_A Punishment employed in the Russian Army_
]
“The introduction which was made of these ceremonies into France, where
they had till then been almost unknown, forwarded the designs of certain
ambitious persons; the contempt they brought on the person of the King
having weakened much the regal authority. While the King mixed thus with
processions of flagellants, and the most distinguished among his
courtiers followed his example, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, who was
one of the party, was by the coldness of the evening thrown into a
violent fever, attended with a most intense pain in his head; and a
delirium as well as continual watchfulness having followed, he expired
two days before Christmas.”
The historian we have just quoted says in another place, that the King
was principally induced to perform the above superstitious processions
by the solicitations of his confessor, Father Edmund Auger, who wrote a
book on that subject, and of John Castelli, the Apostolic Nuncio in
France; and that the weak compliance shown to him on that occasion by
the Chancellor Birague, and the Keeper of the Seals, Chiverny,
encouraged him much to pursue his plan in that respect, notwithstanding
the strong advices to the contrary that were given him by Christopher de
Thou, President of the Parliament, and Pierre Brulart, President of the
Chambre des Enquêtes.
As there was in those times a powerful party in France that opposed the
Court, and even was frequently at open war with it, there was no want of
men in Paris who found fault with the disciplining processions of the
King. When they first made their appearance, some, as the above
historian relates, laughed at them, while others exclaimed that they
were an insult both to God and man. Even preachers joined in the party
and pointed their sarcasms from the pulpit against those ceremonies.
The most petulant among these popular preachers was one Maurice Poncer,
of the abbey of Melun, who, using expressions borrowed from a psalm,
compared the King and his brother disciplinants, to men who would cover
themselves with a wet sack-cloth to keep off the rain; he was at last
banished off to his monastery. The example which the Court and the
Metropolis had set, was followed in a number of country towns, where
fraternities of flagellants were instituted; and among them particular
mention is made of the brotherhood of the Blue Penitents, in the city of
Bourges, on account of the sentence passed in the year 1601 by the
Parliament of Paris, in consequence of a motion of Nicholas Servin, the
King’s Advocate General, which expressly abolished it.