CHAPTER II.

THE REFORMATION AT MEAUX.

Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples.

The reformatory movement, whose almost simultaneous rise at so many different points constitutes one of the most noticeable features of the history of Europe in the sixteenth century, originated, so far as France was concerned, within the bosom of that famous nursery of mediæval learning, the University of Paris. Among the teachers who, during the later years of the reign of Louis the Twelfth, attracted the studious from the most distant parts of Christendom, Jacques Lefèvre, a native of Étaples in Picardy, held a high rank for natural ability and extensive acquirements. It is true that neither his personal appearance nor his extraction commanded respect: he was diminutive in stature, and he could boast of no noble blood running in his veins.¹²⁸¹²⁸ Scævolæ Sammarthani Elog. lib. i., i. 3. "Statura fuit supra modum humili," etc. A more formidable hinderance in the path to distinction had been the barbarous instruction he had received from incompetent masters, both in the inferior schools and in the university itself. But all obstacles, physical, social, and intellectual, melted away before the ardor of an extraordinarily active mind. Rising steadily above the contracted views, the blind respect for authority, and the self-satisfied ignorance of the instructors of his youth and the colleagues of his manhood and old age, he greeted with delight the advent of those liberal ideas which had wrought so wonderful a change in Germany and Italy. A thirst for knowledge even led him, in imitation of the sages of the early world, to travel to distant parts of Europe, and, if we may credit the statements of his admiring68 disciples, to pursue his investigations into portions of Asia and Africa.

Restores letters to France.

His wide range of study.

To Jacques Lefèvre, of Étaples—better known to foreigners under the Latin designation of Faber Stapulensis—belongs the honor of restoring letters to France. His eulogist, Scævola de Sainte-Marthe, has not exaggerated his merit, when, placing him in the front rank of the learned men whom he celebrates, he likens the Picard doctor to a new sun rising from the Belgian coast to dissipate the fogs and darkness investing his native land and pour upon its youth the full beams of a purer teaching.¹²⁹¹²⁹ Sc. Sammarthani Elog., ubi supra. Lefèvre confined his attention to no single branch of learning. He was equally proficient in mathematics, in astronomy, and in Biblical literature and criticism.¹³⁰¹³⁰ Lefèvre's scientific works were numerous, and some of them passed through many editions during the early years of the sixteenth century. See Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre. I have before me his edition of the Arithmetic of Boëtius, with introduction and commentary, of the year 1510, and copies of his Astronomical Treatises of 1510 and 1516, the last of these published at Cologne. Brilliant attainments in so many departments were commended yet more to the admiration of beholders by a modest and unassuming deportment, by morals above reproach, and by a disinterested nature in which there was no taint of avarice. The sincerity of his unselfish love of knowledge was said to be attested by the liberality with which he renounced the entire income of his small patrimony in favor of his needy relations.¹³¹¹³¹ Sc. Sammarth. Elog., ubi supra.

His pupil, Guillaume Farel.

Enjoying a reputation for profound and exact learning which had spread to foreign countries, and admired even by the great humanist Erasmus, Lefèvre had drawn to him a small band of the most promising of the scholars in attendance upon the university. Prominent among these for brilliancy and fiery zeal was a student more than thirty years younger than his teacher, Guillaume Farel, destined to fill an important place in the annals of the French reformation, and to play a leading role in the history of Geneva and Neufchâtel. Farel was born in 1489, near Gap, in Dauphiny,69 and his childhood was spent at the foot of the Alps. Unlike Lefèvre, he belonged to a family of considerable importance in the provincial nobility. The contrast was still more marked between the mild and timid professor and the pupil in whose nature courage was so prominent an element that it often assumed the appearance of imprudent contempt of danger.

Devotion of scholar and pupil.

But, in spite of dissimilarity of character, Lefèvre and Farel lived together in close friendship. Together they frequented the churches, and united in the pious work, as they regarded it, of decking out with flowers the pictures of the saints, to whose shrines they made frequent pilgrimages. Lefèvre was scrupulously exact in the performance of his religious duties, and was especially punctual in attendance on the mass. In his zeal for the church, he had even undertaken as a meritorious task to compile the lives of the saints whose names appear on the Roman calendar, and had actually committed to the press an account of those whose feast-days fell within the months of January and February.¹³²¹³² Epistre à tons Seigneurs et Peuples (Edit. J. G. Fick), 172. On the other hand, Farel was so sincere an adherent of the current faith, that, to employ his own forcible description, he had become "a very Pantheon, full of intercessors, saviors and gods, of whom his heart might have passed for a complete register." The papacy had so entrenched itself in his heart, that even the Pope and papal church were not so papal as he. The man who came to him with the Pope's endorsement appeared to him like a god, while he would gladly have overwhelmed in ruin the sacrilegious wretch that dared to say a word against the Roman pontiff and his authority.¹³³¹³³ The passage in which Farel describes his former superstition is so characteristic, that I quote a few sentences: "Pour vray la papauté n'estoit et n'est tant papale que mon cœur l'a esté.... Car tellement il avoit aveuglé mes yeux et perverti tout en moy, que s'il y avoit personnage qui fut approuvé selon le pape, il m'estoit comme Dieu; si quelqu'un faisoit ou disoit quelque chose, d'ou le pape et son estat en fut en quelque mespris, j'eusse voulu qu'un tel ... fut du tout abbatu, ruiné et destruit.... Ainsy Satan avoit logé le pape, sa papauté, tout ce qui est de luy en mon cœur, de sorte que le pape mesme, comme je croy, n'en avoit point tant en soy ne [ni] les siens aussy, comme il y en avoit en moy.... Et ainsy je persevere, ayant mon panteon en mon cœur, et tant d'advocats, tant de sauveurs, tant de dieux que rien plus ... tellement que je pouvoye bien estre tenu pour un registre papal, pour martyrologe," etc. Epistre à tous Seigneurs et Peuples, 164, 167, 169.70

Lefèvre's commentary on the Pauline Epistles.

But the enthusiastic devotion of Lefèvre and his more impetuous disciple to the tenets of the Roman church was to be shaken by a closer study of the Scriptures. In 1508 Lefèvre completed a Latin commentary upon the Psalms.¹³⁴¹³⁴ Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 4, 481. In 1512 he published a commentary in the same language on the Pauline Epistles—a work which may indeed fall short of the standard of criticism established by a subsequent age, but yet contains a clear enunciation of the doctrine of justification by faith, the cardinal doctrine of the Reformation.¹³⁵¹³⁵ See the dedication, dated Dec. 15, 1512, Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 2-9.

Foresees the coming reformation.

Thus, five years before Luther posted his theses on the doors of the church at Wittemberg, Jacques Lefèvre had proclaimed, in no equivocal terms, his belief in the same great principles. But Lefèvre's lectures in the college and his written commentary were addressed to the learned. Consequently they produced no such immediate and startling effect as the ninety-five propositions of the Saxon monk. Lefèvre was not himself to be an active instrument in the French reformation. His office was rather to prepare the way for others—not, perhaps, more sincere, but certainly more courageous—to enter upon the hazardous undertaking of attempting to renovate the church. His faithful disciple, indeed, has preserved for us a remarkable prophecy, uttered by Lefèvre at the very time when he was still assiduous in his devotion to the Virgin Mary and the saints. Grasping Farel by the hand, the venerable doctor more than once addressed to him the significant words, which made a deep impression on the hearer's mind: "Guillaume, the world is going to be renewed, and you will behold it!"¹³⁶¹³⁶ Letter of Farel to Pellican (1556), Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 481: "Pius senex, Jacobus Faber, quem tu novisti, ante annos plus minus quadraginta, me manu apprehensum, ita alloquebatur: 'Gulielme, oportet orbem mutari, et tu videbis' dicebat." So in the "Epistre à tous Seigneurs et Peuples" (Ed. Fick), 170: "Souventefois me disoit que Dieu renouvelleroit le monde, et que je le verroye." A few years later, at Strasbourg, the reformer reminded his former master of his prediction: "Voicy par la grace de Dieu, le commencement de ce qu'autrefois m'avez dit du renouvellement du monde," and Lefèvre, then in exile, blessed God, and begged Him to perfect what he had then seen begun at Strasbourg. Ibid., 171. These statements are confirmed by a passage in the Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, in which, after deploring the corruption of the church, Lefèvre observes: "Yet the signs of the times announce that a renewal is near, and while God is opening new ways for the preaching of the Gospel, by the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese and Spaniards in all parts of the world, we must hope that He will visit His church and raise it from the degradation into which it is fallen." Herminjard, i. 5.71

Controversy with Beda.

The Sorbonne's declaration.

Lefèvre did not intermit his biblical studies. In 1518 he published a short treatise on "the three Marys," to prove that Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and "the woman which was a sinner," were not one and the same person, according to the common belief of the time. Unfortunately, the Roman church, by the lessons set down for the feast-days, had given its sanction to the prevalent error. Now, the fears and suspicions of the theologians of the Sorbonne had, during the past year, been aroused by the fame of Martin Luther's "heresy," and they were ready to resent any attempt at innovation, however slight, either in doctrine or in practice, as evidence of heretical proclivities. Natalis Beda, the ignorant but pedantic syndic of the theological faculty, entered the lists as Lefèvre's opponent, and an animated dispute was waged between the friends of the two combatants. Of so great moment was the decision regarded by Poncher, Bishop of Paris, that he induced Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, to write an essay in refutation of the views of Lefèvre.¹³⁷¹³⁷ Scævolæ Sammarthani, Elogia doctorum in Gallia virorum, lib. i. (Jenæ, 1696); Bayle, s. v. Fèvre and Farel; Tabaraud, Biographie univ., art. Lefèvre; C. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Leben und ausgew. Schriften d. Väter d. ref. Kirche; C. Chenevière, Farel, Froment, Viret (Genève, 1835). But the Sorbonne, not content with this, on the ninth of November, 1521, declared that he was a heretic who should presume to maintain the truth of Lefèvre's proposition. Lefèvre himself would probably have experienced even greater indignities at the hands of parliament—whose members were accustomed72 to show excessive respect to the fanatical demands of the faculty—had not Guillaume Petit, the king's confessor, induced Francis to interfere in behalf of the Picard professor.¹³⁸¹³⁸ Gaillard, Histoire de François premier (Paris, 1769), vi. 397. It was the unpardonable offence of Lefèvre in the eyes of his critic that he, a simple master of arts, had dared to investigate matters that fell to the province of doctors of theology alone. Letter of H. C. Agrippa (1519), in Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, i. 51: "Tantum virum semel atque iterum ... vocarunt hominem stultum, insanum fidei, Sacrarum Literarum indoctum et ignarum, et qui, duntaxat humanarum artium Magister, præsumptuose se ingerat iis quæ spectant ad Theologos." As it clearly appears that Lefèvre was not a doctor of the Sorbonne, Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying: "Seit 1493 lebte er als Doctor der Theologie zu Paris, u. s. w." The error is of long standing.

Briçonnet, Bishop of Meauz.

To these two actors in the drama of the French reformation a third must now be added. Guillanme Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux, stood in the front rank of aspiring and fortunate churchmen. His father, commonly known as the Cardinal of St. Malo, had passed from the civil administration into the hierarchy of the Gallican Church. Rewarded for services rendered to Louis the Eleventh and Charles the Eighth by the gift of the rich abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés and the archbishopric of Rheims, he had, in virtue of his possession of the latter dignity, anointed Louis the Twelfth at his coronation. As cardinal, he had headed the French party in the papal consistory, and, more obedient to his sovereign than to the pontiff, when Louis demanded the convocation of a council at Pisa to resist the encroachments of Julius the Second, the elder Briçonnet left Rome to join in its deliberations, and to face the dangers attending an open rupture with the Pope. The cardinal was now dead, having left to Guillaume, born previously to his father's entrance into orders, a good measure of the royal favor he had himself enjoyed. The younger Briçonnet had been successively created Archdeacon of Rheims and Avignon, Abbot of St. Germain-des-Prés, and Bishop of Lodève and Meaux. His title of Count of Montbrun gave him, moreover, a place in the nobility.¹³⁹¹³⁹ See Alphonse de Beauchamp's sketches of the lives of the two Briçonnets, in the Biographie universelle. Meantime a reformatory tendency had early revealed itself in the efforts73 made by the young ecclesiastic to enforce the observance of canonical discipline by the luxurious friars of the monastery of St. Germain. Here, too, he had tasted the first fruits of the opposition which was before long to test his firmness and constancy.

Briçonnet had been appointed Bishop of Meaux (March 19, 1516) about the same time that Francis the First despatched him as special envoy to treat with the Pope. It would seem that the intimate acquaintance with the papal court gained on this occasion, confirming the impressions made by a previous diplomatic mission in the time of Louis the Twelfth, convinced Briçonnet that the church stood in urgent need of reform; and he resolved to begin the work in his own diocese.

Lefèvre and Farel invited to Meaux.

Weary of the annoyance and peril arising from the ignorance and malice of his enemies, the theologians of the Sorbonne, Lefèvre d'Étaples longed for a more quiet home, where he might reasonably hope to contribute his share to the great renovation descried long since by his prophetic glance. He was now invited by Briçonnet, to whom his learning and zeal were well known, to accompany him to Meaux, where, at the distance of a little more than a score of miles from the capital, he would at least be rid of the perpetual clamor against Luther and his doctrines that assailed his ears in Paris.¹⁴⁰¹⁴⁰ According to a contemporary letter, this was the sole cause of Lefèvre's departure. "Faber Stapulensis ab urbe longe abest ad XX. lapidem, neque ullam ob causam quam quod convitia in Lutherum audire non potest." Glareanus to Zwingle, Paris, July 4, 1521, Herminjard, i. 71. He was accompanied, or followed, to Meaux by his pupil, Farel. Over the views of the latter a signal change had come since he entered the university, full of veneration for the saints, and an enthusiastic supporter of the mass, of the papal hierarchy, and of every institution authorized by ecclesiastical tradition. After a painful mental struggle, of which he has himself given us a graphic account,¹⁴¹¹⁴¹ Epistre à tous Seigneurs et Peuples, 168-175. Farel had been reluctantly brought to the startling conviction that the system of which he had been an enthusiastic advocate was a tissue of falsehoods and an abomination in God's sight. It required no74 more than this to bring a man of so resolute a character to a decision. Partly by his own assiduous application to study, especially of the Greek and Hebrew languages and of the Church Fathers, partly through the influence of Lefèvre, he had become professor of philosophy in the college of the Cardinal Le Moine. This advantageous position he resigned, in order that he might be able to second the labors of Lefèvre in the new field which Bishop Briçonnet had thrown open to him. Other pupils or friends of the Picard doctor followed—Michel d'Arande, Gérard Roussel, and others, all more or less thoroughly imbued with the same sentiments.

The king's mother and sister encourage the preaching of the reformers.

A new era had now dawned upon the neglected diocese of Meaux. Bishop Briçonnet was fully possessed by his new-born zeal. The king's mother and his only sister had honored him with a visit not long after Lefèvre's arrival,¹⁴²¹⁴² In October, 1521. Herminjard, i. 76. and had left him confident that in his projected reforms, and especially in the introduction of the preaching of the Word of God, he might count upon their powerful support. "I assure you," Margaret of Angoulême wrote him a month later, "that the king and madame are entirely decided to let it be understood that the truth of God is not heresy."¹⁴³¹⁴³ "Vous asseurant que le Roy et Madame ont bien delibéré de donner à congnoistre que la vérité de Dieu n'est point hérésie." Margaret of Angoulême to Briçonnet, Nov., 1521, MSS. National Lib., Herminjard, i. 78; Génin, ii. 273. And a few weeks later the same princely correspondent declared that her mother and brother were "more intent than ever upon the reformation of the church."¹⁴⁴¹⁴⁴ "Vos piteulx desirs de la reformacion de l'Eglise, où plus que jamais le Roy et Madame sont affectionnés." Same to same, Dec, 1521, Ibid., Herminjard, i. 84; Génin, ii. 274. Compare Louise de Savoie's own entry in her journal, in December, 1522, a year later, to which reference has already been made. With such flattering prospects the reformation opened at Meaux.

Immediate results.

From the year 1521, when the ardent friends of religious progress made their appearance in the city, the pulpits, rarely entered by the curates or by the mendicant monks unless to demand a fresh contribution of money, were75 filled with zealous preachers. The latter expounded the Gospel, in place of rehearsing the stories of the "Golden Legend;" and the people, at first attracted by the novelty of the sound, were soon enamored of the doctrines proclaimed. These doctrines stood, indeed, in signal opposition to those of the Roman church. By slow but sure steps the advocates of the Reformation had come to assume a position scarcely less unequivocal than that of Luther in Germany. In 1514, two years after the publication of the commentary in which he had clearly enunciated the Protestant doctrine on one cardinal point, Lefèvre would seem still to have been unsurpassed in his devotion to pictures and images.¹⁴⁵¹⁴⁵ See the valuable remarks of M. Herminjard (i. 289, note) respecting the date of the "manifestation of the Gospel" in France. Two years later he was regarded by Luther as strangely deficient in a clear apprehension of spiritual truths which, nevertheless, he fully exemplified in a life of singular spirituality and sincerity.¹⁴⁶¹⁴⁶ Luther to Spalatin, Oct. 19, 1516, Herminjard, i. 26. And it was not until 1519 that, by the arguments of his own pupil, Farel, he was convinced of the impropriety of saint-worship and of prayers for the dead.¹⁴⁷¹⁴⁷ Herminjard, i. 41, 205, 206. But now there could be no doubt respecting Lefèvre's attitude. Placed by Bishop Briçonnet in charge of the "Léproserie," and subsequently entrusted with the powers of vicar-general over the entire diocese,¹⁴⁸¹⁴⁸ Lefèvre was placed in charge of the Léproserie, Aug. 11, 1521, and was appointed vicar-general au spirituel, May 1, 1523. Herminjard, i. 71 and 157. he exerted an influence not hard to trace. A contemporary, when chronicling, a few years later, that "the greater part of Meaux was infected with the false doctrines of Luther," made the cause of all the trouble to be one Fabry (Lefèvre), a priest and scholar, who rejected pictures from the churches, forbade the use of holy water for the dead, and denied the existence of purgatory.¹⁴⁹¹⁴⁹ Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 277, under date of 1526.

Gérard Roussel and Mazurier.

The mystic Gérard Roussel, an eloquent speaker, whom the bishop appointed curate of St. Saintin, and subsequently treasurer and canon of the cathedral, was prominent among the new preachers, but was surpassed in exuberant display of zeal by Martial Mazurier, Principal of the76 Collége de St. Michel in Paris, who now fulfilled the functions of curate of the church of St. Martin at Meaux.

Apprehension of the monks aroused.

De Roma's threat.

It was not long before the apprehension of the monastic orders was aroused by the great popularity of the new teachers. The wool-carders, weavers, and fullers accepted the novel doctrine with delight as meeting a want which they had discovered in spite of poverty and ignorance. The day-laborers frequenting the neighborhood of Meaux, to aid the farmers in harvest-time, carried back to their more secluded districts the convictions they had obtained, and themselves became efficient agents in the promulgation of the faith elsewhere. If the anticipations of a speedy spread of the reformation throughout France were brilliant in the minds of its early apostles, the determination of its opponents was equally fixed. An incident occurred about this time which might almost be regarded as of prophetic import. Farel, who was present, is our sole informant. On one occasion Lefèvre and a few friends were engaged in conversation with some warm partisans of the old abuses, when the old doctor, warming at the prospect he seemed to behold, exclaimed, "Already the Gospel is winning the hearts of the nobles and of the common people alike! Soon it will spread over all France, and cast down the inventions which the hand of man has set up." "Then," angrily retorted one De Roma, a Dominican monk, "Then I, and others like me, will join in preaching a crusade; and should the king tolerate the proclamation of the Gospel, we shall drive him from his kingdom by means of his own subjects!"¹⁵⁰¹⁵⁰ "Moy et autres comme moy, lèverons une cruciade de gens, et ferons chasser le Roy de son Royaume par ses subjectz propres, s'il permet que l'Évangile soit presché." Farel au Duc de Lorraine, Herminjard, i. 483.

The Dominican friar stood forth at that moment the embodiment of the monastic spirit speaking defiance to the nascent reform. The church of the state, with its rich abbeys and priories, its glorious old cathedrals, and boundless possessions of lands and houses, was not to be resigned without a struggle so terrific as to shake the foundations of the throne itself. The germ of the Guises and the League, with Jacques Clément and77 Ravaillac, was already formed, and possessed a prodigious latent vitality.

Briçonnet's activity.

Bishop Briçonnet was himself active in promoting the evangelical work, preaching against the most flagrant abuses, and commending to the confidence of his flock the more eloquent preachers whom he had introduced. The incredible rumor even gained currency that the hot-headed prelate went through his diocese casting down the images and sparing no object of idolatrous worship in the churches.¹⁵¹¹⁵¹ Pierre de Sébeville au Chevalier Coct, Grenoble, Dec. 28, 1524: "Je te notifie que l'évesque de Meaulx en Brie, près Paris, cum Jacobo Fabro Stapulensi, depuis trois moys en visitant l'evesché, ont bruslé actu tous les imaiges, réservé le crucifix, et sont personellement ajournés a Paris, à ce moys de Mars venant, coram suprema curia, et universitate erucarum parrhissiensium, quare id factum est." Herminjard, i. 315. But, however improbable it may be that Briçonnet ever engaged in any such iconoclastic demonstrations, it is a strong Roman Catholic partisan who has preserved the record of this significant warning given by the prelate to his flock, and elicited either by the consciousness of his own moral feebleness, or by a certain vague premonition of danger: "Even should I, your bishop, change my speech and teaching, beware that you change not with me!"¹⁵²¹⁵² Fontaine, Histoire catholique, apud Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. de la Réform., liv. xii. The earliest Protestant chronicle, by Antoine Froment, of which there is a MS. fragment in the Library of Geneva, gives a slightly different form to Briçonnet's caution: "Autrefois, en leur preschant l'Évangile, il leur avoit dit, comme Sainct Paul escript au Gallates, que sy luy-mesme ou un Ange du ciel leur preschoit autre doctrine que celle qu'il leur preschoit, qu'ils ne [le] receussent pas." Herminjard, i. 158.

Lefèvre translates the New Testament.

Under Briçonnet's protection Jacques Lefèvre assumed a task less restricted in its influence than preaching, in which he probably took a less active part than his coadjutors. The Bible was a closed book to the common people in France. The learned might familiarize themselves with its contents by a perusal of the Latin Vulgate; but readers acquainted with their mother tongue alone were reduced to the necessity of using a rude version wherein text and gloss were mingled in inextricable confusion, and the Scriptures were made78 to countenance the most absurd abuses.¹⁵³¹⁵³ Nisard, Histoire de la littérature française, i. 275. The only printed work in favor of which the claim of Lefèvre's translation to be the oldest in the French language could be disputed is the "Bible" of Guyars des Moulins, finished in 1297, and printed by order of Charles VIII. in 1487; but the greater part of this is a free translation, not of the Scriptures themselves, but of a summary—the "Historia scholastica" of Pierre le Mengeur (latinized "Comestor")—and is consequently no bible at all. See M. Charles Read, in Bulletin, i. 76, who remarks that, "everything considered, it may therefore be asserted that the translations of Lefèvre d'Étaples and of Olivetanus are the first versions without embellishment or gloss (non historiées et non glossées), and that thus the first two versions of the Bible into the language of the people are Protestant." The best furnished libraries rarely contained more than a few detached books of the Bible, and these intended for ornament rather than use.¹⁵⁴¹⁵⁴ The inventory of the library of the Count of Angoulême, father of Margaret and Francis I., consisting of nearly two hundred volumes, contains the title "Les Paraboles de Salomon, les Espistres Saint Jehan, les Espistres Saint Pol et l'Apocalipse, le tout en ung volume, escript en parchemin et à la main, et en françoys, couvert de velous changeant et a deux fermoeres, l'un aux armes de mon diet Seigneur, et l'autre aux armes de ma dicte dame." Aristotle, Boethius, Boccaccio, and Dante figure in the list, the latter both in Italian and in French. The inventory is printed in an appendix to the edition of the Heptameron of Margaret of Angoulême published by the Soc. dea bibliophiles français (Paris, 1853), a work enriched with many original documents of considerable value. Lefèvre resolved, therefore, to apply himself to the translation of the Sacred Scriptures from the Latin Vulgate into the French language. In June, 1523, he published a version of the four gospels, and in the autumn of the same year he gave to the world the rest of the New Testament. Five years later he added a translation of the Old Testament. It was a magnificent undertaking, prompted by a fervent desire to promote the spiritual interests of his countrymen. In its execution, the inaccuracies incident to so novel an enterprise, and the comparative harshness of the style, can readily be forgiven. For, aside from its own merits, the version of Lefèvre d'Étaples formed the basis for the subsequent version of Robert Olivetanus, itself the groundwork of many later translations.

The translation eagerly bought.

Delight of Lefèvre.

Lefèvre and his associates had not erred in anticipating remarkable results from the publication of the Scriptures in the language of the people. The copies of the New Testament no79 sooner left the press than they were eagerly bought. They penetrated into obscure hamlets to which no missionary of the "new doctrines" could find access. By the wool-carders of Meaux the prize thus unexpectedly placed within reach was particularly valued. The liberality of Bishop Briçonnet is said to have freely supplied copies to those who were too poor to afford the purchase-money. The prelate introduced the French Scriptures into the churches of Meaux, where the unparalleled innovation of reading the lessons in an intelligible tongue struck the people with amazement. "You can scarcely imagine," wrote the delighted Lefèvre to a distant friend,¹⁵⁵¹⁵⁵ This important letter of Lefèvre to Farel, July 6, 1524, first published in part from the MS. in the Geneva Library, in the Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. franç., xi. (1862), 212, is given in full by Herminjard, i. 220, etc. "with what ardor God is moving the minds of the simple, in some places, to embrace His word since the books of the New Testament have been published in French, though you will justly lament that they have not been scattered more widely among the people. The attempt has been made to hinder the work, under cover of the authority of parliament; but our most generous king has become in this matter the defender of Christ's cause, declaring it to be his pleasure that his kingdom shall hear the word of God freely and without hinderance in the language which it understands. At present, throughout our entire diocese, on feast-days, and especially on Sunday, both the epistle and gospel are read to the people in the vernacular tongue, and the parish priest adds a word of exhortation to the epistle or gospel, or both, at his discretion."

There did, indeed, seem to be amply sufficient ground for the "exultation" expressed by the worthy Picard at the rapid progress of the Reformation throughout Europe and the flattering prospects offered in France itself.¹⁵⁶¹⁵⁶ "O bone Deus, quanto exulto gaudio, cum percipio hanc pure agnoscendi Christum gratiam, jam bonam partem pervasisse Europæ! Et spero Christum tandem nostras Gallias hac benedictione invisurum." Everything seemed for a time to promise success at Meaux. Bishop Briçonnet received with delight the advice of the Swiss and German reformers.80 The letters of Œcolampadius, from Basle, in particular so deeply impressed him, that he commissioned Gérard Roussel to read in the French language and explain the meaning of the Pauline Epistles every morning to a promiscuous gathering of persons of both sexes, and chose out the most evangelical preachers to perform similar duty in all the more important places in his diocese.¹⁵⁷¹⁵⁷ "Provinciam interpretandi populo promiscui sexus, quotidie una hora mane, epistolas Pauli lingua vernacula editas, non concionando, sed per modum lecturæ interpretando." Lefèvre to Farel, ubi supra, i. 222. He gives the names of four such "lectores puriores"—Gadon, Mangin, Neufchasteau, and Mesnil—of whom we know little.

Enmity of the Franciscans.

Weakness of Bishop Briçonnet.

But the bishop had excited the active enmity of a resolute and suspicious foe. In forbidding the Franciscan monks entrance to any pulpit within his jurisdiction, he had, even before the advent of Lefèvre and the reformed teachers, incurred their violent animosity.¹⁵⁸¹⁵⁸ Parliament, however, as late as June 1, 1525, sustained his episcopal authority by prohibiting the monks from preaching in Meaux, whether in the morning or in the evening, when the bishop either himself preached or had preaching before him in that part of the day. Reg. of Parliament, Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, iv. 102. The new movement, while arousing their indignation, gave them the opportunity they coveted for invoking the power of the university and of parliament. At first the bishop was bold enough to denounce the doctors of the Sorbonne as Pharisees and false prophets,¹⁵⁹¹⁵⁹ Gaillard, vi. 409. while in his private correspondence he stigmatized the clergy as "the estate by the coldness of which all the others are frozen,"¹⁶⁰¹⁶⁰ "L'estat par la froideur duquel tous les aultres sont gelléz." Briçonnet to Margaret of Angoulême, Dec. 22, 1521, Herminjard, i. 86. or even as "that which is the ruin of all the rest."¹⁶¹¹⁶¹ "Celluy qui tous ruyne." Same to same, Jan. 31, 1524, ibid., i. 186. But, frightened by the incessant clamor and attacks of his enemies, he began gradually to waver, and presently lost all courage. In the end he yielded so far as to suffer to be published in his name official documents which were intended to overturn from the foundation the very fabric he had been striving to rear. In one of these, a "Synodal Decree" addressed to the faithful of his diocese,81 the bishop was made to condemn the books of Martin Luther, and to denounce Luther himself as one who was plotting the overthrow of "the estate which keeps all the rest in the path of duty."¹⁶²¹⁶² "L'état qui contient tous les autres dans le devoir," as translated by Herminjard, i. 154. Quite another description of the clergy this from either of the descriptions which he gave to Margaret of Angoulême! The other document was a letter to the clergy of his diocese, warning them against certain preachers "brought in by himself to share his pastoral cares," who, under cover of proclaiming the Gospel, had "dared, in defiance of the evangelical truth, to preach that purgatory does not exist, and that, consequently, we must not pray for the dead, nor invoke the very holy Virgin Mary and the saints."¹⁶³¹⁶³ See both documents in Herminjard, i. 153 and 156.

The precise time of Briçonnet's pusillanimous defection, as marked by the publication of these pastoral letters, is involved in some obscurity; for assuredly the date affixed to the transcripts that have come down to us conflicts too seriously with the well-known facts of history to be accepted as correct.¹⁶⁴¹⁶⁴ Instead of October 15, 1523, it is probable that these documents ought to be placed nearly, if not quite, two years later. See M. Herminjard's remarks on this difficult point, Correspondance des réformateurs, i. 158, note. The same uncertainty affects Briçonnet's subsequent pastoral, revoking the powers accorded to "Lutheran preachers," attributed to December 13, 1523, ibid., i. 171.

Later Roman Catholic historians have asserted that the act was a voluntary one; that Briçonnet had never in reality sympathized with the religious views of reformers whom he had invited to Meaux simply because of his admiration for learning; that no sooner did he discover the heretical nature of their teachings than he removed them from the posts to which they had been assigned; and that he spent the residue of his life in the vain endeavor to retrieve the fatal consequences of his mistake.¹⁶⁵¹⁶⁵ Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme (Paris, 1682), liv. i. 11-14; Daniel, Histoire de France (Paris, 1755), x. 23. But this view is confirmed by nothing in the prelate's extant correspondence. Everywhere there is evidence that until his courage broke down, Briçonnet was in full accord with the82 reformers. His first step may possibly have been justified at the bar of conscience by the plausible suggestion that, since the anger of the Sorbonne had been directed specially against Meaux, the evangelical preachers could be more serviceable elsewhere. But, from the mere withdrawal of support to positive measures of repression, the transition was both natural and speedy.

He is cited to appear before the Parliament.

Unsatisfied by Bishop Briçonnet's merely negative course, the Parliament of Paris at length cited him to appear and answer before a commission consisting of two of its own counsellors. The information thus obtained was next to be submitted to the judges delegated by the Pope, a tribunal of the institution of which an account will be given in another chapter.¹⁶⁶¹⁶⁶ Registres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des Libertez de l'Église gallicane, iv. 102. To this secret investigation Briçonnet objected, and begged to be tried in open court by the entire body of parliament;¹⁶⁷¹⁶⁷ "Et supplie la Cour qu'il soit interrogé en pleine cour, et non par Commissaires." Registres du parlement, Oct. 20, 1525, ibid., iv. 103. but his petition was rejected, and his examination proceeded before the inquisitorial commission. What measures were there taken to influence him is not known. To Martial Mazurier, lately an enthusiastic preacher of the "Lutheran" doctrines, who had himself, through fear, receded from his advanced position, the doubtful honor is ascribed of having been prominent in exertions to overcome the prelate's lingering scruples. However this may be, when Briçonnet had given sufficient guarantees to satisfy the Sorbonne that no apprehension need be entertained of a repetition in Meaux of the dangerous experiment of the public instruction of the people in the Holy Scriptures, there was nothing to be gained by his condemnation. He was accordingly acquitted of all charge of heresy, although condemned to pay the sum of two hundred livres as the expense of bringing to trial the "heretics" whom he had himself helped to make such.¹⁶⁸¹⁶⁸ Registres du parlement, Nov. 29, 1525, where the Bishop of Meaux is ordered to pay 200 livres parisis for the trial of the heretics, prisoners from Meaux (Preuves des Libertez, iii. 166), and the receipt for the same (Ibid., ubi supra). This was, however, merely an application of the general prescription of Nov. 24, 1525, requiring all prelates to defray the expenses of the trial of any heretics discovered in their dioceses, with the right to indemnify themselves from the property of the convicted heretics (Ibid., iii. 165). So the Archbishop of Tours contributed to the expenses incurred in the trial of Jean Papillon, Feb. 5, 1526 (Ibid., iii. 167). Hereupon he is said to have83 returned to his diocese, and, having convened a synod, to have prohibited, as we have seen, the circulation of Luther's writings, reintroduced the ecclesiastical practices that had been condemned or discarded, and given to the persecution now set on foot his unequivocal sanction.¹⁶⁹¹⁶⁹ Daniel, x. 23, 24; Gaillard, vi. 409-411.

Dispersion of the reformed teachers.

The teachers whom Briçonnet had so cordially invited to assist him were compelled one by one to abandon Meaux. Among the earliest to leave was Farel.¹⁷⁰¹⁷⁰ Neither the reason nor the precise time of his departure is known. It was apparently as early as 1523. His was no faint heart. If he gave up his activity in Brie, it was only to return to his native Dauphiny, where a young nobleman, Anemond de Coct, and a preacher, Pierre de Sebeville, were among the leading men whose conversion was the fruit of his indefatigable exertions. After a visit to Guyenne, of which little is known, he passed into German Switzerland, and labored successively in Basle, Strasbourg, and Montbéliard.¹⁷¹¹⁷¹ See Haag, La France protestante, art. Farel; Dr. E. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Hagenbach, Leben d. Väter und Begründer der Reformirten Kirche, vii. 3, etc. A brief but very accurate sketch in Herminjard, i. 178, etc.

Annoyances of those who remain.

Lefèvre and Roussel were among the last to withdraw; but, beset with watchful enemies, they found their position neither safe nor comfortable. It was as difficult to maintain a semblance of friendship with an ecclesiastical system which they detested in their hearts, as to refuse their sympathy and support to the persecuted whose opinions they shared without possessing the courage necessary to suffer in attestation of the common faith. Busy informers at one time found evidence, more than warranting the suspicion that Roussel's manuscripts had furnished the material of which scandalous placards defamatory of the Pope were framed.¹⁷²¹⁷² MS. Seminary of Meaux, January 11, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. 220. A little later the proctor of the cathedral drew attention to the ir84regular conventicles held in the church itself, every Sunday and feast-day, after Roussel had preached. These "combers, carders, and other persons of the same stamp, unlettered folk,"¹⁷³¹⁷³ "Plusieurs peigneurs, cardeurs et autres gens de même trempe, non lettrés." brought with them books containing the Epistles of St. Paul, the Gospels, and the Psalms, in flagrant disregard of the prohibitions they had heard respecting the discussion of such topics as faith, the sacraments, the privileges of Rome, and the use of pictures in the churches. It was made the occasion of "charitable rebuke" and then of formal complaint against Roussel by his fellow canons, that he failed to repeat the angelic salutation, according to the orthodox practice, after the exordium of his sermon. To the combined exhortations and threats of his accusers Roussel replied in the chapter that, if he had done wrong, it belonged to the bishop to reprove him, but that as to himself he esteemed the repetition of the Lord's Prayer quite as efficacious as the recital of the Ave Maria.¹⁷⁴¹⁷⁴ MS. Seminary of Meaux, February 6, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. 220.

Lefèvre and Roussel take refuge in Strasbourg.

Excessive caution of Roussel.

At last danger thickened, and Lefèvre and Roussel found themselves forced to leave Meaux (October, 1525), and sought refuge within the hospitable walls of Strasbourg; for the persecuting measures adopted by the regent, Louise de Savoie, and the Parliament of Paris, during the king's captivity, as we shall shortly see, had placed the lives of even such prudent reformers in peril.¹⁷⁵¹⁷⁵ Compare for the date, Herminjard, i. 378, 389, 401. Gérard Roussel was ordered by parliament to be seized wherever found, etiam in loco sacro. So, too, were Caroli and Prévost. Jacques Lefèvre was cited to appear. Régistres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des Libertez de l'Égl. gall., iii. 102, 103. In the free city on the banks of the Rhine, Lefèvre met his pupil Farel, and in the midst of cordial greetings was reminded by him that the day of "renovation" which he had long since predicted and desired had really come.¹⁷⁶¹⁷⁶ Farel to Pellican, 1556, Herminjard, i. 481. But the contrast between the two men had become sharply drawn. The fearless athlete, soon to measure his strength with no puny antagonists at Neufchâtel, Lausanne, Geneva, and so many other places in French85 Switzerland, whose course was to be a succession of rough encounters, discovered that the master from whom he had received the impulse that shaped his entire life, shrank from sundering the last link binding him to the Roman church. And Gérard Roussel was even more timid. The elegant preacher, with fair prospects of preferment, could not bring himself openly to espouse the quarrel of oppressed truth. A mysticism investing his entire belief, and perverting his moral perceptions, led him to imagine that the heart might be kept pure in the midst of many external corruptions, and that the enlightened could worship the Almighty acceptably in spite of superstitious observances, which, while countenancing by apparent acquiescence, they rejected in their hearts. The excellence of the reformation already inaugurated at Strasbourg made a deep and very favorable impression upon Roussel. He wrote to Bishop Briçonnet that the daily preaching of a pure doctrine, "without dross or leaven of the Pharisees,"¹⁷⁷¹⁷⁷ "Ita invigilent Verbo ecclesiarum ministri, ut, nulla pene hora diei, suum desit pabulum et quidem syncerum, ut nulla subsit palea aut fermenti pharisaici commissura." the crowds of attentive hearers, the schools presided over by men as illustrious for piety as for letters, and the careful provision for the poor, would delight his correspondent were he to see them. He did not dissemble his own great satisfaction that the monasteries had been changed into educational establishments, the pictures taken away from the churches, and every altar removed except one, on which the communion was celebrated, as nearly as possible, according to the plan of its institution.¹⁷⁸¹⁷⁸ Roussel to Briçonnet, Strasbourg, Dec, 1525, Herminjard, i. 406, 407. At the same time he renounced none of his excessive caution. His words were still those he had uttered when urged, a twelvemonth earlier, by Farel, Œcolampadius, and Zwingle, to strike out boldly and by an open dispute on religion compel the attention of the thoughtless world. "The flesh is weak! As my friends, Lefèvre and others, urge, the convenient season has not yet come, the Gospel has not yet been scattered sufficiently far and wide. We must not assume the Lord's prerogative for sending laborers into the harvest, but leave86 the work to Him whose it is, and who can easily raise up a far richer harvest than that for whose safety we are solicitous!"¹⁷⁹¹⁷⁹ Roussel to Farel, Meaux, Aug. 24, 1524, Herminjard, i. 271—a document that throws a flood of light upon the motives of the conduct of both Roussel and Lefèvre. A letter of the same date to Œcolampadius is, in some respects, even more instructive. Notice the pitiful weakness revealed in these sentences: "Reclamabunt episcopi, reclamabunt doctores, reclamabunt scholæ, assentiente populo, occurret Senatus (parliament). Quid faciet homuncio adversus tot leones?" Herminjard, i. 278. A reference to the book of Daniel might have enabled the Canon of Meaux to answer his own question.

Such were the paltry evasions of cowardly souls, to excuse themselves for the neglect of admitted duty. We cannot wonder at the burning words of condemnation which this pusillanimity called forth from the pen of brave Pierre Toussain. "I have spoken to Lefèvre and Roussel," he wrote some months later, "but certainly Lefèvre has not a particle of courage. May God confirm and strengthen him! Let them be as wise as they please, let them wait, procrastinate, and dissemble; the Gospel will never be preached without the cross! When I see these things, when I see the mind of the king, the mind of the duchess [Margaret of Angoulême] as favorable as possible to the advancement of the Gospel of Christ, and those who ought to forward this matter, according to the grace given them, obstructing their design, I cannot refrain from tears. They say, indeed: 'It is not yet time, the hour has not come!' And yet we have here no day or hour. What would not you do had you the Emperor and Ferdinand favoring your attempts? Entreat God, therefore, in behalf of France, that she may at length be worthy of His word."¹⁸⁰¹⁸⁰ Pierre Toussain to Œcolampadius, Malesherbes, July 26, 1526, Herminjard, i. 447.

The remainder of the task imposed on the weak Bishop of Meaux and his new allies, the monks of St. Francis, proved a more difficult undertaking. The shepherds had been dispersed, but the flock refused to forsake the fold. From the nourishing food they had discovered in the Word of God, they could not be induced to return to the husks offered to them in meaningless ceremonies, celebrated in an unknown tongue by men of impure lives. The Gospels in French remained more attractive87 than the legendary, even after the bishop had abandoned the championship of the incipient reformation. Briçonnet's own expressed wish was granted: if he had "changed his speech and teaching," the common people, at least, had not changed with him.

The wool-carder, Jean Leclerc, tears down a papal bull.

His barbarous sentence.

Among the first fruits of the Reformation in Meaux was a wool-carder, Jean Leclerc, into whose hands had fallen one of Lefèvre's French Testaments. He was a man of strong convictions and invincible resolution. A bull, issued by Clement the Seventh in connection with the approaching jubilee, had been posted on the doors of the cathedral (December, 1524). It offered indulgence, and enjoined prayers, fasting, and partaking of the Communion, in order to obtain from heaven the restoration of peace between princes of Christendom. Leclerc secretly tore the bull down, substituting for it a placard in which the Roman pontiff figured as veritable Antichrist. Diligent search was at once instituted for the perpetrator of this offence, and for the author of the subsequent mutilation of the prayers to the Virgin hung up in various parts of the same edifice. A truculent order was also issued in the bishop's name, threatening all persons that might conceal their knowledge of the culprits with public excommunication, every Sunday and feast-day, "with ringing of bells and with candles lighted and then extinguished and thrown upon the earth, in token of eternal malediction."¹⁸¹¹⁸¹ Mandement de Guillaume Briçonnet an clergé de son diocèse, le 21 janvier, 1525, Herminjard, i. 320, etc. Leclerc was discovered, and taken to Paris for trial. The barbarous sentence of parliament was, that he be whipped in Paris by the common executioner on three successive days, then transferred to Meaux to receive the like punishment, and finally branded on the forehead with a red-hot iron, before being banished forever from the kingdom.¹⁸²¹⁸² It may seem surprising that Jean Leclerc escaped the stake in punishment of his temerity. But the reason is found in the circumstance that he was tried, not for heresy, but for irreverence. This appears from the Registres du parlement for March 20, 1524/5. The interesting discussions of that session, printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, iii. (1854) 23, etc., establish the fact that the reformed doctrines were already making formidable headway in Paris and the adjoining towns. A brother of Bishop Briçonnet took a prominent part in the debate, and gave a deplorable view of the prevalence of impiety and heresy in the higher circles of society.88

The cruel prescription was followed out to the letter (March, 1525). A superstitious multitude flocked together to see and gloat over the condign punishment of a heretic, and gave no word of encouragement and support. But, as the iron was leaving on Leclerc's brow the ignominious imprint of the fleur-de-lis,¹⁸³¹⁸³ For a description of the punishment, see Bastard d'Estang, Les parlements de France. a single voice suddenly broke in upon the silence. It was that of his aged mother, who, after an involuntary cry of anguish, quickly recovered herself and shouted, "Hail Jesus Christ and his standard-bearers!"¹⁸⁴¹⁸⁴ "Vive Jésus Christ et ses enseignes!" Although many heard her words, so deep was the impression, that no attempt was made to lay hands upon her.¹⁸⁵¹⁸⁵ Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées, attributed to Theodore Beza (Ed. of Lille, 1841), i. 4; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum (Geneva, 1560), fol. 46; Haag, La France protestante, art. Leclerc; Daniel, x. 23, who finds no more suitable epithet for Leclerc than "ce scélérat."

He is burned alive at Metz.

From Meaux, Leclerc, forced to leave his home, retired first to Rosoy, and thence to Metz.¹⁸⁶¹⁸⁶ At this time a city of the Empire, and not conquered by France until the reign of Henry II. (1552). Here, while supporting himself by working at his humble trade, he lost none of his missionary spirit. Not content with communicating a knowledge of the doctrines of the Reformation to all with whom he conversed, his impatient zeal led him to a new and startling protest against the prevalent, and, in his view, idolatrous worship of images. Learning that on a certain day a solemn procession was to be made to a shrine situated a few miles out of the city gates, he went to the spot under cover of night, and hurled the sacred images from their places. On the morrow the horrified worshippers found the objects of their devotion prostrated and mutilated, and their rage knew no bounds. It was not long before the wool-carder was apprehended. His religious sentiments were no secret, and he had been seen returning from the scene of his nocturnal exploit. He promptly acknowledged his guilt,89 and was rescued from the infuriated populace only to undergo a more terrible doom at the hands of the public executioner (July 22, 1525). His right hand was cut off at the wrist, his arms, his nose, his breast were cruelly torn with pincers; but no cry of anguish escaped the lips of Leclerc. The sentence provided still further that, before his body should be consigned to the flames, his head be encircled with a red-hot band of iron. As the fervent metal slowly ate its way toward his very brain, the bystanders with amazement heard the dying man calmly repeat the words of Holy Writ: "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands." He had not completed the Psalmist's terrific denunciation of the crime and folly of image-worship when his voice was stifled by the fire and smoke of the pyre into which his impatient tormentors had hastily thrown him. If not actually the first martyr of the French Reformation, as has commonly been supposed, Jean Leclerc deserves, at least, to rank among the most constant and unswerving of its early apostles.¹⁸⁷¹⁸⁷ The story of Leclerc's fortunes is told both by Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 46, and by the Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 4; but, strange to say, both these early authorities fall into the same error: they place the first arrest of Leclerc in 1523, and his death a year later. Almost all subsequent writers have implicitly followed their authority. The Registres du parlement de Paris, already referred to, March 20, 1524/5, fix the former event as having occurred only three days before—"depuis trois jours" (p. 27); while François Lambert's letter to the Senate of Besançon, dated August 15, 1525, expressly states that Leclerc was burned Saturday, July 22, 1525. Herminjard, i. 372. Jean Châtellain had been executed at Vic, in Lorraine, six months earlier (January 12, 1525). See P. Lambert to the Elector of Saxony, Herminjard, i. 346.

Jacques Pauvan.

The poor wool-carder of Meaux was succeeded by more illustrious victims. One was of the number of the teachers who had been attracted to Bishop Briçonnet's diocese by the prospect of contributing to the progress of a purer doctrine. Jacques Pauvan¹⁸⁸¹⁸⁸ In accordance with the uncertain orthography of the age, the name is variously written—Pauvan, Pauvant, Pavanne, or Pouvent. was a studious youth who had come from Boulogne, in Picardy, to perfect his education in the university, and had subsequently abandoned a career in which he bade fair to obtain distinction, in order to assist his admired teacher, Lefèvre, at Meaux. He was an outspoken man, and90 disguised his opinions on no point of the prevailing controversy. He asserted that purgatory had no existence, and that God had no vicar. He repudiated excessive reliance on the doctors of the church. He indignantly rejected the customary salutation to the Virgin Mary, "Hail Queen, Mother of mercy!" He denied the propriety of offering candles to the saints. He maintained that baptism was only a sign, that holy water was nothing, that papal bulls and indulgences were an imposture of the devil, and that the mass was not only of no avail for the remission of sins, but utterly unprofitable to the hearer, while the Word of God was all-sufficient.¹⁸⁹¹⁸⁹ Pauvan's propositions, with the vindication by Saunier (or Saulnier) are recapitulated in the censure of the theological faculty, dated Dec. 9, 1525, and published in extenso among the documents appended to Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 36, etc. Professor Soldan (i. 107) and others are incorrect in placing the propositions and their condemnation by the Sorbonne subsequent to the abjuration, which in this very document the Sorbonne demands.

Pauvan was put under arrest, and his theses, together with the defence of their contents which one Matthieu Saunier was so bold as to write, were submitted to the Sorbonne. Its condemnation was not long withheld. "A work," said the Paris theologians, "containing propositions extracted and compiled from the pernicious errors of the Waldenses, Wickliffites, Bohemians, and Lutherans, being impious, scandalous, schismatic, and wholly alien from the Christian doctrine, ought publicly to be consigned to the flames in the diocese of Meaux, whence it emanated. And Jacques Pauvan and Matthieu Saunier should, by all judicial means, be compelled to make a public recantation."¹⁹⁰¹⁹⁰ Ibid., iv. 47.

Even strong men have their moments of weakness. Pauvan was no exception to the rule. Besides the terrors of the stake, the persuasions of Martial Mazurier came in to shake his constancy. This latter, a doctor of theology, had at one time been so carried away with the desire of innovation as to hurl down a statue of their patron saint standing at the door of the monastery of the Franciscans. He had now, as we have already seen, become the favorite instrument in effecting abjurations similar91 to his own. His suggestions prevailed over Pauvan's convictions.¹⁹¹¹⁹¹ "You err, Master Jacques," Crespin tells us that Mazurier used to say, "You err, Master Jacques; for you have not looked into the depth of the sea, but merely upon the surface of the waters and waves." "You err, Master Jacques" became a proverbial expression in the mouths of the inhabitants of Meaux for a generation or more. Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 52 verso. The young scholar consented to obey the Sorbonne's demand. The faculty's judgment had been pronounced on the ninth of December, 1525; a fortnight later, on the morrow of Christmas day—a favorite time for striking displays of this kind—Pauvan publicly retracted his "errors," and made the usual "amende honorable," clad only in a shirt, and holding a lighted taper in his hand.¹⁹²¹⁹² "Tout nud, en sa chemise, criant mercy à Dieu et à la vierge Marie." Journal d'un bourgeois, ubi infra.

He is burned on the Place de Grève.

If Pauvan's submission secured him any peace, it was a short-lived peace. Tortured by conscience, he soon betrayed his mental anguish by sighs and groans. Again he was drawn from the prison, where he had been confined since his abjuration,¹⁹³¹⁹³ His sentence seems to have been seven years' imprisonment in the priory of St. Martin des Champs, and it was the prior that denounced him to parliament. Ibid., ubi infra. and subjected to new interrogatories. With the opportunity to vindicate his convictions, his courage and cheerfulness returned. As a relapsed heretic, no fate could be in store for him but death at the stake, and this he courageously met on the Place de Grève.¹⁹⁴¹⁹⁴ Crespin, ubi supra, fol. 53; Hist. ecclés., i. 4; Haag, France prot., s. v. On the 26th of August, 1526, if, as is likely, he is the "jeune filz, escolier bénéficié, non aiant encore ses ordres de prestrise, nommé maistre ... natif de Thérouanne, en Picardie," whom the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris refers to—page 291—as having abjured on Christmas eve, 1525, and been burned "le mardi 28e aoust, 1526." At any rate, as M. Herminjard has remarked, Beza and Crespin are certainly wrong in placing Pauvan's recantation and execution respectively a year too early (in 1524 and 1525, instead of 1525 and 1526). The date of the Sorbonne's judgment is decisive on this point. But the holocaust was inauspicious for those who with this victim hoped to annihilate the "new doctrines." Before mounting the huge pyre heaped up to receive him, Pauvan was thoughtlessly permitted to speak; and so persuasive were his words that it was an92 enemy's exclamation that "it had been better to have cost the church a million of gold, than that Pauvan had been suffered to speak to the people."¹⁹⁵¹⁹⁵ Our authority for the remark of the Parisian doctor, Pierre Cornu, is Farel, in a MS. note to a hitherto inedited letter of Pauvan, and in his speech at the discussion at Lausanne. Herminjard, i. 293, 294. Farel's application was not without pungency: "Votre foi est-elle si bien fondée qu'un jeune fils, qui encore n'avoit point de barbe, vous ait fait tant de dommage, sans avoir tant étudié ne veu, sans avoir aucun degré, et vous étiez tant?" The admirer of heroic fortitude will scarcely subscribe to the words of the Jesuit Daniel, Hist. de France, x. 24: "On ne donne place dans l'histoire à ces méprisables noms, que pour ne laisser ignorer la première origine de la funeste contagion," etc.

The hermit of Livry.

Scarcely more encouraging to the advocates of persecution was the scene in the area in front of Notre-Dame de Paris, when, at the sound of the great cathedral bell, an immense crowd was gathered to witness the execution of an obscure person, known to us only as "the hermit of Livry"—a hamlet on the road to Meaux. With such unshaken fortitude did he encounter the flames, that the astonished spectators were confidently assured by their spiritual advisers that he was one of the damned who was being led to the fires of hell.¹⁹⁶¹⁹⁶ Histoire ecclés., i. 4.

Bishop Briçonnet becomes the jailer of the "Lutherans."

Where less rigor was deemed necessary, the penalty for having embraced the reformed tenets was reduced to imprisonment for a term of years, often with bread and water for the only food and drink. The place of confinement was sometimes a monastery, at other times the "prisons of Monseigneur the Bishop of Meaux."¹⁹⁷¹⁹⁷ Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François Ier, April 14, 1526, p. 284. Thus Briçonnet enjoyed the rare and exquisite privilege of acting as jailer of unfortunates instructed by himself in the doctrines for the profession of which they now suffered! Meantime their companions having escaped detection, although deprived of the advantage of public worship, continued for years to assemble for mutual encouragement and edification, as they had opportunity, in private houses, in retired valleys or caverns, or in thickets and woods. Their minister was that person of93 their own number who was seen to be the best versed in the Holy Scriptures. After he had discharged his functions in the humble service, by a simple address of instruction or exhortation, the entire company with one voice supplicated the Almighty for His blessing, and returned to their homes with fervent hopes for the speedy conversion of France to the Gospel.¹⁹⁸¹⁹⁸ Crespin, Actiones et monimenta, fol. 118. Thus matters stood for about a score of years, until a fresh attempt was made to constitute a reformed church at Meaux, the signal, as will appear in the sequel, for a fresh storm of persecution.

Lefèvre's subsequent history.

A few words here seem necessary respecting the subsequent fortunes of the venerable teacher whose name at this point fades from the history of the French Reformation. The action of parliament (August 28, 1525), in condemning, at the instigation of the syndic of the theological faculty, nine propositions extracted from his commentary on the Gospels, and in forbidding the circulation of his translation of the Holy Scriptures, had given Lefèvre d'Étaples due warning of danger. We have already seen that a few weeks later (October, 1525) he had taken refuge in Strasbourg under the pseudonym of Antonius Peregrinus. But the incognito of so distinguished a stranger could not be long maintained, and before many days the very boys in the streets knew him by his true name.¹⁹⁹¹⁹⁹ Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre; Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel. Bayle (Diet. s. v. Fèvre) maintains, on the authority of Melchior Adam's Life of Capito, that Lefèvre and Roussel were sent by Margaret of Angoulême on a secret mission to Strasbourg. Erasmus, in a letter of March, 1526, and Sleidan (lib. v. ad fin.) know nothing of this, and speak of the trip as merely a flight. Meantime the Sorbonne, in his absence, proceeded to censure a large number of propositions drawn from another of Lefèvre's works. Shortly after a letter was received from Francis the First, written in his captivity at Madrid, and enjoining the court to suspend its vexatious persecution of a man "of such great and good renown, and of so holy a life," until the king's return. The refractory judges, however, neglected to obey the order, and continued the proceedings instituted against Lefèvre.²⁰⁰²⁰⁰ Haag, ubi supra, vi. 507, note.94

Lefèvre and the Nuncio Aleander.

When, however, Francis succeeded in regaining his liberty, a year later, he not only recalled Lefèvre and his companion, Roussel, from exile, but conferred upon the former the honorable appointment of tutor to his two daughters and his third and favorite son, subsequently known as Charles, Duke of Orleans.²⁰¹²⁰¹ Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefèvre; Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vi. 411. The boy, at this time Duke of Angoulême, did not assume the name of Charles until after his eldest brother's death. The Swiss cantons, acting as his sponsors, had given him the somewhat uncommon Christian name Abednego (Abdénago)! Herminjard, ii. 17, 195. This post, while it enabled him to continue the prosecution of his biblical studies, also gave him the opportunity of instilling into the minds of his pupils some views favorable to the Reformation.²⁰²²⁰² The Duke of Orleans may have had sincere predilections for Protestantism. At least, it is barely possible that the very remarkable instructions given to his secretary, Antoine Mallet, when on the 8th of September, 1543, Charles sent him to the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, were something besides mere diplomatic intrigue to secure for his father's projects the support of these Protestant princes. See, however, a fuller discussion of this incident farther on, Chapter VI. A little later Margaret of Angoulême secured for Lefèvre the position of librarian of the royal collection of books at Blois; but, as even here he was subjected to much annoyance from his enemies, Margaret, now Queen of Navarre, sought and obtained from her brother permission to take the old scholar with her to Nérac, in Gascony.²⁰³²⁰³ Margaret to Anne de Montmorency, Génin, Lettres de Marguerite d'Angoulême, i. 279, and Herminjard, ii. 250. Here, in the ordinary residence of his patron, and treated by the King of Navarre with marked consideration, Lefèvre d'Étaples was at last safe from molestation. The papal party did not, indeed, despair of gaining him over. The Nuncio Aleander, in a singular letter exhumed not long since from the Vatican records, expressed himself strongly in favor of putting forth the effort. Lefèvre's "few errors" had at first appeared to be of great moment, because published at a time when to correct or change the most insignificant syllable, or a faulty rendering, in the ancient translations of the Holy Scriptures approved by the church, was an unheard-of innovation. But, now that more important questions had come up to arrest attention,95 the mere matter of retranslation, without introducing unsound doctrine, seemed to be a thing of little or no consequence.²⁰⁴²⁰⁴ "Come un cavallo ch' ha un apostema stringendoli il naso non sente il cauterio." Let Lefèvre but leave the heretical company which he kept, and let him make the least bit of a retraction respecting some few passages in his works, and the whole affair would at once be arranged.²⁰⁵²⁰⁵ "Una retrattationcella." The letter of the Nuncio to Sanga, secretary of Clement VII., Brussels, December 30, 1531, appeared in H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana (ex Tabulariis Sanctæ Sedis Apostolicæ Secretis), Friburgi Brisgoviæ, 1861. I have called attention to its importance in the Bulletin de la Société de l'hist. du prot. franç., xiv. (1865), 345. M. Herminjard has given a French translation, ii. 386.

Lefèvre's mental suffering.

The reconciliation of Lefèvre with the church did not take place. The "bit of a retraction" was never written. But none the less are Lefèvre's last days reported to have been disturbed by harassing thoughts. The noble old man, who had consecrated to the translation of the Bible and to exegetical comment upon its books the energy of many years, and who had suffered no little obloquy in consequence, could not forgive himself that he had not come forward more manfully in defence of the truth. One day, not long before his death, it is said, while seated at the table of the King and Queen of Navarre, he was observed to be overcome with emotion. When Margaret expressed her surprise at the gloomy deportment of one whose society she had sought for her own diversion, Lefèvre mournfully exclaimed, "How can I contribute to the pleasure of others, who am myself the greatest sinner upon earth?" In reply to the questions called forth by so unexpected a confession, Lefèvre, while admitting that throughout his long life his morals had been exemplary, and that he was conscious of no flagrant crime against society, proceeded, in words frequently interrupted by sobs, to explain his deep penitence: "How shall I, who have taught others the purity of the Gospel, be able to stand at God's tribunal? Thousands have suffered and died for the defence of the truth in which I instructed them; and I, unfaithful shepherd that I am, after attaining so advanced an age, when I ought to love96 nothing less than I do life—nay, rather, when I ought to desire death—I have basely avoided the martyr's crown, and have betrayed the cause of my God!" It was with difficulty that the queen and others who were present succeeded in allaying the aged scholar's grief.²⁰⁶²⁰⁶ This incident has been rejected as apocryphal by Bayle, and, after him, by Tabaraud (in the Biographie universelle), as well as more recently by Haag (France protestante). It has rested until now on the unsupported testimony of Hubert Thomas, secretary of the Elector Palatine, Frederick II., whom he accompanied on a visit to Charles V. in Spain. On his return the Elector fell sick at Paris, where he received frequent visits from the King and Queen of Navarre. It was on one of these occasions that Margaret related to him this story, in the hearing of the secretary. (It is reproduced in Jurieu, Histoire du Calvinisme, etc., Rotterdam, 1683, pt. i. 70.) Bayle objected that it was incredible that the reformers should have failed to allude to so striking and suggestive an occurrence. The objection has been scattered to the winds. With singular good fortune, M. Jules Bonnet has discovered among the hidden treasures of the Geneva Library an original memorandum in Farel's own handwriting, prefixed to a letter he had received from Michel d'Arande, fully confirming the discredited statements. "Jacobus Faber Stapulensis noster laborans morbo quo decessit, per aliquot dies ita perterritus fuit judicio Dei, ut actum de se vociferaret, dicens se æternum periisse, quod veritatem Dei non aperte professus fuerit, idque dies noctesque vociferando querebatur. Et cum a Gerardo Rufo admoneretur ut bono esset animo, Christo quoque fideret, is respondit: 'Nos damnati sumus, veritatem celavimus quam profiteri et testari debebamus.' Horrendum erat tam pium senem ita angi animo et tanto horrore judicii Dei concuti; licet tandem liberatus bene sperare cœperit ac perrexerit de Christo." Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., etc., xi. 215; Herminjard, iii. 400.

The "anguish of spirit and terror of God's judgment experienced by so pious an old man as Lefèvre," because he had concealed the truth which he ought openly to have espoused, supplied an instructive warning for his even more timid disciples. Farel, who never lacked courage, was not slow to avail himself of it. Taking advantage of the freedom of an old associate, he addressed a letter containing an account of Lefèvre's death, with some serious admonitions, to Michel d'Arande, who never venturing to separate from a church whose corruptions he acknowledged, had reached the position of Bishop of Saint Paul-Trois-Châteaux, in Dauphiny. The letter has perished, but the reply in which the prelate's dejection and internal conflicts but too plainly appear, has seen the light after a burial of three97 centuries. Admitting the guilt of his course, the bishop begs the intrepid reformer to pray for him continually, and meanwhile not to withhold his friendly exhortations, that at length the writer may be able to extricate himself from the deep mire in which he finds no firm foundation to stand upon.²⁰⁷²⁰⁷ "Quo tandem ex hoc profundo limo, in quo non est substantia, eripi queam." Michel d'Arande to Farel (1536 or 1537), Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., ubi supra; Herminjard, iii. 399, etc.

Such was the unhappy state of mind to which many good, but irresolute men were reduced, who, in view of the persecution certain to follow an open avowal of their reformatory sentiments, endeavored to persuade themselves that it was permissible to conceal them under a thin veil of external conformity to the rites of the Roman church.

Fortunes of Gérard Roussel.

Gérard Roussel, the most distinguished representative of this class of mystics, was appointed by the Queen of Navarre to be her preacher and confessor, and promoted successively to be Abbot of Clairac and Bishop of Oléron. Yet he remained, to his death, a sincere friend of the Reformation. Occasionally, at least, he preached its doctrines with tolerable distinctness; as, for instance, in the Lenten discourses delivered by him, in conjunction with Courault and Bertault, before the French court in the Louvre (1532). In his writings he was still more outspoken. Some of them might have been written not only by a reformer, but by a disciple of Calvin, so sharply drawn were the doctrinal expositions.²⁰⁸²⁰⁸ Speaking of Roussel's as yet inedited MS., "Familière exposition du symbole et de l'oraison dominicale," Professor C. Schmidt, than whom no one has better studied the mysticism of the sixteenth century, remarks that the basis of the work is the doctrine of justification by faith, the sole authority invoked is that of the Scriptures, the only head of the church is Jesus Christ, the perfect church is the invisible church, the visible church is recognized by the preaching of the Gospel in its purity, and by the administration of the two sacraments as originally instituted. He adds that the doctrines of the Lord's Supper and of predestination are expounded in a thoroughly Calvinistic manner. See Professor S.'s excellent monograph, "Le mysticisme quiétiste en France au début de la réformation sous François premier," read before the Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., Bulletin, vi. 449, etc. Meanwhile, in his own diocese he set forth the example of a faithful pastor. Even so bitter an enemy of Protestantism as Florimond98 de Ræmond, contrasting Roussel's piety with the worldliness of the sporting French bishops of the period, is forced to admit that his pack of hounds was the crowd of poor men and women whom he daily fed, his horses and attendants a host of children whom he caused to be instructed in letters.²⁰⁹²⁰⁹ Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina hæreseon hujus sæculi (Col. 1614), lib. vii. c. 3, p. 392.

And yet, Gérard Roussel's half measures, while failing to conciliate the adherents of the Roman church, alienated from him the sympathies of the reformers; for they saw in his conduct a weakness little short of entire apostasy. More modern Roman Catholic writers, for similar reasons, deny that Roussel was ever at heart a friend of the Reformation.²¹⁰²¹⁰ E. g., Tabaraud, Biographie univ., art. Roussel. Not so, however, thought the fanatics of his own time. While the Bishop of Oléron was one day declaiming, in a church of his diocese, against the excessive multiplication of feasts, the pulpit in which he stood was suddenly overturned, and the preacher hurled with violence to the ground. The catastrophe was the premeditated act of a religious zealot, who had brought with him into the sacred place an axe concealed under his cloak. The fall proved fatal to Gérard Roussel, who is said to have expressed on his death-bed similar regrets to those which had disturbed the last hours of Lefèvre d'Étaples. As for the murderer, although arrested and tried by the Parliament of Bordeaux, he was in the end acquitted, on the ground that he had performed a meritorious act, or, at most, committed a venial offence, in ridding the world of so dangerous a heretic as the Bishop of Oléron.²¹¹²¹¹ Haag, France protestante, art. Gérard Roussel; Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vi. 418; Flor. de Ræmond, ubi supra.

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