History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 53

Yet amidst the alarm caused by the state of her soul, she felt that a G.o.d of peace had appeared to her:

My G.o.d, thou hast come down on earth to me,-- To me, although a naked worm I be.[757]

And erelong a sense of the love of G.o.d in Christ was shed abroad in her heart.

Margaret had found faith, and her enraptured soul indulged in holy transports.[758]

Word Divine, Jesus the Salvator, Only Son of the eternal Pater, The first, the last; of all things renovator, Bishop and king, and mighty triumphator, From death by death our liberator.

By faith we're made the sons of the Creator.

From this time a great change took place in the d.u.c.h.ess of Alencon:--

Though poor, and weak, and ignorant I be, How rich, how strong, how wise I am in Thee![759]

But the power of sin was not yet subdued in her. She found a struggle, a discord in her soul that alarmed her:[760]--

In spirit n.o.ble,--but in nature slave; Immortal am I,--tending to the grave; Essence of heaven,--and yet of earthly birth; G.o.d's dwelling place,--and yet how little worth.

Margaret, seeking in nature the symbols that might express the wants and affections of her soul, chose for her emblem (says Brantome) the marigold, "which by its rays and leaves, has more affinity with the sun, and turns wherever he goes."[761]--She added this device:--

_Non inferiora secutus_, I seek not things below,

"as a sign," adds the courtly writer, "that she directed all her actions, thoughts, desires, and affections, to that great sun which is G.o.d; and hence she was suspected of being attached to the Lutheran religion."[762]

[757] Ibid. pp. 18, 19.

[758] Marguerites, &c. Discord de l'esprit et de la chair, p. 73. (The translator has endeavoured to preserve the quaintness of the original, both in rhyme and rhythm).

[759] Ibid. Miroir de l'ame, p. 22.

[760] Ibid. Discord de l'esprit, p. 71.

[761] Vie des Femmes ill.u.s.tres, p. 33.

[762] Ibid.

[Sidenote: MARGARET'S CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE.]

In fact, the princess experienced, not long after, the truth of the saying, that _all who will live G.o.dly in Jesus Christ shall suffer persecution_. At the court, they talked of Margaret's new opinions, and the surprise was great. What! even the sister of the king takes part with these people! For a moment it might have been thought that Margaret's ruin was certain. She was denounced to Francis I. But the king, who was tenderly attached to his sister, pretended to think that it was untrue. Margaret's character gradually lessened the opposition.

Every one loved her, says Brantome: "she was very kind, mild, gracious, charitable, affable, a great alms-giver, despising n.o.body, and winning all hearts by her excellent qualities."[763]

[763] Vie des Femmes ill.u.s.tres, p. 341.

In the midst of the corruption and frivolity of that age, the mind reposes with delight on this chosen soul, which the grace of G.o.d had seized beneath such a load of vanities and grandeur. But her feminine character held her back. If Francis I. had felt his sister's convictions, he would no doubt have followed them out. The timid heart of the princess trembled before the anger of the king. She was constantly wavering between her brother and her Saviour, and could not resolve to sacrifice either. We cannot recognise her as a Christian who has reached the perfect liberty of the children of G.o.d: she is a correct type of those elevated souls, so numerous in every age, particularly among women, who, powerfully attracted towards heaven, have not sufficient strength to detach themselves entirely from the earth.

However, such as she is, she is a pleasing character on the stage of history. Neither Germany nor England present her parallel. She is a star, slightly clouded no doubt, but shedding an indescribable and gentle radiance, and at the time of which I am treating her rays shone out still more brightly. It is not until later years, when the angry looks of Francis I. denounce a mortal hatred against the Reformation, that his frightened sister will screen her holy faith from the light of day. But now she raises her head in the midst of this corrupted court, and appears a bride of Christ. The respect paid to her, the high opinion entertained of her understanding and of her heart, plead the cause of the Gospel at the court of France much better than any preacher could have done. The gentle influence of woman gained admission for the new doctrine. It is perhaps to this period we should trace the inclination of the French n.o.bility to embrace Protestantism.

If Francis had followed his sister, if all the nation had opened its gates to Christianity, Margaret's conversion might have been the saving of France. But while the n.o.bles welcomed the Gospel, the king and the people remained faithful to Rome; and there came a time when it was a cause of serious misfortune to the Reformation to count a Navarre and a Conde among its ranks.

CHAPTER V.

Enemies of the Reformation--Louisa--Duprat--Concordat of Bologna--Opposition of the Parliament and the University--The Sorbonne--Beda--His Character--His Tyranny--Berquin, the most learned of the n.o.bility--The Intriguers of the Sorbonne--Heresy of the three Magdalens--Luther condemned at Paris--Address of the Sorbonne to the King--Lefevre quits Paris for Meaux.

[Sidenote: ENEMIES OF THE REFORMATION.]

Thus already had the Gospel made ill.u.s.trious conquests in France.

Lefevre, Briconnet, Farel, and Margaret joyfully yielded in Paris to the movement that was already beginning to shake the world. Francis I.

himself seemed at that time more attracted by the splendour of literature, than repelled by the severity of the Gospel. The friends of the Word of G.o.d were entertaining the most pleasing expectations; they thought that the heavenly doctrine would be disseminated without obstacle over their country, at the very moment when a formidable opposition was organizing at court and in the Sorbonne. France, which was to signalize itself among Roman-catholic states for nearly three centuries by its persecutions, rose with pitiless severity against the Reformation. If the seventeenth century was the age of a b.l.o.o.d.y victory, the sixteenth was that of a cruel struggle. Probably in no place did the reformed Christians meet with more merciless adversaries on the very spot where they raised the standard of the Gospel. In Germany, it was in the Romish states that their enemies were found; in Switzerland, in the Romish cantons; but in France, it was face to face. A dissolute woman and a rapacious minister then headed the long list of the enemies of the Reformation.

[Sidenote: LOUISA--DUPRAT--THE CONCORDAT.]

Louisa of Savoy, mother of the king and of Margaret, notorious for her gallantries, absolute in her will, and surrounded by a train of ladies of honour whose licentiousness began at the court of France a long series of immorality and scandal, naturally took part against the Word of G.o.d; she was the more to be feared as she had always preserved an almost unbounded influence over her son. But the Gospel met with a still more formidable adversary in Louisa's favourite, Anthony Duprat, who was nominated chancellor of the kingdom by her influence. This man, whom a contemporary historian calls the most vicious of all bipeds,[764] was more rapacious than Louisa was dissolute. Having first enriched himself at the expense of justice, he desired subsequently to increase his wealth at the expense of religion, and entered holy orders to gain possession of the richest livings.

[764] Bipedum omnium nequissimus. Belcarius, xv. 435.

l.u.s.t and avarice thus characterized these two persons, who, being both devoted to the pope, endeavoured to conceal the disorders of their lives by the blood of the heretics.[765]

[765] Sismondi, Hist. des Francais. xvi. 387.

One of their first acts was to deliver up the kingdom to the ecclesiastical dominion of the pope. The king, after the battle of Marignan, met Leo X. at Bologna, and there was sealed the famous _concordat_, in virtue of which these two princes divided the spoils of the Church between them. They annulled the supremacy of councils to give it to the pope; and depriving the churches of their right to fill up the vacant bishoprics and livings, conferred it on the king. After this, Francis I., supporting the pontiff's train, proceeded to the minster-church of Bologna to ratify this negotiation. He was sensible of the injustice of the concordat, and turning to Duprat, whispered in his ear: "It is enough to d.a.m.n us both."[766] But what was salvation to him? Money and the pope's alliance were what he wanted.

[766] Mathieu, i. 16.

[Sidenote: RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT AND UNIVERSITY.]

The parliament vigorously resisted the concordat. The king made its deputies wait several weeks at Amboise, and then calling them before him one day, as he rose from table, he said: "There is a king in France, and I will not have a Venetian senate formed in my dominions."

He then commanded them to depart before sunset. Evangelical liberty had nothing to hope from such a prince. Three days after, the high-chamberlain La Tremouille appeared in parliament, and ordered the concordat to be registered.

Upon this the university put itself in motion. On the 18th of March 1518, a solemn procession, at which all the students and the bachelors with their hoods were present, repaired to the church of Saint Catherine of the Scholars, to implore G.o.d to preserve the liberties of the Church and of the kingdom.[767] "The colleges were closed, strong bodies of the students went armed through the city, threatening and sometimes maltreating the exalted personages who were publis.h.i.+ng and carrying out the said concordat by the king's orders."[768] The university eventually tolerated the execution of this edict; but without revoking the resolutions on which it had declared its opposition; and from that time, says the Venetian amba.s.sador Correro, "the king began to give away the bishoprics with a liberal hand at the solicitation of the court ladies, and to bestow abbeys on his soldiers; so that at the court of France a trade was carried on in bishoprics and abbeys, as at Venice in pepper and cinnamon."[769]

[767] Crevier, v. 110.

[768] Fontaine, Hist. Cathol., Paris, 1562, p. 16.

[769] Raumer, Gesch. Europ. i. 270.

[Sidenote: THE SORBONNE--BEDA.]

While Louisa and Duprat were preparing to destroy the Gospel by the destruction of the liberties of the Gallican Church, a fanatical and powerful party was forming against the Bible. Christian truth has always had to encounter two powerful adversaries, the depravity of the world and the fanaticism of the priests. The scholastic Sorbonne and a profligate court were now to march forward hand in hand against the confessors of Jesus Christ. In the early days of the Church, the unbelieving Sadducees and the hypocritical Pharisees were the fiercest enemies of Christianity; and so they have remained through every age.

Erelong from the darkness of the schools emerged the most pitiless adversaries of the Gospel. At their head was Noel Bedier, commonly called Beda, a native of Picardy and syndic of the Sorbonne, reputed to be the greatest brawler and most factious spirit of his day.

Educated in the dry maxims of scholasticism, matured in the theses and ant.i.theses of the Sorbonne, having a greater veneration for the distinctions of the school than for the Word of G.o.d, he was transported with anger against those whose daring mouths ventured to put forth other doctrines. Of a restless disposition, unable to enjoy any repose, always requiring new pursuits, he was a torment to all around him; confusion was his native element; he seemed born for contention; and when he had no adversaries he fell foul of his friends. This impetuous quack filled the university with stupid and violent declamations against literature, against the innovations of the age, and against all those who were not, in his opinion, sufficiently earnest in repressing them. Many smiled as they listened to him, but others gave credit to the invectives of the bl.u.s.tering orator, and the violence of his character secured him a tyrannical sway in the Sorbonne. He must always have some new enemy to fight, some victim to drag to the scaffold; and accordingly he had created heretics before any existed, and had called for the burning of Merlin, vicar-general of Paris, for having endeavoured to justify Origen. But when he saw the new doctors appear, he bounded like a wild beast that suddenly perceives an easy prey within its reach. "There are three thousand monks in one Beda," said the cautious Erasmus.[770]

[770] In uno Beda sunt tria millia monachorum. Erasm. Epp. p. 373.

These excesses, however, were prejudicial to his cause. "What!" said the wisest men of the age, "does the Roman Church rest on the shoulders of such an Atlas as this?[771] Whence comes all this disturbance, except from the absurdities of Beda himself?"