition.]

[Sidenote: Repression proves a failure.]

But the succession of edicts, each surpassing the last in severity, had not rendered the path of the judges, whether lay or ghostly, altogether easy. There were found prisoners, accused of holding and teaching heretical doctrines, well skilled in holy lore, however ignorant of the casuistry of the schools, who made good their assertion that they could give a warrant for all their distinctive tenets from the Sacred Scriptures. Their arguments were so cogent, their citations were so apposite, that the auditors who had come with the expectation of witnessing the confusion of a heretic, often departed absorbed in serious consideration of a system that had so much the appearance of truth when defended by a simple man in jeopardy of his life, and when fortified by the authority of the Bible. More learned reformers had appealed successfully to the Fathers to whose teachings the church avowed its implicit obedience. It was clear that some standard of orthodoxy must be established. For, if St. Augustine or St. Cyprian might be brought up to prove the errors of the priests, what was it but allowing the reformers to place the Roman Church at the bar, even in the very courts of justice? Might not the most damaging losses be expected to flow from such trials?

The public courts, indeed, were not the only places where the inconsistencies of the established church with its own ancient standards and representative theologians were brought out into bold relief. The pulpits of the very capital resounded, it was alleged, with contradictory teachings, scandalizing the faithful not a little at the holy season of Advent.[440]

[Sidenote: The Sorbonne's Twenty-five Articles.]

To put an end to so anomalous a state of affairs, the Parisian theologians, with the consent of the king, resolved to enunciate the true Catholic faith, in the form of twenty-five articles meeting all questions now in dispute (on the tenth of March, 1543). Of the general contents of this new formulary, it is sufficient to observe that it more concisely expressed the doctrines developed in the decisions of the Council of Trent; that it insisted upon baptism as essential to the salvation even of infants; that it magnified the freedom of the human will, and maintained the justification of the sinner by works as well as by faith; and that, dwelling upon the bodily presence of Christ in the consecrated wafer, it affirmed the propriety of denying the cup to the laity, the utility of masses for the dead, the lawfulness of the invocation of the blessed Virgin and the saints, the existence of purgatory, the infallibility of the church, the authority of tradition, and the divine right of the Pope.[441]

[Sidenote: Francis gives them the force of law.]

On the twenty-third of July, 1543, the very day of the publication of the edict of persecution previously mentioned, Francis by letters-patent gave the force of law to the exposition of the faith drawn up by the theological faculty of "his blessed and eldest daughter, the University of Paris." Henceforth no other doctrines could be professed in France. Dissent was to be treated as "rebellion" against the royal authority.[442]

[Sidenote: Persecution more systematic.]

[Sidenote: The inquisitor Matthieu Ory.]

The sanguinary legislation at which we have glanced bore its most atrocious fruits in the last years of Francis, and in the reign of his immediate successor. The consideration of this topic must, however, be reserved for succeeding chapters. Until now the persecution had been carried on with little system, and its intensity had varied according to the natural temperament and disposition of the Roman Catholic prelates, not less than the zeal of the civil judges. Many clergymen, as well as lay magistrates, had exhibited a singular supineness in the detection and punishment of the reformed. Some bishops, supposed to be at heart friendly to the restoration of the church to its pristine purity of doctrine and practice, had scarcely instituted a serious search. The royal edicts themselves bear witness to their reluctance, in spite of threatened suspension and deprivation. It is true that an attempt had been made to secure greater thoroughness and uniformity, by augmenting the number of inquisitors of the faith, and this, notwithstanding the fact that their authority infringed upon that of the bishops, whose right was scarcely questioned to exclusive cognizance of heresy within their respective dioceses. Not only had Matthieu Ory[443] and others been appointed with jurisdiction over the entire kingdom, but a special inquisitor was created for the province of Normandy. Even these persons, however, were not always equally zealous in the performance of their allotted task. It was notorious that the good cheer with which Ory was regaled by the astute Protestants of Sancerre led him to report them to be excellent people. A deputy, who next visited the reputed heretics, brought back an equally flattering statement. And so the persecuting "lieutenant particulier" of Bourges seems to have had some ground for his complaint, "that good wine and a right new coat caused all these inquisitors to return well satisfied, without bringing him any prey."[444]

[Sidenote: The Nicodemites and Libertins.]

It could not be otherwise, however, than that these severe measures and the employment of new agents in the pitiless work of persecution should induce many feeble souls to suppress their true sentiments, and to make the attempt, under an external conformity with the Roman Church, to maintain opinions and a private devotion quite inconsistent with their professions. And, while the progress of the Reformation was seriously impeded by the timidity of this class of irresolute persons—appropriately styled by their contemporaries "the Nicodemites"—scarcely less danger threatened the same doctrines from the insidious assaults of the Libertines, a party which, ostensibly aiming at reform and religious liberty, really asked only for freedom in the indulgence of vicious propensities. Against both of these pernicious tendencies the eloquent reformer of Geneva employed his pen in forcible treatises, which were not without effect in checking their inroads.[445]

[Sidenote: Margaret of Navarre at Bordeaux.]

It must be confessed that the Queen of Navarre herself gave no little aid and comfort to the advocates of timid and irresolute counsels, by a course singularly wanting in ingenuousness. This amiable princess knew how to express herself with such ambiguity as to perplex both religious parties and heartily satisfy neither the one side nor the other. She was the avowed friend and correspondent of Melanchthon and Calvin. She was believed to be in substantial agreement with the Protestants. Her views of the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith and the paramount authority of the Holy Scriptures were those for which many a Protestant martyr had laid down his life. Even on the question of the Lord's Supper, her opinions, if mystical and somewhat vague, were certainly far removed from the dogmas of the Roman Church. She condemned, it is true, the extreme to which the "Sacramentarians" went, but it was difficult to see precisely wherein the modified mass she countenanced differed from the reformed service. Certainly not a line in her correspondence with Calvin points to any important difference of sentiment known by either party to exist between them. What shall we say, then, on reading of such language as she used in 1543, when addressing the Parliament of Bordeaux? She had been deputed by her brother to represent him, and was, consequently, received by the court, (on the twenty-fourth of May) with honors scarcely, if at all, inferior to those that would have been accorded to Francis had he presented himself in person. Her special commission was to notify parliament of an expected attack by the English, and to request that due preparation should be made to ward it off. From this topic she passed to that of heresy, in respect to which she expressed herself to this effect: "She exhorted and prayed the court to punish and burn the true heretics, but to spare the innocent, and have compassion upon the prisoners and captives."[446] If, as the interesting minute of the queen's visit informs us, she next proceeded to claim the immemorial right, as a daughter of France, to open the prisons and liberate the inmates according to her good pleasure,[447] it can scarcely be imagined that the assertion of the right at this time had any other object in view than the release of those imprisoned for conscience' sake. It is true that she took pains to protest that she would avoid meddling with prisoners incarcerated for other crimes than such as her brother was accustomed to pardon; but as the interference of Francis in behalf of Berquin, Marot, and others accused of heresy, was sufficiently notorious, her guarantee could scarcely be considered very broad. Certainly she was not likely to find a "true heretic" worthy of the stake among all those imprisoned as "Lutherans" in the city of Bordeaux.

[Sidenote: Negotiations in Germany.]

[Sidenote: Hypocritical representations made by Charles of Orleans.]

While Francis, as we have seen, was from year to year aggravating the severity of his enactments against the adherents of the Reformation in his own kingdom, he did not forget his old role of ally of the Protestant princes of the empire. It would be too wide a digression from the true scope of this work, should we turn aside to chronicle the successive attempts of the French monarch to secure these powerful auxiliaries in his struggle with his great rival of the house of Hapsburg. One incident must suffice. The hypocrisy of Francis could, perhaps, go no farther than it carried him when, in 1543, his son Charles, Duke of Orleans, at the head of a royal army took possession of the Duchy of Luxemburg. The duke, who can hardly be imagined to have allowed himself to take any important step, certainly no step fraught with such momentous consequences as might be expected to follow this, without explicit instructions from his father, at once despatched an envoy to the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse. The subordinate agent in this game of duplicity was instructed to assure the great Protestant leaders that it was the earnest desire of the Duke of Orleans to see the Gospel preached throughout the whole of France. It was true that filial reverence had hitherto restrained him from gratifying his desires in this direction in his Duchy of Orleans; but in the government of Luxemburg and of all other territories acquired by right of arms, he hoped to be permitted by his royal father to follow his own preferences, and there he solemnly promised to introduce the proclamation of God's holy word. In return for these liberal engagements, the duke desired the German princes, then on the point of meeting for conference at Frankfort, to admit him to an alliance offensive and defensive, especially in matters concerning religion. He assured them of the support not only of his own forces, but of his father's troops, committed to him to use at his discretion, adding, as a further motive, the prospect that the Gospel would find more ready welcome in the rest of France, when the king saw its German advocates close allies of his youngest son.[448]

[Sidenote: Commendable scepticism of the Germans.]

But the princes were much too familiar with the wiles of Francis to repose any confidence in the lavish professions of his son. And the historian who discovers that the more intimately the king strove to associate himself with the German Protestants, the more fiercely did he commit the Protestants of France to the flames, in order to demonstrate to the Pope the immaculate orthodoxy of his religious belief, will not fail to applaud their discernment. Not until toward the very close of Francis's reign, when the Lutherans descried portents of a storm that threatened them with utter extermination, raised by the bigotry or craft of Charles the Fifth, did they manifest any anxiety to enter into near connection with the French monarch.

Francis was reaping the natural rewards of a crooked policy, dictated by no strong convictions of truth or duty, but shaped according to the narrow suggestions of an unworthy ambition. If he punished heretics at home, it was partly to secure on his side the common sentiment of the Roman Catholic world, partly because the enemies of the Reformation had persuaded him that the change of religion necessarily involved the subversion of established order and of royal authority. If he made overtures to the Protestant princes of Germany, the flimsy veil of devotion to their interests was too transparent to conceal the total want of concern for anything beyond his own personal aggrandizement.

Two mournful exemplifications of the fruits of his persecuting measures must, however, be presented to the reader's notice, before the curtain can be permitted to fall over the scene on which this monarch played his part. The massacre of Merindol and Cabrieres and the execution of the "Fourteen of Meaux" are the melancholy events that mark the close of a reign opening, a generation earlier, so auspiciously.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 387: The Protestants might be pardoned, under the circumstances, if their language was somewhat bitter respecting both emperor and king. "Combien que j'espere que nostre Antioche (Charles V.), qui nous presse maintenant, sera serre de si pres, qu'il ne luy souviendra des gouttes de ses mains, ne de ses pieds; car il en aura par tout le corps. De son compagnon Sardanapalus (Francis I.), Dieu luy garde la pareille. Car ils sont bien dignes de passer tous deux par une mesme mesure." Calvin to M. de Falaise, Feb. 25, 1547, Lettres francaises, i. 191.—The expression "Sardanapalus inter scorta" occurs in a letter of Calvin to Farel, Feb. 20, 1546 (Bonnet, Letters of John Calvin, ii., 35, 36). It will, therefore, be seen from the date that Merle d'Aubigne is mistaken in referring the description to Henry II. Hist. de la Ref., liv. xii. c. 1.]

[Footnote 388: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 14.]

[Footnote 389: Memoires de Martin du Bellay (Edition Petitot), xviii. 271-273. See also Mignet, Etablissement de la reforme religieuse a Geneve, Mem. historiques, ii. 308, etc. Also, Merle d'Aubigne, Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, v. 395, etc.]

[Footnote 390: In dedicating to Wolmar his commentary on II. Corinthians, Calvin deplored the loss sustained in the interruption of his Greek studies under his old teacher, "manum enim, quae tua est humanitas, porrigere non recusasses ad totum stadii decursum, nisi me, ab ipsis prope carceribus, mors patris revocasset." Upon the basis of the words here italicized, Merle d'Aubigne builds up a story of outcries and intrigues of priests (against Calvin) who "did all in their power to get him put into prison"! Ref. in Time of Calvin, ii. 28. M. Herminjard observes hereupon that one need not be very thoroughly versed in Latin or in Roman antiquities to understand Calvin's allusion; and every classical scholar will sympathize with M. Herminjard when he expresses, in view of the historian's blunder, "un etonnement proportionne a la celebrite de l'auteur." Corresp. des reformateurs, ii. 333.]

[Footnote 391: See the very sensible remarks of Herminjard, ubi supra, iii. 202.]

[Footnote 392: A. Crottet, Histoire des eglises ref. de Pons, Gemozac, et Mortagne en Saintonge (Bordeaux, 1841), 10-11, and Merle d'Aubigne, Hist. of the Ref. in the Time of Calvin (Am. ed.), iii. 53, tell the story without any misgivings, and the latter with characteristic embellishment. But it rests on the unsupported and slender authority of Florimond de Raemond, lib. vii. c. 14, from whose account I cannot even find that the scene was laid in the caverns.]

[Footnote 393: Staehelin (Johannes Calvin, Leben und ausgewaehlte Schriften, i. 33) well remarks that what makes this address very suspicious is the circumstance that a quite similar passage occurs in Calvin's letter to Sadolet, leading us to the conclusion that we have here only a "reminiscence" of this much later document.]

[Footnote 394: He resigned his chapel of La Gesine and his curacy of Pont l'Eveque, May 4, 1534. Herminjard, iii. 201.]

[Footnote 395: This, and not the persecution at that time raging in France, is the reason assigned by Calvin himself in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, where he tells us that, the very year of his conversion, seeing "que tous ceux qui avoyent quelque desir de la pure doctrine se rangeoyent a lui pour apprendre," he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawing from men. "Et de faict," he adds, "je veins en Allemagne, de propos delibere, afin que la je peusse vivre a requoy en quelque coin incognu." Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 242, 243. See the same in the Latin ed., Calvini opera (Amsterdam, 1667), iii. c. 2. This preface is dated Geneva, July 23, 1557.]

[Footnote 396: Whether before or after the appearance of the "Placards," is uncertain. On Calvin's early life, see Beza's Life, already referred to; the Histoire ecclesiastique; various letters in J. Bonnet's Letters of Calvin, and Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs; Haag, France protestante; the reformer's life by Paul Henry, D.D., and especially the scholarly work of Dr. E. Staehelin (2 vols., Elberfeld, 1860-1863).]

[Footnote 397: The mooted question whether Calvin wrote the Institutes originally in Latin or in French—in other words, whether there was a French edition before the first Latin edition of 1536—has been set at rest by M. Jules Bonnet, who, in a contribution to the Bulletin de l'histoire du protestantisme francais, vi. (1858) 137-142, establishes the priority of the Latin. The chief points in the proof are: 1st, the absence of even a single copy of the supposed French edition of 1535; 2d, Calvin's statement to Francis Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, "I am kept continually occupied upon the French version of my little book;" 3d, his decisive words in the preface to the edition of 1551: "Et premierement l'ay mis en latin a ce qu'il pust servir a toutes gens d'estude, de quelque nation qu'ils fussent; puis apres desirant de communiquer ce qui en pouvoit venir de fruict a nostre nation francoise, l'ay aussy translate en nostre langue." See also chap. iii. of Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Introd. to Institution de la religion chretienne (Calv. Opera, t. iii.).]

[Footnote 398: Opera Calvini (Amst., 1667), t. ix.]

[Footnote 399: "La dedicace a Francois I^er, qui est peut-etre une des plus belles choses que possede notre langue." Paul L. Jacob, bibliophile (Lacroix), "Avertissement" prefixed to Oeuvres francaises de Calvin. The Institutes he designates "ce chef-d'oeuvre de science theologique, de philosophie religieuse et de style." "Here," says Henri van Laun, "was a force and concision of language never before heard in France.... The influence of Calvin's writings upon the style of his successors, and upon the literary development of his country, cannot easily be over-estimated. With him French prose may be said to have attained its manhood; the best of his contemporaries, and of those who had preceded him, did but use as a staff or as a toy that which he employed as a burning sword." History of French Literature (New York, 1876), i. 338, 339.]

[Footnote 400: Yet it is more probable, as Staehelin suggests (Joh. Calvin, ii. 93), that the classical associations of Italy drew him to the peninsula, which was at that time the home of art, than that his fame, having already penetrated to Ferrara, procured him a direct invitation from Renee to visit her.]

[Footnote 401: Showing, according to Brantome, "en son visage et en sa parole qu'elle estoit bien fille du Roy et de France." Dames illustres, Renee de France.]

[Footnote 402: See the pompous ceremonial on this occasion and the epithalamium of Clement Marot, in Cronique du Roy Francois I^er (G. Guiffrey, 1860), 68-73.]

[Footnote 403: Dames illustres, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 404: "Que voulez-vous? Ce sont des pauvres Francois de ma maison; et lesquels si Dieu m'eust donne barbe au menton et que je fusse homme, seroient maintenant tous mes sujets. Voire me seroient-ils tels, si cette meschante Loy Salicque ne me tenoit trop de rigueur." Ibid., ubi supra. A readable account of the life of this remarkable woman is given in "Some Memorials of Renee of France, Duchess of Ferrara" (2d edit., London, 1859), a volume enriched, to some extent, with letters drawn from the Paris National Library, and from less accessible collections in Great Britain.]

[Footnote 405: Possibly including the wonderfully precocious child, Olympia Morata. See M. Jules Bonnet's monograph, Vie d'Olympia Morata, episode de la Renaissance et de la Reforme en Italie. Staehelin has well traced Calvin's religious influence upon Renee and the important family of Soubise. Joh. Calvin, i. 94-110. The extant letters of Calvin to Renee are full of manly and Christian frankness, and affectionate loyalty. Lettres francaises, i. 428, etc.]

[Footnote 406: Staehelin is skeptical about, and Prof. Billiet and M. Douen reject altogether the story of Calvin's labors at Aosta. Thus much M. Bonnet believes to be established by concurrent MS. and traditional authority: That, early in the year 1536, Calvin had succeeded in gaining over to the reformed doctrines a number of influential men in this Alpine valley, of the families of La Creste, La Visiere, Vaudan, Borgnion, etc.; that he and his converts were accused of plotting to induce the district to embrace Protestantism, and imitate the example of its Swiss neighbors, by constituting itself a canton, free of the Duke of Savoy; that the estates, on the 28th of February, 1536, declared their intention (with a unanimity procured, perhaps, by the expulsion of the opposite party) to live and die in the obedience of the Duke of Savoy and of mother Holy Church; that Calvin and his principal adherents escaped with difficultly into Switzerland; and that expiatory processions were instituted at Aosta, in token of gratitude for deliverance from heresy, in which the bishop and the most prominent noblemen, as well as the common people, "walked with bare feet and in sackcloth and ashes, notwithstanding the rigor of the season." Tradition still points out the "farm-house of Calvin," his "bridge," and the window by which he is said to have escaped. The event is commemorated by a monument of the market-place, bearing an inscription that testifies to its having been erected in 1541, and renewed in 1741 and 1841. See the interesting Aostan documents contributed by M. Bonnet to the Bulletin de l'hist. du protest. francais, ix. (1860) 160-168, and his letter to Prof. Rilliet, ibid., xiii. (1864) 183-192.]

[Footnote 407: This is Calvin's distinct statement: "quum rectum iter Argentoratum tendenti bella clausissent, hac (Geneva) celeriter transire statueram, ut non longior quam unius noctis morae in urbe mihi foret." Calvin, Preface to Psalms.]

[Footnote 408: "Unus homo, qui nunc turpi defectione iterum ad Papistas rediit, statim fecit ut innotescerem." Ibid., ubi supra. Consequently Beza, in his Latin Life of Calvin, is mistaken when he asserts: "eos [sc. Farel and Viret] igitur quum, ut inter bonos fieri solet, Calvinus transiens invisisset," etc.; for it was Farel that sought him out, on Du Tillet's information.]

[Footnote 409: Calvin, in the preface to the Psalms already quoted, says: "Genevae non tam consilio, vel hortatu, quam formidabili Gulielmi Farelli obtestatione retentus sum, ac si Deus violentam mihi e coelo manum injiceret. Et quum privatis et occultis studiis me intelligeret esse deditum, ubi se vidit rogando nihil proficere, usque ad maledictionem descendit, ut Deus otio meo malediceret, si me a ferendis subsidiis in tanta necessitate subducerem. Quo terrore perculsus susceptum iter ita omisi," etc.—Beza throws these words into Farel's mouth: "At ego tibi, inquit, studia tua praetextenti denuntio Omnipotentis Dei nomine, futurum ut nisi in opus istud Domini nobiscum incumbas, tibi non tam Christum quam teipsum quaerenti Dominus maledicat." Vita Calvini (Op. Calv., Amst. 1661, tom. i).]

[Footnote 410: This interesting letter, dated Neufchatel, June 6, 1564, was communicated by M. Herminjard to the editor of the fine edition of Farel's Du Vray Usage de la Croix, printed by J. G. Fick, Geneva, 1865, who gives it entire, pp. 314, etc.]

[Footnote 411: "Sane non possum de aliis aliud sentire quam quod de me statuo." Farel to Calvin, Sept. 8, 1553, Calv. Opera, ix. (Epistolae), 71.]

[Footnote 412: Declaration pour maintenir la vraye foy que tiennent tous chrestiens de la Trinite des personnes en un seul Dieu. Par Jean Calvin. Contre les erreurs detestables de Michel Servet Espaignol. Ou il est aussi monstre, qu'il est licite de punir les heretiques: et qu'a bon droict ce meschant a este execute par justice en la ville de Geneve. 1554.—In this famous little book the author classifies doctrinal errors according to their gravity. Slight superstitions and the ignorance into which simple folk have fallen, are to be borne with till God reveal the truth to them. Offences of greater magnitude, because injurious to the church, should be visited with mild penalties. "But when malicious spirits attempt to overthrow the foundations of religion, utter execrable blasphemies against God, and disseminate damnable speeches, like deadly poison, to drag souls to perdition—in short, engage in schemes to cause the people to revolt from the pure doctrine of God—then it is necessary to have recourse to the extreme remedy, so that the evil may not spread farther" (pp. 48, 49).]

[Footnote 413: See Calvin to C. and T. Zollicoffre, March 28, and the same to Peloquin and De Marsac, Aug. 22, 1553. Servetus was burned Oct. 27.]

[Footnote 414: Two months before the execution Calvin wrote to Farel, Aug. 20, 1553: "Spero capitale saltem fore judicium poenae vero atrocitatem remitti cupio;" and on the 26th of October, he again wrote, "Genus mortis conati sumus mutare, sed frustra. Cur non profecerimus, coram narrandum differo." Calv. Opera, ix. 70, 71. As it is thus in evidence not only that Calvin did not burn Servetus, but desired him not to be burned, and made an ineffectual attempt to rescue him from the flames, we might anticipate for the stale calumny a speedy end, were not the tenacity of life characterizing such inventions so notorious as to have passed into a proverb.]

[Footnote 415: Melanchthon, for example, after expressing his entire satisfaction with Calvin's treatise, and his conviction that the church both now and hereafter owes and will owe him gratitude for it, adds: "Affirmo etiam, vestros magistratus juste fecisse, quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judicata, interfecerunt." Mel. to Calvin, Oct. 14, 1554, Opera (Bretschneider), viii. 362.]

[Footnote 416: Laborie, one of the heroic "five," sending from prison an account of his examination, states that, when one of his judges asked him whether he did not know that God had by Moses sanctioned the punishment of heretics, he freely admitted it: "Haereticos certe puniendos facile concessi, et in exemplum proposui impurum illum canem Servetum, qui Genevae ultimo supplicio affectus fuit: verum sedulo caverent, ne in Christianos et Dei filios velut haereticos animadvertant," etc. Letter in Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum (Genevae, 1560), fol. 291.]

[Footnote 417: "Ego qui natura timido, molli et pusillo animo esse fateor." Preface to the Psalms.]

[Footnote 418: "Porro, an propositum esset mihi famam aucupari, patuit ex brevi discessu, praesertim quum nemo illic sciverit me authorem esse." Ibid.]

[Footnote 419: "Me tamen non tanta sustinnit magnanimitas, quin turbulenta ejectione plus quam deceret laetatus sim." Ibid.]

[Footnote 420: "Praestantissimus Christi minister, M. Bucerus me iterum simili qua usus fuerat Farellus, obsecratione, ad novam stationem retraxit. Jonae itaque exemplo, quod proposuerat, territus," etc. Ibid.]

[Footnote 421: "La difficulte est," he writes to M. de Falaise, April, 1546, "des fascheries et rompemens de teste qui interviennent, pour interrompre vingt fois une lettre, ou encore d'advantaige." He adds (and the details are interesting) that, although his general health is good, "je suis tormente sans cesse d'une doleur qui ne me souffre quasi rien faire. Car oultre les sermons et lectures, il y a desja un mois que je n'ay gueres faict, tellement que j'ay presque honte de vivre arnsi inutile." Lettres francaises, i. 141, 142. Many a scholar of his day, or of ours, would consider a week of health well occupied with the preparation and delivery of two sermons and three theological lectures.]

[Footnote 422: "Ginevra ... che e la minera di questa sorte di metallo." Relazione di M. Suriano, 1561. Relations des Amb. Venitiens, i. 528.]

[Footnote 423: This period of his life was referred to by him in his last address to the body of his colleagues: "J'ay vescu icy en combats merveilleux; j'ay este salue par mocquerie le soir devant ma porte de 50 ou 60 coups d'arquebute. Que pensez-vous que cela pouvoit estonner un pauvre escholier, timide comme je suis, et comme je l'ay toujours este, je le confesse?... On m'a mis les chiens a ma queue, criant here, here, et m'ont prins par la robbe et par les jambes." Adieux de Calvin, apud Bonnet, Lettres francaises, ii. 575.]

[Footnote 424: "This sacrifice," M. Gaberel forcibly observes, "has scarcely a parallel in history. Men willingly consent to make the greatest efforts, to perform the most painful acts of self-denial, with the aim of saving their country. Formerly the Genevese suffered unto death to preserve their independence. Now the same unselfish spirit is demanded of them in ordinary times that they exhibited in evil days. And, if the people accepts the 'Ordinances,' it is because it has narrowly scanned the slavery to which that moral license was leading it, which Rome authorizes in order to confiscate all other liberties. It accepts the 'Ordinances' because it has just escaped the treacherous machinations, the servitude prepared for it by men whose principle is to go just as their own heart leads them.... Strengthened by this vote, Calvin can henceforth hope to succeed in his project, and make of Geneva the Protestant metropolis, bearing as its motto, 'Holiness to the Lord.'" Histoire de l'eglise de Geneve, i. 346, 347.]

[Footnote 425: Recherches de la France (ed. of 1621), p. 769. Giovanni Michiel, in 1561, told the Doge of Venice: "Ne potria vostra Serenita creder l'intelligenza e le pratiche grandi che ha nel regno il principal ministro di Genevra che chiamano il Calvino, Francese e Picardo di nazione, uomo di estraordinaria autorita, per la vita, per la dottrina, e per i scritti appresso tutti quelli di questa sette." Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 415.]

[Footnote 426: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 13-17; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 65, etc.]

[Footnote 427: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 15.]

[Footnote 428: "En maneire que pensions nostredit royaume en estre purge du tout et nettoye," Francis is made to say in the Edict of Fontainebleau. Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois francaises, xii. 677, etc.]

[Footnote 429: "Tellement qu'il est fort a douter que les nouveaux erreurs soient pires que les premiers." Ibid., xii. 677.]

[Footnote 430: "Plusieurs gros personnages, qui secrettement les recelent, supportent et favorisent en leurs fausses doctrines, leur aydans et subvenans de leurs biens, de lieux, et de places secrettes et occultes, esquelles ils retirent leurs sectateurs, pour les instruire esdites erreurs et infections." Ibid., xii. 677.]

[Footnote 431: "Attendu que tels erreurs et fausses doctrines contiennent en soy crime de leze majeste divine et humaine, sedition du peuple, et perturbation de nostre estat et repos public." Ibid., xii. 680.]

[Footnote 432: "Mais tantost et incontinent qu'ils en seront advertis, les reveler a justice, et de tout leur pouvoir aider a les extirper, comme un chacun doit courir a esteindre le feu public." Ibid., xii. 680.]

[Footnote 433: President Louis Caillaud to the chancellor (Antoine Du Bourg), Oct. 22, 1538. Musee des archives nationales; Documents orig. exposes dans l'Hotel Soubise (Paris, 1872), 347.]

[Footnote 434: Among others, two "Lutherans," otherwise unknown to us, whose execution a young German student, Eustathius de Knobelsdorf, witnessed on the Place Maubert, and described in a letter to George Cassander, professor at Bruges, like himself a Roman Catholic. One of the "Lutherans," a beardless youth of scarcely twenty years, the son of a shoemaker, after having his tongue cut out and his head smeared with sulphur, far from showing marks of terror, signified, by a motion to the executioner, his perfect willingness to meet death. "I doubt, my dear Cassander," writes De Knobelsdorf, "whether those celebrated philosophers, who have written so many books on the contempt of death, would have endured so cruel tortures with such constancy. So far did this youth seem to be raised above what is of man." Letter of July 10, 1542. Translated in Bulletin, vi. (1858), 420-423; and Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 52-55.]

[Footnote 435: "En sorte que la justice, punition, correction, et demonstration en soit faite telle et si griefve, que ce puisse estre perpetuel exemple a tous autres."]

[Footnote 436: Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois francaises, xii. 785-787.]

[Footnote 437: "Lui a dit qu'il voulait qu'aucun sacramentaire ne fut admis a abjurer, ains fut puni de mort." Reg. secr. du Parl. de Bordeaux, July 7, 1543, Boscheron des Portes, i. 47, 48.]

[Footnote 438: "Conspirateurs occultes contre la prosperite de nostre estat, dependant principalement et en bonne partie de la conservation de l'integrite de la foy catholique en nostredit royaume, rebelles et desobeyssans a nous et a nostre justice." Recueil des anc. lois francaises, xii. 819.]

[Footnote 439: Ibid., xii. 820.]

[Footnote 440: The preamble of the royal letters giving execution to the Twenty-five Articles of the Sorbonne mentions as a moving cause "plusieurs scandales et schismes par cy devant intervenus, et mesmement en cest advent de Noel dernier passe, par le moyen et a l'occasion de contentions, contradictions et altercations de certain predicateurs preschans et publians divers et contraires doctrines." Recueil des anc. lois francaises, xii. 820.]

[Footnote 441: Recueil des anc. lois franc., xii. 821-825. Among other recommendations appended to the articles, was the following somewhat interesting one, designed to correct the irreverence of the age: "Quand il vient a propos d'alleguer le nom des saincts apostres et evangelistes ou saincts docteurs, qu'ils n'ayent a les nommer par leurs norm simplement, sans aucune preface d'honneur, comme ont accoustume dire, 'Paul,' 'Jacques,' 'Mathieu,' 'Pierre,' 'Hierosme,' 'Augustin,' etc. Et ne leur doit estre grief adjouster et preposer le nom de 'sainct,' en disant, 'sainct Pierre,' 'sainct Paul,' etc.!"]

[Footnote 442: Ibid., xii. 820. In answer to these Articles, Calvin wrote his "Antidote aux articles de la faculte Sorbonique de Paris."]

[Footnote 443: Ory, Oriz, or Oritz, as his name was indifferently written, was a prominent character in subsequent scenes of blood, and was, as we may hereafter see, the agent employed by Henry II. to cajole, or frighten his aunt, Renee, and bring her back into the bosom of the Roman Church. The letters-patent giving this personage, who is styled "doctor of theology and prior of the preaching friars (Dominicans) of Paris," authority to exercise the functions of inquisitor of the faith throughout the kingdom, in place of Valentin Lievin, deceased, are of May 30, 1536, Recueil des anc. lois fr., xii. 503. Similar letters were issued April 10, 1540. His confirmation by Henry II., June 22, 1550, ibid., xiii. 173.]

[Footnote 444: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 13. It is, in fact, an interesting circumstance that Rocheli, or Rochetti, the deputy inquisitor referred to in the text, not long after became a convert to Protestantism, and applied himself to preaching the doctrines he had once labored to overturn.]

[Footnote 445: The first, entitled "Epistolae duae; prima de fugiendis impiorum illicitis sacris et puritate Christianae religionis; secunda de Christiani hominis officio in sacerdotiis papalis ecclesiae vel administrandis vel abjiciendis," 1537. The second, "Contre la secte fantastique et furieuse des Libertins qui se disent spirituels," 1544. The latter, from its pointed reference to Quintin and Pocquet, two notorious leaders, seems to have given offence to Margaret of Navarre, by whom they had been harbored in ignorance of their true character. A letter written to the queen by Calvin immediately upon learning this, April 28, 1545 (Bonnet, Lettres francaises, i. 111-117), is at once one of the best examples of his nervous French style, and a fine illustration of manly courage tempered with respect for a princess who had deserved well of Protestantism. A single sentence admirably portrays his attitude toward the formidable sect which had so devastated the Low Countries and had now entered France in the persons of two of its worst apostles—a sect regarded by him as more pernicious and execrable than any previously existing: "Un chien abaye, s'il voit qu'on assaille son maistre; je seroys bien lasche, si en voyant la verite de Dieu ainsi assaillie, je faisoys du muet sans sonner mot."]

[Footnote 446: "A exhorte et prie la cour de vouloir faire punir et bruler les vrais heretiques," etc. Reg. du Parl., May 24, 1543, Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du parlement de Bordeaux, i. 63.]

[Footnote 447: "Reclame son privilege de fille de France ecrit dans un livre qui est a Saint Denis, de faire ouvrir les prisons," etc. Ibid., ubi supra.]

[Footnote 448: The text of this singular document, dated Rheims, Sept. 8, 1543, is in Gerdes., Hist. Reform., iv. (Monumenta) 107-109. When the "Instructions" fell into the hands of Charles V., he naturally tried to make capital of a paper so little calculated to please Roman Catholics, emanating from a son of the "Most Christian king." And Francis thought himself compelled to clear himself from the charge of lukewarmness in the faith, if not of actual heretical bias, by exercising fresh severities upon the devoted Protestants of his own dominions.]



CHAPTER VII.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE VAUDOIS OF MERINDOL AND CABRIERES, AND LAST DAYS OF FRANCIS THE FIRST.

[Sidenote: The Vaudois of Provence.]

[Sidenote: Their industry and thrift.]

[Sidenote: Vaudois settlements even in the Comtat Venaissin.]

That part of Provence, the ancient Roman Provincia, which skirts the northern bank of the Durance, formerly contained, at a distance of between twenty and fifty miles above the confluence of the river with the Rhone near Avignon, more than a score of small towns and villages inhabited by peasants of Waldensian origin. The entire district had been desolated by war about a couple of centuries before the time of which we are now treating. Extensive tracts of land were nearly depopulated, and the few remaining tillers of the soil obtained a precarious subsistence, at the mercy of banditti that infested the mountains and forests, and plundered unfortunate travellers. Under these circumstances, the landed gentry, impoverished through the loss of the greater part of their revenues, gladly welcomed the advent of new-comers, who were induced to cross the Alps from the valleys of Piedmont and occupy the abandoned farms.[449] By the industrious culture of the Vaudois, or Waldenses, the face of the country was soon transformed. Villages sprang up where there had scarcely been a single house. Brigandage disappeared. Grain, wine, olives, and almonds were obtained in abundance from what had been a barren waste. On lands less favorable for cultivation numerous flocks and herds pastured.[450] A tract formerly returning the scanty income of four crowns a year now contained a thriving village of eighty substantial houses, and brought its owners nearly a hundredfold the former rental.[451] On one occasion at least, discouraged by the annoyance to which their religious opinions subjected them, a part of the Vaudois sought refuge in their ancient homes, on the Italian side of the mountains. But their services were too valuable to be dispensed with, and they soon returned to Provence, in answer to the urgent summons of their Roman Catholic landlords.[452] In fact, a very striking proof both of their industry and of their success is furnished by the circumstance that Cabrieres, one of the largest Vaudois villages, was situated within the bounds of the Comtat Venaissin, governed, about the time of their arrival, by the Pope in person, and subsequently, as we have seen, by a papal legate residing in Avignon.[453]

[Sidenote: They send delegates to the Swiss and German reformers.]

The news of an attempted reformation of the church in Switzerland and Germany awakened a lively interest in this community of simple-minded Christians. At length a convocation of their ministers[454] at Merindol, in 1530, determined to send two of their number to compare the tenets they had long held with those of the reformers, and to obtain, if possible, additional light upon some points of doctrine and of practice respecting which they entertained doubt. The delegates were George Morel, of Freissinieres, and Pierre Masson, of Burgundy. They visited Oecolampadius at Basle, Bucer and Capito at Strasbourg, Farel at Neufchatel, and Haller at Berne. From the first-named they received the most important aid, in the way of suggestions respecting the errors[455] into which the isolated position they had long occupied had insensibly led them. Grateful for the kindness manifested to them, and delighted with what they had witnessed of the progress of the faith they had received from their fathers, the two envoys started on their return. But Morel alone succeeded in reaching Provence; his companion was arrested at Dijon and condemned to death. Upon the report of Morel, however, the Waldenses at once began to investigate the new questions that had been raised, and, in their eagerness to purify their church, sent word to their brethren in Apulia and Calabria, inviting them to a conference respecting the interests of religion.[456]

[Sidenote: They furnish means for publishing the Scriptures.]

A few years later (1535) the Waldenses by their liberal contributions furnished the means necessary for publishing the translation of the Holy Scriptures made by Pierre Robert Olivetanus, and corrected by Calvin, which, unless exception be made in favor of the translation by Lefevre d'Etaples, is entitled to rank as the earliest French Protestant Bible.[457] It was a noble undertaking, by which the poor and humble inhabitants of Provence, Piedmont, and Calabria conferred on France a signal benefit, scarcely appreciated in its full extent even by those who pride themselves upon their acquaintance with the rich literature of that country. For, while Olivetanus in his admirable version laid the foundation upon which all the later and more accurate translations have been reared, by the excellence of his modes of expression he exerted an influence upon the French language perhaps not inferior to that of Calvin or Montaigne.[458]

[Sidenote: Preliminary persecutions.]

Intelligence of the new activity manifested by the Waldenses reaching the ears of their enemies, among whom the Archbishop of Aix was prominent, stirred them up to more virulent hostility. The accusation was subsequently made by unfriendly writers, in order to furnish some slight justification for the atrocities of the massacre, that the Waldenses, emboldened by the encouragement of the reformers, began to show a disposition to offer forcible resistance to the arbitrary arrests ordered by the civil and religious authorities of Aix. But the assertion, which is unsupported by evidence, contradicts the well-known disposition and practice of a patient people, more prone to submit to oppression than to take up arms even in defence of a righteous cause.[459]

[Sidenote: The Dominican De Roma foremost in the work.]

[Sidenote: Iniquitous order of the Parliament of Aix.]

For a time the persecution was individual, and therefore limited. But in the aggregate the number of victims was by no means inconsiderable, and the flames burned many a steadfast Waldensee.[460] The Dominican De Roma enjoyed an unenviable notoriety for his ferocity in dealing with the "heretics," whose feet he was in the habit of plunging in boots full of melted fat and boiling over a slow fire. The device did, indeed, seem to the king, when he heard of it, less ingenious than cruel, and De Roma found it necessary to avoid arrest by a hasty flight to Avignon, where, upon papal soil, as foul a sink of iniquity existed as anywhere within the bounds of Christendom.[461] But other agents, scarcely more merciful than De Roma, prosecuted the work. Some of the Waldenses were put to death, others were branded upon the forehead. Even the ordinary rights of the accused were denied them; for, in order to leave no room for justice, the Parliament of Aix had framed an iniquitous order, prohibiting all clerks and notaries from either furnishing the accused copies of legal instruments, or receiving at their hands any petition or paper whatsoever.[462] Such were the measures by which the newly-created Parliament of Provence signalized its zeal for the faith, and attested its worthiness to be a sovereign court of the kingdom.[463] From its severe sentences, however, appeals had once and again been taken by the Waldenses to Francis, who had granted them his royal pardon on condition of their abjuration of their errors within six months.[464]

[Sidenote: Inhabitants of Merindol cited.]

The slow methods heretofore pursued having proved abortive, in 1540 the parliament summoned to its bar, as suspected of heresy, fifteen or twenty[465] of the inhabitants of the village of Merindol. On the appointed day the accused made their way to Aix, but, on stopping to obtain legal advice of a lawyer more candid than others to whom they had first applied, and who had declined to give counsel to reputed Lutherans, they were warned by no means to appear, as their death was already resolved upon. They acted on the friendly injunction, and fled while it was still time.

[Sidenote: The atrocious Arret de Merindol, Nov. 18, 1540.]

Finding itself balked for the time of its expected prey, the parliament resolved to avenge the slight put upon its authority, by compassing the ruin of a larger number of victims. On the eighteenth of November, 1540, the order was given which has since become infamous under the designation of the "Arret de Merindol." The persons who had failed to obey the summons were sentenced to be burned alive, as heretics and guilty of treason against God and the King. If not apprehended in person, they were to be burned in effigy, their wives and children proscribed, and their possessions confiscated. As if this were not enough to satisfy the most inordinate greed of vengeance, parliament ordered that all the houses of Merindol be burned and razed to the ground, and the trees cut down for a distance of two hundred paces on every side, in order that the spot which had been the receptacle of heresy might be forever uninhabited! Finally, with an affectation which would seem puerile were it not the conclusion of so sanguinary a document, the owners of lands were forbidden to lease any part of Merindol to a tenant bearing the same name, or belonging to the same family, as the miscreants against whom the decree was fulminated.[466]

[Sidenote: It is condemned by public opinion.]

A more atrocious sentence was, perhaps, never rendered by a court of justice than the Arret de Merindol, which condemned the accused without a hearing, confounded the innocent with the guilty, and consigned the entire population of a peaceful village, by a single stroke of the pen, to a cruel death, or a scarcely less terrible exile. For ten righteous persons God would have spared guilty Sodom; but neither the virtues of the inoffensive inhabitants, nor the presence of many Roman Catholics among them, could insure the safety of the ill-fated Merindol at the hands of merciless judges.[467] The publication of the Arret occasioned, even within the bounds of the province, the most severe animadversion; nor were there wanting men of learning and high social position, who, while commenting freely upon the scandalous morals of the clergy, expressed their conviction that the public welfare would be promoted rather by restraining and reforming the profligacy of the ecclesiastics, than by issuing bloody edicts against the most exemplary part of the community.[468]

[Sidenote: Preparations to carry it into effect.]

Meantime, however, the archbishops of Arles and of Aix urged the prompt execution of the sentence, and the convocations of clergy offered to defray the expense of the levy of troops needed to carry it into effect. The Archbishop of Aix used his personal influence with Chassanee, the First President of the Parliament, who, with the more moderate judges, had only consented to the enactment as a threat which he never intended to execute.[469] And the wily prelate so far succeeded by his arguments, and by the assurance he gave of the protection of the Cardinal of Tournon, in case the matter should reach the king's ears, that the definite order was actually promulgated for the destruction of Merindol. Troops were accordingly raised, and, in fact, the vanguard of a formidable army had reached a spot within three miles of the devoted village, when the command was suddenly received to retreat, the soldiers were disbanded, and the astonished Waldenses beheld the dreaded outburst of the storm strangely delayed.[470]

[Sidenote: It is delayed by friendly interposition.]

[Sidenote: The "mice of Autun."]

The unexpected deliverance is said to have been due to the remonstrance of a friend, M. d'Allens. D'Allens had adroitly reminded the president of an amusing incident by means of which Chassanee had himself illustrated the ample protection against oppression afforded by the law, in the hands of a sagacious advocate and a righteous judge; and he had earnestly entreated his friend not to show himself less equitable in the matter of the defenceless inhabitants of Merindol than he had been in that of the "mice of Autun."[471]

[Sidenote: Francis I. instructs Du Bellay to investigate.]

The delay thus gained permitted a reference of the affair to the king. It is said that Guillaume du Bellay is entitled to the honor of having informed Francis of the oppression of his poor subjects of Provence, and invoked the royal interposition.[472] However this may be, it is certain that Francis instructed Du Bellay to set on foot a thorough investigation into the history and character of the inhabitants of Merindol, and report the results to himself. The selection could not have been more felicitous. Du Bellay was Viceroy of Piedmont, a province thrown into the hands of Francis by the fortunes of war. A man of calm and impartial spirit, his liberal principles had been fostered by intimate association with the Protestants of Germany. Only a few months earlier, in 1539, he had, in his capacity of governor, made energetic remonstrances to the Constable de Montmorency touching the wrongs sustained by the Waldenses of the valleys of Piedmont at the hands of a Count de Montmian, the constable's kinsman. He had even resorted to threats, and declared "that it appeared to him wicked and villanous, if, as was reported, the count had invaded these valleys and plundered a peaceful and unoffending race of men." Montmian had retorted by accusing Du Bellay of falsehood, and maintaining that the Waldenses had suffered no more than they deserved, on account of their rebellion against God and the king. The unexpected death of Montmian prevented the two noblemen from meeting in single combat, but a bitter enmity between the constable and Du Bellay had been the result.[473]

[Sidenote: Du Bellay's favorable report.]

The viceroy, in obedience to his instructions, despatched two agents from Turin to inquire upon the ground into the character and antecedents of the people of Merindol. Their report, which has fortunately come down to us, constitutes a brilliant testimonial from unbiassed witnesses to the virtues of this simple peasantry. They set forth in simple terms the affecting story of the cruelty and merciless exactions to which the villagers had for long years been subjected. They collected the concurrent opinions of all the Roman Catholics of the vicinity respecting their industry. In two hundred years they had transformed an uncultivated and barren waste into a fertile and productive tract, to the no small profit of the noblemen whose tenants they were. They were a people distinguished for their love of peace and quiet, with firmly established customs and principles, and warmly commended for their strict adherence to truth in their words and engagements. Averse alike to debt and to litigation, they were bound to their neighbors by a tie of singular good-will and respect. Their kindness to the unfortunate and their humanity to travellers knew no bounds. One could readily distinguish them from others by their abstinence from unnecessary oaths, and their avoidance even of the very name of the devil. They never indulged in lascivious discourse themselves, and if others introduced it in their presence, they instantly withdrew from the company. It was true that they rarely entered the churches, when pleasure or business took them to the city or the fair; and, if found within the sacred enclosure, they were seen praying with faces averted from the paintings of the saints. They offered no candles, avoided the sacred relics, and paid no reverence to the crosses on the roadside. The priests testified that they were never known to purchase masses either for the living or for the dead, nor to sprinkle themselves with holy water. They neither went on pilgrimages, nor invoked the intercession of the host of heaven, nor expended the smallest sum in securing indulgences. In a thunderstorm they knelt down and prayed, instead of crossing themselves. Finally, they contributed nothing to the support of religious fraternities or to the rebuilding of churches, reserving their means for the relief of tho poor and afflicted.[474]



[Sidenote: Francis signs a letter of pardon.]

Although the enemies of the Waldenses were not silenced, and wild stories of their rebellious acts still found willing listeners at court,[475] it was impossible to resist the favorable impression made by the viceroy's letter. Consequently, on the eighth of February, 1541, Francis signed a letter granting pardon not only to the persons who by their failure to appear before the Parliament of Aix had furnished the pretext for the proscriptive decree, but to all others, meantime commanding them to abjure their errors within the space of three months. At the same time the over-zealous judges were directed henceforth to use less severity against these subjects of his Majesty.[476]

[Sidenote: Parliament issues a new summons.]

[Sidenote: The Vaudois publish a confession.]

[Sidenote: Bishop Sadolet's kindness.]

Little inclined to relinquish the pursuit, however, parliament seized upon the king's command to abjure within three months, as an excuse for issuing a new summons to the Waldenses. Two deputies from Merindol accordingly presented themselves, and offered, on the part of the inhabitants, to abandon their peculiar tenets, so soon as these should be refuted from the Holy Scriptures—the course which, as they believed, the king himself had intended that they should take. As it was no part of the plan to grant so reasonable a request, the sole reply vouchsafed was a declaration that all who recanted would receive the benefit of the king's pardon, but all others would be reputed guilty of heresy without further inquiry. Whereupon the Waldenses of Merindol, in 1542, drew up a full confession of their faith, in order that the excellence of the doctrines they held might be known to all men.[477] The important document was submitted not merely to parliament, but to Cardinal Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras. The prelate was a man of a kindly disposition, and did not hesitate, in reply to a petition of the Waldenses of Cabrieres, to acknowledge the falsity of the accusations laid to their charge.[478] Not long after, he successfully exerted his influence with the vice-legate to induce him to abandon an expedition he had organized against the last-mentioned village; while, in an interview which he purposely sought with the inhabitants, he assured them that he firmly intended, in a coming visit to Rome, to secure the reformation of some incontestable abuses.[479]

[Sidenote: Intercession of the Germans.]

The Merindol confession is said to have found its way even to Paris, and to have been read to the king by Chatellain, Bishop of Macon, and a favorite of the monarch. And it is added that, astonished at the purity of its doctrine, Francis asked, but in vain, that any erroneous teaching in it should be pointed out to him.[480] It is not, indeed, impossible that the king's interest in his Waldensian subjects may have been deepened by the receipt of a respectful remonstrance against the persecutions now raging in France, drawn up by Melanchthon in the name of the Protestant princes and states of Germany.[481]

[Sidenote: Death of President Chassanee, who is succeeded by Baron d'Oppede.]

[Sidenote: Military preparations stopped by a second royal order.]

The Arret de Merindol yet remained unexecuted when, Chassanee having died, he was succeeded, in the office of First President of the Parliament of Provence, by Jean Meynier, Baron d'Oppede. The latter was an impetuous and unscrupulous man. Even before his elevation to his new judicial position, Meynier had looked with envious eye upon the prosperity of Cabrieres, situated but a few miles from his barony; and scarcely had he taken his place on the bench, before, at his bidding, the first notes of preparation for a great military assault upon the villages of the Durance were heard. The affrighted peasants again had recourse to the mercy of their distant sovereign. A second time Francis (on the twenty-fifth of October, 1544) interfered, evoking the case from parliament, and assuming cognizance of it until such time as he might have instituted an examination upon the spot by a "Maitre de requetes" and a theologian sent by him.[482]

[Sidenote: Calumnious accusations.]

The interruption was little relished. A fresh investigation was likely to disclose nothing more unfavorable to the Waldenses than had been elicited by the inquiries of Du Bellay, or than the report which had led Louis the Twelfth, on an earlier occasion (1501), to exclaim with an oath: "They are better Christians than we are!"[483] and, what was worse, the poor relations, both of the prelates and of the judges, had only a sorry prospect of enriching themselves through the confiscation of the property of the lawful owners.[484] It was time to venture something for the purpose of obtaining the coveted prize. Accordingly, the Parliament of Aix, at this juncture, despatched to Paris one of its official servants, with a special message to the king. He was to beg Francis to recall his previous order. He was to tell him that Merindol and the neighboring villages had broken out into open rebellion; that fifteen thousand armed insurgents had met in a single body. They had captured towns and castles, liberated prisoners, and hindered the course of justice. They were intending to march against Marseilles, and when successful would establish a republic fashioned on the model of the Swiss cantons.[485]

[Sidenote: Francis, misinformed, revokes his last orders.]

Thus reinforced, Cardinal Tournon found no great difficulty in exciting the animosity of a king both jealous of any infringement upon his prerogative, and credulous respecting movements tending to the encouragement of rebellion. On the first of January, 1545, Francis sent a new letter to the Parliament of Aix. He revoked his last order, enjoined the execution of the former decrees of parliament, so far as they concerned those who had failed to abjure, and commanded the governor of Provence, or his lieutenant, to employ all his forces to exterminate any found guilty of the Waldensian heresy.[486]

[Sidenote: His letter construed as authorizing a new crusade.]

The new order had been skilfully drawn. The "Arret de Merindol," although not alluded to by name, might naturally be understood as included under the general designation of the parliament's decrees against heretics; while the direction to employ the governor's troops against those who had not abjured could be construed as authorizing a local crusade, in which innocent and guilty were equally likely to suffer. Such were the pretexts behind which the first president and his friends prepared for a carnage which, for causelessness and atrocity, finds few parallels on the page of history.

[Sidenote: An expedition stealthily organized.]

Three months passed, and yet no attempt was made to disturb the peaceful villages on the Durance. Then the looked-for opportunity came. Count De Grignan, Governor of Provence, was summoned by the king and sent on a diplomatic mission to Germany. The civil and military administration fell into the Baron d'Oppede's hands as lieutenant. The favorable conjuncture was instantly improved. On a single day—the twelfth of April—the royal letter, hitherto kept secret, that the intended victims might receive no intimations of the impending blow, was read and judicially confirmed, and four commissioners were appointed to superintend the execution.[487] Troops were hastily levied. All men capable of bearing arms in the cities of Aix, Arles, and Marseilles were commanded, under severe penalties, to join the expedition;[488] and some companies of veteran troops, which happened to be on their way from Piedmont to the scene of the English war, were impressed into the service by D'Oppede, in the king's name.[489]

[Sidenote: Villages burned and their inhabitants butchered.]

On the thirteenth of April, the commissioners, leaving Aix, proceeded to Pertuis, on the northern bank of the Durance. Thence, following the course of the river, they reached Cadenet. Here they were joined by the Baron d'Oppede, his sons-in-law, De Pouriez and De Lauris, and a considerable force of men. A deliberation having been held, on the sixteenth, Poulain, to whom the chief command had been assigned by D'Oppede, directed his course northward, and burned Cabrierette, Peypin, La Motte and Saint-Martin, villages built on the lands of De Cental, a Roman Catholic nobleman, at this time a minor. The wretched inhabitants, who had not until the very last moment credited the strange story of the disaster in reserve for them, hurriedly fled on the approach of the soldiery, some to the woods, others to Merindol. Unable to defend them against a force so greatly superior in number and equipment, a part of the men are said to have left their wives, old men, and children in their forest retreat, confident that if discovered, feminine weakness and the helplessness of infancy or of extreme old age would secure better terms for them than could be hoped for in case of a brave, but ineffectual defence by unarmed men.[490] It was a confidence misplaced. Unresisting, gray-headed men were despatched with the sword, while the women were reserved for the grossest outrage, or suffered the mutilation of their breasts, or, if with child, were butchered with their unborn offspring. Of all the property spared them by previous oppressors, nothing was left to sustain the miserable survivors. For weeks they wandered homeless and penniless in the vicinity of their once flourishing settlements; and there one might not unfrequently see the infant lying on the road-side, by the corpse of the mother dead of hunger and exposure. For even the ordinary charity of the humane had been checked by an order of D'Oppede, savagely forbidding that shelter or food be afforded to heretics, on pain of the halter.[491]

Lourmarin, Villelaure, and Treizemines were next burned on the way to Merindol. On the opposite side of the Durance, La Rocque and St. Etienne de Janson suffered the same fate, at the hands of volunteers coming from Arles. Happily they were found deserted, the villagers having had timely notice of the approaching storm.

[Sidenote: The destruction of Merindol.]

Early on the eighteenth of April, D'Oppede reached Merindol, the ostensible object of the expedition. But a single person was found within its circuit, and he a young man reputed possessed of less than ordinary intellect. His captor had promised him freedom, on his pledging himself to pay two crowns for his ransom. But D'Oppede, finding no other human being upon whom to vent his rage, paid the soldier the two crowns from his own pocket, and ordered the youth to be tied to an olive-tree and shot. The touching words uttered by the simple victim, as he turned his eyes heavenward and breathed out his life, have been preserved: "Lord God, these men are snatching from me a life full of wretchedness and misery, but Thou wilt give me eternal life through Jesus Thy Son."[492]

[Sidenote: The village razed.]

Meantime the work of persecution was thoroughly done. The houses were plundered and burned; the trees, whether intended for shade or for fruit, were cut down to the distance of two hundred paces from the place. The very site of Merindol was levelled, and crowds of laborers industriously strove to destroy every trace of human habitation. Two hundred dwellings, the former abode of thrift and contentment, had disappeared from the earth, and their occupants wandered, poverty-stricken, to other regions.[493]