History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 67

Let G.o.d but speak to the nations in the language of the people, and the empire of pride will crumble into dust."[1032]

[1032] Epist. ad Franc. R. Praef. Comment. in Cantic. Cantic.

[Sidenote: SUCCESSIVE DEFEATS--PAVIA.]

These antic.i.p.ations were not realised. At Montbeliard and Basle, as at Lyons, the ranks of the reformers had suffered. Some of the most devoted combatants had been taken off by death, others by persecution and exile. In vain did the warriors of the Gospel mount everywhere to the a.s.sault; everywhere they were beaten back. But if the forces they had concentrated, first at Meaux, then at Lyons, and afterwards at Basle, were dispersed in succession, there still remained combatants here and there, who in Lorraine, at Meaux, and even in Paris, struggled more or less openly to uphold the Word of G.o.d in France.

Though the Reformation saw its columns broken, it still had its isolated champions. Against these the Sorbonne and the parliament were about to turn their anger. They would not have remaining on the soil of France, a single one of these n.o.ble minded men who had undertaken to plant in it the standard of Jesus Christ; and unheard of misfortunes seemed now to be conspiring with the enemies of the Reformation, and to aid them in the accomplishment of their task.

CHAPTER XIV.

Francis made Prisoner at Pavia--Reaction against the Reformation--Margaret's Anxiety for her Brother--Louisa consults the Sorbonne--Commission against the Heretics--Briconnet brought to Trial--Appeal to the Parliament--Fall--Recantation--Lefevre accused--Condemnation and Flight--Lefevre at Strasburg--Louis Berquin imprisoned--Erasmus attacked--Schuch at Nancy--His Martyrdom--Struggle with Caroli--Sorrow of Pavanne--His Martyrdom--A Christian Hermit--Concourse at Notre Dame.

[Sidenote: MARGARET'S ANXIETY FOR FRANCIS I.]

During the latter period of Farel's sojourn at Montbeliard, great events were pa.s.sing on the theatre of the world. Lannoy and Pescara, Charles's generals, having quitted France on the approach of Francis I., this prince had crossed the Alps, and blockaded Pavia. On the 24th of February 1525, he was attacked by Pescara. Bonnivet, La Tremouille, Palisse, and Lescure died fighting round their sovereign. The Duke of Alencon, Margaret's husband, the first prince of the blood, had fled with the rear-guard, and gone to die of shame and grief at Lyons; and Francis, thrown from his horse, had surrendered his sword to Charles Lannoy, viceroy of Naples, who received it kneeling. The King of France was prisoner to the emperor. His captivity seemed the greatest of misfortunes. "Nothing is left me but honour and life," wrote the king to his mother. But no one felt a keener sorrow than Margaret. The glory of her country tarnished, France without a monarch and exposed to the greatest dangers, her beloved brother the captive of his haughty enemy, her husband dishonoured and dead......What bitter thoughts were these!......But she had a comforter; and while her brother to console himself repeated: "_Tout est perdu, fors l'honneur_, all is lost save honour!" she was able to say:--

Fors Jesus seul, mon frere, fils de Dieu![1033]

Save Christ alone, dear brother, Son of G.o.d!

[1033] Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, i. 29.

Margaret thought that in the hour of trial Francis might receive the Word of G.o.d. A few months before, the king had already betrayed religious sentiments on the death of his daughter the Princess Charlotte. The d.u.c.h.ess of Alencon, having concealed the child's sickness from him, Francis, who no doubt suspected something, dreamed three several times that his daughter said to him: "Farewell, my king, I am going to paradise." He guessed that she was dead, and gave way to "extreme grief," but wrote to his sister that "he would rather die than desire to have her in this world contrary to the will of G.o.d, whose name be blessed."[1034]

[1034] Lettres inedites de la reine de Navarre, p. 170.

Margaret thought that the terrible disaster of Pavia would complete what the first trial had begun; and most earnestly desiring that the Word of G.o.d might be with Francis in his prison, she wrote a very touching letter, which deserves to be preserved, to Marshal Montmorency, who had been taken prisoner along with the king. It is very probable that she speaks of herself and Bishop Briconnet in the graceful allegory which serves as an introduction to her request:--

"Dear cousin, there is a certain very devout hermit who for these three years past has been constantly urging a man whom I know to pray to G.o.d for the king, which he has done; and he is a.s.sured that if it pleases the king by way of devotion, daily, when in his closet, to read the epistles of St. Paul, he will be delivered to the glory of G.o.d; for He promises in His Gospel, that whosoever loveth the truth, _the truth shall make him free_. And forasmuch as I think he has them not, I send you mine, begging you to entreat him on my part that he will read them, and I firmly believe that the Holy Ghost, which abideth in the letter, will do by him as great things as he has done by those who wrote them; for G.o.d is not less powerful or good than He has been, and his promises never deceive. He has humbled you by captivity, but he has not forsaken you, giving you patience and hope in his goodness, which is always accompanied by consolation and a more perfect knowledge of Him, which I am sure is better than the king ever knows, having his mind less at liberty, on account of the imprisonment of the body.

"Your good Cousin, MARGARET."

[Sidenote: REACTION AGAINST THE REFORM.]

In such language did Margaret of Valois, full of anxiety for the salvation of her brother's soul, address the king after the battle of Pavia. It is unfortunate that her letter and the Epistles of St. Paul were not sent direct to Francis; she could not have selected a worse medium than Montmorency.

The letters which the king wrote from the Castle of Pizzighitone, where he was confined, afforded his sister some little consolation. At the beginning of April she wrote to him: "After the sorrow of the Pa.s.sion this has been a Holy Ghost (_i. e._ a Pentecost), seeing the grace that our Lord has shown you."[1035] But unhappily the prisoner did not find in the Word of G.o.d that _truth which maketh free_, and which Margaret so earnestly desired he might possess.

[1035] Lettres de la reine de Navarre a Francois, i. p. 27.

All France, princes, parliament, and people, was overwhelmed with consternation. Erelong, as in the first three ages of the Church, the calamity that had befallen the country was imputed to the Christians; and fanatical cries were heard on every side calling for blood, as a means of averting still greater disasters. The moment, therefore, was favourable; it was not enough to have dislodged the evangelical Christians from the three strong positions they had taken; it was necessary to take advantage of the general panic, to strike while the iron was hot, and sweep the whole kingdom clear of that opposition which had become so formidable to the papacy.

[Sidenote: ACCUSATIONS AND MENACES.]

At the head of this conspiracy and of these clamours were Beda, d.u.c.h.esne, and Lecouturier. These irreconcilable enemies of the Gospel flattered themselves they might easily obtain from public terror the victims that had been hitherto refused them. They instantly employed every device; conversations, fanatical harangues, lamentations, threats, defamatory writings, to excite the anger of the nation, and particularly of their governors. They vomited fire and flame against their adversaries, and covered them with the most scurrilous abuse.[1036] All means were good in their eyes; they picked out a few words here and there, neglecting the context that might explain the pa.s.sage quoted; subst.i.tuted expressions of their own for those of the doctors they criminated, and omitted or added, according as it was necessary to blacken their adversaries' characters.[1037] We have this on the testimony of Erasmus himself.

[1036] Plus quam scurrilibus conviciis debacchantes. Er. Francisco Reig, p. 1108.

[1037] Pro meis verbis supponit sua, praetermitt.i.t, addit. Ibid. 887.

Nothing excited their wrath so much as the fundamental doctrine of Christianity and of the Reformation,--salvation by grace. "When I see these three men," said Beda, "Lefevre, Erasmus, and Luther, in other respects endowed with so penetrating a genius, uniting and conspiring against meritorious works, and resting all the weight of salvation on faith alone,[1038] I am no longer astonished that thousands of men, seduced by these doctrines, have learned to say: 'Why should I fast and mortify my body?' Let us banish from France this hateful doctrine of grace. This neglect of good works is a fatal delusion from the devil."

[1038] c.u.m itaque cerneram tres istos......uno animo in opera meritoria conspira.s.se. Natalis Bedae Apologia adversus clandestinos Lutheranos, fol. 41.

[Sidenote: JURISPRUDENCE AND THE GOSPEL.]

In such language did the Syndic of the Sorbonne endeavour to fight against the faith. He was destined to find supporters in a debauched court, and in another part of the nation more respectable, but not less opposed to the Gospel; I mean those grave men, those rigid moralists, who, devoted to the study of laws and forms of jurisprudence, regard Christianity as no more than a system of legislation; the Church, as a moral police; and who, unable to adapt to those principles of jurisprudence which absorb their whole thoughts the doctrines of the spiritual inability of man, of the new birth, and of justification by faith, look upon them as fanciful dreams, dangerous to public morals and the prosperity of the state. This hostile tendency to the doctrine of grace was manifested in the sixteenth century by two very different excesses; in Italy and Poland by the doctrine of Socinus, the descendant of an ill.u.s.trious family of lawyers at Sienna; and in France by the persecuting decrees and burning piles of the parliament.

The parliament, in fact, despising the great truths of the Gospel which the reformers announced, and thinking themselves called upon to do something in so overwhelming a catastrophe, presented an address to Louisa of Savoy, full of strong remonstrances on the conduct of the government with regard to the new doctrine. "Heresy," said they, "has raised its head among us, and the king, by neglecting to bring the heretics to the scaffold, has drawn down the wrath of heaven upon the nation."

At the same time the pulpits resounded with lamentations, threats, and maledictions; prompt and exemplary punishments were loudly called for.

Martial Mazurier was particularly distinguished among the preachers of Paris; and endeavouring by his violence to efface the recollection of his former connexion with the partisans of the Reformation, he declaimed against the "secret disciples of Luther." "Do you know the rapid operation of this poison?" exclaimed he. "Do you know its potency? Well may we tremble for France; as it works with inconceivable activity, and in a short time may destroy thousands of souls."[1039]

[1039] Mazurius contra occultos Lutheri discipulos declamat, ac recentis veneni celeritatem vimque denunciat. Lannoi, regii Navarrae gymnasii historia, p. 621.

[Sidenote: LOUISA CONSULTS THE SORBONNE AND THE POPE.]

It was not difficult to excite the regent against the partisans of the Reformation. Her daughter Margaret, the first personage of the court, Louisa of Savoy herself, who had always been so devoted to the Roman pontiff, were pointed at by certain fanatics as countenancing Lefevre, Berquin, and the other innovators. Had she not read their tracts and their translations of the Bible? The queen-mother desired to clear herself of such outrageous suspicions. Already she had despatched her confessor to the Sorbonne to consult that body on the means of extirpating this heresy. "The d.a.m.nable doctrine of Luther," said she to the faculty, "is every day gaining new adherents." The faculty smiled on the receipt of this message. Till then, its representations had not been listened to, and now their advice was humbly solicited in the matter. At length they held within their grasp that heresy they had so long desired to stifle. They commissioned Noel Beda to return an immediate answer to the regent. "Seeing that the sermons, the discussions, the books with which we have so often opposed heresy, have failed in destroying it," said the fanatical syndic, "all the writings of the heretics should be prohibited by a royal proclamation; and if this means does not suffice, we must employ force and constraint against the _persons_ of these false doctors; for those who resist the light must be subdued by _torture_ and by _terror_."[1040]

[1040] Histoire de l'Universite, par Crevier, v. 196.

[Sidenote: COMMISSION AGAINST THE HERETICS.]

But Louisa had not waited for this reply. Francis had scarcely fallen into the hands of the emperor before she wrote to the pope to know his pleasure concerning the heretics. It was of great importance to Louisa's policy to secure the favour of a pontiff who could raise all Italy against the victor of Pavia, and she was ready to conciliate him at the cost of a little French blood. The pope, delighted that he could wreak his vengeance in the "most Christian kingdom" against a heresy that he could not destroy either in Switzerland or Germany, gave immediate orders for the introduction of the Inquisition into France, and addressed a brief to the parliament. At the same time Duprat, whom the pontiff had created cardinal, and on whom he had conferred the archbishopric of Sens, and a rich abbey, laboured to respond to the favours of the court of Rome by the display of indefatigable animosity against the heretics. Thus the pope, the regent, the doctors of the Sorbonne, the parliament, and the chancellor, with the most ignorant and fanatical part of the nation, were conspiring together to ruin the Gospel and put its confessors to death.

The parliament took the lead. Nothing less than the first body in the kingdom was required to begin the campaign against this doctrine, and moreover, was it not their peculiar business, since the public safety was at stake? Accordingly the parliament, "influenced by a holy zeal and fervour against these novelties,[1041] issued a decree to the effect that the Bishop of Paris and the other prelates should be bound to commission Messieurs Philip Pot, president of requests, and Andrew Verjus, councillor, and Messieurs William d.u.c.h.esne and Nicholas Leclerc, doctors of divinity, to inst.i.tute and conduct the trial of those who should be tainted with the Lutheran doctrine.

[1041] De la religion catholique en France, par de Lezeau. MS. in the library of St. Genevieve, Paris.

"And that it might appear that these commissioners were acting rather under the authority of the Church than of the parliament, it has pleased his holiness to send his brief of the 20th of May 1525, approving of the appointment of the said commissioners.

"In consequence of which, all those who were declared Lutherans by the bishop or ecclesiastical judges to these deputies, were delivered over to the secular arm, that is to say, to the aforesaid parliament, which thereupon condemned them to be burnt alive."[1042]

[1042] The ma.n.u.script in the library of Ste. Genevieve at Paris, from which I have quoted this pa.s.sage, bears the name of Lezeau, but that of Lefebre in the catalogue.

This is the language of a ma.n.u.script of the time.

Such was the terrible commission of inquiry appointed during the captivity of Francis I. against the evangelical Christians of France on the ground of public safety. It was composed of two laymen and two ecclesiastics, and one of the latter was d.u.c.h.esne, after Beda, the most fanatical doctor of the Sorbonne. They had sufficient modesty not to place him at their head, but his influence was only the more secure on that account.

[Sidenote: CHARGES AGAINST BRIcONNET.]

Thus the machine was wound up; its springs were well prepared; death would be the result of each of its blows. It now became a question on whom they should make their first attack. Beda, d.u.c.h.esne, and Leclerc, a.s.sisted by Philip Pot the president, and Andrew Verjus the councillor, met to deliberate on this important point. Was there not the Count of Montbrun, the old friend of Louis XII., and formerly amba.s.sador at Rome,--Briconnet, bishop of Meaux? The committee of public safety, a.s.sembled in Paris in 1525, thought that by commencing with a man in so exalted a station, they would be sure to spread dismay throughout the kingdom. This was a sufficient reason, and the venerable bishop was impeached.

It is true that Briconnet had given guarantees of submission to Rome, to the parliament, and to the popular superst.i.tions; but it was strongly suspected that he had done so merely to ward off the blow about to fall upon him, and that he was still countenancing heresy in secret. It would appear that, after giving way, he had partly regained his courage;--a circ.u.mstance quite in harmony with these irresolute characters, who are tossed about and driven to and fro, as the waves of the sea by the wind. Several acts were ascribed to him in different places that would have been the most signal retractation of his unhappy decrees of 1523 and 1524. The more eminent his rank in the Church and in the State, the more fatal was his example, and the more necessary also was it to obtain from him a striking recantation of his errors, or to inflict upon him a still more notorious punishment. The commission of inquiry eagerly collected the evidence against him. They took account of the kindly reception the bishop had given to the heretics; they stated that, a week after the superior of the Cordeliers had preached in St. Martin's Church at Meaux, conformably to the instructions of the Sorbonne, to restore sound doctrine, Briconnet himself had gone into the pulpit, and publicly refuted the orator, calling him and the other Grayfriars bigots, hypocrites, and false prophets; and that, not content with this public affront, he had, through his official, summoned the superior to appear before him in person.[1043] It would even appear from a ma.n.u.script of the times that the bishop had gone much farther, and that in the autumn of 1524, accompanied by Lefevre of Etaples, he had spent three months in travelling through his diocese, and had burnt all the images, save the crucifix alone. Such daring conduct, which would prove Briconnet to have possessed great boldness combined with much timidity, cannot if it be true, fix upon him the blame attached to other image-breakers; for he was at the head of that Church whose superst.i.tions he was reforming, and was acting in the sphere of his rights and duties.[1044]

[1043] Hist. de l'Univ. par Crevier, v. 204.