Volume I Part 11 (1/2)

[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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ment 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 fort.i.tude 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 a.s.sume 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.]