Beginning of the Church at Meaux--The Scriptures in
French--The Artisans and the Bishop--Evangelical
Harvest--The Epistles of St. Paul sent to the King--Lefevre
and Roma--The Monks before the Bishop--The Monks before the
Parliament--Briçonnet gives way.
[Sidenote: BEGINNING OF THE CHURCH AT MEAUX.]
The time was indeed approaching when the storm should burst upon the
Reformation; but it was first to scatter a few more seeds and to
gather in a few more sheaves. This city of Meaux, renowned a century
and a half later by the sublime defender[809] of the Gallican system
against the autocratic pretensions of Rome, was called to be the first
town of France where regenerated Christianity should establish its
dominion. It was then the field on which the labourers were prodigal
of their exertions and their seed, and where already the ears were
falling before the reapers. Briçonnet, less sunk in slumber than he
had said, was animating, inspecting, and directing all. His fortune
equalled his zeal; never did man devote his wealth to nobler uses, and
never did such noble devotedness promise at first to bear such
glorious fruits. The most pious teachers, transferred from Paris to
Meaux, from that time acted with more liberty. There was freedom of
speech, and great was the stride then taken by the Reformation in
France. Lefevre energetically expounded that Gospel with which he
would have rejoiced to fill the world. He exclaimed: "Kings, princes,
nobles, people, all nations should think and aspire after Christ
alone.[810] Every priest should resemble that archangel whom John saw
in the Apocalypse, flying through the air, holding the everlasting
Gospel in his hand, and carrying it to every people, nation, tongue,
and king. Come near ye pontiffs, come ye kings, come ye generous
hearts!......Nations, awake to the light of the Gospel, and inhale the
heavenly life.[811] The Word of God is all-sufficient."[812]
[809] Bossuet.
[810] Reges, principes, magnates omnes et subinde omnium nationum
populi, ut nihil aliud cogitent......ac Christum. Fabri. Comm. in
Evang. Præf.
[811] Ubivis gentium expergiscimini ad Evangelii lucem. Fabri Comm. in
Evang. Præf.
[812] Verbum Dei sufficit. Ibid.
[Sidenote: THE WORD OF GOD ALL-SUFFICIENT.]
Such in truth was the motto of that school: THE WORD OF GOD IS
ALL-SUFFICIENT. In this device the whole Reformation is embodied. "To
know Christ and his Word," said Lefevre, Roussel, and Farel, "is the
only living and universal theology......He who knows that, knows
everything."[813]
[813] Hæc est universa et sola vivifica Theologia......Christum et
verbum ejus esse omnia. Ibid. in Ev. Johan. p. 271.
The truth was making a deep impression at Meaux. Private meetings took
place at first; then conferences; and at last the Gospel was preached
in the churches. But a new effort inflicted a still more formidable
blow against Rome.
Lefevre desired to enable the Christians of France to read the Holy
Scriptures. On the 30th October 1522, he published a French
translation of the four Gospels; on the 6th November, the remaining
books of the New Testament; on the 12th October 1524, all these books
together, at the house of Collin in Meaux; and in 1525, a French
version of the Psalms.[814] Thus was begun in France, almost at the
same time as in Germany, that printing and dissemination of the
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue which, three centuries later, was to
be so wonderfully developed throughout the world. In France, as on the
other side of the Rhine, the Bible had a decisive influence.
Experience had taught many Frenchmen, that when they sought to know
Divine things, doubt and obscurity encompassed them on every side. In
how many moments and perhaps years in their lives had they been
tempted to regard the most certain truths as mere delusions! We need
a ray from heaven to enlighten our darkness. Such was the ejaculation
of many a soul at the epoch of the Reformation. With longings such as
these, numbers received the sacred writings from the hands of Lefevre;
they were read in their families and in private; conversations on the
Bible became frequent; Christ appeared to those souls so long misled,
as the centre and the sun of all revelation. No longer did they
require demonstrations to prove that Scripture was from God; they knew
it, for by it they had been transported from darkness to light.
[814] Le Long. Biblioth. sacrée, 2d edit. p. 42.
[Sidenote: THE ARTISANS AND THE BISHOP.]
Such was the course by which so many distinguished persons in France
attained a knowledge of God. But there were yet simpler and more
common paths, if such can be, by which many of the lower classes were
brought to the truth. The city of Meaux was almost wholly inhabited by
artisans and dealers in wool. "There was engendered in many," says a
chronicler of the sixteenth century, "so ardent a desire of knowing
the way of salvation, that artisans, fullers, and wool-combers took no
other recreation, as they worked with their hands, than to talk with
each other of the Word of God, and to comfort themselves with the
same. Sundays and holidays especially were devoted to the reading of
Scripture, and inquiring into the good pleasure of the Lord."[815]
[815] Act. des Mart. p. 182.
Briçonnet rejoiced to see piety take the place of superstition in his
diocese. "Lefevre, aided by the renown of his great learning," says a
contemporary historian, "contrived so to cajole and circumvent Messire
Guillaume Briçonnet with his plausible talk, that he caused him to
turn aside grievously, so that it has been impossible up to this day
to free the city and diocese of Meaux from that pestilent doctrine,
where it has so marvellously increased. The misleading that good
bishop was a great injury, as until then he had been so devoted to God
and to the Virgin Mary."[816]
[816] Histoire Catholique de notre temps, par Fontaine, de l'ordre de
St. François. Paris, 1562.
[Sidenote: EVANGELICAL HARVEST.]
Yet all were not so grievously turned aside, as the Franciscan says,
whom we have just quoted. The city was divided into two parties. On
the one side were the monks of St. Francis and the friends of the
Romish doctrine; on the other, Briçonnet, Lefevre, Farel, and all
those who loved the new preaching. A man of the poorer classes, by
name Leclerc, was one of the most servile adherents of the monks; but
his wife and two sons, Peter and John, had received the Gospel with
eagerness, and John, who was a wool-carder, soon distinguished himself
among the new Christians. James Pavanne, a learned and youthful
Picard, "a man of great sincerity and uprightness," whom Briçonnet had
invited to Meaux, showed an ardent zeal for the Reformation. Meaux had
become a focus of light. Persons called thither by business heard the
Gospel, and carried it back to their homes. It was not in the city
alone that men were examining the Scriptures; "many of the villages
did the same," says a chronicle, "so that in this diocese an image of
the renovated Church was seen to shine forth."
The environs of Meaux were covered with rich crops, and at harvest
season a crowd of labourers flocked thither from the surrounding
countries. Resting from their toils in the middle of the day, they
conversed with the people of the place, who spoke to them of other
seed-times and other harvests. Many peasants from Thierache, and
particularly from Landouzy, persevered, on their return home, in the
doctrines they had heard, and erelong an evangelical church was formed
in this district, which is one of the oldest churches in the
kingdom.[817] "The renown of this great blessing spread through
France," says the chronicler.[818] Briçonnet himself proclaimed the
Gospel from the pulpit, and endeavoured to scatter around him "that
infinite, sweet, mild, true, and only light (to use his own words)
which dazzles and enlightens every creature capable of receiving it,
and which, while it enlightens him, raises him by adoption to the
dignity of a son of God."[819] He besought his flock to lend no ear
to those who would turn them aside from the Word. "Though an angel
from heaven," said he, "should preach any other Gospel, do not listen
to him." Sometimes gloomy thoughts would prey upon his soul. He was
not sure of himself: he shrunk back in alarm, as he dwelt upon the
fatal consequences of his unfaithfulness; and forewarning his hearers,
he said to them: "Even should I, your bishop, change my language and
my doctrine, beware of changing like me."[820] At that moment nothing
seemed to indicate the possibility of such a misfortune. "Not only was
the Word of God preached," says the chronicle, "but it was followed;
all works of charity and love were practised there; the morals were
reformed and superstitions laid low."[821]
[817] These particulars are derived from some old and much discoloured
papers, found in the church of Landouzy-la-Ville, in the department of
Aisne, by M. Colany, while pastor of that place.
[818] Act. Mart. p. 182.
[819] MS. Bibl. Roy. S. F. No. 337.
[820] Hist. Catholique de Fontaine.
[821] Act. Mart. p. 182.
[Sidenote: BRIÇONNET'S FOREBODINGS--PRESENT TO THE KING.]
Still clinging to the idea of gaining over the king and his mother,
the bishop sent to Margaret "the epistles of St. Paul, translated and
splendidly illuminated, most humbly entreating her to present them to
the king; which cannot but be most pleasing from your hands," added
the good bishop. "They are a royal dish," continued he, "fattening
without corruption, and healing all manner of sickness. The more we
taste them, the more we hunger after them with desire unsatiable, and
that never cloys."[822]
[822] MS. Bibl. Roy. S. F. No. 337.
What more welcome message could Margaret receive? The moment seemed
favourable. Michael Aranda was at Paris, detained by order of the
king's mother, for whom he was translating portions of the Holy
Scripture.[823] But Margaret would have preferred that Briçonnet
should present this book himself to her brother. "You would do well to
come here," wrote she, "for you know the confidence that Madam and the
king place in you."[824]
[823] Par le commandement de Madame à quy il a lyvré quelque chose de
la saincte Escripture qu'elle désire parfaire. Ibid.
[824] Ibid.
Thus, probably, was the Word of God placed at that time (in 1522 and
1523) under the eyes of Francis I. and Louisa of Savoy. They came into
contact with that Gospel which they were afterwards to persecute. We
do not find that this Word produced any salutary effect upon them. An
impulse of curiosity led them to open that Bible which was then making
so much noise; but they closed it as soon as they had opened it.
[Sidenote: MARGARET'S STRUGGLES.]
Margaret herself found it hard to contend against the worldliness by
which she was everywhere surrounded. Her tender affection towards her
brother, the obedience she owed to her mother, and the flatteries
lavished on her by the court, all seemed to conspire against the love
she had vowed to Christ. Christ was alone against many. Sometimes
Margaret's soul, assailed by so many adversaries, and stunned by the
noise of the world, turned aside from its Master. Then, becoming
sensible of her faults, the princess would shut herself up in her
apartments, and giving way to her sorrow, utter cries very different
from the joyous sounds with which Francis and the young lords, the
companions of his debauchery, filled the royal palaces in the midst of
their entertainments and festivities:--
Left you I have, to follow pleasure's voice,
Left you I have, and for an evil choice,
Left you I have, and whither am I come?......[825]
[825] Les Marguerites, i. 40.
Then turning towards Meaux, Margaret would exclaim in her anguish: "I
return to you, to M. Fabry (Lefevre) and all your gentlemen,
beseeching you, by your prayers, to obtain of the unspeakable Mercy an
alarum for the poor weak and sleepy one, to arouse her from her heavy
and deadly slumber."[826]
[826] MS. Bibl. Roy. S. F. No. 337.
Thus had Meaux become a focus whence the light of the Gospel emanated.
The friends of the Reformation indulged in flattering illusions. Who
could resist the Gospel if the power of Francis cleared the way? The
corrupting influence of the court would then be changed into a holy
influence, and France would acquire a moral strength that would render
her the benefactress of the world.
[Sidenote: ROMA--THE MONKS AND THE BISHOP.]
But, on their side, the friends of Rome had taken the alarm. Among
those at Meaux was a Jacobin monk named Roma. One day, as Lefevre,
Farel, and their friends were talking with him and some other of the
papal partisans, Lefevre could not suppress his anticipations. "The
Gospel is already gaining the hearts of the great and of the people,"
said he, "and in a short time, spreading all over France, it will
everywhere throw down the inventions of men." The aged doctor was
animated; his eyes sparkled; his worn-out voice grew sonorous; one
might have compared him to the aged Simeon returning thanks to the
Lord, because his eyes had seen His salvation. Lefevre's friends
shared in his emotion: their amazed opponents were dumb. On a sudden
Roma started up impetuously, and exclaimed in the tone of a popular
tribune: "Then I and all the other religioners will preach a crusade;
we will raise the people; and if the king permits the preaching of
your Gospel, we will expel him from his kingdom by his own
subjects."[827]
[827] Farel, Epître au Duc de Lorraine, Gen. 1634.
Thus did a monk venture to rise up against the knightly monarch. The
Franciscans applauded this language. They must not allow the doctor's
prophecy to be fulfilled. Already the friars were returning daily with
diminished offerings. The Franciscans in alarm went about among
private families. "These new teachers are heretics," said they; "they
attack the holiest observances, and deny the most sacred mysteries."
Then growing bolder, the most incensed among them issued from their
cloister, and proceeded to the bishop's residence. On being admitted,
they said to the prelate: "Crush this heresy, or else the pestilence,
which is already desolating the city of Meaux, will spread over the
whole kingdom."
Briçonnet was moved, and for an instant disturbed by this attack, but
he did not give way; he felt too much contempt for these ignorant
monks and their interested clamours. He went into the pulpit,
justified Lefevre, and called the monks pharisees and hypocrites.
Still this opposition had already excited trouble and conflict in his
soul; he sought to encourage himself by the persuasion that such
spiritual combats were necessary. "By this warfare," said he, in his
somewhat mystical language, "we arrive at a vivifying death, and by
continually mortifying life, we die living, and live dying."[828] The
way would have been surer if, casting himself upon the Saviour, as the
apostles when tossed by the winds and waves, he had exclaimed; "Lord,
help me! or I perish."
[828] M.S. Bibl. Roy. S. F. No. 337.
[Sidenote: THE MONKS AND THE PARLIAMENT.]
The monks of Meaux, enraged at their unfavourable reception by the
bishop, resolved to carry their complaints before a higher tribunal.
An appeal lay open to them. If the bishop will not give way, he may be
reduced to compliance. Their leaders set out for Paris, and concerted
measures with Beda and Duchesne. They hastened before the parliament,
and denounced the bishop and the heretical teachers. "The city and all
the neighbourhood," said they, "are infected with heresy, and its
polluted waters flow from the episcopal palace."
Thus did France begin to hear the cry of persecution raised against
the Gospel. The sacerdotal and the civil power, the Sorbonne and the
parliament, grasped their arms,--arms that were to be stained with
blood. Christianity had taught mankind that there are duties and
rights anterior to all civil associations; it had emancipated the
religious mind, promoted liberty of conscience, and worked a great
change in society; for antiquity, which contemplated the citizen
everywhere and the man nowhere, had made religion a mere matter of
state. But these ideas of liberty had scarcely been given to the
world, ere the papacy corrupted them; for the despotism of the prince
it had substituted the despotism of the priest; and not unfrequently
it had raised both prince and priest against the christian people. A
new emancipation was needed; it took place in the sixteenth century.
Wherever the Reformation established itself, it broke the yoke of
Rome, and the religious mind was again enfranchised. But so rooted in
the nature of man is the disposition to tyrannize over truth, that
among many protestant nations, the Church, liberated from the
arbitrary power of the priest, has again in our days fallen under the
yoke of the civil power; destined, like its founder, to be bandied
from one despotism to another, to pass from Caiaphas to Pilate, and
from Pilate to Caiaphas.
[Sidenote: BRIÇONNET'S FALL.]
Briçonnet had not the courage necessary for resistance. He would not
yield everything, but what he did concede satisfied Rome. "We may well
do without Luther's writings," he thought, "if we keep the Gospel; we
may easily accede to a certain invocation of the Virgin, if we add
that it is only by the mediation of Jesus Christ that she possesses
any influence." If beside the truth we place the power of error, the
papacy is satisfied. But the sacrifice which Briçonnet felt the
deepest, and which yet was required of him, was the loss of his
friends. If the bishop would escape, he must sacrifice his brethren.
Of timid character, but little prepared to give up his riches and his
station for Christ's sake, already alarmed, shaken, and cast down, he
was still further led astray by treacherous advisers: if the
evangelical doctors should quit Meaux (said some), they will carry the
Reformation elsewhere. His heart was torn by a painful struggle. At
last the wisdom of this world prevailed; he gave way, and, on the 15th
of October 1523, published three mandates, the first of which enjoined
prayers for the dead, and the invocation of the Virgin and of the
saints; the second forbade any one to buy, borrow, read, possess, or
carry about with him Luther's works, and ordered them to be torn in
pieces, to be scattered to the winds, or to be burnt; and the last
established in express terms the doctrine of purgatory. Then, on the
13th of November in the same year, Briçonnet forbade the parish
priests and their curates to permit the "Lutherans" to preach.[829]
This was not all. The first president of the Parliament of Paris, and
Andrew Verjus, councillor in the same court, and before whom Briçonnet
had shortly afterwards to appear, arrived at Meaux during Lent 1524,
no doubt to satisfy themselves of the bishop's proceedings. The poor
prelate did all he could to please them. Already on the 29th of
January he had taken the images of the saints under his especial
protection; he now began to visit his churches, to preach, and to
struggle hard in the presence of the first president and of councillor
Verjus to "weed out the heresies that were there shooting up."[830]
The deputies of the Parliament returned to Paris fully satisfied. This
was Briçonnet's first fall.
[829] Hist. Généalogique de Briçonnet, ad annum.
[830] MS. Bibl. Roy. S. F. No. 337.
[Sidenote: LEFEVRE AND FAREL--PERSECUTION.]
Lefevre was the special object of hostility. His commentary on the
four Gospels, and particularly the "Epistle to Christian Readers,"
prefixed to it, had inflamed the anger of Beda and his allies. They
denounced this writing to the faculty. "Does he not dare to recommend
all the faithful to read the Scriptures?" said the fiery syndic. "Does
he not tell therein that whoever loves not Christ's Word is not a
Christian;[831] and that the Word of God is sufficient to lead to
eternal life?"
[831] Qui verbum ejus hoc modo non diligunt, quo pacto hi Christiani
essent. Præf. Comm. in Evang.
But Francis I. looked on this accusation as a mere theological
squabble. He appointed a commission; and Lefevre, having justified
himself before it, came off from this attack with all the honours of
war.
Farel, who had not so many protectors at court, was compelled to leave
Meaux. It would appear that he first repaired to Paris;[832] and that,
having unsparingly attacked the errors of Rome, he could remain there
no longer, and was forced to retire to Dauphiny, whither he was eager
to carry the Gospel.
[832] Farel, après avoir subsisté tant qu'il put à Paris. Beza, Hist.
Eccl. i. 6.
At the time of the dispersion of the Christians at Meaux, another
Frenchman, quitting his native country, crossed the threshold of the
Augustine convent at Wittemberg, where Luther resided. This was in
January 1523.
Farel was not the only man in the south of France whom God had
prepared for his work. A little further to the south than Gap, on the
banks of the Rhone, in that city of Avignon called by Petrarch "the
third Babylon," may still be seen the walls of the "apostolic palace,"
which the popes and cardinals had long filled with their luxury and
debauchery, and which a Roman legate now inhabited, lonely and
dejected in the midst of this deserted city, whose narrow filthy
streets were seldom trod but by the feet of monks and priests.
[Sidenote: FRANCIS LAMBERT--HIS NOVICIATE.]
The little court of the legate was, however, sometimes enlivened by a
beautiful, amiable, and laughing boy, who gambolled about its
halls.[833] This was Francis Lambert, son of the secretary of the
apostolic palace, born in 1487, two years before Farel. The child was
at first astonished at the irreligion and crimes of these
prelates,--"crimes so numerous and so enormous," says he, "that I
cannot describe them."[834] He became habituated to them, however, by
degrees, and it would appear that he was himself seduced by bad
example.[835] Yet God had implanted in his heart a desire for
holiness. His father being dead, his mother had the charge of his
education, and, according to the custom of the times, intrusted him to
the care of the Franciscans. The sanctified air of these monks imposed
on Francis, and his timid looks followed them respectfully, as he saw
them clad in coarse garments, barefoot, or with rude sandals only,
moving to and fro, begging in the city and calling on his mother; and
if at any time they chanced to smile upon him, he fancied himself (he
tells us) almost in heaven.[836] The monks worked upon this
disposition, and Francis, attracted by them, assumed the cowl at the
age of fifteen. "It was God's pleasure," said he in after-years, "that
I might make known to the world the impurity of these whited
sepulchres."
[833] In palatio sæpe versatus, quod genitor meus legationis ejus
secretarius esset. Lamb. Epistola ad Galliæ Regem.
[834] Impietates et horrenda scelera tam multa et enormia. Ibid.
[835] Olim seductus et peccator. Ibid.
[836] Rationes propter quas minoritarum conversationem, habitumque
rejecerit. Wittenberg, 1523.
[Sidenote: LAMBERT'S APOSTOLIC LABORS.]
During the year of his noviciate everything went on smoothly; he was
studiously kept in the dark; but no sooner had he pronounced his vows,
than the monks showed themselves in all their deformity, and the halo
of sanctity that he had discovered around their heads faded away, and
he remained incensed, alarmed, and dejected. Francis soon began to
feel a secret strength within him, that drove him forcibly towards the
Holy Scriptures,[837] and bound him to believe and to teach the Word
of God. In 1517, he was nominated apostolical preacher of the convent,
and instead of running about like his colleagues after "fat presents
and well-stored tables," he employed himself in travelling afoot
through the deserted country, and calling those ignorant people to
conversion whom the fire and sincerity of his language drew around him
in crowds. But when, after spending several months in passing through
the Comtat Venaissin and the surrounding districts, he returned
exhausted to his convent on a mule that had been given him to carry
his weakened frame, and went to seek a brief repose in his poor cell,
some of the monks received him with coldness, others with raillery,
and a third party with anger; and they hastened to sell the animal,
which they all agreed in saying was the only profit of these
evangelical journeys.
[837] Urgebat me vehementer latens quædam vis (confido non aliena a
Domini spiritu) ad sacrarum studia literarum. Exegesis in S. Johannis
Apocalypsia, præf.
One day, as brother Francis was preaching in a certain town, with a
gravity quite apostolic and the vivacity of a native of the south:
"Kindle a fire," exclaimed he, "before this sacred porch, and there
consume the spoils of your luxury, your worldly-mindedness, and your
debauchery." Immediately the whole assembly was in commotion; some
lighted up a fire; others ran into their houses and returned with
dice, playing-cards, and obscene pictures; and then, like the
Christians of Ephesus at the preaching of St. Paul, cast all into the
flames. A great crowd was gathered round the fire, and among them some
Franciscans, who perceiving an indecent drawing of a young female,
cunningly drew it away, and hid it under one of their frocks, "to add
fuel to their own flames," says Lambert. This did not escape the eye
of brother Francis; a holy indignation kindled within him, and boldly
addressing the monks, he inveighed against their lubricity and theft.
Abashed at being discovered, they sunk their heads, gave up the
picture, but swore to be revenged.[838]
[838] Lambert von Avignon, by Professor Baum.
[Sidenote: LAMBERT'S STRUGGLES--HE QUITS AVIGNON.]
Lambert, surrounded with debauchery, and become an object of hatred to
the monks, felt from time to time an ardent desire to return into the
world, which appeared to him infinitely more holy than the cloister:
but he found something still better. Luther's works, carried to the
fairs of Lyons, descended the Rhone and reached his cell. They were
soon taken from him and burnt; but it was too late. The spirit that
animated the Augustine of Wittemberg had passed into the Franciscan of
Avignon: he was saved. Vainly until then had he resorted to frequent
fasting; vainly had he slept sitting on a stool;[839] vainly had he
shunned the looks of woman, worn haircloth next his skin, scourged
himself, and so weakened his body that he could scarcely hold himself
upright, and sometimes even fainted in the churches and fields as he
was preaching to the people. All this, he tells us, could not
extinguish the desires and banish the thoughts that preyed upon him,
and it was only in faith on the free grace of God and in the sanctity
of a married life that he found purity and peace.[840] This is one of
those numerous examples which prove that marriage, being of Divine
appointment, is a means of grace and holiness, and that the celibacy
of priests and monks, the invention of man, is one of the most
effectual agents to foster impurity, sully the imagination, disturb
the peace of families, and fill society with innumerable disorders.
[839] Non aliter dormuisse multo tempore quam in scamno nudo sedentem.
Lamb. de sacro conjugio.
[840] Donec secundum altissimi jussionem conjux factus est. Ibid.
At last the friar had made up his mind; he will quit the convent, he
will abandon popery, he will leave France. He will go where the
streams of the Gospel flow abundant and pure, and he will there plunge
into them, and quench the fires that are consuming him.[841] Since all
his efforts are unavailing, he will go to Wittemberg, to that great
servant of God, whose name alone conjures and affrights the devil, in
order that he may find peace.[842] He took advantage of some letters
that were to be carried to one of the superiors of the order, and
having donned his frock, quitted the Franciscan convent of Avignon in
the spring of 1522, after twenty years of struggle. He ascended the
Rhone, traversed Lyons, and crossed the forests that cover the lower
ridges of the Jura. This tall, thin, ungraceful monk still wore the
habit of his order, and rode on an ass, his bare feet almost touching
the ground. We have already seen him pass through Geneva, Lausanne,
Berne, and Zurich.[843] In the beginning of 1523, he was at
Wittemberg, and embraced Luther. But let us return to France and to
the Church of Meaux.
[841] Urebar tamen etiamsi nescirent alii. Ibid.
[842] Tametsi non habeam scorta et multis modis niterer ad
continentiam, nunquam pacem habui. Ibid.
[843] Vol. II. p. 381.