IMAGES AND THE MASS ABOLISHED.
(8TH TO 11TH AUGUST 1535.)
The Reformation protested against a ritualistic and meritorious worship;
against the multiplicity of feasts, consecrations, ecclesiastical usages
and customs; against any adoration whatever rendered to creatures,
images, and relics; against the invocation of mediators who usurped the
function of the Son of God; lastly, and chiefly, against a pretended
expiatory sacrifice, effected by the priests, which was substituted for
the only sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ.
[Sidenote: CHANTS OF THE PRIESTS.]
All these human vanities were about to disappear. Farel and his friends
waited for the reformatory ordinance; but the ardent huguenots, among
whom Ami Perrin was the most active, became impatient at the perpetual
hesitations of the council. A chance event called forth an energetic
demonstration on their part. The same Sunday (8th August) in the
afternoon at vespers, the canons, assembling again in their church,
chanted the Psalm _In exitu Israël_, 'When Israel went out of
Egypt,'[563] and, with the utmost simplicity, repeated in Latin what
Farel had said in the morning in French:
Simulacra gentium argentum et aurum,
Opera manuum hominum.
Os habent et non loquentur.
Oculos habent et non videbunt.
Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea
Et omnes qui confidunt in illis.[564]
The canons could not have chosen a fitter text. Some huguenots, who knew
Latin better perhaps than they did, smiled and called out: 'Ho there,
you priests, you curse in your chants those who made the images and
trusted in them, and yet you allow them to remain.' They restrained
themselves, however, for the moment. The magistrates continued
repeating, 'There is no need to abolish the mass and images; else very
formidable princes will be to you like ravening wolves rushing upon
sheep.'[565]
A very extraordinary thing occurred at this moment. Nobody was willing
to begin the work and yet it was accomplished. 'God,' said the
reformers, 'who holds the world in his hand, loves to choose the
contemptible rather than what is great and apparent.' In fact, it was a
mischievous jest of some children which dealt the first blow. 'For this
work,' says Froment, 'God stirred up a score of little boys.' These
children had often heard the priests, and their errors and abuses spoken
of; and their parents had added that it was time they were ended. They
slipped into St. Pierre's; stopped and listened, and were struck with
the strange intonations of the canons. Making their way towards a part
of the church remote from that in which the reverend fathers were
chanting, they began to play like boys of their age, 'while nobody
thought anything about it,' says the chronicler. They commenced singing
and shouting in imitation of the canons' voices. Presently they lifted
up the seats of the low stalls, on which the reverend fathers used to
sit when they were not engaged in the service, and let them fall with a
noise. Everybody knows the fondness little boys have for amusements of
this kind. They gambolled about, but in their games there was a certain
opposition to the worship which their fathers condemned. The petulance
of their age carried them away. They saw in a corner certain things that
resembled dolls; they could not resist their desire to take them; and
catching hold of the 'priests' mannikins,'[566] as Froment calls them,
they began to toss to one another the small grotesque figures with which
the chapels were decorated.
[Sidenote: THE IMAGES BROKEN.]
At this moment Perrin, Goulay, and their friends, attracted perhaps by
the noise, entered the cathedral. They saw that the great execution had
begun; children were beforehand with them. Passion and impulse carried
them away. They knew that it was the province of the government only to
work out a reform; but when the government hangs back from its duty,
what is to be done? 'We have petitioned the council to pull down the
idols,' they said; 'and it has not done so for want of courage. Let us
then come to its help and do what God commands.' At once the daring
citizens, going farther than the children, penetrated into the choir
where the priests were singing, and the latter asked in alarm what these
laymen were going to do. 'On a sudden,' says the chronicler, 'Perrin and
his companions threw the idols to the ground and broke them.' The
children who saw this began to run about and 'jump upon those little
gods.' Taking up the pieces, they ran to the door with glee, and called
to the people collected in front of the church: 'Here are the gods of
the priests, will you have a piece?' At the same time they threw the
fragments among the crowd. There was great confusion. The wiser heads
ineffectually argued that this work of reform should be left to the
council; those huguenots had no doubts as to their duty. If the
magistrates were unwilling to have the images destroyed, the Bible
commands it. 'The sun is now rising,' they said, 'and scattering
throughout Christendom the dense clouds that obscure the religion of
Jesus Christ.'
The order of things in the middle ages was indeed incompatible with the
new wants of society. Later, in the time of Calvin, after the first
victory had been gained, it was important to establish Christian
doctrine and to constitute Christian society; but now it was the time of
Farel. It was necessary to appeal to the spirit of liberty and to the
energetic development of the will—this a conservative writer has
acknowledged[567]—a necessity in the first ages at the time of the
establishment of Christianity; it was no less a necessity in the
sixteenth century. The powers that had invaded the Church were so
tenacious that the labor necessary to pull them down was a work of
revolution and of war. The moral fact was the same at the epoch of these
two great dispensations. Whoever applauds the axe which shattered the
colossal statue of Serapis at Alexandria,[568] cannot blame that which
threw down the images of a corrupt worship in the temples of Geneva.
Great was the sorrow felt by the devotees during that execution; they
seemed looking at the fall of the papacy itself. Some who had remained
in the church contemplated the heart-rending spectacle from afar.
Foolish women of the city, says Froment, began to weep and to groan.
'Alas! our good saints, our sacred images (they said) before which we
used to kneel!... Whom shall we adore now?'—and they 'cursed those dogs
(_cagnes_).'
A new and still more striking act increased the wrath of the priests and
that of their partisans. Of all the Romish dogmas there was none which
more disgusted the huguenots than transubstantiation. To affirm it (they
maintained) was to presume that Jesus Christ, man and God, was
transformed into a little cake. And hence a French refugee, Maigret,
surnamed the Magnificent, a man without pity for Roman errors, having
found some wafers in the church, threw them upon the ground; his dog,
who followed him, sprang upon them and ate them up. 'Now if these little
cakes had been real gods,' said the pitiless Maigret, 'they would not
have allowed themselves to be eaten by that beast.'[569] No one has
combated the doctrine of transubstantiation more vigorously than Calvin,
but he would not have approved of such a rude mode of acting; later, he
expressly condemned it. 'Let us not take too great license,' he said.
[Sidenote: HUGUENOT DISCOVERIES.]
The horror of the priests knew no bounds; they ran out of the church,
hastened to the hôtel-de-ville, and described to the council the violent
scenes that had just taken place. The syndics, irritated because the
huguenots had despised their orders, sent two of their number to the
cathedral—Antoine Chiquand and Ami Bandière. They were 'much excited,'
shouting and threatening 'those who had done this.' But the reformed
were not inclined to give way. They had made strange discoveries. Some
who had begun to search after the famous arm of St. Anthony—upon which,
in important cases, oaths used to be made with the ringing of bells and
great pomp, found—not the arm of the saint, but the limb of a stag.
Others, opening the precious shrine which inclosed the head of St.
Peter, brought out a piece of pumice-stone instead of the skull. 'See,'
they exclaimed, showing these objects to the surrounding crowd, 'see
what the priests used to make us worship.' This gave another direction
to the indignation of the delegates from the council, and one of them,
disgusted at such mean frauds, said to the other: 'If the gods of the
priests are true gods, let them defend themselves. As for us we can do
no more.' The huguenots, wishing to make these scandals known to the
people, put the pumice-stone and the stag's bone under magnificent
canopies, and prepared to carry these precious relics of an apostle and
a saint all round the city. The novel procession attracted an immense
crowd, and the disgusting falsehoods, of which it was a proof, opened
the eyes of the most obstinate. 'Now we know,' they said, 'the value of
the priests' words! They made us pay five florins for the ceremony; they
pretended that if any one made a false oath, the saint would wither up
his hand. All that was only to frighten and plunder us.' Every one began
to despise a clergy who, for so many ages, had thus played upon the good
faith of the people. An old writer has said: '_Justæ quibus est
iræ_.'[570] 'Woe unto the Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!'[571]
In the evening, a certain number of citizens met together after supper,
when the more excited 'proposed that they should make the round of the
other churches and throw down the idols everywhere.'—'No,' replied the
wiser ones, 'not now; if we did it at so late an hour, folks would say,
as they did of old at Pentecost, that we are _full of new wine_. Let us
wait until to-morrow morning.'[572] This was the general opinion.
The next day, Monday the 9th of August, early in the morning, the drum
beat in the streets. Some people asked 'Whether there was any alarm of
the enemy.'—'Make yourselves easy,' they answered; 'it is only a fight
against Rome and her idols.' Everything was conducted with order: the
citizens were drawn up in their companies. Baudichon de la Maisonneuve,
Pierre Vandel, and Ami Perrin, who were the three captains of the city,
put themselves at their head, and then they all marched with drums
beating to the church of St. Gervais. It was not a tumultuous band, but
the majority of the people advancing under the orders of their regular
captains. None of those citizens had the least doubt as to the
lawfulness of his proceedings. The new crusade, like that of Peter the
Hermit, was accomplished to the cry of—_It is the will of God!_
[Sidenote: SCANDALS AT ST. GERVAIS'.]
There were at St. Gervais' scandals still greater than at St. Pierre's.
The priests, to procure money, pretended that St. Nazaire, St. Celsus,
and St. Pantaleon were buried under the high altar. When a poor woman
approached, she heard a confused noise.[573] 'It is the voices of the
holy bodies,' said the priests, 'praying to be taken up and canonized;
but that requires a large sum of money.' Others related how at the dead
of night small luminous creatures were often seen moving about the
cemetery. 'They are souls from purgatory,' explained the ecclesiastics;
'they wander about here and there asking for masses for their
deliverance.' Certain persons, wishing to learn the truth, crept one
night into the cemetery, caught some of those poor souls, and found that
they were—crabs, with small wax tapers lighted and fastened on their
backs.[574] Frivolous men laughed, but serious men, seeing to what
guilty manœuvres the priests had been driven by the love of gain, were
seized with horror. 'Avarice so excites them,' said Calvin one day,
'that there is nothing they will not try, how bad soever it may
be—treacheries, frauds innumerable, hatreds, poisonings—as soon as the
gleam of silver or gold has dazzled their eyes.'
The three captains and their companies, having reached the church, began
by exploring the vault where the three saints groaned, and discovered
the trick. They found under the altar two earthen vessels connected by a
tube, and pierced with holes like those in an organ-pipe, so that the
least noise over the vessels produced the effect of organ-bellows, and
caused a sound like the indistinct murmur of persons talking.[575] 'The
poor papists could not believe it.'—'No!' they said; 'it is St. Nazaire,
St. Celsus, and St. Pantaleon.'—'Come and see then,' answered the
reformers. They came and saw, and 'some of them from that hour refused
to believe any more in such abuses.'[576]
[Sidenote: MIRACLES AT ST. DOMINIC'S.]
The judgment having been accomplished at St. Gervais, the three captains
turned their steps towards the church of St. Dominic, one of the chief
sanctuaries of popery between the Jura and the Alps. Great miracles were
worked there: the huguenots called them 'great swindles.' A beautiful
image adorned in a costly manner, and representing Our Lady, stood in
the church, and had the power (it was said) of calling back to life the
children who had died without baptism. Poor people came to Geneva from
all the country round, with their lifeless little children, and laid
them on the altar before the image. Then a feather placed on the
infant's mouth flew into the air, or else the cheeks flushed with red:
sometimes the child perspired. The spectators cried out: 'A miracle!'
'The child is resuscitated' (_revicoullé_), said the monks. Immediately
the bells rang, the child was christened, and then buried. 'The child
had never been restored alive to its father or mother,' said the
huguenots, 'and yet they had to pay dearly for it.' The citizens lifted
up the altar and found two machines under it: on one side were certain
instruments in which they blew to make the child breathe, and on the
other some stones which were heated to make the child turn color or
perspire. An ointment with which they had smeared it became soft, and
gave a certain hue to its flesh. 'Really,' exclaimed the Genevans,
'those who believe such clumsy absurdities ought to have been
converted—into blocks!' Henceforth Our Lady ceased to work
miracles.[577]
The band of reformers, having passed to the refectory, found there a
carving representing a big fat woman at a table cutting up a large pie,
with monks seated round her. Beneath were these words from psalm
cxxxiii., _Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity!_ At this moment Farel came up: 'Is it thus, my
fathers,' he said, 'that you interpret Holy Scripture? Have you not
jeered enough at men, but you must jeer also at the Word of God? By what
right do you adapt it to your gluttony?' 'Alas!' exclaimed the monks,
'excuse us; you have come too late to make us renounce our good
customs.'[578]
Meanwhile some huguenots had stopped before another piece of sculpture,
at which they were quite amazed. At the top they saw a devil with seven
heads: from the devil issued the pope with his triple crown; from the
pope issued the cardinals; from the cardinals the bishops, monks, and
priests ... and below them was a burning furnace representing hell. The
reformed Genevans were astonished to find in a convent of St. Dominic a
satire upon the papacy, more cutting than all that they had ever
imagined.[579]
The three captains and their companies arrived at last near the Arve,
where stood the church of Notre Dame; but the syndic, informed of what
was going on, arrived at the same time, and wishing to save a famous
picture of the Virgin, had it carried before them to the hôtel-de-ville.
There was no lack of raillery; people asked if they were going to work
miracles with the picture? and they were compelled to burn it in the
great hall to escape the jokes that were showered upon them.
The campaign was over; the citizens returned to their homes; the
Christian conscience approved of their work. The suppression of so many
shameful frauds—was it not ordered in heaven? From that day mass was
sung no longer in any of the churches.[580] The action of the citizens
was more than a popular movement: the Reform was strengthened by it. No
one would have condemned the vile tricks of the priests more than the
honest and brave Luther. Yet Luther, putting specially in the foreground
the great doctrine of man's justification by faith, thundered against
indulgences and other pretended good works, but tolerated images; while
Zwingle, Farel, and Calvin, regarding especially God, His glory, and His
grace, protested against every apotheosis of the creature, against all
paganism, and particularly against all images in the Lord's temple. Here
then was a characteristic difference between Lutheranism and the Reform.
Great was the sorrow and anger of the priests. Gathered round the ruins
of what they had adored, some remained silent while others uttered cries
of horror. The threats of the clergy were such that the alarmed council
that very day called the three captains before them, and asked if they
intended to obey orders. 'Certainly,' they replied; 'we destroyed the
images, because they were set up contrary to God's Word.' The syndics,
struck with the firmness of those men, summoned the council of Two
Hundred for the next day.[581]
The next day was the 10th of August, a memorable day which was to decide
the destiny of Geneva. There was great agitation throughout the city.
Some of the friends of Rome still hoped, trusting in the antiquity of
their forms and traditions; but the reformed believed the cause of the
Reformation gained, since there was on its side God, His Word, and the
majority of the citizens and of the councils. The two hundred senators
having taken their place, and many other persons of note sitting near
them, Farel appeared, accompanied by Pierre Viret, Jacques Bernard, and
several laymen. His slight appearance, his complexion tanned by the sun,
and his red beard, so dreaded by the priests, had nothing imposing; but
there was in that man a heart burning with love for Christ's Gospel, and
from those thick lips flowed streams of masculine eloquence which
carried away all hearers. He advanced firm and sure of the victory of
the Reformation. It is written: _Whatsoever is born of God overcometh
the world. Fear not._ There was much talking and agitation in the
assembly: the men who composed it had a presentiment of great things;
they felt the importance of the crisis, and, full of anxiety about what
would happen, fixed their eyes on Farel.
[Sidenote: FAREL BEFORE THE COUNCIL.]
Silence having been proclaimed, the reformer, holding the minutes of the
disputation in his hand, began to speak, and selected as the principal
points of the debate the worship of images and the sacrifice of the
mass. He reminded them 'that most of those who demanded their
maintenance had abstained from appearing; that others had not been able
to defend them, and that many had rejected them. 'Why,' he exclaimed,
'should not all embrace the Gospel? We are ready, my colleagues and I,
not only to make a public confession, but (if necessary) to sprinkle it
with our blood.' Then addressing the council directly, and raising his
'voice of thunder,' says a Roman-catholic author, he called upon the
assembly to deliver a judgment that should give glory to God. 'What!'
said he: 'the dominion of the papacy is falling, and would you lift your
hands to support what God is overthrowing? Will you always halt between
two opinions? If the pope really utters oracles, listen to him; but if
the voice we hear in Scripture is God's voice, do what it ordains.'—Here
Farel stopped: he felt the importance of the decision that was about to
be taken, and a profound emotion came over him. Lifting his hands
towards heaven, he exclaimed: 'O God! enlighten this council, make it
understand that Thy glory and the salvation of all this people are
concerned; humble the loud boasting of the priests,[582] and make Thy
cause triumph.' This 'earnest prayer,' as a manuscript terms it, made a
deep impression upon all who heard it.
The deliberation began: it was calm, serious, thoughtful, and marked
with all the dignity such an important affair demanded. The most earnest
reformers would have liked the immediate cessation of popery in Geneva;
but the council thought it wiser to proceed slowly. As Farel had uttered
a new challenge against the priests, the premier syndic proposed to call
upon them to defend the mass and image-worship if they could. Meanwhile
it was ordered, that (not to offend the catholics) the pulling down of
images should be stopped, and that (not to offend the reformers) the
celebration of mass should cease. These resolutions passed almost
unanimously.[583]
But Rome was already vanquished and the friends of the reformed were
eager to prove it. A layman stood up and said: 'You call up the priests,
but I am much afraid there is not one left in the city. They are all
thinking of running away and carrying off the church treasures. Why
should we always temporize? The reform of the abuses which disfigured
religion, far from damaging its existence, will restore it to itself,
just as washing a smeared and dirty picture restores it to its primitive
condition. That bishop, those priests, those citizens who run away, are
not the Church, they are only deserters.' The council resolved
unanimously that the Romish priests who fled were not carrying the
Church of Geneva with them, and ordered an inventory to be taken of all
ecclesiastical property. The sitting then broke up.[584]
[Sidenote: CONFISCATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY.]
The mass was suppressed: this was an enormous step. The abolition of the
mass was the abolition of popery. The reform was immediately carried
into execution. The next day (11th August) a formal order was issued
'neither to sing nor to say mass' in the city of Geneva. The frightened
priests obeyed: they drew in their horns, they hid themselves, and took
good care not to permit the least chant to be heard. Ere long there was
a new trouble. They saw the commissioners of the council enter the
churches and draw up an inventory of the furniture, jewels, and
ecclesiastical property. With downcast eyes and silent lips, the
ministers of Rome beheld the disappearance of the fine portraits, pyxes,
chalices, and other precious works, which were removed to a place of
safety beyond the reach of dilapidation. They were valued at more than
ten thousand crowns. From that day no Roman service was celebrated in
the city. There was not to be found among the clergy one of those
enthusiastic souls who rush into the midst of danger to uphold and to
proclaim their faith.
These bold acts were not, however, accomplished without a murmur. The
populace generally was for the Roman worship, and some opposition cries
were heard. 'If the mass is no longer sung,' said some timid souls to
the syndics, 'the people may rise.'[585] 'Ah!' said some prudent men,
'if the mass is sung again, that would create a still greater
disturbance.' The council therefore maintained the prohibition. A few
catholics, faithful to the superstitions of ages, might be seen going at
the canonical hours into the silent churches, wandering like ghosts
through the deserted aisles, and shedding tears. Alas! there were no
more chants, no more prayers, no more masses, no more litanies, no more
incense! The priests and the organ—all were silent.
In those days of great alarm a few women only displayed any courage. 'We
will not strike our colors,' said the sisters of St. Claire. And in fact
they did hear the mass, but with closed doors and in low tones in the
middle of the choir, and sometimes, for greater security, in the
refectory. Zealous catholics went and knocked stealthily at the convent
gate and begged in a whisper to be admitted to the masses celebrated
without singing and without pomp. They joined in the service with
trembling: they pricked up their ears and were alarmed at the least
noise. This fidelity did not last long. Five days later, on the 5th of
August, the feast of the Assumption, the last communion took place. The
father-confessor and his companions, after saying mass timidly, stole
out of the city.[586]
[Sidenote: CHRIST, AND NOT CEREMONIES.]
While night was gradually stretching its veil over popery and its
followers, the sun rose higher upon the friends of the Holy Scriptures.
There were no more Latin chants, no more theatrical postures, sacerdotal
garments, pictures and incense; none of those practices pleasing to the
eye, to the ear, or to the smell, which had so long reigned in the
Church; but in their place Jesus Christ;—Christ, in the past, making
atonement on the cross for the sins of His people;—Christ, in the
present, always in the midst of His followers, vivifying, sanctifying,
and consoling their hearts. These Christian men had entered into the new
era of truth and charity, to which the reformers invited them. While the
councils were busy particularly with the maintenance of tranquillity;
while the great body sought only independence and liberty—precious
goods, but which cannot suffice—the small body of truly pious souls,
acknowledging the Son of God as the author of a new life, were decided
to follow wherever He should lead them.
The fall of the mass, which dates from the 10th of August, was regarded
by the reformed as a sign of victory, and the Genevan Church, adopting
this idea, celebrates every century in the month of August (reckoning
from 1535) the jubilee of its reformation. After three years of
struggles the first victory was gained; but a fourth year was to pass
away before the definitive establishment of the Reform. Let us therefore
continue our march until May 1536, and even until the arrival of Calvin.
[563] Psalms cxiv. and cxv. In the Vulgate cxiii.
[564] 'Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They
have mouths but they speak not; eyes have they but they see not. They
that make them are like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in
them.'
[565] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 144.
[566] 'Les marmousets des prêtres.'
[567] M. Guizot.
[568] Sozomenes, vii. 15.
[569] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 146.
[570] Virgil, _Æneid_, x. 716.
But otherwise the troops, with hate inspired And _just revenge_,
against the tyrant _fired_.—Dryden.
[571] Matthew, xxiii. 14.
[572] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, pp. 144-146.—Registres du Conseil du
8 Août 1535.
[573] 'Bonæ vetulæ mulieres solebant suos chapelettos, in eas quas
credebant ibidem esse sanctas reliquias, demergere.'—Registres du
Conseil du 8 Décembre 1535.
[574] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 149.
[575] 'Duo vasta terrea habebant vaginam seu conductum terreum de uno ad
alium; adeo ut vasa, sic sibi respondentia, resonarent ad modum murmuris
hominis.'—Registres du Conseil du 8 Août 1535.
[576] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 150.
[577] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 152.
[578] _Ibid._ p. 151.
[579] Froment, _Gestes de Genève_, p. 153. An engraving of this picture
is given in the edition of Froment published by M. Revilliod.
[580] Registres du Conseil du 9 Août 1535.
[581] Registres du Conseil du 9 Août 1535.
[582] 'Rabats le haut caquet des prêtres.'
[583] Registres du Conseil du 10 Août 1535.—MSC. Chouet.
[584] _Ibid._—Chronique de Roset, iii. ch. xxxvii.
[585] Registres du Conseil, ad annum.
[586] Jeanne de Jussie, _Commencement de l'Hérésie dans Genève_, pp.
144, 145.—Registres du Conseil des 10 et 12 Août.—Chron. MSC. de Roset.