Chapter 14

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

During the latter period of Farel’s sojourn at Montbeliard, great events were passing on the theater of the world. Lannoy and Pescara, Charles’s generals, having quitted France on the approach of Francis I, this prince had crossed the Alps, and blockaded Pavia. On the 24th of February 1525, he was attacked by Pescara. Bonnivet, La Tremouille, Palisse, and Lescure died fighting round their sovereign. The Duke of Alencon, Margaret’s husband, the first prince of the blood, had fled with the rear-guard, and gone to die of shame and grief at Lyons; and Francis, thrown from his horse, had surrendered his sword to Charles Lannoy, vice-roy of Naples, who received it kneeling. The King of France was prisoner to the emperor. His captivity seemed the greatest of misfortunes. “Nothing is left me but honor and life,” wrote the king to his mother. But no one felt a keener sorrow than Margaret. The glory of her country tarnished, France without a monarch and exposed to the greatest dangers, her beloved brother the captive of his haughty enemy, her husband dishonored and dead What bitter thoughts were these! But she had a comforter; and while her brother to console himself repeated: “Tout est perdu, fors l’honneur, all is lost save honor!” she was able to say:—Fors Jesus seul, mon frere, fils de Dieu! Save Christ alone, dear brother, Son of God!HRSCV3 479.1

Margaret thought that in the hour of trial Francis might receive the Word of God. A few months before, the king had already betrayed religious sentiments on the death of his daughter the Princess Charlotte. The Duchess of Alencon, having concealed the child’s sickness from him, Francis, who no doubt suspected something, dreamed three several times that his daughter said to him: “Farewell, my king, I am going to paradise.” He guessed that she was dead, and gave way to “extreme grief,” but wrote to his sister that “he would rather die than desire to have her in this world contrary to the will of God, whose name be blessed.”HRSCV3 479.2

Margaret thought that the terrible disaster of Pavia would complete what the first trial had begun; and most earnestly desiring that the Word of God might be with Francis in his prison, she wrote a very touching letter, which deserves to be preserved, to Marshal Montmorency, who had been taken prisoner along with the king. It is very probable that she speaks of herself and Bishop Briconnet in the graceful allegory which serves as an introduction to her request:—HRSCV3 479.3

“Dear cousin, there is a certain very devout hermit who for these three years past has been constantly urging a man whom I know to pray to God for the king, which he has done; and he is assured that if it pleases the king by way of devotion, daily, when in his closet, to read the epistles of St. Paul, he will be delivered to the glory of God; for He promises in His Gospel, that whosoever loveth the truth, the truth shall make him free. And forasmuch as I think he has them not, I send you mine, begging you to entreat him on my part that he will read them, and I firmly believe that the Holy Ghost, which abideth in the letter, will do by him as great things as he has done by those who wrote them; for God is not less powerful or good than He has been, and his promises never deceive. He has humbled you by captivity, but he has not forsaken you, giving you patience and hope in his goodness, which is always accompanied by consolation and a more perfect knowledge of Him, which I am sure is better than the king ever knows, having his mind less at liberty, on account of the imprisonment of the body.“Your good Cousin, Margaret.”HRSCV3 479.4

In such language did Margaret of Valois, full of anxiety for the salvation of her brother’s soul, address the king after the battle of Pavia. It is unfortunate that her letter and the Epistles of St. Paul were not sent direct to Francis; she could not have selected a worse medium than Montmorency.HRSCV3 479.5

The letters which the king wrote from the Castle of Pizzighitone, where he was confined, afforded his sister some little consolation. At the beginning of April she wrote to him: “After the sorrow of the Passion this has been a Holy Ghost (i.e. a Pentecost), seeing the grace that our Lord has shown you.” But unhappily the prisoner did not find in the Word of God that truth which maketh free, and which Margaret so earnestly desired he might possess.HRSCV3 479.6

All France, princes, parliament, and people, was overwhelmed with consternation. Erelong, as in the first three ages of the Church, the calamity that had befallen the country was imputed to the Christians; and fanatical cries were heard on every side calling for blood, as a means of averting still greater disasters. The moment, therefore, was favorable; it was not enough to have dislodged the evangelical Christians from the three strong positions they had taken; it was necessary to take advantage of the general panic, to strike while the iron was hot, and sweep the whole kingdom clear of that opposition which had become so formidable to the papacy.HRSCV3 479.7

At the head of this conspiracy and of these clamors were Beda, Duchesne, and Lecouturier. These irreconcilable enemies of the Gospel flattered themselves they might easily obtain from public terror the victims that had been hitherto refused them. They instantly employed every device; conversations, fanatical harangues, lamentations, threats, defamatory writings, to excite the anger of the nation, and particularly of their governors. They vomited fire and flame against their adversaries, and covered them with the most scurrilous abuse. All means were good in their eyes; they picked out a few words here and there, neglecting the context that might explain the passage quoted; substituted expressions of their own for those of the doctors they criminated, and omitted or added, according as it was necessary to blacken their adversaries’ characters. We have this on the testimony of Erasmus himself.HRSCV3 480.1

Nothing excited their wrath so much as the fundamental doctrine of Christianity and of the Reformation,—salvation by grace. “When I see these three men,” said Beda, “Lefevre, Erasmus, and Luther, in other respects endowed with so penetrating a genius, uniting and conspiring against meritorious works, and resting all the weight of salvation on faith alone, I am no longer astonished that thousands of men, seduced by these doctrines, have learned to say: `Why should I fast and mortify my body?’ Let us banish from France this hateful doctrine of grace. This neglect of good works is a fatal delusion from the devil.”HRSCV3 480.2

In such language did the Syndic of the Sorbonne endeavour to fight against the faith. He was destined to find supporters in a debauched court, and in another part of the nation more respectable, but not less opposed to the Gospel; I mean those grave men, those rigid moralists, who, devoted to the study of laws and forms of jurisprudence, regard Christianity as no more than a system of legislation; the Church, as a moral police; and who, unable to adapt to those principles of jurisprudence which absorb their whole thoughts the doctrines of the spiritual inability of man, of the new birth, and of justification by faith, look upon them as fanciful dreams, dangerous to public morals and the prosperity of the state. This hostile tendency to the doctrine of grace was manifested in the sixteenth century by two very different excesses; in Italy and Poland by the doctrine of Socinus, the descendant of an illustrious family of lawyers at Sienna; and in France by the persecuting decrees and burning piles of the parliament.HRSCV3 480.3

The parliament, in fact, despising the great truths of the Gospel which the reformers announced, and thinking themselves called upon to do something in so overwhelming a catastrophe, presented an address to Louisa of Savoy, full of strong remonstrances on the conduct of the government with regard to the new doctrine. “Heresy,” said they, “has raised its head among us, and the king, by neglecting to bring the heretics to the scaffold, has drawn down the wrath of heaven upon the nation.”HRSCV3 480.4

At the same time the pulpits resounded with lamentations, threats, and maledictions; prompt and exemplary punishments were loudly called for. Martial Mazurier was particularly distinguished among the preachers of Paris; and endeavouring by his violence to efface the recollection of his former connection with the partisans of the Reformation, he declaimed against the “secret disciples of Luther.” “Do you know the rapid operation of this poison?” exclaimed he. “Do you know its potency? Well may we tremble for France; as it works with inconceivable activity, and in a short time may destroy thousands of souls.”HRSCV3 480.5

It was not difficult to excite the regent against the partisans of the Reformation. Her daughter Margaret, the first personage of the court, Louisa of Savoy herself, who had always been so devoted to the Roman pontiff, were pointed at by certain fanatics as countenancing Lefevre, Berquin, and the other innovators. Had she not read their tracts and their translations of the Bible? The queen-mother desired to clear herself of such outrageous suspicions. Already she had despatched her confessor to the Sorbonne to consult that body on the means of extirpating this heresy. “The damnable doctrine of Luther,” said she to the faculty, “is every day gaining new adherents.” The faculty smiled on the receipt of this message. Till then, its representations had not been listened to, and now their advice was humbly solicited in the matter. At length they held within their grasp that heresy they had so long desired to stifle. They commissioned Noel Beda to return an immediate answer to the regent. “Seeing that the sermons, the discussions, the books with which we have so often opposed heresy, have failed in destroying it,” said the fanatical syndic, “all the writings of the heretics should be prohibited by a royal proclamation; and if this means does not suffice, we must employ force and constraint against the persons of these false doctors; for those who resist the light must be subdued by torture and by terror.”HRSCV3 480.6

But Louisa had not waited for this reply. Francis had scarcely fallen into the hands of the emperor before she wrote to the pope to know his pleasure concerning the heretics. It was of great importance to Louisa’s policy to secure the favor of a pontiff who could raise all Italy against the victor of Pavia, and she was ready to conciliate him at the cost of a little French blood. The pope, delighted that he could wreak his vengeance in the “most christian kingdom” against a heresy that he could not destroy either in Switzerland or Germany, gave immediate orders for the introduction of the Inquisition into France, and addressed a brief to the parliament. At the same time Duprat, whom the pontiff had created cardinal, and on whom he had conferred the archbishopric of Sens, and a rich abbey, labored to respond to the favors of the court of Rome by the display of indefatigable animosity against the heretics. Thus the pope, the regent, the doctors of the Sorbonne, the parliament, and the chancellor, with the most ignorant and fanatical part of the nation, were conspiring together to ruin the Gospel and put its confessors to death.HRSCV3 481.1

The parliament took the lead. Nothing less than the first body in the kingdom was required to begin the campaign against this doctrine, and moreover, was it not their peculiar business, since the public safety was at stake? Accordingly the parliament, “influenced by a holy zeal and fervor against these novelties, issued a decree to the effect that the Bishop of Paris and the other prelates should be bound to commission Messieurs Philip Pot, president of requests, and Andrew Verjus, councillor, and Messieurs William Duchesne and Nicholas Leclerc, doctors of divinity, to institute and conduct the trial of those who should be tainted with the Lutheran doctrine.HRSCV3 481.2

“And that it might appear that these commissioners were acting rather under the authority of the Church than of the parliament, it has pleased his holiness to send his brief of the 20th of May 1525, approving of the appointment of the said commissioners.HRSCV3 481.3

“In consequence of which, all those who were declared Lutherans by the bishop or ecclesiastical judges to these deputies, were delivered over to the secular arm, that is to say, to the aforesaid parliament, which thereupon condemned them to be burnt alive.”HRSCV3 481.4

This is the language of a manuscript of the time.HRSCV3 481.5

Such was the terrible commission of inquiry appointed during the captivity of Francis I against the evangelical Christians of France on the ground of public safety. It was composed of two laymen and two ecclesiastics, and one of the latter was Duchesne, after Beda, the most fanatical doctor of the Sorbonne. They had sufficient modesty not to place him at their head, but his influence was only the more secure on that account.HRSCV3 481.6

Thus the machine was wound up; its springs were well prepared; death would be the result of each of its blows. It now became a question on whom they should make their first attack. Beda, Duchesne, and Leclerc, assisted by Philip Pot the president, and Andrew Verjus the councillor, met to deliberate on this important point. Was there not the Count of Montbrun, the old friend of Louis XII, and formerly ambassador at Rome,—Briconnet, bishop of Meaux? The committee of public safety, assembled in Paris in 1525, thought that by commencing with a man in so exalted a station, they would be sure to spread dismay throughout the kingdom. This was a sufficient reason, and the venerable bishop was impeached.HRSCV3 481.7

It is true that Briconnet had given guarantees of submission to Rome, to the parliament, and to the popular superstitions; but it was strongly suspected that he had done so merely to ward off the blow about to fall upon him, and that he was still countenancing heresy in secret. It would appear that, after giving way, he had partly regained his courage;—a circumstance quite in harmony with these irresolute characters, who are tossed about and driven to and fro, as the waves of the sea by the wind. Several acts were ascribed to him in different places that would have been the most signal retractation of his unhappy decrees of 1523 and 1524. The more eminent his rank in the Church and in the State, the more fatal was his example, and the more necessary also was it to obtain from him a striking recantation of his errors, or to inflict upon him a still more notorious punishment. The commission of inquiry eagerly collected the evidence against him. They took account of the kindly reception the bishop had given to the heretics; they stated that, a week after the superior of the Cordeliers had preached in St. Martin’s Church at Meaux, conformably to the instructions of the Sorbonne, to restore sound doctrine, Briconnet himself had gone into the pulpit, and publicly refuted the orator, calling him and the other Grayfriars bigots, hypocrites, and false prophets; and that, not content with this public affront, he had, through his official, summoned the superior to appear before him in person. It would even appear from a manuscript of the times that the bishop had gone much farther, and that in the autumn of 1524, accompanied by Lefevre of Etaples, he had spent three months in travelling through his diocese, and had burnt all the images, save the crucifix alone. Such daring conduct, which would prove Briconnet to have possessed great boldness combined with much timidity, cannot if it be true, fix upon him the blame attached to other image-breakers; for he was at the head of that Church whose superstitions he was reforming, and was acting in the sphere of his rights and duties.HRSCV3 481.8

Be that as it may, Briconnet could not fail of being guilty in the eyes of the enemies of the Gospel. He had not only attacked the Church in general; he had grappled with the Sorbonne itself, that body whose supreme law was its own glory and preservation. Accordingly it was delighted on hearing of the examination instituted against its adversary; and John Bochart, one of the most celebrated advocates of the times, supporting the charge against Briconnet before the parliament, cried out, elevating his voice: “Against the Faculty, neither the Bishop of Meaux nor any private individual may raise his head or open his mouth. Nor is the Faculty called upon to enter into discussion, to produce and set forth its reasons before the said bishop, who ought not to resist the wisdom of that holy society, which he should regard as aided of God.”HRSCV3 482.1

In consequence of this requisition, the parliament issued a decree on the 3rd October 1525, by which, after authorizing the arrest of all those who had been informed against, it ordered that the bishop should be interrogated by James Menager and Andrew Verjus, councillors of the court, touching the facts of which he was accused.HRSCV3 482.2

This decree of the parliament amazed the bishop. Briconnet, the ambassador of two kings—Briconnet, a bishop and a prince, the friend of Louis XII and Francis I—to submit to an examination by two councillors of the court! He who had hoped that God would kindle in the heart of the king, of his mother, and of his sister, a fire that would spread over the whole nation, now saw the nation turning against him to extinguish the flame which he had received from heaven. The king is a prisoner, his mother is at the head of the enemies of the Gospel, and Margaret, alarmed at the misfortunes that burst upon France, dares not ward off the blows that are about to fall on her dearest friends, and directed first against that spiritual father who has so often consoled her; or, if she dares, she cannot. Quite recently she had written to Briconnet a letter full of pious outpourings: “Oh! that my poor, lifeless heart could feel some spark of love, with which I desire it were burnt to ashes.” But now it was a question of literal burning. This mystic language was no longer in season; and whoever now desired to confess his faith, must brave the scaffold. The poor bishop, who had so earnestly hoped to see an evangelical reform gradually and gently making its way into every heart, was frightened, and trembled as he saw that he must now purchase it at the cost of his life. Never perhaps had this terrible thought occurred to him, and he recoiled from it in agony and affright.HRSCV3 482.3

Yet Briconnet had still one hope: if he were permitted to appear before the assembled chambers of parliament, as became a person of his rank, in that august and numerous court, he would be sure to find generous hearts responding to his appeal, and undertaking his defense. He therefore entreated the court to grant him this favor; but his enemies had equally reckoned on the issue of such a hearing. Had they not seen Luther appearing before the German diet and shaking the most determined hearts? On the watch to remove every chance of safety, they exerted themselves to such effect that the parliament refused Briconnet this favor by a decree dated the 25th of October 1525, in confirmation of the one previously issued.HRSCV3 482.4

Here then was the Bishop of Meaux referred like the humblest priest to the jurisdiction of James Menager and Andrew Verjus. These two lawyers, docile instruments in the hands of the Sorbonne, would not be moved by those higher considerations to which the whole chamber might have been sensible; they were matter of fact men: had the bishop differed from that society, or had he not? This is all they desire to know. Briconnet’s conviction was therefore secured.HRSCV3 482.5

While the parliament was thus holding the sword over the head of the bishop, the monks, priests, and doctors were not idle; they saw that Briconnet’s retractation would be of more service to them than his punishment. His death would only inflame the zeal of all those who held the same faith with him; but his apostasy would plunge them into the deepest discouragement. They went to work accordingly. They visited and entreated him, Martial Mazurier in particular endeavouring to make him fall, as he had done himself. There was no lack of arguments which might appear specious to Briconnet. Would he like to be deprived of his functions? Could he not, by remaining in the church, employ his influence with the king and the court to effect an incalculable amount of good? What would become of his old friends, when he was no longer in power? Might not his resistance compromise a reform, which, to be salutary and durable, should be carried out by the legitimate influence of the clergy? How many souls he would offend by resisting the Church; how many souls he would attract, on the contrary, by giving way! They, like himself, were anxious for a reform. All is advancing insensibly; at the court and in the city and provinces, everything is moving forward and would he in mere recklessness of heart destroy so fair a prospect! After all, they did not call upon him to sacrifice his opinions, but only to submit to the established order of the Church. Was it well in him, when France was laboring under so many reverses, to stir up new confusions? “In the name of religion, of your country, of your friends, and of the Reformation itself, be persuaded,” said they. By such sophisms are the noblest causes ruined.HRSCV3 482.6

Yet every one of these considerations had its influence on the mind of the bishop. The tempter, who desired to make our Saviour fall in the wilderness, thus presented himself to Briconnet in specious colors, but instead of saying with his Master: “Get thee behind me, Satan!” he listened, welcomed, and pondered on these suggestions. From that hour his fidelity was at an end.HRSCV3 483.1

Briconnet had never embarked with his whole heart, like Luther or Farel, in the movement that was then regenerating the Church; there was in him a certain mystical tendency which weakens men’s minds, and deprives them of that firmness and courage which proceed from faith alone based on the Word of God. The cross that he was called to take up that he might follow Christ was too heavy. Shaken, alarmed, stupefied, and distracted, he stumbled against the stone which had been artfully placed in his path he fell, and instead of throwing himself into the arms of Jesus, he threw himself into those of Mazurier, and by a shameful recantation sullied the glory of a noble faithfulness.HRSCV3 483.2

Thus fell Briconnet, the friend of Lefevre and of Margaret; thus the earliest supporter of the Gospel in France denied the glad tidings of grace, in the guilty thought that if he remained faithful, he would lose his influence over the Church, the court, and France. But what was represented to him as the salvation of his country, perhaps became its ruin. What would have been the result if Briconnet had possessed the courage of Luther? If one of the first bishops of France, beloved by the king and by the people, had ascended the scaffold, and had, like the little ones of the world, sealed the truth of the Gospel by a bold confession and a christian death, would not France herself have been moved; and the blood of the bishop becoming, like that of Polycarp and Cyprian, the seed of the Church, might we not have seen that country, so illustrious in many respects, emerging in the sixteenth century from that spiritual darkness with which it is still clouded?HRSCV3 483.3

Briconnet underwent a mere formal examination before James Menager and Andrew Verjus, who declared that he had sufficiently vindicated himself of the crime imputed to him. He was then subjected to penance, and assembled a synod in which he condemned Luther’s books, retracted all that he had taught contrary to the doctrine of the Church, restored the invocation of saints, endeavoured to bring back those who had forsaken the Romish worship, and wishing to leave no doubt of his reconciliation with the pope and the Sorbonne, kept a solemn fast on the eve of Corpus Christi, and gave orders for pompous processions, in which he appeared personally, still further testifying his faith by his magnificence and by every kind of devout observance. In his will he commended his soul to the Virgin Mary and to the heavenly choir of paradise, and desired that after his death (which happened in 1533) twelve hundred masses should be said for the repose of his soul.HRSCV3 483.4

The fall of Briconnet is perhaps the most memorable in the history of the Reformation. Nowhere else do we find a man so sincerely pious and so deeply engaged in the reform turning round so suddenly against it: yet we must clearly understand his character and his fall. Briconnet was, as regards Rome, what Lefevre was with respect to the Reformation. They were both persons of half-measures, properly belonging to neither party. The doctor of Etaples inclined towards the Word, while the Bishop of Meaux leaned to the hierarchy; and when these two men who touch each other were called upon to decide, the one ranged himself under the banner of Rome, and the other of Jesus Christ. We cannot, however, be sure that Briconnet was wholly untrue to the convictions of his faith; at no period after his recantation did the Romish doctors place entire confidence in him. But he acted, perhaps, as the Archbishop of Cambray afterwards did, and whom he resembled in many points; he thought he might submit outwardly to the pope, while remaining inwardly subject to his old convictions. Such weakness in incompatible with the principles of the Reformation. Briconnet was one of the chiefs of the mystic or quietest school in France, and we know that one of its leading maxims has ever been to accommodate itself to the church in which it exists, whatever that church may be.HRSCV3 483.5

Briconnet’s guilty fall went to the hearts of his old friends, and was the sad forerunner of those lamentable apostasies which the spirit of the world so often obtained in France in another age. The man who seemed to hold the reins of the Reformation in his hand was suddenly thrown from his seat; and the Reformation was thenceforward destined to pursue its course in France, without a human leader, without a chief, in humility and in obscurity. But the disciples of the Gospel raised their heads, and from that time looked with a firmer faith towards that heavenly Guide, whose faithfulness they knew could not be shaken.HRSCV3 483.6

The Sorbonne triumphed; this was a great stride towards the destruction of the Reform in France; and it was important to achieve another victory without delay. Lefevre stood next after Briconnet. Accordingly Beda had immediately turned the attack against him, by publishing a book against this illustrious doctor, full of such gross calumnies, that Erasmus says, “even smiths and cobblers could have pointed them out.” His fury was particularly excited by the doctrine of justification through faith, which Lefevre was the first to preach to Christendom in the sixteenth century. To this point Beda continually recurred, as an article which, according to him, overturned the Church. “What!” said he, “Lefevre affirms that whoever places his salvation in himself will surely perish; while the man that lays aside all strength of his own, and throws himself entirely into the arms of Jesus Christ, will be saved! Oh, what heresy! to teach the inefficacy of meritorious works! What a hellish error! what a deceitful snare of the devil! Let us oppose it with all our might!”HRSCV3 484.1

That engine of persecution which produces either retractation or death, was immediately turned against the doctor of Etaples; and hopes were already entertained of seeing Lefevre share the fate of the poor wool-comber or of the illustrious Briconnet. His accusation was soon drawn up; and a decree of the parliament (dated 28th of August 1525) condemned nine propositions extracted from his commentaries on the Gospels, and placed his translation of the Scriptures in the list of prohibited books.HRSCV3 484.2

This was only the prelude; and that the learned doctor knew. Upon the first symptoms of persecution, he had felt that, in the absence of France I, he must fall under the assault of his enemies, and that the moment was now come to obey the Lord’s commandment: When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another. Lefevre quitted Meaux, where, after the bishop’s apostasy, he had drunk nothing but the cup of bitterness, and saw all his activity paralyzed; and as he withdrew from his persecutors, he shook the dust from off his feet against them, “not to call down evil upon them, but as a sign of the evils that were in store for them; for (says he in one place) just as this dust is shaken from off our feet, are they cast off from the face of the Lord.”HRSCV3 484.3

The persecutors had missed their victim; but they consoled themselves with the thought that France was at least delivered from the father of the heretics.HRSCV3 484.4

The fugitive Lefevre arrived at Strasburg under a borrowed name; there he immediately united with the friends of the Reformation; and what must have been his joy at hearing that Gospel publicly taught which he had been the first to bring forward in the Church! Lo, there was his faith! this was exactly what he had intended to teach! He seemed to have been born a second time to the christian life. Gerard Roussel, one of those evangelical men who, like the doctor of Etaples, did not attain complete emancipation, had also been compelled to quit France. Together they followed the teaching of Capito and Bucer; they had frequent private conversations with these faithful doctors, and a report was circulated that they had even been commissioned to do so by Margaret, the king’s sister. But Lefevre was more occupied in contemplating the ways of God than with polemies. Casting his eyes over Christendom, filled with astonishment on beholding the great events that were taking place, moved with thankfulness, and his heart full of anticipation, he fell on his knees and prayed the Lord “to perfect that which he saw then beginning.”HRSCV3 484.5

One pleasure in particular awaited him in Strasburg; Farel his disciple, his son, from whom he had been separated by persecution for nearly three years, had arrived there before him. The aged doctor of the Sorbonne found in his young pupil a man in the vigor of life, a Christian in all the energy of faith. Farel affectionately clasped that wrinkled hand which had guided his first steps, and he experienced an indescribable joy at again meeting with his father in an evangelical city, and on seeing him surrounded with faithful men. Together they listened to the pure instructions of illustrious teachers; together they partook of the Lord’s Supper in conformity with Christ’s institution; together they received touching proofs of the love of their brethren. “Do you remember,” said Farel, “what you once observed to me when we were both sunk in darkness: William, God will renew the world, and you will see it! Here is the beginning of what you then told me.”—“Yes:” answered the pious old man, “God is renewing the world My dear son, continue to preach boldly the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ.”HRSCV3 484.6

Lefevre, from excess of caution doubtless, wished to live unknown at Strasburg, and had taken the name of Anthony Pilgrim, while Roussel assumed that of Solnin. But the illustrious doctor could not remain hidden; in a short time the whole city and the very children saluted the aged Frenchman with respect. He did not dwell alone; but resided in Capito’s house with Farel, Roussel, Vedastus, who was eulogized for his diffidence, and a certain Simon, a converted Jew. The houses of Capito, Oecolampadius, Zwingle, and Luther, were then like inns. Such was at that time the strength of brotherly love. Many other Frenchmen were living in this city on the banks of the Rhine, and they founded a church in which Farel often preached the doctrine of salvation. This christian society soothed the pain of exile.HRSCV3 485.1

While these brethren were thus enjoying the asylum offered them by fraternal affection, those in Paris and in other parts of France were exposed to great dangers. Briconnet had retracted; Lefevre had quitted France; this was no doubt something for the Sorbonne; but it had still to wait for the punishments that it had advised. Beda and his party had found no victims one man exasperated them still more than Briconnet and Lefevre; this was Louis Berquin. The gentleman of Artois, of a more decided character than his two masters, omitted no opportunity of tormenting the monks and theologians, and of unmasking their fanaticism. Living by turns at Paris and in the provinces, he collected and translated the writings of Luther and Erasmus: he himself would compose controversial works, and defend and propagate the new doctrine with all the zeal of a new convert. The Bishop of Amiens denounced him; Beda seconded the charge; and the parliament had him thrown into prison. “This one,” said they, “shall not escape us like Briconnet or Lefevre.” In effect, they kept him in close confinement. In vain did the superior of the Carthusians and others entreat him to apologize; he boldly declared that the would not give way on a single point. “There seemed no way left,” says a chronicler, “but to lead him to the stake.”HRSCV3 485.2

Margaret, in consternation at what had happened to Briconnet, dreaded to see Berquin dragged to that scaffold which the bishop had so shamefully escaped. Not daring to visit him in prison, she endeavoured to convey a few words of consolation to him; and it was perhaps for him that the princess composed this touching complaint of the prisoner, in which the latter, addressing the Lord, exclaims:—But yet, where’er my prison be, Its gates can never keep out Thee; For instant where I am, Thou art with me.HRSCV3 485.3

But Margaret did not stop here; she instantly wrote to her brother, soliciting this gentleman’s pardon. Happy would she be if she could deliver him in time from the hatred of his enemies.HRSCV3 485.4

While waiting for this victim, Beda resolved to intimidate the enemies of the Sorbonne and of the monks by crushing the most celebrated of them. Erasmus had taken up the pen against Luther; but that was of little consequence. If they can succeed in destroying Erasmus, with much the stronger reason would the ruin of Farel, of Luther, and of their associates be inevitable. The surest way to reach the mark is to aim beyond it. When once Rome has placed her foot upon the neck of the philosopher of Rotterdam, where is the heretical doctor that can escape its vengeance? Lecouturier, commonly known by his Latin name Sutor (cobbler), had already begun the attack, by launching from his solitary Carthusian cell a treatise overflowing with violence, in which he called his opponents theologasters and jackasses, charging them with scandalous crimes, heresy, and blasphemy. Treating of subjects which he did not understand, he reminded his readers of the old proverb: Ne sutor ultra crepidam, Let the cobbler stick to his last.HRSCV3 485.5

Beda hastened to the assistance of his brother. He ordered Erasmus to write no more; and taking up that pen which he had commanded the greatest writer of the age to lay down, he made a collection of all the calumnies that the monks had invented against the illustrious philosopher, translated them into French, and composed a book that he circulated in the city and at court, striving to raise all France against him. This work was the signal of attack; Erasmus was assailed from every quarter. An old Carmelite of Louvain, Nicholas Ecmond, exclaimed every time he went into the pulpit, “There is no difference between Luther and Erasmus, except that Erasmus is the greater heretic;” and wherever the Carmelite might be, at table, in coach, or in boat, he called Erasmus a heresiarch and forger. The faculty of Paris, excited by these clamors, prepared a censure against the illustrious writer.HRSCV3 485.6

Erasmus was astounded. This, then, is the end of all his forbearance, and of even his hostility against Luther. He had mounted to the breach with greater courage than any man; and now they want to make him a stepping stone, and trample him under foot, that they may the more securely attack the common enemy. This idea disgusted him: he turned round immediately, and almost before he had ceased his attack upon Luther, fell upon these fanatical doctors, who had assailed him from behind. Never was his correspondence more active than now. He glances all around him, and his piercing eye soon discovers in whose hands depends his fate. He does not hesitate: he will lay his complaints and remonstrances at the feet of the Sorbonne, of the parliament, of the king, and of the emperor himself. “What is it that has kindled this immense Lutheran conflagration?” wrote he to those theologians of the Sorbonne, from whom he still expected some little impartiality; “what has fanned it, if not the virulence of Beda and his fellows? In war, a soldier who has done his duty receives a reward from his general; and all the recompense I shall receive from you, the leaders of this war, is to be delivered up to the calumnies of such as Beda and Lecouturier.”HRSCV3 485.7

“What!” wrote he to the parliament, “when I was contending with these Lutherans, and while I was maintaining a severe struggle by order of the emperor, the pope, and other princes, even at the peril of my life, Beda and Lecouturier attacked me from behind with their foul libels! Ah, if fortune had not deprived us of King Francis, I should have invoked this avenger of the muses against this new invasion of the barbarians. But now it is your duty to put an end to such injustice!”HRSCV3 486.1

As soon as he found the possibility of conveying a letter to the king, he wrote to him immediately. His penetrating eye detected in these fanatical doctors of the Sorbonne the germs of the league, the predecessors of those three priests who were one day to set up the Sixteen against the last of the Valois; his genius forewarned the king of the crimes and misfortunes which his descendants were destined to know but too well. “Religion is their pretext,” said he, “but they aspire to tyranny even over princes. They move with a sure step, though their path is underground. Should the prince be disinclined to submit to them in every thing, they will declare that he may be deposed by the Church; that is to say, by a few false monks and theologians who conspire against the public peace.” Erasmus in writing to Francis I could not have touched a tenderer point.HRSCV3 486.2

Finally, to be more certain of escape from his enemies, Erasmus invoked the protection of Charles V. “Invincible emperor,” said he, “certain individuals who, under the pretence of religion, wish to establish their own gluttony and despotism, are raising a horrible outcry against me. I am fighting under your banners and those of Jesus Christ. May your wisdom and power restore peace to the christian world.”HRSCV3 486.3

Thus did the prince of letters address the great ones of the age. The danger was averted; the powers of the world interposed; the vultures were compelled to abandon a prey which they fancied already in their talons. Upon this they turned their eyes to another quarter, seeking fresh victims, which were soon found.HRSCV3 486.4

Lorraine was the first place in which blood was again to flow. From the earliest days of the Reform there had been a fanatical alliance between Paris and the country of the Guises. When Paris was quiet, Lorraine applied to the task; and then Paris resumed her labor, while Metz and Nancy were recovering their strength. In June 1525, Peter Toussaint returned to Metz, in company with Farel. They desired a hearing before their lordships the Thirteen; and this being refused, they appealed to the eschevin. Plans were already laid for throwing them into prison, when, fearful of danger, they quickly left the city, travelling all night lest they should be overtaken.HRSCV3 486.5

The first blows were destined apparently to fall on an excellent man, one of the Basle refugees, a friend of Farel and Toussaint. The Chevalier d’Esch had not been able to escape the suspicions of the priests in Metz. They discovered that he kept up a communication with the evangelical Christians, and he was imprisoned at Pont-a-Mousson, about five miles from Metz on the banks of the Moselle. These tidings overwhelmed the French refugees and the Swiss themselves with sorrow. “O heart full of innocence!” exclaimed Oecolampadius. “I have confidence in the Lord,” added he, “that he will preserve this man to us, either in life as a preacher of righteousness, to announce His name, or as a martyr to confess him in death.” But at the same time Oecolampadius disapproved of the impetuosity, enthusiasm, and imprudent zeal which distinguished the French refugees. “I wish,” said he, “that my very dear lords of France would not be so hasty in returning into their own country, before they had duly examined all things; for the devil is spreading his snares on every side. Nevertheless let them obey the Spirit of Christ, and may this Spirit never abandon them.”HRSCV3 486.6

There was, in truth, reason to fear for the chevalier. The fury of the enemy had broken out in Lorraine with redoubled violence. The provincial of the Cordeliers, Bonaventure Renel, confessor to Duke Anthony the Good, a man devoid of shame, and not very commendable on the score of morals, gave this weak prince, who reigned from 1508 to 1544, great licence in his pleasures, and persuaded him, almost by way of penance, to destroy the innovators without mercy. “It is enough for every one to know his Pater and his Ave,” this prince, so well tutored by Renel, would say; “the greater the doctor, the greater the disturbance.”HRSCV3 486.7

Towards the end of 1524 the duke’s court was informed that a pastor named Schuch was preaching some new doctrine in the town of St. Hippolyte, at the foot of the Vosges. “Let them return to their duty,” said Anthony the Good, “or else I will march against the city, and destroy it by fire and sword.”HRSCV3 487.1

Upon this the faithful pastor resolved to give himself up for his flock, and repaired to Nancy, where the prince was residing. As soon as he arrived he was thrown into a filthy prison, under the guard of brutal and cruel men; and Friar Bonaventure at last saw the heretic in his power. It was he who presided at the trial. “Heretic! Judas! devil!” exclaimed he. Schuch, calm and collected, made no reply to this abuse; but holding in his hands a Bible, all covered with notes, he meekly yet forcibly confessed Christ crucified. On a sudden he became animated; he stood up boldly, and raising his voice, as if filled by the Spirit from on high, looked his judges in the face, and threatened them with the terrible judgments of God.HRSCV3 487.2

Brother Bonaventure and his companions, amazed and transported with rage, rushed upon his with violent cries, tore away the Bible from which he was reading this menacing language, “and like mad dogs,” says the chronicler, “unable to bite his doctrine, they burnt it in their convent.”HRSCV3 487.3

All the court of Lorraine resounded with the obstinacy and impudence of the minister of St. Hippolyte, and the prince, curious to hear the heretic, desired to be present at his last interrogatory, but in secret however, and concealed from every eye. As the examination took place in Latin, he could not understand a word; but he was struck with the firm countenance of the minister, who seemed neither vanquished nor confounded. Exasperated at such obstinacy, Anthony the Good rose up, and said as he withdrew: “Why do you still dispute? He denies the sacrament of the mass; let them proceed to execution against him.” Schuch was instantly condemned to be burnt alive. When the sentence was made known to him, he raised his eyes to heaven, saying mildly: “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.”HRSCV3 487.4

On the 19th August 1525 the whole city of Nancy was in motion. The bells were tolling for the death of a heretic. The mournful procession set out. It was necessary to pass before the convent of the Cordeliers, who, rejoicing and expectant, had assembled before the gate. At the moment that Schuch appeared, Father Bonaventure, pointing to the carved images over the portals of the convent, exclaimed: “Heretic! pay honor to God, to his mother, and to the saints.”—“Ye hypocrites!” replied Schuch, standing erect before these blocks of wood and stone, “God will destroy you, and bring your deceits to light!”HRSCV3 487.5

When the martyr reached the place of execution, his books were burnt before his face; he was then called upon to retract; but he refused, saying: “It is thou, O God, who hast called me, and thou wilt give me strength unto the end.” After this he began to repeat aloud the fifty-first psalm: “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness.” Having mounted the pile, he continued to recite the psalm until the smoke and the flames stifled his voice.HRSCV3 487.6

Thus the persecutors of France and Lorraine beheld a renewal of their victories; at length men paid attention to their advice. The ashes of a heretic had been scattered to the winds at Nancy; it was a challenge to the capital of France. What! shall Beda and Lecouturier be the last to show their zeal for the pope! Let flames reply to flames, and heresy, swept from the soil of the kingdom, would soon be entirely driven back beyond the Rhine.HRSCV3 487.7

But before he could succeed, Beda had to sustain a combat, half serious, half ludicrous, against one of those men with whom the struggle against the Papacy is merely an intellectual pastime and not an earnest purpose of the heart.HRSCV3 487.8

Among the scholars whom Briconnet had attracted to his diocese, was a doctor of the Sorbonne, named Peter Caroli, a vain and frivolous man, not less quarrelsome and litigious than Beda himself. In the new doctrine Caroli saw the means of vexing Beda, whose ascendancy he could not endure. Accordingly, on his return from Meaux to Paris, he made a great sensation by carrying into the pulpit what was called, “the new way of preaching.” Then began an indefatigable struggle between the two doctors; it was blow for blow, and trick for trick. Beda summoned Caroli before the Sorbonne, and Caroli summoned him before the bishop’s court by way of reparation. The faculty continued the examination, and Caroli gave notice of an appeal to the parliament. He was provisionally forbidden to enter the pulpit, and he preached in all the churches of Paris. Being positively forbidden to preach at all, he publicly lectured on the Psalms in the College of Cambray. The faculty forbade him to continue his course, and he begged permission to finish the explanation of the 22nd Psalm, which he had just begun. Finally, on the refusal of his request, he posted the following placard on the college gates: “Peter Caroli, desirous of obeying the orders of the sacred faculty, has ceased to lecture; he will resume his lectures (whenever it shall please God) at the verse where he left off: They have pierced My Hands and My Feet.” Thus Beda at last found his match. If Caroli had seriously defended the truth, the burning pile would soon have been his reward; but he was of too profane a spirit to be put to death. How could the judges capitally punish a man who made them lose their gravity. Neither the bishop’s court, nor the parliament, nor the council, could ever come to a definite decision in his cause. Two men such as Caroli would have wearied out the activity of Beda himself; but the Reformation did not produce his parallel.HRSCV3 487.9

As soon as this unseasonable contest was ended, Beda applied to more serious matters. Happily for the syndic of the Sorbonne, there were men who gave persecution a better hold of them than Caroli. Briconnet, Erasmus, Lefevre, and Farel had escaped him; but since he cannot reach these distinguished individuals, he will content himself with meaner persons. The poor youth, James Pavanne, after his abjuration at Christmas 1524, had done nothing but weep and sigh. He might be seen with a melancholy air, his eyes fixed on the earth, groaning inwardly, and severely reproaching himself for having denied his Saviour and his God.HRSCV3 488.1

Pavanne was undoubtedly the most diffident and inoffensive of men: but what mattered that! he had been at Meaux, and in those days that was sufficient. “Pavanne has relapsed,” was the cry; “the dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” He was immediately arrested, thrown into prison, and taken before his judges. This was all that the youthful James required. He felt comforted as soon as he was in chains, and found strength sufficient to confess Jesus Christ with boldness. The cruel persecutors smiled as they saw that, this time at least, nothing could save their victim; there was no recantation, no flight, no powerful patronage. The young man’s mildness, his candor and courage, failed to soften his adversaries. He regarded them with love; for by casting him into prison, they had restored him to tranquillity and joy; but his tender looks only served to harden their hearts. His trial was soon concluded: a pile was erected on the Greve, where Pavanne died rejoicing, strengthening by his example all those who in that large city believed openly or secretly in the Gospel of Christ.HRSCV3 488.2

This was not enough for the Sorbonne. If they are compelled to sacrifice the little ones of the world, their number must at least make amends for their quality. The flames of the Greve struck terror into Paris and the whole of France; but a new pile, kindled on another spot, will redouble that terror. It will be talked of at court, in the colleges, and in the workshops of the people; and such proofs will show more clearly than any edicts, that Louisa of Savoy, the Sorbonne, and the parliament, are resolved to sacrifice the very last heretic to the anathemas of Rome.HRSCV3 488.3

In the forest of Livry, three leagues from Paris, and not far from the spot where once stood the ancient abbey of the Augustines, dwelt a hermit, who in his excursions having met with some men of Meaux, had received the evangelical doctrine in his heart. The poor hermit had felt himself rich in his retreat, when one day, returning with the scanty food that public charity bestowed on him, he carried back Jesus Christ and his grace. From that time he found that it was better to give than to receive. He went from house to house in the surrounding villages, and as soon as he had opened the doors of the poor peasants whom he visited in their humble huts, he spoke to them of the Gospel, of the perfect pardon that it offers to the burdened soul, and which is far better than absolutions. Erelong the good hermit of Livry was known in the environs of Paris; people went to visit him in his lowly cell, and he became a mild and fervent missionary for the simple souls of that district.HRSCV3 488.4

The rumor of the doings of this new evangelist did not fail to reach the ears of the Sorbonne and of the magistrates of Paris. The hermit was seized, dragged from his hermitage, from his forest, from those fields through which he used to wander daily, thrown into a prison in that great city which he had ever shunned, and condemned “to suffer the exemplary punishment of the slow fire.”HRSCV3 488.5

In order to render the example more striking, it was determined that he should be burnt alive in the front of Notre-Dame, before that splendid cathedral, that majestic symbol of Roman-catholicism. All the clergy were convoked, and as much pomp was displayed as on the most solemn festivals. They would, if possible, have attracted all Paris round the stake, “the great bell of the church of Notre-Dame (says an historian) tolling solemnly to arouse the citizens.” The people flocked in crowds through all the streets that led into the square. The deep tones of the bell drew the workman from his toil, the scholar from his books, the merchant from his traffic, the soldier from his idleness, and already the wide space was covered by an immense crowd which still kept increasing. The hermit, clad in the garments assigned to obstinate heretics, with head and feet bare, had been led before the gates of the cathedral. Calm, firm, and collected, he made no reply to the exhortations of the confessors who presented him a crucifix, save by declaring that his sole hope was in the pardon of God. The doctors of the Sorbonne, in the front ranks of the spectators, seeing his constancy, and the effect it was producing on the people, cried aloud: “He is damned: they are leading him to hell-fire!” The great bell still continued tolling, and its loud notes, by stunning the ears of the crowd, increased the solemnity of this mournful spectacle. At length the bell was silent, and the martyr having replied to the last questions of his enemies, that he was resolved to die in the faith of his Lord Jesus Christ, was burnt by a slow fire, according to the tenor of his sentence. And thus, in front of Notre-Dame, amid the shouts and emotion of a whole people, under the shadow of the towers raised by the piety of Louis the younger, peacefully died a man, whose name history has not transmitted to us, except as the “Hermit of Livry.”HRSCV3 488.6