INCREASING SEVERITY.--LOUIS DE BERQUIN.
[Sidenote: Captivity of Francis I.]
The year 1525 was critical as well in the religious as in the political
history of France. On the twenty-fourth of February, in consequence of
the disaster at Pavia, Francis fell into the hands of his
rival--Charles, by hereditary descent King of Spain, Naples, and
Jerusalem, sovereign, under various titles, of the Netherlands, and by
election Emperor of Germany--a prince whose vast possessions in both
hemispheres made him at once the wealthiest and most powerful of living
monarchs. With his unfortunate captivity, all the fanciful schemes of
conquest entertained by the French king fell to the ground. But France
felt the blow not less keenly than the monarch. One of the most gallant
armies that ever crossed the Alps had been lost. The kingdom was by no
means invulnerable, for the capital itself might easily reward a
well-executed invasion from the side of Flanders. The recuperative
energies of the country could be put forth to little advantage, so long
as the place of the king--_fons omnis jurisdictionis_, as the French
legists styled him--was filled by a woman in the capacity of regent.
France bade fair to exhibit to the world the inherent weakness of a
despotism wherein all power, in fact as well as in theory, centres
ultimately in the single person of the supreme ruler as autocrat. For it
was his standing boast that he was "emperor" in his own realm, holding
it of none other than God, and responsible to God alone, and that as
king and emperor he had the exclusive right to make ordinances from
which no subject could appeal without rendering himself liable to the
penalties pronounced upon traitors.[256] Now that the head was taken
away, who could answer for the harmonious action of the body which had
been wont to depend upon him alone for direction?
[Sidenote: Change in the religious policy of Louise de Savoie.]
Louise de Savoie, to whom the direction of affairs had been confided
during her son's absence in Italy, had, for greater convenience,
transferred the court temporarily to the city of Lyons, where, under the
protection of Margaret of Angouleme, the most evangelical preachers of
France had been allowed to proclaim the tenets of the reformers within
the churches and in the hearing of thousands of eager listeners. The
queen mother had not yet ventured decidedly to depart from the tolerant
system hitherto pursued by the crown.[257] But the announcement of the
capture of Francis effected a complete revolution in her policy. There
is no inherent improbability in the story that Chancellor Duprat--the
statesman and ecclesiastic who had gained so strong an ascendancy over
the mind of Louise that he was shortly promoted to the Archbishopric of
Sens and rewarded with the rich abbey of Saint
Benoit-sur-Loire--insinuated to the queen mother that the misfortunes
befalling France were tokens of the Divine displeasure. Had Francis
spared no exertions to destroy the first germs of the heresy so
insidiously introduced into his kingdom, he would not now, said the
churchman, be languishing in the dungeons of Milan or Madrid. Nor could
hopes be entertained of his deliverance, and of a return of Heaven's
favor, unless the queen mother bestirred herself to retrieve his mistake
by the introduction of new measures to crush heresy. Thus is the
chancellor said to have argued, and to have earned the cardinal's hat at
the Pope's hands. However this may be, it is certain that motives of
policy were no less influential than the pious considerations which,
perhaps, might have carried full as much conviction had they come from
the lips of a more exemplary prelate.[258] The regent was certainly not
ignorant of the fact that the support of Clement the Seventh, now
specially needed in the delicate diplomacy lying immediately before her,
could best be secured by proving to the pontiff's satisfaction that the
house of Valois was clear of all suspicion of harboring or fostering the
"Lutheran" doctrines and their adherents.
The ordinary appliances for the suppression of heresy--a duty entrusted
by canon law, so far as the preliminary search and the trial of the
suspected was concerned, to the bishops and their courts--had
confessedly proved inadequate. The prelates were in great part
non-residents, and could not from a distance narrowly watch the progress
of the objectionable tenets in their dioceses. One or two of their
number were accused of culpable sluggishness, if not of indifference or
something worse. The question naturally arose, What new and more
effective procedure could be devised?
[Sidenote: A commission appointed to try "Lutherans."]
After mature deliberation, the privy council resolved upon a plan which
was virtually to remove the cognizance of crimes against religion from
the clergy, and commit it to a mixed commission. The Parliament of Paris
was accordingly notified that the bishop of that city stood ready to
delegate his authority to conduct the trial of all heretics found within
his jurisdiction to such persons as parliament might select for the
discharge of this important function; and the latter body proceeded at
once to designate two of its own members to act in conjunction with two
doctors of the Sorbonne, and receive the faculties promised by the
Bishop of Paris.[259] A few days later (March 29, 1525), in making a
necessary substitution for one of the members who was unable to serve,
parliament not only empowered the commission thus constituted to try the
"Lutheran" prisoners, Pauvan and Saulnier, but directed the Archbishops
of Lyons and Rheims, and the bishops or chapters of eight of the
remaining most important dioceses, to confer upon it similar authority
to that already received at the hands of the bishop of the
metropolis.[260]
[Sidenote: The commission a new form of inquisition.]
[Sidenote: The inquisition hitherto jealously watched.]
It was, however, no ordinary tribunal which the highest civil court of
the kingdom was erecting. The commission was in effect nothing less than
a new phase of the Inquisition, embodying many of the most obnoxious
features of that detested tribunal. It is true that the "Holy Office,"
in a modified form, had existed in France ever since the persecutions
directed against the Albigenses and the bloody campaigns of Simon de
Montfort. But the seat of the solitary Inquisitor of the Faith was
Toulouse, not Paris, and his powers had been jealously circumscribed by
the courts of justice and the diocesan prelates, both equally interested
in rearing barriers to prevent his incursions into their respective
jurisdictions. The Inquisitor of Toulouse was now only a spy and
informer.[261] Parliament, in particular, had clearly enunciated the
principle that neither inquisitor nor bishop had the right to arrest a
suspected heretic, inasmuch as bodily seizure was the exclusive
prerogative of the officers of the crown. The judges of this supreme
court had summoned to their bar a bishop, and his "official," or vicar,
and had exacted from them an explicit disavowal of any intention to
arrest, in the case of a person whom they had merely detained, as they
asserted, until such time as they could deliver him into the hands of a
competent civil officer.[262] And it had become a maxim of French
jurisprudence, that "an inquisitor of the faith has no power of capture
or arrest, save with the assistance, and by authority, of the secular
arm."[263]
[Sidenote: Parliament breaks down the safeguards of personal liberty.]
But the Parliament of Paris, at the instigation of the regent's
advisers, and with the consent of the bishops, was breaking down these
important safeguards of personal liberty. It not only accorded to the
mixed inquisitorial commission, consisting of two lay and two clerical
members, the authority to apprehend persons suspected of heresy, but
removed the proceedings of the commission almost entirely from review
and correction. A pretext for this extraordinary course was found in the
delays heretofore experienced from the interposition of technical
difficulties. "The commissioners," said parliament, "by virtue of the
authority delegated to them, shall secretly institute inquiries against
the Lutherans, and shall proceed against them by personal summons, by
bodily arrest, by seizure of goods, and by other penalties. Their
decisions shall be executed in spite of any and every opposition and
appeal, save in case of the final sentence."[264] While conferring such
extravagant privileges, parliament took pains to prescribe that the
decisions of the commission should be executed precisely as if they had
emanated from the supreme court itself. Such were the lengths to which
the most conservative judges were willing to go, in the hope of speedily
eradicating the reformed doctrines from French soil.
[Sidenote: The commission endorsed by Clement VII.]
The regent and her master-spirit, the chancellor, did not rest here. The
commission was not irrevocable; and its authority might be disputed. The
work of parliament must receive the papal sanction. For this Clement the
Seventh did not keep them long waiting. He addressed to parliament (May
20, 1525) a brief conceived in a vein of fulsome eulogy, expressing his
marvellous commendation of their acts--acts which he declared to be
worthy of the reputation for wisdom in which the French tribunal was
justly held. And he incited the judges to fresh zeal by the
consideration that the new madness that had fallen upon the world was
prepared to confound and overturn, not religion alone, but all rule,
nobility, pre-eminence and superiority--nay, all law and order. The
reader, it may be feared, will tire of the frequency with which the
same trite suggestions recur. It is, however, not a little important to
emphasize the argument which the Roman Curia, and its emissaries at the
courts of kings, were never weary of reiterating in the ears of the rich
and powerful. And as they seized with avidity every slight incident of
disorder that could by any means be associated with the great religious
movement now in progress, and presented it as corroboratory proof of the
charge preferred against the "Lutherans," it is not surprising that they
were generally successful in their appeal to the fears of a class which
had so much at stake.
In addition to his endorsement of their pious zeal, Clement's brief
informed the judges of parliament that they would find in the
accompanying bull his formal confirmation of the inquisitorial
commission.[265]
This "letter with the leaden seal," dated the seventeenth of May, might
well have opened the eyes of less devoted subjects of the Roman See to
the injury they were inflicting upon the French liberties, heretofore so
cherished an object of judicial solicitude. Addressing itself to the
four commissioners named by parliament, the bull recited the lamentable
progress of the doctrines of that "son of iniquity and heresiarch,
Martin Luther," and praised the ardor displayed to stay their
dissemination in France. It next declared that the Pope, by the advice
and with the unanimous consent of the cardinals, instructed the
commissioners to proceed either singly or collectively against those
persons who had embraced heretical views, "simply and quietly, without
noise or form of judgment." He empowered them to act independently of
the prelates of the kingdom and the Inquisitor of the Faith, or to call
in their assistance, as they should see fit. They might summon
witnesses, under pain of ecclesiastical censures. They might make
investigations against and put on trial all those infected with heresy,
even should the guilty be bishops or archbishops in the church, or be
clothed with the ducal authority in the state. When convicted, such
persons were to be punished by arrest and imprisonment, or cut off,
"like rotten members, from the communion of the church, and consigned
to eternal damnation with Satan and his angels." The commissioners were
further authorized _to grant permission to any one of the faithful who
chose so to do to invade, occupy, and acquire for himself the lands,
castles, and goods of the heretics, seizing their persons and leading
them away into life-long slavery_. From the sentence of the
commissioners all appeal, even to the "Apostolic See" itself, was
expressly cut off.[266]
[Sidenote: Its powers enlarged by the papal bull.]
Rome had made one of its most brilliant strokes. While adopting as his
own the commissioners appointed by parliament, Clement had enlarged
their already exorbitant prerogatives, and consummated their
independence of secular interference. A new and more efficient
inquisition was thus introduced into France, with its secret
investigation and unlimited power of inflicting punishment. The
Parliament of Paris had, however, committed itself too fully to think of
demurring. Accordingly, it proceeded (June 10th) to enter on its records
both the regent's letter and the bull of the Pope, to which the letter
enjoined obedience.[267]
We have in a previous chapter seen some of the first fruits of the
establishment of the inquisitorial commission, in the proceedings
instituted against Lefevre d'Etaples, Gerard Roussel, and others who
took part in the attempted reformation of the diocese of Meaux. But,
chief among those whom it was sought to destroy, through the agency of
the new and well-furbished weapon against heretics, was a nobleman of
Artois, whose repeated and remarkable escapes from the hand of the
executioner, viewed in connection with the tragic fate that at last
overtook him, invest his story with a romantic interest.
[Sidenote: Character of Louis de Berquin.]
[Sidenote: He becomes a warm partisan of the Reformation.]
Louis de Berquin was a man of high rank, whom friends and enemies alike
admired for his uncommon acuteness of mind and his great attainments in
letters and science. A contemporary Parisian, whose diary has supplied
us more than one of those graphic traits that assist much in bringing
before our eyes the living forms of the great actors in the world's past
history, seems to have been strongly impressed by the commanding
appearance and elegance of dress of De Berquin, at this time in the very
prime of life.[268] But the great Erasmus, his correspondent, stood in
far greater admiration of his extraordinary learning, his purity of
life--a rare excellence in a nobleman of the court of Francis the
First--his kindness and freedom from all ostentation, his uncompromising
hatred of every form of meanness and injustice,[269] and a fearless
courage which, in the eyes of the timid sage of Rotterdam, appeared to
fall little short of foolhardiness. Like most of the really earnest
reformers, De Berquin was originally a very strict observer of the
ordinances of the church, and was unsurpassed in attention to fasts,
feast-days, and the mass. It was indignation and contempt for the petty
persecution inaugurated by Beda and his associates of the Sorbonne that
first led him to examine the tenets of Lefevre. From Lefevre's works he
naturally passed to those of the German reformers. His curiosity turning
to admiration, he began to translate and annotate the most striking
treatises that fell into his hands. Not content with this, he set
himself to writing books on the same topics, and incidentally depicted
in no flattering colors the intolerance and ignorance of the Paris
theologians. As he made no attempt at concealment, his activity was soon
known.
[Sidenote: His first imprisonment.]
In the spring of 1523, De Berquin's house was visited, his books and
papers were seized, and an inventory was made. Beda was the leader of
the authorities in the whole affair. Parliament ordered the books and
manuscripts to be examined and reported upon by the theological faculty.
What the report would be, it was not hard to surmise. When such works
were found in De Berquin's possession as that entitled "Speculum
Theologastrorum," and another giving Luther's reasons for maintaining
the universal priesthood of Christian believers; when the notes in De
Berquin's own handwriting condemned as blasphemous, and as derogatory to
the power of the Holy Ghost, the ascription of praise to the Virgin Mary
as the "fountain of all grace"--but one answer could be expected to the
requisition of parliament. The books and manuscripts were pronounced
heretical; their author was commanded to retract. This De Berquin
refused to do, and he was, consequently, shut up in the
_conciergerie_--the civil prison within the walls of the ancient palace
in which parliament sat. Four days later he was transferred to the
dungeons of the Bishop of Paris, to be judged by him with the aid of two
counsellors of parliament and of such theologians as he should see fit
to call in.[270]
[Sidenote: He is released by order of the king.]
The case was fast becoming serious. De Berquin was made of sterner stuff
than the weaklings who recant through fear of the stake; and the syndic
of Sorbonne was fully resolved to have him burned if he remained
constant. Happily, just at this critical moment the king interfered.
From Melun, which he had reached on his way toward the south of France,
he despatched an officer--one "Captain Frederick," as his name appears
in the records--to demand the release of De Berquin, whose trial he had
evoked for the consideration of his own royal council. Parliament
attempted to interpose technical difficulties, and responded that the
prisoner was no longer in its keeping. But "Captain Frederick" was
provided against any quibbling. As his instructions were to break open
whatever prison-doors might be barred against him, it was not long
before the expected prey of the theologians was given into his custody.
In the end De Berquin was set at liberty, such an examination of his
case having been made by the king's council as courtiers are wont to
institute when the accused is the favorite of the monarch.[271]
[Sidenote: Advice of Erasmus.]
It was about this time that Erasmus first made the acquaintance of
Louis de Berquin. The Artesian nobleman took occasion to write to the
great Dutch humanist, of whom he stood in great admiration, to inform
him of the position assumed in reference to the writings of the latter
by Beda and Du Chesne. Erasmus tells us that he was delighted with his
new correspondent. But the constitutional timidity of the scholar
compelled him to answer De Berquin by words of caution rather than of
encouragement: "If you are wise, repress your encomiums; do not disturb
the _hornets_, and spend your time in your favorite studies. At all
events, do not involve me; for the consequences might be inconvenient
for us both." But the dictates of worldly wisdom had no influence over
De Berquin. Presently Erasmus was vexed to find that De Berquin in his
writings was appealing to his friend's authority, and quoting the
sentiments of the latter in defence of his own opinions. Now thoroughly
alarmed at De Berquin's imprudence, Erasmus remonstrated, plainly
intimating that whatever delight others might derive from conflicts such
as he saw approaching, nothing was less grateful to himself.
[Sidenote: Berquin's second imprisonment.]
[Sidenote: Francis again orders his release.]
Meantime Louis de Berquin had retired to his own estates, in the
expectation of pursuing his plans with less danger of interference than
in the capital. Even there, however, he was not safe. The propitious
moment for striking a decisive blow seemed to his enemies to have come
when, the king being a captive, his mother, the regent, had permitted
Pope and parliament to erect a tribunal for the summary trial and
execution of heretics. The Bishop of Amiens, in whose diocese De
Berquin's lands were situated, having applied to parliament, easily
obtained the authority to seize him, disregarding even the ordinary
rights of asylum.[272] After his arrest he was again transferred from
the episcopal palace to the _conciergerie_ at Paris, and his trial
entrusted to the new inquisitorial commission. A series of propositions
extracted from his writings, and censured by the Sorbonne, insured his
condemnation as a relapsed heretic, and De Berquin was handed over to
the secular arm for condign punishment. But again, at the very instant
when his ruin was imminent, he met with unexpected deliverance. The
sympathy of the king's sister was enlisted, and she used her influence
with her mother to obtain an order adjourning all proceedings against De
Berquin until the monarch should be released. Meanwhile she wrote urgent
letters in his behalf to Francis and to his favorite, the grand master
of the palace and future constable of France, Anne de Montmorency. The
reply came in an order from the king, at Madrid, directing his
parliament to cease from giving disturbance to Berquin and such men of
learning.[273]
[Sidenote: Dilatory measures of parliament.]
It is suggestive of the delays attending even the execution of the will
of so arbitrary a prince as Francis, that, although De Berquin was thus
delivered from the immediate prospect of death, months passed before he
regained his liberty. Successive royal orders were required to secure
any alleviation of his hard confinement. Thus, when his health suffered
from want of exercise and pure air, parliament grudgingly permitted him
to leave his solitary cell for an hour morning and evening, at such time
as the court might be clear of other prisoners whom he could
contaminate. And when De Berquin complained that his books and writing
materials had been denied him, the extent of the parliament's generosity
was to grant him "the epistles of St. Jerome and some other Catholic
books." At length, the king's patience becoming exhausted by the court's
procrastination and technical objections, he sent (November 21, 1526)
the Provost of Paris forcibly to remove De Berquin from the
_conciergerie_ to the Louvre, where he was soon restored his
freedom.[274]
[Sidenote: Hopes of Margaret of Angouleme.]
The return of Francis from Madrid, and the rescue of Berquin, Lefevre,
Roussel, and others, from the dangers to which they had been exposed,
encouraged the more sanguine reformers to hope that now at length the
king would declare himself openly in favor, if not of the evangelical
doctrines, at least of some form of religions toleration. Margaret of
Angouleme had certainly labored piously and assiduously to open her
brother's eyes to the true character of his fanatical advisers. In a
letter still preserved and apparently written even before Francis had
been removed from Italy to Spain, she begged him to regard his
misfortune as only a mark of the Divine love, and intended to give him
time for reflection and consecration. This end being accomplished,
Heaven would gloriously deliver him and make him a blessing to all
Christendom--nay, even to infidel nations to be converted by his
means.[275]
However fanciful these brilliant anticipations may now appear, they did
not seem unreasonable at the time. It was not improbable that the
example of the illustrious German princes, his allies, who had embraced
the Reformation, might incline Francis decidedly to the same side.
Margaret had conceived great expectations, based upon a projected visit
to the French court by Count Von Hohenlohe, Dean of the Cathedral of
Strasbourg--a nobleman, who, having become a Protestant, was anxious to
turn to the advantage of his new convictions the influence secured to
him by high social rank. The correspondence of Francis's sister with the
zealous German noble opens a suggestive page of history. At first,
Margaret, while applauding the count's design and building great hopes
upon it, advises him to defer his visit until the king's return from
Spain. Two months later, she is even more anxious to see Hohenlohe in
Paris, but feels constrained to tell him that his friends have, for a
certain reason, concluded that the proper time has not yet arrived. A
third letter, dated after the restoration of Francis to his throne,
informs us what that certain reason was. "I cannot tell you all the
grief I feel," Margaret writes, "for I clearly see that the state of
things is such that your coming cannot be productive of the comfort you
would desire. The king would not be glad to see you. The reason that
your visit is deemed inadvisable is _the deliverance of the king's
children, which the king esteems as important as the deliverance of his
own person_."[276]
[Sidenote: Francis I. violates his pledges to Charles V.]
Here was the secret! Unfortunately for the Reformation, policy was
supposed to make it an imperative duty to conciliate the favor of the
Pope, no less after the release of Francis than while he was yet a
prisoner. There were the young princes sent by the regent as hostages
for the fulfilment of the treaty with Charles of Spain, for whose
liberation measures were to be devised. And there was the oath--to the
shame of Francis, it must be added--from the binding force of which the
king hoped to be relieved by authority of the Roman bishop; for scarcely
had Francis set foot on his own dominions, when he unblushingly
retracted all his treaty stipulations. He announced to the emperor that
the cession of Burgundy, the Viscounty of Auxonne, and other
territories, which had been made by his imperial captor the
indispensable condition of his release, was entirely out of the
question; and that his promises, extorted while he was in duress, were
of no validity! Nevertheless, he offered, in lieu thereof, the payment
of a larger ransom than had ever been proffered by a king of France.
Indignant at a perfidy somewhat flagrant, even for an age tolerably well
accustomed to breaches of faith, the emperor refused the substitute. The
arms recently laid aside were resumed. Clement the Seventh and Venice
became the allies of Francis, who for the present figured as the
champion of the papacy; while his rival, by suffering the traitor
Constable de Bourbon with an army of German soldiers to besiege the
pontiff in his capital, became responsible in the eyes of the world for
all the atrocities of the famous sack of the city of Rome. When, at
length, after three years of hard fighting, peace was concluded by the
treaty of Cambray (July, 1529), the terms agreed upon at Madrid were
virtually carried into effect; but the emperor consented to receive the
sum of two millions of Crowns--_ecus-au-soleil_--in place of Burgundy,
and on payment to restore to the French the dauphin and the Duke of
Orleans, the future Henry the Second, so long detained as hostages in
Spain.
[Sidenote: The king's necessities.]
[Sidenote: A despotic course suggested.]
Meantime the revenues of the royal domain, having during the late wars
been subjected to a long and unremitting drain, had proved utterly
inadequate to meet the extraordinary demand of treasure for the
resumption of the hostilities following close upon Francis's release.
Recourse must be had to the purses of the king's subjects. The right to
levy taxes resided in the States General alone, and Francis was
reluctant, at so critical a juncture, to trample on a time-hallowed
principle. He did not, indeed, hesitate to admit that he had been
gravely counselled by some of his advisers to resort to a more despotic
course; for they maintained that, in so praiseworthy an undertaking as
the effort to recover the young princes, the king was warranted by all
laws, divine and human, in laying under contribution every one of his
subjects, of whatever rank or condition.[277] But, as the same ends
might be attained by methods more agreeable to law and precedent,
Francis preferred to have recourse to them.
[Sidenote: An assembly of notables.]
On the sixteenth of December, 1527, one of those anomalous political
bodies was convened in the palace of the Parisian parliament to which
the name of an assembly of notables is given. All the orders of the
state were represented; but the form of a meeting of the States General
(as we have seen, most distasteful to the despotic monarch) was
studiously avoided.[278] In reply to a very full exposition of the
present condition of the kingdom and of the incidents of his capture,
made by Francis in person to the assembled clergymen, nobles, jurists,
and burgesses of Paris, each order in turn gave its opinion. All united
in approving the refusal of the king to surrender Burgundy to the
emperor, and in expressing their unwillingness to allow his Majesty to
return to Spain and thus redeem the promise he had given in case the
treaty failed to be carried into effect. All likewise professed their
readiness to contribute, according to their ability, to the necessities
of the crown.
The first president, M. de Selve, in the name of parliament, delivered a
discourse which the clerk of the assembly, no doubt aptly, describes as
"_crammed_ with Latin and with quotations from Scripture, to prove that
the treaty of Madrid was null and void."[279] His grounds were that the
king could neither dispose of his own person, which belonged to the
state, nor alienate Burgundy, which, being a fief of the first rank and
a bulwark of the kingdom, was inseparable from France. But probably the
whole prodigious mass of classic lore, and of scriptural quotation, even
more unfamiliar to most of his hearers, which the pedantic president
forced upon the digestion of the unfortunate notables, was required to
prove to their satisfaction that Francis had in this affair played the
part of the "gentilhomme" he boasted of being.
[Sidenote: Speech of the Cardinal of Bourbon.]
The speech of the Cardinal of Bourbon was especially important. He
announced the willingness of the representatives of the French clergy
cheerfully to supply the 1,300,000 livres asked of their order, although
at the same time he suggested the propriety of first convoking
provincial councils, in which the church might be more fully consulted.
With this gracious concession, however, the cardinal coupled three
requests, of which the first and third concerned the liberation of the
Pope from his imprisonment and the conservation of the liberties of the
Gallican church; but the second had a pointed reference to the
Reformation: he prayed "that the king might be pleased to uproot and
extirpate the damnable and insufferable Lutheran sect which had, not
long since, secretly entered the realm, with all the other heresies that
were multiplying therein." By thus acting, he assured him, Francis
"would perform the duty of a good prince bearing the name of _Very
Christian King_."
[Sidenote: Francis promises to prove himself "Very Christian."]
The gratified monarch, delighted with the complaisance of his clerical
subjects, did not hesitate to accede to all the petitions the Cardinal
offered, and declared that, "so far as concerned heresies, he was
determined not to endure them, but would cause them to be wholly
extirpated and driven from his kingdom," inflicting on any found tainted
therewith such exemplary punishment as to demonstrate his right to the
honorable title he bore.[280]
It was a rash promise that Francis had made. Like many other absolute
monarchs, he expected without trouble to bring the religious convictions
of his subjects into conformity with the standard he was pleased to set
up.[281] He had yet to learn that there are beliefs which, when they
take root in the hearts of humble and illiterate peasants or artisans,
are too firmly fixed to be eradicated by the most excruciating tortures
man's ingenuity has been able to contrive. Through fire and sword, the
victim now of persecution, again of open war, the faith denominated
heresy was yet to survive, not only the last lineal descendant of the
king then sitting on the throne of France, but the rule of the dynasty
which was destined to succeed to the power, and reproduce not a few of
the mistakes, of the Valois race.
[Sidenote: The provincial council of Sens.]
In accordance with the suggestion of the Cardinal of Bourbon, three
provincial councils were held early in the ensuing year (1528). The most
important was the council of the ecclesiastical province of _Sens_,
which met, however, in the Augustinian monastery at Paris. It was
scarcely to be expected that a synod presided over by Antoine Duprat,
who, to the dignity of cardinal and the office of Chancellor of France,
added the Bishopric of Albi and the Archbishopric of Sens, with the
claim to be Primate of the Gauls and of Germany, should discuss with
severity the morals of the clergy, or issue stringent canons against the
abuse of the plurality of benefices. As an offset, however, the Council
of Sens had much to say respecting the new reformation. The good fathers
saw in the discordant views of Luther and Carlstadt, of Melanchthon and
Zwingle, proof positive that the new doctrines the reformers advanced
were devoid of any basis of truth. They ridiculed the claim of the
Protestants to the presence of the Spirit of God. But they reserved
their severest censures for the practice of holding secret conventicles,
and, with an irony best appreciated by those who understand the
penalties inflicted by the law on the discovered heretics, they gently
reminded the men and women to whom the celebration of a single religious
service according to the dictates of their conscience would have insured
instantaneous condemnation and a death at the stake, that God hates the
deeds of darkness, and that Christ himself said, "What I tell you in
darkness, that speak ye in light."[282]
[Sidenote: The punishment of heretics.]
More practical were the prescriptions of the council's decrees
respecting the punishment of offenders against the unity of the faith.
Heretics who, after conviction, refused to be "united to the church,"
were to be consigned to prison for life, priests to be degraded, the
relapsed to be given over to the secular arm without a hearing.
Heretical books, including translations of the Bible, were to be
surrendered to the bishop. Indeed, it was stipulated that every book
treating of the faith, and printed within the past twenty years, should
be submitted to him for examination. Nor was the council satisfied to
leave the discovery of heresy to accident. It was particularly enjoined
upon every bishop that he, or some competent person appointed by him,
should visit any portion of his diocese in which the taint of unsound
doctrine was reported to exist, and compel three or more persons of good
standing, or even the entire body of the inhabitants of a neighborhood,
to denounce under oath those who entertained heretical views, the
frequenters of secret conventicles, and even those who merely held aloof
from the conversation of the faithful. Lest this stimulus to informers
should prove insufficient to extract the desired knowledge, the threat
was added that persons refusing to testify would be treated as
suspected, and themselves proceeded against.[283]
[Sidenote: The councils of Bourges and Lyons.]
Not less severe toward the "Lutheran" doctrines did the other two
provincial councils show themselves. At the Council of Bourges, the
Cardinal of Tournon presided as archbishop--a prelate who was to attain
unenviable notoriety as the prime instigator of the massacre of Merindol
and Cabrieres, of which an account will be given in a subsequent
chapter. Besides the usual regulations for the censure of heretical
books and the denunciation of "Lutherans," the decrees contain the
significant direction that the professors in the University of Bourges
shall employ in their instructions no authors calculated to divert the
students from the ceremonies of the church--a caution deriving its
importance from the circumstance that the university, under the
patronage of Margaret of Angouleme, now Duchess of Berry as well as
Queen of Navarre, had become a centre of reformatory activity.
The letter in which the king had called upon the Archbishop of Lyons to
convene the clergy of his province, declared that Francis had ever held
the accursed sect of the "Lutherans" in hatred, horror, and abomination,
and that its extirpation was an object very near his heart, for the
accomplishment of which he would employ all possible means;[284] and the
Council of Lyons responded by cordial approval and by the enactment of
fresh regulations to suppress conventicles, to prevent the farther
dissemination of Luther's writings, and, indeed, to forbid all
discussion of matters of faith by the laity. At the same time the
council unconsciously revealed the necessity imposed on the private
Christian to investigate for himself the nature and grounds of his
belief, by strongly reprobating the disastrous custom of admitting into
sacred orders a host of illiterate, uncultivated persons of low
antecedents--beardless youths--and by confessing that this wretched
practice had justly excited the contempt of the world.[285]
[Sidenote: Financial help bought by persecution.]
Everywhere the clergy conceded the subsidy required by the exigencies of
the kingdom. But they left Francis in no doubt respecting the price of
their complaisance. This was nothing less than the extermination of the
new sect that had made its appearance in France. And the king
comprehended and fell in with the terms upon which the church agreed to
loosen its purse-strings. No doubtful policy must now prevail! No more
Berquins can be permitted to make their boast that they have been able,
protected by the king's panoply, to beard the lion in his den!
[Sidenote: Insult to an image.]
An incident occurring in Paris, before the adjournment of the Council of
Sens, gave Francis a specious excuse for inaugurating the more cruel
system of persecution now demanded of him, and tended somewhat to
conceal from the king himself, as well as from others, the mercenary
motive of the change. Just after the solemnities of Whitsunday, an
unheard of act of impiety startled the inhabitants of the capital, and
fully persuaded them that no object of their devotions was safe from
iconoclastic violence. One of those numerous statues of the Virgin Mary,
with the infant Jesus in her arms, that graced the streets of Paris, was
found to have been shockingly mutilated. The body had been pierced, and
the head-dress trampled under foot. The heads of the mother and child
had been broken off and ignominiously thrown in the rubbish.[286] A more
flagrant act of contempt for the religious sentiment of the country had
perhaps never been committed. The indignation it awakened must not be
judged by the standard of a calmer age.[287] In the desire to ascertain
the perpetrators of the outrage, the king offered a reward of a thousand
crowns. But no ingenuity could ferret them out. A vague rumor, indeed,
prevailed, that a similar excess had been witnessed in a village four or
five leagues distant, and that the culprits when detected had confessed
that they had been prompted to its commission by the promise of a paltry
recompense of one hundred _sous_ for every image destroyed. But, since
no one seems ever to have been punished, it is probable that this report
was a fabrication; and the question whether the mutilation of the Virgin
of the _Rue des Rosiers_ was the deliberate act of a religious
enthusiast, or a freak of drunken revellers, or, as some imagined, a
cunning device of good Catholics to inflame the popular passions
against the "Lutherans," must, for the present, at least, remain a
subject of profound doubt.
[Sidenote: Expiatory processions.]
But, whoever may have been the author, pains were taken to expiate the
sacrilege. Successive processions visited the spot. In one of these,
five hundred students of the university, chosen from different colleges
and belonging to the first families, bore lighted tapers, which they
placed on the temporary altar erected in front of the image. The clergy,
both secular and regular, came repeatedly with all that was most
precious in attire and relics. To add still more to the pomp of the
propitiatory pilgrimages, Francis himself took part in a magnificent
display, made on the _Fete-Dieu_, or Corpus Christi (the eleventh of
June). He was preceded by heralds and by the Dukes of Cleves and Ferrara
and other noblemen of high rank, while behind him walked the King of
Navarre, the Cardinal of Lorraine, the Ambassadors of England, Venice,
Florence, and other foreign states, the officers of parliament, and a
crowd of gentlemen of the king's house, archers and persons of all
conditions bringing up the rear. On reaching the spot where the
mutilated statue still occupied its niche, Francis, after appropriate
religious exercises, ascended the richly carpeted steps, and reverently
substituted an effigy in solid silver, of similar size, in place of the
image which had been the object of insult.[288]
[Sidenote: Other icoconoclastic excesses.]
From this time forward, iconoclastic demonstrations became more common.
Paintings, also, when exposed to the public view, shared the perils to
which unprotected statues were subjected. The Virgin, and such reputable
saints as St. Roch and St. Fiacre, depicted on the walls of the Rue St.
Martin, were wantonly disfigured, some two years later; so that at last,
the Parliament of Paris, in despair of preventing the repetition of the
act, or of discovering its authors, adopted the prudent course of
forbidding that any sacred representation should be placed on the
exterior walls of a house _within ten feet of the ground_![289]
[Sidenote: Berquin's third arrest.]
[Sidenote: He disregards the cautions of Erasmus.]
The repeated assurances whereby Francis had conciliated the clergy, and
secured their contributions to the exchequer, embarrassed him in the
exercise of leniency toward Louis de Berquin, now for the third time
arraigned for heresy. Moreover, the audacity and violence of the
iconoclasts, characteristics assumed by him to be indicative of a
disposition to overturn all government, probably took away any
inclination he would otherwise have had to interfere in the intrepid
nobleman's behalf. De Berquin had no sooner been released from his
former imprisonment than he set himself to prepare for new conflicts
with his bigoted antagonists. He even resolved to assume the offensive.
In vain did Erasmus entreat him to be prudent, suggest the propriety of
his temporarily going abroad, and propose that he should apply for some
diplomatic commission as a plausible excuse for absenting himself. Beda,
he told him, was a monster with many heads, each breathing out poison,
while in the "Faculty" he had to do with an _immortal_ antagonist. The
monks would secure his ruin were his cause more righteous than that of
Jesus Christ. Finally, the tremulous scholar begged him, if no
consideration of personal safety moved him, at least not to involve so
ardent a lover of peace as Erasmus in a conflict for which he had no
taste. But his reasoning had no weight with a man of high resolve and
inflexible principle, who could see no honorable course but openly
meeting and overthrowing error. "Do you ask," wrote Erasmus to a
correspondent interested in learning De Berquin's fate, "what I
accomplished? By every means I employed to deter him I only added to his
courage."[290] If we may believe Erasmus's strong expressions--for his
own writings have very nearly disappeared--De Berquin assailed the monks
with a freedom almost equal to that employed by the Old Comedy in
holding up to merited derision the foibles of Athenian generals and
statesmen. He even extracted twelve blasphemous propositions from Beda's
utterances, and obtained a letter from the king enjoining the Sorbonne
either to pass sentence of condemnation on their syndic's assertions, or
to prove their truth from the Holy Scriptures.[291] The Dutch
philosopher, aghast at his friend's incredible temerity, besought him
instantly to seek safety in flight; and, when this last appeal proved as
ineffectual as all his frequent efforts in the past, he confessed that
he almost regretted that a friendship had ever arisen which had
occasioned him so much trouble and disquiet.[292]
A third time Louis de Berquin was arrested, on application of the
officer known as the _Promoteur de la foi_. His trial was committed to
twelve judges selected by parliament, among whom figured not only the
first president and the vicar-general of the Bishop of Paris, but,
strange to say, even so well-disposed and liberal a jurist as Guillaume
Bude, the foremost French scholar of the age for broad and accurate
learning.[293] The case advanced too slowly to meet De Berquin's
impatience. In the assurance of ultimate success, he is even accused by
a contemporary chronicler of having offered the court two hundred crowns
to expedite the trial.[294] It soon became evident, however, from, the
withdrawal of the liberties at first accorded, that Be Berquin would
scarcely escape unless the king again interposed--a contingency less
likely to occur in view of the incessant appeals with which Francis was
plied, addressed at once to his interest, his conscience, and his pride.
But the more desperate the cause of Berquin, and the more uncertain the
king's disposition, the more urgent the intercessions of Margaret of
Angouleme, whose character is nowhere seen to better advantage than in
her repeated letters to her brother about this time.[295]
[Sidenote: Berquin sentenced to public penance, branding, and
imprisonment.]
The sentence was rendered on the sixteenth of April, 1529. De Berquin,
being found guilty of heresy, was condemned to do public penance in
front of Notre Dame, with lighted taper in hand, and crying for mercy to
God and the blessed Virgin. Next, on the Place de Greve, he was to be
ignominiously exhibited upon a scaffold, while his books were burned
before his eyes. Taken thence in a cart to the pillory, and again
exposed to popular derision on a revolving stage, he was to have his
tongue pierced and his forehead branded with the ineffaceable
_fleur-de-lis_. His public disgrace over, De Berquin was to be
imprisoned for life in the episcopal jail.[296]
[Sidenote: He appeals, is sentenced to death, and is executed.]
More than twenty thousand persons--so intense a hatred had been stirred
up against the reformers--assembled to witness the execution of a
sentence malignantly cruel.[297] But, for that day, their expectation
was disappointed. Louis de Berquin gave notice that he appealed to the
absent king and to the Pope himself. It was no part of the programme,
however, that the thrice-convicted heresiarch should gain a fresh
respite and enlist powerful friends in effecting his release. No sooner
were the judges satisfied that he persisted in his appeal, in spite of
the secret and urgent advice of Bude and others, than they rendered a
new and more severe sentence (on the seventeenth of April): he must pay
the forfeit of his obstinacy with his life, and that, too, within a few
hours.[298]
The cause of this intemperate haste is clearly set forth by a
contemporary--doubtless an eye-witness of the execution--all whose
sympathies were on the side of the prosecution. It was "lest recourse be
had to the king, or to the regent then at Blois;"[299] for the delay of
even a few days might have brought from the banks of the Loire another
order removing De Berquin's case from the commission to the royal
council.
The historian must leave to the professed martyrologist the details of
the constant death of Louis de Berquin, as of the deaths of many other
less distinguished victims of the intolerant zeal of the Sorbonne.
Suffice it to say that although, when he undertook to address the
people, his voice was purposely drowned by the din of the attendants,
though the very children filled the air with shouts that De Berquin was
a heretic, though not a person was found in the vast concourse to
encourage him by the name of "Jesus"--an accustomed cry even at the
execution of parricides--the brave nobleman of Artois met his fate with
such composure as to be likened by a by-stander to a student immersed in
his favorite occupations, or a worshipper whose devout mind was
engrossed by the contemplation of heavenly things.[300] There were
indeed blind rumors, as usual in such cases; to the effect that De
Berquin recanted at the last moment; and Merlin, the Penitentiary of
Notre Dame, who attended him, is reported to have exclaimed that
"perhaps no one for a hundred years had died a better Christian."[301]
But the "Lutherans" of Paris had good reason to deny the truth of the
former statement, and to interpret the latter to the advantage of De
Berquin's consistent faith--so great was the rejoicing over the final
success attained in crushing the most distinguished, in silencing the
boldest and most outspoken advocate of the reformation of the church.
For, in the eyes of the theological faculty and of the clergy of France,
Louis de Berquin merited to be styled, by way of pre-eminence, a
_heresiarch_.[302]
[Sidenote: Francis treats with the Germans.]
Three years had not elapsed since the blow struck at the "Lutheran"
doctrines in France, in the execution of their most promising and
intrepid representative, before the hopes of the friends of the
Reformation again revived from a consideration of the king's political
relations. Disappointed at the contemptuous reception of their
confession of faith by the Emperor at Augsburg, the Protestant princes
of Germany had formed a defensive league. Francis, having basely
abandoned his former allies, was left alone to combat the gigantic power
of a rival between two portions of whose dominions his own kingdom lay
exposed. Every consideration of prudence dictated the policy of lending
to the German Protestants, in their endeavor to humble the pride of
their common antagonist, the most efficient support of his arms. Under
these circumstances religious differences were impotent to prevent the
union. Accordingly, in May, 1532, through his ambassador, the sagacious
Du Bellay, Francis promised the discontented Elector of Saxony and his
associates the contribution of a large sum to enable them to make a
sturdy resistance. But the peace shortly concluded with Charles rendered
the proffered aid for a time unnecessary.[303]
[Sidenote: and with Henry VIII. of England.]
Equally unproductive of advantage to the professors of the reformed
faith was the alliance for mutual defence between Francis and Henry the
Eighth of England. Both monarchs were inspired with the same hatred of
the emperor, and each had equal reason to complain of the insatiable
rapacity of the Roman court. But neither at the pompous interview of the
two kings at Boulogne, nor afterward, could Henry prevail upon Francis
to take any decided measures against the Pope such as the former, weary
of the obstacles thrown in the way of his divorce from Catharine of
Aragon, was ready to venture. In his intercourse with the English king,
Francis is said to have adopted for his guiding principle the motto,
"_Ami jusqu'a l'autel_,"[304] and declined to sacrifice his orthodoxy to
his interests. But the truth was that, in the view of Francis, his
interests and his orthodoxy were coincident; and the difficulty
experienced by the two kings in coming to a common understanding lay in
the fact that, as has been well remarked, while in the enmity of Francis
it was not the Pope but the emperor that occupied the foremost place, it
was just the reverse with Henry.[305]
[Sidenote: Meeting of Francis I. and Clement, at Marseilles.]
[Sidenote: Marriage of Henry of Orleans to Catharine de' Medici.]
Francis had no thought of throwing away so valuable an auxiliary in his
Italian projects, or of permanently attaching to Charles so dangerous an
opponent as the papal power. And thus it happened that, a year from the
time of his consultation with Henry, Francis proceeded to Marseilles to
extend a still more cordial welcome to Clement himself. The wily pontiff
had so dazzled the eyes of the king, that the latter had consented to,
if he had not actually proposed, a marriage between Henry, Duke of
Orleans, his second son, and Catharine de' Medici, the Pope's
niece.[306] The match was not flattering to Francis's pride; but there
were great prospective advantages, and the bride was less objectionable
because the bridegroom, as a younger son, was not likely to ascend the
throne. But here again the king was destined to be disappointed.
Clement's death, soon after, destroyed all hope of Medicean support in
Italy; and the death of Francis, the dauphin, made Henry of Orleans
heir apparent to the throne. It was not long before the French people,
with the soundness of judgment generally characterizing the deliberate
conclusions reached by the masses, came to the opinion, expressed by one
of the Venetian ambassadors two years after the wedding: "Monseigneur of
Orleans is married to Madam Catharine de' Medici, to the dissatisfaction
of all France; for it seems to everybody that the most Christian king
was cheated by Pope Clement."[307] Such were the evil auspices under
which the Italian girl, only fourteen years of age,[308] entered a
country over whose destinies she was to exert a pernicious influence.
[Sidenote: Francis refuses to join in a crusade against heresy.]
There was another part of the Pope's designs in the execution of which
he was less successful. He could not persuade Francis to join in a
general scheme for the extermination of heresy. In the very first
interview, Clement had sounded his host's disposition respecting the
propriety of a new crusade. He had bluntly submitted for consideration
the question, "Ought not Francis and the pious princes of Germany, with
the emperor at their head, to gather up their forces, enlist troops, and
make all needful preparations, to overwhelm the followers of Zwingle and
Luther; in order that, affrighted by the terrible retribution visited
upon their fellows, the remaining heretics should hasten to make their
submission to the Roman Church?" At the same time he threw out hints of
his ability to assist in the good work if only the French monarch would
not refuse his co-operation. But Francis was not ready for so sanguinary
an undertaking. Unmoved by the Pope's repeated solicitations, he replied
that it seemed to him that "neither piety nor concord would be promoted
by substituting an appeal to arms for the appeal to the Holy Scriptures,
to whose ultimate decision both Zwinglians and Lutherans professed
themselves at all times anxious to submit their doctrines and practice."
He added the unpalatable advice that the matters in dispute be
considered by a free and impartial council, and declared that, when the
council had rendered its verdict, he would spare no pains to sustain it.
All the usual pontifical artifices proved abortive. Francis, while
valuing highly the friendship of Rome, was not willing to forego the
advantages of alliance with the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of
Hesse.[309]
While the fickle monarch was thus drawn in opposite directions by
conflicting political considerations--at one time strengthening the
hands of the Protestant princes of Germany, at another, making common
cause with the Pope--the same diversity characterized the internal
condition of France.
[Sidenote: Execution of Jean de Caturce at Toulouse.]
At Toulouse, the seat of one of most noted parliaments, Jean de Caturce,
a lawyer of ability, was put to death by slow fire in the summer of
1532. His unpardonable offence was that he had once made a "Lutheran"
exhortation, and that, in the merry-making on the _Fete des
Rois_--Epiphany--he had recommended that the prayer, "May Christ reign
in our hearts!" be substituted for the senseless cry, "The king drinks!"
No more ample ground of accusation was needed in a city where the
luckless wight who failed to take off his cap before an image, or fall
on his knees when the bell rang out at "Ave Maria," was sure to be set
upon as a heretic.[310]
[Sidenote: Le Coq's evangelical sermon.]
In striking contrast with the tragedy enacted in the chief city of the
south was the favor openly showed to the reformers by the Queen of
Navarre, not only in her own city of Bourges, but in Paris itself. The
intercessions she had addressed to her brother for the victims of
priestly persecution had long since betrayed her secret leaning; and the
translation of her "Hours" into French by the Bishop of Senlis, who, by
her direction, suppressed all that most directly countenanced
superstitious beliefs, was naturally taken as strong confirmation of the
prevalent suspicion. But, when she introduced Berthault, Courault, and
her own almoner, Roussel, to the pulpits of the capital, and protected
them in their evangelical labors, the case ceased to admit of
doubt.[311] She even persuaded the king to listen to a sermon in which
Le Coq, curate of St. Eustache, argued with force against the bodily
presence of Christ in the eucharist, and maintained that the very words,
"_Sursum corda_" in the church service, pointed Him out as to be found
at the right hand of God in heaven. Indeed, the eloquent preacher had
nearly convinced his royal listener, when the Cardinals of Tournon and
Lorraine, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded in destroying the impression
he had received, and, it is said, in inducing Le Coq to make a
retraction.[312] But the opposition to the public proclamation of the
reformed doctrines was too formidable for their advocates to stem. Beda
and his colleagues in the Sorbonne left no device untried to silence the
preachers; and, although the restless syndic was in the end forced to
expiate his seditious words and writings by an _amende honorable_ in
front of the church of Notre Dame, and died in prison,[313] Roussel and
his fellow-preachers had long before been compelled to exchange their
public discourses for private exhortations, and finally to discontinue
even these and retreat from Paris.[314]
[Sidenote: Margaret attacked in the College of Navarre.]
Even so, however, the theologians could not contain their indignation at
the insult they had received. In the excess of their zeal they went so
far as to hold up the king's sister to condemnation and derision, in one
of those plays which the students of the College de Navarre were
accustomed annually to perform, as a scholastic exercise in public
oratory (on the first of October, 1533). A gentle queen was here
represented as throwing aside needle and distaff, at the crafty
suggestion of a tempting fury, and as receiving in lieu of those
feminine implements a copy of the Gospels--when, lo! she was suddenly
transformed into a cruel tyrant. It was perhaps hard to detect the exact
connection between the acceptance of the holy book and so disastrous a
change of character--neither the students of the College de Navarre nor
their teachers thought it worth while to trouble themselves about such
trifles--but there was no difficulty in recognizing Margaret in the
principal actor of the play, or in deciphering the name of Master Gerard
Roussel--Magister Gerardus--in _Megaera_, the fury with the flaming
torch, that seduced her. On complaint of his sister, Francis, in some
indignation, ordered the arrest of the author of the insipid drama, as
well as of the youthful performers. The former could not be found, and
the latter, thanks to the queen's clemency, escaped with a less rigorous
punishment than the insult deserved.[315]
[Sidenote: Her Miroir de l'ame pecheresse.]
An equally audacious act was the insertion of a work published by
Margaret, under the title of _Le miroir de l'ame pecheresse_, in a list
of prohibited books. When the university, to whom the censorship of the
press was entrusted, was called to account by the king, all the
faculties promptly repudiated any intention to cast doubt upon the
orthodoxy of his sister, and even the originator of the offensive
prohibition was forced to plead ignorance of the authorship of the
volume in question. The rector of the university terminated the long
series of disclaimers by rendering thanks to Francis for his fatherly
patience.[316]
[Sidenote: Rector Cop's address to the university.]
Just a month after the unlucky dramatic representation of the College de
Navarre, the city was furnished with fresh food for scandal. On All
Saints' day (the first of November, 1533), the university assembled
according to custom in the church of the Mathurins, to listen to an
address delivered by the rector. But Nicholas Cop's discourse was not of
the usual type. Under guise of a disquisition on "Christian Philosophy,"
the orator preached an evangelical sermon, with the First Beatitude for
his text, and propounded the view that the forgiveness of sin and
eternal life are simple gifts of God's grace that cannot be earned by
man's good works.[317]
[Sidenote: Its extraordinary character.]
Never had academic harangue contained sentiments savoring so strongly of
the tenets of the persecuted reformers. True, the rector had not omitted
the ordinary invitation to his hearers to join him in the salutation of
the Virgin.[318] But even this mark of orthodox Catholicity could not
remove the taint of heresy from an address the whole drift of which was
to establish the cardinal doctrine of the theology of Luther and
Zwingle. It was a bold step. The doctors of the Sorbonne could not
suppress their indignation, and Franciscan monks denounced the rector to
the Parliament of Paris. When summoned to appear before the court to
answer the charges brought against him, Cop at first endeavored to
arouse in the university the traditional jealousy of this invasion of
scholastic privileges, claiming that these were violated by his being
cited to parliament before he had been in the first instance tried by
his peers. And, indeed, after a tumultuous meeting of the university,
called at the Mathurins a fortnight after the delivery of Cop's address
(the nineteenth of November), the Faculty of Arts came to the same
conclusion.[319] But, although the "Four Nations," and apparently the
Faculty of Medicine also, promised their support, the Faculties of
Theology and Law refused, and Cop did not venture to press his point.
Warned of his danger by a friendly tongue, when already on his way to
the _Palais de Justice_, in full official costume and accompanied by his
beadles, he consulted his safety by a precipitate flight from the city
and from the kingdom.[320]
[Sidenote: Calvin the real author.]
The incidents just narrated derive their chief interest from the
circumstance that they bring to our notice for the first time a young
man, Jean Cauvin, or Calvin, of Noyon, soon to figure among the most
important actors in the intellectual and religious history of the modern
world; for it was not many days before the authorship of the startling
theological doctrines enunciated by the rector was directly traced to
his friend and bosom companion, the future reformer of Geneva. In fact,
Calvin seems to have supplied Cop with the entire address--a production
not altogether unworthy of that clear and vigorous intellect which,
within less than two years, conceived the plan of and matured the most
orderly and perfect theological treatise of the Reformation--the
"Institution Chretienne." Between the sketch of Christian Philosophy in
the discourse written for the rector, and the Christian Institutes,
there is, nevertheless, a contrast too striking to be overlooked. And if
the salutation to the Virgin, in the exordium, was actually penned by
Calvin, as is not improbable, the change in his religious convictions
would appear to have been as marked and rapid as the development of his
intellectual faculties. At any rate, the recent discovery of the
complete manuscript of Nicholas Cop's oration ranks among the most
opportune and welcome of antiquarian successes in our times.[321]
[Sidenote: He seeks safety in flight.]
Calvin was soon reduced to the necessity of following the rector's
example in fleeing from Paris; for the part he had had in preparing the
address had become the public talk. The young scholar--he was only in
his twenty-fifth year--sought for by the sanguinary
_lieutenant-criminel_, Jean Morin, barely made good his escape.
Proceeding to Angouleme, he enjoyed, under the friendly roof of Louis de
Tillet, a short period of quiet and an opportunity to pursue his
favorite studies.[322]
[Sidenote: Francis rejects roughly the intercession of the Bernese.]
The incessant representations made to the king respecting the rapid
progress of "Lutheran" doctrines in France, and perhaps also the
occurrence of such incidents as that just mentioned, seem to have been
the cause of the adoption of new measures against the Reformation and
its professors. Already, in October, Francis had written a rough answer
to the Council of the Canton of Berne, expressing extreme surprise that
they had ventured to intercede for the relatives of Guillaume Farel,
accused of heresy, and to beg him to give no credit in this matter
either to the royal officers or to the inquisitors of the faith.[323]
And he had used these significant words: "Desiring the preservation of
the name of _very Christian king_, acquired for us by our predecessors,
_we have nothing in the world more at heart than the entire extirpation
of heresies, and nothing could induce us to suffer them to take root in
our kingdom_. Of this you may rest well assured, and leave us to proceed
against them, without your giving yourselves any solicitude. _For
neither your prayers, nor those of any one else whomsoever, could be of
any avail in this matter with us._"[324]
[Sidenote: Royal letter to the Bishop of Paris.]
On his return from the marriage of his son Henry to Catharine de'
Medici, celebrated only four days before Cop's university harangue,
Francis was induced to make new provisions for the detection and
punishment of dissent. Alarmed by the progress of "Lutheran" sentiments
in his very capital, as reported to him by parliament, he not only urged
that body to renewed diligence, but directed the Bishop of Paris, the
tolerant Jean du Bellay, who may have been suspected of too much
supineness in the matter,[325] to confer upon two counsellors of
parliament all the authority necessary to act for him, without prejudice
to his jurisdiction in other cases.[326] Both parliament and bishop
were at the same time notified of the receipt of two fresh bulls, kindly
furnished by Pope Clement, at Francis's request, to help in the good
work of extirpating "that accursed Lutheran sect."[327]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Elegies on Louis de Berquin.]
The number of extant poems on the death of Louis de Berquin attests
very clearly the estimate placed upon him by the Roman Catholics as
the most dangerous heretic--in fact, the _heresiarch_ of the day. A
stanza of eight lines, which seems to have been popular (for it has
been discovered in MS. both in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Genin,
i. 219, and in the library of Soissons, Bulletin de la Soc. de
l'hist. du prot. franc., xi. 131), represents the four elements as
conspiring, at God's bidding, to take vengeance upon him:
"Du faux Berquin et de ses documens
Dieu s'est venge par les quatre elemens:
_Terre_ luy a desnie sepulture;
_Feu_ l'a destruit et sa fausse escripture;
Tisons par _eau_ pluviale arrosez
Se sont plus fort esmeus et embrasez.
Dont (pour la fin du malheureux comprendre)
L'_air_ par les vents en a receu la cendre."
I have been so fortunate as to discover two other poems on the same
subject, in a little collection in my possession entitled _Martini
Theodorici Bellovaci Epigrammata_ (Parisiis, 1539), which seems to
be of such rarity that these pieces may almost be viewed in the
light of inedited documents. They are of special interest because
of the singular circumstance that this collection of extremely
"Catholic" effusions is dedicated to _Odet de Coligny_, Cardinal of
Chatillon, Archbishop of Toulouse, Bishop and Count of Beauvais,
elder brother of the more famous _Admiral_ massacred on St.
Bartholomew's day. Cardinal Chatillon, created such when only
thirteen years old, was, at the time of the publication of this
book, a youth of scarcely more than twenty-two, and a devout Roman
Catholic, but subsequently, as elsewhere stated, became an avowed
Protestant and a prominent Huguenot leader.
In the first of these poems, under the heading of _Elegia Ludovici
Berquuyni_, the writer would almost seem to have had in mind the
description by the ancient dramatists of the impious warfare of
Capaneus breathing out boastful threats against Jove himself
(Septem con. Theb., 416, etc.), or the Titans in conflict with the
Gods.
"Occultum patuit quod non celarier ultra
Debuit. Excellens Jupiter egit opus.
Sublimi elatum dejecit sede potentem,
Qui modo regnabat, qui modo jura dabat,
Quique superbifico regalia limina gressu
Tantum incedebat, pastus honore levi,
Et cedrina petens famae monimenta perennis.
Insigni optabat sanctior esse Numa.
Lector, Ave, et causam properes dignoscere: casus
Haereseos foeda labe volutus erat.
Hoc impune nefas solida an ratione stetisset,
Et Petri hausissent aequora vasta ratim,
Inviolata fides aeterno permanet aevo.
Percutit injustos ira molesta Dei;
Quem neque praemeditans latuit Nero, funera cujus
Distulit adversa in tempora longa vice.
Occidit ergo miser, Divumque hominumque favore,
Traduxitque illuc sors malesuada virum.
Nil gravius pugnare Deo, pugnare feroci
Fortunae. Vinci magnus uterque nequit."
The other elegy is shorter and less striking in conception, but
gives a similar impression of the importance assigned to Louis de
Berquin's activity and influence:
"Francia dum hymnidico resonet paeane juventus,
Parisia extincto gaudeat hoste phalanx.
Hic dudum, et nuper morbo scabiosus edaci,
Francorum reliquas inficiebat oves.
Cognitus haud potuit mundari errore nefando,
Quin purgaretur lucidiore foco.
Nam quamvis concessa esset clementia, durus
Obstitit, et rapido malluit igne mori."
The library of Soissons contains a MS. lament from a Protestant
source over the death of De Berquin, which is at once simple and
touching. It is printed in the Bulletin, xi. 129-131.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 256: Registres du parlement, Feb. 26, 1417/8, Preuves des
Libertez, i. 124, etc.]
[Footnote 257: Yet the trial of Aime Maigret had been specially
committed by Louise to the Sorbonne, as early as January, 1525 (Letter
of the Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Beda, Jan. 23, 1525,
Herminjard, i. 326); and Zwingle knew, in March, of a more or less
successful effort to convince the regent that the evangelical doctrines
were subversive of peace--the proof alleged being drawn from Germany,
where "everything was turned upside down." Dedication to Francis I.,
prefixed to De vera et falsa religione commentarius, Herminjard, i.
351.]
[Footnote 258: See Mezeray's unfavorable portrait of the unscrupulous
Duprat, Abrege chron., iv. 584.]
[Footnote 259: The four were Philippe Pot, President in the _chambre des
enquetes_, and Andre Verjus, a counsellor, from parliament, and
Guillaume Du Chesne and Nicholas Le Clerc, doctors of theology. For the
first on the list, Jacques de la Barde was soon after substituted.
Registres du parlement, March 20, 1524/5, Preuves des Libertez, i. 164.]
[Footnote 260: Registres du parlement, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 261: Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 102.]
[Footnote 262: Registres du parlement, July 29, 1458, Preuves des
Libertez, i. 138.]
[Footnote 263: "Un inquisiteur de la foi n'a capture ou arret en ce
royaume, sinon par l'aide et autorite du bras seculier." Pithou, Essaie,
art. 37.]
[Footnote 264: "Nonobstant oppositions ou appellations quelconques,
_semota executione a definitiva_, si en est appelle." Registres du
parlement, Preuves des Libertez, iii. 164.]
[Footnote 265: "Nos quoque comprobavimus ... sicut per alias nostras
_sub plumbo_ literas poteritis cognoscere." Registres du parlement, _ubi
supra_.]
[Footnote 266: Recueil des anc. lois francaises, par Jourdan, Decrusy et
Isambert, xii. 232-237.]
[Footnote 267: Isambert, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 268: The author of the anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois de
Paris, 383, 384. His description, written in 1528, is interesting:
"Ledict Barquin avoit environ 50 ans, et portoit ordinairement robbe de
veloux, satin et damas, et choses (chausses) d'or, et _estoit de noble
lignee et moult grand clerc_, expert en science et subtil, mais
neantmoins il faillit en son sens." Erasmus makes him some seven years
younger, Letter to Utenhoven, July 1, 1529, Opera, ii. 1206, _seq._; and
Herminjard, Correspondance des reformateurs, ii. 183, _seq._]
[Footnote 269: His account is important, but too full for insertion
here. See the letter above quoted.]
[Footnote 270: Arret du parlement, Aug. 5, 1523, Haag, France prot. s.
v. _Berquin_.]
[Footnote 271: Felibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948; Journal
d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170; Haag, s. v.; Erasmus, Opera, _ubi
supra_.]
[Footnote 272: "Etiam in loco sacro." Registres du parlement, January 8,
1526, Preuves des Libertez, iii., 166.]
[Footnote 273: Margaret's gratitude to Montmorency for his kind offices
is very fully attested by a passage in an extant letter (Genin, Lettres
de Marg. d'Ang., 1ere Coll., No. 54): "Vous merciant du plaisir que
m'aves fait pour le pauvre Berquin, que j'estime aultant que si c'estoit
moy mesmes, et par cela pouves vous dire que vous m'aves tiree de
prison, etc." To Francis she expressed the assurance "que Celuy pour qui
je croy qu'il a souffert aura agreable la misericorde que pour son
honneur avez fait a son serviteur et au vostre." Ibid., 2de Coll., No.
35.]
[Footnote 274: The chief authorities for the first two imprisonments of
De Berquin are the long and important letter of Erasmus, to which I
shall have occasion again to refer (Opera, ii. 1206, _seq._), Felibien,
Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948, 984, 985; Journal d'un bourgeois de
Paris, 169, 170, 277, 278; Haag, s. v.]
[Footnote 275: It is somewhat amusing, in the light of subsequent
events, to read such outbursts of sisterly enthusiasm as this: "O que
bien-heureuse sera vostre brefve prison, par qui Dieu tant d'ames
deslivrera de celle d'infidelite et esternelle damnacion." Lettres de
Marg. d'Ang., 2de Coll., No. 5, Lyons, May 1525. See, too, 1ere Coll.,
No. 26, addressed to Montmorency.]
[Footnote 276: Margaret's letters to Count Hohenlohe were translated
into Latin and published by himself. M. Genin has rendered them into
French, and inserted them in his Lettres de Marg. d'Angouleme, 1ere
Coll., Nos. 48-51. The letter of July 5, 1526, is the most important.]
[Footnote 277: This precious bit of special pleading deserves notice. In
the instructions of the king to the Archbishop of Lyons, to be read at
the council in that city, Francis thus expressed himself: "Et combien
que pour ung tel et si bon oeuvre que celluy qui se offre de present,
_le dict sire fut conseille_, que juridiquement et par tous droicts
divins et humains, _il pouvoit et debvoit raisonnablement mettre,
subimposer et faire contribuer toutes manieres de gens_, de quelque
qualite, auctorite, condition qu'ils fuissent, soient d'eglise, nobles,
ou du tiers et commun estat, au paiement de la ditte rancon, etc."
Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1137.]
[Footnote 278: The reason assigned for not convoking the States General
in proper form, viz., that time did not permit the necessary delay, must
be considered scarcely sufficient to explain the irregularity. Ibid.,
_ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 279: "Fist un discours farci de latin et de citations de
l'Ecriture, dans lequel il conclut que le traite de Madrid estoit nul."
Isambert, xii. 299.]
[Footnote 280: The declaration is significant and noteworthy as the
first of many similar assurances. Among the documents in Isambert,
Recueil des anc. lois francaises, is a full account of the proceedings
of the notables, xii. 292-301.]
[Footnote 281: If Francis was sanguine of success in suppressing the
Reformation in his kingdom, there were others who went farther still.
Barthelemi de Chassanee this very year (1527) chronicles the destruction
of "Lutheranism" in France as _an accomplished fact_! The passage is not
unworthy of notice. After explaining the significance of the
_fleurs-de-lis_ on the royal escutcheon by the wonderful efficacy of the
lily as the antidote of the serpent's poison, and remarking that the
kings of France had thrice extracted the mortal virus from the bite of
Mohammed, "serpentis venenosi," the writer adds: "Et, his temporibus,
videmus nostram fidem et religionem Christianam _sanatam esse a morsu
pestiferi serpentis Lutheri_, qui infinitas haereses in fide Christiana
seminavit, _quae fuerunt extirpatae a Rege nostro Francisco
Christianissimo_, qui non cessat insudare, ut Clemens summus Pontifex a
sua Sede ejectus restituatur, quem Carolus Borbonius dux exercitus
Caroli Austriaci electi in Imperatorem, in urbe obsederat _hoc anno
Domini_ 1527 die 6 Maii." Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, fol. 143.]
[Footnote 282: Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1160.]
[Footnote 283: The reader may, if his patience will hold out, wade
through the prolix decrees of the Council of Sens as published by
Cardinal Duprat in 1529, and printed in Labbei Concilia (Venice, 1732),
xix. 1149-1202. It is worthy of remark that the confiscation of the
property of condemned heretics, if laymen, to the state, is ordered,
"_tanquam reorum laesae majestatis_." Fol. 1159.]
[Footnote 284: Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1139.]
[Footnote 285: The words of the decree are sufficiently distinct: "Illam
plurimum gravem et onerosam ecclesiis, laicis vero contemtibilem,
sacerdotum multitudinem, qui solent plerumque _illiterati, moribus
inculti, servilibus operibus addicti, imberbes, inopes, fictitiis
titulis_ ad sacros ordines obrepere, non sine magno status clericalis
opprobrio." Ibid., xix. fol. 1128. The decrees of the councils of
Bourges and Lyons are given in Labbei Concilia, xix. 1041-1048, and 1095
etc.]
[Footnote 286: The image was affixed to the house of the Sieur de
Beaumont, at the corner of the Rue des Hosiers and the Rue des Juifs.
Felibien, Hist. de Paris, iv. 676.]
[Footnote 287: The strong language of the author of the "Cronique du Roi
Francoys I^er" (edited by G. Guiffrey, Paris, 1860) may serve as an
index of the popular feeling: "La nuict du dimenche, dernier jour de
may, ... _par quelque ung pire que ung chien mauldict de Dieu_, fut
rompue et couppee la teste a une ymaige de la vierge Marie ... qui fut
_une grosse horreur a la crestiente_." Page 66.]
[Footnote 288: The silver image, though protected by an iron grating,
fared no better than its predecessor. Stolen before the death of
Francis, it was succeeded by a wooden statue, and, when this was
destroyed by "heretics," by one of marble! The detailed accounts of the
expiatory processions in Felibien, ii. 982, 983, in the Registres du
parlement, ibid., iv. 677-679, in G. Guiffrey, appendix to "Cronique du
Roy Francoys I^er," 446-459, from MSS. Nat. Lib., in Gaillard, vi.
434, 435, and in the Journal d'un bourgeois, 348-351, give a vivid view
of the picturesque ceremonial of the times. It must have been a very
substantial compensation for the trouble to which the unknown author of
the outrage of the _Rue des Rosiers_ put the clergy, that the mutilated
statue of the Virgin, having been placed above the altar in the church
of St. Gervais, was said to have wrought notable miracles, and even to
have raised two children from the dead! Journal d'un bourgeois, _ubi
supra_. See also "Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er," 67, and especially
the poem (Ibid., appendix, 459-464), in twenty-five stanzas of eight
lines each, which, I fear, has nothing to recommend it, unless it be
_length_!]
[Footnote 289: May, 1530. Felibien, ii 988, 989; Journal d'un bourgeois,
410.]
[Footnote 290: "Quaeris, quid profecerim? Tot modis deterrens, addidi
animum."]
[Footnote 291: Erasmus to Utenhoven, _ubi supra_; also his letter to
Vergara, Sept. 2, 1527, and Beda's Apology, Herminjard, ii. 38, 39, 40.]
[Footnote 292: Erasmus to Utenhoven, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 293: It was one of the great merits of Francis I., in the eyes
of De Thou, the historian, that he had drawn Bude from comparative
obscurity, and, following his wise counsels, founded the College Royale.
Erasmus styled him "The Wonder of France" (De Thou, liv. iii., i. 233),
and Scaevole de Ste. Marthe, "omnium, qui hoc patrumque saeculo vixere,
sine controversia doctissimus" (Elog. 3). He was at this time one of the
_maitres de requetes_. Crespin, fol. 58.]
[Footnote 294: Journal d'un bourgeois, 378.]
[Footnote 295: The series of letters ends with a prayer which it would
have been difficult, we must suppose, for a brother to resist: "Il vous
plera (plaira), Monseigneur, faire en sorte que l'on ne die (dise) point
que l'eslongnement vous ait fait oblier vostre tres-humble et
tres-obeissante subjette et seur MARGUERITE." Genin, 2de Coll., No. 52.]
[Footnote 296: A MS. of the Bibliotheque Nationale, printed by M. Genin
(i. 218, etc.), and G. Guiffrey, Cronique, etc., 76, note, gives these
and other interesting details, which are in part confirmed by Erasmus.]
[Footnote 297: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 298: It was a slight suggestion of mercy that prompted the
judges to permit him to be strangled before his body was consigned to
the flames.]
[Footnote 299: "Ce qui fut faict et expedie ce mesme jour _en grande
diligence, affin qu'il ne fut recourru du Roy ne de madame la Regente_,
qui estoit lors a Bloys, etc." Journal d'un bourgeois, 383.]
[Footnote 300: For De Berquin's history, see Erasmus, _ubi supra_;
Journal d'un bourgeois, 378, etc.; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (ed.
of 1560), fol. 57-59; Histoire eccles., i. 5; Felibien, ii. 985; Haag,
s. v.]
[Footnote 301: Journal d'un bourgeois, and Hist. eccles., _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 302: So he is styled by Martin of Beauvais, writing some few
months later, in a sufficiently bold plea for the use of fire and fagot:
"Si vero _haeresiarchae Berquini_, et suorum sequacium pervicacia
delibutus (haereticus) incorrigibilis videatur, ne fortassis plusquam
vipereum venenum latenter surrepat, et sanos inficere possit, subito
auferte eum de medio vestrum, execrantes atque aversantes illius
perversitatem, et abscisum velut palmitem aridum (juxta Joannis
sententiam) _subjectis ignibus torrere facite_." Paraclesis catholica
Franciae ad Francos, ut fortes in Fide et Vocatione qua vocati sunt,
permaneant, authore Martino Theodorico Bellovaco, Juris Caesarei
Professore (Parisiis, 1539), p. 14.--See note at the end of this
chapter.]
[Footnote 303: F. W. Barthold, Deutschland und die Hugenoten, i. 15;
Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 115-120.]
[Footnote 304: Mezeray, Abrege chronologique, iv. 577.]
[Footnote 305: Soldan, i. 121.]
[Footnote 306: October 28, 1533.]
[Footnote 307: "Con mala sodisfazione di tutta la Francia, perche pare
ad ogniuno che Clemente pontefice _abbia gabbato_ questo re
cristianissimo." Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Ven., Alberi, i.
191.]
[Footnote 308: Catharine de' Medici was born April 13, 1519.]
[Footnote 309: These interesting particulars are contained in a MS.
letter in the Zurich Archives (probably written by Oswald Myconius to
Joachim Vadian). The writer had them directly from the mouth of
Guillaume du Bellay, the French ambassador, who was with the king at the
interview of Marseilles. Du Bellay also gave some details of his own
conversations with Clement. The latter freely admitted that there were
some things that displeased him in the mass, but naturally wanted so
profitable an institution to be treated tenderly and cautiously.
Correspond. des reformateurs, iii. 183-186.]
[Footnote 310: The truth respecting Toulouse probably lies about midway
between the censures of the Huguenot and the eulogy of the Roman
Catholic historian. According to the author of the _Histoire
ecclesiastique_, the parliament was the most sanguinary in France, the
university careless of letters, the population jealous of any
proficiency in liberal studies. According to Florimond de Raemond,
writing somewhat later, Toulouse was worthy of eternal praise, because,
notwithstanding a marvellous confluence of strangers from all parts, and
in spite of being completely surrounded by regions infected with heresy,
it had so persisted in the faith as to contain within its walls not a
single family that did not live in conformity with the prescriptions of
the church! Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina haereseon hujus saeculi,
ii. 486.]
[Footnote 311: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 64.]
[Footnote 312: Florimond de Raemond, ii. 394, 395.]
[Footnote 313: March 6, 1535. Journal d'un bourgeois, 453.]
[Footnote 314: Hist. eccles., i. 9; Crespin, _ubi supra_.]
[Footnote 315: John Calvin gives a contemporary's account in a letter to
Francois Daniel from Paris, October, 1533. Herminjard, Correspond. des
reformateurs, iii. 106, etc.; and translated in Bonnet, Calvin's
Letters, i. 36, etc. See also Jean Sturm's letter of about the same
date, Herminjard, iii. 93.]
[Footnote 316: Calvin's letter above quoted, one of the oldest of his
MS. autographs. Dr. Paul Henry, in his valuable Life and Times of John
Calvin (Eng. trans., i. 37) inadvertently makes Cop rector of the
_Sorbonne_, an office that never existed.]
[Footnote 317: A single sentence may serve to indicate the distinctness
with which this is asserted: "Evangelium remissionem peccatorum et
justificationem gratis pollicetur; neque enim accepti sumus Deo quod
legi satisfaciamus, sed ex sola Christi promissione, de qua qui dubitat
pie vivere non potest, et gehennae incendium sibi parat." Opera Calvini,
Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, x. 34.]
[Footnote 318: Some officious pen has indeed stricken out from the MS.
the sentence, "Quod nos consecuturos spero, si beatissimam Virginem
solenni illo praeconio longe omnium pulcherrimo salutaverimus: _Ave
gratia plena!_" But on the margin the sensible Nicholas Colladon, a
colleague of Beza and an early biographer of Calvin, has written the
words: "Haec, quia illis temporibus danda sunt, ne supprimenda quidem
putavimus."]
[Footnote 319: "AEgre fert Facultas _injuriam toti unversitati illatam_,
quod tractus fuerit ad superiorem Judicem ... summus suus magistratus,
et, eam ob rem, censet Facultas ut ejus accusatores et qui
supplicationem superiori Judici porrexerunt, citentur in facie
universitatis, causas rei allaturi." Bullaeus, vi. 238, _apud_
Herminjard, iii. 117, note. See many interesting particulars respecting
the privileges claimed by the university, in Pasquier, Recherches de la
France, liv. iii. ch. 29.]
[Footnote 320: He was to have been thrown into the _Conciergerie_. See
Beza's preface to Calvin's Com. on Joshua, 1565, _apud_ Herminjard, iii.
118, note. Parliament complained to Francis, and the latter in his
reply, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, ordered proceedings to be instituted for
the capture of Cop and the punishment of the person who had facilitated
his flight by giving him warning. Francis to parliament, Herminjard,
iii. 118. A reward of 300 crowns was accordingly offered for the
apprehension of the fugitive rector, dead or alive. Martin Bucer to Amb.
Blaurer, January, 1534, Herminjard, iii. 130.]
[Footnote 321: A fragment of Cop's address--about the first third--was
discovered by M. Jules Bonnet in the MSS. of the Library of Geneva,
bearing on the margin the note: "Haec Joannes Calvinus propria manu
descripsit, et est auctor." This portion is printed in Herminjard,
Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 418-420, and Calv. Opera, Baum, Cunitz,
et Reuss, ix. 873-876. Merle d'Aubigne used it in his Hist. of the Ref.
in the time of Calvin, ii. 198, etc. Still more fortunate than M.
Bonnet, Messrs. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss very recently found a complete
copy of the same address in the archives of one of the churches of
Strasbourg. The newly found portion is of great interest. Calvini Op.,
x. (1872), 30-36.]
[Footnote 322: Calvin to Fr. Daniel (1534), Bonnet, i. 41; Histoire
eccles., i. 9.]
[Footnote 323: Francis I. to Council of Berne, Marseilles, Oct. 20,
1533, MS. Berne Archives, Herminjard, iii. 95, 96.]
[Footnote 324: Berne was accustomed to give and take hard blows. So,
although the chancellor of the canton endorsed on the king's missive the
words, "_Rude lettre du Roi_, ... relative aux Farel," the council was
not discouraged; but, when sending two envoys, about a month later, to
the French court, instructed them, among other things, again to
intercede for a brother of Farel. Herminjard, iii. 96, note.]
[Footnote 325: Du Bellay was himself believed, not without reason, to
have sympathy for the reformed doctrine, and it was under his auspices,
as well as those of the King and Queen of Navarre, that the evangelical
preachers had lately held forth in the pulpits of the capital. See, for
instance, Bucer to Blaurer, Jan., 1534, Herminjard, Corresp. des
reformateurs, iii. 130.]
[Footnote 326: Francis I.'s letter to Du Bellay, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533,
MS. Dupuy Coll., Bibl. nat., Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot.
franc., i. 437. His orders to parliament of same date, Herminjard,
Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 114, etc.]
[Footnote 327: Francis to parliament, _ubi supra_, iii. 116.]