Chapter I: France in the Sixteenth Century (3)

It does not enter into the province of this history to discuss in detail the causes of the deplorable vices that characterized the priesthood on the eve of the great religious movement of the sixteenth century; nor can we pause to make that analysis of the doctrinal errors then prevalent, which belongs rather to the office of the historian of the Reformation. It will be sufficient, therefore, if we glance hastily at some of the partial and abortive efforts directed toward the reform of doctrine and manners of which mediaeval France was the theatre.

[Sidenote: The Cathari and Albigenses.]

Foremost among the popular opponents of the papacy were the Cathari and Albigenses. The accounts of the origin of the sect or sects bearing these names are vague and unsatisfactory, and the reports of their creed and worship are inconsistent or incredible. The ruin that overwhelmed them spared no friendly narrative of their history, and scarcely one authoritative exposition of the belief for the profession of which their adherents encountered death with heroic fortitude. Defeat not only compelled the remnants of the Albigenses to succumb to Simon de Montfort and his fellow crusaders, but reduced them to the indignity of having the record of their faith and self-devotion transmitted to posterity only in the hostile chronicles of Roman ecclesiastics. But even partisan animosity has not robbed the world of the edifying spectacle of a large number of men and women, of a quiet and peaceable disposition, persistently and fearlessly protesting, through a long series of years, against the worship of saints and images, resisting the innovations of a corrupt church, and adhering with constancy to a simple ritual unencumbered with superstitious observances. Careful investigation establishes the fact that the Holy Scriptures were read and accepted as the supreme authority as well in doctrine as in practice, and that the precepts there inculcated were adorned by lives so pure and exemplary as to evoke an involuntary expression of admiration from bitter opponents.

There is little doubt that strange doctrinal errors found a foothold in parts, at least, of the extensive territory in southern France occupied by the Albigenses. Oriental Dualism or Manichaeism not improbably disfigured the creed of portions of the sect; while the belief of others scarcely differed from that of the less numerous Waldenses of Provence or their brethren in the valleys of Piedmont. But, whatever may be the truth on this much contested point,[122] the remarkable spread of the Albigenses during the latter part of the twelfth century must be regarded as strongly marking the revolt of the French mind, especially in the more impetuous south, against the priestly absolutism that crushed all freedom of religious thought, and equally against a church tolerating the most flagrant abuses. Nor can the historian who desires to trace the more remote consequences of important moral movements fail to notice the singular fact that the soil watered by Albigensian blood at the beginning of the thirteenth century was precisely that in which the seed sown by the reformers, three hundred years later, sprang up most rapidly and bore the most abundant harvest. After so long a period of suspended activity, the spirit of opposition once more asserted its vital energy--soon, it is true, to meet fresh difficulties, but only such difficulties as would tend to develop and strengthen it.

[Sidenote: The crime of vauderie.]

With the suppression of the Albigenses all open popular protest against the errors of the church ceases until the advent of the Reformation. The latent tendency did, indeed, manifest its continued existence in those obscure practices known as _vauderie_, which, distorted by the imagination of reckless informers and interested judges, and converted into the most monstrous crimes against religion and morality, occasioned the death of countless innocent victims.[123] But it was chiefly among the learned, and particularly in the bosom of the University of Paris, that the pressing need of a thorough purification of the church found expression. Not that the remedies advocated were so definite and radical, or based upon so full a recognition of the distinctive character of Christianity, as to merit the name of reformatory projects. Yet, standing somewhat in advance of their contemporaries, a few theologians raised their voices in decided condemnation of those evils which needed only to be held up to public notice to incur the universal reprobation of mankind.

[Sidenote: Nicholas de Clemangis.]

[Sidenote: John Gerson.]

Nicholas de Clemangis, Rector of the University of Paris, subsequently private secretary of Benedict the Thirteenth at Avignon, and perhaps the most elegant writer of his age, drew a startling picture of the wretched state of the church at the beginning of the fifteenth century. No writer had ever described more vividly the corruption of the convents and monasteries, or denounced more unsparingly the unfaithfulness and impurity of the parish clergy, and the simony pervading alike all grades of the hierarchy. His censure was the more effective because he spoke in sorrow rather than in anger.[124] John Gerson, his contemporary and friend, who reached the eminent position of chancellor of the university, was not less bold in stigmatizing the same evils, while the weight of his authority was even greater. So far, however, was he from grasping the nature and need of a substantial renovation of the existing religious belief, that to his influence in no inconsiderable measure was due the perfidious condemnation and execution of the great Bohemian forerunner of the Reformation, John Huss. The student of mediaeval history may be inclined to smile at the subtilties of scholastic distinctions, but he is also compelled to lament the fact that the death of a _Realist_ was greeted with demonstrations of evident satisfaction by a philosopher belonging to the opposite school of the _Nominalists_.[125]

[Sidenote: Jean Bouchet's "Deploration."]

A century elapsed between the time of Nicholas de Clemangis and Gerson and the almost simultaneous appearance of Ulrich Zwingle in Switzerland and Martin Luther in Germany. During this long interval of expectation the voice of remonstrance was not altogether silent. A few earnest men refused to suppress the indignation they felt at the sight of the impiety that had invaded the sacred precincts of the church. Among the last of those whose words have come down to us was Jean Bouchet, a native of Poitiers. In 1512, only five years before the publication of the theses of the reformer of Wittemberg, he gave to the world a poem not devoid of historical interest, though possessed of little poetic merit, entitled "_La Deploration de l'Eglise militante_."[126] In this spirited lament it is the church herself that addresses the hierarchy--pontiff, cardinals, patriarchs, bishops, and others--as well as kings and secular dignitaries. She complains of the great injuries and molestations she endures. The practice of simony has converted a temple into a loathsome stable. Science and learning are no longer necessary for the candidate for ecclesiastical preferment; a hundred crowns in hand will serve his purpose much better, no matter how bad his moral character may be. As for his qualifications, he is full well provided if he can manage the hounds aright and knows how to hunt with the falcon. "Cease," cries the church through the poet to the French princes, "cease to load me down with gewgaws, with chalices, crosses, and sumptuous ornaments. Furnish me instead with virtuous ministers. The exquisite beauty of abbeys or of silver images is less pleasing in God's sight than the holy life of good prelates."[127] As it is, the dissolute ministers of religion are engrossed in forbidden games, in banquets, and the chase. Decked out with flowers, rings, and trinkets, the bishop in his dress is more like a soldier or a juggler, than a servant of the church. He recites his prayers reluctantly, while words of profane swearing flow freely from his lips. From such disorders as these the church invokes her worldly protectors to deliver her.

The abuses which Jean Bouchet described, and other abuses of a similar kind, were so notorious that no intelligent man could close his eyes to the evidence of their existence. They had been recited again and again by more eloquent tongues than that of the poet of Poitiers. Dante and Petrarch had held them up to immortal contempt. Boccaccio had made them the subject of ridicule in his popular stories. But neither remonstrance nor taunt had effectually abated the prevailing corruption. It remained that a new remedy should be tried, and the time for its application was close at hand.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Changes in the boundaries of France during the sixteenth
century.]

It must not be forgotten that the boundaries of France varied
considerably during the sixteenth century. Thus Artois and
Flanders, at the accession of Francis the First, were nominally
fiefs of the French crown, for which Charles of Austria sent to
France a very honorable embassy, with Henry, Count of Nassau, at
its head, to do homage to the young prince. It was on this occasion
that Francis, desirous of gratifying Charles, proposed or consented
to the marriage of his favorite with Claude de Chalons, daughter of
the Prince of Orange (Jean de Serres, Inventaire General de
l'Histoire de France, 1619, ii. 4, Motley, Dutch Republic, i. 234).
Eleven years later, January, 1526, by the Treaty of Madrid, Francis
renounced his suzerainty over the counties of Artois and Flanders,
as a condition of his release from captivity (Inventaire General,
ii. 96). On the other hand, not to speak of the "Three
Bishoprics"--Metz, Toul, and Verdun--definitely incorporated with
the French dominions in 1552, France had for a longer or shorter
time possession of the Duchy of Milan, of the island of Corsica,
and of Piedmont. Not only Bresse, but the very Duchy of Savoy, were
for years merged in the realm of France, until restored to
Philibert Emmanuel by the disgraceful Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Mignet, Essai sur la formation territoriale et politique de la France depuis la fin du onzieme siecle jusqu'a la fin du quiinzieme. Notices et Memoires Historiques, ii. 154.]

[Footnote 4: Mignet, 157, 158.]

[Footnote 5: A manuscript chronicle of the time of Charles the Sixth, quoted by Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, iv. 144, states the interesting fact that the inhabitants of Perigord and the adjoining districts, thus surrendered to Henry the Third of England, for centuries bore so hearty a grudge against the French king, of whom the rest of France was justly proud, and whose name the church had enrolled in the calendar, that they never would consent to regard him as a saint or to celebrate his feast day!]

[Footnote 6: "Le quali tutte provincie sono cosi bene poste," etc. Relazione di Francia dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli, in Relations des Ambassadeurs Venitiens (Tommaseo, Paris), i. 220.]

[Footnote 7: "Dico che il regno di Francia per universal consenso del mondo fu riputato _il primo regno di cristianita_," etc. Commentario del regno di Francia del clarissimo sig. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 470.]

[Footnote 8: "Dopo il papa che e universal capo della religione, e la signoria di Venezia, che, come e nata, s'e conservata sempre cristiana." Suriano, _ubi supra_, i. 472.]

[Footnote 9: This was in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Dec. 15, 1559, MSS. British Museum. I use the summary in the Calendar of State Papers (Stevenson), p. 197, note.]

[Footnote 10: Marino Cavalli stated, in 1546, that this systematic policy of continually incorporating and never alienating had been pursued for eighty years. So successful had it proved, that everything had been absorbed by confiscation, succession, or purchase. There was, perhaps, no longer a single prince in the kingdom with an income of 20,000 crowns; while even their scanty resources and straitened estates the princes possessed simply as ordinary proprietors, from whose actions an appeal was open to the king. Relazioni Venete (Alberi, Firenze), serie 1, i. 234, 235.]

[Footnote 11: Yet the old prejudice against city life had not fully died out. So late as in 1527, Chassanee wrote: "Galliae omnis una est nobilium norma. Nam rura et praedia sua (dicam potius castra) incolentes _urbes fugiunt, in quibus habitare nobilem turpe ducitur_. Qui in illis degunt, ignobiles habentur a nobilibus." Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, fol. 200.]

[Footnote 12: Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 488.]

[Footnote 13: Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 160, etc.]

[Footnote 14: Rel. dell' Amb. Marino Cavalli (1546), _ubi supra_, i. 229.]

[Footnote 15: It would seem that the Venetian ambassadors were never free from apprehension lest their admiration of what they had seen abroad might be construed as disparagement of their own island city. Hence, Marino Giustiniano (A. D. 1535), after making the statement which we have given in the text, is careful to add: "_Pur non arriva di richezza ad una gran gionta quanto Venezia; ne anco ha maggior popolo_, per mio giudizio, di che loro si gloriano." Rel. Venete (Alberi, Firenze), serie 1, i. 148.]

[Footnote 16: The lowest estimate, which is that of Guicciardini (Belgiae Descriptio, apud Prescott, Philip II., i. 367), is probably nearest the mark; the highest, 800,000, is that of Davila, Storia delle Guerre Civili, 1. iii. (Eng. trans., p. 79). Marino Cavalli, in 1546, says 500,000; Michel Suriano, in 1561, between 400,000 and 500,000. M. Dulaure is even more parsimonious than Guicciardini, for he will allow Paris, in the sixteenth century, not more than 200,000 to 210,000 souls! Histoire de Paris, iv. 384. Some of the exaggerated estimates may be errors of transcription. At least Ranke asserts that this is the case with the 500,000 of Fran. Giustiniani in 1537, where the original manuscript gives only 300,000. Franzoesische Geschichte, v. (Abschn. 1), 76.]

[Footnote 17: See, for example, the MS. receipt, from which it appears that, in 1516, Sieur Imbert de Baternay pledged his entire service of plate to help defray the expenses of the war. Capefigue, Francois Premier et la Renaissance, i. 141.]

[Footnote 18: Marino Giustiniano (1535), Rel. Venete (Alberi), i, 185, Francois de Rabutin, Guerres de Belgique (Ed. Pantheon), 697.]

[Footnote 19: Marino Giustiniano, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 20: M. A. Boullee (in his Histoire complete des Etats-Generaux, i. 181, etc.) and other writers give the character of States General to the gathering of princes, clergy, etc., at Tours, in May, 1506. This was the assembly from which Louis XII. obtained the welcome advice to break an engagement to give his daughter Claude, heiress of Brittany, in marriage to Charles, the future emperor of Germany, in order that he might be free to bestow her hand on Francis of Angouleme. M. Boullee is also inclined to call the assembly after the battle of St. Quentin, January 5, 1558, a meeting of the States General. But Michel Suriano is correct in stating (Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo, i. 512-514) that between Louis XI.'s time and 1560 the only States General were those of 1483. Chancellor L'Hospital's words cited below are conclusive.]

[Footnote 21: Some of Louis XI.'s successors imbibed his aversion for these popular assemblies, and would, like Louis, have treated any one as a rebel who dared to talk of calling them. Michel Suriano, Rel. des Amb. Ven. (Tommaseo), i. 512-514.]

[Footnote 22: Chancellor L'Hospital's remarkable words were: "Or, messieurs, parceque nous reprenons l'ancienne coustume de tenir les estats _ja delaisses par le temps de quatre-vingts ans ou environ, ou n'y a memoire d'homme qui y puisse atteindre_, je diray en peu de paroles que c'est que tenir les estats, pour quelle cause Fon assembloit les estats, la facon et maniere, et qui y presidoit, quel bien en vient au roy, quel au peuple, et mesmes s'il est utile au roy de tenir les estats, ou non." The address in full in La Place, Commentaires de l'Estat de la Republique, etc. (Ed. Pantheon), 80.]

[Footnote 23: Michel Suriano, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 24: "Tellement que sous ces beaux et doux appasts, l'on n'ouvre jamais telles assemblees que le peuple n'y accoure, ne les embrasse, et ne s'en esiouysse infiniement, ne considerant pas qu'il n'y a rien qu'il deust tant craindre, _comme estant le general refrain d'iceux, de tirer argent de luy_.... Au contraire jamais on ne feit assemblee generale des trois Estats en cette France, sans accroistre les finances de nos Roys a la diminution de celles du peuple." Pasquier, Recherches de la France, l. ii. c. 7, p. 82.]

[Footnote 25: "Il re di Francia _e re d'asini_, perche il suo popolo supoorta ogni sorte di peso, senza rechiamo mai." Michel Suriano, Commentarii (Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo), i. 486.]

[Footnote 26: Guerres de Belgique (Ed. Pantheon), 585.]

[Footnote 27: "Egli puo riputar poi tutti li danari della Francia esser suoi; perche nelli suoi bisogni, sempre che li dimanda, gli sono portati molto volontariamente _per la incomparabil benevolenza di essi popoli_." Relaz. Ven. (Alberi), ii. 172.]

[Footnote 28: Cayet, Hist. de la guerre sous le regne de Henry IV., i. 248. We shall see that Francis carried out the same ideas of absolute authority in his dealings both with reputed heresy and with the Gallican Church itself. He seems even to have believed himself commissioned to do all the thinking in matters of religion for his more intellectual sister; for, if Brantome may be credited, when Constable Montmorency, on one occasion, had the temerity to suggest to him that all his efforts to extirpate error in France would be futile until he began with Margaret of Angouleme, Francis silenced him with the remark: "No more on that subject! She loves me too much; she will never believe anything but what I desire." Femmes illustres: Marguerite, reine de Navarre.]

[Footnote 29: "Stanno a quelli soggetti piu che cani." Relaz. Ven., ii. 174.]

[Footnote 30: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 31: "Mercatores aspernantur," says Chassanee in 1527, "ut vile atque abjectum omnium genus." Catal. Gloriae Mundi, fol. 200.]

[Footnote 32: Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 173.]

[Footnote 33: See the sketch by Daniel, Histoire de France, reprinted in Leber, Collection de pieces relatives a l'histoire de France, vi, 266, etc.; also Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 177, etc.]

[Footnote 34: Mignet, _ubi supra_, ii. 212; Floquet, Histoire du parlement de Normandie, tom. i.; Daniel, _ubi supra_; Vicomte de Bastard-D'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 189.]

[Footnote 35: The formula is worthy of attention: "Quand on vous apportera a sceller quelque lettre, signee par le commandement du Roi, si elle n'est de justice et raison, ne la scellerez point, encore que ledit Seigneur le commandast par une ou deux fois; mais viendrez devers iceluy Seigneur, et lui remonstrerez tous les points par lesquels ladite lettre n'est pas raisonnable, et apres que aura entendu lesdita points, s'il vous commande la sceller, la scellerez, car lors le peche en sera sur ledit Seigneur et non sur vous." In full in M. de Saint-Allais, De l'ancienne France (Paris, 1834), ii. 91; see also Capefigue, Francois Premier et la Renaissance, i. 106.]

[Footnote 36: Certainly not than with the Parliament of Aix. See its shortcomings in the papers of Prof. Joly, of the Faculte des Lettres of Caen, entitled "Les juges des Vaudois: Mercuriales du parlement de Provence au XVI^e siecle, d'apres des documents inedits." Bulletin de l'hist. du Prot. fr., xxiv. (1875), 464-471, 518-523, 555-564.]

[Footnote 37: "Qu'il n'y a pas un seigneur en ce ressort, qui n'aye son chancelier en ceste Cour." Boscheron des Portes, Histoire du parlement de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1877), i. 191-194, from Registers of Parliament.]

[Footnote 38: "La genuflexion ne le ferait pas moins roi qu'il etait." Ibid., i. 185.]

[Footnote 39: See Pasquier's conclusive argument in his chapter: "Que l'opinion est erronee par laquelle on attribue l'institution de l'Universite de Paris a l'Empereur Charlemagne." Recherches de la France, 800. So universally accepted, however, in Pasquier's time, was the story of Charlemagne's agency in the matter, that "de croire le contraire c'est estre heretique en l'histoire," p. 798.]

[Footnote 40: The chancellor "de Notre Dame," the chancellor proper, alone had the power to create doctors in theology, law, and medicine; but candidates for the degree of master of arts might apply either to him or to the rival chancellor of Sainte Genevieve: "Quant aux Maistres es Arts, a l'un ou l'autre Chancelier, selon le choix qui en est fait par celuy qui veut prendre sa licence." Pasquier, Recherches, 840.]

[Footnote 41: "Le premier juge et censeur de la doctrine et moeurs des escoliers, que nous appelons Chancelier de l'Universite." Pasquier, _ubi supra_, 265.]

[Footnote 42: Pasquier has a fund of quaint information respecting the university, the chancellor, the rector, etc. Of the contrast between rector and chancellor he remarks: "Quant au Chancelier de l'Universite il pare seulement de ce coup contre toutes ces grandeurs (sc. du Recteur); que le Recteur fait des escoliers pour estudier (tout ainsi que le capitaine des soldats, quand il les enrolle pour combattre) mais le Chancelier fait des capitaines quand il baille le bonnet de Theologie, Decret, Medecine, et Arts, pour enseigner et monter en chaire." _Ubi supra_, 843.]

[Footnote 43: Sleidanus, De statu rel., etc., ad annum 1521.]

[Footnote 44: "Vinculis, censuris, imo ignibus et flammis coercendam, potius quam ratione convincendam." Determination of the Fac. of Theology against Luther, April 15. 1521, Gerdes, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 10, etc., Documents.]

[Footnote 45: From the _Cite_, or island on which the city was originally built, and the Ville, or Paris north of the Seine. Pasquier, Recherches, 797; J. Sinceri, Itinerarium Galliae (1627), 270.]

[Footnote 46: Juvenal des Ursins, _apud_ Pasquier, 267.]

[Footnote 47: Relazioni Venete (Alberi), i. 149.]

[Footnote 48: Ibid., i. 226.]

[Footnote 49: "Donc, le gouvernement de l'Eglise n'est pas un empire despotique." Abbe Claude Fleury, Discours sur les Libertes de l'Eglise gallicane, 1724 (reprinted in Leber, Coll. de pieces relatives a l'hist. de France, iii. 252).]

[Footnote 50: "On a conteste l'authenticite de cette piece, mais elle est aujourd'hui generalement reconnu." Isambert, Recueil gen. des anciennes lois francaises, i. 339.]

[Footnote 51: Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, pt. ii.; Isambert, _ubi supra_; Ordonnances des Roys de France de la troisieme race, i. 97-98. Section 5 sufficiently expresses the feelings of the king in reference to the insatiable covetousness of the Roman court: "Item, exactiones et onera gravissima pecuniarum, per curiam Romanam ecclesiae regni nostri impositas vel imposita, quibus regnum nostrum miserabiliter depauperatum extitit, sive etiam imponendas, aut imponenda levari, aut colligi nullatenus volumus, nisi duntaxat pro rationabili, pia et urgentissima causa, inevitabili necessitate, et de spontaneo et expresso consensu nostro et ipsius ecclesiae regni nostri." See also Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, vii. 104.]

[Footnote 52: Sismondi, Hist. des Francais, xiii. 317, etc.]

[Footnote 53: The Pragmatic Sanction is long and intricate, consisting in great part of references to those portions of the canons of the Council of Basle which it confirms. The entire document may be seen in the Ordonnances des Roys de Fr. de la troisieme race, xiii. 267-291, and in the Recueil gen. des anc. lois franc., ix. 3-47. Isambert thus defines the term _pragmatic_: "On appelle _pragmatique_ toute constitution donnee en connaissance de cause du consentiment unanime de tous les grands, et consacree par la volonte du prince. Le mot _pragma_ signifie prononcee, sentence, edit; il etait en usage avant Saint Louis."]

[Footnote 54: Abbe Claude Fleury, Libertes de l'Eglise Gallicane, in Leber, iii. 321.]

[Footnote 55: "Commemoravit (_i. e._, the papal legate) ea quae per ipsum tibi nostro nomine pollicenda, vovenda et promittenda, nos, antequam regnum suscepisemus, religionis instinctus quidam deduxerat." Letter of Louis XI. to the Pope, Tours, Nov. 27, 1461.]

[Footnote 56: Louis XI.'s letter to the Pope, annulling the Pragmatic Sanction, is in the Ordonnances des roys de Fr. de la troisieme race, xv., 193-194. Its tone could not have been more submissive had it been penned for him by the Pope himself. The Pragmatic Sanction is referred to contemptuously as "constitutio quaedam in regno nostro quam _Pragmaticam_ vocant." Louis professes to be moved by the consideration that obedience is better than all sacrifice, and that the Pragmatic Sanction is hateful to the Papal See, "utpote quae _in seditione_ et schismatis tempore ... nata est; et quae, dum _tibi, a quo sacrae leges oriuntur et manant_, quantamlibet eripit auctoritatem, _omne jus et omnem legem dissolvit_." It was "as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Nothing could surpass Louis's obsequiousness: "_Sicut mandasti_ ... pellimus dejicimus stirpitusque abrogamus," etc. He pledges his royal word to overcome opposition: "Quod si forte obnitentur aliqui aut reclamabunt, nos _in verbo regio_ pollicemur tuae Beatitudini atque promittimus exsequi facere tua mandata, omni appellationis aut oppositionis obstaculo prorsus excluso," etc. Louis was never more to be distrusted than when he bound himself by the most stringent promises.]

[Footnote 57: See the Remonstrances of Parliament, Ordonnances, etc., xv. 195-207.]

[Footnote 58: The calculations on which these figures are based can be seen in sections 73-76 of the Remonstrances above referred to. Ibid., xv. 195-207.]

[Footnote 59: "Les autres ambitieux de benefices, si espuisoient les bourses de leurs parens et amis, tellement qu'ils demeuroient en grand' mendicite et misere, ou'aucunesfois estoient cause de l'abreviation de leurs jours; et tout le fruit qu'ils emportoient, _c'estoit pour or du plomb_." Ibid., section 64.]

[Footnote 60: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 61: Historians have represented Cardinal Balue as enclosed in the very cage he had used for the victims of his own cruelty. This appears to be incorrect. There is an entry in the accounts of Louis XI., under date of February 11, 1469, of the payment of sixty livres Tournois to Squire Guion de Broc, to be used by him "in having constructed, at the castle Douzain, an iron cage, which the said lord (_i. e._, Louis) has ordered to be made for the security and guard of the person of the Cardinal of Angers (Balue)." Vatout, Chateau d'Amboise, 64, 65, note.]

[Footnote 62: Fleury, _ubi supra_, 340.]

[Footnote 63: See Capefigue's animated description of the scene in the cathedral of Bologna, _ubi supra_, i. 229.]

[Footnote 64: The text of the concordat is given in the Recueil gen. des anc. lois, etc., xii. 75-97.]

[Footnote 65: Leue, publiee et registree par l'ordonnance et du commandement du Roy, nostre sire, reiteree par plusieurs fois en presence du seigneur de la Trimouille, etc. Recueil des anc. lois, xii. 97.]

[Footnote 66: Appellatio Univ. Parisiensis pro sacrarum Electionum et juris communis defensione, adversus Concordata Bononiensia, _apud_ Gerdes. Hist. Ev. Renov. i. 61-69 (Documents). "Idcirco," it runs, "a domino nostro Papa non recte consulto, et ... pragmaticae sanctionis statutorum abrogatione, novorum statutorum editione, ... ad futurum concilium legitime ac in tuto loco, et ad quem libere et cum securitate ... adire poterimus ... provocavimus et appellavimus, prout in his scriptis provocamus et appellamus."]

[Footnote 67: I have made considerable use of the very clear dissertation on the Pragmatic Sanction and the concordat, republished in Leber, Collection de pieces relatives a l'hist. de France, tome 3. The commotion in Paris at the introduction of the concordat is described in a lively manner by the unknown author of the "Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le regne de Francois I^er," 39, 70, etc.]

[Footnote 68: Almanach royal pour l'an 1724 (Paris), 34.]

[Footnote 69: Leo X. also obtained from Francis, as an equivalent for the concessions embodied in the concordat, the sum of 100,000 _livres_, as the dower of Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, a princess of royal blood, married in 1518 to Lorenzo de' Medici, Count of Urbino, the Pope's nephew. The money was to be levied upon the next tithe taken from the revenues of the French clergy, which Leo thus authorized. Catharine de' Medici sprang from this marriage. See the receipt of Lorenzo for the instalment of a quarter of the dower, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, ix. (1860), 122.]

[Footnote 70: Mignet, Etablissement de la Reforme a Geneve, Memoires, ii. 243. Etienne Pasquier draws a dark picture of the barbarism reigning at Paris at the accession of Francis. More highly honored than any other university of Europe, that of Paris had fallen so low that the Hebrew tongue was known only by name, and as for Greek, the attention given to it was more apparent than real. "Car mesmes lors qu'il estoit question de l'expliquer, ceste parole couroit en la bouche de plusieurs ignorans, _Graecum est, non legitur_." The very Latin, which was the language in ordinary use, was rude and clumsy. Recherches de la France, 831.]

[Footnote 71: La Harpe, Cours de literature, vi. 405.]

[Footnote 72: Gaillard, Histoire de Francois premier (Paris ed., 1769), vii. 282-300. Felibien, among the many interesting documents he has preserved, reproduces one of the first programmes of the professors of the College Royal, preserved from destruction, doubtless, simply from the circumstance that it formed the ground of a citation of the professors by the syndic of the university (Beda), January, 1534, wherein he alleges that "some simple grammarians or rhetoricians, who had not studied with the faculty, had undertaken to read in public and to interpret the Holy Scriptures, as appears from certain bills posted in the streets and squares of Paris." In the programme, Agathius Guidacerius, Francis Vatable, P. Arnesius (Danesius), and Paul Paradisus figure as lecturing--the first two upon the Psalms, the third on Aristotle, and the last on Hebrew grammar and the book of Proverbs. Michel Felibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1725), iv. 682.]

[Footnote 73: The law of 1523 thus sets forth some of their exploits: "Outre mesure multiplient leurs pilleries, cruautez et meschancetez, jusques a vouloir assaillir _les villes closes_: les aucunes desquelles ils out prinses d'assaut, saccagees, robees et pillees, force filles et femmes, tue les habitans inhumainement, et cruellement traitte les aucuns _en leur crevant les yeux, et coupant les membres les uns apres les autres, sans en avoir pitie, faisant ce que cruelles bestes ne feroient_," etc. Isambert, Recueil des lois anc., xii. 216. See also Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris (1516), 36; and Lettres de Marguerite d'Angouleme, Nouvelle Coll., lettre 7.]

[Footnote 74: Journal d'un bourgeois (1516), 37.]

[Footnote 75: Ibid, (anno 1527), 328.]

[Footnote 76: Ibid., 36. It would appear that even this penalty did not deter them from the commission of their infamous crimes, for a fresh edict, in 1523 (Isambert, xii., 216), prescribes that for exemplary punishment "lesdicts blasphemateurs execrables avant que souffrir mort, _ayent la gorge ouverte avec un fer chaud et la langue tiree ou coupee par les dessouz_; et ce faict penduz et attachez au gibet ou potence, et estranglez, selon leurs desmerites!"]

[Footnote 77: Journal d'un bourgeois, 327. The Marche-aux-pourceaux, or swine market, was a little west of the present Palais Royal, just outside of the walls of Paris, as they existed in the time of Francis I. See the atlas accompanying Dulaure, Histoire de Paris. In December, 1581, the Parliament of Rouen sentenced one Salcede to this horrible death. Bastard d'Estang, Les parlements de France, i. 428.]

[Footnote 78: Journal d'un bourgeois, 326.]

[Footnote 79: Ibid., 251.]

[Footnote 80: Ibid., 434. A somewhat similar instance is mentioned by the continuator of the Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet (anno 1503), l. iii. c. 220.]

[Footnote 81: See the vigorous treatise it called forth from the pen of the great Reformer of Geneva in 1549, under the title of "Advertissement contre l'Astrologie qu'on appelle _judiciaire_, et autres curiositez qui regnent aujourd'huy dans le monde." Paul L. Jacob, Oeuvres francoises de Calvin, 107, etc.]

[Footnote 82: Despatch of La Mothe Fenelon, June 3, 1573, Corr. dipl., v. 345, 346.]

[Footnote 83: L'Heptameron dea Nouvelles de tres haute et tres illustre princesse Marguerite d'Angouleme, Reine de Navarre. Publie sur les MSS. par la Soc. des Bibliophiles francais. Premiere Journee, Premiere Nouvelle.]

[Footnote 84: The practice of magic with small waxen images into which pins were thrust, impious words being uttered at the same time, was at least as old in France as the beginning of the fourteenth century. In 1330 Robert of Artois employed it to compass the death of Philip of Valois and his queen; just as two centuries and a half later the adherents of the League resorted to the same device to destroy Henry III. and Henry of Navarre. See note L to the Heptameron (edit. cit.), i. 170. Jean de Marcouville (Recueil memor. Paris, 1564, Cimber et Danjou, iii. 415) alludes to similar sorcery just after the death of Philip the Fair, in 1314. It was therefore no "Italian sorcery" introduced into France by Catharine de' Medici, as M. De Felice seems to suppose (Hist. des prot. de France, liv. ii. c. 17).]

[Footnote 85: "Advertissement tres-utile du grand profit qui reviendroit a la Chretiente, s'il se faisoit inventaire de tous les corps saints et reliques," etc., 1543 (Oeuvres francoises de Calvin). A racy treatise, which well exhibits the service done by the author to the French language.]

[Footnote 86: Ibid., 171.]

[Footnote 87: Ibid., 169.]

[Footnote 88: Ibid., 139.]

[Footnote 89: Ibid., 155.]

[Footnote 90: Ibid., 139.]

[Footnote 91: Ibid., 140.]

[Footnote 92: Ibid., 179, 180.]

[Footnote 93: Ibid., 172.]

[Footnote 94: Ibid., 156.]

[Footnote 95: "Et lors faisoit beau voir mon fils porter honneur et reverence au saint sacrement, que chacun en le regardant se prenoit a pleurer de pitie et de joye." Journal de Louise de Savoie, Collection de memoires (Petitot), xvi. 407.]

[Footnote 96: Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vii. 45, etc.; Mezeray, Abrege chron. de l'hist. de France (Amst., 1682), iv. 644.]

[Footnote 97: Gaillard, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 98: Cenac Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrenees (Paris, 1854), iv. 342, referring primarily to southern France.]

[Footnote 99: Since the end of the thirteenth century the bishop had been accustomed to delegate the contentious jurisdiction of his diocese to an ecclesiastical judge, taking the name of _vicar_, or more commonly _official_ ("vicarius generalis officialis"). The court itself became known as the _officialite_. Trials for heresy, breach of promise of marriage, etc., came before it. See the Dictionnaire de la conversation (1857), s. v. _Official_.]

[Footnote 100: Michel Surriano (1561), Rel. des Amb. Ven., Tommaseo, i. 502. The other half went to princes, barons, and other possessors of lands, etc.]

[Footnote 101: How they behaved there, the abbe of Meriot elsewhere tells us: "Et si le plus souvent a telles noyseay estoient les premiers les prebstres, l'espee au poing, car ilz estoient _des premiers aux danses, jeux de quilles, d'escrime, et es tavernes ou ilz ribloient et par les rues toute nuict aultant que les plus meschans du pays_." Mem de Claude Haton, 18.]

[Footnote 102: Memoires de Claude Haton, i. 89, 90.]

[Footnote 103: Giovanni Soranzo returned from France in 1558, or a year before the close of the reign of Henry II.]

[Footnote 104: Relazioni Venete, Alberi, ii. 409. Brantome is a familiar instance of a favorite thus rewarded from the estates of the church. His amusing vindication of the anomaly is worthy of a perusal. See Digression contre les Eslections des Benefices, Oeuvres, tom. vii. On one occasion an enemy of the loquacious courtier caused the assassination of his _titular_ abbot, apparently in the hope of depriving Brantome of his chief source of revenue! Ibid., vii. 294.]

[Footnote 105: "Solo col ponderar loro la vita che tenevano." Relazione di G. Correro, 1569, Tommaseo, ii. 150.]

[Footnote 106: "Je n'ay point ouy dire, ny leu qu'auparavant ils fussent plus gens-de-bien, et mieux vivants; car en leurs Eveschez et Abbayes, ils estoient autant desbauchez que Gens-d'armes; car comme j'ay dit cydevant, qu'a la cour s'ils faisoient l'amour, c'estoit discretement et sans scandale," etc. Brantome, _ubi supra_, vii. 312.]

[Footnote 107: "Au moins plus sages hypocrites, qui cachent mieux leurs vices noirs." Brantome, _ubi supra_, vii. 287-289.]

[Footnote 108: Brantome, _ubi supra_, vii. 280.]

[Footnote 109: Brantome, vii. 286.]

[Footnote 110: Reponse a quelque apologie, etc. Par Antoine de Mouchy, surnomme Demochares, docteur en theologie, 1558. Feuillet 2. _Apud_ Henri Lutteroth, La reformation en France pendant sa premiere periode (Paris, 1859), 137.]

[Footnote 111: "Je suis esbahi de ce que ces jeunes gens nous alleguent le Nouveau Testament. J'avoys plus de cinquante ans que je ne scavoys que c'estoit du Nouveau Testament." Robert Etienne, _apud_ Baum, Origines Evangelii in Gallia restaurati (Strasbourg, 1838), 35.]

[Footnote 112: "Un beau miracle," says the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 38.]

[Footnote 113: Histoire ecclesiastique des Eglises Reformees au royaume de France (commonly ascribed to Theodore de Beze, or Beza) Lille edit., i. 11; Gaillard, vi. 460. A MS. narrative of the farce, dictated by Calvin and taken down by his secretary, Charles de Jonvillers, has been discovered in the Geneva Library. It is printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., iii. (1854), 33, etc. Calvin, who had himself been a student in the University of Orleans, and was fully acquainted with the circumstances, drew up this piquant monograph for J. Sleidan to use in his famous history of the times, where an account may accordingly be read.]

[Footnote 114: See the order of Spifame, of Oct. 5, 1527, for payment to the master mechanic on several annual recurrences of the scene, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., xxv. (1876), 236, with M. Bordier's erratum.]

[Footnote 115: Farel, Du vray Usage de la Croix, 129, 131.]

[Footnote 116: "Credo in Jesum inter animalia ex virgine nasciturum." Chassanee, Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, fol. 295. The medals were said to have been unearthed at Autun, the residence of Chassanee, who informs us "multum curavi invenire, sed non potui." But, in addition to the coins, Chassanee gravely tells us there was also a _church_ built by the _Franks_ at Chartres before the advent of Christ, in honor of the most blessed Virgin _pariturae_; "from which it is demonstrated that, if other Gentiles prophesied _in word_ concerning Christ, the Franks believed on him _in deed_, just as also the Greeks, who erected a temple to the unknown God." Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 117: From the simple costume worn arose the designation of "_les processions blanches_."]

[Footnote 118: Le protestantisme en Champagne: Recits extraits d'un manuscrit de N. Pithou, seigneur de Chamgobert concernant l'histoire de la fondation, etc., de l'eglise ref. de Troyes des 1539 a 1595, par Ch. L. B. Recordon (Paris, 1863), 31-33.]

[Footnote 119: The original of this remarkable record, the more significant from the subsequent position of Louise as a determined enemy of the Protestants, may be seen in Journal de Louise de Savoie, Coll. de memoires (Petitot), xvi. 407.]

[Footnote 120: See Mezeray's bitter words respecting Cardinal Duprat's last hours and character, Abrege chronologique, iv. 584.]

[Footnote 121: "Poi me disse che per opera del Reverendissimo di Granmont non si faria cosa buona in questa cosa, perche et lui et _il Gran Cancellario di Francia_ erano huomini _piu disposti a fare quattro guerre die una pace_." Cardinal Campeggio to Cardinal Salviati, _apud_ H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana hist. eccles. saeculi XVI. illustrantia, ex tab. sanctae sedis Apostolicae secretis, Frib. Brisg., 1861, 67.]

[Footnote 122: The Manichaeism of the Albigenses is maintained by Mosheim, Gieseler, Schmidt, etc. A good summary of the evidence in favor of this view is given in an article in the London Quarterly Review for April, 1855. The defence of the Albigenses from this serious charge is ably conducted by George Stanley Faber in his "Inquiry into the History and Theology of the Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses" (London, 1838). One of the more recent apologists is F. de Portal, in his "Les descendants des Albigeois et des Huguenots" (Paris, 1860).]

[Footnote 123: At Arras, for instance, in 1460, a number of men and women were burned alive as _Vaudois_, after having been entrapped into an admission of their guilt by a treacherous advocate. Too late they exposed the deceit practised upon them, and protested their innocence. The alleged crimes were: flying to their place of assembly by witchcraft, adoring the devil, trampling upon the cross, blasphemy, riotous feasting, and vile offences against morality--staple charges recurring again and again, _ad nauseam_, whenever persecuted men and women have been compelled to meet secretly for God's worship. See L. Rossier, Histoire des protestants de Picardie (Paris, 1861), 1-4; and more at length, Chronicon Cornelii Zantfliet, which styles the sufferers heretics a hundred times worse than Waldenses. Martene et Durand, Vet. Scriptorum ampliss. collectio (Paris, 1729), vii. 501.]

[Footnote 124: If, as Adolphe Muentz concludes, after a critical examination of style, etc. (Nicolas de Clemangis; sa vie et ses ecrits, Paris, 1846), the famous treatise De ruina Ecclesiae, or _De corrupto Ecclesiae statu_, emanated not from Clemangis at Avignon, but from some member of the University of Paris hostile to the Popes of Avignon, yet the undisputed writings of Clemangis contain denunciations of the corruptions of the church quite as decided as any found in the spurious treatise. In his tract _De Praesulibus Simoniacis_, for example, he declares that the degradation of the clergy, fostered by the cupidity of the episcopate, had indeed made God's house a den of robbers. It was "rapinae officina in qua venalia exponuntur sacramenta ... in qua peccata etiam venduntur," etc. Muentz, 53. Certainly it would be hard to portray the life of the priests in darker colors than they appear in the letters of C. to Gerson, the authenticity of which is not challenged. See the extracts in Von Polenz, Calvinismus in Frankreich, i. 115. According to Nicholas de Clemangis, the _chaste_ priest was a rare exception, and an object of ridicule to his companions.]

[Footnote 125: The complicated motives inducing the Council of Constance to acquiesce in the cruel sentence of Huss were skilfully traced as far back as by the learned Mosheim, Institutes of Eccles. Hist. (ed. Murdoch), ii. 429, note.]

[Footnote 126: This rare poem has been reprinted, with the unimportant passages omitted, in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., v. (1857) 268, etc.]

[Footnote 127:

"Cessez, cessez me donner ornemens,
Calices, croix, et beaux accoutremens;
Faictes que j'aye ministres vertueux....
Les images d'argent tant sumptueux,
La grant beaute des moustiers si notables
Ne sont pas tant devant Dieu acceptables
Que la doctrine et vie bonne et saincte
Des bona prelatz."
]