History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 20

An honorable place was held by the ecclesiastics of the "Sainte Chapelle," originally built by Louis the Ninth, in the precincts of his own palace, for the reception of the marvellous relics he brought home from Holy Land. Those relics were all here, together with the other costly possessions of the chapel--the crown of thorns, the true cross, Aaron's rod that budded, the great crown of St. Louis, the head of the holy lance, one of the nails used in our Lord's crucifixion, the tables of stone, some of the blood of Christ, the purple robe, and the milk of the Virgin Mary--all borne in jewelled reliquaries by bishops.

Four cardinals in scarlet robes followed--Givri, Tournon, Le Veneur, and Chatillon--an uncongenial group, in which the violent persecutor and the future partisan of the Reformation walked side by side. But the central point in the entire procession was occupied not by these, but by Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, bearing aloft a silver cross in which was enclosed the consecrated wafer of the eucharist, whose t.i.tle to adoration it was the grand object of the celebration to vindicate. The king's three sons--the dauphin, and the Dukes of Orleans and Angouleme--with a fourth prince of the blood--the Duke of Bourbon Vendome--held the supports of a magnificent canopy of velvet, sprinkled with golden fleurs-de-lis, above the bishop and his sacred charge.

Francis himself walked behind him, with a retinue of n.o.bles, officers of government, judges of parliament, and other civilians closing the line.

The king was naturally the object of universal observation.

Dressed in robes of black velvet lined with costly furs, he devoutly followed the elevated host, with uncovered head, and with a large waxen taper in his hands. Several stations had, at great expense, been erected along the designated route. At each of these the procession halted, and the Bishop of Paris placed the silver cross with its precious contents in a niche made to receive it. Then the king, having handed his taper to the Cardinal of Lorraine at his side, knelt down and reverently wors.h.i.+pped with joined hands, until a grand anthem in honor of the sacrament had been intoned. The scene had been well studied, and it made the desired impression upon the by-standers. "There was no one among the people," say the registers of the Hotel de Ville in unctuous phrase, "be he small or great, that did not shed warm tears and pray G.o.d in behalf of the king, whom he beheld performing so devout an act and worthy of long remembrance. And it is to be believed that there lives not a Jew nor an infidel who, had he witnessed the example of the prince and his people, would not have been converted to the faith."[350]

[Sidenote: Memorable speech of the king.]

At the conclusion of the ma.s.s--the most brilliant that had ever been celebrated within the walls of the cathedral, Francis proceeded to the episcopal palace, to dine in public, with the princes his children, the high n.o.bility, cardinals, amba.s.sadors, privy counsellors, and some of the judges of the Parliament of Paris. Here it was that he delivered a speech memorable in the history of the great religious movement of the time. Addressing parliament and representatives of the lower judiciary, Francis plainly disclaimed all sympathy with the Reformation. "The errors," he said, "which have multiplied, and are even now multiplying, are but of our own days. Our fathers have shown us how to live in accordance with the word of G.o.d and of our mother Holy Church. In that church I am resolved to live and die, and I am determined to prove that I am ent.i.tled to be called Very Christian. I notify you that it is my will that these errors be driven from my kingdom. Nor shall I excuse any from the task. _Were one of my arms infected with this poison, I should cut it off! Were my own children contaminated, I should immolate them!_[351] I therefore now impose this duty upon you, and relieve myself of responsibility." Turning to the doctors of the university, the king reminded them that the care of the faith was entrusted to them, and he therefore appealed to them to watch over the orthodoxy of all teachers and report all defections to the secular courts.

[Sidenote: Constancy of the sufferers.]

Francis had spoken in the heat of pa.s.sion, but, in the words of a contemporary, "if his fury was great, still greater was the constancy of the martyrs."[352] Of this, indeed, the king did not have to wait long for a proof. For, after having witnessed, in company with the queen, the _amende honorable_ of six condemned "Lutherans" or "Christaudins," which took place on the square in front of the cathedral, Francis, as he returned to the Louvre, pa.s.sed the places where these unfortunates were undergoing their supreme torments--three near the _Croix du Tiroir_, in the Rue St. Honore, and three at the Halles. The first were men of some note--Simon Fouhet, of Auvergne, one of the royal choristers, supposed to have been the person who posted the placard in the castle of Amboise, Audebert Valleton, of Nantes, and Nicholas L'Huillier, from the Chatelet of Paris. The others were of an inferior station in life--a fruitster, a maker of wire-baskets, and a joiner. All, however, with almost equal composure, submitted to their fate as to the will of Heaven, rather than the sentence of human judges; scarcely seeming, in their firm antic.i.p.ation of an immortal crown, to notice the tumultuous outcries of an infuriated mob which nearly succeeded in s.n.a.t.c.hing them from the officers of the law, in order to have the satisfaction of tearing their bodies to pieces.[353]

[Sidenote: Ingenious contrivance for protracting torture.]

It would seem, however, that the most relentless enemy could scarcely have complained that any womanish indulgence had been shown to the persons singled out to expiate the crime of posting the placard against the ma.s.s. To delay the advent of death, the sole term of their excruciating sufferings, an ingeniously contrived instrument of torture was put in play, which if not altogether novel, had at least been but seldom employed up to this time. Instead of being bound to the stake and simply roasted to death by means of the f.a.gots heaped up around him, the victim was now suspended by chains over a blazing fire, and was alternately lowered into it and drawn out--a refinement of cruelty whose princ.i.p.al recommendation to favor lay in the fact that the diversion it afforded the spectators could be made to last until they were fully satisfied, and the executioner chose to allow the writhing sufferer to be suffocated in the flames.[354] So satisfactory were the results of the _Estrapade_, that it came to be universally employed as the instrument for executing "Lutherans," with the exception of a favored few, to whom the privilege was accorded of being hung or strangled before their bodies were thrown into the fire. Such was, soon after this time, the fate of a woman, a school-teacher by profession, found guilty of heresy. In any case, the judges took effectual measures to forestall the deplorable consequences that might ensue from permitting the "Lutherans" to address the by-standers, and so pervert them from the orthodox faith. The hangman was instructed to pierce their tongue with a hot iron, or to cut it out altogether; just as, at a later date, the sound of the drum was employed to drown the last utterances of the victims of despotism.[355]

[Sidenote: Flight of Marot.]

The flames of persecution were not extinguished with the conclusion of the solemn expiatory pageant. For months strangers sojourning in Paris shuddered at the horrible sights almost daily meeting their eyes.[356]

The lingering hope that a prince naturally clement and averse to needless bloodshed, would at length tire of countenancing these continuous scenes of atrocity, seemed gradually to fade away. Great numbers of the most intelligent and scholarly consulted their safety in flight; the friendly court of Renee of France, d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara, affording, for a time, asylum to Clement Marot, the poet, and to many others. Meantime the suspected "Lutherans" that could not be found were summoned by the town-crier to appear before the proper courts for trial.

A list of many such has escaped destruction of time.[357] Fortunately, most of them had gotten beyond the reach of the officers of the law, and the sentence could, at most, effect only the confiscation of their property.

[Sidenote: Royal declaration of Coucy, July 16, 1535.]

As summer advanced, however, the rigor of the persecution was perceived to be somewhat abating. Finally, on the sixteenth of July, the king so far yielded to the urgency of open or secret friends of progress among the courtiers, as to issue a "Declaration" to facilitate the return of the fugitives. "Forasmuch," said Francis, "as the heresies, which, to our great displeasure, had greatly multiplied in our kingdom, have ceased, as well by the Divine clemency and goodness, as by the diligence we have used in the exemplary punishment of many of their adherents--who, nevertheless, were not in their last hours abandoned by the hand of our Lord, but, turning to Him, have repented, and made public confession of their errors, and died like good Christians and Catholics--no further prosecution of persons suspected of heresy shall be made, but they will be discharged from imprisonment, and their goods restored. For the same reason, all fugitives who return and _abjure their errors_ within six months will receive pardon. But _Sacramentarians_[358] and the relapsed are excluded from this offer.

Furthermore, all men are forbidden, under pain of the gallows, and of being held rebels and disturbers of the public peace, to read, teach, translate or print, whether publicly or in private, any doctrine contrary to the Christian faith."[359] The concession, it must be confessed, was not a very liberal one; for the exiles could return only on condition of recanting. Yet the new regulations were mild in comparison with the previous practice, which consigned all the guilty alike to death, and left no room for repentance. Consequently, there were not a few, especially of the learned who had been suspected of heresy, that were found ready to avail themselves of the permission, even on the prescribed terms.

[Sidenote: Alleged intercession of Pope Paul III.]

In explanation of this change in the policy of Francis, the most remarkable rumors circulated among the people. Not the least strange was one that has been preserved for us by a contemporary.[360] It was reported in the month of June, 1535, that Pope Paul the Third, having been informed of "the horrible and execrable" punishments inflicted by the king upon the "Lutherans," wrote to Francis and begged him to moderate his severity. The pontiff did, indeed, express his conviction that the French monarch had acted with the best intentions, and in accordance with his claim to be called the Very Christian King. But he added, that when G.o.d, our Creator, was on earth, He employed mercy rather than strict justice. Rigor ought not always to be resorted to; and this burning of men alive was a cruel death, and better calculated to lead to rejection of the faith than to conversion.[361] He therefore prayed the king to appease his anger, to abate the severity of justice, and grant pardon to the guilty. Francis, consequently, because of his desire to please his Holiness, became more moderate, and enjoined upon parliament to practise less harshness. For this reason the judges ceased from criminal proceedings against the "Lutherans," and many prisoners were discharged both from the Conciergerie and from the Chatelet.

That this extraordinary rumor was in general circulation appears from the circ.u.mstance that it is alluded to by a Paris correspondent of Melanchthon; while another account that has recently come to light states it not as a flying report, but as a well-ascertained fact.[362]

Its _singularity_ is shown from its apparent inconsistency with the well-known history and sentiments of the Farnese Paul. It is difficult to conceive how the pontiff who approved of the Society of Jesus and inst.i.tuted the Inquisition in the kingdom of Naples, could have been touched with compa.s.sion at the recital of the suffering of French heretics. Yet the paradoxes of history are too numerous to permit us to reject as apocryphal a story so widely current, or to explain it away by making it only a popular echo of the convictions of the more enlightened as to the views that were most befitting the claimant to a universal episcopate.

[Sidenote: Clemency again dictated by policy.]

Francis himself, however, made no such statement to the Venetian amba.s.sador at his court. Marino Giustiniano, who gave in his report to the doge and senate this very year, was informed by the French king that, on hearing of the suspension by the Emperor Charles the Fifth of all sentences of death against the Flemish heretics, he had also himself ordered that against every species of heretics, except the Sacramentarians, proceedings should indeed be held as before, but _not to the extremity of death_.[363] It is evident, therefore, that the suppression of the most cruel features of the persecution had no higher motive than political considerations. Francis had worked himself into a frenzy, and counterfeited the sincerity of a bigot, when it was necessary to make the Pope a friend, and a show of sanguinary ardor seemed most adapted to accomplish his object. He now became tolerant, on discovering that the course he had entered upon was alienating the Protestant princes of Germany, upon whose support he relied in his contest with Charles the Fifth. The turning-point appears to have been coincident with the time when he found that the emperor was endeavoring to outbid him by offering a short-lived toleration to the Netherlanders.

[Sidenote: Francis writes to the German princes.]

Only eleven days after the solemn propitiatory procession, and while the trial and execution of the French reformers were still in progress, Francis had written to his allies beyond the Rhine, in explanation of the severe punishment of which such shocking accounts had been circulated in their dominions. He justified his course by alleging the disorderly and rebellious character of the culprits, and laid great stress upon the care he had taken to secure German Protestants from danger and annoyance.[364]

[Sidenote: Melanchthon entreated to come to France.]

A month later, Vore de la Fosse was on his way to Wittemberg, on a private mission to Melanchthon. He was bearer of a long and important letter from John Sturm. The learned writer, a German scholar of eminence and a friend of the reformed doctrines, was at this time lecturing in Paris, and after his departure from Francis's dominions, became rector of the infant university of Strasbourg. He contrasted the hopeful strain in which he had described to his correspondent the prospects of religion, a year since, with the terrors of the present situation.

Crediting the king with the best intentions, he cast the blame of so disastrous a change upon the insane authors of the placards, who had drawn on themselves a punishment that would have been well deserved, had it been moderate in degree. But, unhappily, the innocent had been involved with the guilty, and informers had gratified private malice by magnifying the offence. Francis had, it was true, been led, at the intercession of Guillaume du Bellay and his brother, the Bishop of Paris, to interpose his authority and protect the Germans residing in his realm. But, none the less, he begged Melanchthon to fly to his succor, and to exert an influence over the king which was the result of Vore's continual praise, in putting an end to this unfortunate state of things. Francis, he added, was willing to give pledges for the reformer's safety, and would send him back in great honor to his native land, after the conclusion of the proposed conference. "Lay aside, therefore," wrote Sturm, "the consideration of kings and emperors, and believe that the voice that calls you is the voice of G.o.d and of Christ."[365] Vore followed up this invitation with great earnestness both in personal interviews and by letter.[366]

[Sidenote: His perplexity.]

What answer should the reformer give to so pressing an invitation? In his acknowledgment of Sturm's letter, Melanchthon confessed that no deliberation had ever occasioned him so much perplexity. It was not that domestic ties retained him or dangers deterred him. But he was hara.s.sed by the fear that he would be unable to accomplish any good. If only this doubt--amounting almost to _despair_--could be removed, he would fly to France without delay. He approved--so he a.s.sured his correspondent--of checking those fanatics who were engaged in sowing absurd and vile doctrines, or created unnecessary tumults. But there were others against whom no such charge could be brought, but who modestly professed the Gospel. If through his exertions some slight concessions were obtained, while points of greater importance were sacrificed, he would benefit neither church nor state. What if he secured immunity from punishment for such as had laid aside the monk's cowl? Must he then consent to the execution of those conscientious men who disapproved of the evident abuses of the ma.s.s and of the wors.h.i.+p of the saints? Now, as it was precisely the expression of this disapprobation that had caused the present ma.s.sacres, he trembled with fear lest he should be put in the position of one that justified these atrocious severities. In short, it was his advice, he said, in view of the cunning devices by which the "phalanxes" of monks were wont to play upon the hopes and fears of the high-born, that Francis, if honestly desirous of consulting the glory of Christ, and the tranquillity of the church, be rather exhorted to a.s.semble a general council. Other measures appeared to him, not only useless, but fraught with peril.[367]

[Sidenote: Formal invitation from the king.]

At this point the king himself took a direct part in the correspondence.

On the twenty-third of June, 1535, he sent Melanchthon a formal request to visit his court, and there dispute, in his presence, with a select company of doctors, concerning the restoration of doctrinal unity and ecclesiastical harmony. He a.s.sured the reformer that he had been prompted by his own great zeal to despatch Vore with this letter--itself a pledge of the public faith--and besought him to suffer no one to persuade him to turn a deaf ear to the summons.[368] Sturm, Cardinal du Bellay, and his brother, all wrote successively, and urged Melanchthon to come to a conference from which they hoped for every advantage.[369]

[Sidenote: Melanchthon consents.]

No wonder that, after receiving so complimentary an invitation, Melanchthon concluded to go to France, and applied (on the eighteenth of August) to the Elector John Frederick for the necessary leave of absence. He briefly sketched the history of the affair, and set forth his own reluctance to enter upon his delicate mission, until provided with the elector's permission and a safe conduct from the French monarch. Two or three months only would be consumed, and he had made arrangements for supplying his chair at Jena during this short absence.[370] It appears, however, that Melanchthon felt less confident of obtaining a gracious reply to his request than his words would seem to indicate. Consequently, he deemed it prudent to ask Luther to write first and urge his suit. The latter did not refuse his aid. "I am moved to make this prayer," said Luther in his letter to the elector, "by the piteous entreaty of worthy and pious persons who, having themselves scarcely escaped the flames, have by great efforts prevailed upon the king to suspend the carnage and extinguish the fires until Melanchthon's arrival. Should the hopes of these good people be disappointed, the bloodhounds may succeed in creating even greater bitterness, and proceed with burning and strangling. So that I think that Master Philip cannot with a clear conscience abandon them in such straits, and defraud them of their hearty encouragement."[371]

[Sidenote: The elector refuses to let him go.]

But even the great theological doctor's intercession was unavailing. The very day the elector received "Master Philip's" application, he wrote to Francis explaining his reasons for refusing to let Melanchthon go to Paris. It is true that the letter was not actually sent until some ten days later;[372] but no entreaties could move the elector to reconsider his decision. Melanchthon indignantly left the court and returned to Jena.[373] Here he subsequently received a written refusal from John Frederick, couched in language far from agreeable. The elector expressed astonishment that he should have permitted matters to go so far, and that he continued to apply for permission even after his prince's desire had been intimated. The danger to be apprehended for the peace of Germany was far greater than any possible advantage that could be expected from his mission. And the writer hinted very distinctly that little confidence could be reposed in Francis's professions, where the Gospel was concerned, as public history sufficiently demonstrated.[374]

[Sidenote: Melanchthon's chagrin.]

The most ungrateful of tasks was reserved for Melanchthon himself--the task of explaining his inability to fulfil his engagement. In a letter to Francis, he expressed the hope that the delay might be only temporary, and he exhorted the king to resist violent counsels, while seeking to promote religious harmony and public tranquillity by peaceable means. To Du Bellay and Sturm he complained not a little of the "roughness" of his prince, whom he had never found more "harsh." He thought that the true motive of the elector's refusal was to be found in the exaggerated report that he had given up everything, merely because he had spoken too respectfully of the ecclesiastical power. "I am called a deserter," he writes. "I am in great peril among our own friends on account of this moderation; as moderate citizens are wont in civil discords to be badly received by both sides. Evidently the fate of Theramenes impends over me; for I believe Xenophon, who affirms that he was a good man, not Lysias, who reviles him."[375]

[Sidenote: The proposed conference reprobated by the Sorbonne.]

Meanwhile the proposed conference encountered no less decided reprobation from the Sorbonne, to which Francis had submitted his project. For the "articles" drawn up by Melanchthon, a year before, in a spirit of conciliation much too broad to please the Protestants, when placed in the hands of the same theological body, in a modified form, and without the name of the author, were returned with a very unfavorable report. The Parisian doctors suggested that, as an appropriate method of satisfying himself whether there was any hope of accommodation, Francis might propound such interrogatories as these to the German theologians from whom the articles emanated: "Whether they confessed the church militant, founded by divine right, to be incapable of erring in faith and good morals, of which church, under our Lord Jesus Christ, St. Peter and his successors have been the head. Whether they will obey the church, receive the books of the Bible[376] as holy and canonical, accept the decrees of the general councils and of the Popes, admit the Fathers to be the interpreters of the Scriptures, and conform to the customs of the church?" As an insufferable grievance they complained that the "articles" were not a request for _pardon_, but actually a demand for _concessions_.[377]

The plan to entrap Melanchthon and some considerable portion of the German Protestants into conciliatory proposals which Luther and the more decided reformers could not admit, having failed through the abrupt and tolerably rude refusal of the Elector of Saxony to permit his theological professor to comply with the invitation of Francis, the latter appears to have determined to put the best appearance upon the affair. Accordingly, he promptly signified to the Sorbonne his approval of its action, and he seems even to have suffered the rumor to gain currency that he was himself dissuaded from bringing Melanchthon to France, by the skilful arguments of the Cardinal of Tournon.[378]

In spite of the rebuff he had received, however, Francis made an attempt to effect such an arrangement with the Protestant princes of Germany as would secure their co-operation in his ambitious projects against Charles the Fifth. To compa.s.s this end he was quite willing to make concessions to the Lutherans as extensive as those which Melanchthon had offered the Roman Catholics.

[Sidenote: Du Bellay's representations at Smalcald.]

Four months had not elapsed since the unsuccessful issue of his first mission, before Du Bellay was again in Germany. On the nineteenth of December, he presented himself to the congress of Protestant princes at Smalcald. Much of his address was devoted to a vindication of his master from the charge of cruelty to persons of the same religious faith as that of the hearers. The envoy insisted that the Germans had been misinformed: If Francis had executed some of his subjects, he had not thereby injured the Protestants. The culprits professed very different doctrines. The creed of the Germans had been adopted by common consent.

Francis admitted, indeed, that there were some useless and superfluous ceremonies in the church, but could not a.s.sent to their indiscriminate abrogation unless by public decree. Ought not the Protestant princes to ascribe to their friend, the French king, motives as pure and satisfactory as those that impelled them to crush the sedition of the peasants and repress the Anabaptists? As for himself, Francis, although mild and humane, both from native temperament and by education, had seen himself compelled, by stern necessity and the dictates of prudence, to check the promptings of his own heart, and a.s.sume for a time attributes foreign to his proper disposition. For gladly as he listened to the temperate discussion of any subject, he was justly offended at the presumption of rash innovators, men that refused to submit to the judgment of those whose prerogative it was to decide in such matters as were now under consideration.

[Sidenote: He makes, in the name of Francis, a Protestant confession.]

Not content with general a.s.surances, Du Bellay, in a private interview with Bruck, Melanchthon, and other German theologians, ventured upon an exposition of Francis's creed which we fear would have horrified beyond measure the orthodox doctors of the Sorbonne.[379] He informed them, with a very sober face, that the king's religious belief differed little from that expressed in Melanchthon's "Common Places." His theologians had never been able to convince him that the Pope's primacy was of _divine_ right. Nor had they proved to his satisfaction the existence of _purgatory_, which, being the source of their lucrative ma.s.ses and legacies, they prized as their very life and blood. He was inclined to limit the a.s.sumption of monastic vows to persons of mature age, and to give monks and nuns the right of renouncing their profession and marrying. He favored the conversion of monasteries into seminaries of learning. While the French theologians insisted upon the celibacy of the priesthood, for himself he would suggest the middle ground of permitting such priests as had already married to retain their wives, while prohibiting others from following their example, unless they resigned the sacerdotal office. He would have the sacramental cup administered to the laity when desired, and hoped to obtain the Pope's consent. He even admitted the necessity of reform in some of the daily prayers, and reprehended the want of moderation exhibited by the Sorbonne, which not only condemned the Germans, but would not hesitate on occasion to censure the cardinals or the Holy Pontiff himself.

[Sidenote: The Germans are not deceived.]

We cannot find that Du Bellay's honeyed words produced any very deep impression. Princes and theologians knew tolerably well both how sincere was the king's profession of friendliness to the "Lutheran" tenets, and what was the truth respecting the persecution that had raged for months within his dominions. The western breezes came freighted with the fetid smoke of human holocausts, and not even the perfume of Francis's delicately scented speeches could banish the disgust caused by the nauseating sacrifice. The princes might listen with studied politeness to the king's apologetic words, and a.s.sent to the general truth that sedition should be punished by severity; but they took the liberty, at the same time, to express a fervent prayer that the advocates of a reformed religion and a pure gospel might not be involved in the fate of the unruly. And they disappointed the monarch by absolutely declining to enter into any alliance against the Emperor Charles the Fifth. The French amba.s.sador returned home, and Francis so dexterously threw aside the mask of pretended favor to a moderate reformation in the church, that it soon became a disputed question whether he had ever a.s.sumed it at all.[380]

[Sidenote: Efforts of the French Protestants in Switzerland and Germany.]

Meantime the French Protestants were unremitting in their efforts to obtain a more satisfactory solution of the religious question than was contained in the Declaration of Coucy. They wrote to Strasbourg, to Berne, to Zurich, to Basle, imploring the intercession of these states.

Particular attention was drawn to the severe treatment endured by their brethren in Provence and Dauphiny. The writers declared themselves to be not rebels, but the most loyal of subjects, recognizing one G.o.d, one faith, one law, and one king. They were not "Lutherans," nor "Waldenses," nor "heretics;" but simply _Christians_, accepting the Decalogue, the Apostles' Creed, and every doctrine taught in either Testament. It was unreasonable that they should be compelled by fines, imprisonment, or bodily pains, to abjure their faith, unless their errors were first proved from the Bible, or before the convocation of a General Council.[381]

[Sidenote: An appeal from Strasbourg and Zurich.]