Chapter VI (2)

To put an end to so anomalous a state of affairs, the Parisian theologians, with the consent of the king, resolved to enunciate the true Catholic faith, in the form of twenty-five articles meeting all questions now in dispute (on the tenth of March, 1543). Of the general contents of this new formulary, it is sufficient to observe that it more concisely expressed the doctrines developed in the decisions of the Council of Trent; that it insisted upon baptism as essential to the salvation even of infants; that it magnified the freedom of the human will, and maintained the justification of the sinner by works as well as by faith; and that, dwelling upon the bodily presence of Christ in the consecrated wafer, it affirmed the propriety of denying the cup to the laity, the utility of masses for the dead, the lawfulness of the invocation of the blessed Virgin and the saints, the existence of purgatory, the infallibility of the church, the authority of tradition, and the divine right of the Pope.[441]

[Sidenote: Francis gives them the force of law.]

On the twenty-third of July, 1543, the very day of the publication of the edict of persecution previously mentioned, Francis by letters-patent gave the force of law to the exposition of the faith drawn up by the theological faculty of "his blessed and eldest daughter, the University of Paris." Henceforth no other doctrines could be professed in France. Dissent was to be treated as "rebellion" against the royal authority.[442]

[Sidenote: Persecution more systematic.]

[Sidenote: The inquisitor Matthieu Ory.]

The sanguinary legislation at which we have glanced bore its most atrocious fruits in the last years of Francis, and in the reign of his immediate successor. The consideration of this topic must, however, be reserved for succeeding chapters. Until now the persecution had been carried on with little system, and its intensity had varied according to the natural temperament and disposition of the Roman Catholic prelates, not less than the zeal of the civil judges. Many clergymen, as well as lay magistrates, had exhibited a singular supineness in the detection and punishment of the reformed. Some bishops, supposed to be at heart friendly to the restoration of the church to its pristine purity of doctrine and practice, had scarcely instituted a serious search. The royal edicts themselves bear witness to their reluctance, in spite of threatened suspension and deprivation. It is true that an attempt had been made to secure greater thoroughness and uniformity, by augmenting the number of inquisitors of the faith, and this, notwithstanding the fact that their authority infringed upon that of the bishops, whose right was scarcely questioned to exclusive cognizance of heresy within their respective dioceses. Not only had Matthieu Ory[443] and others been appointed with jurisdiction over the entire kingdom, but a special inquisitor was created for the province of Normandy. Even these persons, however, were not always equally zealous in the performance of their allotted task. It was notorious that the good cheer with which Ory was regaled by the astute Protestants of Sancerre led him to report them to be excellent people. A deputy, who next visited the reputed heretics, brought back an equally flattering statement. And so the persecuting "lieutenant particulier" of Bourges seems to have had some ground for his complaint, "that good wine and a right new coat caused all these inquisitors to return well satisfied, without bringing him any prey."[444]

[Sidenote: The Nicodemites and Libertins.]

It could not be otherwise, however, than that these severe measures and the employment of new agents in the pitiless work of persecution should induce many feeble souls to suppress their true sentiments, and to make the attempt, under an external conformity with the Roman Church, to maintain opinions and a private devotion quite inconsistent with their professions. And, while the progress of the Reformation was seriously impeded by the timidity of this class of irresolute persons--appropriately styled by their contemporaries "the _Nicodemites_"--scarcely less danger threatened the same doctrines from the insidious assaults of the _Libertines_, a party which, ostensibly aiming at reform and religious liberty, really asked only for freedom in the indulgence of vicious propensities. Against both of these pernicious tendencies the eloquent reformer of Geneva employed his pen in forcible treatises, which were not without effect in checking their inroads.[445]

[Sidenote: Margaret of Navarre at Bordeaux.]

It must be confessed that the Queen of Navarre herself gave no little aid and comfort to the advocates of timid and irresolute counsels, by a course singularly wanting in ingenuousness. This amiable princess knew how to express herself with such ambiguity as to perplex both religious parties and heartily satisfy neither the one side nor the other. She was the avowed friend and correspondent of Melanchthon and Calvin. She was believed to be in substantial agreement with the Protestants. Her views of the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith and the paramount authority of the Holy Scriptures were those for which many a Protestant martyr had laid down his life. Even on the question of the Lord's Supper, her opinions, if mystical and somewhat vague, were certainly far removed from the dogmas of the Roman Church. She condemned, it is true, the extreme to which the "Sacramentarians" went, but it was difficult to see precisely wherein the modified mass she countenanced differed from the reformed service. Certainly not a line in her correspondence with Calvin points to any important difference of sentiment known by either party to exist between them. What shall we say, then, on reading of such language as she used in 1543, when addressing the Parliament of Bordeaux? She had been deputed by her brother to represent him, and was, consequently, received by the court, (on the twenty-fourth of May) with honors scarcely, if at all, inferior to those that would have been accorded to Francis had he presented himself in person. Her special commission was to notify parliament of an expected attack by the English, and to request that due preparation should be made to ward it off. From this topic she passed to that of heresy, in respect to which she expressed herself to this effect: "She exhorted and prayed the court _to punish and burn the true heretics_, but to spare the innocent, and have compassion upon the prisoners and captives."[446] If, as the interesting minute of the queen's visit informs us, she next proceeded to claim the immemorial right, as a daughter of France, to open the prisons and liberate the inmates according to her good pleasure,[447] it can scarcely be imagined that the assertion of the right at this time had any other object in view than the release of those imprisoned for conscience' sake. It is true that she took pains to protest that she would avoid meddling with prisoners incarcerated for other crimes than such as her brother was accustomed to pardon; but as the interference of Francis in behalf of Berquin, Marot, and others accused of heresy, was sufficiently notorious, her guarantee could scarcely be considered very broad. Certainly she was not likely to find a "true heretic" worthy of the stake among all those imprisoned as "Lutherans" in the city of Bordeaux.

[Sidenote: Negotiations in Germany.]

[Sidenote: Hypocritical representations made by Charles of Orleans.]

While Francis, as we have seen, was from year to year aggravating the severity of his enactments against the adherents of the Reformation in his own kingdom, he did not forget his old role of ally of the Protestant princes of the empire. It would be too wide a digression from the true scope of this work, should we turn aside to chronicle the successive attempts of the French monarch to secure these powerful auxiliaries in his struggle with his great rival of the house of Hapsburg. One incident must suffice. The hypocrisy of Francis could, perhaps, go no farther than it carried him when, in 1543, his son Charles, Duke of Orleans, at the head of a royal army took possession of the Duchy of Luxemburg. The duke, who can hardly be imagined to have allowed himself to take any important step, certainly no step fraught with such momentous consequences as might be expected to follow this, without explicit instructions from his father, at once despatched an envoy to the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse. The subordinate agent in this game of duplicity was instructed to assure the great Protestant leaders that it was the earnest desire of the Duke of Orleans to see the Gospel preached throughout the whole of France. It was true that filial reverence had hitherto restrained him from gratifying his desires in this direction in his Duchy of Orleans; but in the government of Luxemburg and of all other territories acquired by right of arms, he hoped to be permitted by his royal father to follow his own preferences, and there he solemnly promised to introduce the proclamation of God's holy word. In return for these liberal engagements, the duke desired the German princes, then on the point of meeting for conference at Frankfort, to admit him to an alliance offensive and defensive, especially in matters concerning religion. He assured them of the support not only of his own forces, but of his father's troops, committed to him to use at his discretion, adding, as a further motive, the prospect that the Gospel would find more ready welcome in the rest of France, when the king saw its German advocates close allies of his youngest son.[448]

[Sidenote: Commendable scepticism of the Germans.]

But the princes were much too familiar with the wiles of Francis to repose any confidence in the lavish professions of his son. And the historian who discovers that the more intimately the king strove to associate himself with the German Protestants, the more fiercely did he commit the Protestants of France to the flames, in order to demonstrate to the Pope the immaculate orthodoxy of his religious belief, will not fail to applaud their discernment. Not until toward the very close of Francis's reign, when the Lutherans descried portents of a storm that threatened them with utter extermination, raised by the bigotry or craft of Charles the Fifth, did they manifest any anxiety to enter into near connection with the French monarch.

Francis was reaping the natural rewards of a crooked policy, dictated by no strong convictions of truth or duty, but shaped according to the narrow suggestions of an unworthy ambition. If he punished heretics at home, it was partly to secure on his side the common sentiment of the Roman Catholic world, partly because the enemies of the Reformation had persuaded him that the change of religion necessarily involved the subversion of established order and of royal authority. If he made overtures to the Protestant princes of Germany, the flimsy veil of devotion to their interests was too transparent to conceal the total want of concern for anything beyond his own personal aggrandizement.

Two mournful exemplifications of the fruits of his persecuting measures must, however, be presented to the reader's notice, before the curtain can be permitted to fall over the scene on which this monarch played his part. The massacre of Merindol and Cabrieres and the execution of the "Fourteen of Meaux" are the melancholy events that mark the close of a reign opening, a generation earlier, so auspiciously.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 387: The Protestants might be pardoned, under the circumstances, if their language was somewhat bitter respecting both emperor and king. "Combien que j'espere que nostre _Antioche_ (Charles V.), qui nous presse maintenant, sera serre de si pres, _qu'il ne luy souviendra des gouttes_ de ses mains, ne de ses pieds; _car il en aura par tout le corps_. De son compagnon _Sardanapalus_ (Francis I.), _Dieu luy garde la pareille_. Car ils sont bien dignes de passer tous deux par une mesme mesure." Calvin to M. de Falaise, Feb. 25, 1547, Lettres francaises, i. 191.--The expression "Sardanapalus inter scorta" occurs in a letter of Calvin to Farel, Feb. 20, 1546 (Bonnet, Letters of John Calvin, ii., 35, 36). It will, therefore, be seen from the date that Merle d'Aubigne is mistaken in referring the description to Henry II. Hist. de la Ref., liv. xii. c. 1.]

[Footnote 388: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 14.]

[Footnote 389: Memoires de Martin du Bellay (Edition Petitot), xviii. 271-273. See also Mignet, Etablissement de la reforme religieuse a Geneve, Mem. historiques, ii. 308, etc. Also, Merle d'Aubigne, Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, v. 395, etc.]

[Footnote 390: In dedicating to Wolmar his commentary on II. Corinthians, Calvin deplored the loss sustained in the interruption of his Greek studies under his old teacher, "manum enim, quae tua est humanitas, porrigere non recusasses ad totum stadii decursum, nisi me, _ab ipsis prope carceribus_, mors patris revocasset." Upon the basis of the words here italicized, Merle d'Aubigne builds up a story of outcries and intrigues of priests (against Calvin) who "did all in their power _to get him put into prison_"! Ref. in Time of Calvin, ii. 28. M. Herminjard observes hereupon that one need not be very thoroughly versed in Latin or in Roman antiquities to understand Calvin's allusion; and every classical scholar will sympathize with M. Herminjard when he expresses, in view of the historian's blunder, "un etonnement proportionne a la celebrite de l'auteur." Corresp. des reformateurs, ii. 333.]

[Footnote 391: See the very sensible remarks of Herminjard, _ubi supra_, iii. 202.]

[Footnote 392: A. Crottet, Histoire des eglises ref. de Pons, Gemozac, et Mortagne en Saintonge (Bordeaux, 1841), 10-11, and Merle d'Aubigne, Hist. of the Ref. in the Time of Calvin (Am. ed.), iii. 53, tell the story without any misgivings, and the latter with characteristic embellishment. But it rests on the unsupported and slender authority of Florimond de Raemond, lib. vii. c. 14, from whose account I cannot even find that the scene was laid in the caverns.]

[Footnote 393: Staehelin (Johannes Calvin, Leben und ausgewaehlte Schriften, i. 33) well remarks that what makes this address very suspicious is the circumstance that a quite similar passage occurs in Calvin's letter to Sadolet, leading us to the conclusion that we have here only a "reminiscence" of this much later document.]

[Footnote 394: He resigned his chapel of La Gesine and his curacy of Pont l'Eveque, May 4, 1534. Herminjard, iii. 201.]

[Footnote 395: This, and not the persecution at that time raging in France, is the reason assigned by Calvin himself in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, where he tells us that, the very year of his conversion, seeing "que tous ceux qui avoyent quelque desir de la pure doctrine se rangeoyent a lui pour apprendre," he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawing from men. "Et de faict," he adds, "je veins en Allemagne, de propos delibere, afin que la je peusse vivre a requoy en quelque coin incognu." Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 242, 243. See the same in the Latin ed., Calvini opera (Amsterdam, 1667), iii. c. 2. This preface is dated Geneva, July 23, 1557.]

[Footnote 396: Whether before or after the appearance of the "Placards," is uncertain. On Calvin's early life, see Beza's Life, already referred to; the Histoire ecclesiastique; various letters in J. Bonnet's Letters of Calvin, and Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs; Haag, France protestante; the reformer's life by Paul Henry, D.D., and especially the scholarly work of Dr. E. Staehelin (2 vols., Elberfeld, 1860-1863).]

[Footnote 397: The mooted question whether Calvin wrote the Institutes originally in Latin or in French--in other words, whether there was a French edition before the first Latin edition of 1536--has been set at rest by M. Jules Bonnet, who, in a contribution to the Bulletin de l'histoire du protestantisme francais, vi. (1858) 137-142, establishes the priority of the Latin. The chief points in the proof are: 1st, the absence of even a single copy of the supposed French edition of 1535; 2d, Calvin's statement to Francis Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, "I am kept continually occupied upon the French version of my little book;" 3d, his decisive words in the preface to the edition of 1551: "_Et premierement l'ay mis en latin_ a ce qu'il pust servir a toutes gens d'estude, de quelque nation qu'ils fussent; puis apres desirant de communiquer ce qui en pouvoit venir de fruict a nostre nation francoise, _l'ay aussy translate en nostre langue_." See also chap. iii. of Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Introd. to Institution de la religion chretienne (Calv. Opera, t. iii.).]

[Footnote 398: Opera Calvini (Amst., 1667), t. ix.]

[Footnote 399: "La dedicace a Francois I^er, qui est peut-etre une des plus belles choses que possede notre langue." Paul L. Jacob, bibliophile (Lacroix), "Avertissement" prefixed to Oeuvres francaises de Calvin. The Institutes he designates "ce chef-d'oeuvre de science theologique, de philosophie religieuse et de style." "Here," says Henri van Laun, "was a force and concision of language never before heard in France.... The influence of Calvin's writings upon the style of his successors, and upon the literary development of his country, cannot easily be over-estimated. With him French prose may be said to have attained its manhood; the best of his contemporaries, and of those who had preceded him, did but use as a staff or as a toy that which he employed as a burning sword." History of French Literature (New York, 1876), i. 338, 339.]

[Footnote 400: Yet it is more probable, as Staehelin suggests (Joh. Calvin, ii. 93), that the classical associations of Italy drew him to the peninsula, which was at that time the home of art, than that his fame, having already penetrated to Ferrara, procured him a direct invitation from Renee to visit her.]

[Footnote 401: Showing, according to Brantome, "en son visage et en sa parole qu'elle estoit bien _fille du Roy et de France_." Dames illustres, Renee de France.]

[Footnote 402: See the pompous ceremonial on this occasion and the epithalamium of Clement Marot, in Cronique du Roy Francois I^er (G. Guiffrey, 1860), 68-73.]

[Footnote 403: Dames illustres, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 404: "Que voulez-vous? Ce sont des pauvres Francois de ma maison; et _lesquels si Dieu m'eust donne barbe au menton_ et que je fusse homme, _seroient maintenant tous mes sujets_. Voire me seroient-ils tels, _si cette meschante Loy Salicque ne me tenoit trop de rigueur_." Ibid., _ubi supra_. A readable account of the life of this remarkable woman is given in "Some Memorials of Renee of France, Duchess of Ferrara" (2d edit., London, 1859), a volume enriched, to some extent, with letters drawn from the Paris National Library, and from less accessible collections in Great Britain.]

[Footnote 405: Possibly including the wonderfully precocious child, Olympia Morata. See M. Jules Bonnet's monograph, Vie d'Olympia Morata, episode de la Renaissance et de la Reforme en Italie. Staehelin has well traced Calvin's religious influence upon Renee and the important family of Soubise. Joh. Calvin, i. 94-110. The extant letters of Calvin to Renee are full of manly and Christian frankness, and affectionate loyalty. Lettres francaises, i. 428, etc.]

[Footnote 406: Staehelin is skeptical about, and Prof. Billiet and M. Douen reject altogether the story of Calvin's labors at Aosta. Thus much M. Bonnet believes to be established by concurrent MS. and traditional authority: That, early in the year 1536, Calvin had succeeded in gaining over to the reformed doctrines a number of influential men in this Alpine valley, of the families of La Creste, La Visiere, Vaudan, Borgnion, etc.; that he and his converts were accused of plotting to induce the district to embrace Protestantism, and imitate the example of its Swiss neighbors, by constituting itself a canton, free of the Duke of Savoy; that the estates, on the 28th of February, 1536, declared their intention (with a unanimity procured, perhaps, by the expulsion of the opposite party) to live and die in the obedience of the Duke of Savoy and of mother Holy Church; that Calvin and his principal adherents escaped with difficultly into Switzerland; and that expiatory processions were instituted at Aosta, in token of gratitude for deliverance from heresy, in which the bishop and the most prominent noblemen, as well as the common people, "walked with bare feet and in sackcloth and ashes, notwithstanding the rigor of the season." Tradition still points out the "_farm-house_ of Calvin," his "_bridge_," and the _window_ by which he is said to have escaped. The event is commemorated by a monument of the market-place, bearing an inscription that testifies to its having been erected in 1541, and renewed in 1741 and 1841. See the interesting Aostan documents contributed by M. Bonnet to the Bulletin de l'hist. du protest. francais, ix. (1860) 160-168, and his letter to Prof. Rilliet, ibid., xiii. (1864) 183-192.]

[Footnote 407: This is Calvin's distinct statement: "quum rectum iter Argentoratum tendenti bella clausissent, hac (Geneva) celeriter transire statueram, ut _non longior quam unius noctis morae_ in urbe mihi foret." Calvin, Preface to Psalms.]

[Footnote 408: "Unus homo, qui nunc turpi defectione iterum ad Papistas rediit, statim fecit ut innotescerem." Ibid., _ubi supra_. Consequently Beza, in his Latin Life of Calvin, is mistaken when he asserts: "eos [sc. Farel and Viret] igitur quum, ut inter bonos fieri solet, Calvinus transiens invisisset," etc.; for it was Farel that sought _him_ out, on Du Tillet's information.]

[Footnote 409: Calvin, in the preface to the Psalms already quoted, says: "Genevae non tam _consilio_, vel _hortatu_, quam _formidabili_ Gulielmi Farelli _obtestatione_ retentus sum, _ac si Deus violentam mihi e coelo manum injiceret_. Et quum privatis et occultis studiis me intelligeret esse deditum, ubi se vidit _rogando_ nihil proficere, _usque ad maledictionem descendit, ut Deus otio meo malediceret, si me a ferendis subsidiis in tanta necessitate subducerem. Quo terrore perculsus_ susceptum iter ita omisi," etc.--Beza throws these words into Farel's mouth: "At ego tibi, inquit, studia tua praetextenti denuntio Omnipotentis Dei nomine, futurum ut nisi in opus istud Domini nobiscum incumbas, tibi non tam Christum quam teipsum quaerenti Dominus maledicat." Vita Calvini (Op. Calv., Amst. 1661, tom. i).]

[Footnote 410: This interesting letter, dated Neufchatel, June 6, 1564, was communicated by M. Herminjard to the editor of the fine edition of Farel's _Du Vray Usage de la Croix_, printed by J. G. Fick, Geneva, 1865, who gives it entire, pp. 314, etc.]

[Footnote 411: "Sane non possum de aliis aliud sentire quam quod de me statuo." Farel to Calvin, Sept. 8, 1553, Calv. Opera, ix. (Epistolae), 71.]

[Footnote 412: Declaration pour maintenir la vraye foy que tiennent tous chrestiens de la Trinite des personnes en un seul Dieu. Par Jean Calvin. Contre les erreurs detestables de Michel Servet Espaignol. Ou il est aussi monstre, qu'il est licite de punir les heretiques: et qu'a bon droict ce meschant a este execute par justice en la ville de Geneve. 1554.--In this famous little book the author classifies doctrinal errors according to their gravity. Slight superstitions and the ignorance into which simple folk have fallen, are to be borne with till God reveal the truth to them. Offences of greater magnitude, because injurious to the church, should be visited with mild penalties. "But when malicious spirits attempt to overthrow the foundations of religion, utter execrable blasphemies against God, and disseminate damnable speeches, like deadly poison, to drag souls to perdition--in short, engage in schemes to cause the people to revolt from the pure doctrine of God--then it is necessary to have recourse to the extreme remedy, so that the evil may not spread farther" (pp. 48, 49).]

[Footnote 413: See Calvin to C. and T. Zollicoffre, March 28, and the same to Peloquin and De Marsac, Aug. 22, 1553. Servetus was burned Oct. 27.]

[Footnote 414: Two months before the execution Calvin wrote to Farel, Aug. 20, 1553: "Spero capitale saltem fore judicium _poenae vero atrocitatem remitti cupio_;" and on the 26th of October, he again wrote, "_Genus mortis conati sumus mutare_, sed _frustra_. Cur non profecerimus, coram narrandum differo." Calv. Opera, ix. 70, 71. As it is thus in evidence not only that Calvin _did not burn_ Servetus, but _desired him not to be burned_, and made an ineffectual attempt _to rescue him from the flames_, we might anticipate for the stale calumny a speedy end, were not the tenacity of life characterizing such inventions so notorious as to have passed into a proverb.]

[Footnote 415: Melanchthon, for example, after expressing his entire satisfaction with Calvin's treatise, and his conviction that the church both now and hereafter owes and will owe him gratitude for it, adds: "Affirmo etiam, vestros magistratus _juste fecisse, quod hominem blasphemum_, re ordine judicata, _interfecerunt_." Mel. to Calvin, Oct. 14, 1554, Opera (Bretschneider), viii. 362.]

[Footnote 416: Laborie, one of the heroic "five," sending from prison an account of his examination, states that, when one of his judges asked him whether he did not know that God had by Moses sanctioned the punishment of heretics, he freely admitted it: "Haereticos certe puniendos _facile concessi_, et in exemplum proposui _impurum illum canem Servetum_, qui Genevae ultimo supplicio affectus fuit: verum sedulo caverent, _ne in Christianos et Dei filios_ velut haereticos animadvertant," etc. Letter in Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum (Genevae, 1560), fol. 291.]

[Footnote 417: "Ego qui natura timido, molli et pusillo animo esse fateor." Preface to the Psalms.]

[Footnote 418: "Porro, an propositum esset mihi famam aucupari, patuit ex brevi discessu, praesertim quum nemo illic sciverit me authorem esse." Ibid.]

[Footnote 419: "Me tamen non tanta sustinnit magnanimitas, quin turbulenta ejectione plus quam deceret laetatus sim." Ibid.]

[Footnote 420: "Praestantissimus Christi minister, M. Bucerus me iterum simili qua usus fuerat Farellus, obsecratione, ad novam stationem retraxit. Jonae itaque exemplo, quod proposuerat, territus," etc. Ibid.]

[Footnote 421: "La difficulte est," he writes to M. de Falaise, April, 1546, "des fascheries et rompemens de teste qui interviennent, pour _interrompre vingt fois une lettre_, ou encore d'advantaige." He adds (and the details are interesting) that, although his general health is good, "je suis tormente sans cesse d'une doleur qui _ne me souffre quasi rien faire_. Car oultre les _sermons et lectures_, il y a desja un mois que _je n'ay gueres faict_, tellement que j'ay presque honte _de vivre arnsi inutile_." Lettres francaises, i. 141, 142. Many a scholar of his day, or of ours, would consider a week of _health_ well occupied with the preparation and delivery of two sermons and three theological lectures.]

[Footnote 422: "Ginevra ... che e la minera di questa sorte di metallo." Relazione di M. Suriano, 1561. Relations des Amb. Venitiens, i. 528.]

[Footnote 423: This period of his life was referred to by him in his last address to the body of his colleagues: "J'ay vescu icy en combats merveilleux; j'ay este salue par mocquerie le soir devant ma porte de 50 ou 60 coups d'arquebute. Que pensez-vous que cela pouvoit estonner un pauvre escholier, timide comme je suis, et comme je l'ay toujours este, je le confesse?... On m'a mis les chiens a ma queue, criant _here, here_, et m'ont prins par la robbe et par les jambes." Adieux de Calvin, _apud_ Bonnet, Lettres francaises, ii. 575.]

[Footnote 424: "This sacrifice," M. Gaberel forcibly observes, "has scarcely a parallel in history. Men willingly consent to make the greatest efforts, to perform the most painful acts of self-denial, with the aim of saving their country. Formerly the Genevese suffered unto death to preserve their independence. Now the same unselfish spirit is demanded of them in ordinary times that they exhibited in evil days. And, if the people accepts the 'Ordinances,' it is because it has narrowly scanned the slavery to which that moral license was leading it, which Rome authorizes in order to confiscate all other liberties. It accepts the 'Ordinances' because it has just escaped the treacherous machinations, the servitude prepared for it by men whose principle is to go just as their own heart leads them.... Strengthened by this vote, Calvin can henceforth hope to succeed in his project, and make of Geneva the Protestant metropolis, bearing as its motto, 'Holiness to the Lord.'" Histoire de l'eglise de Geneve, i. 346, 347.]

[Footnote 425: Recherches de la France (ed. of 1621), p. 769. Giovanni Michiel, in 1561, told the Doge of Venice: "Ne potria vostra Serenita creder l'intelligenza e le pratiche grandi che ha nel regno il principal ministro di Genevra che chiamano il Calvino, Francese e Picardo di nazione, uomo di estraordinaria autorita, per la vita, per la dottrina, e per i scritti appresso tutti quelli di questa sette." Rel. des Amb. Ven., i. 415.]

[Footnote 426: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 13-17; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 65, etc.]

[Footnote 427: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 15.]

[Footnote 428: "En maneire que pensions nostredit royaume en estre purge du tout et nettoye," Francis is made to say in the Edict of Fontainebleau. Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois francaises, xii. 677, etc.]

[Footnote 429: "Tellement qu'il est fort a douter que les nouveaux erreurs soient pires que les premiers." Ibid., xii. 677.]

[Footnote 430: "Plusieurs gros personnages, qui secrettement les recelent, supportent et favorisent en leurs fausses doctrines, leur aydans et subvenans de leurs biens, de lieux, et de places secrettes et occultes, esquelles ils retirent leurs sectateurs, pour les instruire esdites erreurs et infections." Ibid., xii. 677.]

[Footnote 431: "Attendu que tels erreurs et fausses doctrines contiennent en soy crime de leze majeste divine et humaine, sedition du peuple, et perturbation de nostre estat et repos public." Ibid., xii. 680.]

[Footnote 432: "Mais tantost et incontinent qu'ils en seront advertis, les reveler a justice, et de tout leur pouvoir aider a les extirper, _comme un chacun doit courir a esteindre le feu public_." Ibid., xii. 680.]

[Footnote 433: President Louis Caillaud to the chancellor (Antoine Du Bourg), Oct. 22, 1538. Musee des archives nationales; Documents orig. exposes dans l'Hotel Soubise (Paris, 1872), 347.]

[Footnote 434: Among others, two "Lutherans," otherwise unknown to us, whose execution a young German student, Eustathius de Knobelsdorf, witnessed on the Place Maubert, and described in a letter to George Cassander, professor at Bruges, like himself a Roman Catholic. One of the "Lutherans," a beardless youth of scarcely twenty years, the son of a shoemaker, after having his tongue cut out and his head smeared with sulphur, far from showing marks of terror, signified, by a motion to the executioner, his perfect willingness to meet death. "I doubt, my dear Cassander," writes De Knobelsdorf, "whether those celebrated philosophers, who have written so many books on the contempt of death, would have endured so cruel tortures with such constancy. So far did this youth seem to be raised above what is of man." Letter of July 10, 1542. Translated in Bulletin, vi. (1858), 420-423; and Baum, Theodor Beza, i. 52-55.]

[Footnote 435: "En sorte que la justice, punition, correction, et demonstration en soit faite telle et si griefve, que ce puisse estre perpetuel exemple a tous autres."]

[Footnote 436: Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois francaises, xii. 785-787.]

[Footnote 437: "Lui a dit qu'il voulait qu'aucun sacramentaire ne fut admis a abjurer, ains fut puni de mort." Reg. secr. du Parl. de Bordeaux, July 7, 1543, Boscheron des Portes, i. 47, 48.]

[Footnote 438: "Conspirateurs occultes contre la prosperite de nostre estat, dependant principalement et en bonne partie de la conservation de l'integrite de la foy catholique en nostredit royaume, rebelles et desobeyssans a nous et a nostre justice." Recueil des anc. lois francaises, xii. 819.]

[Footnote 439: Ibid., xii. 820.]

[Footnote 440: The preamble of the royal letters giving execution to the Twenty-five Articles of the Sorbonne mentions as a moving cause "plusieurs scandales et schismes par cy devant intervenus, et mesmement en cest advent de Noel dernier passe, par le moyen et a l'occasion de contentions, contradictions et altercations de certain predicateurs preschans et publians divers et contraires doctrines." Recueil des anc. lois francaises, xii. 820.]

[Footnote 441: Recueil des anc. lois franc., xii. 821-825. Among other recommendations appended to the articles, was the following somewhat interesting one, designed to correct the irreverence of the age: "Quand il vient a propos d'alleguer le nom des saincts apostres et evangelistes ou saincts docteurs, qu'ils _n'ayent a les nommer par leurs norm simplement_, sans aucune preface d'honneur, _comme ont accoustume dire, 'Paul,' 'Jacques,' 'Mathieu,' 'Pierre,' 'Hierosme,' 'Augustin_,' etc. Et ne leur doit estre grief adjouster et preposer le nom de 'sainct,' en disant, 'sainct Pierre,' 'sainct Paul,' etc.!"]

[Footnote 442: Ibid., xii. 820. In answer to these Articles, Calvin wrote his "Antidote aux articles de la faculte Sorbonique de Paris."]

[Footnote 443: Ory, Oriz, or Oritz, as his name was indifferently written, was a prominent character in subsequent scenes of blood, and was, as we may hereafter see, the agent employed by Henry II. to cajole, or frighten his aunt, Renee, and bring her back into the bosom of the Roman Church. The letters-patent giving this personage, who is styled "doctor of theology and prior of the preaching friars (Dominicans) of Paris," authority to exercise the functions of inquisitor of the faith throughout the kingdom, in place of Valentin Lievin, deceased, are of May 30, 1536, Recueil des anc. lois fr., xii. 503. Similar letters were issued April 10, 1540. His confirmation by Henry II., June 22, 1550, ibid., xiii. 173.]

[Footnote 444: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 13. It is, in fact, an interesting circumstance that Rocheli, or Rochetti, the deputy inquisitor referred to in the text, not long after became a convert to Protestantism, and applied himself to preaching the doctrines he had once labored to overturn.]

[Footnote 445: The first, entitled "Epistolae duae; prima de fugiendis impiorum illicitis sacris et puritate Christianae religionis; secunda de Christiani hominis officio in sacerdotiis papalis ecclesiae vel administrandis vel abjiciendis," 1537. The second, "Contre la secte fantastique et furieuse des Libertins qui se disent spirituels," 1544. The latter, from its pointed reference to Quintin and Pocquet, two notorious leaders, seems to have given offence to Margaret of Navarre, by whom they had been harbored in ignorance of their true character. A letter written to the queen by Calvin immediately upon learning this, April 28, 1545 (Bonnet, Lettres francaises, i. 111-117), is at once one of the best examples of his nervous French style, and a fine illustration of manly courage tempered with respect for a princess who had deserved well of Protestantism. A single sentence admirably portrays his attitude toward the formidable sect which had so devastated the Low Countries and had now entered France in the persons of two of its worst apostles--a sect regarded by him as more pernicious and execrable than any previously existing: "Un chien abaye, s'il voit qu'on assaille son maistre; je seroys bien lasche, si en voyant la verite de Dieu ainsi assaillie, je faisoys du muet sans sonner mot."]

[Footnote 446: "A exhorte et prie la cour de vouloir faire punir et bruler les vrais heretiques," etc. Reg. du Parl., May 24, 1543, Boscheron des Portes, Hist. du parlement de Bordeaux, i. 63.]

[Footnote 447: "Reclame son privilege de fille de France ecrit dans un livre qui est a Saint Denis, de faire ouvrir les prisons," etc. Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 448: The text of this singular document, dated Rheims, Sept. 8, 1543, is in Gerdes., Hist. Reform., iv. (Monumenta) 107-109. When the "Instructions" fell into the hands of Charles V., he naturally tried to make capital of a paper so little calculated to please Roman Catholics, emanating from a son of the "Most Christian king." And Francis thought himself compelled to clear himself from the charge of lukewarmness in the faith, if not of actual heretical bias, by exercising fresh severities upon the devoted Protestants of his own dominions.]