CHAPTER IV.

INCREASING SEVERITY.—LOUIS DE BERQUIN.

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 trai123tors.²⁵⁶²⁵⁶ Registres du parlement, Feb. 26, 1417/8, Preuves des Libertez, i. 124, etc. 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?

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 Angoulême, 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.²⁵⁷²⁵⁷ Yet the trial of Aimé 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. 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 Bénoit-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 no124 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.²⁵⁸²⁵⁸ See Mézeray's unfavorable portrait of the unscrupulous Duprat, Abrégé chron., iv. 584. 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?

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.²⁵⁹²⁵⁹ The four were Philippe Pot, President in the chambre des enquêtes, and André 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. A few days later (March 29, 1525), in making a necessary substitution for one of the members who was unable to125 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.²⁶⁰²⁶⁰ Registres du parlement, ubi supra.

The commission a new form of inquisition.

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.²⁶¹²⁶¹ Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 102. 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.²⁶²²⁶² Registres du parlement, July 29, 1458, Preuves des Libertez, i. 138. 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."²⁶³²⁶³ "Un inquisiteur de la foi n'a capture ou arrét en ce royaume, sinon par l'aide et autorité du bras seculier." Pithou, Essaie, art. 37.

Parliament breaks down the safeguards of personal liberty.

But the Parliament of Paris, at the instigation of the regent's126 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."²⁶⁴²⁶⁴ "Nonobstant oppositions ou appellations quelconques, semotâ executione a definitiva, si en est appellé." Registres du parlement, Preuves des Libertez, iii. 164. 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.

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 which127 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.²⁶⁵²⁶⁵ "Nos quoque comprobavimus ... sicut per alias nostras sub plumbo literas poteritis cognoscere." Registres du parlement, ubi supra.

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,128 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.²⁶⁶²⁶⁶ Recueil des anc. lois françaises, par Jourdan, Decrusy et Isambert, xii. 232-237.

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.²⁶⁷²⁶⁷ Isambert, ubi supra.

We have in a previous chapter seen some of the first fruits of the establishment of the inquisitorial commission, in the proceedings instituted against Lefèvre d'Étaples, Gérard 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.

Character of Louis de Berquin.

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 im129pressed by the commanding appearance and elegance of dress of De Berquin, at this time in the very prime of life.²⁶⁸²⁶⁸ The author of the anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois dé 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 lignée et moult grand clerc, expert en science et subtil, mais néantmoins 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 réformateurs, ii. 183, seq. 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,²⁶⁹²⁶⁹ His account is important, but too full for insertion here. See the letter above quoted. 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 Lefèvre. From Lefèvre'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.

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 "Speculum130 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.²⁷⁰²⁷⁰ Arrêt du parlement, Aug. 5, 1523, Haag, France prot. s. v. Berquin.

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.²⁷¹²⁷¹ Félibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948; Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170; Haag, s. v.; Erasmus, Opera, ubi supra.

Advice of Erasmus.

It was about this time that Erasmus first made the acquaint131ance 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.

Berquin's second imprisonment.

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.²⁷²²⁷² "Etiam in loco sacro." Registres du parlement, January 8, 1526, Preuves des Libertez, iii., 166. 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, at132 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.²⁷³²⁷³ Margaret's gratitude to Montmorency for his kind offices is very fully attested by a passage in an extant letter (Génin, Lettres de Marg. d'Ang., 1ère Coll., No. 54): "Vous merciant du plaisir que m'avés fait pour le pauvre Berquin, que j'estime aultant que si c'estoit moy mesmes, et par cela pouvés vous dire que vous m'avés tirée de prison, etc." To Francis she expressed the assurance "que Celuy pour qui je croy qu'il a souffert aura agréable la miséricorde que pour son honneur avez fait à son serviteur et au vostre." Ibid., 2de Coll., No. 35.

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.²⁷⁴²⁷⁴ 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.), Félibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948, 984, 985; Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170, 277, 278; Haag, s. v.133

Hopes of Margaret of Angoulême.

The return of Francis from Madrid, and the rescue of Berquin, Lefèvre, 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 Angoulême 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.²⁷⁵²⁷⁵ 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'infidélité et esternelle damnacion." Lettres de Marg. d'Ang., 2de Coll., No. 5, Lyons, May 1525. See, too, 1ère Coll., No. 26, addressed to Montmorency.

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 yet134 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."²⁷⁶²⁷⁶ Margaret's letters to Count Hohenlohe were translated into Latin and published by himself. M. Génin has rendered them into French, and inserted them in his Lettres de Marg. d'Angoulême, 1ère Coll., Nos. 48-51. The letter of July 5, 1526, is the most important.

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 world135 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—êcus-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.

The king's necessities.

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.²⁷⁷²⁷⁷ 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 œuvre que celluy qui se offre de présent, le dict sire fut conseillé, que juridiquement et par tous droicts divins et humains, il pouvoit et debvoit raisonnablement mettre, subimposer et faire contribuer toutes manières de gens, de quelque qualité, auctorité, condition qu'ils fuissent, soient d'église, nobles, ou du tiers et commun estat, au paiement de la ditte rançon, etc." Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1137. But, as the same ends might be attained by methods more agreeable to law and precedent, Francis preferred to have recourse to them.

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 repre136sented; but the form of a meeting of the States General (as we have seen, most distasteful to the despotic monarch) was studiously avoided.²⁷⁸²⁷⁸ 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. 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."²⁷⁹²⁷⁹ "Fist un discours farci de latin et de citations de l'Écriture, dans lequel il conclut que le traité de Madrid estoit nul." Isambert, xii. 299. 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.

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.137 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."

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.²⁸⁰²⁸⁰ The declaration is significant and noteworthy as the first of many similar assurances. Among the documents in Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois françaises, is a full account of the proceedings of the notables, xii. 292-301.

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.²⁸¹²⁸¹ If Francis was sanguine of success in suppressing the Reformation in his kingdom, there were others who went farther still. Barthélemi de Chassanée 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 hæreses in fide Christiana seminavit, quæ fuerunt extirpatæ 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 Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 143. He had yet to learn138 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.

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."²⁸²²⁸² Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1160.139

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.²⁸³²⁸³ 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 læsæ majestatis." Fol. 1159.

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 Mérindol and Cabrières, 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 authors140 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 Angoulême, 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;²⁸⁴²⁸⁴ Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1139. 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.²⁸⁵²⁸⁵ 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.

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!141

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.²⁸⁶²⁸⁶ 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. Félibien, Hist. de Paris, iv. 676. 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.²⁸⁷²⁸⁷ The strong language of the author of the "Cronique du Roi Françoys Ier" (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 couppée la teste à une ymaige de la vierge Marie ... qui fut une grosse horreur à la crestienté." Page 66. 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 against142 the "Lutherans," must, for the present, at least, remain a subject of profound doubt.

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 Fête-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.²⁸⁸²⁸⁸ 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 Félibien, ii. 982, 983, in the Régistres du parlement, ibid., iv. 677-679, in G. Guiffrey, appendix to "Cronique du Roy Françoys Ier," 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 Françoys Ier," 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!143

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!²⁸⁹²⁸⁹ May, 1530. Félibien, ii 988, 989; Journal d'un bourgeois, 410.

Berquin's third arrest.

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. "Do144 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."²⁹⁰²⁹⁰ "Quæris, quid profecerim? Tot modis deterrens, addidi animum." 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.²⁹¹²⁹¹ Erasmus to Utenhoven, ubi supra; also his letter to Vergara, Sept. 2, 1527, and Beda's Apology, Herminjard, ii. 38, 39, 40. 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.²⁹²²⁹² Erasmus to Utenhoven, ubi supra.

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 Budé, the foremost French scholar of the age for broad and accurate learning.²⁹³²⁹³ It was one of the great merits of Francis I., in the eyes of De Thou, the historian, that he had drawn Budé from comparative obscurity, and, following his wise counsels, founded the Collége Royale. Erasmus styled him "The Wonder of France" (De Thou, liv. iii., i. 233), and Scævole de Ste. Marthe, "omnium, qui hoc patrumque sæculo vixere, sine controversia doctissimus" (Elog. 3). He was at this time one of the maîtres de requêtes. Crespin, fol. 58. 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.²⁹⁴²⁹⁴ Journal d'un bourgeois, 378. It soon became evident,145 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 Angoulême, whose character is nowhere seen to better advantage than in her repeated letters to her brother about this time.²⁹⁵²⁹⁵ 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 très-humble et très-obéissante subjette et seur Marguerite." Génin, 2de Coll., No. 52.

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 Grève, 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.²⁹⁶²⁹⁶ A MS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, printed by M. Génin (i. 218, etc.), and G. Guiffrey, Cronique, etc., 76, note, gives these and other interesting details, which are in part confirmed by Erasmus.

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.²⁹⁷²⁹⁷ Ibid., ubi supra. 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 his146 release. No sooner were the judges satisfied that he persisted in his appeal, in spite of the secret and urgent advice of Budé 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.²⁹⁸²⁹⁸ 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.

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;"²⁹⁹²⁹⁹ "Ce qui fut faict et expédié ce mesme jour en grande diligence, affin qu'il ne fût recourru du Roy ne de madame la Regente, qui estoit lors à Bloys, etc." Journal d'un bourgeois, 383. 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.³⁰⁰³⁰⁰ 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 ecclés., i. 5; Félibien, ii. 985; Haag, s. v. 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."³⁰¹³⁰¹ Journal d'un bourgeois, and Hist. ecclés., ubi supra. But the "Lutherans"147 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.³⁰²³⁰² 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 hæresiarchæ Berquini, et suorum sequacium pervicacia delibutus (hæreticus) 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 Franciæ ad Francos, ut fortes in Fide et Vocatione qua vocati sunt, permaneant, authore Martino Theodorico Bellovaco, Juris Cæsarei Professore (Parisiis, 1539), p. 14.—See note at the end of this chapter.

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.³⁰³³⁰³ F. W. Barthold, Deutschland und die Hugenoten, i. 15; Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 115-120.148

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'à l'autel,"³⁰⁴³⁰⁴ Mézeray, Abrégé chronologique, iv. 577. 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.³⁰⁵³⁰⁵ Soldan, i. 121.

Meeting of Francis I. and Clement, at Marseilles.

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.³⁰⁶³⁰⁶ October 28, 1533. 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 the149 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."³⁰⁷³⁰⁷ "Con mala sodisfazione di tutta la Francia, perchè pare ad ogniuno che Clemente pontefice abbia gabbato questo rè cristianissimo." Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Ven., Albèri, i. 191. Such were the evil auspices under which the Italian girl, only fourteen years of age,³⁰⁸³⁰⁸ Catharine de' Medici was born April 13, 1519. entered a country over whose destinies she was to exert a pernicious influence.

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 that150 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.³⁰⁹³⁰⁹ 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 réformateurs, iii. 183-186.

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.

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 Fête 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.³¹⁰³¹⁰ 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 ecclésiastique, 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 Ræmond, 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 hæreseon hujus sæculi, ii. 486.151

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.³¹¹³¹¹ Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 64. 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.³¹²³¹² Florimond de Ræmond, ii. 394, 395. 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,³¹³³¹³ March 6, 1535. Journal d'un bourgeois, 453. 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.³¹⁴³¹⁴ Hist. ecclés., i. 9; Crespin, ubi supra.152

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 Collége 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 Collége 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 Gérard Roussel—Magister Gerardus—in Megæra, 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.³¹⁵³¹⁵ John Calvin gives a contemporary's account in a letter to François Daniel from Paris, October, 1533. Herminjard, Correspond. des réformateurs, 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.

Her Miroir de l'âme pécheresse.

An equally audacious act was the insertion of a work published by Margaret, under the title of Le miroir de l'âme pécheresse, 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 termi153nated the long series of disclaimers by rendering thanks to Francis for his fatherly patience.³¹⁶³¹⁶ 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.

Rector Cop's address to the university.

Just a month after the unlucky dramatic representation of the Collége 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.³¹⁷³¹⁷ 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 gehennæ incendium sibi parat." Opera Calvini, Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, x. 34.

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.³¹⁸³¹⁸ Some officious pen has indeed stricken out from the MS. the sentence, "Quod nos consecuturos spero, si beatissimam Virginem solenni illo præconio 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: "Hæc, quia illis temporibus danda sunt, ne supprimenda quidem putavimus." 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 charges154 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.³¹⁹³¹⁹ "Ægre 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." Bullæus, 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. 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.³²⁰³²⁰ 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.

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 and155 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 Chrétienne." 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.³²¹³²¹ 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: "Hæc Joannes Calvinus propria manu descripsit, et est auctor." This portion is printed in Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 418-420, and Calv. Opera, Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, ix. 873-876. Merle d'Aubigné 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.

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 Angoulême, he enjoyed, under the friendly roof of Louis de Tillet, a short period of quiet and an opportunity to pursue his favorite studies.³²²³²² Calvin to Fr. Daniel (1534), Bonnet, i. 41; Histoire ecclés., i. 9.

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 of156 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.³²³³²³ Francis I. to Council of Berne, Marseilles, Oct. 20, 1533, MS. Berne Archives, Herminjard, iii. 95, 96. 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."³²⁴³²⁴ 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.

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,³²⁵³²⁵ 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 réformateurs, iii. 130. to confer upon two counsellors of parliament all the authority necessary to act for him, without prejudice to his jurisdiction in other cases.³²⁶³²⁶ 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. franç., i. 437. His orders to parliament of same date, Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 114, etc.157 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."³²⁷³²⁷ Francis to parliament, ubi supra, iii. 116.

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