Christians.”
“Act--yes; for I am not a Christian, nor are you.”
“If one must have a religion, give me Islam! God is One! That is the
whole of its theology; a prayer-mat is its whole liturgy.”
“You have to have a washing-basin besides.”
“And a harem.”
“Things are certainly in a bad way with our religion. If one reads its
history, it is a history of the decay of Christianity. That has been
continually going on for fifteen hundred years since the days of the
Apostles; soon the process of degeneration must be complete.”
“And if one reads the history of the Papacy, it is the same.”
“No, hush!” said a fat Cardinal, “you must let the papal throne remain
till I have sat in it.”
“After a Borgia, it would suit as well to have a Medici like you, and
especially a son of Lorenzo the Magnificent.”
“Will not the cardinals dance?” asked one, who seemed to be Chigi
himself.
“Yes, after supper, in the pavilion, and behind closed doors,” answered
the Cardinal de Medici, “and after I have hung up the red hat.”
So much was clear to Luther from the foregoing conversation,--that
he had seen and heard the representatives of the highest ranks of the
priesthood, and that the stout man was John de Medici, the candidate for
the papal chair.
He went quickly through several other rooms where half-intoxicated women
were coquetting with their paramours. At last he came into the great
banqueting hall. There stood groups of ambassadors and pilgrims,
representing all nations of the world. They were looking at the ceiling
and admiring the paintings on it. Luther followed their example, while
he listened to their remarks.
“This is like looking at the sky; one has to lie on one’s back.”
“I know nothing more beautiful than sunrise and the nude.”
“Raphael is indeed a divine painter.”
“What luck that Savonarola is burnt, else he would have burnt these
paintings.”
At the mention of Savonarola’s name the monk awoke from the state of
aesthetic intoxication into which the pictures had brought him, and
rushed out into the night. Savonarola, the last of the martyrs, who had
sought to save Christendom and had been burnt! All were burnt who tried
to serve Christ--by way of encouraging them.
How could one expect people to believe in Christianity? What added to
his trouble of mind was the fact that this painter who had the name
of an angel, and looked like an angel, painted Jupiter and nude women!
Nothing kept what it promised; all was dust and ashes. _Vanitas!_ But
this heathenism which sprang from the earth, what was its object?
Even the divine Dante had chosen a heathen Roman poet, Virgil, as his
guide through Hell, and a beautiful maiden as his companion on the way
to heaven. That was foolishness and blasphemy.
The end of the world must be approaching, for Antichrist was come and
ruled in Rome. But an Antichrist had always sat on the Papal throne,
which was itself an evil, for Paul had taught that in Christ’s Church we
are all priests and should form a priesthood.
So he reached his cell again, and recovered himself and his God in
solitude.
* * * * *
The next morning he went out in order to see the Church of St. Peter
and the Vatican, which had become the residence of the Popes after their
return from Avignon. Since he did not know his way about the town, he
happened to come into the Forum. There were several bodies of troops
collected for review, and on a great black stallion sat an old man,
armed from top to toe in steel. The troops passed in review before him,
and he seemed to be the commander.
“He looks like a Rabbi,” said a citizen, “and he must be quite five and
sixty now.”
“He seems to me to resemble the prophet Muhammed. And he began as a
tradesman.”
“Yes, and he has bought the papal chair.”
“Well, let it go! But his summoning Charles VIII with the French to
Naples was a betrayal of his country. Now he goes against Venice, and
leads the troops himself.”
“And expects help from the Turks.”
“They ought not to play with the Turks, who are already in Hungary and
mean to get to Vienna.”
“We have forgotten the Crusades, and tolerance is a fine quality.”
“Yes, the last thing they did was to undertake a crusade against the
Christian Albigenses, while they tried to conciliate the Muhammedans in
Sicily.”
“The world is a madhouse.”
This, then, was Pope Julius II, who had overcome the monster Alexander
VI, and now led his army against Venice, His kingdom was quite obviously
of this world, and Luther lost all desire for an audience with him.
He went now to the Leonine quarter, where the new Church of St. Peter’s
was to be built in place of the one which had been pulled down. This, in
its turn, was a successor of Nero’s Circus, in which the first Christian
martyrs had suffered. He found the site enclosed by a iron fence, but at
the entrance stood two Dominican monks, and a civilian who looked like
a clerk. Between them was a great iron chest, and the monks called aloud
the scale of prices for the forgiveness of sins. All who entered, and
wished to see the building, threw money to the clerk, who counted and
entered it in his book. This functionary had been appointed by Hans
Fugger, who farmed the sale of indulgences.
Luther also wished to see the building, and without thinking put down
some silver pieces. As a receipt, he received a piece of paper on which
was written the formula of forgiveness for some trifling sins.
When he had read the paper, he returned it to the clerk, and burst out,
“I don’t buy forgiveness of sins, but I gladly pay the entrance fee.”
He entered the site, but now noticed the dark-eyed Augustinian monk
following him.
“Are you dissatisfied, brother?” said the latter. “Do you think that the
forgiveness of sins is bought? Who ever said so? Don’t you know that
the Civil Law exacts fines for certain trespasses? Why should not the
Ecclesiastical Law do the same? Tell me any reason. What nonsense
you talk? What is buying? You pay out money, and by doing so deprive
yourself of certain enjoyments! Instead of buying wine and women, you
give this money to the Church. Good! By doing so, you renounce the sin
with which you would otherwise have polluted yourself.”
“Who taught you such arguments?”
“We learn in the schools here to think, you see; we read Cicero and
Aristotle.”
“Do you read the Bible also?”
“Yes, certainly. The Epistle always lies beside the Gospel on the
altar-desk.”
“Do you understand what you read?”
“Now you are impolite, Martin, but you are also proud, and you must not
be that. Look now at the new church. What we see is only the foundation,
but we can go in the architect’s cottage, and see the designs there.”
The designs were hung up in a little pavilion, and another fee was
charged for entrance.
“Now what does my critical brother say?”
“That is simply a Roman bath-house,” answered Luther after a glance.
“Caracalla’s Thermae, I should say.”
“It is a heathen building, then!”
“Yes, if you like, but everything is heathenish here, although baptized.
The heathen were not so stupid.... I won’t see any more.”
“But look at those two great men there, before you go. The tall man with
the patriarchal beard is Michael Angelo, and that slim youth with the
long neck and feminine features is Raphael.”
“Is that Raphael?”
“Yes; he looks like an angel, but is not so dangerous. He is a very good
man; they talk of getting him married. He does not want to, however, for
his eye is on a cardinal’s hat, which they have promised him.”
“Cardinal’s hat?”
“Yes, he is spiritually-minded, although he paints worldly objects.”
“I remember, but I want to forget them.”
“Listen, Martin!” the monk interrupted him, with an insulting air of
familiarity; “when you go away from here, and get home, don’t forget
to curb your tongue! Think of what I say: there are eyes and ears which
follow you where you go, and when you least suspect it.”
“If the Lord is with me, what can men do against me?”
“Are you sure that the Lord is with you? Do you know His ways and His
will?--You only? Can you interpret His meaning when He speaks?”
“Yes, I can; for I hear his voice in my conscience. Get thee hence,
Satan, or I shall pray that heaven’s lightning may smite thee! I came
here as a believing child, but I shall depart as a believing man, for
your questions have only evoked my silent answers which you have not
heard, but which some day you will hear. You have killed Savonarola, but
I am young and strong, and I shall live. Mark that!”
* * * * *
Luther did not stay long in Rome, but he took the opportunity of
learning Hebrew, and attended the lectures of the Jew Elia Levi ben
Asher, surnamed Bachur or Elias Levita.
There he met Cardinal Viterbo, the patron of the Jews, and many other
celebrities, for Oriental languages were then in fashion after the Turks
had established themselves in Constantinople.
Luther enjoyed the friendship of the old Jew, for Elias was the only
“Christian” whom he found in Rome. It was a pity, to be sure, that he
lived under the Law, and was not acquainted with the Gospel, but he knew
no better.
THE INSTRUMENT
In the year 1483, the same year in which Luther was born, Docter
Coctier sat in his laboratory at Paris, and carried on a philosophical
discussion with a chemical expert who was passing through the city.
The laboratory was in the same building as his observatory, in the
Marais quarter of the town, a site occupied to-day by the Place
des Vosges. Not far away is the Bastille, the magnificent Hôtel de
Saint-Pol, and the brilliant Des Tournelles, the residence of the
Kings before the Louvre was built. Here Louis XI had given his private
physician, chancellor, and doctor of all the sciences, Coctier, a house
which lay in a labyrinth-like park called the Garden of Daedalus.
The doctor was speaking, and the expert listened: “Yes, Plato in his
_Timaeus_ calls gold one of the densest and finest substances which
filters through stone. There is a metal derived from gold which is
black, and that is iron. But a substance more akin to gold is copper,
which is composed of shining congealed fluids, and one of whose minor
constituents is green earth. Now I ask, ‘Why cannot copper be freed from
this last, and refined to gold?’”
“Yes,” answered the expert, “it can, if one uses atramentum or the
philosopher’s stone.”
“What is that?”
“Atramentum is copperas.”
“Ventre-saint-gris! that is Plato’s iron! Now I see! Who taught you
that?”
“I learnt it from the greatest living magician in Wittenberg. His name
is Dr. Faustus, and he has studied magic in Krakau.”
“He is alive, then! Tell me! Tell me!”
“This man, according to many witnesses, has done miracles like Christ;
he has undertaken to restore the lost comedies of Plautus and Terence;
his mind can soar on eagle’s wings and discover secrets of the heights
and depths.”
“Has he also found the elixir of life?”
“Yes, since gold can be resolved into its elements.”
“If gold can be resolved, then it has constituents. What are they?”
“Gold can be easily dissolved in oil of vitriol, salts of ammonia, and
saltpetre.”
“What do you say?”
The Doctor jumped up; the stove had heated the room and made him
uncomfortable.
“Let us go for a little walk,” he said; “but I must first make a note
of what you say, for, when I wish to remember something important, the
devil makes confusion in my head. These, then, are means of dissolving
gold--oil of vitriol, salts of ammonia, and saltpetre!”
The expert, whose name was Balthasar, now first noticed that he had
given his information without obtaining a receipt or any equivalent
for it, and, since he was not one of the unselfish kind, he threw out a
feeler.
“How is our gracious King?”
The question revealed his secret and his wish, and put Doctor Coctier on
his guard. “Ah,” he said to himself, “you have your eye on the King with
your elixir of life.” And then he added aloud, “He is quite well.”
“Oh! I had heard the opposite!”
“Then they have lied.”
Then there was silence in the room, and the two men tried to read each
other’s thoughts. It was so terribly still that they felt their hatred
germinate, and had already begun a fight to the death. Doctor Coctier’s
thoughts ran as follows: “You come with an elixir to lengthen the
life of the monster who is our King; you wish thereby to make your own
fortune and to bring trouble on me; and you know that he who has the
King’s life in his hands, has the power.”
Quick as lightning he had taken his resolve, coolly and cruelly, as the
custom of the time was. He resumed the conversation, and said, “Now you
must see my ‘Daedalus’ or labyrinth. Since the time of the Minotaur,
there has been none like it.”
The labyrinth was a thicket threaded by secret passages, bordered by
hornbeam-hedges, four ells high, and so dense that one did not notice
the thin iron balustrade which ran along them. Artistically contrived
and impenetrable, the labyrinth meandered in every direction. It seemed
to be endlessly long, and was so arranged that its perspectives deceived
the eye. It also contained secret doors and underground passages, and a
visitor soon grew aware that it had not been constructed as a joke, but
in deadly earnest. Only the King and Doctor Coctier possessed the key to
this puzzle.
When the two men had walked for a good time, admired statues and watched
fountains play, Balthasar wished to sit upon a bench, whether it was
that he was tired or suspected some mischief.
But the Doctor prevented him: “No, not on _that_ seat,” he said. They
continued their walk. But now the Doctor quickened his steps, and, after
a while, his guest felt again weary and confused in his head from the
perpetual turning round. Therefore he threw himself on the first seat
which he saw, and drew a deep breath.
“You run the life out of me, Doctor,” he said.
“No, you are not so short-lived,” answered the Doctor; “I see a long
line of life on your forehead, and the bar between your eyes shows that
you were born under the planet Jupiter. Besides, you possess the elixir
of life, and can prolong your existence as much as you like, can’t you?”
The expert noticed a cruel smile on the Doctor’s face, and, feeling
himself in danger, tried to spring up, but the arms of the chair had
closed around him, and he was held fast. The next moment Doctor Coctier
seemed to be seeking for something in the sand with his left foot, and,
when he had found it, he pressed with all his weight on the invisible
object.
“Farewell, young man,” he said; “loquacious, conceited young man, who
wanted to lord it over Doctor Coctier. Now I will settle the King for
you.”
The seat disappeared in the earth with the expert. It was an
oubliette--a pit with a trap-door, which drew the veil of oblivion over
the man who had vanished.
When he had finished the affair, the Doctor sought to leave the
labyrinth, but could not find the way at once, for he was deep in
thought, and kept on repeating the formula for the elixir which he had
just learnt, to impress it on his mind, in case the recipe should be
lost--“oil of vitriol, salts of ammonia, saltpetre.” Suddenly he found
himself in a round space where many paths converged, and to his great
astonishment saw a body lying on the ground. It looked like that of a
large brown watchdog, but limp and lifeless.
“It is not the first who has been caught in this crab-pot,” he thought,
and came nearer. But as the brown mass moved, he saw that it was a man
with torn clothes and a shabby fur cap.
It was the King--Louis XI in the last year of his life.
“Sire, in the name of all the saints, what is the matter with you?”
exclaimed the Doctor.
“Wretch!” answered the King, “why do you construct such traps that one
cannot find the way out of them?”
Now it was Louis himself who, in his youth, had constructed the maze,
but the Doctor could not venture to tell him so. Therefore he spoke
soothingly.
“Sire, you are ill. Why do you not remain in Tours? How have you come
here?”
“I cannot sleep, and I cannot eat. The last few days I have passed in
Vincennes, in Saint-Pol, in the Louvre, but I find peace nowhere. At
last I came here, in order to be safe in the place which only you and I
know; I came yesterday morning, and would have stayed longer, but I was
hungry, and when I wanted to get out, I could not find the way. I have
been here, freezing, last night. Take me away; I am ill; feel my pulse,
and see whether it is not the quartan ague.” The Doctor tried to feel
his pulse, but did so with difficulty for it was hardly beating at all;
but he dared not tell the King so.
“Your pulse is regular and strong, sire; let us get home!”
“I will eat at your house; you only can prepare food properly; all
the rest spoil it with their everlasting condiments; they spice all
my dishes, and the spices are bad. Jacob, help me to get away from
here--help me. Did you see the star last night? Is there anything new
in the sky? There is certain a comet approaching. I feel it before it
comes.”
“No, sire; no comet is approaching....”
“Do you answer impertinently? Then you believe I am sick--perhaps
incurably.”
“No, sire, you are healthier than ever; but follow me--I will make you a
bed, and prepare you a meal.”
The King rose and followed the Doctor. The latter, however, wished the
monarch to go before him but the King mistrusted his only last friend,
who certainly did not love him, and would have gladly seen him dead.
“Beware of the seats, sire,” he cried. “Do not go too near to the hedge;
keep in the middle of the path.”
“Your seats themselves should.... Forgive me my sins.” He crossed
himself.
When they came out of the labyrinth, the King fell in a rage at the
recollection of what he had suffered, and, instead of being grateful
towards his rescuer, he burst into abuse: “How could you let me go
astray in your garden, and let me sleep on the bare ground in the open
air? You are an ass.” They entered the laboratory, where it was warm,
and the King, who was observant, noticed at once the recipe which the
Doctor had left there.
“What are you doing behind my back? What recipe have you been writing?
Is it poison or medicine? Oil of vitriol is poison, salts of ammonia are
only for dysentery, saltpetre produces scurvy. For whom have you made
this mixture?”
“It is for the gardener’s cow, which has calved,” answered the Doctor,
who certainly did not wish to prolong the tyrant’s life.
The King laid down on a sofa. “Jacob,” he said, “you must not go away; I
will not eat, but I will sleep, and you must sit here by me. I have had
to sleep for eight nights. But put out the fire; it hurts my eyes. Don’t
let down the blinds; I want to see the sun; otherwise I cannot sleep.”
He seemed to fall asleep, but it was only a momentary nap. Then he grew
wide awake again, and sat up in bed.
“Why do you keep starlings in your garden, Jacob?”
“I have no starlings,” answered the Doctor impatiently, “but if you have
heard them whistling, sire, they must be there with your permission.”
“Don’t you hear them, then?”
“No! but what are they singing?”
“Yes, you know! After the shameful treaty of Peronne, when I had to
yield to Charles of Burgundy, the Parisians taught their starlings to
cry ‘Peronne!’ Do you know what they are saying now?”
The Doctor lost patience, for he had heard these old stories thousands
of times: “They are not saying ‘Guienne,’ are they?” he asked.
There was an ugly reference to fratricide in the question, for the King
was suspected of having murdered his brother, the Duke of Guienne. He
started from the sofa in a pugnacious attitude. “What! You believe in
this fable? But I have never committed murder, though I would certainly
like to murder you....”
“Better leave it alone!” answered the Doctor cynically; “you know what
the starshave said--eight days after my death, follows yours.”
The King had an attack of cramp, for he believed this fable, which
Coctier had invented to protect his own life. But when he recovered
consciousness, he continued to wander in his talk.
“They also say that I murdered my father, but that is a lie. He starved
himself to death for fear of being poisoned.”
“Of being poisoned by you! You are a fine fellow! But your hour will
soon come.”
“Hush!... I remember every thing now. My father was a noodle who let
France be overrun by the English, and when the Maid of Orleans saved
him, gave her up to the English. I hate my father who was false to my
mother with Agnes Sorel, and had his legitimate children brought up by
his paramour. When he left the kingdom to itself, I and the nobles
took it in hand. That you call ‘revolt,’ but I have never stirred up a
revolt! That is a lie.”
“Listen!” the Doctor broke in; “if you wish to confess, send for your
father confessor.”
“I am not confessing to you; I am defending myself.”
“Who is accusing you, then? Your own bad conscience.”
“I have no bad conscience, but I am accused unjustly.”
“Who is accusing you? The starling?”
“My wife and children accuse me, and don’t wish to see me.”
“No; if you have sent them to Amboise, they cannot see you, and, as a
matter of fact, they do not wish to.”
“To think that I, the son of King Charles VII, must hear this sort
of thing from a quack doctor! I have always liked people of low rank;
Olivier the barber was my friend.”
“And the executioner Tristan was your godfather.”
“He was provost-marshal, you dog!”
“The tailor became a herald.”
“And the quack doctor a chancellor! Put that to my account and praise
me, ingrate! for having protected you from the nobles, and for only
having regard to merit.”
“That is certainly a redeeming feature.”
Just then a man appeared in the doorway with his cap in his hand.
“Who is there?” cried the King. “Is it a murderer?”
“No, it is only the gardener,” the man answered.
“Ha! ha! gardener!--your cow has calved, hasn’t she?”
“I possess no cow, sire, nor have I ever had one.”
The King was beside himself, and flew at Coctier’s throat.
“You have lied to me, scoundrel; it is not medicine you were preparing,
but poison.”
The gardener disappeared. “If I wished to do what I should,” said
Coctier, “I would treat you like Charles the Bold did when you cheated
him.”
“What did he do? What do people say that he did?”
“People say that he beat you with a stick.”
The King was ashamed, went to bed again, and hid his face in the
pillow. The Doctor considered this a favourable moment for preferring a
long-denied request.
“Will you now liberate the Milanese?” he asked.
“No.”
“But he cannot sit any more in his iron cage!”
“Then let him stand!”
“Don’t you know that when one has to die, one good deed atones for a
thousand crimes?”
“I will not die!”
“Yes, sire, you will die soon.”
“After you!”
“No, before me.”
“That is also a lie of yours.”
“All have lied to you, liar. And your four thousand victims whom you
have had executed....”
“They were not victims; they were criminals.”
“Those four thousand slaughtered will witness it the judgment seat
against you.”
“Lengthen my life; then I will reform myself.”
“Liberate the Milanese.”
“Never!”
“Then go to perdition--and quickly. Your pulse is so feeble that your
hours are numbered.”
The King jumped up, fell on his knees before the physician, and prayed,
“Lengthen my life.”
“No! I should like to abbreviate it, were you not the anointed of the
Lord. You ought to have rat-poison.”
“Mercy! I confess that I have acted from bad motives; that I have only
thought of myself; that I have never loved the people, but used them
in order to put down the nobles; I grant that I made agreements and
treaties with the deliberate purpose of breaking them; that I ... Yes,
I am a poor sinful man, and my name will be forgotten; all that I have
done will be obliterated....”
A stranger now appeared in the open door. It was a young man in the garb
of the Minorites.
“Murderer!” screamed the King, and sprang up.
“No,” answered the monk, “I am he whom you called Vincent of Paula.”
“My deliverer! say a word--a single word of comfort.”
“Sire,” answered Vincent, “I have heard your confession, and will give
you absolution in virtue of my office.”
“Speak.”