CHAPTER IV._A History of the Reformation (Vol. 2 of 2)

THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.[161]

§ 1. _Marguerite d'Angoulême and the "group of Meaux."_

Perhaps no one so thoroughly represents the sentiments which inspired

the beginnings of the movement for Reformation in France as Marguerite

d'Angoulême,[162] the sister of King Francis I. A study of her letters

and of her writings--the latter being for the most part in verse--is

almost essential for a true knowledge of the aspirations of the noblest

minds of her generation. Not that she possessed creative energy or was

herself a thinker of any originality, but her soul, like some clear

sensitive mirror, received and reflected the most tremulous throb of the

intellectual and religious movements around her. She had, like many

ladies of that age, devoted herself to the New Learning. She had

mastered Latin, Italian, and Spanish in her girlhood, and later she

acquired Greek and even Hebrew, in order to study the Scriptures in

their original tongues. In her the French Renaissance of the end of the

fifteenth was prolonged throughout the first half of the sixteenth

century. She was all sentiment and affection, full of that gentle

courage which soft feminine enthusiasm gives, and to her brother and

more masculine mother (Louise of Savoy)[163] she was a being to be

protected against the consequences of her own tender daring.

Contemporary writers of all parties, save the more bitter defenders of

the prevalent Scholastic Theology, have something good to say about the

pure, bright, ecstatic Queen of Navarre. One calls her the "violet in

the royal garden," and says that she unconsciously gathered around her

all the better spirits in France, as the wild thyme attracts the bees.

Marsiglio Ficino had taught her to drink from the well of Christian

Platonism;[164] and this mysticism, which had little to do with dogma,

which allied itself naturally with the poetical sides of philosophy and

morals which suggested great if indefinite thoughts about God,--_le

Tout_, _le Seul Nécessaire_, _la Seule Bonté_,--the human soul and the

intimate union between the two, was perhaps the abiding part of her

ever-enlarging religious experience. Nicholas of Cusa, who tried to

combine the old Scholastic with the new thoughts of the Renaissance,

taught her much which she never unlearnt. She studied the Holy

Scriptures carefully for herself, and was never weary of discussing with

others the meaning of passages which seemed to be difficult. She

listened eagerly to the preaching of Lefèvre and Roussel, and carried on

a long private correspondence with Briçonnet, being passionately

desirous, she said, to learn "the way of salvation."[165] Both Luther

and Calvin made a strong impression upon her, but their schemes of

theology never attracted nor subjugated her intelligence. Her sympathies

were drawn forth by their disdain of Scholastic Theology, by their

denial of the supernatural powers of the priesthood, by their

proclamation of the power and of the love of God, and by their

conception that faith unites man with God--by all in their teaching

which would assimilate with the Christian mysticism to which she had

given herself with all her soul. When her religious poems are studied,

it will be found that she dwells on the infinite power of God, the

mystical absorption of the human life within the divine, and praises

passionately self-sacrifice and disdain of all earthly pleasures. She

extols the Lord as the one and only Saviour and Intercessor. She

contrasts, as Luther was accustomed to do, the Law which searches,

tries, and punishes, with the Gospel which pardons the sinner for the

sake of Christ and of the work which He finished on the Cross. She looks

forward with eager hope to a world redeemed and regenerated through the

Evangel of Jesus Christ. She insists on justification by faith, on the

impossibility of salvation by works, on predestination in the sense of

absolute dependence on God in the last resort. Works are good, but no

one is saved by works; salvation comes by grace, and "is the gift of the

Most High God." She calls the Virgin the most blessed among women,

because she had been chosen to be the mother of the "Sovereign

Saviour," but refused her any higher place; and in her devotions she

introduced an invocation of Our Lord instead of the _Salve Regina_. This

way of thinking about the Blessed Virgin, combined with her indifference

to the Saints and to the Mass, and her undisguised contempt for the more

superstitious ecclesiastical ceremonies, were the chief reasons for the

strong attacks made on Marguerite by the Faculty of Theology (the

Sorbonne) of Paris. She cannot be called a Protestant, but she had

broken completely with mediæval modes of religious life and thought.

Marguerite's letters contain such graphic glimpses, that it is possible

to see her daily life, whether at Bourges, where she held her Court as

the Duchess of Alençon, or at Nérac, where she dwelt as the Queen of

Navarre. Every hour was occupied, and was lived in the midst of company.

Her _Contes_ and her poetry were for the most part written in her litter

when she was travelling from one place to another. Her "Household" was

large even for the times. No less than one hundred and two

persons--ladies, secretaries, almoners, physicians, etc.--made her

Court; and frequently many visitors also were present. The whole

"Household," with the visitors, met together every forenoon in one of

the halls of the Palace, a room "well-paved and hung with tapestry," and

there the Princess commonly proposed some text of Scripture for

discussion. It was generally a passage which seemed obscure to

Marguerite; for example, "The meek shall inherit the earth." All were

invited to make suggestions about its meaning. The hostess was learned,

and no one scrupled to quote the Scriptures in their original languages,

or to adduce the opinions of such earlier Fathers as Augustine, Jerome,

Chrysostom, or the Gregories. If it surprises us to find one or other of

the twenty _valets de chambre_, who were not menials and were privileged

to be present, familiar with theology, and able to quote Greek and even

Hebrew, it must not be forgotten that Marguerite's _valets de chambre_

included distinguished Humanists and Reformers, to whom she extended the

protective privilege of being enrolled in her "Household." When the

weather permitted, the whole company went for a stroll in the park after

the discussion, and then seated themselves near a "pleasant fountain" on

the turf, "so soft and delicate that they needed neither carpet nor

cushions."[166] There one of the ladies-in-waiting (thirty _dames_ or

_demoiselles_ belonged to the "Household") read aloud a tale from the

_Heptameron_, not forgetting the improving conversation which concludes

each story. This gave rise to an animated talk, after which they

returned to the Palace. In the evening the "Household" assembled again

in a hall, fitted as a simple theatre, to witness one of the Comedies or

Pastorals which the Queen delighted to write, and in which, through a

medium as strange as the _Contes_, she inculcated her mystical

Christianity, and gave expression to her longings for a reformation in

the Church and society. Her Court was the precursor of the _salons_

which in a later age exercised such a powerful influence on French

political, literary, and social life.

Marguerite is chiefly remembered as the author of the _Heptameron_,

which modern sentiment cannot help regarding as a collection of

scandalous, not to say licentious, tales. The incongruity, as it appears

to us, of making such tales the vehicle of moral and even of evangelical

instruction, causes us frequently to forget the conversations which

follow the stories--conversations which generally inculcate moral

truths, and sometimes wander round the evangelical thought that man's

salvation and all the fruits of holy living rest on the finished work of

Christ, the only Saviour. "_Voilà, Mesdames, comme la foy du bon Comte

ne fut vaincue par signes ne par miracles extérieurs, sachant très bien

que nous n'avons qu'un Sauveur, lequel en disant Consummatum est, a

monstré qu'il ne laissoit point à un autre successeur pour faire notre

salut._"[167] So different was the sentiment of the sixteenth from that

of the twentieth century, that Jeanne d'Albret, puritan as she

undoubtedly was, took pains that a scrupulously exact edition of her

mother's _Contes_ should be printed and published, for all to read and

profit by.

The Reformers with whom Marguerite was chiefly associated were called

the "group of Meaux." Guillaume Briçonnet,[168] Bishop of Meaux, who

earnestly desired reform but dreaded revolution, had gathered round him

a band of scholars whose idea was a reformation of the Church by the

Church, in the Church, and with the Church. They were the heirs of the

aspirations of the great conciliar leaders of the fifteenth century,

such as Gerson, deeply religious men, who longed for a genuine revival

of faith and love. They hoped to reconcile the great truths of Christian

dogma with the New Learning, and at once to enlarge the sphere of

Christian intelligence, and to impregnate Humanism with Christian

morality.

The man who inspired the movement and defined its aims--"to preach

Christ from the sources"--was Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples

(Stapulensis).[169] He had been a distinguished Humanist, and in 1507

had resolved to consecrate his learning to a study of the Holy

Scriptures. The first fruit of this resolve was a new Latin translation

of the Epistles of St. Paul (1512), in which a revised version of the

Vulgate was published along with the traditional text. In his notes he

anticipated two of Luther's ideas--that works have no merit apart from

the grace of God, and that while there is a Real Presence of Christ in

the Sacrament of the Supper, there is no transubstantiation. The

Reformers of Meaux believed that the Holy Scriptures should be in the

hands of the Christian people, and Lefèvre took Jean de Rély's version

of the Bible,--itself a revision of an old thirteenth century French

translation,--revised it, published the Gospels in June 1523, and the

whole of the New Testament before the end of the year. The Old Testament

followed in 1525. The book was eagerly welcomed by Marguerite, and

became widely known and read throughout France. The Princess was able to

write to Briçonnet that her brother and mother were interested in the

spread of the Holy Scriptures, and in the hope of a reform of the

Church.[170]

Neither Lefèvre nor Briçonnet was the man to lead a Reformation. The

Bishop was timid, and feared the "tumult"; and Lefèvre, like Marguerite,

was a Christian mystic,[171] with all the mystic's dislike to change in

outward and fixed institutions. More radical ideas were entering France

from without. The name of Luther was known as early as 1518, and by

1520, contemporary letters tell us that his books were selling by the

hundred, and that all thinking men were studying his opinions.[172] The

ideas of Zwingli were also known, and appeared more acceptable to the

advanced thinkers in France. Some members of the group of Meaux began to

reconsider their position. The Pope's Bull excommunicating Luther in

1520, the result of the Diet of Worms in 1521, and the declaration of

the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris (the Sorbonne)

against the opinions of Luther, and their vindication of the authority

of Aristotle and Scholastic Theology made it apparent that even modest

reforms would not be tolerated by the Church as it then existed. The

_Parlement_ of Paris (August 1521) ordered Luther's books to be given

up.[173]

Lefèvre did not falter. He remained what he had been--a man on the

threshold of a new era who refused to enter it. One of his

fellow-preachers retracted his opinions, and began to write against his

leader. The young and fiery Guillaume Farel boldly adopted the views of

the Swiss Reformers. Briçonnet temporised. He forbade the preaching of

Lutheran doctrine within his diocese, and the circulation of the

Reformer's writings; but he continued to protect Lefèvre, and remained

true to his teaching.[174]

The energetic action of the Sorbonne and of the _Parlement_ of Paris

showed the obstacles which lay in the path of a peaceful Reformation.

The library of Louis de Berquin was seized and condemned (June 16th,

1523), and several of his books burnt in front of Notre Dame by the

order of _Parlement_ (August 8th). Berquin himself was saved by the

interposition of the King.[175] In March 1525, Jean Leclerc, a

wool-carder, was whipt and branded in Paris; and six months later was

burnt at Metz for alleged outrages on objects of reverence. The

Government had to come to some decision about the religious question.

Marguerite could write that her mother and her brother were "more than

ever well disposed towards the reformation of the Church";[176] but

neither of them had her strong religious sentiment, and policy rather

than conviction invariably swayed their action. The Reformation promoted

by Lefèvre and believed in by Marguerite was at once too moderate and

too exacting for Francis I. It could never be a basis for an alliance

with the growing Protestantism of Germany, and it demanded a purity of

individual life ill-suited either with the personal habits of the King

or with the manners of the French Court. It is therefore not to be

wondered that the policy of the Government of Francis I. wavered between

a negligent protection and a stern repression of the French Reformers.

§ 2. _Attempts to repress the Movement for Reform._

The years 1523-26 were full of troubles for France. The Italian war had

been unsuccessful. Provence had been invaded. Francis I. had been

totally defeated and taken prisoner at Pavia. Dangers of various kinds

within France had also confronted the Government. Bands of

marauders--_les aventuriers_[177]--had pillaged numerous districts; and

so many conflagrations had taken place that people believed they were

caused by emissaries of the public enemies of France. Louise of Savoy,

the Queen-Mother, and Regent during her son's captivity in Madrid, had

found it necessary to conciliate the formidable powers of the

_Parlement_ of Paris and of the Sorbonne. Measures were taken to

suppress the printing of Lutheran and heretical books, and the

_Parlement_ appointed a commission to discover, try, and punish

heretics. The result was a somewhat ineffective persecution.[178] The

preachers of Meaux had to take refuge in Strassburg, and Lefèvre's

translation of the Scriptures was publicly burnt.

When the King returned from his imprisonment at Madrid (March 1525), he

seemed to take the side of the Reformers. The Meaux preachers came back

to France, and Lefèvre himself was made the tutor to the King's youngest

son. In 1528-29 the great French Council of Sens met to consider the

state of the Church. It reaffirmed most of the mediæval positions, and,

in opposition to the teachings of Protestants, declared the unity,

infallibility, and visibility of the Church, the authority of Councils,

the right of the Church to make canonical regulations, fasts, the

celibacy of priests, the seven sacraments, the Mass, purgatory, the

veneration of saints, the worship of images, and the Scholastic

doctrines of free will and faith and works. It called on civil rulers to

execute the censures of the Church on heretics and schismatics. It also

published a series of reforms necessary--most of which were already

contained in the canon law.

While the Council was sitting, the Romanists of France were startled

with the news that a statue of the Blessed Virgin had been beheaded and

otherwise mutilated. It was the first manifestation of the revolutionary

spirit of the Reformation in France. The King was furious. He caused a

new statue to be made in silver, and gave his sanction to the renewal of

the persecutions (May 31st, 1528). Four years later his policy altered.

He desired alliances with the English and German Protestants; one of the

Reformers of Meaux preached in the Louvre during Lent (1533), and some

doctors of the Sorbonne, who accused the King and Queen of Navarre of

heresy, were banished from Paris. In spite of the ferment caused by the

Evangelical address of Nicolas Cop, and the flight of Cop and of Calvin,

the real author of the address, the King still seemed to favour reform.

Evangelical sermons were again preached in the Louvre, and the King

spoke of a conference on the state of religion within France.

The affair of the _Placards_ caused another storm. On the morning of

Oct. 18th, 1534, the citizens of Paris found that broadsides or

_placards_, attacking in very strong language the ceremony of the Mass,

had been affixed to the walls of the principal streets. These _placards_

affirmed that the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross was perfect and

unique, and therefore could never be repeated; that it was sheer

idolatry to say that the corporeal presence of Christ was enclosed

within the wafer, "a man of twenty or thirty years in a morsel of

paste"; that transubstantiation was a gross error; that the Mass had

been perverted from its true meaning, which is to be a memorial of the

sacrifice and death of our Lord; and that the solemn ceremony had

become a time "of bell-ringings, shoutings, singing, waving of lamps and

swinging of incense pots, after the fashion of sorcerers." The violence

of language was extreme. "The Pope and all his vermin of cardinals, of

bishops, of priests, of monks and other hypocrites, sayers of the Mass,

and all those who consent thereto," were liars and blasphemers. The

author of this broadside was a certain Antoine Marcourt, who had fled

from France and taken refuge in Neuchâtel. The audacity of the men who

had posted the _placards_ in Paris and in other towns,--Orléans, Blois,

Amboise,--and had even fixed one on the door of the King's bedchamber,

helped to rouse the Romanists to frenzy. The _Parlement_ and the

University demanded loudly that extreme measures should be taken to

crush the heretics;[179] and everywhere expiatory processions were

formed to protest against the sacrilege. The King himself and the great

nobles of the Court took part in one in January,[180] and during that

month more than thirty-five Lutherans were arrested, tried, and burnt.

Several well-known Frenchmen (seventy-three at least), among them

Clement Marot and Mathurin Cordier, fled the country, and their

possessions were confiscated.

After this outburst of persecution the King's policy again changed. He

was once more anxious for an alliance with the Protestants of Germany.

An amnesty was proclaimed for all save the "Sacramentarians," _i.e._ the

followers of Zwingli. A few of the exiled Frenchmen returned, among them

Clement Marot. The Chancellor of France, Antoine du Bourg, went the

length of inviting the German theologians to come to France for the

purpose of sharing in a religious conference, and adhered to his

proposal in spite of the protests of the Sorbonne. But nothing came of

it. The German Protestant theologians refused to risk themselves on

French soil; and the exiled Frenchmen mistrusted the King and his

Chancellor. The amnesty, however, deserves remark, because it called

forth the letter of Calvin to Francis I. which forms the "dedication" or

preface to his _Christian Institution_.

The work of repression was resumed with increased severity. Royal edicts

and mandates urging the extirpation of heresy followed each other in

rapid succession--Edict to the _Parlement_ of Toulouse (Dec. 16th,

1538), to the _Parlements_ of Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Rouen (June 24th,

1539); a general edict issued from Fontainebleau (June 1st, 1540); an

edict to the _Parlement_ of Toulouse (Aug. 29th, 1542); _mandats_ to the

_Parlements_ of Paris, Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, and Rouen (Aug. 30th,

1542). The general Edict of Fontainebleau was one of exceptional

severity. It was intended to introduce a more summary procedure in

heresy trials, and enjoined officials to proceed against all persons

tainted with heresy, even against ecclesiastics or those who had the

"benefit of clergy"; the right of appeal was denied to those suspected;

negligent judges were threatened with the King's displeasure; and the

ecclesiastical courts were urged to show greater zeal, and to take

advantage of the powers given to the civil courts. "Every loyal

subject," the edict said, "must denounce heretics, and employ all means

to root them out, just as all men are bound to run to help to extinguish

a public conflagration." This edict, slightly modified by the

_Parlement_ of Paris (July 1543) by enlarging the powers of the

ecclesiastical courts, remained in force in France for the nine

following years. Yet in spite of its thoroughness, succeeding edicts and

_mandats_ declare that heresy was making rapid progress in France.

The Sorbonne and the _Parlements_ (especially those of Paris and Aix)

urged on the persecution of the "Lutherans." The former drafted a series

of twenty-five articles (a refutation of the 1541 edition of Calvin's

_Institution_), which were meant to assert concisely the dogma of the

Church, and to deny whatever the Reformers taught prejudicial to the

doctrines and practices of the mediæval Church. These articles were

approved by the King and his Privy Council, who ordered them to be

published throughout the whole kingdom, and gave instructions to deal

with all who preached or taught anything contrary or repugnant to them.

This ordinance was at once registered by the _Parlement_ of Paris. Thus

all the powers of the realm committed themselves to a struggle to

extirpate the Reformed teaching, and were armed with a test which was at

once clear and comprehensive. Not content with this, the Sorbonne began

a list of prohibited books (1542-43)--a list containing the works of

Calvin, Luther, Melanchthon, Clement Marot, and the translations of

scripture edited by Robert Estienne, and the _Parlement_ issued a severe

ordinance against all Protestant propaganda by means of printing or the

selling of books (July 1542).

These various ordinances for the extirpation of heresy were applied

promptly and rigorously, and the fires of persecution were soon kindled

all over France. The _place_ Maubert was the scene of the martyrdoms in

Paris. There were no great _auto-da-fés_, but continual mention is made

of burning two or three martyrs at once. Two acts of persecution cast a

dark stain on the last years of Francis I.--the slaughter of the

Waldenses of the Durance in 1545, and the martyrdom of the "fourteen of

Meaux."

A portion of Provence, skirting the Durance where that river is about to

flow into the Rhone, had been almost depopulated in the fourteenth

century, and the landowners had invited peasants from the Alps to settle

within their territories. The incomers were Waldenses; their religion

was guaranteed protection, and their industry and thrift soon covered

the desolate region with fertile farms. When the Reformation movement

had established itself in Germany and Switzerland, these villagers were

greatly interested. They drew up a brief statement of what they

believed, and sent it to the leading Reformers, accompanied by a number

of questions on matters of religion. They received long answers from

Bucer and from Oecolampadius, and, having met in conference (Sept. 1532)

at Angrogne in Piedmont, they drafted a simple confession of faith based

on the replies of the Reformers to their questions. It was natural that

they should view the progress of the Reformation within France with

interest, and that they should contribute 500 crowns to defray the

expense of printing a new translation of the Scriptures into French by

Robert Olivétan. Freedom to practise their religion had been granted for

two centuries to the inhabitants of the thirty Waldensian villages, and

they conceived that in exhibiting their sympathy with French

Protestantism they were acting within their ancient rights. Jean de

Roma, Inquisitor for Provence, thought otherwise. In 1532 he began to

exhort the villagers to abjure their opinions; and, finding his

entreaties without effect, he set on foot a severe persecution. The

Waldenses appealed to the King, who sent a commission to inquire into

the matter, with the result that Jean de Roma was compelled to flee the

country.

The persecution was renewed in 1535 by the Archbishop and _Parlement_ of

Aix, who cited seventeen of the people of Merindol, one of the villages,

before them on a charge of heresy. When they failed to appear, the

_Parlement_ published (Nov. 18th, 1540) the celebrated _Arrêt de

Merindol_, which sentenced the seventeen to be burnt at the stake. The

Waldenses again appealed to the King, who pardoned the seventeen on the

condition that they should abjure their heresy within three months (Feb.

8th, 1541). There was a second appeal to the King, who again protected

the Waldenses; but during the later months of 1541 the _Parlement_ of

Aix sent to His Majesty the false information that the people of

Merindol were in open insurrection, and were threatening to sack the

town of Marseilles. Upon this, Francis, urged thereto by Cardinal de

Tournon, recalled his protection, and ordered all the Waldenses to be

exterminated (Jan. 1st, 1545). An army was stealthily organised, and

during seven weeks of slaughter, amid all the accompaniments of

treachery and brutality, twenty-two of the thirty Waldensian villages

were utterly destroyed, between three and four thousand men and women

were slain, and seven hundred men sent to the galleys. Those who escaped

took refuge in Switzerland.[181]

The persecution at Meaux (1546) was more limited in extent, but was

accompanied by such tortures that it formed a fitting introduction to

the severities of the reign of Henri II.

The Reformed at Meaux had organised themselves into a congregation

modelled on that of the French refugees in Strassburg. They had chosen

Pierre Leclerc to be their pastor, and one of their number, Étienne

Mangin, gave his house for the meetings of the congregation. The

authorities heard of the meetings, and on Sept 8th, 1546, a sudden visit

was made to the house, and sixty-one persons were arrested and brought

before the _Parlement_ of Paris. Their special crime was that they had

engaged in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The sentence of the

Court declared that the Bishop of Meaux had shown culpable negligence in

permitting such meetings; that the evidence indicated that there were

numbers of "Lutherans" and heretics in Meaux besides those brought

before it, and that all such were to be sought out; that all books in

the town which concerned the Christian religion were to be deposited in

the record-office within eight days; that special sermons were to be

delivered and expiatory processions organised; and that the house of

Étienne Mangin was to be razed to the ground, and a chapel in honour of

the Holy Sacrament erected on the site. It condemned fourteen of the

accused to be burnt alive, after having suffered the severest tortures

which the law permitted; five to be hung up by the armpits to witness

the execution, and then to be scourged and imprisoned; others to witness

the execution with cords round their necks and with their heads bare, to

ask pardon for their crime, to take part in an expiatory procession, and

to listen to a sermon on the adoration due to the Body of Christ

present in the Holy Sacrament. A few, mostly women, were acquitted.[182]

Francis I. died in March 1547. The persistent persecution which had

marked the later years of his reign had done little or nothing to quench

the growing Protestantism of France. It had only succeeded in driving it

beneath the surface.

Henry II. never indulged in the vacillating policy of his father. From

the beginning of his reign he set himself resolutely to combat the

Reformation. His favourite councillors--his all-powerful mistress, Diane

of Poitiers; his chief Minister, the Constable Montmorency, in high

repute for his skill in the arts of war and of government; the Guises, a

great family, originally belonging to Lorraine, who had risen to power

in France--were all strong supporters of the Roman Catholic religion,

and resolute to destroy the growing Protestantism of France. The

declared policy of the King was to slay the Reformation by attacking it

through every form of legal suppression that could be devised.

§ 3. _Change in the Character of the Movement for Reform._

The task was harder than it had been during the reign of Francis. In

spite of the persecutions, the adherents of the new faith had gone on

increasing in a wonderful way. Many of the priests and monks had been

converted to Evangelical doctrines. They taught them secretly and

openly; and they could expose in a telling way the corruptions of the

Church, having known them from the inside. Schoolmasters, if one may

judge from the _arréts_ of the _Parlements_, were continually blamed for

dissuading their pupils from going to Mass, and for corrupting the youth

by instructing them in the "false and pernicious doctrines of Geneva."

Many Colleges were named as seed-beds of the Reformation--Angers,

Bourges, Fontenay, La Rochelle, Loudun, Niort, Nimes, and Poitiers. The

theatre itself became an agent for reform when the corruptions of the

Church and the morals of the clergy were attacked in popular plays. The

refugees in Strassburg, Geneva, and Lausanne spared no pains to send the

Evangelical doctrines to their countrymen. Ardent young Frenchmen,

trained abroad, took their lives in their hand, and crept quietly

through the length and breadth of France. They met converts and

inquirers in solitary suburbs, in cellars of houses, on highways, and by

the rivers. The records of the ecclesiastical police enable us to trace

the spread of the Reformation along the great roads and waterways of

France. The missioners changed their names frequently to elude

observation. Some, with a daring beyond their fellows, did not hesitate

to visit the towns and preach almost openly to the people. The

propaganda carried on by colporteurs was scarcely less successful. These

were usually young men trained at Geneva or Strassburg. They carried

their books in a pack on their backs, and hawked them in village and

town, describing their contents, and making little sermons for the

listeners. Among the notices of seizures we find such titles as the

following:--_Les Colloques_ of Erasmus, _La Fontaine de Vie_ (a

selection of scriptural passages translated into French), the _Livre de

vraye et parfaicte oraison_ (a translation of extracts from Luther's

writings), the _Cinquante-deux psaumes_, the _Catéchisme de Genève,

Prières ecclésiastiques avec la manière d'administrer les sacrements_,

an _Alphabet chrétien_ and an _Instruction chrétienne pour les petits

enfants_. No edicts against printing books which had not been submitted

to the ecclesiastical authorities were able to put an end to this secret

colportage.

In these several ways the Evangelical faith was spread abroad, and

before the death of Francis there was not a district in France with the

single exception of Brittany which had not its secret Protestants, while

many parts of the country swarmed with them.

§ 4. _Calvin and his Influence in France._

The Reformation in France had been rapidly changing its character since

1536, the year in which Lefèvre died, and in which Calvin's _Christian

Institution_ was published. It was no longer a Christian mysticism

supplemented by a careful study of the Scriptures; it had advanced

beyond the stage of individual followers of Luther or Zwingli; it had

become united, presenting a solid phalanx to its foes; it had rallied

round a manifesto which was at once a completed scheme of doctrine, a

prescribed mode of worship, and a code of morals; it had found a leader

who was both a master and a commander-in-chief. The publication of the

_Christian Institution_ had effected this. The young man whom the Town

Council of Geneva could speak of as "a certain Frenchman" (_Gallus

quidam_) soon took a foremost place among the leaders of the whole

Reformation movement, and moulded in his plastic hands the Reformation

in France.

Calvin's early life and his work in Geneva have already been described;

but his special influence on France must not pass unnoticed.[183] He had

an extraordinary power over his co-religionists in his native land.[184]

He was a Frenchman--one of themselves; no foreigner speaking an

unfamiliar tongue; no enemy of the Fatherland to follow whom might seem

to be unpatriotic. It is true that his fixed abode lay beyond the

confines of France; but distance, which gave him freedom of action, made

him the more esteemed. He was the apostle who wrote "to all that be in

France, beloved of God, called to be saints."

While still a student, Calvin had shown that he possessed, besides a

marvellous memory, an acute and penetrating intellect, with a great

faculty for assimilating ideas and modes of thought; but he lacked what

may be called artistic imagination,[185] and neither poetry nor art

seemed to strike any responsive chord in his soul. His conduct was

always straightforward, irreproachable, and dignified; he was by

education and breeding, if not by descent, the polished French

gentleman, and was most at home with men and women of noble birth. His

character was serious, with little playfulness, little vivacity, but

with a wonderful power of sympathy. He was reserved, somewhat shy, slow

to make intimate friends, but once made the friendships lasted for life.

At all periods of age, boy, student, man of letters, leader of a great

party, he seems to have been a centre of attraction and of deferential

trust. The effect of this mysterious charm was felt by others besides

those of his own age. His professor, Mathurin Cordier, became his

devoted disciple. Melanchthon wished that he might die with his head on

Calvin's breast. Luther, in spite of his suspicion of everything that

came from Switzerland, was won to love and trust him. And Knox, the most

rugged and independent of men, acknowledged Calvin as his master,

consulted him in every doubt and difficulty, and on all occasions save

one meekly followed his counsels. He loved children, and had them at his

house for Christmas trees; but (and this is characteristically French)

always addressed them with ceremonious politeness, as if they were

grown men and women deserving as much consideration as himself. It was

this trait that captivated de Bèze when he was a boy of twelve.

Calvin was a democrat intellectually and by silent principle. This

appears almost everywhere in his private writings, and was noted by such

a keen observer as Tavannes. It was never more unconsciously displayed

than in the preface or dedication of the _Christian Institution_.

"This preface, instead of pleading with the King on behalf of the

Reformation, places the movement right before him, and makes him

see it. Its tone throughout firm and dignified, calm and stately

when Calvin addresses Francis I. directly, more bitter and

sarcastic when he is speaking of theologians, _la pensée et la

forme du style toutes vibrantes du ton biblique_, the very

simplicity and perfect frankness of the address, give the

impression of one who is speaking on equal terms with his peer. All

suggest the Christian democrat without a trace of the

revolutionary."[186]

The source of his power--logic impregnated by the passion of

conviction--is so peculiarly French that perhaps only his countrymen can

fully understand and appreciate it, and they have not been slow to do

so.

All these characteristic traits appealed to them. His passion for

equality, as strong as the Apostle Paul's, compelled him to take his

followers into his confidence, to make them apprehend what he knew to

the innermost thoughts of his heart. It forced him to exhibit the

reasons for his faith to all who cared to know them, to arrange them in

a logical order which would appeal to their understanding, and his

passion of conviction assured him and them that what he taught was the

very truth of God. Then he was a very great writer,[187] one of the

founders of modern French prose, the most exquisite literary medium

that exists, a man made to arrest the attention of the people. He wrote

all his important works in French for his countrymen, as well as in

Latin for the learned world. His language and style were fresh, clear,

and simple; without affected elegance or pedantic display of erudition;

full of vigour and verve; here, caustic wit which attracted; there,

eloquence which spoke to the hearts of his readers because it throbbed

with burning passion and strong emotion.

It is unlikely that all his disciples in France appreciated his

doctrinal system in its details. The _Christian Institution_ appealed to

them as the strongest protest yet made against the abuses and scandals

of the Roman Church, as containing a code of duties owed to God and man,

as exhibiting an ideal of life pure and lofty, as promising everlasting

blessedness for the called and chosen and faithful. "It satisfied at one

and the same time the intellects which demanded logical proof and the

souls which had need of enthusiasm."

It has been remarked that Calvin's theology was less original and

effective than his legislation or policy.[188] The statement seems to

overlook the peculiar service which was rendered to the Reformation

movement by the _Institution_. The Reformation was a rebellion against

the external authority of the mediæval Church; but every revolt, even

that against the most flagrant abuses and the most corrupt rule, carries

in it seeds of evil which must be slain if any real progress is to be

made. For it instinctively tends to sweep away all restraints--those

that are good and necessary as well as those that are bad and harmful.

The leaders of every movement for reform have a harder battle to fight

against the revolutionaries in their following than against their avowed

opponents. At the root of the Reformation of the sixteenth century lay

an appeal from man to God--from the priest, granting or withholding

absolution in the confessional, to God making the sinner, who turns from

his sins and has faith in the person and work of Christ, know in his

heart that he is pardoned; from the decision of Popes and Councils to

the decrees of God revealed in His Holy Word. This appeal was in the

nature of the case from the seen to the unseen, and therein lay the

difficulty; for unless this unseen could be made visible to the eye of

the intelligence to such a degree that the restraining authority which

it possessed could impress itself on the will, there was risk of its

proving to be no restraining authority whatsoever, and of men fancying

that they had been left to be a law unto themselves. What the _Christian

Institution_ did for the sixteenth century was to make the unseen

government and authority of God, to which all must bow, as visible to

the intellectual eye of faith as the mechanism of the mediæval Church

had been to the eye of sense. It proclaimed that the basis of all

Christian faith was the Word of God revealed in the Holy Scriptures; it

taught the absolute dependence of all things on God Himself immediately

and directly; it declared that the sin of man was such that, apart from

the working of the free grace of God, there could be neither pardon nor

amendment, nor salvation; and it wove all these thoughts into a logical

unity which revealed to the intellectual eye of its generation the

"House of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Men as they

gazed saw that they were in the immediate presence of the authority of

God Himself, directly responsible to Him; that they could test "the

Pope's House" by this divine archetype; that it was their duty to reform

all human institutions, ecclesiastical or political, in order to bring

them into harmony with the divine vision. It made men know that to

separate themselves from the visible mediæval Church was neither to step

outside the sphere of the purpose of God making for their redemption,

nor to free themselves from the duties which God requires of man.

The work which Calvin did for his co-religionists in France was immense.

He carried on a constant correspondence with them; he sustained their

courage; he gave their faith a sublime exaltation. When he heard of a

French Romanist who had begun to hesitate, he wrote to him combining

persuasion with instruction. He pleaded the cause of the Reformation

with its nominal supporters. He encouraged the weak. He sent letters to

the persecuted. He forwarded short theological treatises to assist those

who had got into controversies concerning their faith. He advised the

organisation of congregations. He recommended energetic pastors. He

warned slothful ministers.

"We must not think," he says, "that our work is confined within

such narrow limits that our task is ended when we have preached

sermons ... it is our part to maintain a vigilant oversight of

those committed to our care, and take the greatest pains to guard

from evil those whose blood will one day be demanded from us if

they are lost through our negligence."[189]

He answered question after question about the difficulty of reconciling

the demands of the Christian life with what was required by the world

around--a matter which pressed hard on the consciences of men and women

who belonged to a religious minority in a great Roman Catholic kingdom.

He was no casuist. He wrote to Madame de Cany, the sister of the Duchess

d'Étampes, that "no one, great or small, ought to believe themselves

exempt from suffering for the sake of our sovereign King." He was

listened to with reverence; for he was not a counsellor who advised

others to do what he was not prepared to do himself. He could say, "Be

ye followers of me, as I am of the Lord Jesus Christ." Frenchmen and

Frenchwomen knew that the master whom they obeyed, the director they

consulted, to whom they whispered the secrets of their souls, lived the

hardest and most ascetic life of any man in Europe,--scarcely eating,

drinking, or sleeping; that his frail body was kept alive by the energy

of his indomitable soul.

Frenchmen of varying schools of thought have not been slow to recognise

the secret of the power of their great countryman. Jules Michelet says:

"Among the martyrs, with whom Calvin constantly conversed in

spirit, he became a martyr himself; he lived and felt like a man

before whom the whole earth disappears, and who tunes his last

Psalm his whole eye fixed upon the eye of God, because he knows

that on the following morning he may have to ascend the pyre."

Ernest Renan is no less emphatic:

"It is surprising that a man who appears to us in his life and

writings so unsympathetic should have been the centre of an immense

movement in his generation, and that this harsh and severe tone

should have exercised so great an influence on the minds of his

contemporaries. How was it, for example, that one of the most

distinguished women of her time, Renée of France, in her Court at

Ferrara, surrounded by the flower of European wits, was captivated

by that stern master, and by him drawn into a course that must have

been so thickly strewn with thorns? This kind of austere seduction

is exercised only by those who work with real conviction. Lacking

that vivid, deep, sympathetic ardour which was one of the secrets

of Luther's success, lacking the charm, the perilous, languishing

tenderness of Francis de Sales, Calvin succeeded, in an age and in

a country which called for a reaction towards Christianity, simply

because _he was the most Christian man of his generation_."

Thus it was that all those in France who felt the need of intimate

fellowship with God, all to whom a religion, which was at once

inflexible in matters of moral living and which appealed to their

reasoning faculties, was a necessity, hailed the _Christian Institution_

as the clearest manifesto of their faith, and grouped themselves round

the young author (Calvin was barely twenty-six when he wrote it) as

their leader. Those also who suffered under the pressure of a despotic

government, and felt the evils of a society constituted to uphold the

privileges of an aristocracy, learnt that in a neighbouring country

there was a city which had placed itself under the rule of the Word of

God; where everyone joined in a common worship attractive from its

severe simplicity; where the morals, public and private, were pure;

where the believers selected their pastors and the people their rulers;

where there were neither masters nor subjects; where the ministers of

religion lived the lives of simple laymen, and were distinguished from

them only by the exercise of their sacred service. They indulged in the

dream that all France might be fashioned after the model of Geneva.

Many a Frenchman who was dissatisfied with the condition of things in

France, but had come to no personal decision to leave the mediæval

Church, could not help contrasting what he saw around him with the life

and aspiration of those "of the religion,"[190] as the French

Protestants began to be called. They saw themselves confronted by a

religion full of mysteries inaccessible to reason, expressing itself

even in public worship in a language unintelligible to most of the

worshippers, full of pomp, of luxury, of ceremonies whose symbolical

meaning had been forgotten. They saw a clergy commonplace and ignorant,

or aristocratic and indifferent; a nobility greedy and restless; a Court

whose luxurious display and scandals were notorious; royal mistresses

and faithless husbands and wives. Almost everywhere we find a growing

tendency to contrast the purity of Protestantism and the corruption of

Roman Catholicism. It found outcome in the famous scene in the

_Parlement_ of Paris (1559), when Antoine de Bourg, son of a former

Chancellor, advocated the total suspension of the persecution against

those "who were called heretics," and enforced his opinion by

contrasting the blasphemies and scandals of the Court with the morality

and the purity of the lives of those who were being sent to the

stake,--a speech for which he afterwards lost his life.[191]

It was this growing united Protestantism which Henry II. and his

advisers had determined to crush by the action of the legislative

authority.

§ 5. _Persecution under Henry II._[192]

The repressive legal measures introduced by Francis I. were retained,

and a new law against blasphemy (prepared, no doubt, during the last

days of Francis) was published five days after the King's death (April

5th, 1547). But more was believed to be necessary. So a series of

edicts, culminating in the Edict of Chateaubriand, were published, which

aimed at uniting all the forces of the kingdom to extirpate the

Reformed faith.

On October 8th, 1547, a second criminal court was added to the

_Parlement_ of Paris, to deal solely with cases of heresy. This was the

famous _Chambre Ardente_. It was ordered to sit continuously, even

during the ordinary Parliamentary vacancies in August and September; and

its first session lasted from Dec. 1547 to Jan. 1550, during which time

it must have passed more than five hundred judgments. The clergy felt

that this special court took from them one of their privileges, the

right of trying all cases of heresy. They petitioned against it. A

compromise was arranged (Edict of Nov. 19th, 1549), by which all cases

of simple heresy (_cas communes_) were to be sent to the ecclesiastical

courts, while cases of heresy accompanied by public scandal (_cas

privilégiés_) were to be judged in the civil courts. In practice it

usually happened that all cases of heresy went first before the

ecclesiastical courts and, after judgment there, those which were

believed to be attended by public scandal (the largest number) were sent

on to the civil courts. These measures were not thought sufficient, and

the Edict of Chateaubriand (June 27th, 1551) codified and extended all

the various legal measures taken for the defence of the Roman Catholic

faith.

The edict was lengthy, and began with a long preamble, which declared

that in spite of all measures of repression, heresy was increasing; that

it was a pestilence "so contagious that it had infected most of the

inhabitants, men, women, and even little children, in many of the towns

and districts of the kingdom," and asked every loyal subject to aid the

Government in extirpating the plague. It provided that, as before, all

cases of simple heresy should be judged in the ecclesiastical courts,

and that heresy accompanied with public scandal should be sent to the

civil courts of the _Parlements_. It issued stringent regulations about

the publication and sale of books; forbidding the introduction into

France of volumes from Protestant countries; forbidding the printing of

books which had not passed the censor of the Faculty of Theology, and

all books published anonymously; and ordering an examination of all

printing houses and bookshops twice in the year. Private persons who did

not inform against heretics were liable to be considered heretics

themselves, and punished as such; and when they did denounce them they

were to receive one-third of the possessions of the persons condemned.

Parents were charged "by the pity, love, and charity which they owed to

their children," not to engage any teachers who might be "suspect"; no

one was permitted to teach in school or college who was not certified to

be orthodox; and masters were made responsible for their servants.

Intercourse with those who had taken refuge in Geneva was prohibited,

and the goods of the refugees were confiscated. All Catholics, and more

especially persons of rank and in authority, were required to give the

earnest example of attending carefully to outward observances of

religion, and in particular to kneel in adoration of the Host.

The edict was registered on Sept. 3rd, 1551, and immediately put in

force. Six years later, the King had to confess that its stringent

provisions had failed to arrest the spread of the Protestant faith. He

proposed to establish the Inquisition in France, moved thereto by the

Cardinal of Lorraine and Pope Paul IV.; and was prevented only by the

strenuous opposition of his _Parlement_.[193] He had to content himself

with issuing the Edict of Compiègne (1557), which, while nominally

leaving trials for heresy in the hands of the ecclesiastical courts,

practically handed them over to the civil courts, where the judges were

not allowed to inflict any lesser punishment than death. They were

permitted to increase the penalty by inflicting torture, or to mitigate

it by strangling the victims before burning them.

Armed with this legislation, the work of hunting out the Reformed was

strenuously carried on. Certain prisons were specially reserved for the

Protestant martyrs--the Conciergerie, which was part of the building of

the Palace, and the Grand Châtelet, which faced it on the opposite bank

of the Seine. They soon overflowed, and suspects were confined in the

Bastille, in the Petit Châtelet, and in episcopal prisons. The cells of

the Conciergerie were below the level of the river, and water oozed from

the walls; the Grand Châtelet was noted for its terrible dungeons, so

small that the prisoner could neither stand upright nor lie at full

length on the floor. Diseases decimated the victims; the plague slew

sixty who were waiting for trial in the Grand Châtelet in 1547. Few were

acquitted; almost all, once arrested, suffered death and torture.[194]

§ 6. _The Organisation of the French Protestant Church._

It was during these years of terrible persecution that the Protestant

Church of France organised itself--feeling the need for unity the better

to sustain the conflict in which it was engaged, and to assist its

weaker members. Calvin was unwearied in urging on this work of

organisation. With the fire of a prophet and the foresight of a

statesman he insisted on the necessity of unity during the storm and

strain of a time of persecution. He had already shown what form the

ecclesiastical organisation ought to take.[195] He proposed to revive

the simple threefold ministry of the Church of the early centuries--a

congregation ruled by a bishop or pastor, a session of elders, and a

body of deacons. This was adopted by the French Protestants. A group of

believers, a minister, a "consistory" of elders and deacons, regular

preaching, and the sacraments duly administered, made a Church properly

constituted. The minister was the chief; he preached; he administered

the sacraments; he presided at the "consistory." The "consistory" was

composed of elders charged with the spiritual oversight of the

community, and of deacons who looked after the poor and the sick. The

elders and the deacons were chosen by the members of the congregation;

and the minister by the elders and the deacons. An organised Church did

not come into existence all at once as a rule, and a distinction was

drawn between an _église plantée_, and an _église dressée_. The former

was in an embryonic state, with a pastor, it might be, but no

consistory; or it might be only a group of people who welcomed the

occasional services of a wandering missioner, or held simple services

without any definite leader.

The year 1555 may be taken as the date when French Protestantism began

to organise Churches. It is true that a few had been established

earlier--at Meaux in 1546 and at Nimes in 1547, but the congregations

had been dispersed by persecution. Before 1555 the Protestants of France

had been for the most part solitary Bible students, or little companies

meeting together for common worship without any organisation.

Paris set the example. A small company of believers had been accustomed

to meet in the lodging of the Sieur de la Ferriere, near the

Pré-aux-Clercs. The birth of a child hastened matters. The father

explained that he could not go outside France to seek a pure baptism,

and that his conscience would not permit his child to be baptized

according to the rites of the Roman Church. After prayer the company

resolved to constitute themselves into a Church. Jean le Maçon was

called to be the minister or pastor; elders and deacons were chosen; and

the organisation was complete.[196] It seemed as if all Protestant

France had been waiting for the signal, and organised Churches sprang up

everywhere.

Crespin names thirteen Churches, completely organised in the manner of

the Church of Paris, founded between 1555 and 1557--Meaux, Poitiers,

Angers, les Iles de Saintonge, Agen, Bourges, Issoudun, Aubigny, Blois,

Tours, Lyon, Orléans, and Rouen. He adds that there were others.

Documentary evidence now available enables us to give thirty-six more,

all _dressées_, or completely organised, with a consistory or

kirk-session, before 1560. One hundred and twenty pastors were sent to

France from Geneva before 1567. The history of these congregations

during the reign of Henry II. was full of tragic and dramatic

incidents.[197] They existed in the midst of a population which was for

the most part fanatically Romanist, easily excited by priests and monks,

who poured forth violent addresses from the pulpits of neighbouring

churches. Law-courts, whether in the capital or in the provinces, the

public officials, all loyal subjects of the King, were invited,

commanded by the Edict of Chateaubriand, to ferret out and hunt down

those suspected of Protestant sympathies. To fail to make a reverence

when passing a crucifix, to speak unguardedly against an ecclesiastical

ceremony, to exhibit the slightest sympathy for a Protestant martyr, to

be found in possession of a book printed in Geneva, was sufficient to

provoke a denunciation, an arrest, a trial which must end in torture

and death. Protestants were compelled to worship in cellars, to creep

stealthily to their united devotions; like the early Christians during

the persecutions under Decius or Diocletian, they had to meet at

midnight; and these midnight assemblies gave rise to the same infamous

reports about their character which the Jews spread abroad regarding the

secret meetings of the Christians of the first three centuries.[198]

Every now and then they were discovered, as in the incident of the Rue

Saint Jacques in Paris, and wholesale arrests and martyrdoms followed.

The organisation of the faithful into Churches had done much for French

Protestantism in bestowing upon them the power which association gives;

but more was needed to weld them into one. In 1558, doctrinal

differences arose in the congregation at Poitiers. The Church in Paris

was appealed to, and its minister, Antoine de Chandieu, went to Poitiers

to assist at the celebration of the Holy Supper, and to heal the

dispute. There, it is said, the idea of a Confession of Faith for the

whole Church was suggested. Calvin was consulted, but did not approve.

Notwithstanding, on May 25th, 1559, a number of ministers and elders,

coming from all parts of France, and representing, according to a

contemporary document whose authority is somewhat doubtful, sixty-six

Churches,[199] met in Paris for conference. Three days were spent in

deliberations, under the presidency of Morel, one of the Parisian

ministers. This was the _First National Synod_ of the French Protestant

Church. It compiled a Confession of Faith and a Book of Discipline.

The Confession of Faith[200] (_Confession de Foi faite d'un commun

accord par les François, qui desirent vivre selon la pureté de

l'évangile de notre Seigneur Jésus Christ_) consists of forty articles.

It was revised more than once by subsequent Synods, but may still be

called the Confession of the French Protestant Church. It was based on a

short Confession drafted by Calvin in 1557, and embodied in a letter to

the King on behalf of his persecuted subjects. "It seemed useful," one

of the members of the Synod wrote to Calvin, "to add some articles to

your Confession, and to modify it slightly on some points." Probably out

of deference to Calvin's objection to a creed for the whole Church, it

was resolved to keep it secret for some time. The resolution was in

vain. The Confession was in print, and known before the end of 1559.

The Book of Discipline (_Discipline ecclésiastique des églises réformées

de France_) regulated the organisation and the discipline of the

Churches. It was that kind of ecclesiastical polity which has become

known as Presbyterian, but which might be better called Conciliar. A

council called the _Consistory_, consisting of the minister or

ministers, elders, and deacons, ruled the congregation. Congregations

were formed into groups, over which was the _Colloquy_, composed of

representatives from the Consistories; over the _Colloquies_ were the

_Provincial Synods_; and over all the _General_ or _National Synod_.

Rules were laid down about how discipline was to be exercised. It was

stated clearly that no Church could claim a primacy over the others. All

ministers were required to sign the Confession of Faith, and to

acknowledge and submit to the ecclesiastical discipline.[201]

It is interesting to see how in a country whose civil rule was becoming

gradually more absolutist, this "Church under the Cross" framed for

itself a government which reconciled, more thoroughly perhaps than has

ever been done since, the two principles of popular rights and supreme

central control. Its constitution has spread to Holland, Scotland, and

to the great American Churches. Their ecclesiastical polity came much