Volume I Part 12 (1/2)
It will be found, however, that several circ.u.mstances tended to counteract or reverse the king's favorable prepossessions. Not least influential was a pernicious sentiment studiously instilled in his mind by those whose material interests were all on the side of the maintenance of the existing system--_that a change of religion necessarily involves a change of government_. We shall hear much during the century of this lying political axiom. When Francis, in his irritation at the Pope, suggested, on one occasion, to the Nuncio, that he might be compelled to follow the example Henry the Eighth, of England, had set him, and permit the spread of the ”Lutheran” religion in France, the astute prelate replied: ”Sire, to speak with all frankness, you would be the first to repent your rash step. Your loss would be greater than the Pope's; for _a new religion established in the midst of a people involves nothing short of a change of prince_.”[219]
And the same author that records this incident tells us that Francis hated the Lutheran ”heresy,” and used to say that this, like every other new sect, tended more to the destruction of kingdoms than to the edification of souls.[220] Nor must it be overlooked that Francis doubtless felt strongly confirmed in his persuasion, by the rash and disorderly acts of some restless and inconsiderate spirits such as are wont eagerly to embrace any new belief. Not the peasants' insurrections in Germany alone, but as well the excesses of the iconoclasts, and the imprudence of the authors of the famous placards of 1534, although their acts were distinctly repudiated by the vast majority of the French reformers, inflicted irretrievable damage, by furnis.h.i.+ng plausible arguments to those who accused the Protestants of being authors or abettors of riot and confusion.
[Sidenote: His loose morals.]
A second reason of the early estrangement of Francis from the ”new doctrines” has more frequently been overlooked. The rigid code of morals which the reformers established, and which John Calvin attempted to make in Geneva the law of the state, repelled a prince who, though twice married and both times to women devoted to his interests and faithful to their vows, treated his lawful wives with open neglect, and preferred to consort with perfidious mistresses, who sold to the enemy for money his confidential disclosures--a prince who, not satisfied with introducing excesses until then unheard of among his n.o.bles, was not ashamed to bestow the royal bounty upon the professed head of the degraded women whom he allowed to accompany the court from place to place.[221]
[Sidenote: His anxiety to obtain the support of the Pope.]
If to these two motives we add a third--the desire of the king to avail himself of the important influence of the Roman pontiff upon the politics of Europe--we shall be at no loss to account for the singular fact that the brother of Margaret of Angouleme, in spite of his sister's entreaties and the promptings of his own better feeling--at times in defiance of his own manifest advantage--became during the later part of his reign the first of that long line of persecutors of whom the Huguenots were the unhappy victims.
[Sidenote: Studious disposition of Margaret.]
Margaret was two years older than her brother. Born April 11, 1492, in the city of Angouleme, she enjoyed, in common with Francis, all the opportunities of liberal culture afforded by her exalted station. These opportunities her keener intellect enabled her to improve far better than the future king. While Francis was indulging his pa.s.sion for the chase, in company with Robert de la Marck, ”the Boar of the Ardennes,”
Margaret was patiently applying herself to study. It is not always easy to determine how much is to be set down as truth, and how much belongs to the category of fiction, in the current stories of the scholarly attainments of princely personages. But there is good reason in the present case to believe that, unlike most of the ladies of her age that were reputed prodigies of learning, Margaret of Angouleme did not confine herself to the modern languages, but became proficient in Latin, besides acquiring some notion of Greek and Hebrew. By extensive reading, and through intercourse with the best living masters of the French language, she made herself a graceful writer. She was, moreover, a poet of no mean pretensions, as her verses, often comparing favorably with those of Clement Marot, abundantly testify. It was, however, to the higher walks of philosophical and religious thought that Margaret felt most strongly drawn. Could implicit credit be given to the partial praises of her professed eulogist, Charles de Sainte-Marthe, who owed his escape from the stake to her powerful intercession, we might affirm that the contemplation of the sublime truths of Revelation early influenced her entire character, and that ”the Spirit of G.o.d began then to manifest His presence in her eyes, her expression, her walk, her conversation--in a word, in all her actions.”[222]
[Sidenote: Her personal appearance.]
But, whatever may have been the precocious virtues of Margaret at the age of fifteen, it is certain that when, by her brother's elevation to the throne, she was introduced to the foremost place at court, it was her remarkable qualities of heart, quite as much as her recognized mental abilities, that called forth universal admiration. Her personal appearance, it is true, was a favorite subject for the encomium of poets; but her portraits fail to justify their panegyrics, and convey no impression of beauty. The features are large, the nose as conspicuously long as her brother's; yet the sweetness of expression, upon which Marot is careful chiefly to dwell in one of his elegant poetical epistles, is not less noticeable.[223]
[Sidenote: Her political Influence.]
In the conduct of public affairs Margaret took no insignificant part.
Francis was accustomed so uniformly to entrust his mother and sister with important state secrets, that to the powerful council thus firmly united by filial and fraternal ties the term ”Trinity” was applied, not only by the courtiers, but by the royal family itself.[224] Foreign diplomatists extolled Margaret's intelligent statesmans.h.i.+p, and a.s.serted that she was consulted on every occasion.[225] It is a substantial claim of Margaret to the respect of posterity, that the influence thus enjoyed was, apparently, never prost.i.tuted to the advancement of selfish ends, but constantly exerted in the interest of learning, humanity, and religious liberty.
Margaret was first married, in 1509, to the Duke of Alencon, a prince whose cowardice on the battle-field of Pavia (1525), where he commanded the French left wing, is said to have been the princ.i.p.al cause of the defeat and capture of his royal brother-in-law. He made good his own escape, only to die, at Lyons, of disease induced by exposure and aggravated by bitter mortification. The next two years were spent by Margaret in unremitting efforts to secure her brother's release. With this object in view she obtained from the emperor a safe-conduct enabling her to visit and console Francis in his imprisonment at Madrid, and endeavor to settle with his captor the terms of his ransom. But, while admiring her sisterly devotion, Charles showed little disposition to yield to her solicitations. In fact, he even issued an order to seize her person the moment the term of her safe-conduct should expire--a peril avoided by the d.u.c.h.ess only by forced marches. As it was, she crossed the frontier, it is said, a single hour before the critical time. The motive of this signal breach of imperial courtesy was, doubtless, the well-founded belief that Margaret was bearing home to France a royal abdication in favor of the Dauphin.[226]
[Sidenote: Margaret marries Henry of Navarre.]
Early in 1527, Margaret was married with great pomp to Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre.[227] The match would seem to have been prompted by love and admiration on her side; for the groom had performed a romantic exploit in effecting his escape from prison after his capture at Pavia.[228] In spite of the great disparity between the ages of Margaret and her husband,[229] the union was congenial, and added greatly to the power and resources of the latter. The duchies of Alencon and Berry more than equalled in extent the actual domain of the King of Navarre; for, from the time when Ferdinand the Catholic (in July, 1512) wrested from brave Catharine of Foix and her inefficient husband John[230] all their possessions on the southern slope of the Pyrenees,[231] the authority of the t.i.tular monarch was respected only in the mountainous district of which Pau was the capital, and to which the names of Bearn or French Navarre are indifferently applied. The union thus auspiciously begun lasted, unbroken by domestic contention, until the death of Margaret, in 1549;[232] and the pompous ceremonial attending the queen's obsequies is said to have been a sincere attestation of the universal sorrow affecting the King of Navarre and his subjects alike.
[Sidenote: She corresponds with Bishop Briconnet.]
It was through the instrumentality of the Bishop of Meaux that Margaret of Angouleme was first drawn into sympathy with the reformatory movement. Unsatisfied with herself and with the influences surrounding her, she sought in Briconnet a spiritual adviser and guide. The prelate, in the abstruse and almost unintelligible language of exaggerated mysticism, endeavored to fulfil the trust. His prolix correspondence still exists in ma.n.u.script in the National Library of Paris, together with the replies of his royal penitent. Its incomprehensibility may perhaps forever preclude the publication of the greater part;[233] but we can readily forgive the bishop's absurdities and far-fetched conceits, when we find him in his letters leading Margaret to the Holy Scriptures as the only source of spiritual strength, and enjoining a humble and docile reception of its teachings.
[Sidenote: Luther's teachings condemned by the Sorbonne.]
On the fifteenth of April, 1521, the University of Paris, whose opinion respecting Luther's tenets the entire Christian world had for two years been anxiously expecting, p.r.o.nounced its solemn decision. It condemned the writings of the German monk to the flames, on the ground that they were seductive, insulting to the hierarchy, contrary to Scripture, and schismatic. It likened his latest production, _De Captivitate Babylonica_, to Alcoran. It branded as preposterous the notion that G.o.d had reserved the discovery of what is needful to the salvation of the faithful for Martin Luther to make; as though Christ had left his spouse, the Church, so many centuries, and until now, in the darkness and blindness of error. Such sentiments as he uttered were a denial of the first principles of the faith, an unblus.h.i.+ng profession of impiety, an arrogance so impious that it must be repressed by chains and censures--nay, by fire and by flame, rather than refuted by argument.[234] A long list of heretical propositions selected from Luther's works was appended.[235]
[Sidenote: Melanchthon's defence.]
In the month of June following, Melanchthon replied to the Sorbonne's condemnation. He declared that, could the great Gerson and his ill.u.s.trious a.s.sociates and predecessors rise from the dead, they would fail to recognize in the present race of theologians their legitimate offspring, and that they would deplore the misfortune of the university as well as of the whole of Christendom, in that sophists had usurped the place of theologians, and slanderers the seat of Christian doctors. As for the silly letter prefixed to the decree, the reformer wrote, it is a feeble production full of womanish fury: ”He pretends to the sole possession of wisdom. He contemns us. He is a Manichaean, a Montanist; he is mad. Let him be compelled by fire and flame.” Who could refrain from derisive laughter at the unmanly and truly monkish weakness of such threats?[236]
[Sidenote: Regency of Louise de Savoie.]
In the summer of 1523 the king, in order to provide for the government of France during his expected absence from the capital, appointed his mother temporary regent--a dignity which Louise de Savoie enjoyed more than once during Francis's reign. The chancellor, Antoine Duprat, embraced the opportunity to persuade the queen mother that she could not better atone for the irregularities of her own life than by enforcing submission to the authority of the papal church. What causes had contributed to the very radical change apparently effected in her mental att.i.tude to the established ecclesiastical system, since she had in the preceding December discovered the monks, of whatever color their cowl might be, to be arrant ”hypocrites” and the most ”dangerous generation of human kind”--if, indeed, any such change in her mental att.i.tude had really taken place at all, and her present zeal was not altogether a.s.sumed from political motives--we have not the means of determining with certainty. However this may be, she was now induced to take a much more decided stand than Francis had ever taken in opposition to the reformed doctrines, of whose spread, not only in Meaux and other cities in the provinces, but even in Paris, both in the schools of learning and without, there began to be symptoms alarming to the hierarchy.
[Sidenote: The Sorbonne's recommendations for the extirpation of heresy.]
As a preliminary step, the regent sent her confessor, Friar Gilbert Nicolai, to the Sorbonne, with instructions to consult it respecting ”the means to be employed for purging this very Christian realm of the d.a.m.nable doctrine of Luther.” It need scarcely be said that the message was received with great delight. The theological doctors soon replied, rendering thanks to Almighty G.o.d for having inspired Louise with the holy purpose of executing whatever might be found most likely to promote G.o.d's honor and the prosperity of France.[237] What measures did they propose to her as best calculated to accomplish this laudable end?
Sermons, disputations, books, and other scholastic means, they write, may be employed in the refutation of the errors of Luther, as indeed they are every day employed, at the Sorbonne's instigation, and from this instrumentality some good effects may be expected; but since, after all, neither sermons nor books, however learned and conclusive, _compel_ any person to renounce his heretical views, more practical and coercive measures must be adopted if the object is to be attained. All royal officers must be enjoined strictly to enforce every order promulgated against heretics. The prelates must be urged to demand, on pain of excommunication, the surrender of all books of Luther or his supporters found in their dioceses. Meanwhile, the highest ecclesiastical censures are to be directed against those who in any way uphold the heterodox belief. It is only in this way that hope can reasonably be entertained of suppressing this pernicious innovation, which may yet inflict still greater evils upon unfortunate France; since the Scriptures tell us that pestilence, famine, and war served as a rod for the punishment of G.o.d's chosen nation of old, whenever it forsook the pure precepts of the law given by the Almighty.