Chapter II: The Reformation at Meaux (2)

[Footnote 130: Lefevre's scientific works were numerous, and some of them passed through many editions during the early years of the sixteenth century. See Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefevre. I have before me his edition of the Arithmetic of Boetius, with introduction and commentary, of the year 1510, and copies of his Astronomical Treatises of 1510 and 1516, the last of these published at Cologne.]

[Footnote 131: Sc. Sammarth. Elog., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 132: Epistre a tons Seigneurs et Peuples (Edit. J. G. Fick), 172.]

[Footnote 133: The passage in which Farel describes his former superstition is so characteristic, that I quote a few sentences: "Pour vray la papaute n'estoit et n'est tant papale que mon coeur l'a este.... Car tellement il avoit aveugle mes yeux et perverti tout en moy, que s'il y avoit personnage qui fut approuve selon le pape, il m'estoit comme Dieu; si quelqu'un faisoit ou disoit quelque chose, d'ou le pape et son estat en fut en quelque mespris, j'eusse voulu qu'un tel ... fut du tout abbatu, ruine et destruit.... Ainsy Satan avoit loge le pape, sa papaute, tout ce qui est de luy en mon coeur, de sorte que _le pape mesme_, comme je croy, _n'en avoit point tant en soy ne [ni] les siens aussy, comme il y en avoit en moy_.... Et ainsy je persevere, ayant mon panteon en mon coeur, et tant d'advocats, tant de sauveurs, tant de dieux que rien plus ... tellement que je pouvoye bien estre tenu pour un registre papal, pour martyrologe," etc. Epistre a tous Seigneurs et Peuples, 164, 167, 169.]

[Footnote 134: Herminjard, Correspondance des Reformateurs, i. 4, 481.]

[Footnote 135: See the dedication, dated Dec. 15, 1512, Herminjard, Correspondance des Reformateurs, i. 2-9.]

[Footnote 136: Letter of Farel to Pellican (1556), Herminjard, Correspondance des Reformateurs, i. 481: "Pius senex, Jacobus Faber, quem tu novisti, ante annos plus minus quadraginta, me manu apprehensum, ita alloquebatur: 'Gulielme, oportet orbem mutari, et tu videbis' dicebat." So in the "Epistre a tous Seigneurs et Peuples" (Ed. Fick), 170: "Souventefois me disoit que Dieu renouvelleroit le monde, et que je le verroye." A few years later, at Strasbourg, the reformer reminded his former master of his prediction: "Voicy par la grace de Dieu, le commencement de ce qu'autrefois m'avez dit du renouvellement du monde," and Lefevre, then in exile, blessed God, and begged Him to perfect what he had then seen begun at Strasbourg. Ibid., 171. These statements are confirmed by a passage in the Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, in which, after deploring the corruption of the church, Lefevre observes: "Yet the signs of the times announce that a renewal is near, and while God is opening new ways for the preaching of the Gospel, by the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese and Spaniards in all parts of the world, we must hope that He will visit His church and raise it from the degradation into which it is fallen." Herminjard, i. 5.]

[Footnote 137: Scaevolae Sammarthani, Elogia doctorum in Gallia virorum, lib. i. (Jenae, 1696); Bayle, s. v. Fevre and Farel; Tabaraud, Biographie univ., art. Lefevre; C. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Leben und ausgew. Schriften d. Vaeter d. ref. Kirche; C. Cheneviere, Farel, Froment, Viret (Geneve, 1835).]

[Footnote 138: Gaillard, Histoire de Francois premier (Paris, 1769), vi. 397. It was the unpardonable offence of Lefevre in the eyes of his critic that he, a simple master of arts, had dared to investigate matters that fell to the province of doctors of theology alone. Letter of H. C. Agrippa (1519), in Herminjard, Correspondance des Reformateurs, i. 51: "Tantum virum semel atque iterum ... vocarunt hominem stultum, insanum fidei, Sacrarum Literarum indoctum et ignarum, et qui, _duntaxat humanarum artium Magister, praesumptuose se ingerat iis quae spectant ad Theologos_." As it clearly appears that Lefevre was not a doctor of the Sorbonne, Professor Soldan is mistaken in saying: "Seit 1493 lebte er als Doctor der Theologie zu Paris, u. s. w." The error is of long standing.]

[Footnote 139: See Alphonse de Beauchamp's sketches of the lives of the two Briconnets, in the Biographie universelle.]

[Footnote 140: According to a contemporary letter, this was the sole cause of Lefevre's departure. "Faber Stapulensis ab urbe longe abest ad XX. lapidem, neque ullam ob causam quam quod convitia in Lutherum audire non potest." Glareanus to Zwingle, Paris, July 4, 1521, Herminjard, i. 71.]

[Footnote 141: Epistre a tous Seigneurs et Peuples, 168-175.]

[Footnote 142: In October, 1521. Herminjard, i. 76.]

[Footnote 143: "Vous asseurant que le Roy et Madame ont bien delibere de donner a congnoistre que la verite de Dieu n'est point heresie." Margaret of Angouleme to Briconnet, Nov., 1521, MSS. National Lib., Herminjard, i. 78; Genin, ii. 273.]

[Footnote 144: "Vos piteulx desirs de la reformacion de l'Eglise, ou plus que jamais le Roy et Madame sont affectionnes." Same to same, Dec, 1521, Ibid., Herminjard, i. 84; Genin, ii. 274. Compare Louise de Savoie's own entry in her journal, in December, 1522, a year later, to which reference has already been made.]

[Footnote 145: See the valuable remarks of M. Herminjard (i. 289, note) respecting the date of the "manifestation of the Gospel" in France.]

[Footnote 146: Luther to Spalatin, Oct. 19, 1516, Herminjard, i. 26.]

[Footnote 147: Herminjard, i. 41, 205, 206.]

[Footnote 148: Lefevre was placed in charge of the _Leproserie_, Aug. 11, 1521, and was appointed vicar-general _au spirituel_, May 1, 1523. Herminjard, i. 71 and 157.]

[Footnote 149: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 277, under date of 1526.]

[Footnote 150: "Moy et autres comme moy, leverons une cruciade de gens, et ferons chasser le Roy de son Royaume par ses subjectz propres, s'il permet que l'Evangile soit presche." Farel au Duc de Lorraine, Herminjard, i. 483.]

[Footnote 151: Pierre de Sebeville au Chevalier Coct, Grenoble, Dec. 28, 1524: "Je te notifie que l'evesque de Meaulx en Brie, pres Paris, cum Jacobo Fabro Stapulensi, depuis trois moys en visitant l'evesche, ont brusle _actu_ tous les imaiges, reserve le crucifix, et sont personellement ajournes a Paris, a ce moys de Mars venant, coram suprema curia, et universitate erucarum parrhissiensium, quare id factum est." Herminjard, i. 315.]

[Footnote 152: Fontaine, Histoire catholique, _apud_ Merle d'Aubigne, Hist. de la Reform., liv. xii. The earliest Protestant chronicle, by Antoine Froment, of which there is a MS. fragment in the Library of Geneva, gives a slightly different form to Briconnet's caution: "Autrefois, en leur preschant l'Evangile, il leur avoit dit, comme Sainct Paul escript au Gallates, que sy luy-mesme ou un Ange du ciel leur preschoit autre doctrine que celle qu'il leur preschoit, qu'ils ne [le] receussent pas." Herminjard, i. 158.]

[Footnote 153: Nisard, Histoire de la litterature francaise, i. 275. The only printed work in favor of which the claim of Lefevre's translation to be the oldest in the French language could be disputed is the "Bible" of Guyars des Moulins, finished in 1297, and printed by order of Charles VIII. in 1487; but the greater part of this is a free translation, not of the Scriptures themselves, but of a summary--the "Historia scholastica" of Pierre le Mengeur (latinized "Comestor")--and is consequently no bible at all. See M. Charles Read, in Bulletin, i. 76, who remarks that, "everything considered, it may therefore be asserted that the translations of Lefevre d'Etaples and of Olivetanus are the first versions without embellishment or gloss (non historiees et non glossees), and that thus the first two versions of the Bible into the language of the people are Protestant."]

[Footnote 154: The inventory of the library of the Count of Angouleme, father of Margaret and Francis I., consisting of nearly two hundred volumes, contains the title "Les Paraboles de Salomon, les Espistres Saint Jehan, les Espistres Saint Pol et l'Apocalipse, le tout en ung volume, escript en parchemin et _a la main_, et en _francoys_, couvert de velous changeant et a deux fermoeres, l'un aux armes de mon diet Seigneur, et l'autre aux armes de ma dicte dame." Aristotle, Boethius, Boccaccio, and Dante figure in the list, the latter both in Italian and in French. The inventory is printed in an appendix to the edition of the Heptameron of Margaret of Angouleme published by the Soc. dea bibliophiles francais (Paris, 1853), a work enriched with many original documents of considerable value.]

[Footnote 155: This important letter of Lefevre to Farel, July 6, 1524, first published in part from the MS. in the Geneva Library, in the Bulletin de l'hist. du prot. franc., xi. (1862), 212, is given in full by Herminjard, i. 220, etc.]

[Footnote 156: "O bone Deus, quanto exulto gaudio, cum percipio hanc pure agnoscendi Christum gratiam, jam bonam partem pervasisse Europae! Et spero Christum tandem nostras Gallias hac benedictione invisurum."]

[Footnote 157: "Provinciam interpretandi populo promiscui sexus, quotidie una hora mane, epistolas Pauli lingua vernacula editas, non concionando, sed per modum lecturae interpretando." Lefevre to Farel, _ubi supra_, i. 222. He gives the names of four such "lectores puriores"--Gadon, Mangin, Neufchasteau, and Mesnil--of whom we know little.]

[Footnote 158: Parliament, however, as late as June 1, 1525, sustained his episcopal authority by prohibiting the monks from preaching in Meaux, whether in the morning or in the evening, when the bishop either himself preached or had preaching before him in that part of the day. Reg. of Parliament, Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, iv. 102.]

[Footnote 159: Gaillard, vi. 409.]

[Footnote 160: "L'estat par la froideur duquel tous les aultres sont gellez." Briconnet to Margaret of Angouleme, Dec. 22, 1521, Herminjard, i. 86.]

[Footnote 161: "Celluy qui tous ruyne." Same to same, Jan. 31, 1524, ibid., i. 186.]

[Footnote 162: "L'etat qui contient tous les autres dans le devoir," as translated by Herminjard, i. 154.]

[Footnote 163: See both documents in Herminjard, i. 153 and 156.]

[Footnote 164: Instead of October 15, 1523, it is probable that these documents ought to be placed nearly, if not quite, two years later. See M. Herminjard's remarks on this difficult point, Correspondance des reformateurs, i. 158, note. The same uncertainty affects Briconnet's subsequent pastoral, revoking the powers accorded to "Lutheran preachers," attributed to December 13, 1523, ibid., i. 171.]

[Footnote 165: Maimbourg, Histoire du Calvinisme (Paris, 1682), liv. i. 11-14; Daniel, Histoire de France (Paris, 1755), x. 23.]

[Footnote 166: Registres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise gallicane, iv. 102.]

[Footnote 167: "Et supplie la Cour qu'il soit interroge en pleine cour, et non par Commissaires." Registres du parlement, Oct. 20, 1525, ibid., iv. 103.]

[Footnote 168: Registres du parlement, Nov. 29, 1525, where the Bishop of Meaux is ordered to pay 200 _livres parisis_ for the trial of the heretics, prisoners from Meaux (Preuves des Libertez, iii. 166), and the receipt for the same (Ibid., _ubi supra_). This was, however, merely an application of the general prescription of Nov. 24, 1525, requiring all prelates to defray the expenses of the trial of any heretics discovered in their dioceses, with the right to indemnify themselves from the property of the convicted heretics (Ibid., iii. 165). So the Archbishop of Tours contributed to the expenses incurred in the trial of Jean Papillon, Feb. 5, 1526 (Ibid., iii. 167).]

[Footnote 169: Daniel, x. 23, 24; Gaillard, vi. 409-411.]

[Footnote 170: Neither the reason nor the precise time of his departure is known. It was apparently as early as 1523.]

[Footnote 171: See Haag, La France protestante, art. Farel; Dr. E. Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Hagenbach, Leben d. Vaeter und Begruender der Reformirten Kirche, vii. 3, etc. A brief but very accurate sketch in Herminjard, i. 178, etc.]

[Footnote 172: MS. Seminary of Meaux, January 11, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. 220.]

[Footnote 173: "Plusieurs peigneurs, cardeurs et autres gens de meme trempe, non lettres."]

[Footnote 174: MS. Seminary of Meaux, February 6, 1524/5, Bulletin, x. 220.]

[Footnote 175: Compare for the date, Herminjard, i. 378, 389, 401. Gerard Roussel was ordered by parliament to be seized wherever found, _etiam in loco sacro_. So, too, were Caroli and Prevost. Jacques Lefevre was cited to appear. Registres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des Libertez de l'Egl. gall., iii. 102, 103.]

[Footnote 176: Farel to Pellican, 1556, Herminjard, i. 481.]

[Footnote 177: "Ita invigilent Verbo ecclesiarum ministri, ut, nulla pene hora diei, suum desit pabulum et quidem _syncerum, ut nulla subsit palea aut fermenti pharisaici commissura_."]

[Footnote 178: Roussel to Briconnet, Strasbourg, Dec, 1525, Herminjard, i. 406, 407.]

[Footnote 179: Roussel to Farel, Meaux, Aug. 24, 1524, Herminjard, i. 271--a document that throws a flood of light upon the motives of the conduct of both Roussel and Lefevre. A letter of the same date to Oecolampadius is, in some respects, even more instructive. Notice the pitiful weakness revealed in these sentences: "Reclamabunt episcopi, reclamabunt doctores, reclamabunt scholae, assentiente populo, occurret Senatus (parliament). _Quid faciet homuncio adversus tot leones?_" Herminjard, i. 278. A reference to the book of Daniel might have enabled the Canon of Meaux to answer his own question.]

[Footnote 180: Pierre Toussain to Oecolampadius, Malesherbes, July 26, 1526, Herminjard, i. 447.]

[Footnote 181: Mandement de Guillaume Briconnet an clerge de son diocese, le 21 janvier, 1525, Herminjard, i. 320, etc.]

[Footnote 182: It may seem surprising that Jean Leclerc escaped the stake in punishment of his temerity. But the reason is found in the circumstance that he was tried, not for _heresy_, but for _irreverence_. This appears from the Registres du parlement for March 20, 1524/5. The interesting discussions of that session, printed in the Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, iii. (1854) 23, etc., establish the fact that the reformed doctrines were already making formidable headway in Paris and the adjoining towns. A brother of Bishop Briconnet took a prominent part in the debate, and gave a deplorable view of the prevalence of impiety and heresy in the higher circles of society.]

[Footnote 183: For a description of the punishment, see Bastard d'Estang, Les parlements de France.]

[Footnote 184: "Vive Jesus Christ et ses enseignes!"]

[Footnote 185: Histoire ecclesiastique des eglises reformees, attributed to Theodore Beza (Ed. of Lille, 1841), i. 4; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum (Geneva, 1560), fol. 46; Haag, La France protestante, art. Leclerc; Daniel, x. 23, who finds no more suitable epithet for Leclerc than "_ce scelerat_."]

[Footnote 186: At this time a city of the Empire, and not conquered by France until the reign of Henry II. (1552).]

[Footnote 187: The story of Leclerc's fortunes is told both by Crespin, _ubi supra_, fol. 46, and by the Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 4; but, strange to say, both these early authorities fall into the same error: they place the first arrest of Leclerc in 1523, and his death a year later. Almost all subsequent writers have implicitly followed their authority. The Registres du parlement de Paris, already referred to, March 20, 1524/5, fix the former event as having occurred only three days before--"depuis trois jours" (p. 27); while Francois Lambert's letter to the Senate of Besancon, dated August 15, 1525, expressly states that Leclerc was burned Saturday, July 22, 1525. Herminjard, i. 372. Jean Chatellain had been executed at Vic, in Lorraine, six months earlier (January 12, 1525). See P. Lambert to the Elector of Saxony, Herminjard, i. 346.]

[Footnote 188: In accordance with the uncertain orthography of the age, the name is variously written--Pauvan, Pauvant, Pavanne, or Pouvent.]

[Footnote 189: Pauvan's propositions, with the vindication by Saunier (or Saulnier) are recapitulated in the censure of the theological faculty, dated Dec. 9, 1525, and published _in extenso_ among the documents appended to Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. 36, etc. Professor Soldan (i. 107) and others are incorrect in placing the propositions and their condemnation by the Sorbonne subsequent to the abjuration, which in this very document the Sorbonne demands.]

[Footnote 190: Ibid., iv. 47.]

[Footnote 191: "You err, Master Jacques," Crespin tells us that Mazurier used to say, "You err, Master Jacques; for you have not looked into the depth of the sea, but merely upon the surface of the waters and waves." "_You err, Master Jacques_" became a proverbial expression in the mouths of the inhabitants of Meaux for a generation or more. Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 52 _verso_.]

[Footnote 192: "Tout nud, en sa chemise, criant mercy a Dieu et a la vierge Marie." Journal d'un bourgeois, _ubi infra_.]

[Footnote 193: His sentence seems to have been seven years' imprisonment in the priory of St. Martin des Champs, and it was the prior that denounced him to parliament. Ibid., _ubi infra_.]

[Footnote 194: Crespin, _ubi supra_, fol. 53; Hist. eccles., i. 4; Haag, France prot., s. v. On the 26th of August, 1526, if, as is likely, he is the "jeune filz, escolier beneficie, non aiant encore ses ordres de prestrise, nomme maistre ... natif de Therouanne, en Picardie," whom the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris refers to--page 291--as having abjured on Christmas eve, 1525, and been burned "le mardi 28^e aoust, 1526." At any rate, as M. Herminjard has remarked, Beza and Crespin are certainly wrong in placing Pauvan's recantation and execution respectively a year too early (in 1524 and 1525, instead of 1525 and 1526). The date of the Sorbonne's judgment is decisive on this point.]

[Footnote 195: Our authority for the remark of the Parisian doctor, Pierre Cornu, is Farel, in a MS. note to a hitherto inedited letter of Pauvan, and in his speech at the discussion at Lausanne. Herminjard, i. 293, 294. Farel's application was not without pungency: "Votre foi est-elle si bien fondee qu'un jeune fils, qui encore n'avoit point de barbe, vous ait fait tant de dommage, sans avoir tant etudie ne veu, sans avoir aucun degre, et vous etiez tant?" The admirer of heroic fortitude will scarcely subscribe to the words of the Jesuit Daniel, Hist. de France, x. 24: "On ne donne place dans l'histoire _a ces meprisables noms_, que pour ne laisser ignorer la premiere origine de la funeste contagion," etc.]

[Footnote 196: Histoire eccles., i. 4.]

[Footnote 197: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris sous le regne de Francois I^er, April 14, 1526, p. 284.]

[Footnote 198: Crespin, Actiones et monimenta, fol. 118.]

[Footnote 199: Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefevre; Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel. Bayle (Diet. s. v. Fevre) maintains, on the authority of Melchior Adam's Life of Capito, that Lefevre and Roussel were sent by Margaret of Angouleme on a secret mission to Strasbourg. Erasmus, in a letter of March, 1526, and Sleidan (lib. v. ad fin.) know nothing of this, and speak of the trip as merely a flight.]

[Footnote 200: Haag, _ubi supra_, vi. 507, note.]

[Footnote 201: Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefevre; Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 411. The boy, at this time Duke of Angouleme, did not assume the name of _Charles_ until after his eldest brother's death. The Swiss cantons, acting as his sponsors, had given him the somewhat uncommon Christian name _Abednego_ (Abdenago)! Herminjard, ii. 17, 195.]

[Footnote 202: The Duke of Orleans may have had sincere predilections for Protestantism. At least, it is barely possible that the very remarkable instructions given to his secretary, Antoine Mallet, when on the 8th of September, 1543, Charles sent him to the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, were something besides mere diplomatic intrigue to secure for his father's projects the support of these Protestant princes. See, however, a fuller discussion of this incident farther on, Chapter VI.]

[Footnote 203: Margaret to Anne de Montmorency, Genin, Lettres de Marguerite d'Angouleme, i. 279, and Herminjard, ii. 250.]

[Footnote 204: "Come un cavallo ch' ha un apostema stringendoli il naso non sente il cauterio."]

[Footnote 205: "Una retrattationcella." The letter of the Nuncio to Sanga, secretary of Clement VII., Brussels, December 30, 1531, appeared in H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana (ex Tabulariis Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae Secretis), Friburgi Brisgoviae, 1861. I have called attention to its importance in the Bulletin de la Societe de l'hist. du prot. franc., xiv. (1865), 345. M. Herminjard has given a French translation, ii. 386.]

[Footnote 206: This incident has been rejected as apocryphal by Bayle, and, after him, by Tabaraud (in the Biographie universelle), as well as more recently by Haag (France protestante). It has rested until now on the unsupported testimony of Hubert Thomas, secretary of the Elector Palatine, Frederick II., whom he accompanied on a visit to Charles V. in Spain. On his return the Elector fell sick at Paris, where he received frequent visits from the King and Queen of Navarre. It was on one of these occasions that Margaret related to him this story, in the hearing of the secretary. (It is reproduced in Jurieu, Histoire du Calvinisme, etc., Rotterdam, 1683, pt. i. 70.) Bayle objected that it was incredible that the reformers should have failed to allude to so striking and suggestive an occurrence. The objection has been scattered to the winds. With singular good fortune, M. Jules Bonnet has discovered among the hidden treasures of the Geneva Library an original memorandum in Farel's own handwriting, prefixed to a letter he had received from Michel d'Arande, fully confirming the discredited statements. "Jacobus Faber Stapulensis noster laborans morbo quo decessit, per aliquot dies ita perterritus fuit judicio Dei, ut actum de se vociferaret, dicens se aeternum periisse, quod veritatem Dei non aperte professus fuerit, idque dies noctesque vociferando querebatur. Et cum a Gerardo Rufo admoneretur ut bono esset animo, Christo quoque fideret, is respondit: 'Nos damnati sumus, veritatem celavimus quam profiteri et testari debebamus.' Horrendum erat tam pium senem ita angi animo et tanto horrore judicii Dei concuti; licet tandem liberatus bene sperare coeperit ac perrexerit de Christo." Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., etc., xi. 215; Herminjard, iii. 400.]

[Footnote 207: "Quo tandem ex hoc profundo limo, in quo non est substantia, eripi queam." Michel d'Arande to Farel (1536 or 1537), Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franc., _ubi supra_; Herminjard, iii. 399, etc.]

[Footnote 208: Speaking of Roussel's as yet inedited MS., "Familiere exposition du symbole et de l'oraison dominicale," Professor C. Schmidt, than whom no one has better studied the mysticism of the sixteenth century, remarks that the basis of the work is the doctrine of justification by faith, the sole authority invoked is that of the Scriptures, the only head of the church is Jesus Christ, the perfect church is the invisible church, the visible church is recognized by the preaching of the Gospel in its purity, and by the administration of the _two_ sacraments as originally instituted. He adds that the doctrines of the Lord's Supper and of predestination are expounded in a thoroughly Calvinistic manner. See Professor S.'s excellent monograph, "Le mysticisme quietiste en France au debut de la reformation sous Francois premier," read before the Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr., Bulletin, vi. 449, etc.]

[Footnote 209: Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina haereseon hujus saeculi (Col. 1614), lib. vii. c. 3, p. 392.]

[Footnote 210: _E. g._, Tabaraud, Biographie univ., art. Roussel.]

[Footnote 211: Haag, France protestante, art. Gerard Roussel; Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 418; Flor. de Raemond, _ubi supra_.]