Volume I Part 16 (1/2)
More than twenty thousand persons--so intense a hatred had been stirred up against the reformers--a.s.sembled to witness the execution of a sentence malignantly cruel.[297] But, for that day, their expectation was disappointed. Louis de Berquin gave notice that he appealed to the absent king and to the Pope himself. It was no part of the programme, however, that the thrice-convicted heresiarch should gain a fresh respite and enlist powerful friends in effecting his release. No sooner were the judges satisfied that he persisted in his appeal, in spite of the secret and urgent advice of Bude and others, than they rendered a new and more severe sentence (on the seventeenth of April): he must pay the forfeit of his obstinacy with his life, and that, too, within a few hours.[298]
The cause of this intemperate haste is clearly set forth by a contemporary--doubtless an eye-witness of the execution--all whose sympathies were on the side of the prosecution. It was ”lest recourse be had to the king, or to the regent then at Blois;”[299] for the delay of even a few days might have brought from the banks of the Loire another order removing De Berquin's case from the commission to the royal council.
The historian must leave to the professed martyrologist the details of the constant death of Louis de Berquin, as of the deaths of many other less distinguished victims of the intolerant zeal of the Sorbonne.
Suffice it to say that although, when he undertook to address the people, his voice was purposely drowned by the din of the attendants, though the very children filled the air with shouts that De Berquin was a heretic, though not a person was found in the vast concourse to encourage him by the name of ”Jesus”--an accustomed cry even at the execution of parricides--the brave n.o.bleman of Artois met his fate with such composure as to be likened by a by-stander to a student immersed in his favorite occupations, or a wors.h.i.+pper whose devout mind was engrossed by the contemplation of heavenly things.[300] There were indeed blind rumors, as usual in such cases; to the effect that De Berquin recanted at the last moment; and Merlin, the Penitentiary of Notre Dame, who attended him, is reported to have exclaimed that ”perhaps no one for a hundred years had died a better Christian.”[301]
But the ”Lutherans” of Paris had good reason to deny the truth of the former statement, and to interpret the latter to the advantage of De Berquin's consistent faith--so great was the rejoicing over the final success attained in crus.h.i.+ng the most distinguished, in silencing the boldest and most outspoken advocate of the reformation of the church.
For, in the eyes of the theological faculty and of the clergy of France, Louis de Berquin merited to be styled, by way of pre-eminence, a _heresiarch_.[302]
[Sidenote: Francis treats with the Germans.]
Three years had not elapsed since the blow struck at the ”Lutheran”
doctrines in France, in the execution of their most promising and intrepid representative, before the hopes of the friends of the Reformation again revived from a consideration of the king's political relations. Disappointed at the contemptuous reception of their confession of faith by the Emperor at Augsburg, the Protestant princes of Germany had formed a defensive league. Francis, having basely abandoned his former allies, was left alone to combat the gigantic power of a rival between two portions of whose dominions his own kingdom lay exposed. Every consideration of prudence dictated the policy of lending to the German Protestants, in their endeavor to humble the pride of their common antagonist, the most efficient support of his arms. Under these circ.u.mstances religious differences were impotent to prevent the union. Accordingly, in May, 1532, through his amba.s.sador, the sagacious Du Bellay, Francis promised the discontented Elector of Saxony and his a.s.sociates the contribution of a large sum to enable them to make a st.u.r.dy resistance. But the peace shortly concluded with Charles rendered the proffered aid for a time unnecessary.[303]
[Sidenote: and with Henry VIII. of England.]
Equally unproductive of advantage to the professors of the reformed faith was the alliance for mutual defence between Francis and Henry the Eighth of England. Both monarchs were inspired with the same hatred of the emperor, and each had equal reason to complain of the insatiable rapacity of the Roman court. But neither at the pompous interview of the two kings at Boulogne, nor afterward, could Henry prevail upon Francis to take any decided measures against the Pope such as the former, weary of the obstacles thrown in the way of his divorce from Catharine of Aragon, was ready to venture. In his intercourse with the English king, Francis is said to have adopted for his guiding principle the motto, ”_Ami jusqu'a l'autel_,”[304] and declined to sacrifice his orthodoxy to his interests. But the truth was that, in the view of Francis, his interests and his orthodoxy were coincident; and the difficulty experienced by the two kings in coming to a common understanding lay in the fact that, as has been well remarked, while in the enmity of Francis it was not the Pope but the emperor that occupied the foremost place, it was just the reverse with Henry.[305]
[Sidenote: Meeting of Francis I. and Clement, at Ma.r.s.eilles.]
[Sidenote: Marriage of Henry of Orleans to Catharine de' Medici.]
Francis had no thought of throwing away so valuable an auxiliary in his Italian projects, or of permanently attaching to Charles so dangerous an opponent as the papal power. And thus it happened that, a year from the time of his consultation with Henry, Francis proceeded to Ma.r.s.eilles to extend a still more cordial welcome to Clement himself. The wily pontiff had so dazzled the eyes of the king, that the latter had consented to, if he had not actually proposed, a marriage between Henry, Duke of Orleans, his second son, and Catharine de' Medici, the Pope's niece.[306] The match was not flattering to Francis's pride; but there were great prospective advantages, and the bride was less objectionable because the bridegroom, as a younger son, was not likely to ascend the throne. But here again the king was destined to be disappointed.
Clement's death, soon after, destroyed all hope of Medicean support in Italy; and the death of Francis, the dauphin, made Henry of Orleans heir apparent to the throne. It was not long before the French people, with the soundness of judgment generally characterizing the deliberate conclusions reached by the ma.s.ses, came to the opinion, expressed by one of the Venetian amba.s.sadors two years after the wedding: ”Monseigneur of Orleans is married to Madam Catharine de' Medici, to the dissatisfaction of all France; for it seems to everybody that the most Christian king was cheated by Pope Clement.”[307] Such were the evil auspices under which the Italian girl, only fourteen years of age,[308] entered a country over whose destinies she was to exert a pernicious influence.
[Sidenote: Francis refuses to join in a crusade against heresy.]
There was another part of the Pope's designs in the execution of which he was less successful. He could not persuade Francis to join in a general scheme for the extermination of heresy. In the very first interview, Clement had sounded his host's disposition respecting the propriety of a new crusade. He had bluntly submitted for consideration the question, ”Ought not Francis and the pious princes of Germany, with the emperor at their head, to gather up their forces, enlist troops, and make all needful preparations, to overwhelm the followers of Zwingle and Luther; in order that, affrighted by the terrible retribution visited upon their fellows, the remaining heretics should hasten to make their submission to the Roman Church?” At the same time he threw out hints of his ability to a.s.sist in the good work if only the French monarch would not refuse his co-operation. But Francis was not ready for so sanguinary an undertaking. Unmoved by the Pope's repeated solicitations, he replied that it seemed to him that ”neither piety nor concord would be promoted by subst.i.tuting an appeal to arms for the appeal to the Holy Scriptures, to whose ultimate decision both Zwinglians and Lutherans professed themselves at all times anxious to submit their doctrines and practice.”
He added the unpalatable advice that the matters in dispute be considered by a free and impartial council, and declared that, when the council had rendered its verdict, he would spare no pains to sustain it.
All the usual pontifical artifices proved abortive. Francis, while valuing highly the friends.h.i.+p of Rome, was not willing to forego the advantages of alliance with the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse.[309]
While the fickle monarch was thus drawn in opposite directions by conflicting political considerations--at one time strengthening the hands of the Protestant princes of Germany, at another, making common cause with the Pope--the same diversity characterized the internal condition of France.
[Sidenote: Execution of Jean de Caturce at Toulouse.]
At Toulouse, the seat of one of most noted parliaments, Jean de Caturce, a lawyer of ability, was put to death by slow fire in the summer of 1532. His unpardonable offence was that he had once made a ”Lutheran”
exhortation, and that, in the merry-making on the _Fete des Rois_--Epiphany--he had recommended that the prayer, ”May Christ reign in our hearts!” be subst.i.tuted for the senseless cry, ”The king drinks!”
No more ample ground of accusation was needed in a city where the luckless wight who failed to take off his cap before an image, or fall on his knees when the bell rang out at ”Ave Maria,” was sure to be set upon as a heretic.[310]
[Sidenote: Le Coq's evangelical sermon.]
In striking contrast with the tragedy enacted in the chief city of the south was the favor openly showed to the reformers by the Queen of Navarre, not only in her own city of Bourges, but in Paris itself. The intercessions she had addressed to her brother for the victims of priestly persecution had long since betrayed her secret leaning; and the translation of her ”Hours” into French by the Bishop of Senlis, who, by her direction, suppressed all that most directly countenanced superst.i.tious beliefs, was naturally taken as strong confirmation of the prevalent suspicion. But, when she introduced Berthault, Courault, and her own almoner, Roussel, to the pulpits of the capital, and protected them in their evangelical labors, the case ceased to admit of doubt.[311] She even persuaded the king to listen to a sermon in which Le Coq, curate of St. Eustache, argued with force against the bodily presence of Christ in the eucharist, and maintained that the very words, ”_Sursum corda_” in the church service, pointed Him out as to be found at the right hand of G.o.d in heaven. Indeed, the eloquent preacher had nearly convinced his royal listener, when the Cardinals of Tournon and Lorraine, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded in destroying the impression he had received, and, it is said, in inducing Le Coq to make a retraction.[312] But the opposition to the public proclamation of the reformed doctrines was too formidable for their advocates to stem. Beda and his colleagues in the Sorbonne left no device untried to silence the preachers; and, although the restless syndic was in the end forced to expiate his seditious words and writings by an _amende honorable_ in front of the church of Notre Dame, and died in prison,[313] Roussel and his fellow-preachers had long before been compelled to exchange their public discourses for private exhortations, and finally to discontinue even these and retreat from Paris.[314]
[Sidenote: Margaret attacked in the College of Navarre.]
Even so, however, the theologians could not contain their indignation at the insult they had received. In the excess of their zeal they went so far as to hold up the king's sister to condemnation and derision, in one of those plays which the students of the College de Navarre were accustomed annually to perform, as a scholastic exercise in public oratory (on the first of October, 1533). A gentle queen was here represented as throwing aside needle and distaff, at the crafty suggestion of a tempting fury, and as receiving in lieu of those feminine implements a copy of the Gospels--when, lo! she was suddenly transformed into a cruel tyrant. It was perhaps hard to detect the exact connection between the acceptance of the holy book and so disastrous a change of character--neither the students of the College de Navarre nor their teachers thought it worth while to trouble themselves about such trifles--but there was no difficulty in recognizing Margaret in the princ.i.p.al actor of the play, or in deciphering the name of Master Gerard Roussel--Magister Gerardus--in _Megaera_, the fury with the flaming torch, that seduced her. On complaint of his sister, Francis, in some indignation, ordered the arrest of the author of the insipid drama, as well as of the youthful performers. The former could not be found, and the latter, thanks to the queen's clemency, escaped with a less rigorous punishment than the insult deserved.[315]
[Sidenote: Her Miroir de l'ame pecheresse.]
An equally audacious act was the insertion of a work published by Margaret, under the t.i.tle of _Le miroir de l'ame pecheresse_, in a list of prohibited books. When the university, to whom the censors.h.i.+p of the press was entrusted, was called to account by the king, all the faculties promptly repudiated any intention to cast doubt upon the orthodoxy of his sister, and even the originator of the offensive prohibition was forced to plead ignorance of the authors.h.i.+p of the volume in question. The rector of the university terminated the long series of disclaimers by rendering thanks to Francis for his fatherly patience.[316]
[Sidenote: Rector Cop's address to the university.]