CHAPTER III.

FRANCIS I. AND MARGARET OF ANGOULEME—EARLY REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS AND STRUGGLES.

Francis I. and his sister.

The portrait of the king.

Francis the First and his sister, Margaret of Angoulême, were destined to exercise so important an influence in shaping the history of the French Reformation during the first half of the sixteenth century, that a glance at their personal history and character seems indispensable. Francis Was in his twenty-first year when, by the extinction of the elder line of the house of Orleans, the crown came to him as the nearest heir of Louis the Twelfth.²¹²²¹² He was born at Cognac, Sept. 12, 1494. He was tall, but well proportioned, of a fair complexion, with a body capable of enduring without difficulty great exposure and fatigue. In an extant portrait, taken five years later, he is delineated with long hair and scanty beard. The drooping lids give to his eyes a languid expression, while the length of his nose, which earned him the sobriquet of "le roi au long nez," redeems his physiognomy from any approach to heaviness.²¹³²¹³ See the fac-simile in the magnificent work of M. Niel, Portraits des personnages français les plus illustres du 16me siècle, Paris, 1848, 2 vols. fol. On the other hand, the Venetian Marino Cavalli, writing shortly before the close of his reign, eulogizes the personal appearance of Francis, at that time more than fifty years old. His mien was so right royal, we are assured, that even a foreigner, never having seen him before, would single him out from any company and instinctively exclaim, "This is the king!" No ruler of the day surpassed him in gravity and nobility of bearing. Well did he deserve to succeed that long line of monarchs upon each of whom the sacred oil, applied at his coronation in the cathe100dral of Rheims, had conferred the marvellous property of healing the king's-evil by a simple touch.²¹⁴²¹⁴ The envoy's description of Francis's curative power is interesting. "Ha una proprietà, o vero dono da Dio, come han tutti li rè di Francia, di far guarire li amalati di scrofule.... E questo lo fa in giorno solenne, come Pasqua, Natale e Nostra Donna. Si confessa e communica; dipoi tocca li amalati in croce al volto, dicendo: 'Il Rè ti tocca, e Iddio ti guarisca!'" Cavalli thinks there can be no doubt of the reality of the cures effected; otherwise, why should continually increasing numbers of sick folk come from the most distant countries, if they received no benefit? Relazioni Venete (Albèri), ser. i., i. 237. It must not be imagined, however, that the kings of France engrossed all virtue of this kind. The monarchs of England were wont to hallow on Good Friday certain rings which thenceforth guaranteed the wearer against epilepsy. These cramp-rings, as they were called, were no less in demand abroad than at home. Sir John Mason wrote from Brussels, April 25, 1555, that many persons had expressed the desire to obtain them, and begged Sir W. Petrie to interest himself in procuring him some of this year's blessing by Queen Mary. MSS. State Paper Office.

His character and tastes.

At his accession, the lively imagination of Francis, fed upon the romances of chivalry that constituted his favorite reading, called up the picture of a brilliant future, wherein gallant deeds in arms should place him among the most renowned knights of Christendom. The ideal character he proposed for himself involving a certain regard for his word, Francis's mind revolted from imitating the plebeian duplicity of his wily predecessor, Louis the Eleventh—a king who enjoyed the undesirable reputation of never having made a promise which he intended in good faith to keep. The memory of the disingenuous manner in which Louis, by winking at the opposition of the Parliament of Paris, had suffered the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction to fail, in spite of his own solemn engagements to carry it into execution, was, undoubtedly, one of the leading motives inducing the young prince, at the very beginning of his reign, to adopt the arbitrary measures already spoken of in a preceding chapter, respecting the papal concordat. Not for half his kingdom, he repeatedly declared, would he break the pledge he had given his Holiness. It is not difficult, however, to reconcile the pertinacity of Francis, on this occasion, with the frequent and well authenticated instances of bad faith in his dealings with other monarchs.101

If his literary abilities were slender and his acquirements meagre, this king had at least the faculty of appreciating excellence in others. The scholars and wits whom, as we have seen, he succeeded in gathering about him, repaid his munificence with lavish praise, couched in all manner of verse, and in every language employed in the civilized world. Even later historians have not hesitated to rate him much higher than his very moderate abilities would seem to warrant.²¹⁵²¹⁵ The small size of the brain and the depression of the forehead indicated in all the different contemporary portraits of Francis have been noticed by M. Niel (Portraits, i. 10), who dryly adds that in view of them he might have been inclined to withhold the eulogies he has inserted in his notice of the monarch, "had he not recollected in time that the laws of phrenology are not infallible." The portrait drawn by the biographer of his imperial rival is, perhaps, full as advantageous as a regard for truth will permit us to accept. "Francis," says Robertson, "notwithstanding the many errors conspicuous in his foreign policy and domestic administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, generous. He possessed dignity without pride, affability free from meanness, and courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him. Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects as a monarch, and, admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of maladministration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions, would have seemed unpardonable."²¹⁶²¹⁶ Robertson, Charles V., iii. 396.

Contrast between Francis I. and Charles V.

Two monarchs could scarcely be more dissimilar than were Francis and the Emperor Charles. "So great is the difference between these two princes," says the Venetian Giustiniano, "that, as her most serene majesty the Queen of Navarre, the king's sister, remarked to me when talking on the subject, one of the two must needs be created anew by God after the pattern of the other, before they could agree. For, whilst the most Christian king is reluctant to assume the burden of great thoughts or undertakings, and devotes himself much to the chase or to his own pleasures, the emperor never thinks of anything but business and aggrandize102ment; and, whereas the most Christian king is simple, open, and very liberal, and quite sufficiently inclined to defer to the judgment and counsel of others, the emperor is reserved, parsimonious, and obstinate in his opinions, governing by himself, rather than through any one else."²¹⁷²¹⁷ Relazione di Francia (1538), Albèri, i. 203, 204. It will be noticed that Giustiniano wrote at a period when the youthful ardor of Francis had somewhat cooled down.

This diversity of temperament and disposition had ample scope for manifestation during the protracted wars waged by the two monarchs with each other. Fit representative of the race to which he belonged, Francis was bold, adventurous, and almost resistless in the impetuosity of a first assault. But he soon tired of his undertakings, and relinquished to the cooler and more calculating Charles the solid fruits of victory.²¹⁸²¹⁸ The French king's proverbial ill-success gave rise to the taunt that his was "un esser savio in bocca e non in mente," but Marino Cavalli is charitably inclined to ascribe his misfortune rather to the lack of the right men to execute his designs, than to any fault of his own. Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo, i. 282.

Francis's religious convictions.

Of the possession of deep religious convictions I do not know that Francis has left any satisfactory evidence. That he was not strongly attached to the Roman church, that he thoroughly despised the ignorant monks, whose dissolute lives he well knew, that he had no extraordinary esteem for the Pope, all this is clear enough from many incidents of his life. It would even appear that, at one or two points, he might have been pleased to witness such a reformation of the church as could be effected without disturbing the existing order. To this he was the more inclined, that he found almost all the men distinguished for their learning arrayed on the side of the "new doctrines," as they were styled, while the pretorian legion of the papacy was headed by the opponents of letters.

His fear of innovation.

It will be found, however, that several circumstances tended to counteract or reverse the king's favorable prepossessions. Not least influential was a pernicious sentiment studiously instilled in his mind by those whose material interests were all on the side of the maintenance of the existing103 system—that a change of religion necessarily involves a change of government. We shall hear much during the century of this lying political axiom. When Francis, in his irritation at the Pope, suggested, on one occasion, to the Nuncio, that he might be compelled to follow the example Henry the Eighth, of England, had set him, and permit the spread of the "Lutheran" religion in France, the astute prelate replied: "Sire, to speak with all frankness, you would be the first to repent your rash step. Your loss would be greater than the Pope's; for a new religion established in the midst of a people involves nothing short of a change of prince."²¹⁹²¹⁹ "Sire, vous en seriez marri le premier, et vous en prendroit très mal, et y perdriez plus que le pape; car une nouvelle religion, mise parmi un peuple, ne demande après que changement du prince." Brantôme, M. l'Admiral de Chastillon, Œuvres, ix. 202. And the same author that records this incident tells us that Francis hated the Lutheran "heresy," and used to say that this, like every other new sect, tended more to the destruction of kingdoms than to the edification of souls.²²⁰²²⁰ Brantôme, Femmes illustres: Marguerite, reine de Navarre. Also Homines ill.: François premier (Œuvres, vii. 256, 257). Nor must it be overlooked that Francis doubtless felt strongly confirmed in his persuasion, by the rash and disorderly acts of some restless and inconsiderate spirits such as are wont eagerly to embrace any new belief. Not the peasants' insurrections in Germany alone, but as well the excesses of the iconoclasts, and the imprudence of the authors of the famous placards of 1534, although their acts were distinctly repudiated by the vast majority of the French reformers, inflicted irretrievable damage, by furnishing plausible arguments to those who accused the Protestants of being authors or abettors of riot and confusion.

His loose morals.

A second reason of the early estrangement of Francis from the "new doctrines" has more frequently been overlooked. The rigid code of morals which the reformers established, and which John Calvin attempted to make in Geneva the law of the state, repelled a prince who, though twice married and both times to women devoted to his interests and faithful to their vows, treated his lawful wives with open neglect, and preferred to consort with perfidious mistresses, who104 sold to the enemy for money his confidential disclosures—a prince who, not satisfied with introducing excesses until then unheard of among his nobles, was not ashamed to bestow the royal bounty upon the professed head of the degraded women whom he allowed to accompany the court from place to place.²²¹²²¹ The Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., v. 380, 381, publishes from a MS. in the library of the Louvre, an order from Francis I., countersigned by Bayard, directing his treasurer to pay to "Cecille de Viefville, dame des filles de joye suivans nostre court," the sum of forty-five livres tournois. This gift is to be shared with "les autres femmes de sa voccation," as she and they shall see fit, and to be received as "a New-Year's present for the first of January past, such as it has been customary from all time to make." The last clause may have been inserted for the purpose of palliating the disgraceful usage. This precious document is followed by Cecile's receipt, dated, like the order, Hesdin, February 18, 1539 (1540 New Style).

His anxiety to obtain the support of the Pope.

If to these two motives we add a third—the desire of the king to avail himself of the important influence of the Roman pontiff upon the politics of Europe—we shall be at no loss to account for the singular fact that the brother of Margaret of Angoulême, in spite of his sister's entreaties and the promptings of his own better feeling—at times in defiance of his own manifest advantage—became during the later part of his reign the first of that long line of persecutors of whom the Huguenots were the unhappy victims.

Studious disposition of Margaret.

Margaret was two years older than her brother. Born April 11, 1492, in the city of Angoulême, she enjoyed, in common with Francis, all the opportunities of liberal culture afforded by her exalted station. These opportunities her keener intellect enabled her to improve far better than the future king. While Francis was indulging his passion for the chase, in company with Robert de la Marck, "the Boar of the Ardennes," Margaret was patiently applying herself to study. It is not always easy to determine how much is to be set down as truth, and how much belongs to the category of fiction, in the current stories of the scholarly attainments of princely personages. But there is good reason in the present case to believe that, unlike most of the ladies of her age that were reputed prodigies of learning, Margaret of Angoulême did not confine herself to the modern languages, but became pro105ficient in Latin, besides acquiring some notion of Greek and Hebrew. By extensive reading, and through intercourse with the best living masters of the French language, she made herself a graceful writer. She was, moreover, a poet of no mean pretensions, as her verses, often comparing favorably with those of Clément Marot, abundantly testify. It was, however, to the higher walks of philosophical and religious thought that Margaret felt most strongly drawn. Could implicit credit be given to the partial praises of her professed eulogist, Charles de Sainte-Marthe, who owed his escape from the stake to her powerful intercession, we might affirm that the contemplation of the sublime truths of Revelation early influenced her entire character, and that "the Spirit of God began then to manifest His presence in her eyes, her expression, her walk, her conversation—in a word, in all her actions."²²²²²² Ch. de Sainte-Marthe, Oraison funèbre, 1550, apud Génin, i. 3.

Her personal appearance.

But, whatever may have been the precocious virtues of Margaret at the age of fifteen, it is certain that when, by her brother's elevation to the throne, she was introduced to the foremost place at court, it was her remarkable qualities of heart, quite as much as her recognized mental abilities, that called forth universal admiration. Her personal appearance, it is true, was a favorite subject for the encomium of poets; but her portraits fail to justify their panegyrics, and convey no impression of beauty. The features are large, the nose as conspicuously long as her brother's; yet the sweetness of expression, upon which Marot is careful chiefly to dwell in one of his elegant poetical epistles, is not less noticeable.²²³²²³ 106

Her political Influence.

In the conduct of public affairs Margaret took no insignificant part. Francis was accustomed so uniformly to entrust his mother and sister with important state secrets, that to the powerful council thus firmly united by filial and fraternal ties the term "Trinity" was applied, not only by the courtiers, but by the royal family itself.²²⁴²²⁴ Vie politique de Marg. d' Angoulême, by Leroux de Lincy, prefixed to the Heptaméron (Ed. of the Soc. des bibliophiles), i. p. lxiv. Foreign diplomatists extolled Margaret's intelligent statesmanship, and asserted that she was consulted on every occasion.²²⁵²²⁵ "La serenissima regina di Navarra ... è donna di molto valore, e spirito grande, e che intervienne in tutti i consigli." Relaz. di Francesco Giustiniano, 1538, Albèri, i. 203. It is a substantial claim of Margaret to the respect of posterity, that the influence thus enjoyed was, apparently, never prostituted to the advancement of selfish ends, but constantly exerted in the interest of learning, humanity, and religious liberty.

Margaret was first married, in 1509, to the Duke of Alençon, a prince whose cowardice on the battle-field of Pavia (1525), where he commanded the French left wing, is said to have been the principal cause of the defeat and capture of his royal brother-in-law. He made good his own escape, only to die, at Lyons, of disease induced by exposure and aggravated by bitter mortification. The next two years were spent by Margaret in unremitting efforts to secure her brother's release. With this object in view she obtained from the emperor a safe-conduct enabling her to visit and console Francis in his imprisonment at Madrid, and endeavor to settle with his captor the terms of his ransom. But, while admiring her sisterly devotion, Charles showed little disposition to yield to her solicitations. In fact, he even issued an order to seize her person the moment the term of her safe-conduct should expire—a peril avoided by the duchess only by forced marches. As it was, she crossed the frontier, it is said, a single hour before the critical time. The motive of this signal breach of imperial courtesy107 was, doubtless, the well-founded belief that Margaret was bearing home to France a royal abdication in favor of the Dauphin.²²⁶²²⁶ The document contained a proviso that, should Francis be liberated, the Dauphin was to restore to him the sovereignty for the term of his natural life. It was dated Madrid, November, 1525. Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois, etc., xii. 237-244.

Margaret marries Henry of Navarre.

Early in 1527, Margaret was married with great pomp to Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre.²²⁷²²⁷ "Le mercredy penultiesme jour de janvier, au dict an, ils furent espousez an diet lieu de Saint Germain (en Laye). Après furent faictes jouxtes et tournois et gros triomphes par l'espace de huict jours ou environ." Journal d'un bourgeois, 302. Olhagaray states the date differently, viz., January 24th; ubi infra, 488. The match would seem to have been prompted by love and admiration on her side; for the groom had performed a romantic exploit in effecting his escape from prison after his capture at Pavia.²²⁸²²⁸ See Olhagaray, Histoire de Foix, Béarn, et Navarre (Paris, 1609), 487. In spite of the great disparity between the ages of Margaret and her husband,²²⁹²²⁹ He was born April, 1503, and was consequently eleven years younger than Margaret. the union was congenial, and added greatly to the power and resources of the latter. The duchies of Alençon and Berry more than equalled in extent the actual domain of the King of Navarre; for, from the time when Ferdinand the Catholic (in July, 1512) wrested from brave Catharine of Foix and her inefficient husband John²³⁰²³⁰ Catharine's bitter reproach addressed to her husband has become famous: "Had I been king, and you queen, we had been reigning in Navarre at this moment." Prescott, Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. 353. Olhagaray gives another of her speeches: "O Roy vous demeurés Jean d'Albret, et ne pensés plus au Royaume de Navarre que vous avez perdu par vostre nonchalance." Ubi supra, 455. all their possessions on the southern slope of the Pyrenees,²³¹²³¹ The Spanish conquest of Navarre is narrated at length by Prescott, Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, iii. 347-367. See also Olhagaray, 454, etc., and Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrénées, iv. 233-271. It will be borne in mind that the great crime of John d'Albret was his adhesion to Louis XII. of France, in his determined struggle with Julius II.; and that Ferdinand's title was justified by a pretended bull of this Pope giving the kingdoms of his enemies to be a prey to the first invader that might seize them in behalf of the Pontifical See. The bull, however, is now generally admitted to be a Spanish forgery. See Prescott, ubi supra. Baron A. de Ruble observes (Mém. de La Huguerye, 1, note): "On sait aujourd'hui que cette bulle est apocryphe." the authority108 of the titular monarch was respected only in the mountainous district of which Pau was the capital, and to which the names of Béarn or French Navarre are indifferently applied. The union thus auspiciously begun lasted, unbroken by domestic contention, until the death of Margaret, in 1549;²³²²³² Brantôme does, indeed, accuse Henry of using severity toward his wife, on account of her religious innovations, until threatened with the displeasure of Francis; but the truth seems to be that the King of Navarre was himself not ill-disposed to the religious reformation. and the pompous ceremonial attending the queen's obsequies is said to have been a sincere attestation of the universal sorrow affecting the King of Navarre and his subjects alike.

She corresponds with Bishop Briçonnet.

It was through the instrumentality of the Bishop of Meaux that Margaret of Angoulême was first drawn into sympathy with the reformatory movement. Unsatisfied with herself and with the influences surrounding her, she sought in Briçonnet a spiritual adviser and guide. The prelate, in the abstruse and almost unintelligible language of exaggerated mysticism, endeavored to fulfil the trust. His prolix correspondence still exists in manuscript in the National Library of Paris, together with the replies of his royal penitent. Its incomprehensibility may perhaps forever preclude the publication of the greater part;²³³²³³ M. Herminjard has been criticised for inserting too many of Bishop Briçonnet's epistles in the first volume of his Correspondance des réformateurs dans les pays de langue française. M. Génin also gives specimens of the bishop's bombast, observing maliciously: "Si Briçonnet argumenta en pareil style aux conciles de Pise et du Latran, il dut embarrasser beaucoup ses adversaires." Lettres de Marg. d'Angoulême, i. 128. but we can readily forgive the bishop's absurdities and far-fetched conceits, when we find him in his letters leading Margaret to the Holy Scriptures as the only source of spiritual strength, and enjoining a humble and docile reception of its teachings.

Luther's teachings condemned by the Sorbonne.

On the fifteenth of April, 1521, the University of Paris, whose opinion respecting Luther's tenets the entire Christian world had for two years been anxiously expecting, pronounced its solemn decision. It condemned the writings of the German monk to the flames, on the ground that they were seductive, insulting to the hierarchy,109 contrary to Scripture, and schismatic. It likened his latest production, De Captivitate Babylonica, to Alcoran. It branded as preposterous the notion that God had reserved the discovery of what is needful to the salvation of the faithful for Martin Luther to make; as though Christ had left his spouse, the Church, so many centuries, and until now, in the darkness and blindness of error. Such sentiments as he uttered were a denial of the first principles of the faith, an unblushing profession of impiety, an arrogance so impious that it must be repressed by chains and censures—nay, by fire and by flame, rather than refuted by argument.²³⁴²³⁴ "O impiam et inverecundam arrogantiam," etc. See chapter I., p. 24. A long list of heretical propositions selected from Luther's works was appended.²³⁵²³⁵ Determinatio Facultatis, etc., Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 10, etc.; Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum (Opera Melanchthonis), i. 366, etc., 371, etc.

Melanchthon's defence.

In the month of June following, Melanchthon replied to the Sorbonne's condemnation. He declared that, could the great Gerson and his illustrious associates and predecessors rise from the dead, they would fail to recognize in the present race of theologians their legitimate offspring, and that they would deplore the misfortune of the university as well as of the whole of Christendom, in that sophists had usurped the place of theologians, and slanderers the seat of Christian doctors. As for the silly letter prefixed to the decree, the reformer wrote, it is a feeble production full of womanish fury: "He pretends to the sole possession of wisdom. He contemns us. He is a Manichæan, a Montanist; he is mad. Let him be compelled by fire and flame." Who could refrain from derisive laughter at the unmanly and truly monkish weakness of such threats?²³⁶²³⁶ Adversus furiosum Parisiensium theologastrorum decretum Philippi Melanchthonis pro Luthero apologia, Bretschneider, i. 399-416.

Regency of Louise de Savoie.

In the summer of 1523 the king, in order to provide for the government of France during his expected absence from the capital, appointed his mother temporary regent—a dignity which Louise de Savoie enjoyed more than once during Francis's reign. The chancellor, Antoine Duprat, embraced the opportunity to persuade the queen mother110 that she could not better atone for the irregularities of her own life than by enforcing submission to the authority of the papal church. What causes had contributed to the very radical change apparently effected in her mental attitude to the established ecclesiastical system, since she had in the preceding December discovered the monks, of whatever color their cowl might be, to be arrant "hypocrites" and the most "dangerous generation of human kind"—if, indeed, any such change in her mental attitude had really taken place at all, and her present zeal was not altogether assumed from political motives—we have not the means of determining with certainty. However this may be, she was now induced to take a much more decided stand than Francis had ever taken in opposition to the reformed doctrines, of whose spread, not only in Meaux and other cities in the provinces, but even in Paris, both in the schools of learning and without, there began to be symptoms alarming to the hierarchy.

The Sorbonne's recommendations for the extirpation of heresy.

As a preliminary step, the regent sent her confessor, Friar Gilbert Nicolai, to the Sorbonne, with instructions to consult it respecting "the means to be employed for purging this very Christian realm of the damnable doctrine of Luther." It need scarcely be said that the message was received with great delight. The theological doctors soon replied, rendering thanks to Almighty God for having inspired Louise with the holy purpose of executing whatever might be found most likely to promote God's honor and the prosperity of France.²³⁷²³⁷ Lettre de la faculté de théologie à la reine, Oct. 7, 1523, Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 16, 17. What measures did they propose to her as best calculated to accomplish this laudable end? Sermons, disputations, books, and other scholastic means, they write, may be employed in the refutation of the errors of Luther, as indeed they are every day employed, at the Sorbonne's instigation, and from this instrumentality some good effects may be expected; but since, after all, neither sermons nor books, however learned and conclusive, compel any person to renounce his heretical views, more practical and coercive measures must be adopted if the object is to be attained. All111 royal officers must be enjoined strictly to enforce every order promulgated against heretics. The prelates must be urged to demand, on pain of excommunication, the surrender of all books of Luther or his supporters found in their dioceses. Meanwhile, the highest ecclesiastical censures are to be directed against those who in any way uphold the heterodox belief. It is only in this way that hope can reasonably be entertained of suppressing this pernicious innovation, which may yet inflict still greater evils upon unfortunate France; since the Scriptures tell us that pestilence, famine, and war served as a rod for the punishment of God's chosen nation of old, whenever it forsook the pure precepts of the law given by the Almighty.

In reply to another inquiry made by the regent at the same time, the Sorbonne enters into greater detail. If any one complains that he is unjustly accused of favoring the heresy that has recently appeared, let him clear himself by following St. Paul's example, who, when brought to the knowledge of the truth, instantly undertook the defence of what he had ignorantly persecuted. Rumors that some persons in high places are friendly to the spread of the new errors have gained lamentable currency, both at home and abroad. They have obtained confirmation from the praise lately lavished by "some great personages" upon the doctrine of Luther, and the blame poured upon its opponents. The execution of the king's order for the burning of Luther's books has been singularly delayed. Worst of all have been the obstacles placed in the way of the pious efforts of the prelates, either without the consent of the king, or by him ill-advised—for example, in the proceedings of the Bishop of Paris against Louis de Berquin. Similar impediments have been interposed to prevent the condemnation by parliament and university of the printed works of this same Berquin and of Lefèvre d'Étaples; while, as if to make the affair still more scandalous, two treatises lately written in refutation of Luther's doctrines have been seized in the name of the king and by his authority.²³⁸²³⁸ Articules concernans les responces que après meure délibération a fait la faculté de théologie. Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 17-21.

Wide circulation of Luther's works.

Such were the complaints of the theological faculty, such the112 means suggested for the destruction of the new leaven that was already beginning to assert its mission to permeate society. There were certainly sufficient grounds for apprehension. The works of Luther, as we have before seen, had early been translated into French, and a contemporary writer confirms the statement that they had already been widely disseminated.²³⁹²³⁹ "Qui [les livres de Luther] furent imprimez et publiez par toutes les villes d'Alemaigne et par tout le royaume de France." Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 94. An order of parliament, referred to in its communication to the regent, had indeed been published, to the sound of the trumpet, throughout the city of Paris (August 3, 1521), strictly commanding all booksellers, printers, and others that might have copies in their possession, to give them up within the space of eight days, on pain of imprisonment and fine.²⁴⁰²⁴⁰ Ibid., 104. But even this measure failed to accomplish the desired result. The Reformation was silently extending its influence, as some significant events sufficiently proved.

Lambert, the first French monk to embrace the Reformation.

At Avignon, copies of several of the writings of Martin Luther fell into the hands of François Lambert, son of a former private secretary of the papal legate entrusted with the government of the Comtât Venaissin. He was a man of vivid imagination, keen religious sensibilities, and marked oratorical powers. He had at the age of fifteen been so deeply impressed by the saintly appearance of the Franciscans as to seek admission to their monastery as a novice. No sooner did he assume, a year later (1503), the irrevocable vows that constituted him a monk, than his disenchantment began. According to his own account, the quarrelsome and debauched friars no longer felt any of the solicitude they had previously entertained lest the knowledge of their excesses should deter him from embracing a "religious" life. A few years later Lambert became a preacher, and having, through a somewhat careful study of the Holy Scriptures, embraced more evangelical views than were held by most of his order, began to deliver discourses as well received by the people as they were hated by his fellow-monks. Great was the outcry113 against him when he openly denounced the misdeeds of a worthless vender of papal indulgences; still greater when copies of Luther's treatises were found in his possession. The books were seized, sealed, condemned, and burned, although scarcely a glance had been vouchsafed at their contents. It was enough for the monkish judges to cry: "They are heretical! They are heretical!" "Nevertheless," exclaims honest Lambert, kindling with indignation at the remembrance of the scene, "I confidently assert that those same books of Luther contain more of pure theology than all the writings of all the monks that have lived since the creation of the world."²⁴¹²⁴¹ "Ego confidenter loquar, credens in Domino quod verum sit, quod plus syncerioris theologiæ in libris prædictis continetur, quam in omnibus scriptis omnium monachorum, qui a principio fuerunt."

He is also the first to renounce celibacy.

Lambert had made full trial of the monastic life. He had even immured himself for some time in a Carthusian retreat, but found its inmates in no respect superior to the Franciscans. At last an opportunity for escape offered. In 1522, when a score of years had passed since he entered upon his novitiate, he was despatched with letters to the general of his order. Instead of fulfilling his commission, he traversed Switzerland, and made his way to Wittemberg, where he satisfied the desire he had long entertained, of meeting the great reformer to whose works he owed his own spiritual enlightenment. Full of zeal for the propagation of the doctrines he had embraced, Lambert, not long after (1524), established himself at Metz as a favorable point from which France might be influenced. But the commotion excited by his opponents—perhaps, also, his own lack of prudence—compelled him within a fortnight to flee to Strasbourg.²⁴²²⁴² A contemporary song (1525) denouncing woes against Strasbourg for harboring the "Lutherans," contains these doggerel lines: Here, more secure, but scarcely more judicious, he busied himself with sending over the French borders numbers of tracts composed or translated by himself, and addressing to114 Francis and the chief persons of his court appeals which, doubtless, rarely if ever reached their eyes.²⁴³²⁴³ Margaret of Angoulême, out of all patience, at last sent word requesting him to desist from these untimely letters to her brother—"qu'il n'escripva plus ny au Roy ny à aultres." Toussain to Farel, December 17, 1524, Herminjard, i. 313. In another field of labor, to which the Landgrave of Hesse called him, François Lambert performed services far more important than any he was permitted to render his native land. As the first French monk to throw aside his habit—above all, as the first to renounce celibacy and defend in a published treatise the step he had taken (1523), no French reformer, even among those of far greater abilities and wider influence, was regarded by the adherents of the Roman Catholic Church with so intense a dislike.²⁴⁴²⁴⁴ Witness the malignant satisfaction exhibited by the Nuncio Aleander when noting the reported death of Lambert and his entire family: "Mi ha detto hoggi, che Francesco Lamberto d'Avignon, qual fugito dal monasterio, et ito astar un tempo con Luther ha scritto infiniti libri contra la Chiesa di Dio, quest' anno in terra del Langravio di Hassia insieme con la moglie et figliuoli tutti miserabilmente, et come da miracolo, in gran calamità son crepati." Aleander to Sanga, Brussels, November 25, 1531, Vatican Library, Laemmer, Monumenta, 90. See Lambert's autobiographical sketch, entitled: "Rationes propter quas Minoritarum conversationem habitumque rejecit," Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 21-28, and translated, Herminjard, i. 118, etc.; F. W. Hassencamp, Fr. Lambert von Avignon; Haag, France prot., s. v.; Baum, Lambert von Avignon.

The firm hold which the Reformation was gaining on the population of several places of great importance, close upon the eastern frontiers of the kingdom, was a portent of evil in the eyes of the Sorbonne; for Metz, St. Hippolyte, and Montbéliard, all destined to be absorbed in the growing territories of France, were already bound to it by close ties of commercial intercourse.

Jean Châtellain, of Metz.

In Metz the powerful appeals of an Augustinian monk, Jean Châtellain, had powerfully moved the masses. He was as eloquent as he was learned, as commanding in appearance as fearless in the expression of his belief.²⁴⁵²⁴⁵ So says Lambert, who states: "Novi ilium ex intimis; fuit enim mihi perinde atque Jonathas Davidi." Præf. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium antiquarium, vi. 490. The attempt to molest him would have proved a very dangerous115 one for the clergy of Metz to make; for the enthusiasm of the laity in his support knew no bounds, and the churchmen prudently avoided giving it an occasion for manifestation. But, no sooner had Châtellain been induced on some pretext to leave the safe protection of the walls, than a friar of his own order and monastery betrayed him to the bishop.²⁴⁶²⁴⁶ The Bishop of Metz was John, Cardinal of Lorraine, uncle of the more notorious Cardinal Charles. Châtellain had written a poetical chronicle of Metz reaching to the year 1524. A friendly hand continued it, and recorded the fate of Châtellain, described as He was hurriedly taken to Nommeny, and thence to Vic for trial and execution. In vain did the Inquisitor of the Faith strive to shake his constancy. His judges were forced to liken their incorrigible prisoner to the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. As "a preacher of false doctrines," an "apostate" and a "liar toward God Almighty," they declared him excommunicated and deprived of whatever ecclesiastical benefices he might hold. The faithful compiler of the French martyrology gives in accurate, but painful, detail the successive steps by which Châtellain was stripped of the various prerogatives conferred upon him in ordination. I shall not repeat the story of sacred vessels placed in his hands only to be hastily snatched from them, of the scraping of his fingers supposed to remove the grace of consecration, of chasuble and stole indignantly taken away—in short, of all the petty devices of a malice at which the mind wearies and the heart sickens. It was perhaps a fitting sequel to the ceremony that the degrading bishop should hand his victim over to the representative of the secular arm to be put to death, with a hypocritical recommendation to mercy: "Lord Judge, we entreat you as affectionately as we can, as well by the love of God, as from pity and compassion, and out of respect for our prayers, that you do this wretched man no injury tending to death or the mutilation of his body."²⁴⁷²⁴⁷ Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 44-46. The prayer was granted—accord116ing to the intent of the petitioner. On the twelfth of January, 1525, Châtellain was led to the place of execution, as cheerful in demeanor, the witnesses said, as if walking to a feast. At the stake he knelt and offered a short prayer, then met his horrible sentence with a constancy that won many converts to the faith for which he had suffered. At the news of the fate of their admired teacher, the citizens of Metz could not contain their rage. A tumultuous scene ensued, in which it was well that the ecclesiastics—there were more than nine hundred within the walls²⁴⁸²⁴⁸ "Quorum (Antichristi prophetæ) fæx in eadem civitate tam multa est, ut eosdem nongentos esse ferant." Lamberti præf. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium Antiq., vi. 485, etc.—escaped with no greater injury at the hands of the angry populace than some passing insults. John Vedast, an evangelical teacher, was at that time in confinement, reserved for a similar doom to that of Châtellain. He was liberated by the people, who, in a body membering several thousand men, visited his prison and enabled him to escape to a safe refuge. It was not until a strong detachment of troops had been thrown into the city that the burgesses were reduced to submission.²⁴⁹²⁴⁹ Ibid., ubi supra. "None the less," admits a Roman Catholic historian, "did Lutheranism spread over the entire district of Metz."²⁵⁰²⁵⁰ Hist. de l'église gallicane, apud Gaillard, vi. 404.

Tragic end of Wolfgang Schuch.

At St. Hippolyte, a town near the Swiss frontier, dependent upon the Duke of Lorraine, similar success and a similarly tragic end were the results of the zealous labors of Wolfgang Schuch, a priest of German extraction. The "good duke" Antoine, having been led to confound the peaceable disciples of Schuch with the revolted peasants, whose ravages had excited widespread alarm throughout Germany, publicly proclaimed his intention of visiting the town that harbored them with fire and sword. To propitiate him by removing his misapprehension, Schuch wrote to the duke a singularly touching letter containing a candid exposition of the religion he professed;²⁵¹²⁵¹ The letter is given by Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 50; also Gerdes., iv. (Doc), 48-50. but finding that his missive had been of no avail, he resolved to immolate himself in behalf of his flock.117 At Nancy, the capital of the duchy, whither he had gone to dissuade Antoine from executing his savage threats, he was thrown into a loathsome dungeon, while the University of Paris was consulted respecting the soundness of thirty-one propositions extracted from his writings by the Inquisitor of Lorraine. On the nineteenth of August, 1525—the theologians of the Sorbonne having some months before reported unfavorably upon the theses submitted to them—Wolfgang Schuch was consigned to the flames.²⁵²²⁵² Gerdes., iv. 51; Crespin, fol. 49-52; Haag, s. v.

Farel at Montbéliard.

Less sanguinary results attended the Reformation at Montbéliard, where the indefatigable Farel was the chief actor. One of those highly dramatic incidents, in which the checkered life of this remarkable man abounds, is said to have preceded his withdrawal from the city. Happening, on St. Anthony's day, to meet, upon a bridge spanning a narrow stream in the neighborhood, a solemn procession headed by priests chanting the praises of the saint whose effigy they bore aloft, Farel was seized with an uncontrollable desire to arrest the impious service. Snatching the image from the hands of ecclesiastics who were little prepared for so sudden an onslaught, he indignantly cried, "Wretched idolaters, will you never forsake your idolatry?" At the same instant he threw the saint into the water, before the astonished devotees had time to interfere. Had not some one just then opportunely raised the shout, "The saint is drowning," it might have gone hard with the fearless iconoclast.²⁵³²⁵³ The incident, it must be confessed, is by no means above suspicion (see Kirchhofer, Life of Wm. Farel, London ed., p. 40, and Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, p. 6), although, as Merle d'Aubigné observes, Hist. of the Reformation, bk. xii. c. 13, it is in keeping with Farel's character. Œcolampadius, foreseeing the possibility of his indulging in such inconsiderate words and actions, warned him, as early as Aug. 19, 1524, to temper his zeal with mildness, and to treat his opponents rather as was most expedient, than as they deserved to be treated. Herminjard, i. 265-267.

The Reformation was thus gaining a foothold in the bishopric of Metz, in the duchy of Lorraine, and the county of Montbéliard—districts as yet independent of France, in which country they were subsequently merged. But, if suffered to be118 victorious at these important points, it might readily cross the borders and spread with irresistible force to the contiguous parts of Francis's dominions. Nearer home, the reformatory movement at Meaux, though abandoned by the bishop who had fostered its first development, was not wholly suppressed. In Lyons and Grenoble, Friar Aimé Maigret had preached such evangelical sermons—in French to the people and in Latin to the Parliament of Dauphiny—that he had been sent to Paris to be examined by the Sorbonne. The primate and his council had seen with solicitude that from the ashes of Waldo and the Poor Men of Lyons "very many new shoots were springing up,"²⁵⁴²⁵⁴ "Ceste hérésie luthérienne, qui commance fort à pulluler par deça. Et jam plures de cineribus valde (Valdo) renascuntur plantulæ." Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Noel Beda, January 23, 1525. The title of primate was assumed both by the Archbishop of Sens and the Archbishop of Lyons, the former having apparently the better claim and enjoying nominally a Wider supremacy (as "Primat des Gaules et de Germanie"); but the latter gradually vindicated his pretension to spiritual authority over most of France. See Encyclopédie méthodique, s. v. Sens, and Lyon. and called for some signal act of severity to repress the growing evil.

Pierre Caroli lectures on the Psalms.

In Paris itself the Sorbonne found reason for alarm. The sympathy of Margaret of Angoulême with the friends of progress was recognized. It had already availed for the deliverance of Louis de Berquin, whose remarkable history will find a place in the next chapter. Nor did the redoubted syndic of the theological faculty, Beda, or Bédier, reign without a rival in the academic halls. Pierre Caroli, one of the doctors invited by Briçonnet to Meaux, a clever wrangler, and never better pleased than when involved in controversy, albeit a man of shallow religious convictions and signal instability, wearied out by his counter-plots the illustrious heresy-hunter. When forbidden to preach, Caroli opened a course of lectures upon the Psalms in the Collége de Cambray. Having then been interdicted from continuing his prelections, he made the modest request to be permitted to finish the exposition of the 22d Psalm, which he had begun. This being refused, the disputatious doctor posted the following notice on the doors of the college: "Pierre Caroli, wishing to conform to the119 orders of the sacred faculty, ceases to teach. He will resume his lectures (when it shall please God) where he left off, at the verse, 'They pierced my hands and my feet.'"²⁵⁵²⁵⁵ Gaillard, Hist. de François premier, vi. 408.

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