MARGARET'S SORROWS AND THE FESTIVITIES OF THE COURT
(1530-1531.)
When was France to turn herself towards the Word of God? At the time of
her brother's return from his Spanish captivity, Margaret had solicited
him to grant liberty of preaching the Gospel, and the king, as will be
remembered, had deferred the matter until his sons were restored to
freedom. That moment seemed to have arrived. In order to recover his
children, Francis had sacrificed at Cambray (June 1529), in _the Ladies'
Peace_, the towns he had conquered, the allies who had been faithful to
him, and two millions of crowns besides.
It was not, however, until ten months later that the children of France
returned. All the royal family hurried to the Spanish frontier to
receive them; all, except Margaret. 'As it would be difficult to take
you further without danger,' said her mother, 'the king and I have
determined to leave you behind for your confinement.'[166] Margaret,
uneasy and perhaps a little jealous, wrote to Montmorency: 'When the
King of Navarre is with you, I pray you to advise him; but I much fear
that you will not be able to prevent his falling in love with the
Spanish ladies.'[167] At the beginning of July the king's children were
restored to their father; Margaret was transported with joy, and showed
it by her enthusiastic letters to Francis I.[168] She loved these
princes like a mother. More serious thoughts soon filled her mind: the
epoch fixed by her brother had arrived, but would he keep his promise?
[Sidenote: MARGARET PROMOTES UNITY.]
Margaret lost no time. Being left alone at Blois, she endeavoured to
strengthen the good cause, and carried on an active correspondence with
the leaders of the Reform. 'Alas!' said the priests, 'while King Francis
is labouring to protect his kingdom from the inundations of the Rhine
(that is, the Reformation), his sister the Queen of Navarre is trying to
break the dykes and throw down the embankments.'[169] There was one work
above all which Margaret had at heart; she wished to put an end to the
divisions among the evangelicals. She entreated the Frenchmen who were
at Strasburg, 'waiting for the consolation of Israel,' to do all in
their power to terminate the disunion; she even commanded Bucer to do
so.[170] Bucer's fine talents, benevolent character, and cultivated
understanding, the eloquence of his language, the dignity of his
carriage, the captivating sound of his voice, his discerning of spirits,
his ardent zeal—all seemed to fit him for a peace-maker. He set to work
without delay, and informed Luther of the princess's injunctions. 'If
our opinions are compared with yours,' he said, 'it will be easily seen
that they are radically the same, although expressed in different terms.
Let us not furnish our enemies with a weapon with which to attack
truth.'[171]
If Margaret had confidence in Bucer, he too had confidence in her. He
admired the sincerity of her faith, the liveliness of her piety, the
purity of her manners, the beauty of her understanding, the charms of
her conversation, and the abundance of her good works. 'Never was this
christian heroine found wanting in her duty,' he wrote to Luther.[172]
The Strasburgers thought that if Luther and the Germans on one side, and
Margaret and the French on the other, were united, the cause of the
Reformation would be triumphant in Europe. Whenever any good news
arrived from France, Bucer thrilled with joy; he ran to communicate it
to Capito, to Hedion, to Zell, and to Hohenlohe; and then he wrote to
Luther: 'The brethren write to us from France, dear doctor, that the
Gospel is spreading among them in a wonderful manner. A great number of
the nobility have already received the truth.[173] There is a certain
district in Normandy where the Gospel is spread so widely that the enemy
call it _Little Germany_.[174] The king is no stranger to the good
doctrine;[175] and as his children are now at liberty, he will no longer
pay such regard to what the pope and the emperor demand. Christ will
soon be publicly confessed over the whole kingdom.'[176]
[Sidenote: DEATH OF MARGARET'S CHILD.]
The Queen of Navarre was obliged to discontinue her correspondence with
the reformers of Germany; great joys and great anguish gave another
direction to her thoughts. About a fortnight after the return of the
children of France, Margaret became the mother of a fine boy at the
castle of Blois. When the king passed through that place on his return
from the Pyrenees, he took his sister with him, after her churching, to
Fontainebleau. But erelong bad tidings of her child summoned Margaret to
Alençon, where he was staying with his nurse; he died on Christmas day,
1530, at the age of five months and a half. The mother who had watched
near him, who had felt his sweet breath upon her cheek, saw him now
lying dead in his little cradle, and could not turn away her eyes from
him. At one time she thought he would revive, but alas! he was really
dead. The queen felt as if her life had been torn from her; her strength
was exhausted; her heart bled, but God consoled her. 'I place him,' she
said, 'in the arms of his Father;' and as she felt the necessity of
giving glory to God publicly, she sent for one of her principal
officers, and, with a voice stifled by tears and sighs, ordered that the
child's death should be posted up in the principal quarters of the city,
and that these words should be at the foot of the notice:
THE LORD GAVE, AND THE LORD HATH TAKEN AWAY.
A sentiment of joy mingled, however, with her inexpressible sorrow; and,
confident that the little child was in the presence of God, the pious
mother ordered a _Te Deum_ to be sung.[177] 'I entreat you both,' she
wrote to her brother and to her mother, 'to _rejoice at his glory_, and
not give way to any sadness.'[178] Francis, who had not long before lost
two daughters, was moved at this solemn circumstance, and replied to his
sister: 'You have borne the grief of mine, as if they were your own lost
children; now I must bear yours, as if it were my own loss. It is the
third of yours and the last of mine, whom God has called away to his
blessed communion, acquired by them with little labour, and desired by
us with such great travail.'[179] There are afflictions from God which
awaken deep feelings, even in the most frivolous hearts, and lips which
are ordinarily dumb sometimes utter harmonious sounds in the presence of
death. Other consolations were not wanting to the queen. Du Bellay, at
that time Bishop of Bayonne, and afterwards of Paris, hastened to
Alençon: 'Ah!' said Margaret, 'but for our Lord's help, the burden would
have been more than I could bear.'[180] The bishop urged her, on the
part of the king, to go to St. Germain, where preparations were making
for the coronation of Queen Eleanor, the emperor's sister. Margaret, who
always obeyed her brother's orders, quitted Alençon, though with sorrow,
in order to be present at his marriage.
[Sidenote: MARRIAGE OF FRANCIS AND ELEANOR.]
The court had never been more brilliant. The less happiness there was in
this marriage, the more pomp the king desired to display; joy of the
heart was replaced by the sound of the fife and drum and of the hautboy.
The dresses were glittering, the festivities magnificent.
There were mysteries and games, and the streets were gaily drest,
And the roads with flowers were strewn of the sweetest and the best;
On every side were galleries, and, if 't would pleasure yield,
We'd have conjured up again for thee a new Elysian field.[181]
Princes, archbishops, bishops, barons, knights, gentlemen of parliament,
and the magistrates of the city, were assembled for this illustrious
marriage; scholars and poets were not wanting. Francis I. would often
repeat the proverb addressed by Fouquet, Count of Anjou, to Louis IV.:
Un roi non lettré
Est un âne couronné.[182]
Philologers, painters, and architects had flocked to France from foreign
countries. They had met in Paris men worthy to receive them. William
Budæus, the three brothers Du Bellay, William Petit, the king's
confessor; William Cop, the friend of Lascaris and Erasmus; Pierre du
Châtel, who so gracefully described his travels in the East; Pellicier,
the learned commentator on Pliny, whose papers have not, however, been
printed;[183] Peter Danès, whose talents and knowledge Calvin esteemed
so highly: all these scholars, who entertained sympathies, more or less
secret, for the Reform, were then at court. These men of letters passed
among the Roman party as belonging to Luther's flock.[184] Somewhat
later, indeed, when one of them, Danès, was at the Council of Trent, a
French orator inveighed strongly against the lax morals of Rome. The
Bishop of Orvieto said with contempt: '_Gallus cantat!_'—'_Utinam_,'
sharply retorted Danès, then ambassador for France, '_utinam ad galli
cantum Petrus resipisceret!_'[185] But the cock has often crowed, and
Peter has shed no tears.
In the midst of all these men of letters was
Margaret, the fairest flower
That ever grew on earth,
as Ronsard called her. But although her fine understanding enjoyed this
select society, more serious thoughts occupied her mind. She could not
forget, even in the midst of the court, the little angel that had flown
away from her; she was uneasy about the friends of the Gospel; the
worldly festivities around her left her heart depressed and unsatisfied.
She endeavoured to pierce the thick clouds that hung over her, and
soaring in spirit to the 'heavenly kingdom,' she grasped the hand that
Christ stretched out to her from on high. She returned to the well of
Jacob, where she had drunk when she was so tired with her journey. She
had been as a parched and weary land, having neither dew nor moisture,
and the Lord had refreshed her with the clear springs of his Holy
Spirit. 'A continual sprinkling (to use her own words) kept up in her a
heavenly eternity;' and she would have desired all who gathered round
her to come to that well where she had so effectually quenched her own
thirst. Accordingly, in the midst of the worldly agitation of the court,
and of all the honours lavished on her rank and her wit, the poor
mother, whose heart was bruised but consoled, looked out in silence for
some lamb which she could recall from its wandering, and said:
[Sidenote: THE FOUNTAIN PURE AND FREE.]
'Come to my fountain pure and free,
Drink of its stream abundantly.'
Hasten, sinners, to the call
Of your God, who speaks to all:
'Come and drink—it gives relief
To every form of mortal grief;
Come and drink the draught divine,
Out of this new fount of mine.
Wash away each mortal stain
In the blood of Jesu slain.
No return I seek from thee
But works of love and charity.'
Hasten, sinners, to the brink
Of this stream so pure, and drink!
Fill your hearts, so that ye may
Serve God better every day.
Then, well washed of every stain
That of earth might yet remain,
By Jesu's love at last set free,
Live in heaven eternally.
'Come to my fountain pure and free,
Drink of its stream abundantly!'
Listen, sinners, to the call
Of your God, who speaks to all.[186]
These appeals were not unavailing. The Reformation was advancing in
France by two different roads: one was on the mountains, the other in
the plain. The Gospel gained hearts among the sons of labour and of
trial; but it gained others also among the learned and high-born, whose
faculty of inquiry had been aroused, and who desired to substitute truth
in the place of monastic superstitions. Margaret was the evangelist of
the court and of the king. Her mother, with Duprat and Montmorency,
ruled in the council-chamber, the Duchess of Etampes in the court
festivities, but the gentle voice of the Queen of Navarre supported
Francis in his frequent periods of uneasiness and dejection. Yet not to
the king alone did Margaret devote at this time the attentions of her
ardent charity. All the affections of her heart were just now
concentrated on a single object.
[Sidenote: LOUISA OF SAVOY DYING.]
She had not recovered from the death of her child, when another blow
fell upon the Queen of Navarre. The brilliant and gay festivities of the
court were succeeded by the sullen silence of the grave; and the icy
coldness, which had presided over the marriage of Francis with his
enemy's sister, was followed by the keen anguish and the bitter sorrows
of the tenderest of daughters. About the end of the year 1531 the Isle
of France was visited by an epidemic. Louisa of Savoy was taken
seriously ill at Fontainebleau, where the children of the king were
staying. Margaret hurried thither immediately. Louisa, that great enemy
of the Reformation, weakened by her dissolute life, was suffering from a
severe fever, and yet, imagining that she would not die, she continued
to attend to business of importance, and, between the paroxysms of the
disease that was killing her, dictated her despatches to the king. Never
had mother so depraved and daughter so virtuous felt such love for each
other. As soon as she saw the Duchess of Angoulême, the Queen of Navarre
anticipated 'the greatest of misfortunes,' and never left her side. The
king's children afforded their grandmother some diversion. Charles, Duke
of Angoulême, then nine years old, thought only of his father. 'If I
only meet him,' said the boy one day, 'I will never let go his
hand.'—'And if the king should go to hunt the boar?' said his
aunt.—'Well! I shall not be afraid; papa will be able to take care of
me.'—'When Madame heard these words,' wrote Margaret to her brother,
'she burst into tears, which has done her much good.'
In the midst of all these mournful occupations, Margaret kept watch over
the friends of the Gospel. 'Dear nephew,' she wrote to the grand-master
Montmorency, 'that good man Lefèvre writes to me that he is
uncomfortable at Blois, because the folks there are trying to annoy him.
For change of air, he would willingly go and see a friend of his, if
such were the king's good pleasure.' Margaret, finding that the enemies
of the Reform were tormenting the old man, gave him an asylum at Nerac
in her own states. We shall meet with him there hereafter.
On the 20th of September, Louisa, feeling a little better, left
Fontainebleau for Romorantin; but she had hardly reached Grez, near
Nemours, when her failing voice, her labouring breath, and her words so
sad 'that no one could listen to them, gave her daughter a sorrow and
vexation impossible to describe.'[187] 'It is probable that she will
die,' wrote Margaret to the king. Louisa, notwithstanding her weakness,
still busied herself with affairs of state; she wished to die governing.
Deep sorrow filled her daughter's heart. It was too much for her, this
sight of a mother whom she loved with intense affection, trifling on the
brink of the grave, strengthening herself against death by means of her
power and her greatness, 'as if they would serve her as a rampart and
strong tower,' forgetting that there was another besides herself, who
disposed of that life of which she fancied herself to be the mistress.
Margaret did not rest content with only praying for her mother; she sat
by her and spoke to her of the Saviour. 'Madame,' she said, 'I entreat
you to fix your hopes elsewhere. Strive to make God propitious to
you.'[188] This woman, so ambitious, clever, false, and dissolute, whose
only virtue was maternal love, does not appear to have opened her heart
to her daughter's voice. She breathed her last on the 29th of September,
1531, in the arms of the Queen of Navarre.
Thoughts of a different order were soon to engross Margaret's attention.
Hers was a sincere and living piety, but she had an excessive fear of
contests and divisions, and, like many eminent persons of that epoch,
she desired at any cost, and even by employing diplomatic means, to
achieve a reform which should leave catholicity intact. To set before
herself a universal transformation of the Church was certainly a noble
and a christian aim; but Calvin, Luther, Farel, and others saw that it
could only be attained at the expense of truth. The Queen of Navarre's
fault was her readiness to sacrifice everything to the realisation of
this beautiful dream; and we shall see what was done in France (Francis
lending himself to it from mere political motives) to attain the
accomplishment of this magnificent but chimerical project.
[Footnote 166: _Lettres de la Reine de Navarre_, i. p. 247.]
[Footnote 167: _Lettres de la Reine de Navarre_, i. p. 246.]
[Footnote 168: Ibid. ii. p. 105.]
[Footnote 169: Flor. Rémond, _Hist. de l'Hérésie_, p. 487.]
[Footnote 170: 'Jussu reginæ Navarræ, ut hoc tandem dissidium
tollatur.'—Buceri _Opera Anglicana_, fᵒ 693. Gerdesius, ii. p. 33.]
[Footnote 171: 'Præbetur telum hostibus.'—Gerdesius, iv. p. 33.]
[Footnote 172: 'Nunquam suo officio deest christianissima illa heroīna,
regis soror.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 173: 'Procerum magnus numerus jam veritati accessit.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 174: 'Ut cœperint eam vocare _parvam Allemaniam_.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 175: 'Rex a veritate alienus non est.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 176: 'Bona spes est, brevi fore, ut Christus publicum apud
ipsos obtineat.'—Gerdesius, iv. p. 33.]
[Footnote 177: Charles de Sainte-Marthe, _Oraison funèbre de
Marguerite_.]
[Footnote 178: _Lettres de la Reine de Navarre_, i. p. 269.]
[Footnote 179: Ibid.]
[Footnote 180: Ibid. i. pp. 272, 273.]
[Footnote 181: Marot, _Chronique de François I._ p. 90.]
[Footnote 182: 'An unlettered king is a crowned ass.' A.D. 936.]
[Footnote 183: Teissier, _Eloge des Hommes savants_, i. p. 200.]
[Footnote 184: Flor. Rémond, _Hist. de l'Hérésie_, p. 884.]
[Footnote 185: The Latin word _gallus_ signifies both _Frenchman_ and
_cock_. 'The Frenchman crows,' said the bishop. 'Would to God,' retorted
Danès, 'that Peter (the pope) would repent at the crowing of the cock!'
Sismondi, _Hist. des Français_, xvi. p. 359.]
[Footnote 186: _Les Marguerites de la Marguerite_, i. pp. 505-508.]
[Footnote 187: _Lettres de la Reine de Navarre_, i. p. 280; ii. p. 120.]
[Footnote 188: _Lettres de la Reine de Navarre_, i. p. 269.]