Chapter I: France in the Sixteenth Century (2)

In Louis the Eleventh the papal court seemed to have found a more promising prince to deal with. Animated by hatred of his father, and disposed to oppose whatever had met his father's approval, Louis had, while yet dauphin, given the Pope's agents flattering assurances of his good intentions.[55] On ascending the throne, he permitted his father's memory to be treated with disrespect, by suffering a nuncio to pronounce absolution over the corpse for the heinous sin of originating the Pragmatic Sanction. Later, on receiving the assurance of the Pope's support for the house of Anjou in Naples, he consented to repeal the hateful ordinance. A royal declaration for this purpose was published in 1461, contrary to the advice of the king's council.[56] It met with universal reprobation. The Parliament of Toulouse would register the document only with an accompanying note stating that this had been done "by the most express command of the king." The Parliament of Paris absolutely declined to admit it in its records, and sent a deputation to Louis to set forth the pernicious results that were to be expected from the overthrow of his father's wise regulations.[57] The University made bold to appeal to a general council of the Church.

[Sidenote: But subsequently re-enacts it.]

Meanwhile it happened that Louis made the unwelcome discovery that his Italian friends had deceived him, and that the prospect was very remote of obtaining the advantages by which he had been allured. It was not very difficult, therefore, to persuade him to renounce his project. Not content with this, three years after his formal revocation of the entire Pragmatic Sanction, he even re-enacted some of the clauses of the document respecting "expectatives" and "provisions."

[Sidenote: Parliament protests against the repeal.]

But a few years later, in 1467, Louis again conceived it to be for his interest to abrogate the Pragmatic Sanction. At the suggestion of Cardinal Balue, the recent enactment against "expectatives" was repealed. The Parliament of Paris, however, refused to record the letters patent. Among other powerful arguments adduced was the fact that a recent investigation had proved that, in the three years of the pontificate of Pius the Second during which the Pragmatic Sanction had been virtually set aside (1461-1464), Rome drew from the kingdom not less than 240,000 crowns in payment of bulls for archbishoprics, bishoprics, and abbeys falling vacant within this term; 100,000 for priories and deaneries; and the enormous sum of 2,500,000 crowns for "expectatives" and "dispensations."[58] This startling financial exhibit was accompanied by statements of the indirect injury received by the community from the great number of candidates thrown on the tender mercies of relations and friends, whom they thus beggared while awaiting a long deferred preferment.[59] Even when successful, "they received only lead for gold." Frequently, when they were about to clutch the coveted prize, a rival stepped in armed with documents annulling those previously given. Cases had, indeed, been known in which ten or twelve contestants presented themselves, all basing their claims upon the pontifical warrant.[60]

[Sidenote: Fall of Cardinal Balue.]

Cardinal Balue was not slow in finding means to remove from office the intrepid _Procureur-general_, who had been prominent in urging parliament to resist the measure of repeal. But Saint-Romain's bold stand had confirmed both parliament and university, and neither body would acquiesce in the papal demands. Louis, however, was reconciled to a second abandonment of the scheme by the opportune discovery of the cardinal's treachery. The unhappy prelate met with deserved retribution, for his purple did not save him from enduring his own favorite mode of punishment, and being shut up in a great iron cage. The new Perillus was thus enabled--to the intense satisfaction of many whom he had wronged--to test in his own person the merits of a contrivance which he was reputed himself to have invented.[61]

A concordat subsequently agreed upon by Louis and the Pope fared no better than the previous compacts. Parliament and university were resolute, and the king, having no further advantage to gain by keeping his word, was as careless in its fulfilment as was his wont. The Pragmatic Sanction was still observed as the law of the land. The highest civil courts, ignoring the alleged repeal, conformed their decisions to its letter and spirit, while the theologians of the Sorbonne taught it as the foundation of the ecclesiastical constitution of France. Yet, public confidence in its validity having been shaken, it was desirable to set all doubts at rest by a formal re-enactment. This was proposed by the Dean of St. Martin of Tours, in the States General held during the minority of Charles the Eighth; but, notwithstanding the well-known opinion of all the orders, this reign passed without the adoption of any decided action.

[Sidenote: Action of Louis XII.]

[Sidenote: His motto.]

It was reserved for Louis the Twelfth to take the desired step. In 1499 he published the Pragmatic Sanction anew, and ordered the exclusion from office of all that had obtained benefices from Rome. In vain did the Pope rave. In vain did he summon all upholders of the ordinance to appear before the Fifth Lateran Council. The sturdy prince--the "Father of his people"--who had chosen for his motto the device, "_Perdam Babylonis nomen_," made little account of the menaces of Julius the Second, whom death overtook, it is said, while about to fulminate a bull transferring the title of "Very Christian King" from Louis the Twelfth of France to Henry the Eighth of England.[62]

[Sidenote: Concordat of Leo X. and Francis I.]

Thirsting for military distinction, Francis the First had no sooner obtained the throne than he entered upon the career of arms in northern Italy, and the signal victory of Marignano, won less than ten months after his accession (September 13, 1515), closed his first campaign. This success was productive of more lasting results than merely the temporary possession of the Milanese. It led to a reconciliation with the Pope, and to a stately interview in the city of Bologna. All that was magnificent and captivating to the senses had been studied to dazzle the eyes of a young and imaginative prince; for Leo the Tenth, patron of the arts and of artists, was an adept in scenic effects. Certainly never did pomp and ceremony more easily effect the object for which they were employed. The interview of Bologna paved the way for a concordat, in which the rights of the Gallican Church were sacrificed, and the spoils divided between king and pontiff.[63] Three cardinals took part in the elaboration of the details of the instrument--two on the pontifical, the third on the royal side. The last was the notorious Cardinal Duprat, elevated by Francis to the office of chancellor--a minister of religion who was soon to introduce venality into every department of government. The source of the concordat determined tolerably well its character.

Appreciating the strength of the opposition its pretensions had always encountered in France, the papal court had resolved to renounce a portion of its claims in favor of the king, in order to retain the rest more securely. Under the pretext that the right of election vested in the chapters had been abused, partly by the choice of illiterate and improper men, partly through the practice of simony, the selection of archbishops and bishops was taken from them and confided to the king. He was empowered to choose a doctor or licentiate of theology or law, not less than twenty-seven years of age, within six months after the see became vacant. The name of the candidate was to be submitted to the Pope for approval, and, if this first nomination was rejected, a second was to be made by the king. Similar regulations were made respecting abbeys and monastic institutions in general, a few exceptions being allowed in favor of those patrons and bodies to whom special privileges had been accorded. The issue of "expectatives" was prohibited; but, as no mention was made of the "annats," it followed, of course, that this rich source of gain to the papal treasury was to lie open, in spite of the provisions of the Pragmatic Sanction to the contrary.[64]

Such were some of the leading features of the concordat between Leo the Tenth and Francis the First--a document introducing changes so violent as to amount almost to a complete revolution in the ecclesiastical constitution of the land.

[Sidenote: Dissatisfaction of the French.]

After receiving the unqualified approval of the Lateran Council, in a session at which few prelates were present from outside of Italy, the concordat, engrossed on white damask, and accompanied by a revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction on cloth of gold, was forwarded to Francis, who had now returned to his kingdom. The latter, not ignorant of the discontent already engendered by the mere rumor of the transaction, first submitted the concordat alone to a mixed assembly composed of prelates and canons, of presidents and counsellors of parliament, doctors of the university, and other prominent personages. But the king's caution failed of accomplishing what had been intended. The general dissatisfaction found expression in the speech of Cardinal Boissy, demanding that the clergy be consulted by itself on a matter so vitally affecting its interests, and suggesting the necessity of a national council for that purpose. Francis angrily retorted that the clergy _must obey_, or he would send its bishops to Rome to discuss with the Pope.

[Sidenote: Struggle with the parliaments.]

Failing in the attempt to forestall the expression of disapprobation of the judiciary by securing the favorable verdict of a picked assembly of influential persons, the king, nevertheless, proceeded to carry into execution that clause of the concordat which enjoined ratification by the parliaments. Letters patent were first dispatched commanding all judges to conform to its provisions, and these were followed shortly by copies of the instrument itself and of the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction, for registry. At this point properly began one of the most notable contests between the crown and parliaments of France. The Parliament of Paris, taking the ground that so fundamental a change in the national customs demanded mature consideration, deferred action. With the view of exercising a pressure on its deliberations, Francis now commissioned his uncle, the Bastard of Savoy, to be present at the sessions. Against this unprecedented breach of privilege parliament sent a deputation humbly to remonstrate; but all to no purpose. The irritated prince, who entertained the most extravagant views of the royal prerogative, declared his intention to satisfy himself concerning the real disposition of his judges, and assured the deputies that he had firmly resolved to despatch the disobedient to the inferior parliaments of Bordeaux and Toulouse, and fill their places with "men of worth." "I am your king," was his constant exclamation, and this passed with him for an unanswerable argument in support of his views. But the members of parliament were not easily moved. Undoubtedly the success attending their previous resistance to the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction, on at least three occasions in the reign of Louis the Eleventh, emboldened them in the present instance. Unawed by the presence of the Bastard of Savoy, they refused to concede the registration of the concordat, and declared that they must continue to observe the Pragmatic Sanction, endorsed, as that ordinance had been, by the representatives of the entire nation. Not only did they protest against suffering the Sanction to be annulled, but they insisted upon the convocation of the clergy in a body similar to that assembled by Charles the Seventh, as an indispensable preliminary to the investigation of the matter.

[Sidenote: Haughty demeanor of the king.]

Francis, who happened to be at his castle of Amboise, on the Loire, now sent word that parliament should appoint a deputation to convey to him the reasons of its refusal. But when the delegates reached the castle-gate, an entire month elapsed before Francis would condescend to grant them audience. They were at length admitted, only to be treated with studied contempt. "There can be but one king in France," was the arrogant language of the young prince to the judges who had grown gray in the service of Charles the Eighth and the good King Louis. "You speak as if you were not my subjects, and as if I dared not try you and sentence you to lose your heads." And when the indignity of his words awakened the spirited remonstrance of the deputies, Francis rejoined: "I am king: I can dispose of my parliament at my pleasure. Begone, and return to Paris at break of day."

A formal command was now addressed to the Parliament of Paris, and the bearer, La Tremouille, informed that body, as it listened to the message, that Francis had repeated to him more than ten times within a quarter of an hour, "that he would not for half his kingdom fail of his word to the Pope, and that if parliament rebelled, he would find means to make it repent of its obstinacy." Under these circumstances, further resistance from a body so completely dependent on the sovereign was not to be thought of. Yet, even when compelled to yield, parliament, at the suggestion of the _gens du roi_, coupled the registry of the concordat with a declaration that it was made at the express command of the king several times reiterated, that parliament disapproved of the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction; and that, in the adjudication of causes, it would continue to follow the ordinance of Charles the Seventh, while appealing to the Pope under better advisement, and to a future council of the church. Thus the concordat, projected at Bologna in 1515, and signed at Rome on the sixteenth of August, 1516, was registered by the Parliament of Paris _de expressissimo mandato regis_, on the twenty-second of March, 1518.[65]

[Sidenote: The university remonstrates.]

Even now Francis had not quite silenced all opposition. The rector of the University of Paris, not content with entering a formal remonstrance,[66] took a bolder step. Making use of a prerogative long since conceded to the university, of exercising a censure over the press, he posted a notice to all printers and publishers forbidding the reproduction of the concordat on pain of loss of their privileges. The dean and canons of the cathedral church of Paris also handed in a protest. The preachers of several churches rivalled the rector in audacity, by publicly inveighing against the dangers of the ecclesiastical innovations introduced by the king. It is not surprising that a prince impatient even of wholesome rebuke was enraged at this monkish tirade. Parliament was ordered to bring the culprits to justice; but, strange to say, none could be discovered--a circumstance certainly attributable rather to the supineness of the judges than to any lack of witnesses. To the university Francis wrote in a haughty vein, threatening the severe punishment of any of its doctors that dared preach against the government; while, by an edict from Amboise, he forbade the rector and his associates from assembling for the discussion of political questions.

These were the closing scenes of the exciting drama. The king had triumphed, but not without encountering a spirited opposition from parliament, university, and clergy. If these had succumbed, it had only been before superior strength, and each of the bodies reserved to itself the right of treating the concordat as a nullity and the Pragmatic Sanction as still the ecclesiastical constitution of the land.

[Sidenote: The resistance not altogether fruitless.]

Nor was this altogether an empty claim. Some of the provisions of the concordat were never enforced, and that was a solid advantage gained through the opposition. The parliaments persisted in rendering judgment, in such cases as came before them, in conformity with the Pragmatic Sanction. The Bishop of Albi, chosen by the canons, was confirmed in his see, notwithstanding the pretensions of a nominee of the crown. And yet the concordat was not merely maintained by the Pope and the king, but, a few years later, its provisions were extended to monastic foundations previously possessed of an undisputed title to elect. This was done to gratify Francis on the marriage of his second son Henry to Catharine de' Medici, niece of Clement, the reigning pontiff. The somewhat suspicious story is told, that, to aid in carrying out this new act of injustice, Cardinal Duprat, having ordered all ecclesiastical bodies to send him the original documents attesting their right of election, at once consigned the parchments to the fire, in order to destroy all memory of these troublesome claims. If the tale be apocryphal, it at least indicates sufficiently well the estimation in which the prelate's character was held by his contemporaries.

[Sidenote: Advantages gained by the crown.]

The clergy reluctantly admitted the concordat into their books after the lapse of two centuries, but solely, as they declared, for convenience of reference. The restoration of the Pragmatic Sanction continued to be demanded by one or all the orders of the States General, during the reigns of Francis the Second, Charles the Ninth, and their successors, not least on the ground that the day that witnessed its repeal also beheld the introduction of the "heresy" that had since attained such formidable proportions.[67] But, if opposed and denounced, the concordat was carried into execution, so far as most of its provisions were concerned, until the French revolution. The advantages gained by the crown were too palpable to be voluntarily relinquished. Almost the entire patronage of the church was thrown into the hands of the king, who, in the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, held at his disposal eighteen archbishoprics, 112 bishoprics, 1,666 abbeys for men, and 317 abbeys and priories for women.[68] It must not be forgotten that the _annats_, or first-fruits of benefices, now regularly falling into the pontifical treasury, made the concordat scarcely less valuable to the Papal See.[69]

[Sidenote: Era of the Renaissance.]

The most enviable distinction of the reign of Francis the First consisted in the fact that it was the era of that extraordinary development of the fine arts and of literature known as the _Renaissance_. Illustrious during the Middle Ages, and foremost in the pursuit of scholastic learning, France had unfortunately lost that proud eminence when the revival of letters enkindled elsewhere a new passion for discovery. Her adventurous sons had taken the lead in the crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but three hundred years later no expeditions were fitted out in her ports to explore and appropriate the virgin territories beyond the western sea. The art of printing and the impulse given to astronomical research originated abroad. The famous mediaeval seat of learning seemed to have been suddenly visited with a premature decay. Even the exiled scholars of the East, fleeing before Turkish barbarism, disdained to settle in a country where the treasures of ancient science which they had brought with them from Mount Athos and Constantinople were so inadequately appreciated.[70]

[Sidenote: Francis's attainments overrated.]

[Sidenote: A munificent patron of art.]

The reign of Francis the First, however, was destined to remove much of the reproach which had been incurred by reason of this singular tardiness in entering the path of improvement. Born of parents possessed of unusual intelligence and yet rarer education, and stimulated by the companionship of an elder sister whose extensive acquirements furnished the theme of countless panegyrics, Francis early conceived the design of making his court illustrious for the generous patronage extended to the disciples of the liberal arts. His own attainments have been overrated, and posterity has too credulously believed all that admiring and interested courtiers chose to invent in his praise. But, if he was himself ignorant of anything beyond the mere rudiments even of Latin, the universal language of science, he possessed at least one signal merit: he was a munificent friend of those whom poverty would otherwise have precluded from cultivating their resplendent abilities. I shall not repeat the familiar names of the eminent painters and sculptors whom he encouraged and enriched, nor give a list of the skilful architects employed in the construction of his magnificent palaces of St. Germain and Fontainebleau, of Chambord and Chenonceaux. Poetry, not less than painting and architecture, witnessed his liberality. Clement Marot, whose name has been regarded as marking the first truly remarkable epoch in the history of this department of French art,[71] was a favorite at the court of Francis and Margaret of Angouleme, and repaid their gifts with unbounded eulogy. The more solid studies of the philosopher and the linguist were fostered with equal care. Vatable, Melchior Wolmar, and other scholars of note were invited to France, to give instruction in Greek and Hebrew. Erasmus himself might have been induced to yield to the king's importunate messages, could he have been able to divest himself of the apprehension of annoyance from the bigoted "Sorbonnists;" while even Melanchthon was, at a later period, on the point of accepting a pressing summons to visit the French court on a mission of reconciliation.

[Sidenote: Foundation of the College Royal.]

Among the most notable achievements of this prince was the foundation of a school of learning intended to supply the deficiencies of the instruction given by the university. In the "College Royal" Francis desired to leave a lasting token of his devotion to letters. Here he founded chairs of three languages--of Greek and Hebrew at first, and afterward of Latin--whence was derived the name of _Trilingue_, under which the college was celebrated in the writings of the day. The monarch's plan encountered the obstacles which prejudice always knows how to set in the way of improvement. The university doctors, fearing that their own prelections would be forsaken for the more brilliant lectures of the salaried professors of the royal school, demanded that the latter should submit to an examination before the more ancient body of instructors; but parliament wisely rejected their pretensions. Liberal men throughout the world rejoiced at the defeat of the Sorbonne and its representative, Beda,[72] while Marot, alluding to the quarrel in a poetical epistle to the king, poured out in verse his contempt for the "Theologasters" of Paris:

"L'ignorante Sorbonne;
Bien ignorante elle est d'estre ennemie
De la _Trilingue_ et noble Academie
Qu'as erigee....
O povres gens de savoir tout ethiques!
Bien faites vray ce proverbe courant:
'_Science n'ha hayneux que l'ignorant!_'"

It would be unfair to French scholarship to omit all notice of the fact that there were not wanting natives of France itself whose sound learning entitled them to rank with the most conscientious of German humanists; such men as Lefevre d'Etaples, a prodigy of almost universal acquirements; or Louis de Berquin, who furnishes a signal instance of a nobleman of high position that did not shun the toil and danger of a more than ordinarily profound investigation of theological truth. Both will claim our attention again.

[Sidenote: An age of blood.]

Yet, by the side or these manifestations of a growing appreciation of art, science, and letters, it must be confessed that there were indications, no less distinct, of a lamentable neglect of moral training, and of a state of manners scarcely raised above that of uncivilized communities of men. It was still an age of blood. The pages of chronicles, both public and private, teem with proofs of the insignificant value set upon human life and happiness. In many parts of France the peasant rarely enjoyed quiet for even a few consecutive months. Organized bands of robbers, familiarly known as "Mauvais Garcons," infested whole provinces, and laid towns and villages under contribution. Not unfrequently two or three hundred men were to be found in a single band, and the robberies, outrages, and murders they committed defy recital. Often the miscreants were _aventuriers_, or volunteers whose employers had failed to furnish them their stipulated pay, and who avenged their losses by exactions levied upon the unfortunate peasantry. Indeed, if we may believe the almost incredible statements of one of the laws enacted for their suppression, they had been known to carry by assault even walled cities, and to exercise against the miserable inhabitants cruelty such as disgraces the very name of man.[73]

[Sidenote: Barbarous punishments.]

The character or the punishments inflicted for the commission of crime furnishes a convenient test of national civilization. If France in the sixteenth century be tried by this criterion, the conclusion is inevitable that for her the age of barbarism had not yet completely passed away. The catalogue of crimes to which death was affixed as the penalty is frightfully long; some of them were almost trivial offences. A boy less than sixteen years of age was hung for stealing jewelry from his master.[74] On the other hand, with flagrant inconsistency, a nobleman, Rene de Bonneville, superintendent of the royal mint, for the murder of his brother-in-law, was dragged to the place of execution on a hurdle, but suffered the less ignominious fate of decapitation. A part of his property was given to his sister, and the rest confiscated to the crown, with the exception of four hundred livres, reserved for the purchase of masses to be said for the benefit of the soul of his murdered victim.[75]

[Sidenote: Especially for heresy.]

For other culprits extraordinary refinements of cruelty were reserved. The _aventuriers_, when so ill-starred as to fall into the hands of justice, were customarily burned alive at the stake.[76] The same fate overtook those who were detected in frauds against the public treasury. More frightful than all the rest was the vengeance taken by the law upon the counterfeiter of the king's coin. The legal penalty, which is said to have become a dead letter on the pages of the statute-book long before the French revolution, was in the sixteenth century rigidly enforced: on the 9th of November, 1527, a rich merchant of Paris, having been found guilty of the crime in question, was boiled alive before the assembled multitude in the _Marche-aux-pourceaux_.[77] Heresy and blasphemy were treated with no greater degree of leniency than the most infamous of crimes. Even before the reformation a lingering death in the flames had been the doom pronounced upon the person who dared to accept or promulgate doctrines condemned by the church. But when the bitterness of strife had awakened the desire to enhance the punishment of dissent, new or extraordinary tortures were resorted to, of the application of which this history will furnish only too many examples. The forehead was branded, the tongue torn out, the hand cut off at the wrist, or the agonies of death prolonged by alternately dropping the wretched victim into the fire and drawing him out again, until exhausted nature found tardy release in death.

But if we can to some extent account for the excess of cruelty which blind frenzy inflicted on the inflexible martyr to his faith, it is certainly more difficult to explain the severity exercised upon the more pliable, whom the arguments of ghostly advisers, or the terrors of the _Place de Greve_, had induced to recant. Generally the judge did nothing more in their behalf than commute their punishment by ordering them to be strangled before their bodies were consigned to the flames.[78] Yet in one exceptional case--that of a servant whose master, a gentleman and one of the men-at-arms of the Regent of Scotland, was burned alive--the court went to such a length of leniency as to let the repentant heretic off with the sentence that he first be beaten with rods at the cart's end, and afterwards have his tongue cut out.[79] Even the clearest evidence of insanity did not suffice to remove or even mitigate the penalties of impiety. A poor, crazy woman, who had broken the consecrated wafer when administered to her in her illness, and had applied to it some offensive but absurd epithet, was unhesitatingly condemned to the stake. An appeal to a superior court procuring no reversal of her sentence, she was burned at Tours in the year 1533.[80]

[Sidenote: Belief in astrology.]

[Sidenote: Predictions of Nostradamus.]

Other marks of a low stage of civilization were not wanting. The belief in judicial astrology was almost universal.[81] Pretenders like Nostradamus obtained respect and wealth at the hands of their dupes. All France trembled with Catharine de' Medici, when the astrologer gave out that the queen would see all her sons kings, and every one foreboded the speedy extinction of the royal line. The "prophecy," as it was gravely styled, obtained public recognition, and was discussed in diplomatic papers. When two of the queen's sons had in fact become kings of France, and a third had been elected to the throne of Poland, while the marriage of the fourth with Queen Elizabeth was under consideration, Catharine's allies saw grounds to congratulate her that the prediction which had so disquieted her was likely to obtain a more pleasing fulfilment than in the successive deaths of her male descendants.[82]

A still more pernicious form of superstition was noticeable in the credit enjoyed by charms and incantations, not merely among illiterate rustics, but even with persons of high social station. No phase of the magic art led to the commission of more terrible crimes or revealed a worse side of human character than that which pretended to secure the happiness or accomplish the ruin, to prolong the life or hasten the death, of the objects of private love or hatred. While systematically practising upon the credulity of his dupes, the professed master of this ill-omened art frequently resorted to assassination by poison or dagger in the accomplishment of his schemes. Sorcery by means of waxen images was particularly in vogue. Thus, the Queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis the First, in her singular collection of tales, the "Heptameron," gives a circumstantial account of the mode in which her own life was sought by this species of witchcraft.[83] Five puppets had been provided: three, representing enemies (the queen being one of the number), had their arms hanging down; the other two, representing persons whose favor was desired, had them raised aloft. With certain cabalistic words and occult rites the puppets were next secretly hidden beneath an altar whereon the mass was celebrated, and the mysterious "sacrifice" was believed to complete the efficacy of the charm. It was no new superstition imported from abroad, but one that had existed in France for centuries.[84]

[Sidenote: Reverence for relics.]

The French were behind no other nation in reverence for relics of saints and for pictures and images representing them. In the partial list, compiled by a contemporary, of the curiosities of this nature scattered through Christendom,[85] the majority of the relics mentioned are selected from the immense treasures laid up in the thousands of cathedrals, parish churches, and abbeys within the domains of the "Very Christian King." In one place the hair of the blessed Virgin was carefully preserved; in another the sword of the archangel Michael, or the entire body of St. Dionysius. It was true that the Pope had by solemn bull, about a century before, declared, in the presence of the French ambassador, that the entire body of this last-named saint was in the possession of the inhabitants of Ratisbon; but, had any one been so rash as to affirm at Saint Denis, near Paris, that the veritable remains were not there, he would certainly have been stoned.[86] At Notre-Dame de l'Ile, above Lyons, no little account was made of the _twelve combs_ of the apostles![87]

The reflecting man who found, by a comparison of the treasures of different churches within his own personal observation, that some of the pretended relics were frivolous or impossible, and that the same members of some favorite saint were reproduced at points widely distant, might well speculate upon the probable benefits to Christendom from a complete inventory of the contents of the churches of two or three thousand bishoprics, of twenty or thirty thousand abbeys, and of more than forty thousand convents.[88] He might find difficulty in believing that our Lord was crucified with fourteen nails; that "an entire hedge" should have been requisite to plait the crown of thorns; that a single spear should have begotten three others; or that from a solitary napkin there should have issued a whole brood of the same kind.[89] He would be scandalized on learning that each apostle had more than four bodies, and the saints at least two or three apiece.[90] And his faith in the genuineness of the objects of popular adoration would be still further shaken, if, on subjecting them to a closer examination, he discovered that, as was the case at Geneva, he had been worshipping a bone of a deer as the arm of Saint Anthony, or a piece of pumice for the brain of the apostle Peter.[91]

But, whatever sceptical conclusions might be reached by the learned and discerning, the devotion of the common people showed no signs of flagging. In the parish church of St. Stephen at Noyon, it was not the Christian proto-martyr alone that was decorated with a cap and other gewgaws, when his yearly festival came around, but likewise the "tyrants," as they were styled by the people, who stoned him. And the poor women, seeing them thus adorned, took them to be companions of the saint, and each one had his candle. The devil with whom St. Michael contended fared equally well.[92] The very stones that were the instruments of St. Stephen's death were adored at Arles and elsewhere.[93] It was, however, to the Parisians that the palm in this species of superstition rightfully belonged. The knife wherewith an impious Jew had stabbed a consecrated wafer was held in higher esteem than the wafer itself! And so marked was the preference that it aroused the displeasure of one of the most bigoted doctors of the Sorbonne, De Quercu, who reproached the Parisians for being worse than the Jews themselves, "inasmuch as they adored the knife that had served to rend the precious body of Jesus Christ."[94]

[Sidenote: The consecrated wafer.]

When such superstitious respect was paid to the relics of saints, it is not surprising that the consecrated wafer or host received the most extravagant marks of adoration. The king himself was often foremost in public demonstrations in its honor. Louise de Savoie, mother of Francis the First, relates in her quaint diary the pompous ceremonial observed in restoring to its original position a pyx containing the host which had been stolen from the chapel of the palace of St. Germain-en-Laye. The culprit had suffered the customary penalty, having had his hand cut off and being afterward burned alive. In the expiatory procession which took place a few days later, Francis himself walked with uncovered head and carrying a lighted taper in his hand, from Nanterre to St. Germain. If we may credit his mother's somewhat partial account, the sight of the monarch's signal piety was so touching as to bring tears to the eyes of admiring spectators.[95]

In view of the general prevalence of debasing forms of superstition among the people, it is not inappropriate to consider the condition of that class of the population which is wont to exert the most potent influence in forming the moral sentiments and moulding the character of the unlettered masses. We have already touched upon the external relations of the clergy to the king and to the Pope; let us now look more narrowly into its internal state.

[Sidenote: Wealth and power of the clergy.]

At the period of which I am now treating, the clergy, both regular and secular, had attained unprecedented wealth and power. Never, perhaps, had France been more fully represented in the "Sacred College." Assuredly never since the residence of the Popes in Avignon had the French members possessed such immense riches. Thirteen French cardinals sat in the papal consistory at one time in the reign of Francis the First; twelve at the accession of his son to the throne.[96] Their influence in the kingdom was almost beyond conception, both on account of the multitude of benefices they held, and the distinction of the families from whom they sprang and whose titles they retained. Some were the incumbents of as many as _ten_ bishoprics and abbeys; while the cardinals of Bourbon, of Lorraine, of Chatillon, of Du Bellay, and of Armagnac were of the best blood in the realm, and enjoyed in their own right, or by reason of their office, very extensive jurisdiction.

[Sidenote: Non-residence of the prelates.]

A standing reproach against the prelates was their non-residence in the dioceses committed to their pastoral supervision. In fact, when the Council of Trent, by one of its first decrees, forbade a plurality of benefices and enjoined residence, its action was regarded as an open declaration of war against the French episcopate.[97] But if this abuse is deplored by Roman Catholic historians as the fruitful cause of the introduction and rapid progress of Protestantism,[98] the reformers, viewing their work as an instrument specially designed by heaven for the purification of a corrupt church, might well be justified in regarding the negligence of the bishops as a wise providential arrangement. Many a feeble germ of truth was spared the violence of persecution until the kindly sun and the plentiful showers had conferred greater powers of endurance. Happily for the reformers, the duty of watching for the first appearance of reputed heresy, which belonged properly to the bishops, was but poorly discharged by many of the deputies to whom they entrusted it. Nor could a delegated authority always accomplish what might have been done by a principal.[99]

[Sidenote: Revenues of the clergy.]

The annual revenues of the clergy of France were estimated by a Venetian ambassador, with unsurpassed facilities for obtaining accurate information, at six million crowns of gold, out of the fifteen millions that constituted the total revenues of the kingdom. While the clergy thus absorbed _two-fifths_ of the whole income of France, the king was limited to one million and a half crowns, or just one-tenth, derived from his particular estates.[100]

[Sidenote: Morals of the clergy.]

Wealth had engendered luxury and vice. Engrossed in the pursuit of pleasure or personal aggrandizement, the vast majority of clergymen had lost all solicitude for the spiritual welfare of their flocks. About the middle of the century Claude Haton, curate of Meriot--certainly no friend of the reformatory movement--wrote in his Memoires: "The more rapidly the number of heretics in France increased, the more indifferent to the discharge of their duty in their charges were the prelates and pastors of the church, from cardinals and archbishops down to the most insignificant curate. They cared little or nothing how anything went, if they could but draw the income of their benefices at whatever place of residence they had selected with a view to the promotion of their pleasure.[101] They let their benefices out at the highest rate they could get, little solicitous as to the hands they might fall into, provided only they were well paid according to the terms of the agreement. The archbishops, bishops, and cardinals of France were almost all at the court of the king and the princes. The abbots, priors and curates resided in the large cities and in other places, wherein they took more delight than within the limits of their charges and preaching the true word of God to their subjects and parishioners. From their indifference the Lutheran heretics took occasion to slander the Church of Jesus Christ and to seduce Christians from it."[102]

[Sidenote: No regard to the spiritual wants of the people.]

Such a condition of utter indifference on the part of the clergy to the interests of the souls committed to their charge cannot surprise us when we learn that benefices were conferred without regard to the wants of the people. The Venetian Soranzo, in an address delivered after the fruits of the concordat had had full time to mature,[103] declared that in the majority of cases these ecclesiastical positions were dispensed with little respect to things sacred, and through simple favor. They served as a convenient method of rewarding good services. Little account was made of the qualifications of the candidate, who might have earned his reward in the army or in the civil service. And so it often happened that he who to-day was a merchant or a soldier, to-morrow was made bishop or abbot. When, indeed, the fortunate man had a wife or was reluctant to assume the habit, he could readily get permission to place the benefice in the name of another, himself retaining the income.[104] "These new pastors," said Correro, "placed in charge of the churches men who had taken it into their heads to be clergymen only to avoid the toils of some other occupation--men who, by their avarice and dissoluteness of life, confused the innocent people and removed their previous great devotion. _This was the door, this was the spacious gateway, by which heresies entered France._ For the ministers sent from Geneva were easily able to create in the people a hatred of the priests and friars, _by simply weighing in the balance the life led by the latter_."[105]

[Sidenote: The clergy before the concordat.]

It was the fashion among those who passed for philosophers to ascribe the universal dissolution of morals among French ecclesiastics to the operation of the concordat between Francis the First and Pope Leo the Tenth, which, said they, by bringing so many bishops and other high dignitaries to the court in quest of preferment, had corrupted the characters of the prelates, while exposing their flocks to all the evils which neglect is wont to breed. Unfortunately, the portraits of the period preceding the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction that have come down to us dispel the Arcadian simplicity of manners which seems only to have existed in the imagination of a few warm admirers of everything ancient. If the prelates of France were dissolute after the introduction of the concordat, we are assured by a writer by no means partial to the "new doctrines," that the state of affairs was no better at an earlier period. In their abbeys or bishoprics they were as debauched as those who followed arms for their profession.[106] The bishops bought their places with money, or with promises which were to be fulfilled after preferment. "And when they had attained these high dignities," he adds, "God knows what lives they led. Assuredly they were far more devoted to their dioceses than they have since been; for they never left them. But it was to lead a most dissolute life with their dogs and birds, with their feasts, banquets, marriage entertainments and courtezans, of whom they gathered seraglios.... All this was permitted, and none dared to remonstrate or utter censure. Even more could be related, which is passed over in silence through fear of creating scandal. Our present bishops, if not better men, are at least more discreet hypocrites, and more skilfully conceal their black vices."[107] Nor were the morals of the monastic orders depicted in brighter colors. "Generally the monks elected the most jovial companion, him who was the most fond of women, dogs, and birds, the deepest drinker--in short, the most dissipated; and this in order that, when they had made him abbot or prior, they might be permitted to indulge in similar debauch and pleasure. Indeed, they bound him beforehand by strong oaths, to which he was forced to conform either voluntarily or by constraint. The worst was that, when they failed to agree in their elections, they usually came to blows with fist and sword, and inflicted wounds and even death. In a word, there was more tumult, more faction and intrigue, than there is at the election of the Rector of the University of Paris."[108] It was not strange, therefore, that Francis, unable otherwise to recompense his deserving nobles, should prefer to bestow upon them rich abbeys and priories, rather than leave these to the monks in their cloisters--monks who, as the monarch used to say, "were good for nothing but to eat and drink, to frequent taverns and gamble, to twist cords for the cross-bow, set traps for ferrets and rabbits, and train linnets to whistle"--men whose idleness and other vices were so notorious that the expressions, "He is as idle as a priest or monk," and "Avaricious and lewd as a priest or monk," passed into proverbs.[109]

[Sidenote: Aversion to the use of the French language.]

Ecclesiastical teachers themselves so ignorant and corrupt could not be expected to do much for the elevation of the laity. Of _popularizing_ knowledge, especially religious knowledge, the clergy and their adherents had little thought. Latin alone was deemed suitable for the discussion of matters of faith. It was enough to condemn the employment of French for this purpose, that it could be understood by the people. For the reformers was reserved the honor of raising the dialect of the masses to the dignity of a language fit for the highest literary uses, and of compelling even their antagonists to resort to it in self-defence, though, it must be confessed, with a very poor grace. So late as in 1558 we find a leading theologian of the Sorbonne publicly _apologizing_ for the condescension. "Very dear friend," he writes in the address to the reader, "I doubt not that, at first sight, you will regard it as strange and perhaps very wrong that this reply is couched in the vulgar tongue; _seeing that it would be much more suitable were it circulated in the Latin rather than the French tongue_, inasmuch as the subject-matter consists of things greatly concerning Christian faith, _which require rather to be put in Latin than in French_. Of this also we have the example of the holy ancient doctors, who were always accustomed to write against heretics in Latin and not in French."[110] If such was the avowed repugnance to the use of the language of the people in the treatment of religious themes, so late as within a year of the death of Henry the Second, it may readily be conceived how deep the aversion was a generation earlier, at the first appearance of the reformation.

[Sidenote: Ignorance of the Holy Scriptures.]

As to acquaintance with the contents of the Holy Scriptures, either in the original or in translation, there was next to none among the professed teachers of science and religion. If the statements of the celebrated scholar and printer, Robert Etienne, or Stephens, seem almost incredible, they nevertheless come from a witness of unimpeachable veracity. Referring to the period of his boyhood or early youth--he was born in 1503--Etienne sketched the biblical attainments of the doctors of the Sorbonne after this fashion: "In those times, as I can affirm with truth, when I asked them in what part of the New Testament some matter was written, they used to answer that they had read it in Saint Jerome or in the Decretals, but that they did not know what the New Testament was, not being aware that it was customary to print it after the Old. What I am going to state will appear almost a prodigy, and yet there is nothing more true nor better proven: Not long since, a member of their college used daily to say, 'I am amazed that these young people keep bringing up the New Testament to us. _I was more than fifty years old before I knew anything about the New Testament!_'"[111]

[Sidenote: Miracles to stimulate the popular faith.]

[Sidenote: The "ghost of Orleans."]

The absence of teaching founded upon a rational exposition of the Holy Scriptures was not less marked than was the abundance of reported miracles, by means of which the popular faith was stimulated and sustained. Above all, the doctrine of transubstantiation was fortified by the circulation of stories of wonders such as that which took place at Poitiers, in 1516, when the consecrated wine, spilled by a crazy man, from white instantly became red.[112] At other times imposture was resorted to in support of such profitable beliefs as the existence of purgatorial fires, or to inculcate the advantage accruing from masses for the souls of the dead. The "ghost of Orleans" has become historic. The wife of the provost of the city having died, was buried, as she had requested, without any pomp and without the customary gifts to the church. Thereupon the Franciscans conceived the scheme of making use of her example to warn others against following a course so detrimental to monastic and priestly interests. The mysterious knockings by means of which the deceased was supposed to give intimation of her miserable doom and of her desire that her body, as of one that had been tainted with heresy, should be removed from the holy ground wherein it had been interred, were listened to with amazement by the awe-stricken people. But the opportune discovery of a novice, conveniently posted above the ceiling of the convent chapel, sadly interfered with the success of the well contrived plot, and eleven monks convicted of complicity in the fraud were banished the kingdom. They would have been even more severely punished had not fear been entertained lest the reformers might find too much occasion for triumph.[113]

[Sidenote: Theatrical effects.]

[Sidenote: A strange coin.]

More excusable were the theatrical effects which were intended, without actually deceiving, to heighten the religious devotion of worshippers. Thus, every Pentecost or Whit-Sunday, in the midst of the service an angel was seen to descend from the lofty ceiling of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, attended by two smaller angels, and bearing a silver vase containing water for the use of the celebrant of the high mass.[114] For this somewhat harmless piece of spectacular display a justification might be sought in the religious impressions which the people were supposed to derive most easily through the senses; but nothing could be urged in defence of much that the clergy tolerated or encouraged. Superstitions of heathen origin were suffered to reign undisturbed. Pagan statues were openly worshipped. An Isis received homage and was honored with burning candles. An Apollo at Polignac was a centre of religious veneration, and even the unsavory surroundings, when the spot where it stood was transformed into a stable, could not deter an anxious crowd of devotees from prostrating themselves before it.[115] What better could be expected in an age and country in which the people were imposed upon by reports that prehistoric coins had been discovered bearing the strange legend: "I believe in Jesus _to be born_ among animals and of a Virgin"?[116]

[Sidenote: Indecent processions.]

It was not astonishing that the church itself did little to remove the barbarism prevailing among the common people, for, in point of fact, buffoonery, immodesty, and cruelty had intruded into the very ceremonial of religion. Never were there more disgusting exhibitions of the low state of the public morals than when the occurrence of pestilence, drought, or some other signal visitation of the displeasure of heaven induced a clergy scarcely less rude than the laity to institute propitiatory processions. On such occasions children of both sexes, or perhaps grown men and women, with bare feet, and wearing for their only clothing a sheet that scarcely concealed their forms, passed through the streets of the towns, or wearily trudged from village to village, responsively singing the litanies of the Virgin or the saints, and loudly repeating the refrain, _Ora pro nobis_.[117] Often shameful indecency and a reckless disregard of human life were displayed. In one of the villages of Champagne, during the protracted drought of 1556, the sacred scenes of the Passion were publicly enacted in the streets. The person of our Lord was represented by a young man in a state of entire nudity and bound with cords, who at every step was scourged by his companions, personating the Roman soldiers. The picture was true to life, and the blows so far from unreal that the prime actor in the scandalous performance fell a victim to the inhuman treatment and died within a few days. The fruits of practices so coarse and debasing were such as may easily be conceived.[118]

[Sidenote: The monastic orders incur contempt.]

It was a lamentable but notorious fact that, as a consequence of the unnatural divorce of religion and morality, the clergy, both secular and regular, by their excesses had incurred the contempt of the laity. If the Franciscan monks enjoyed an unenviable pre-eminence in this respect, so as to have come to constitute one of the stock characters in the "Heptameron" and similar works, scarcely less constant than the prodigals or parasites of the New Comedy, the other orders were but little behind them. And so Louise de Savoie made this significant entry in her diary: "In the year 1522, in December, my son and I, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, began to understand the hypocrites, white, black, gray, smoky, and of all colors; from whom may God, by his clemency and infinite goodness, be pleased to preserve and defend us. For, if Jesus Christ be not a liar, there is no more dangerous generation in all human kind."[119] Bishops and cardinals won little more respect than the monks; for was it not the most prominent of the wearers of the purple who, as Chancellor of France, introduced venality into the most sacred offices of state,[120] while by his quarrelsome and unscrupulous diplomacy he richly merited the _bon mot_ of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, that he was more inclined to make _four wars than, one peace_?[121]

[Sidenote: Abortive efforts at reform.]