art, science, and letters, it must be confessed that there were
indications, no less distinct, of a lamentable neglect of moral
training, and of a state of manners scarcely raised above that of
uncivilized communities of men. It was still an age of blood. The pages
of chronicles, both public and private, teem with proofs of the
insignificant value set upon human life and happiness. In many parts of
France the peasant rarely enjoyed quiet for even a few consecutive
months. Organized bands of robbers, familiarly known as "Mauvais
Garcons," infested whole provinces, and laid towns and villages under
contribution. Not unfrequently two or three hundred men were to be found
in a single band, and the robberies, outrages, and murders they
committed defy recital. Often the miscreants were _aventuriers_, or
volunteers whose employers had failed to furnish them their stipulated
pay, and who avenged their losses by exactions levied upon the
unfortunate peasantry. Indeed, if we may believe the almost incredible
statements of one of the laws enacted for their suppression, they had
been known to carry by assault even walled cities, and to exercise
against the miserable inhabitants cruelty such as disgraces the very
name of man.[73]
[Sidenote: Barbarous punishments.]
The character or the punishments inflicted for the commission of crime
furnishes a convenient test of national civilization. If France in the
sixteenth century be tried by this criterion, the conclusion is
inevitable that for her the age of barbarism had not yet completely
passed away. The catalogue of crimes to which death was affixed as the
penalty is frightfully long; some of them were almost trivial offences.
A boy less than sixteen years of age was hung for stealing jewelry from
his master.[74] On the other hand, with flagrant inconsistency, a
nobleman, Rene de Bonneville, superintendent of the royal mint, for the
murder of his brother-in-law, was dragged to the place of execution on a
hurdle, but suffered the less ignominious fate of decapitation. A part
of his property was given to his sister, and the rest confiscated to the
crown, with the exception of four hundred livres, reserved for the
purchase of masses to be said for the benefit of the soul of his
murdered victim.[75]
[Sidenote: Especially for heresy.]
For other culprits extraordinary refinements of cruelty were reserved.
The _aventuriers_, when so ill-starred as to fall into the hands of
justice, were customarily burned alive at the stake.[76] The same fate
overtook those who were detected in frauds against the public treasury.
More frightful than all the rest was the vengeance taken by the law upon
the counterfeiter of the king's coin. The legal penalty, which is said
to have become a dead letter on the pages of the statute-book long
before the French revolution, was in the sixteenth century rigidly
enforced: on the 9th of November, 1527, a rich merchant of Paris, having
been found guilty of the crime in question, was boiled alive before the
assembled multitude in the _Marche-aux-pourceaux_.[77] Heresy and
blasphemy were treated with no greater degree of leniency than the most
infamous of crimes. Even before the reformation a lingering death in the
flames had been the doom pronounced upon the person who dared to accept
or promulgate doctrines condemned by the church. But when the bitterness
of strife had awakened the desire to enhance the punishment of dissent,
new or extraordinary tortures were resorted to, of the application of
which this history will furnish only too many examples. The forehead was
branded, the tongue torn out, the hand cut off at the wrist, or the
agonies of death prolonged by alternately dropping the wretched victim
into the fire and drawing him out again, until exhausted nature found
tardy release in death.
But if we can to some extent account for the excess of cruelty which
blind frenzy inflicted on the inflexible martyr to his faith, it is
certainly more difficult to explain the severity exercised upon the more
pliable, whom the arguments of ghostly advisers, or the terrors of the
_Place de Greve_, had induced to recant. Generally the judge did nothing
more in their behalf than commute their punishment by ordering them to
be strangled before their bodies were consigned to the flames.[78] Yet
in one exceptional case--that of a servant whose master, a gentleman and
one of the men-at-arms of the Regent of Scotland, was burned alive--the
court went to such a length of leniency as to let the repentant heretic
off with the sentence that he first be beaten with rods at the cart's
end, and afterwards have his tongue cut out.[79] Even the clearest
evidence of insanity did not suffice to remove or even mitigate the
penalties of impiety. A poor, crazy woman, who had broken the
consecrated wafer when administered to her in her illness, and had
applied to it some offensive but absurd epithet, was unhesitatingly
condemned to the stake. An appeal to a superior court procuring no
reversal of her sentence, she was burned at Tours in the year 1533.[80]
[Sidenote: Belief in astrology.]
[Sidenote: Predictions of Nostradamus.]
Other marks of a low stage of civilization were not wanting. The belief
in judicial astrology was almost universal.[81] Pretenders like
Nostradamus obtained respect and wealth at the hands of their dupes. All
France trembled with Catharine de' Medici, when the astrologer gave out
that the queen would see all her sons kings, and every one foreboded the
speedy extinction of the royal line. The "prophecy," as it was gravely
styled, obtained public recognition, and was discussed in diplomatic
papers. When two of the queen's sons had in fact become kings of France,
and a third had been elected to the throne of Poland, while the marriage
of the fourth with Queen Elizabeth was under consideration, Catharine's
allies saw grounds to congratulate her that the prediction which had so
disquieted her was likely to obtain a more pleasing fulfilment than in
the successive deaths of her male descendants.[82]
A still more pernicious form of superstition was noticeable in the
credit enjoyed by charms and incantations, not merely among illiterate
rustics, but even with persons of high social station. No phase of the
magic art led to the commission of more terrible crimes or revealed a
worse side of human character than that which pretended to secure the
happiness or accomplish the ruin, to prolong the life or hasten the
death, of the objects of private love or hatred. While systematically
practising upon the credulity of his dupes, the professed master of this
ill-omened art frequently resorted to assassination by poison or dagger
in the accomplishment of his schemes. Sorcery by means of waxen images
was particularly in vogue. Thus, the Queen of Navarre, the sister of
Francis the First, in her singular collection of tales, the
"Heptameron," gives a circumstantial account of the mode in which her
own life was sought by this species of witchcraft.[83] Five puppets had
been provided: three, representing enemies (the queen being one of the
number), had their arms hanging down; the other two, representing
persons whose favor was desired, had them raised aloft. With certain
cabalistic words and occult rites the puppets were next secretly hidden
beneath an altar whereon the mass was celebrated, and the mysterious
"sacrifice" was believed to complete the efficacy of the charm. It was
no new superstition imported from abroad, but one that had existed in
France for centuries.[84]
[Sidenote: Reverence for relics.]
The French were behind no other nation in reverence for relics of saints
and for pictures and images representing them. In the partial list,
compiled by a contemporary, of the curiosities of this nature scattered
through Christendom,[85] the majority of the relics mentioned are
selected from the immense treasures laid up in the thousands of
cathedrals, parish churches, and abbeys within the domains of the "Very
Christian King." In one place the hair of the blessed Virgin was
carefully preserved; in another the sword of the archangel Michael, or
the entire body of St. Dionysius. It was true that the Pope had by
solemn bull, about a century before, declared, in the presence of the
French ambassador, that the entire body of this last-named saint was in
the possession of the inhabitants of Ratisbon; but, had any one been so
rash as to affirm at Saint Denis, near Paris, that the veritable remains
were not there, he would certainly have been stoned.[86] At Notre-Dame
de l'Ile, above Lyons, no little account was made of the _twelve combs_
of the apostles![87]
The reflecting man who found, by a comparison of the treasures of
different churches within his own personal observation, that some of the
pretended relics were frivolous or impossible, and that the same members
of some favorite saint were reproduced at points widely distant, might
well speculate upon the probable benefits to Christendom from a complete
inventory of the contents of the churches of two or three thousand
bishoprics, of twenty or thirty thousand abbeys, and of more than forty
thousand convents.[88] He might find difficulty in believing that our
Lord was crucified with fourteen nails; that "an entire hedge" should
have been requisite to plait the crown of thorns; that a single spear
should have begotten three others; or that from a solitary napkin there
should have issued a whole brood of the same kind.[89] He would be
scandalized on learning that each apostle had more than four bodies, and
the saints at least two or three apiece.[90] And his faith in the
genuineness of the objects of popular adoration would be still further
shaken, if, on subjecting them to a closer examination, he discovered
that, as was the case at Geneva, he had been worshipping a bone of a
deer as the arm of Saint Anthony, or a piece of pumice for the brain of
the apostle Peter.[91]
But, whatever sceptical conclusions might be reached by the learned and
discerning, the devotion of the common people showed no signs of
flagging. In the parish church of St. Stephen at Noyon, it was not the
Christian proto-martyr alone that was decorated with a cap and other
gewgaws, when his yearly festival came around, but likewise the
"tyrants," as they were styled by the people, who stoned him. And the
poor women, seeing them thus adorned, took them to be companions of the
saint, and each one had his candle. The devil with whom St. Michael
contended fared equally well.[92] The very stones that were the
instruments of St. Stephen's death were adored at Arles and
elsewhere.[93] It was, however, to the Parisians that the palm in this
species of superstition rightfully belonged. The knife wherewith an
impious Jew had stabbed a consecrated wafer was held in higher esteem
than the wafer itself! And so marked was the preference that it aroused
the displeasure of one of the most bigoted doctors of the Sorbonne, De
Quercu, who reproached the Parisians for being worse than the Jews
themselves, "inasmuch as they adored the knife that had served to rend
the precious body of Jesus Christ."[94]
[Sidenote: The consecrated wafer.]
When such superstitious respect was paid to the relics of saints, it is
not surprising that the consecrated wafer or host received the most
extravagant marks of adoration. The king himself was often foremost in
public demonstrations in its honor. Louise de Savoie, mother of Francis
the First, relates in her quaint diary the pompous ceremonial observed
in restoring to its original position a pyx containing the host which
had been stolen from the chapel of the palace of St. Germain-en-Laye.
The culprit had suffered the customary penalty, having had his hand cut
off and being afterward burned alive. In the expiatory procession which
took place a few days later, Francis himself walked with uncovered head
and carrying a lighted taper in his hand, from Nanterre to St. Germain.
If we may credit his mother's somewhat partial account, the sight of the
monarch's signal piety was so touching as to bring tears to the eyes of
admiring spectators.[95]
In view of the general prevalence of debasing forms of superstition
among the people, it is not inappropriate to consider the condition of
that class of the population which is wont to exert the most potent
influence in forming the moral sentiments and moulding the character of
the unlettered masses. We have already touched upon the external
relations of the clergy to the king and to the Pope; let us now look
more narrowly into its internal state.
[Sidenote: Wealth and power of the clergy.]
At the period of which I am now treating, the clergy, both regular and
secular, had attained unprecedented wealth and power. Never, perhaps,
had France been more fully represented in the "Sacred College."
Assuredly never since the residence of the Popes in Avignon had the
French members possessed such immense riches. Thirteen French cardinals
sat in the papal consistory at one time in the reign of Francis the
First; twelve at the accession of his son to the throne.[96] Their
influence in the kingdom was almost beyond conception, both on account
of the multitude of benefices they held, and the distinction of the
families from whom they sprang and whose titles they retained. Some were
the incumbents of as many as _ten_ bishoprics and abbeys; while the
cardinals of Bourbon, of Lorraine, of Chatillon, of Du Bellay, and of
Armagnac were of the best blood in the realm, and enjoyed in their own
right, or by reason of their office, very extensive jurisdiction.
[Sidenote: Non-residence of the prelates.]
A standing reproach against the prelates was their non-residence in the
dioceses committed to their pastoral supervision. In fact, when the
Council of Trent, by one of its first decrees, forbade a plurality of
benefices and enjoined residence, its action was regarded as an open
declaration of war against the French episcopate.[97] But if this abuse
is deplored by Roman Catholic historians as the fruitful cause of the
introduction and rapid progress of Protestantism,[98] the reformers,
viewing their work as an instrument specially designed by heaven for the
purification of a corrupt church, might well be justified in regarding
the negligence of the bishops as a wise providential arrangement. Many a
feeble germ of truth was spared the violence of persecution until the
kindly sun and the plentiful showers had conferred greater powers of
endurance. Happily for the reformers, the duty of watching for the first
appearance of reputed heresy, which belonged properly to the bishops,
was but poorly discharged by many of the deputies to whom they entrusted
it. Nor could a delegated authority always accomplish what might have
been done by a principal.[99]
[Sidenote: Revenues of the clergy.]
The annual revenues of the clergy of France were estimated by a Venetian
ambassador, with unsurpassed facilities for obtaining accurate
information, at six million crowns of gold, out of the fifteen millions
that constituted the total revenues of the kingdom. While the clergy
thus absorbed _two-fifths_ of the whole income of France, the king was
limited to one million and a half crowns, or just one-tenth, derived
from his particular estates.[100]
[Sidenote: Morals of the clergy.]
Wealth had engendered luxury and vice. Engrossed in the pursuit of
pleasure or personal aggrandizement, the vast majority of clergymen had
lost all solicitude for the spiritual welfare of their flocks. About
the middle of the century Claude Haton, curate of Meriot--certainly no
friend of the reformatory movement--wrote in his Memoires: "The more
rapidly the number of heretics in France increased, the more indifferent
to the discharge of their duty in their charges were the prelates and
pastors of the church, from cardinals and archbishops down to the most
insignificant curate. They cared little or nothing how anything went, if
they could but draw the income of their benefices at whatever place of
residence they had selected with a view to the promotion of their
pleasure.[101] They let their benefices out at the highest rate they
could get, little solicitous as to the hands they might fall into,
provided only they were well paid according to the terms of the
agreement. The archbishops, bishops, and cardinals of France were almost
all at the court of the king and the princes. The abbots, priors and
curates resided in the large cities and in other places, wherein they
took more delight than within the limits of their charges and preaching
the true word of God to their subjects and parishioners. From their
indifference the Lutheran heretics took occasion to slander the Church
of Jesus Christ and to seduce Christians from it."[102]
[Sidenote: No regard to the spiritual wants of the people.]
Such a condition of utter indifference on the part of the clergy to the
interests of the souls committed to their charge cannot surprise us when
we learn that benefices were conferred without regard to the wants of
the people. The Venetian Soranzo, in an address delivered after the
fruits of the concordat had had full time to mature,[103] declared that
in the majority of cases these ecclesiastical positions were dispensed
with little respect to things sacred, and through simple favor. They
served as a convenient method of rewarding good services. Little account
was made of the qualifications of the candidate, who might have earned
his reward in the army or in the civil service. And so it often happened
that he who to-day was a merchant or a soldier, to-morrow was made
bishop or abbot. When, indeed, the fortunate man had a wife or was
reluctant to assume the habit, he could readily get permission to place
the benefice in the name of another, himself retaining the income.[104]
"These new pastors," said Correro, "placed in charge of the churches men
who had taken it into their heads to be clergymen only to avoid the
toils of some other occupation--men who, by their avarice and
dissoluteness of life, confused the innocent people and removed their
previous great devotion. _This was the door, this was the spacious
gateway, by which heresies entered France._ For the ministers sent from
Geneva were easily able to create in the people a hatred of the priests
and friars, _by simply weighing in the balance the life led by the
latter_."[105]
[Sidenote: The clergy before the concordat.]
It was the fashion among those who passed for philosophers to ascribe
the universal dissolution of morals among French ecclesiastics to the
operation of the concordat between Francis the First and Pope Leo the
Tenth, which, said they, by bringing so many bishops and other high
dignitaries to the court in quest of preferment, had corrupted the
characters of the prelates, while exposing their flocks to all the evils
which neglect is wont to breed. Unfortunately, the portraits of the
period preceding the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction that have come
down to us dispel the Arcadian simplicity of manners which seems only to
have existed in the imagination of a few warm admirers of everything
ancient. If the prelates of France were dissolute after the introduction
of the concordat, we are assured by a writer by no means partial to the
"new doctrines," that the state of affairs was no better at an earlier
period. In their abbeys or bishoprics they were as debauched as those
who followed arms for their profession.[106] The bishops bought their
places with money, or with promises which were to be fulfilled after
preferment. "And when they had attained these high dignities," he adds,
"God knows what lives they led. Assuredly they were far more devoted to
their dioceses than they have since been; for they never left them. But
it was to lead a most dissolute life with their dogs and birds, with
their feasts, banquets, marriage entertainments and courtezans, of whom
they gathered seraglios.... All this was permitted, and none dared to
remonstrate or utter censure. Even more could be related, which is
passed over in silence through fear of creating scandal. Our present
bishops, if not better men, are at least more discreet hypocrites, and
more skilfully conceal their black vices."[107] Nor were the morals of
the monastic orders depicted in brighter colors. "Generally the monks
elected the most jovial companion, him who was the most fond of women,
dogs, and birds, the deepest drinker--in short, the most dissipated; and
this in order that, when they had made him abbot or prior, they might be
permitted to indulge in similar debauch and pleasure. Indeed, they bound
him beforehand by strong oaths, to which he was forced to conform either
voluntarily or by constraint. The worst was that, when they failed to
agree in their elections, they usually came to blows with fist and
sword, and inflicted wounds and even death. In a word, there was more
tumult, more faction and intrigue, than there is at the election of the
Rector of the University of Paris."[108] It was not strange, therefore,
that Francis, unable otherwise to recompense his deserving nobles,
should prefer to bestow upon them rich abbeys and priories, rather than
leave these to the monks in their cloisters--monks who, as the monarch
used to say, "were good for nothing but to eat and drink, to frequent
taverns and gamble, to twist cords for the cross-bow, set traps for
ferrets and rabbits, and train linnets to whistle"--men whose idleness
and other vices were so notorious that the expressions, "He is as idle
as a priest or monk," and "Avaricious and lewd as a priest or monk,"
passed into proverbs.[109]
[Sidenote: Aversion to the use of the French language.]
Ecclesiastical teachers themselves so ignorant and corrupt could not be
expected to do much for the elevation of the laity. Of _popularizing_
knowledge, especially religious knowledge, the clergy and their
adherents had little thought. Latin alone was deemed suitable for the
discussion of matters of faith. It was enough to condemn the employment
of French for this purpose, that it could be understood by the people.
For the reformers was reserved the honor of raising the dialect of the
masses to the dignity of a language fit for the highest literary uses,
and of compelling even their antagonists to resort to it in
self-defence, though, it must be confessed, with a very poor grace. So
late as in 1558 we find a leading theologian of the Sorbonne publicly
_apologizing_ for the condescension. "Very dear friend," he writes in
the address to the reader, "I doubt not that, at first sight, you will
regard it as strange and perhaps very wrong that this reply is couched
in the vulgar tongue; _seeing that it would be much more suitable were
it circulated in the Latin rather than the French tongue_, inasmuch as
the subject-matter consists of things greatly concerning Christian
faith, _which require rather to be put in Latin than in French_. Of this
also we have the example of the holy ancient doctors, who were always
accustomed to write against heretics in Latin and not in French."[110]
If such was the avowed repugnance to the use of the language of the
people in the treatment of religious themes, so late as within a year of
the death of Henry the Second, it may readily be conceived how deep the
aversion was a generation earlier, at the first appearance of the
reformation.
[Sidenote: Ignorance of the Holy Scriptures.]
As to acquaintance with the contents of the Holy Scriptures, either in
the original or in translation, there was next to none among the
professed teachers of science and religion. If the statements of the
celebrated scholar and printer, Robert Etienne, or Stephens, seem almost
incredible, they nevertheless come from a witness of unimpeachable
veracity. Referring to the period of his boyhood or early youth--he was
born in 1503--Etienne sketched the biblical attainments of the doctors
of the Sorbonne after this fashion: "In those times, as I can affirm
with truth, when I asked them in what part of the New Testament some
matter was written, they used to answer that they had read it in Saint
Jerome or in the Decretals, but that they did not know what the New
Testament was, not being aware that it was customary to print it after
the Old. What I am going to state will appear almost a prodigy, and yet
there is nothing more true nor better proven: Not long since, a member
of their college used daily to say, 'I am amazed that these young people
keep bringing up the New Testament to us. _I was more than fifty years
old before I knew anything about the New Testament!_'"[111]
[Sidenote: Miracles to stimulate the popular faith.]
[Sidenote: The "ghost of Orleans."]
The absence of teaching founded upon a rational exposition of the Holy
Scriptures was not less marked than was the abundance of reported
miracles, by means of which the popular faith was stimulated and
sustained. Above all, the doctrine of transubstantiation was fortified
by the circulation of stories of wonders such as that which took place
at Poitiers, in 1516, when the consecrated wine, spilled by a crazy man,
from white instantly became red.[112] At other times imposture was
resorted to in support of such profitable beliefs as the existence of
purgatorial fires, or to inculcate the advantage accruing from masses
for the souls of the dead. The "ghost of Orleans" has become historic.
The wife of the provost of the city having died, was buried, as she had
requested, without any pomp and without the customary gifts to the
church. Thereupon the Franciscans conceived the scheme of making use of
her example to warn others against following a course so detrimental to
monastic and priestly interests. The mysterious knockings by means of
which the deceased was supposed to give intimation of her miserable doom
and of her desire that her body, as of one that had been tainted with
heresy, should be removed from the holy ground wherein it had been
interred, were listened to with amazement by the awe-stricken people.
But the opportune discovery of a novice, conveniently posted above the
ceiling of the convent chapel, sadly interfered with the success of the
well contrived plot, and eleven monks convicted of complicity in the
fraud were banished the kingdom. They would have been even more severely
punished had not fear been entertained lest the reformers might find too
much occasion for triumph.[113]
[Sidenote: Theatrical effects.]
[Sidenote: A strange coin.]
More excusable were the theatrical effects which were intended, without
actually deceiving, to heighten the religious devotion of worshippers.
Thus, every Pentecost or Whit-Sunday, in the midst of the service an
angel was seen to descend from the lofty ceiling of the Sainte Chapelle
in Paris, attended by two smaller angels, and bearing a silver vase
containing water for the use of the celebrant of the high mass.[114] For
this somewhat harmless piece of spectacular display a justification
might be sought in the religious impressions which the people were
supposed to derive most easily through the senses; but nothing could be
urged in defence of much that the clergy tolerated or encouraged.
Superstitions of heathen origin were suffered to reign undisturbed.
Pagan statues were openly worshipped. An Isis received homage and was
honored with burning candles. An Apollo at Polignac was a centre of
religious veneration, and even the unsavory surroundings, when the spot
where it stood was transformed into a stable, could not deter an anxious
crowd of devotees from prostrating themselves before it.[115] What
better could be expected in an age and country in which the people were
imposed upon by reports that prehistoric coins had been discovered
bearing the strange legend: "I believe in Jesus _to be born_ among
animals and of a Virgin"?[116]
[Sidenote: Indecent processions.]
It was not astonishing that the church itself did little to remove the
barbarism prevailing among the common people, for, in point of fact,
buffoonery, immodesty, and cruelty had intruded into the very ceremonial
of religion. Never were there more disgusting exhibitions of the low
state of the public morals than when the occurrence of pestilence,
drought, or some other signal visitation of the displeasure of heaven
induced a clergy scarcely less rude than the laity to institute
propitiatory processions. On such occasions children of both sexes, or
perhaps grown men and women, with bare feet, and wearing for their only
clothing a sheet that scarcely concealed their forms, passed through the
streets of the towns, or wearily trudged from village to village,
responsively singing the litanies of the Virgin or the saints, and
loudly repeating the refrain, _Ora pro nobis_.[117] Often shameful
indecency and a reckless disregard of human life were displayed. In one
of the villages of Champagne, during the protracted drought of 1556, the
sacred scenes of the Passion were publicly enacted in the streets. The
person of our Lord was represented by a young man in a state of entire
nudity and bound with cords, who at every step was scourged by his
companions, personating the Roman soldiers. The picture was true to
life, and the blows so far from unreal that the prime actor in the
scandalous performance fell a victim to the inhuman treatment and died
within a few days. The fruits of practices so coarse and debasing were
such as may easily be conceived.[118]
[Sidenote: The monastic orders incur contempt.]
It was a lamentable but notorious fact that, as a consequence of the
unnatural divorce of religion and morality, the clergy, both secular and
regular, by their excesses had incurred the contempt of the laity. If
the Franciscan monks enjoyed an unenviable pre-eminence in this respect,
so as to have come to constitute one of the stock characters in the
"Heptameron" and similar works, scarcely less constant than the
prodigals or parasites of the New Comedy, the other orders were but
little behind them. And so Louise de Savoie made this significant entry
in her diary: "In the year 1522, in December, my son and I, by the grace
of the Holy Ghost, began to understand the hypocrites, white, black,
gray, smoky, and of all colors; from whom may God, by his clemency and
infinite goodness, be pleased to preserve and defend us. For, if Jesus
Christ be not a liar, there is no more dangerous generation in all human
kind."[119] Bishops and cardinals won little more respect than the
monks; for was it not the most prominent of the wearers of the purple
who, as Chancellor of France, introduced venality into the most sacred
offices of state,[120] while by his quarrelsome and unscrupulous
diplomacy he richly merited the _bon mot_ of the Emperor Charles the
Fifth, that he was more inclined to make _four wars than, one
peace_?[121]
[Sidenote: Abortive efforts at reform.]
It does not enter into the province of this history to discuss in detail
the causes of the deplorable vices that characterized the priesthood on
the eve of the great religious movement of the sixteenth century; nor
can we pause to make that analysis of the doctrinal errors then
prevalent, which belongs rather to the office of the historian of the
Reformation. It will be sufficient, therefore, if we glance hastily at
some of the partial and abortive efforts directed toward the reform of
doctrine and manners of which mediaeval France was the theatre.
[Sidenote: The Cathari and Albigenses.]
Foremost among the popular opponents of the papacy were the Cathari and
Albigenses. The accounts of the origin of the sect or sects bearing
these names are vague and unsatisfactory, and the reports of their creed
and worship are inconsistent or incredible. The ruin that overwhelmed
them spared no friendly narrative of their history, and scarcely one
authoritative exposition of the belief for the profession of which their
adherents encountered death with heroic fortitude. Defeat not only
compelled the remnants of the Albigenses to succumb to Simon de Montfort
and his fellow crusaders, but reduced them to the indignity of having
the record of their faith and self-devotion transmitted to posterity
only in the hostile chronicles of Roman ecclesiastics. But even partisan
animosity has not robbed the world of the edifying spectacle of a large
number of men and women, of a quiet and peaceable disposition,
persistently and fearlessly protesting, through a long series of years,
against the worship of saints and images, resisting the innovations of
a corrupt church, and adhering with constancy to a simple ritual
unencumbered with superstitious observances. Careful investigation
establishes the fact that the Holy Scriptures were read and accepted as
the supreme authority as well in doctrine as in practice, and that the
precepts there inculcated were adorned by lives so pure and exemplary as
to evoke an involuntary expression of admiration from bitter opponents.
There is little doubt that strange doctrinal errors found a foothold in
parts, at least, of the extensive territory in southern France occupied
by the Albigenses. Oriental Dualism or Manichaeism not improbably
disfigured the creed of portions of the sect; while the belief of others
scarcely differed from that of the less numerous Waldenses of Provence
or their brethren in the valleys of Piedmont. But, whatever may be the
truth on this much contested point,[122] the remarkable spread of the
Albigenses during the latter part of the twelfth century must be
regarded as strongly marking the revolt of the French mind, especially
in the more impetuous south, against the priestly absolutism that
crushed all freedom of religious thought, and equally against a church
tolerating the most flagrant abuses. Nor can the historian who desires
to trace the more remote consequences of important moral movements fail
to notice the singular fact that the soil watered by Albigensian blood
at the beginning of the thirteenth century was precisely that in which
the seed sown by the reformers, three hundred years later, sprang up
most rapidly and bore the most abundant harvest. After so long a period
of suspended activity, the spirit of opposition once more asserted its
vital energy--soon, it is true, to meet fresh difficulties, but only
such difficulties as would tend to develop and strengthen it.
[Sidenote: The crime of vauderie.]
With the suppression of the Albigenses all open popular protest against
the errors of the church ceases until the advent of the Reformation. The
latent tendency did, indeed, manifest its continued existence in those
obscure practices known as _vauderie_, which, distorted by the
imagination of reckless informers and interested judges, and converted
into the most monstrous crimes against religion and morality, occasioned
the death of countless innocent victims.[123] But it was chiefly among
the learned, and particularly in the bosom of the University of Paris,
that the pressing need of a thorough purification of the church found
expression. Not that the remedies advocated were so definite and
radical, or based upon so full a recognition of the distinctive
character of Christianity, as to merit the name of reformatory projects.
Yet, standing somewhat in advance of their contemporaries, a few
theologians raised their voices in decided condemnation of those evils
which needed only to be held up to public notice to incur the universal
reprobation of mankind.
[Sidenote: Nicholas de Clemangis.]
[Sidenote: John Gerson.]
Nicholas de Clemangis, Rector of the University of Paris, subsequently
private secretary of Benedict the Thirteenth at Avignon, and perhaps the
most elegant writer of his age, drew a startling picture of the wretched
state of the church at the beginning of the fifteenth century. No writer
had ever described more vividly the corruption of the convents and
monasteries, or denounced more unsparingly the unfaithfulness and
impurity of the parish clergy, and the simony pervading alike all grades
of the hierarchy. His censure was the more effective because he spoke
in sorrow rather than in anger.[124] John Gerson, his contemporary and
friend, who reached the eminent position of chancellor of the
university, was not less bold in stigmatizing the same evils, while the
weight of his authority was even greater. So far, however, was he from
grasping the nature and need of a substantial renovation of the existing
religious belief, that to his influence in no inconsiderable measure was
due the perfidious condemnation and execution of the great Bohemian
forerunner of the Reformation, John Huss. The student of mediaeval
history may be inclined to smile at the subtilties of scholastic
distinctions, but he is also compelled to lament the fact that the death
of a _Realist_ was greeted with demonstrations of evident satisfaction
by a philosopher belonging to the opposite school of the
_Nominalists_.[125]
[Sidenote: Jean Bouchet's "Deploration."]
A century elapsed between the time of Nicholas de Clemangis and Gerson
and the almost simultaneous appearance of Ulrich Zwingle in Switzerland
and Martin Luther in Germany. During this long interval of expectation
the voice of remonstrance was not altogether silent. A few earnest men
refused to suppress the indignation they felt at the sight of the
impiety that had invaded the sacred precincts of the church. Among the
last of those whose words have come down to us was Jean Bouchet, a
native of Poitiers. In 1512, only five years before the publication of
the theses of the reformer of Wittemberg, he gave to the world a poem
not devoid of historical interest, though possessed of little poetic
merit, entitled "_La Deploration de l'Eglise militante_."[126] In this
spirited lament it is the church herself that addresses the
hierarchy--pontiff, cardinals, patriarchs, bishops, and others--as well
as kings and secular dignitaries. She complains of the great injuries
and molestations she endures. The practice of simony has converted a
temple into a loathsome stable. Science and learning are no longer
necessary for the candidate for ecclesiastical preferment; a hundred
crowns in hand will serve his purpose much better, no matter how bad his
moral character may be. As for his qualifications, he is full well
provided if he can manage the hounds aright and knows how to hunt with
the falcon. "Cease," cries the church through the poet to the French
princes, "cease to load me down with gewgaws, with chalices, crosses,
and sumptuous ornaments. Furnish me instead with virtuous ministers. The
exquisite beauty of abbeys or of silver images is less pleasing in God's
sight than the holy life of good prelates."[127] As it is, the dissolute
ministers of religion are engrossed in forbidden games, in banquets, and
the chase. Decked out with flowers, rings, and trinkets, the bishop in
his dress is more like a soldier or a juggler, than a servant of the
church. He recites his prayers reluctantly, while words of profane
swearing flow freely from his lips. From such disorders as these the
church invokes her worldly protectors to deliver her.
The abuses which Jean Bouchet described, and other abuses of a similar
kind, were so notorious that no intelligent man could close his eyes to
the evidence of their existence. They had been recited again and again
by more eloquent tongues than that of the poet of Poitiers. Dante and
Petrarch had held them up to immortal contempt. Boccaccio had made them
the subject of ridicule in his popular stories. But neither remonstrance
nor taunt had effectually abated the prevailing corruption. It remained
that a new remedy should be tried, and the time for its application was
close at hand.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Changes in the boundaries of France during the sixteenth
century.]
It must not be forgotten that the boundaries of France varied
considerably during the sixteenth century. Thus Artois and
Flanders, at the accession of Francis the First, were nominally
fiefs of the French crown, for which Charles of Austria sent to
France a very honorable embassy, with Henry, Count of Nassau, at
its head, to do homage to the young prince. It was on this occasion
that Francis, desirous of gratifying Charles, proposed or consented
to the marriage of his favorite with Claude de Chalons, daughter of
the Prince of Orange (Jean de Serres, Inventaire General de
l'Histoire de France, 1619, ii. 4, Motley, Dutch Republic, i. 234).
Eleven years later, January, 1526, by the Treaty of Madrid, Francis
renounced his suzerainty over the counties of Artois and Flanders,
as a condition of his release from captivity (Inventaire General,
ii. 96). On the other hand, not to speak of the "Three
Bishoprics"--Metz, Toul, and Verdun--definitely incorporated with
the French dominions in 1552, France had for a longer or shorter
time possession of the Duchy of Milan, of the island of Corsica,
and of Piedmont. Not only Bresse, but the very Duchy of Savoy, were
for years merged in the realm of France, until restored to
Philibert Emmanuel by the disgraceful Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Mignet, Essai sur la formation territoriale et politique de
la France depuis la fin du onzieme siecle jusqu'a la fin du quiinzieme.
Notices et Memoires Historiques, ii. 154.]
[Footnote 4: Mignet, 157, 158.]
[Footnote 5: A manuscript chronicle of the time of Charles the Sixth,
quoted by Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, iv. 144, states
the interesting fact that the inhabitants of Perigord and the adjoining
districts, thus surrendered to Henry the Third of England, for centuries
bore so hearty a grudge against the French king, of whom the rest of
France was justly proud, and whose name the church had enrolled in the
calendar, that they never would consent to regard him as a saint or to
celebrate his feast day!]
[Footnote 6: "Le quali tutte provincie sono cosi bene poste," etc.
Relazione di Francia dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli, in Relations des
Ambassadeurs Venitiens (Tommaseo, Paris), i. 220.]
[Footnote 7: "Dico che il regno di Francia per universal consenso del
mondo fu riputato _il primo regno di cristianita_," etc. Commentario del
regno di Francia del clarissimo sig. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Ven.,
i. 470.]
[Footnote 8: "Dopo il papa che e universal capo della religione, e la
signoria di Venezia, che, come e nata, s'e conservata sempre cristiana."
Suriano, _ubi supra_, i. 472.]
[Footnote 9: This was in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Dec.
15, 1559, MSS. British Museum. I use the summary in the Calendar of
State Papers (Stevenson), p. 197, note.]
[Footnote 10: Marino Cavalli stated, in 1546, that this systematic
policy of continually incorporating and never alienating had been
pursued for eighty years. So successful had it proved, that everything
had been absorbed by confiscation, succession, or purchase. There was,
perhaps, no longer a single prince in the kingdom with an income of
20,000 crowns; while even their scanty resources and straitened estates
the princes possessed simply as ordinary proprietors, from whose actions
an appeal was open to the king. Relazioni Venete (Alberi, Firenze),
serie 1, i. 234, 235.]
[Footnote 11: Yet the old prejudice against city life had not fully died
out. So late as in 1527, Chassanee wrote: "Galliae omnis una est nobilium
norma. Nam rura et praedia sua (dicam potius castra) incolentes _urbes
fugiunt, in quibus habitare nobilem turpe ducitur_. Qui in illis degunt,
ignobiles habentur a nobilibus." Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, fol. 200.]
[Footnote 12: Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 488.]
[Footnote 13: Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 160, etc.]
[Footnote 14: Rel. dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli (1546), _ubi supra_, i.
229.]
[Footnote 15: It would seem that the Venetian ambassadors were never
free from apprehension lest their admiration of what they had seen
abroad might be construed as disparagement of their own island city.
Hence, Marino Giustiniano (A. D. 1535), after making the statement which
we have given in the text, is careful to add: "_Pur non arriva di
richezza ad una gran gionta quanto Venezia; ne anco ha maggior popolo_,
per mio giudizio, di che loro si gloriano." Rel. Venete (Alberi,
Firenze), serie 1, i. 148.]
[Footnote 16: The lowest estimate, which is that of Guicciardini (Belgiae
Descriptio, apud Prescott, Philip II., i. 367), is probably nearest the
mark; the highest, 800,000, is that of Davila, Storia delle Guerre
Civili, 1. iii. (Eng. trans., p. 79). Marino Cavalli, in 1546, says
500,000; Michel Suriano, in 1561, between 400,000 and 500,000. M.
Dulaure is even more parsimonious than Guicciardini, for he will allow
Paris, in the sixteenth century, not more than 200,000 to 210,000 souls!
Histoire de Paris, iv. 384. Some of the exaggerated estimates may be
errors of transcription. At least Ranke asserts that this is the case
with the 500,000 of Fran. Giustiniani in 1537, where the original
manuscript gives only 300,000. Franzoesische Geschichte, v. (Abschn. 1),
76.]
[Footnote 17: See, for example, the MS. receipt, from which it appears
that, in 1516, Sieur Imbert de Baternay pledged his entire service of
plate to help defray the expenses of the war. Capefigue, Francois
Premier et la Renaissance, i. 141.]
[Footnote 18: Marino Giustiniano (1535), Rel. Venete (Alberi), i, 185,
Francois de Rabutin, Guerres de Belgique (Ed. Pantheon), 697.]
[Footnote 19: Marino Giustiniano, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 20: M. A. Boullee (in his Histoire complete des
Etats-Generaux, i. 181, etc.) and other writers give the character of
States General to the gathering of princes, clergy, etc., at Tours, in
May, 1506. This was the assembly from which Louis XII. obtained the
welcome advice to break an engagement to give his daughter Claude,
heiress of Brittany, in marriage to Charles, the future emperor of
Germany, in order that he might be free to bestow her hand on Francis of
Angouleme. M. Boullee is also inclined to call the assembly after the
battle of St. Quentin, January 5, 1558, a meeting of the States General.
But Michel Suriano is correct in stating (Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo,
i. 512-514) that between Louis XI.'s time and 1560 the only States
General were those of 1483. Chancellor L'Hospital's words cited below
are conclusive.]
[Footnote 21: Some of Louis XI.'s successors imbibed his aversion for
these popular assemblies, and would, like Louis, have treated any one as
a rebel who dared to talk of calling them. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb.
Ven. (Tommaseo), i. 512-514.]
[Footnote 22: Chancellor L'Hospital's remarkable words were: "Or,
messieurs, parceque nous reprenons l'ancienne coustume de tenir les
estats _ja delaisses par le temps de quatre-vingts ans ou environ, ou
n'y a memoire d'homme qui y puisse atteindre_, je diray en peu de
paroles que c'est que tenir les estats, pour quelle cause Fon assembloit
les estats, la facon et maniere, et qui y presidoit, quel bien en vient
au roy, quel au peuple, et mesmes s'il est utile au roy de tenir les
estats, ou non." The address in full in La Place, Commentaires de
l'Estat de la Republique, etc. (Ed. Pantheon), 80.]
[Footnote 23: Michel Suriano, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 24: "Tellement que sous ces beaux et doux appasts, l'on
n'ouvre jamais telles assemblees que le peuple n'y accoure, ne les
embrasse, et ne s'en esiouysse infiniement, ne considerant pas qu'il n'y
a rien qu'il deust tant craindre, _comme estant le general refrain
d'iceux, de tirer argent de luy_.... Au contraire jamais on ne feit
assemblee generale des trois Estats en cette France, sans accroistre les
finances de nos Roys a la diminution de celles du peuple." Pasquier,
Recherches de la France, l. ii. c. 7, p. 82.]
[Footnote 25: "Il re di Francia _e re d'asini_, perche il suo popolo
supoorta ogni sorte di peso, senza rechiamo mai." Michel Suriano,
Commentarii (Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo), i. 486.]
[Footnote 26: Guerres de Belgique (Ed. Pantheon), 585.]
[Footnote 27: "Egli puo riputar poi tutti li danari della Francia esser
suoi; perche nelli suoi bisogni, sempre che li dimanda, gli sono portati
molto volontariamente _per la incomparabil benevolenza di essi popoli_."
Relaz. Ven. (Alberi), ii. 172.]
[Footnote 28: Cayet, Hist. de la guerre sous le regne de Henry IV., i.
248. We shall see that Francis carried out the same ideas of absolute
authority in his dealings both with reputed heresy and with the Gallican
Church itself. He seems even to have believed himself commissioned to do
all the thinking in matters of religion for his more intellectual
sister; for, if Brantome may be credited, when Constable Montmorency, on
one occasion, had the temerity to suggest to him that all his efforts to
extirpate error in France would be futile until he began with Margaret
of Angouleme, Francis silenced him with the remark: "No more on that
subject! She loves me too much; she will never believe anything but what
I desire." Femmes illustres: Marguerite, reine de Navarre.]
[Footnote 29: "Stanno a quelli soggetti piu che cani." Relaz. Ven., ii.
174.]
[Footnote 30: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 31: "Mercatores aspernantur," says Chassanee in 1527, "ut vile
atque abjectum omnium genus." Catal. Gloriae Mundi, fol. 200.]
[Footnote 32: Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 173.]
[Footnote 33: See the sketch by Daniel, Histoire de France, reprinted in
Leber, Collection de pieces relatives a l'histoire de France, vi, 266,
etc.; also Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 177, etc.]
[Footnote 34: Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 212; Floquet, Histoire du
parlement de Normandie, tom. i.; Daniel, _ubi supra_; Vicomte de
Bastard-D'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 189.]
[Footnote 35: The formula is worthy of attention: "Quand on vous
apportera a sceller quelque lettre, signee par le commandement du Roi,
si elle n'est de justice et raison, ne la scellerez point, encore que
ledit Seigneur le commandast par une ou deux fois; mais viendrez devers
iceluy Seigneur, et lui remonstrerez tous les points par lesquels ladite
lettre n'est pas raisonnable, et apres que aura entendu lesdita points,
s'il vous commande la sceller, la scellerez, car lors le peche en sera
sur ledit Seigneur et non sur vous." In full in M. de Saint-Allais, De
l'ancienne France (Paris, 1834), ii. 91; see also Capefigue, Francois
Premier et la Renaissance, i. 106.]
[Footnote 36: Certainly not than with the Parliament of Aix. See its
shortcomings in the papers of Prof. Joly, of the Faculte des Lettres of
Caen, entitled "Les juges des Vaudois: Mercuriales du parlement de
Provence au XVI^e siecle, d'apres des documents inedits." Bulletin de
l'hist. du Prot. fr., xxiv. (1875), 464-471, 518-523, 555-564.]
[Footnote 37: "Qu'il n'y a pas un seigneur en ce ressort, qui n'aye son
chancelier en ceste Cour." Boscheron des Portes, Histoire du parlement
de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 191-194, from Registers of Parliament.]
[Footnote 38: "La genuflexion ne le ferait pas moins roi qu'il etait."
Ibid., i. 185.]
[Footnote 39: See Pasquier's conclusive argument in his chapter: "Que
l'opinion est erronee par laquelle on attribue l'institution de
l'Universite de Paris a l'Empereur Charlemagne." Recherches de la
France, 800. So universally accepted, however, in Pasquier's time, was
the story of Charlemagne's agency in the matter, that "de croire le
contraire c'est estre heretique en l'histoire," p. 798.]
[Footnote 40: The chancellor "de Notre Dame," the chancellor proper,
alone had the power to create doctors in theology, law, and medicine;
but candidates for the degree of master of arts might apply either to
him or to the rival chancellor of Sainte Genevieve: "Quant aux Maistres
es Arts, a l'un ou l'autre Chancelier, selon le choix qui en est fait
par celuy qui veut prendre sa licence." Pasquier, Recherches, 840.]
[Footnote 41: "Le premier juge et censeur de la doctrine et moeurs des
escoliers, que nous appelons Chancelier de l'Universite." Pasquier, _ubi
supra_, 265.]
[Footnote 42: Pasquier has a fund of quaint information respecting the
university, the chancellor, the rector, etc. Of the contrast between
rector and chancellor he remarks: "Quant au Chancelier de l'Universite
il pare seulement de ce coup contre toutes ces grandeurs (sc. du
Recteur); que le Recteur fait des escoliers pour estudier (tout ainsi
que le capitaine des soldats, quand il les enrolle pour combattre) mais
le Chancelier fait des capitaines quand il baille le bonnet de
Theologie, Decret, Medecine, et Arts, pour enseigner et monter en
chaire." _Ubi supra_, 843.]
[Footnote 43: Sleidanus, De statu rel., etc., ad annum 1521.]
[Footnote 44: "Vinculis, censuris, imo ignibus et flammis coercendam,
potius quam ratione convincendam." Determination of the Fac. of Theology
against Luther, April 15. 1521, Gerdes, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 10,
etc., Documents.]
[Footnote 45: From the _Cite_, or island on which the city was
originally built, and the Ville, or Paris north of the Seine. Pasquier,
Recherches, 797; J. Sinceri, Itinerarium Galliae (1627), 270.]
[Footnote 46: Juvenal des Ursins, _apud_ Pasquier, 267.]
[Footnote 47: Relazioni Venete (Alberi), i. 149.]
[Footnote 48: Ibid., i. 226.]
[Footnote 49: "Donc, le gouvernement de l'Eglise n'est pas un empire
despotique." Abbe Claude Fleury, Discours sur les Libertes de l'Eglise
gallicane, 1724 (reprinted in Leber, Coll. de pieces relatives a l'hist.
de France, iii. 252).]
[Footnote 50: "On a conteste l'authenticite de cette piece, mais elle
est aujourd'hui generalement reconnu." Isambert, Recueil gen. des
anciennes lois francaises, i. 339.]
[Footnote 51: Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, pt. ii.;
Isambert, _ubi supra_; Ordonnances des Roys de France de la troisieme
race, i. 97-98. Section 5 sufficiently expresses the feelings of the
king in reference to the insatiable covetousness of the Roman court:
"Item, exactiones et onera gravissima pecuniarum, per curiam Romanam
ecclesiae regni nostri impositas vel imposita, quibus regnum nostrum
miserabiliter depauperatum extitit, sive etiam imponendas, aut imponenda
levari, aut colligi nullatenus volumus, nisi duntaxat pro rationabili,
pia et urgentissima causa, inevitabili necessitate, et de spontaneo et
expresso consensu nostro et ipsius ecclesiae regni nostri." See also
Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, vii. 104.]
[Footnote 52: Sismondi, Hist. des Francais, xiii. 317, etc.]
[Footnote 53: The Pragmatic Sanction is long and intricate, consisting
in great part of references to those portions of the canons of the
Council of Basle which it confirms. The entire document may be seen in
the Ordonnances des Roys de Fr. de la troisieme race, xiii. 267-291, and
in the Recueil gen. des anc. lois franc., ix. 3-47. Isambert thus
defines the term _pragmatic_: "On appelle _pragmatique_ toute
constitution donnee en connaissance de cause du consentiment unanime de
tous les grands, et consacree par la volonte du prince. Le mot _pragma_
signifie prononcee, sentence, edit; il etait en usage avant Saint
Louis."]
[Footnote 54: Abbe Claude Fleury, Libertes de l'Eglise Gallicane, in
Leber, iii. 321.]
[Footnote 55: "Commemoravit (_i. e._, the papal legate) ea quae per ipsum
tibi nostro nomine pollicenda, vovenda et promittenda, nos, antequam
regnum suscepisemus, religionis instinctus quidam deduxerat." Letter of
Louis XI. to the Pope, Tours, Nov. 27, 1461.]
[Footnote 56: Louis XI.'s letter to the Pope, annulling the Pragmatic
Sanction, is in the Ordonnances des roys de Fr. de la troisieme race,
xv., 193-194. Its tone could not have been more submissive had it been
penned for him by the Pope himself. The Pragmatic Sanction is referred
to contemptuously as "constitutio quaedam in regno nostro quam
_Pragmaticam_ vocant." Louis professes to be moved by the consideration
that obedience is better than all sacrifice, and that the Pragmatic
Sanction is hateful to the Papal See, "utpote quae _in seditione_ et
schismatis tempore ... nata est; et quae, dum _tibi, a quo sacrae leges
oriuntur et manant_, quantamlibet eripit auctoritatem, _omne jus et
omnem legem dissolvit_." It was "as if the rod should shake itself
against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself,
as if it were no wood." Nothing could surpass Louis's obsequiousness:
"_Sicut mandasti_ ... pellimus dejicimus stirpitusque abrogamus," etc.
He pledges his royal word to overcome opposition: "Quod si forte
obnitentur aliqui aut reclamabunt, nos _in verbo regio_ pollicemur tuae
Beatitudini atque promittimus exsequi facere tua mandata, omni
appellationis aut oppositionis obstaculo prorsus excluso," etc. Louis
was never more to be distrusted than when he bound himself by the most
stringent promises.]
[Footnote 57: See the Remonstrances of Parliament, Ordonnances, etc.,
xv. 195-207.]
[Footnote 58: The calculations on which these figures are based can be
seen in sections 73-76 of the Remonstrances above referred to. Ibid.,
xv. 195-207.]
[Footnote 59: "Les autres ambitieux de benefices, si espuisoient les
bourses de leurs parens et amis, tellement qu'ils demeuroient en grand'
mendicite et misere, ou'aucunesfois estoient cause de l'abreviation de
leurs jours; et tout le fruit qu'ils emportoient, _c'estoit pour or du
plomb_." Ibid., section 64.]
[Footnote 60: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 61: Historians have represented Cardinal Balue as enclosed in
the very cage he had used for the victims of his own cruelty. This
appears to be incorrect. There is an entry in the accounts of Louis XI.,
under date of February 11, 1469, of the payment of sixty livres Tournois
to Squire Guion de Broc, to be used by him "in having constructed, at
the castle Douzain, an iron cage, which the said lord (_i. e._, Louis)
has ordered to be made for the security and guard of the person of the
Cardinal of Angers (Balue)." Vatout, Chateau d'Amboise, 64, 65, note.]
[Footnote 62: Fleury, _ubi supra_, 340.]
[Footnote 63: See Capefigue's animated description of the scene in the
cathedral of Bologna, _ubi supra_, i. 229.]
[Footnote 64: The text of the concordat is given in the Recueil gen. des
anc. lois, etc., xii. 75-97.]
[Footnote 65: Leue, publiee et registree par l'ordonnance et du
commandement du Roy, nostre sire, reiteree par plusieurs fois en
presence du seigneur de la Trimouille, etc. Recueil des anc. lois, xii.
97.]
[Footnote 66: Appellatio Univ. Parisiensis pro sacrarum Electionum et
juris communis defensione, adversus Concordata Bononiensia, _apud_
Gerdes. Hist. Ev. Renov. i. 61-69 (Documents). "Idcirco," it runs, "a
domino nostro Papa non recte consulto, et ... pragmaticae sanctionis
statutorum abrogatione, novorum statutorum editione, ... ad futurum
concilium legitime ac in tuto loco, et ad quem libere et cum securitate
... adire poterimus ... provocavimus et appellavimus, prout in his
scriptis provocamus et appellamus."]
[Footnote 67: I have made considerable use of the very clear
dissertation on the Pragmatic Sanction and the concordat, republished in
Leber, Collection de pieces relatives a l'hist. de France, tome 3. The
commotion in Paris at the introduction of the concordat is described in
a lively manner by the unknown author of the "Journal d'un bourgeois de
Paris sous le regne de Francois I^er," 39, 70, etc.]
[Footnote 68: Almanach royal pour l'an 1724 (Paris), 34.]
[Footnote 69: Leo X. also obtained from Francis, as an equivalent for
the concessions embodied in the concordat, the sum of 100,000 _livres_,
as the dower of Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, a princess of royal
blood, married in 1518 to Lorenzo de' Medici, Count of Urbino, the
Pope's nephew. The money was to be levied upon the next tithe taken from
the revenues of the French clergy, which Leo thus authorized. Catharine
de' Medici sprang from this marriage. See the receipt of Lorenzo for the
instalment of a quarter of the dower, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de
l'hist. du prot. francais, ix. (1860), 122.]
[Footnote 70: Mignet, Etablissement de la Reforme a Geneve, Memoires,
ii. 243. Etienne Pasquier draws a dark picture of the barbarism reigning
at Paris at the accession of Francis. More highly honored than any other
university of Europe, that of Paris had fallen so low that the Hebrew
tongue was known only by name, and as for Greek, the attention given to
it was more apparent than real. "Car mesmes lors qu'il estoit question
de l'expliquer, ceste parole couroit en la bouche de plusieurs ignorans,
_Graecum est, non legitur_." The very Latin, which was the language in
ordinary use, was rude and clumsy. Recherches de la France, 831.]
[Footnote 71: La Harpe, Cours de literature, vi. 405.]
[Footnote 72: Gaillard, Histoire de Francois premier (Paris ed., 1769),
vii. 282-300. Felibien, among the many interesting documents he has
preserved, reproduces one of the first programmes of the professors of
the College Royal, preserved from destruction, doubtless, simply from
the circumstance that it formed the ground of a citation of the
professors by the syndic of the university (Beda), January, 1534,
wherein he alleges that "some simple grammarians or rhetoricians, who
had not studied with the faculty, had undertaken to read in public and
to interpret the Holy Scriptures, as appears from certain bills posted
in the streets and squares of Paris." In the programme, Agathius
Guidacerius, Francis Vatable, P. Arnesius (Danesius), and Paul Paradisus
figure as lecturing--the first two upon the Psalms, the third on
Aristotle, and the last on Hebrew grammar and the book of Proverbs.
Michel Felibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1725), iv. 682.]
[Footnote 73: The law of 1523 thus sets forth some of their exploits:
"Outre mesure multiplient leurs pilleries, cruautez et meschancetez,
jusques a vouloir assaillir _les villes closes_: les aucunes desquelles
ils out prinses d'assaut, saccagees, robees et pillees, force filles et
femmes, tue les habitans inhumainement, et cruellement traitte les
aucuns _en leur crevant les yeux, et coupant les membres les uns apres
les autres, sans en avoir pitie, faisant ce que cruelles bestes ne
feroient_," etc. Isambert, Recueil des lois anc., xii. 216. See also
Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris (1516), 36; and Lettres de Marguerite
d'Angouleme, Nouvelle Coll., lettre 7.]
[Footnote 74: Journal d'un bourgeois (1516), 37.]
[Footnote 75: Ibid, (anno 1527), 328.]
[Footnote 76: Ibid., 36. It would appear that even this penalty did not
deter them from the commission of their infamous crimes, for a fresh
edict, in 1523 (Isambert, xii., 216), prescribes that for exemplary
punishment "lesdicts blasphemateurs execrables avant que souffrir mort,
_ayent la gorge ouverte avec un fer chaud et la langue tiree ou coupee
par les dessouz_; et ce faict penduz et attachez au gibet ou potence, et
estranglez, selon leurs desmerites!"]
[Footnote 77: Journal d'un bourgeois, 327. The Marche-aux-pourceaux, or
swine market, was a little west of the present Palais Royal, just
outside of the walls of Paris, as they existed in the time of Francis I.
See the atlas accompanying Dulaure, Histoire de Paris. In December,
1581, the Parliament of Rouen sentenced one Salcede to this horrible
death. Bastard d'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 428.]
[Footnote 78: Journal d'un bourgeois, 326.]
[Footnote 79: Ibid., 251.]
[Footnote 80: Ibid., 434. A somewhat similar instance is mentioned by
the continuator of the Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet (anno
1503), l. iii. c. 220.]
[Footnote 81: See the vigorous treatise it called forth from the pen of
the great Reformer of Geneva in 1549, under the title of "Advertissement
contre l'Astrologie qu'on appelle _judiciaire_, et autres curiositez qui
regnent aujourd'huy dans le monde." Paul L. Jacob, Oeuvres francoises
de Calvin, 107, etc.]
[Footnote 82: Despatch of La Mothe Fenelon, June 3, 1573, Corr. dipl.,
v. 345, 346.]
[Footnote 83: L'Heptameron dea Nouvelles de tres haute et tres illustre
princesse Marguerite d'Angouleme, Reine de Navarre. Publie sur les MSS.
par la Soc. des Bibliophiles francais. Premiere Journee, Premiere
Nouvelle.]
[Footnote 84: The practice of magic with small waxen images into which
pins were thrust, impious words being uttered at the same time, was at
least as old in France as the beginning of the fourteenth century. In
1330 Robert of Artois employed it to compass the death of Philip of
Valois and his queen; just as two centuries and a half later the
adherents of the League resorted to the same device to destroy Henry
III. and Henry of Navarre. See note L to the Heptameron (edit. cit.), i.
170. Jean de Marcouville (Recueil memor. Paris, 1564, Cimber et Danjou,
iii. 415) alludes to similar sorcery just after the death of Philip the
Fair, in 1314. It was therefore no "Italian sorcery" introduced into
France by Catharine de' Medici, as M. De Felice seems to suppose (Hist.
des prot. de France, liv. ii. c. 17).]
[Footnote 85: "Advertissement tres-utile du grand profit qui reviendroit
a la Chretiente, s'il se faisoit inventaire de tous les corps saints et
reliques," etc., 1543 (Oeuvres francoises de Calvin). A racy treatise,
which well exhibits the service done by the author to the French
language.]
[Footnote 86: Ibid., 171.]
[Footnote 87: Ibid., 169.]
[Footnote 88: Ibid., 139.]
[Footnote 89: Ibid., 155.]
[Footnote 90: Ibid., 139.]
[Footnote 91: Ibid., 140.]
[Footnote 92: Ibid., 179, 180.]
[Footnote 93: Ibid., 172.]
[Footnote 94: Ibid., 156.]
[Footnote 95: "Et lors faisoit beau voir mon fils porter honneur et
reverence au saint sacrement, que chacun en le regardant se prenoit a
pleurer de pitie et de joye." Journal de Louise de Savoie, Collection de
memoires (Petitot), xvi. 407.]
[Footnote 96: Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vii. 45, etc.;
Mezeray, Abrege chron. de l'hist. de France (Amst., 1682), iv. 644.]
[Footnote 97: Gaillard, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 98: Cenac Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrenees (Paris, 1854), iv.
342, referring primarily to southern France.]
[Footnote 99: Since the end of the thirteenth century the bishop had
been accustomed to delegate the contentious jurisdiction of his diocese
to an ecclesiastical judge, taking the name of _vicar_, or more commonly
_official_ ("vicarius generalis officialis"). The court itself became
known as the _officialite_. Trials for heresy, breach of promise of
marriage, etc., came before it. See the Dictionnaire de la conversation
(1857), s. v. _Official_.]
[Footnote 100: Michel Surriano (1561), Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo, i.
502. The other half went to princes, barons, and other possessors of
lands, etc.]
[Footnote 101: How they behaved there, the abbe of Meriot elsewhere
tells us: "Et si le plus souvent a telles noyseay estoient les premiers
les prebstres, l'espee au poing, car ilz estoient _des premiers aux
danses, jeux de quilles, d'escrime, et es tavernes ou ilz ribloient et
par les rues toute nuict aultant que les plus meschans du pays_." Mem de
Claude Haton, 18.]
[Footnote 102: Memoires de Claude Haton, i. 89, 90.]
[Footnote 103: Giovanni Soranzo returned from France in 1558, or a year
before the close of the reign of Henry II.]
[Footnote 104: Relazioni Venete, Alberi, ii. 409. Brantome is a familiar
instance of a favorite thus rewarded from the estates of the church. His
amusing vindication of the anomaly is worthy of a perusal. See
Digression contre les Eslections des Benefices, Oeuvres, tom. vii. On
one occasion an enemy of the loquacious courtier caused the
assassination of his _titular_ abbot, apparently in the hope of
depriving Brantome of his chief source of revenue! Ibid., vii. 294.]
[Footnote 105: "Solo col ponderar loro la vita che tenevano." Relazione
di G. Correro, 1569, Tommaseo, ii. 150.]
[Footnote 106: "Je n'ay point ouy dire, ny leu qu'auparavant ils fussent
plus gens-de-bien, et mieux vivants; car en leurs Eveschez et Abbayes,
ils estoient autant desbauchez que Gens-d'armes; car comme j'ay dit
cydevant, qu'a la cour s'ils faisoient l'amour, c'estoit discretement et
sans scandale," etc. Brantome, _ubi supra_, vii. 312.]
[Footnote 107: "Au moins plus sages hypocrites, qui cachent mieux leurs
vices noirs." Brantome, _ubi supra_, vii. 287-289.]
[Footnote 108: Brantome, _ubi supra_, vii. 280.]
[Footnote 109: Brantome, vii. 286.]
[Footnote 110: Reponse a quelque apologie, etc. Par Antoine de Mouchy,
surnomme Demochares, docteur en theologie, 1558. Feuillet 2. _Apud_
Henri Lutteroth, La reformation en France pendant sa premiere periode
(Paris, 1859), 137.]
[Footnote 111: "Je suis esbahi de ce que ces jeunes gens nous alleguent
le Nouveau Testament. J'avoys plus de cinquante ans que je ne scavoys
que c'estoit du Nouveau Testament." Robert Etienne, _apud_ Baum,
Origines Evangelii in Gallia restaurati (Strasbourg, 1838), 35.]
[Footnote 112: "Un beau miracle," says the Journal d'un bourgeois de
Paris, 38.]
[Footnote 113: Histoire ecclesiastique des Eglises Reformees au royaume
de France (commonly ascribed to Theodore de Beze, or Beza) Lille edit.,
i. 11; Gaillard, vi. 460. A MS. narrative of the farce, dictated by
Calvin and taken down by his secretary, Charles de Jonvillers, has been
discovered in the Geneva Library. It is printed in the Bulletin de la
Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., iii. (1854), 33, etc. Calvin, who had
himself been a student in the University of Orleans, and was fully
acquainted with the circumstances, drew up this piquant monograph for J.
Sleidan to use in his famous history of the times, where an account may
accordingly be read.]
[Footnote 114: See the order of Spifame, of Oct. 5, 1527, for payment to
the master mechanic on several annual recurrences of the scene, Bulletin
de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., xxv. (1876), 236, with M.
Bordier's erratum.]
[Footnote 115: Farel, Du vray Usage de la Croix, 129, 131.]
[Footnote 116: "Credo in Jesum inter animalia ex virgine nasciturum."
Chassanee, Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, fol. 295. The medals were said to
have been unearthed at Autun, the residence of Chassanee, who informs us
"multum curavi invenire, sed non potui." But, in addition to the coins,
Chassanee gravely tells us there was also a _church_ built by the
_Franks_ at Chartres before the advent of Christ, in honor of the most
blessed Virgin _pariturae_; "from which it is demonstrated that, if other
Gentiles prophesied _in word_ concerning Christ, the Franks believed on
him _in deed_, just as also the Greeks, who erected a temple to the
unknown God." Ibid., _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 117: From the simple costume worn arose the designation of
"_les processions blanches_."]
[Footnote 118: Le protestantisme en Champagne: Recits extraits d'un
manuscrit de N. Pithou, seigneur de Chamgobert concernant l'histoire de
la fondation, etc., de l'eglise ref. de Troyes des 1539 a 1595, par Ch.
L. B. Recordon (Paris, 1863), 31-33.]
[Footnote 119: The original of this remarkable record, the more
significant from the subsequent position of Louise as a determined enemy
of the Protestants, may be seen in Journal de Louise de Savoie, Coll. de
memoires (Petitot), xvi. 407.]
[Footnote 120: See Mezeray's bitter words respecting Cardinal Duprat's
last hours and character, Abrege chronologique, iv. 584.]
[Footnote 121: "Poi me disse che per opera del Reverendissimo di
Granmont non si faria cosa buona in questa cosa, perche et lui et _il
Gran Cancellario di Francia_ erano huomini _piu disposti a fare quattro
guerre die una pace_." Cardinal Campeggio to Cardinal Salviati, _apud_
H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana hist. eccles. saeculi XVI. illustrantia,
ex tab. sanctae sedis Apostolicae secretis, Frib. Brisg., 1861, 67.]
[Footnote 122: The Manichaeism of the Albigenses is maintained by
Mosheim, Gieseler, Schmidt, etc. A good summary of the evidence in favor
of this view is given in an article in the London Quarterly Review for
April, 1855. The defence of the Albigenses from this serious charge is
ably conducted by George Stanley Faber in his "Inquiry into the History
and Theology of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses" (London, 1838).
One of the more recent apologists is F. de Portal, in his "Les
descendants des Albigeois et des Huguenots" (Paris, 1860).]
[Footnote 123: At Arras, for instance, in 1460, a number of men and
women were burned alive as _Vaudois_, after having been entrapped into
an admission of their guilt by a treacherous advocate. Too late they
exposed the deceit practised upon them, and protested their innocence.
The alleged crimes were: flying to their place of assembly by
witchcraft, adoring the devil, trampling upon the cross, blasphemy,
riotous feasting, and vile offences against morality--staple charges
recurring again and again, _ad nauseam_, whenever persecuted men and
women have been compelled to meet secretly for God's worship. See L.
Rossier, Histoire des protestants de Picardie (Paris, 1861), 1-4; and
more at length, Chronicon Cornelii Zantfliet, which styles the sufferers
heretics a hundred times worse than Waldenses. Martene et Durand, Vet.
Scriptorum ampliss. collectio (Paris, 1729), vii. 501.]
[Footnote 124: If, as Adolphe Muentz concludes, after a critical
examination of style, etc. (Nicolas de Clemangis; sa vie et ses ecrits,
Paris, 1846), the famous treatise De ruina Ecclesiae, or _De corrupto
Ecclesiae statu_, emanated not from Clemangis at Avignon, but from some
member of the University of Paris hostile to the Popes of Avignon, yet
the undisputed writings of Clemangis contain denunciations of the
corruptions of the church quite as decided as any found in the spurious
treatise. In his tract _De Praesulibus Simoniacis_, for example, he
declares that the degradation of the clergy, fostered by the cupidity of
the episcopate, had indeed made God's house a den of robbers. It was
"rapinae officina in qua venalia exponuntur sacramenta ... in qua peccata
etiam venduntur," etc. Muentz, 53. Certainly it would be hard to portray
the life of the priests in darker colors than they appear in the letters
of C. to Gerson, the authenticity of which is not challenged. See the
extracts in Von Polenz, Calvinismus in Frankreich, i. 115. According to
Nicholas de Clemangis, the _chaste_ priest was a rare exception, and an
object of ridicule to his companions.]
[Footnote 125: The complicated motives inducing the Council of Constance
to acquiesce in the cruel sentence of Huss were skilfully traced as far
back as by the learned Mosheim, Institutes of Eccles. Hist. (ed.
Murdoch), ii. 429, note.]
[Footnote 126: This rare poem has been reprinted, with the unimportant
passages omitted, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc.,
v. (1857) 268, etc.]
[Footnote 127:
"Cessez, cessez me donner ornemens,
Calices, croix, et beaux accoutremens;
Faictes que j'aye ministres vertueux....
Les images d'argent tant sumptueux,
La grant beaute des moustiers si notables
Ne sont pas tant devant Dieu acceptables
Que la doctrine et vie bonne et saincte
Des bona prelatz."
]