Volume I Part 21 (1/2)
The Swiss and Germans made a prompt response. The Senate of Strasbourg addressed Francis, praising his clemency, but calling his attention to the danger all good men were exposed to. ”If but a single little word escape the mouth of good Christian men, directed against the most manifest abuses, nay, against the flagitious crimes of those who are regarded as _ecclesiastics_, how easy will it be, inasmuch as these very ecclesiastics are their judges, to cry out that words have been spoken to the injury of the true faith, the Church of G.o.d, and its traditions?”[382]
Zurich, going even further, made the direct request of its royal ally, that hereafter all persons accused of holding heretical views should be permitted by his Majesty to clear themselves by an appeal to the pure Word of G.o.d, and no longer be subjected without a hearing to torture and manifold punishments.[383] Berne and Basle remonstrated with similar urgency.
[Sidenote: An emba.s.sy receives an unsatisfactory reply.]
Receiving no reply to their appeal, in consequence of the king's attention being engrossed by the war then in progress with the emperor, and by reason of the dauphin's unexpected death, the same cantons and Strasbourg, a few months later, were induced to send a formal emba.s.sy.
But, if the envoys were fed with gracious words, they obtained no real concession. Francis a.s.sured the Bernese and their confederates that ”it was, as they well knew, only for love of them that he had enlarged the provisions of his gracious Edict of Coucy, by lately[384] extending pardon to all exiles and fugitives”--that is, ”Sacramentarians” and ”relapsed” persons included. This, it seemed to him, ”ought to satisfy them entirely.”[385] It was a polite, but none the less a very positive refusal to entertain the suggestion that the abjuration of their previous ”errors” should no longer be required of all who wished to avail themselves of the amnesty. Nor did it escape notice as a significant circ.u.mstance, that Francis selected for his mouth-piece, not the friendly Queen of Navarre, but the rough and bigoted _Grand-Maitre_--Anne de Montmorency, the future Constable of France.[386]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 328: Melanchthon to Du Bellay, Aug. 1, 1534, Opera (Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum), ii. 740.]
[Footnote 329: This is only a brief summary of the most essential points in these strange articles, which may be read entire in Melanch. Opera, _ubi supra_, ii. 744-766.]
[Footnote 330: Ibid., ii. 775, 776.]
[Footnote 331: See the interesting letter of a young Strasbourg student at Paris, Pierre Siderander, May 28, 1533, Herminjard, Correspondance des reformateurs, iii. 58, 59. The refrain of one placard,
”Au feu, au feu! c'est leur repere!
Faiz-en justice! Dieu l'a permys,”
gave Clement Marot occasion to reply in a couple of short pieces, the longer beginning:
”En l'eau, en l'eau, ces folz seditieux.”
[Footnote 332: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Ed. of 1560), fol. 64.]
[Footnote 333: Bulletin, ix. 27, 28.]
[Footnote 334: Merle d'Aubigne, on the authority of the hostile Florimond de Raemond, ascribes it to Farel. But the style and mode of treatment are quite in contrast with those of Farel's ”Sommaire,”
republished almost precisely at this date; while many sentences are taken verbatim from another treatise, ”Pet.i.t Traicte de l'Eucharistie,”
unfortunately anonymous, but which there is good reason to suppose was written by Marcourt. The author of the latter avows his authors.h.i.+p of the placard. See the full discussion by Herminjard, Correspondance des reformateurs, iii. 225, note, etc.]
[Footnote 335: Courault was foremost in his opposition. Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fols. 64, 65.]
[Footnote 336: ”Qui estes pire que bestes, en vos badinages lesquels vous faites a l'entour de vostre _dieu de paste, duquel vous vous jouez comme un chat d'une souris_: faisans des marmiteux, et frappans contre vostre poictrine, apres l'avoir mis en trois quartiers, _comme estans bien marris_, l'appelans Agneau de Dieu, et lui demandans la paix.”]
[Footnote 337: This singular placard is given _in extenso_ by Gerdesius, Hist. Evang. Renov., iv. (Doc.) 60-67; Haag, France prot., x. pieces justif., 1-6; G. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er, Appendix, 464-472.]
[Footnote 338: Journal d'un bourgeois, 442. Not _Blois_, as the Hist.
ecclesiastique, i. 10, and, following it, Soldan, Merle d'Aubigne, etc., state. Francis had left Blois as early as in September for the castle of Amboise, see Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 231, 226, 236.]
[Footnote 339: ”Ne me puis garder de vous dire qu'il vous souviengne de _l'opinion que j'avois que les vilains placars estoient fait par ceux guiles cherchent aux aultres_.” Marg. de Navarre to Francis I., Nerac, Dec., 1541, Genin, ii. No. 114. Although Margaret's supposition proved to be unfounded, it was by no means so absurd as the reader might imagine. At least, we have the testimony of Pithou, Seigneur de Chamgobert, that a clergyman of Champagne confessed that he had committed, from pious motives, a somewhat similar act. The head of a stone image of the Virgin, known as ”Our Lady of Pity,” standing in one of the streets of Troyes, was found, on the morning of a great feast-day in September, 1555, to have been wantonly broken off. There was the usual indignation against the sacrilegious perpetrators of the deed.
There were the customary procession and ma.s.ses by way of atonement for the insult offered to high Heaven. But Friar Fiacre, of the _Hotel-Dieu_, finding himself some time later at the point of death, and feeling disturbed in conscience, revealed the fact that from religious considerations he had himself decapitated the image, ”_in order to have the Huguenots accused of it, and thus lead to their complete extermination_!” Recordon, Protestantisme en Champagne, ou recits extraits d'un MS. de N. Pithou (Paris, 1863), 28-30.]
[Footnote 340: A. F. Didot, Essai sur la typographie, in Encyclop.
moderne, xxvi. 760, _apud_ Herminjard, iii. 60.]
[Footnote 341: That is, 1535 New Style. For it will remembered that, until 1566, the year in France began with Easter, instead of with the first day of January. Leber, Coll. de pieces rel. a l'hist. de France, viii. 505, etc.]