Chapter XVI

THE KING OF FRANCE INVITES MELANCTHON TO RESTORE UNITY AND TRUTH.
(END OF 1534 TO AUGUST 1535.)

While the work of the Reformation appeared exposed to great dangers in a small city of the Alps, it had in the eyes of the optimists chances of success in two of the greatest countries of Europe—France and Italy. The two finest geniuses of the reform, Melancthon and Calvin, had been summoned to those two countries respectively. Luther, their superior by the movements of his heart and the simplicity of his faith, was inferior to them as a theologian, and they probably surpassed him in their capacity to comprehend in their thoughts all nations and all churches.

The first half of the sixteenth century was the epoch of a great transformation to the people of Europe; there had been nothing like it since the introduction of Christianity. During the middle ages, the pope was the guardian of Christendom, and the people were infants, who, not having attained the necessary age, could not act for themselves. The pontificial hierarchy opened or shut the gates of heaven, laid down what every man ought to believe and do, dominated in the councils of princes, and exercised a powerful influence over all public institutions. But a wardship is always provisional. When a man attains his majority, he enters into the enjoyment of his property and rights, and having to render an account to none but God, he walks without guardians by the light which his conscience gives him. There is also a time of majority for nations, and Christian society attained that age in the sixteenth century. From that moment it ceased to receive blindly all that the priests taught; it entered into a higher and more independent sphere. The teaching of man vanished away; the teaching of God began again. Once more those words were heard in Christendom which Paul of Tarsus had uttered in the first century: ‘_I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say_.’[669] But it must be carefully observed that it was by throwing open the Bible to their generation that the reformers realized this sentence. If they had not restored a heavenly torch to man, if they had left him to himself in the thick shadows of the night, he would have remained blind, uneasy, restless, and unsatisfied. The holy emancipation of the sixteenth century invited those who listened to it to draw freely from the divine Word all that was necessary to scatter the darkness of their reason and fill up the void in their hearts. Elevating them above the goods of the body, above even arts, literature, science, and philosophy, it offered to their soul eternal treasures—God himself. The Gospel, then restored to the world, gave an unaccustomed force to the moral law, and thus conferred on the people who received it two boons,—order and liberty,—which the Vatican has never possessed within its precincts.

[Sidenote: Alarm And Joy.]

All men, however, did not understand that the majority which each must necessarily attain individually is at the same time essential to them collectively, and that the Church in particular must inevitably attain it. There were many, among those who were interested in the prosperity of nations, who felt alarm at the abolition of the papal guardianship. They saw that this stupendous act would work immense changes in the sphere of the mind; that society as a whole, literature, social life, politics, the relations of foreign countries with one another, would be made new. This prospect, which was a subject of joy to the greater number, excited the liveliest apprehensions in others. Those especially who had not learnt that man, as a moral being, can only be led by free convictions, imagined that all society would run wild and be lost if that power was suppressed which had so long intimidated and restrained it by the fear of excommunications and the stake. These men, alarmed at the sight of the free and living waters of reform and wishing at any cost to save the nations of Europe from the deluge which appeared to threaten them, thought it their duty to confine them still more, to restore, strengthen and raise the imperilled dikes, and thus keep the stagnant waters in the foul canals where they had stood for ages.

Notwithstanding his liberal tendencies with regard to literature and the arts, Francis I. was not exempt from these fears, and gave a helping hand to a restoration,—often a cruel restoration of the Romish jurisdiction. Henry VIII., of little interest as an individual, though great as a king, and who was truly the father, predecessor, and fore-runner of Elizabeth and her reign, even while striving ineffectually to preserve the catholic doctrines in his realm, separated it decisively from the papacy, and by so doing laid the foundations of the liberty and greatness of England. Francis I., on the other hand, maintained the papal supremacy in his dominions, and labored to restore it in the countries where it had been abolished. In 1534 and 1535 we see him making great exertions to that end, and finding numerous helpers to back him up.

The idea of restoring unity in the Christian Church of the West, not only engrossed the attention of those who were actuated by despotic views, but also of noble-minded and liberal men. ‘By what means can we succeed?’ they asked. The violent answered, ‘By force;’ but the wise represented that Christian unity could not be brought about by the sword. Those who were occupied with this great question determined to examine whether they could not solve it by means of mutual concessions; and they set about their task with different motives and in different tempers. They formed three categories.

There existed at that time in all parts of Europe men of wit and learning, children of the Renaissance, who disliked the superstitions and abuses of Rome, as well as the bold doctrines and severe precepts of the Reformation. They wanted a religion, but it must be an easy one, and more in conformity (as they held) with reason. Between Luther and the pope, they saw Erasmus, and that elegant and judicious writer was their apostle: hence the Elector of Saxony called them Erasmians.[670] They thought that by melting popery and protestantism together they might realize their dreams.

In like manner, too, there were persons to be found of greater or less eminence in whom the desire prevailed to maintain Europe in that papal wardship which had lasted through all the middle ages: they feared the most terrible convulsions if that supreme authority should come to an end. At their head in France was the king. Francis I. had also a more interested object: he desired, from political motives, to unite protestants and catholics, because he had need of Rome in Italy to recover his preponderance there, and of the protestants in Germany to humble Charles V. To this class also belonged, to a greater or less extent, William du Bellay, the king’s councillor and right hand in diplomacy. So far as concerns doctrine, both were on the side of Erasmus; but, in an ecclesiastical point of view, while the prince inclined to a moderate papal dominion, the minister would have preferred a still more liberal system.

[Sidenote: The Moderate Evangelicals.]

Finally, there were, particularly in Germany, a few evangelical Christians who consented to accept the episcopalian form, and even the primacy of a bishop, in the hope of obtaining the transformation of the doctrine and manners of the universal Church. Melancthon at Wittemberg, Bucer at Strasburg, and Professor Sturm at Paris, were the most eminent men of this school. Melancthon went farther than his colleagues. He believed that the great revolution then going on was salutary and even necessary; but he would have liked to see it limited and directed. Former ages had elaborated certain results which ought, in his opinion, to be handed down to ages to come; and he imagined that if the pope could be induced to receive the Gospel, that despot of old times might still be useful to the Church. Another and a still more urgent interest animated these pious men: it was necessary to rescue the victims of fanaticism, to extinguish the burning piles. The bloody and solemn executions which had taken place in Paris on the 21st of January, 1535, in presence of the king and court, had excited an indescribable horror everywhere. One might have imagined that those noble-hearted men foresaw the miseries of France, the battle-fields running with blood, and the night of St. Bartholomew with its murders ushered in by the death-knell from the steeple of St. Germain l’Auxerrois; that they saw pass before them those armies of fugitives whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes scattered over the wide world.

One common feature characterized all three classes. Those who composed them were in general of an accommodating disposition, an easy manner, ready to sacrifice some part of what they thought true, in order to attain their end. But there were in Europe, on the side of Rome many inflexible papists, and on the side of the Reformation many determined protestants, who set truth above unity, and were resolved to do everything ‘so that the talent which God had entrusted to them might not be lost through their cowardice, or taken from them on account of their ingratitude.’[671]

[Sidenote: Effects Of The Placards.]

The famous placards posted up in the capital and all over France on that October night of 1534 had carried trouble into the hearts of the peacemakers. They had seen, as they imagined, the torch suddenly applied to the house in which they were quietly laboring to reconcile Rome and the Reformation. ‘Such a seditious act agitates the whole kingdom, and exposes us to the greatest dangers,’[672] wrote Sturm from Paris to Melancthon. ‘The authors of those placards are men of a fanatical turn, rebels who circulate pernicious sentiments, and who deserve chastisement,’ wrote Melancthon to the Bishop of Paris. But at the same time the most energetic of the German protestants, revolted by the cruelty of Francis I., refused to join in union with a prince who burnt their brethren. The King of France had formed the plan of a congress, destined to restore peace to Christendom; but an imprudent hand had applied the match to the mine, and the friends of peace were struck with terror and confusion. From that moment there was nothing heard but recriminations, reproaches, and altercations.

Francis I. saw clearly that, if his project was on the brink of failing, the fault was due mainly to his own violence; he therefore undertook to set straight the affairs he had so imprudently damaged. On the 1st February, 1535, he wrote to the evangelical princes of the empire, assuring them that there was no similarity between the German protestants and the French _heretics_, his victims. The contriver of the strappadoes of the 21st January, assumed a lofty tone, as if he were innocence itself. ‘I am insulted in Germany,’ he said, ‘in every place of assembly, and even at public banquets. It is said that people dressed like Turks can walk freely about the streets of Paris, but that no one dares appear there in German costume. People say that the Germans are looked upon here as heretics, and are arrested, tortured, and put to death. We think it our duty to reply to these calumnies. Just when we were on the point of coming to an understanding with you, certain mad-men endeavored to upset our work. I prefer to bury in darkness the paradoxes they have put forth; I am loth to set them before you, most illustrious princes, and thus display them in the sight of the world.[673] I think it sufficient to say that even you would have devoted them to execration. I wished to prevent the pestilence from spreading over France, but not a single German was sent to prison.[674] The men of your nation, princes and nobles, continue to be graciously received at my court; and as for the German students, merchants, and artisans who work in my kingdom, I treat them like my other subjects, and, I may say, like my own children.’ The letter produced some little effect, and there was a reaction on the other side of the Rhine. Melancthon resumed his schemes of reunion.

But a new change then occurred: suddenly, and with greater violence than ever, new difficulties arose, which threatened to make shipwreck of the whole business. Francis I. had caused the conciliatory opinions of Melancthon, Hedio, and Bucer to be circulated in Germany.[675] Some unwise and by no means upright adherents of catholicism mutilated and abridged those opinions,[676] and then proclaimed with an air of triumph that the heretics, with Melancthon at their head, were about to return into the bosom of the Church!... Excessive was the irritation of the evangelical flocks, and loud cries arose from every quarter against the temporizers and their weakness. They called to mind that truth is not a merchandise which can be cheapened; but a chain, of which if but one link be broken, all the rest is useless. ‘Melancthon is of opinion,’ said some, ‘that a single pontiff, residing at Rome, would be very useful to maintain harmony of faith between the different nations of Christendom. Bucer adds that we must not overthrow all that exists in popery, but restore in the protestant churches many of the practices observed by the ancients. The men who speak thus are deserters and turncoats. They betray our cause, they commit a crime.’[677] If such protestants as these were heard among the Lutherans, doctors such as Farel and Calvin spoke out still more plainly against all attempts at a union with popery. ‘It is wrong,’ wrote Calvin afterwards to some English friends, ‘to preserve such paltry rubbish, the sad relics of papal superstition, every recollection of which we ought to strive to extirpate.’[678] The thought that Francis I. was at the head of these negotiations filled the Swiss theologians in particular with ineffable disgust. ‘What good can be expected of that prince,’ said Bullinger, ‘that impure, profane, ambitious man?[679] He is dissembling: Christ and truth are of no account in his projects. His only thought is how to gain possession of Naples and Milan. What does this or that matter, so that he makes himself master of Italy?’ These honest Swiss were not wanting in common sense. Alarmed at the trap that was preparing for Reform, Bullinger, Blaarer, Zwyck, and other reformed divines wrote to Bucer: ‘It is of no use your contriving a reunion with the pope; thousands of protestants would rather forfeit their lives than follow you.’

At the same time the Sorbonne and its followers raised their voices still higher against all assimilation with Lutheran doctrines. The storm swelled on both sides, and burst upon the moderate party. Poor Bucer, driven in different directions, succumbed under the weight of his sorrow. ‘Would to God,’ he exclaimed, ‘that, like the French martyrs, I were delivered from this life to stand before the face of Jesus Christ!’[680]

[Sidenote: Hope Of Union Lost.]

Every hope of union seemed lost. The ship which the politic King of France had launched, and to which the hand of the pious Melancthon had fastened the banners of peace, had been carried upon the breakers; all attempts to get her out to sea again appeared useless; there was neither water enough to float her, nor wind enough to move her. She was about to be abandoned, when a sudden breeze extricated her from the shallows, and launched her once more upon the wide ocean.

Clement VII. having died of chagrin, occasioned by the prospect of a future in which he could see nothing but deception and sorrow,[681] the King of France considered himself thenceforward liberated from the promises made to Catherine’s uncle. Ere long the choice of the Sacred College gave him still greater liberty. Alexander Farnese, who, under the title of Paul III., succeeded Clement, was a man of the world; he had studied at Florence in the famous gardens of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and from his youth had lived an irregular life. On one occasion, being imprisoned by his mother’s orders in the castle of St. Angelo, he took advantage of the moment when the attention of his jailers was attracted by the procession of Corpus Christi to escape through a window by means of a rope. Although he had two illegitimate children, a son and a daughter, he was made cardinal, and from that hour kept his eyes steadily fixed upon the triple crown. He obtained it at last, at the age of sixty-seven, and declared that in religious matters he would follow very different principles from those of his predecessors. This man, who had so much need of reformation for himself and his family, was engrossed wholly with reforming the Church. We shall find not only a king of France, but a pope of Rome also, making advances to Melancthon. Leo X. bequeathed schism to Christendom. Paul III. undertook to restore unity, and thus hoped to acquire a greater glory than that of the Medicis. He promised the ambassadors of Charles V. to call a council, and four days after his election declared his intentions in full consistory. ‘I desire a reform,’ he said; ‘before we attempt to change the universal Church, we must first sweep out the court of Rome;’ and he nominated a congregation to draw up a plan of reform. Proud of his skill, he thought that everything would be easy to him, and already triumphed in imagination over the Germans, who were, in his opinion, so boorish, and the Swiss, who were so barbarous. Francis I., satisfied with this disposition of the pope, was not unaware, besides, that he had private means of communicating with him. The first secretary of his Holiness was Ambrosio, an influential man and by no means averse to presents. A person who had need of his services having given him sixty silver basins with as many ewers, ‘How is it,’ said a man one day, ‘that with all these basins to wash in, his hands are never clean?’[682]

[Sidenote: Popery In France.]

But the work of union was not to be so easy as the conjunction of two such stars as Farnese and Valois seemed to promise. While the Romish Church was being toned down at Rome, popery became stricter in France. The fanatical party that was to acquire a horrible celebrity by the crimes of the Bartholomew massacre and of the League, was beginning to take shape round the dauphin, the future Henry II. That youth of eighteen, who had not long returned from Madrid, was far from being lively, talkative, and independent, like a young Frenchman, but gloomy and silent, and appeared to live only to obey women. There were two at his side, admirably calculated to give him a papistical direction: first, his wife, Catherine de Medicis, and next his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, a widow, still beautiful in spite of her age, and who would not (as it has been said) have spoken to a heretic for an empire. The mistress and the wife, who were on the best of terms, and all of the dauphin’s party, endeavored to thwart the king’s plans. The most influential members of that faction were continually repeating to him that the protestants of Germany were quite as fanatical and seditious as those of France. At the same time, the emperor’s agents, animated by the same intentions, told the German protestants that Francis I. was an infidel in alliance with the Turks. The obstacles opposed in France and Germany to the reconciliation of Christendom were such that its realization appeared a matter of difficulty.

But in the midst of these intrigues the moderate party held firm. The Du Bellays belonged to one of the oldest families in France; their nobility could be traced back to the reign of Lothaire,[683] and their mother, Margaret de la Tour-Landry, reckoned among her ancestors a man who had occupied himself with laying down the rules of a good education. After a life of busy warfare, the Chevalier de la Tour-Landry, seignior of Bourmont and Claremont, who lived in the fourteenth century, wrote two works on education: one for his sons, the other for his daughters, copies of which became numerous. The treatise intended for the girls was printed in 1514, perhaps by the direction of the parents of the Du Bellays. ‘Out of the great affection I bear to my children,’ wrote the old cavalier, ‘whom I love as a father ought to love them, my heart will be filled with perfect joy if they grow up good and honorable, loving and serving God.’[684] William and John particularly seemed to have responded to this prayer. William, the elder, was not void of Christian sentiments. ‘I desire,’ he said, ‘that nothing may happen injurious to the cause of the Gospel and the glory of Christ;’[685] but he was specially one of the most distinguished generals and diplomatists of his epoch. He knew, says Brantome, the most private secrets of the emperor and of all the princes of Europe, so that people supposed him to have a familiar spirit. Although maimed in his limbs—the consequence of his campaigns—he was a man of indefatigable activity. His brother John, Bishop of Paris, who was also ‘another master-mind,’ professed like him an enlightened catholicism; and hence it happened that on the accession of Henry II. he was deprived of his rank by the intrigues of the papist party, and driven from France. Still, to show that he remained a catholic, he took up his residence in Rome.

[Sidenote: Melancthon’s Position.]

In 1535 the moderate catholic party, at the head of which were these two brothers, seeing the chances of success at Rome as well as at Paris, resolved to take a more decided step, and to invite Melancthon to France. The proposal was made to Francis I., and supported by all the members of the party. They knew that Melancthon was called ‘the master of Germany,’ and thought that if he came to France he would conciliate all parties by the culture of his mind, by his learning, wisdom, piety, and gentleness. One man, if he appears at the right moment, is sometimes sufficient to give a new direction to an entire epoch, to a whole nation. ‘Ah, sire,’ said Barnabas Voré de la Fosse, a learned and zealous French nobleman, who knew Germany well, and had tasted of the Gospel, ‘if you knew Melancthon, his uprightness, learning, and modesty! I am his disciple, and fear not to tell it you. Of all those who in our days have the reputation of learning, and who deserve it, he is the foremost.’[686]

These advances were not useless: Francis I. thought the priests very arrogant and noisy. His despotism made him incline to the side of the pope; but his love of letters, and his disgust at the monks, attracted him the other way. Just now he thought it possible to satisfy both these inclinations at once. Fully occupied with the effect of the moment, and inattentive to consequences, he passed rapidly from one extreme to another. At Marseilles he had thrown himself into the arms of Clement VII., now he made up his mind to hold out his hand to Melancthon. ‘Well!’ said the king, ‘since he differs so much from our rebels, let him come: I shall be enchanted to hear him.’ This gave great delight to the peacemakers. ‘God has seen the affliction of his children and heard their cries,’ exclaimed Sturm.[687] Francis I. ordered De la Fosse to proceed to Germany to urge Melancthon in person.

A king of France inviting a reformer to come and explain his views was something very new. The two principal obstacles which impeded the Reformation seemed now to be removed. The first was the character of the reformers in France, the exclusive firmness of their doctrines, and the strictness of their morality. Melancthon, the mild, the wise, the tolerant, the learned scholar, was to attempt the task. The second obstacle was the fickleness and opposition of Francis I.; but it was this prince who made the advances. There are hours of grace in the history of the human race, and one of those hours seemed to have arrived. ‘God, who rules the tempests,’ exclaimed Sturm, ‘is showing us a harbor of refuge.’[688]

[Sidenote: Efforts Of The Mediators.]

The friends of the Gospel and of light set earnestly to work. It was necessary to persuade Melancthon, the Elector, and the protestants of Germany, which might be a task of some difficulty. But the mediators did not shrink from before obstacles; they raised powerful batteries; they stretched the strings of their bow, and made a great effort to carry the fortress. Sturm, in particular, spared no exertions. The free courses he was giving at the Royal College, his lectures on Cicero, his logic, which, instead of preparing his disciples (among whom was Peter Ramus) for barren disputes, developed and adorned their minds—nothing could stop him. Sturm was not only an enlightened man, a humanist, appreciating the Beautiful in the productions of genius, but he had a deep feeling of the divine grandeur of the Gospel. Men of letters in those times, especially in Italy, were often negative in regard to the things of God, light in their conduct, without moral force, and consequently incapable of exercising a salutary influence over their contemporaries. Such was not Sturm: and while those _beaux-esprits_, those wits were making a useless display of their brilliant intelligence in drawing-rooms, that eminent man exhibited a Christian faith and life: he busied himself in the cultivation of all that is most exalted, and during his long career, never ceased from enlightening his contemporaries.[689] ‘The future of French protestantism is in your hands,’ he wrote to Bucer; ‘Melancthon’s answer and yours will decide whether the evangelicals are to enjoy liberty, or undergo the most cruel persecutions. When I see Francis I. meditating the revival of the Church, I recognize God, who inclines the hearts of princes. I do not doubt his sincerity; I see no hidden designs, no political motives; although a German by birth, I do not share my fellow-countrymen’s suspicions about him. The king, I am convinced, wishes to do all he can to reform the Church, and to give liberty of conscience to the French.’[690] Such was, then, the hope of the most generous spirits—such the aim of their labors.

Sturm, wishing to do everything in his power to give France that liberty and reformation, wrote personally to Melancthon. He was the man to be gained, and the professor set his heart upon gaining him. ‘How delighted I am at the thought that you will come to France!’ he said. ‘The king talks much about you; he praises your integrity, learning, and modesty; he ranks you above all the scholars of our time, and has declared that he is _your disciple_.[691] I shed tears when I think of the devouring flames that have consumed so many noble lives; but when I learn that the king invites you to advise with him as to the means of extinguishing those fires, then I feel that God is turning his eyes with love upon the souls who are threatened with unutterable calamities. What a strange thing! France appeals to you at the very time when our cause is so fiercely attacked. The king, who is of a good disposition at bottom, perceives so many defects in the old cause, and such imprudence in those who adhere to the truth, that he applies to you to find a remedy for these evils. O Melancthon! to see your face will be our salvation. Come into the midst of our violent tempests, and show us the haven. A refusal from you would keep our brethren suspended above the flames. Trouble yourself neither about emperors nor kings: those who invite you are men who are fighting against death. But they are not alone: the voice of Christ, nay, the voice of God himself calls you.’[692] The letter is dated from Paris, 4th March, 1535.

The Holy Scriptures, which were read wherever the Reform had penetrated, had revived in men’s hearts feelings of real unity and Christian charity. Such cries of distress could not fail to touch the protestants of Germany; Bucer, who had also been invited, made preparations for his departure. ‘The French, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and other nations, who are they?’[693] he asked. ‘All our brethren in Jesus Christ. It is not this nation or that nation only, but all nations that the Father has given to the Son. I am ready,’ he wrote to Melancthon; ‘prepare for your departure.’

[Sidenote: Importance Of France.]

What could Melancthon do? that was the great question. Many persons, even in Germany, had hoped that France would put herself at the head of the great revival of the Church. Had not her kings, and especially Louis XII., often resisted Rome? Had not the university of Paris been the rival of the Vatican? Was it not a Frenchman who, cross in hand, had roused the West to march to the conquest of Jerusalem? Many believed that if France were transformed, all Christendom would be transformed with her. To a certain point, Melancthon had shared these ideas, but he was less eager than Bucer. The outspoken language of the placards had shocked him; but the burning piles erected in Paris had afterwards revolted him; he feared that the king’s plans were a mere trick, and his reform a phantom. Nevertheless, after reflecting upon the matter, he concluded that the conquest of such a mighty nation was a thing of supreme importance. His adhesion to the regenerating movement then accomplishing might decide its success, just as his hostility might destroy it. He must do something more than open his arms to France, he must go to meet her.

Melancthon understood the position and set to work. First, he wrote to the Bishop of Paris, in order to gain him over to the proposed union, by representing to him that the episcopal order ought to be maintained. The German doctor did not doubt that even under that form, the increasing consciousness of truth and justice, the living force of the Gospel, which was seen opening and increasing everywhere, would gain over to the Reformation the fellow-countrymen of St. Bernard and St. Louis. ‘France is, so to speak, the head of the Christian world,’ he wrote to the Bishop of Paris.[694] ‘The example of the most eminent people may exercise a great influence over others. If France is resolved to defend energetically the existing vices of the Church, good men of all countries will see their fondest desires vanish. But I have better hopes; the French nation possesses, I know, a remarkable zeal for piety.[695] All men turn their eyes to us; all conjure us, not only by their words, but by their tears, to prevent sound learning from being stifled, and Christ’s glory from being buried.’

On the same day, 9th of May, 1535, Melancthon wrote to Sturm: ‘I will not suffer myself to be prevented either by domestic ties or the fear of danger. There is no human grandeur which I can prefer to the glory of Christ. Only one thought checks me: I doubt of my ability to do any good; I fear it will be impossible to obtain from the king what I consider necessary to the glory of the Lord and the peace of France.[696] If you can dispel these apprehensions, I shall hasten to France, and no prison shall affright me. We must seek only for what is fitting for the Church and France. You know that kingdom. Speak. If you think I should do well to undertake the journey, I will start.’

Melancthon’s letter to the Bishop of Paris was not without effect. That prelate had just been made a cardinal; but the new dignity in nowise diminished his desire for the restoration of truth and unity in the Church; on the contrary, it gave him more power to realize the great project. The Reformation was approaching. Delighted with the sentiments expressed to him by the _master_ of Germany, he communicated his letter to such as might feel an interest in it, and among others, no doubt, to the king. ‘There is not one of our friends here,’ he said, ‘to whom Melancthon’s mode of seeing things is not agreeable. As for myself, it is pleasant far beyond what I can express.’[697] It was the same with his brother William. While the new cardinal especially desired a union with Melancthon in the hope of obtaining a wise and pious reform, the councillor of Francis I. desired, while leaving to the pope his spiritual authority, to make France politically independent of Rome. The two brothers united in entreating the king to send for Luther’s friend. De la Fosse joined them, and all the friends of peace, in conjuring the king to give the German doctor some proof of his good-will. ‘He will come if you write to him,’ they said.

[Sidenote: Letter Of The King.]

Francis I. made up his mind, and instead of addressing the sovereign whose subject Melancthon was, the proud king of France wrote to the plain doctor of Wittemberg. This was not quite regular; had the monarch written to the elector, such a step might have produced very beneficial results; not so much because the susceptibility of the latter prince would not have been wounded, as because the reasons which Francis, with Du Bellay’s help, might have given him, would perhaps have convinced a ruler so friendly to the Gospel and to peace as John Frederick. It is sometimes useful to observe the rules of diplomacy. This is the letter from the King of France to the learned doctor, dated 23d of June, 1535.

‘Francis, by the grace of God King of the French, to our dear Philip
Melancthon, greeting:

‘I have long since been informed by William du Bellay, my
chamberlain and councillor, of the zeal with which you are
endeavoring to appease the dissensions to which the Christian
doctrine has given rise. I now learn from the letter which you have
written to him, and from Voré de la Fosse, that you are much
inclined to come to us, to confer with some of our most
distinguished doctors on the means of restoring in the Church that
divine harmony which is the first of all my desires.[698] Come then,
either in an official character, or in your own name; you will be
very acceptable to me, and you will learn, in either case, the
interest I feel in the glory of your Germany and the peace of the
universe.’

These declarations from the King of France forwarded the enterprise; before taking such a step, he must have been very clear in his intentions. We may well ask, however, if the letter was sincere. In history, as in nature, there are striking contrasts. While these things were passing in the upper regions of society, scenes were occurring in the lower regions which ran counter to those fine projects of princes and scholars. The Swiss divines maintained that the whole affair was a comedy in which the king and his ministers played the chief parts. That may be questionable, but the interlude was a blood-stained tragedy. In the very month when Francis I. wrote to Melancthon, a poor husbandman of La Bresse, John Cornon, was arrested while at work in the fields, and taken to Macon. The judges, who expected to see an idiot appear before them, were astonished when they heard that poor peasant proving to them, in his simple _patois_, the truth of his faith, and displaying an extensive knowledge of Holy Scripture. As the pious husbandman remained unshaken in his attachment to the all-sufficient grace of Jesus Christ, he was condemned to death, dragged on a hurdle to the place of execution, and there burnt alive.[699]

In the following month of July, Dennis Brion, a humble barber of Sancerre, near Paris, and a reputed heretic, was taken in his shop. He had often expounded the Scriptures, not only to those who visited him, but also to a number of persons who assembled to hear him. Nothing annoyed the priests so much as these meetings, where simple Christians, speaking in succession, bore testimony to the light and consolation they had found in the Bible. Brion was condemned, as the husbandman of La Bresse had been, and his death was made a great show. It was the time of the _grands jours_ at Angers; and there he was burnt alive, in the midst of an immense concourse of people from every quarter.[700] It is probable that those executions were not the result of any new orders, but a mere sequel to the cruelties of the 21st of January, the influence of which had only then reached the provinces.

These two executions, however, made the necessity of laboring to restore peace and unity still more keenly felt. Those engaged in the task saw but one means: to admit on one side the evangelical doctrine, and on the other the episcopal form with a bishop _primus inter pares_. Western Christendom would thus have a protestant body with a Roman dress. The Church of the Reformation (it was said) holds to doctrine before all things, and the Church of Rome to its government; let us unite the two elements. The Wittemberg doctors hoped that the substance would prevail over the form; the Roman doctors that the form would prevail over the substance; but many on both sides honestly believed that the proposed combination would succeed and be perpetual.

[Sidenote: Du Bellay Goes To Rome.]

At the same time as De la Fosse started for Wittemberg, the new cardinal, Du Bellay, departed for Rome: two French embassies were to be simultaneously in the two rival cities. The ostensible object of the cardinal’s journey was not the great matter which the king had at heart, but to thank the pope for the dignity conferred upon him; still it was the intention and the charge of the Bishop of Paris to do all in his power to induce the catholic Church to come to an understanding with the protestants. Before quitting France, he wrote to Melancthon: ‘There is nothing I desire more earnestly than to put an end to the divisions which are shaking the Church of Christ. My dear Melancthon, do all you can to bring about this happy pacification.[701] If you come here, you will have all good men with you, and especially the king, who is not only in name, but in reality, _most Christian_. When you have conferred with him thoroughly, which will be soon, I trust, there is nothing that we may not hope for. God grant that at Rome, whither I am going with all speed, I may obtain, in behalf of the work I meditate, all the success that I desire.’[702]

The cardinal’s journey was of great importance. The party to which he belonged, which desired one sole Catholic Church, in which evangelical doctrines and Romish forms should be skilfully combined, was acquiring favor in the metropolis of catholicism. The new pope raised to the cardinalate Contarini and several other prelates who were known for their evangelical sentiments and the purity of their lives. He left them entire liberty; he permitted them to contradict him in the consistory, and even encouraged them to do so. The hope of a reform grew greater day by day in Italy.[703] It thus happened that Cardinal du Bellay found himself in a very favorable atmosphere at Rome: he would be backed by the influence of France, and to a certain point by the imperial influence also, for no one desired more strongly than Charles V. an arrangement between catholics and protestants. The Bishop of Paris, an enlightened and skilful diplomatist and pious man, had a noble appearance, and displayed in every act the mark of a great soul.[704] He thus won men’s hearts, and might, in concert with Melancthon, be the chosen instrument to establish the so much desired unity in the Church.

[Sidenote: Du Bellay To Melancthon.]

While he was on his way to confer with the pope and cardinals, others were canvassing Melancthon and the protestants. De la Fosse left for Wittemberg, bearing the king’s letter, and William du Bellay, an intelligent statesman, who was determined to spare no pains to bring the great scheme to a successful issue, wrote to the German doctor, explaining motives and removing objections. In his eyes the cause in question was the greatest of all: it was the cause of religion and of France. ‘Let us beware,’ wrote the councillor of Francis I. to Melancthon, ‘let us beware of irritating the king, whose favor you will confess is necessary to us. If, after he has written to you with his own hand, after you have almost given your consent, after he has sent you a deputation, in whose company you could make the journey without danger,—if you finally refuse to come to France, I much fear that the monarch will not look upon it with a favorable eye. It is necessary both to France and religion that you comply with the king’s request.[705] Fear not the influence of the wicked, who cannot endure to be deprived of anything in order that the glory of Jesus Christ should be increased.[706] The king is skilful, prudent, yielding, and allows himself to be convinced by sound reasons. If you have an interview with him, if you talk with him, if you set your motives before him, you will inflame him with an admirable zeal for your cause.[707] Do not think you will have to dissemble or give way.... No; the king will praise your courage in such serious matters more than he would praise your weakness. I therefore exhort and conjure you in Christ’s name not to miss the opportunity of doing the noblest of all the works which it is possible to perform among men.’

As we read these important letters, these touching solicitations, and the firm opinions of the councillor of Francis I., we are tempted to inquire what is their date. Is it in reality only five months after the strappadoes? One circumstance explains the startling contrast. France might say: ‘I feel two natures in me.’ Which of them shall prevail? That is the question. Will it be the intelligence, frankness, love of liberty, and presentiment of the moral responsibility of man, which are often found in the French people; or the incredulity, superstition, sensuality, cruelty, and despotism, of which Catherine de Medicis, her husband, and her sons were the types? Shall we see a people, eager for liberty, submitting in religious things to the yoke of a Church which never allows any independence to individual thought? Strange to say, the solution of this important question seemed to depend upon a reformer. Should Melancthon come to France, he would, in the opinion of the Du Bellays and the best intellects of the age, inaugurate with God’s help in that illustrious country the reign of the Gospel and liberty, and put an end to the usurpations of Rome.

If the great enterprise at which some of the greatest and most powerful personages were then working succeeded, if the tendency of Catherine and her sons (continued unfortunately by the Bourbons) were overcome, France was saved. It was a solemn opportunity. Never, perhaps, had that great nation been nearer the most important transformation.

In addition to the appeals of Du Bellay, no means were spared to persuade Germany. Sturm wrote another letter to the Wittemberg doctor, telling him that the king was not very far from sharing the religious ideas of the protestants, and that, if his views were laid clearly and fearlessly before him, the reformer would find that the sovereign agreed with him on many important points. And more than this, Claude Baduel, who, after studying at Wittemberg, was in succession professor at Paris, rector at Nismes, and pastor at Geneva, was intrusted by the Queen of Navarre with a mission to Melancthon. Francis I., wishing to pass from words to deeds, published an amnesty on the 16th July, 1535, in which he declared that ‘the anger of our Lord being appeased, persons accused or suspected should not be molested, that all prisoners should be set at liberty, their confiscated goods restored, and the fugitives permitted to re-enter the kingdom, provided they lived as good catholic Christians.’[708]

As Francis I. did not wish to alarm the court of Rome, and desired to prevent it from interfering and seeking to disturb and thwart his plans, he called Cardinal du Bellay to him a short time before his departure, and said: ‘You will give the Holy Father to understand that I am sending your brother to the protestants of Germany to get what he can from them; at the very least to prevail on them to acknowledge the power of the pope as head of the Church universal. With regard to faith, religion, ceremonies, institutions, and doctrines, he will preserve such as it will be proper to preserve,—at least, what may reasonably be tolerated, while waiting the decision of the council.... Matters being thus arranged, our Holy Father will then be able earnestly and joyfully to summon a council to meet at Rome, and his authority will remain sure and flourishing; for, if the enemies of the Holy See once draw in their horns in Germany, they will do the same in France, Italy, England, Scotland, and Denmark.’[709]

The opinions of Francis I. come out clearly in these instructions. The only thing he cared about was the preservation of the pope’s temporal power. As for religion, ceremonies, and doctrines, he would try to come to an understanding,—he would get what he could; but the protestants must pull in their horns,—must renounce their independent bearing. The king declared himself satisfied, provided the people of Europe continued to walk beneath the Caudine forks of Romish power.

[Sidenote: Conference With The Reformers.]

It was not long before the king showed what were his real intentions, and towards what kind of reconciliation a council would have to labor, if one should ever be assembled, which was very doubtful. On the 20th July, the Bishop of Senlis, his confessor, requested the Sorbonne to nominate ten or twelve of its theologians to confer with the reformers. If a bombshell had fallen in the midst of the Faculty, it could not have caused greater alarm. ‘What an unprecedented proposal!’ exclaimed the doctors; ‘is it a jest or an insult?’ For two days they remained in deliberation. ‘We will nominate deputies,’ said the assembly, ‘but for the purpose of remonstrating with the king.’ ‘Sire,’ boldly said these delegates, ‘your proposal is quite useless and supremely dangerous. Useless, for the heretics will hear of nothing but Holy Scripture; dangerous, for the catholics, who are weak in faith, may be perverted by the objections of the heretic.... Let the Germans communicate to us the articles on which they have need of instruction, we will give it them willingly; but there can be no discussion with heretics. If we meet them, it can only be as their judges. It is a divine and a human law to cut off the corrupted members from the body. If such is the duty of the State against assassins, much more is it their duty against schismatics who destroy souls by their rebellion.’[710]

These different movements did not take place in secret; they were talked about all over the city, and far beyond it. Enlightened minds were much amused by the fear which the doctors of the Sorbonne had of speaking. There was no lack of remarks on that subject. ‘We must not chatter and babble overmuch about the Gospel; but it is absurd that, when anybody inquires into our faith, we should say nothing in defence of it. Let us discourse about the mysteries of God peaceably and mildly: to be silent is a supineness and cowardice worthy of the sneers of unbelievers.’[711] When Marot the poet heard of the answer of the Sorbonne, he said:—

Je ne dis pas que Mélancthon
Ne déclare au roi son advis;
Mais de disputer vis-à-vis ...
Nos maîtres n’y veulent entendre.

The politicians were not silent. The prospect of an agreement with the protestants deeply moved the chiefs of the Roman party, who resolved to do all in their power to oppose the attempt. Montmorency, the grand master, the Cardinal de Tournon, the Bishop of Soissons, de Chateaubriand, and others exerted all their influence to prevent Melancthon from coming to France, Cardinal du Bellay from succeeding at Rome, and catholics and protestants from shaking hands together under the auspices of Francis I.

This fanatical party, which was to make common cause with the Jesuits, already forestalled them in cunning. ‘One morning,’, say Roman-catholic historians,[712] ‘Cardinal de Tournon appeared at the king’s _levée_, reading a book magnificently bound.’ ‘Cardinal, what a handsome book you have there!’ said the king. ‘Sire,’ replied De Tournon, ‘it is the work of an illustrious martyr, Saint Irenæus, who presided over the Church of Lyons in the second century. I was reading the passage which says that John the Evangelist, being about to enter some public baths, and learning that the heretic Cerinthus was inside, hastily retired, exclaiming: “Let us fly, my children, lest we be swallowed up with the enemies of the Lord.” That is what the apostles thought of heretics; and yet you, Sire, the eldest son of the Church, intend inviting to your court the most celebrated disciple of that arch-heretic Luther.’ De Tournon added that an alliance with the Lutherans would not only cause Milan to be lost to France, but would throw all the catholic powers into the arms of the emperor.[713] Francis I., though persisting in his scheme, saw that he could not force those to speak who had made up their minds to be silent; and wishing to give De Tournon some little satisfaction he let the Faculty know that he would not ask them to confer with the reformers. The king intended to hear both parties; he sought to place himself between the two stormy seas, like a quiet channel, which communicates with both oceans, and in which it was possible to manœuvre undisturbed by tempests.

[Sidenote: Is A Mixed Congress Possible?]

The refusal of the Sorbonne, at that time more papistical than the pope himself, does not imply that a conference between protestant and catholic theologians was impossible; for six years later such a conference really did take place at Ratisbon, and nearly succeeded. A committee, half protestant, half Romanist, in which Melancthon and Bucer sat, and in which the pious Cardinal Contarini took part as papal legate, admitted the evangelical faith in all essential points, and declared in particular that man is justified not by his own merits, but by faith alone in the merits of Christ, pointing out, however, as the protestants had always done, that the faith which justifies must _work by love_. That meeting of Ratisbon came to nothing: it could come to nothing. A gleam of light shone forth, but a breath from Rome extinguished the torch, and Contarini submitted in silence. The conference, however, remains in history as a solemn homage, paid by the most believing members of the Roman-catholic Church to the Christian doctrines of the Reformation.[714]

Footnote 669:

1 Corinth. x. 15.

Footnote 670:

‘Die Leute die die Sache fordern, mehr Erasmich als Evangelisch
sind.’—Bretschneider, _Corpus Reformatorum_, ii. p. 909.

Footnote 671:

Calvin.

Footnote 672:

‘Stultissimis et seditiosissimis rationibus regna et gentes
perturbarunt.’—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 855.

Footnote 673:

‘Quorum ego paradoxa malo iisdem sepelire tenebris, unde subito
emerserant, quam apud vos, amplissimi ordines, hoc est, in orbis
terrarum luce memorari.’ In the _Corpus Reformatorum_, ii. pp.
828-835, Bretschneider gives only the German translation of this
letter. The original Latin, whose existence we were ignorant of when
our third volume was published, will be found in Freheri _Script.
Rerum German._ iii. p. 295.

Footnote 674:

It appears certain that some Germans were imprisoned; but they were
afterwards released and sent back to Germany by the king’s
order.—_Corpus Reformatorum_, ii. p. 857.

Footnote 675:

For these opinions see _supra_, vol. ii. p. 353.

Footnote 676:

‘Mutilati et excerpti . . . . . . mala fide decerpti.’—_Corpus
Reformatorum_, ii. p. 976.

Footnote 677:

‘Vocor transfuga, desertor . . . . me totam causam
prodidisse.’—Melancthon to Du Bellay. _Corpus Reform._ ii. p. 915.

Footnote 678:

‘C’est un vice d’entretenir des menus fatras.’—Calvin, _Lettres
Françaises_, i. p. 420.

Footnote 679:

‘De Gallo, homine impuro, profano et ambitioso.’—Bullinger to
Myconius, 12 March, 1534. _Corp. Ref._ p. 122.

Footnote 680:

‘Ego velim . . . . cum Gallis martyribus Christum adire.’—Bucer,
_Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol._ 1850, p. 44.

Footnote 681:

‘E fu questo dolore ed affanno che lo condusse alla morte.’—Soriano,
in Ranke, i. p. 127.

Footnote 682:

Warchi, _Istorie Fiorentine_, p. 636. Ranke.

Footnote 683:

Moreri, art. _Du Bellay_.

Footnote 684:

_Livre du Chevalier de la Tour-Landry qui fut fait pour l’enseignement
des femmes mariées et à marier._ It was reprinted in 1854 by Jannet,
in the ‘Bibliothèque Elzevirienne.’ There are seven manuscript copies
in the Bibliothèque Impériale. See also Burnier, _Histoire Littéraire
de l’Education_, i. p. 11.

Footnote 685:

‘Quod Evangelii causam et Christi gloriam perturbaret.’—_Corp. Ref._
ii. p. 887.

Footnote 686:

‘Cum rege diu de te locutus est, ita ut te omnibus, qui nostris
temporibus docti et habentur et sunt, prætulerit.’—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p.
857.

Footnote 687:

‘Sentio respici a Deo calamitatibus affectas et afflictas hominum
conditiones.’—_Corpus Reformatorum_, ii. p. 858.

Footnote 688:

‘Deus portum aliquem profugium ostendit.’—_Ibid._ p. 856.

Footnote 689:

See Schmidt’s _Vie de Jean Sturm, premier recteur de Strasbourg_.

Footnote 690:

‘Da Franz i. aüf Erneürung der Kirche sinne . . . . bereit sei zur
Kirchenverbesserung, das seine zu thun, und die Gevissen frei zu
lassen.’—Sturm to Bucer. Schmidt, _Zeitschrift für die Hist. Theol._
1850, i. p. 46. Strobel, _Hist. du Gymnase de Strasbourg_, p. 111 &c.

Footnote 691:

‘Non rogatus se discipulum tuum esse dixit.’—_Corpus Reformatorum_,
ii. p. 857.

Footnote 692:

‘Sed advocari te Dei Christique voce.’—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 859.

Footnote 693:

‘Qui sunt Germani, qui Itali, qui Hispani et alii?’—Schmidt,
_Zeitschr. für Hist. Theol._ 1850, p. 47.

Footnote 694:

‘Cum regnum gallicum, si licet dicere, caput christiani orbis
sit.’—_Corpus Reformatorum_, ii. p. 869.

Footnote 695:

‘Gallica natio eximium habet pietatis studium.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 696:

‘Vereor ut impetrari ea possint quæ ad gloriam Christi et
tranquillitatem Galliæ et Ecclesiæ necessaria esse duco.’—_Corpus
Reformatorum_, ii. p. 876.

Footnote 697:

‘Mihi vero etiam supra quam dici potest jucundum.’—_Ibid._ p. 880.

Footnote 698:

‘Quo resarciri possit pulcherrima illa ecclesiasticæ politiæ harmonia,
qua una re cum ego mihi nihil unquam quicquam majori cura, studio
complectendum esse duxerim.’—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 880.

Footnote 699:

Crespin, _Actes des Martyres_, p. 116.

Footnote 700:

Ibid. p. 126.

Footnote 701:

‘In hanc pacificationem, mi Melancthon, per Deum quantum potes
incumbe.’—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 881.

Footnote 702:

The letter is dated: ‘Ex fano Quintini (St. Quentin) in Viromanduis,
die 27 Jun. anno 1535.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 703:

‘Molti anni inanzi, li prelati non erano stati in quelle riforma di
vita; li cardinali havevono libertà maggiore di dire l’ opinione loro,
in consistorio .... Si poteva sperare di giorno in giorno maggiore
riforma.’—_Tre libri delli Commentarj delli Guerra_, 1537. Ranke.

Footnote 704:

De Thou; Sainte-Marthe.

Footnote 705:

‘Necessarium esse religioni et Galliæ ut regiæ exspectationi
satisfacias.’—_Corp. Ref._ ii. p. 888.

Footnote 706:

‘Non enim est quod metuas iniquorum potentiam.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 707:

‘Mirabiliter eum inflammares.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 708:

Isambert, xii. p. 405; Sismondi, xvi. p. 459.

Footnote 709:

Instructions des rois très chrétiens et de leurs ambassadeurs (Paris
1654), p. 7.

Footnote 710:

Ballue et Bouchigny. Crevier, _Hist. de l’Université_, v. pp. 2-4.

Footnote 711:

Calvin.

Footnote 712:

Pallavicini, Maimbourg, Varillas, &c.

Footnote 713:

Maimbourg, _Calvinisme_, p. 28. Varillas, ii. p. 449.

Footnote 714:

‘Acta in conventu Ratisbonensi, 1541,’ by Melancthon and Bucer.