Volume I Part 24 (2/2)
The public courts, indeed, were not the only places where the inconsistencies of the established church with its own ancient standards and representative theologians were brought out into bold relief. The pulpits of the very capital resounded, it was alleged, with contradictory teachings, scandalizing the faithful not a little at the holy season of Advent.[440]
[Sidenote: The Sorbonne's Twenty-five Articles.]
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 ma.s.ses 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 inst.i.tuted 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 cla.s.s of irresolute persons--appropriately styled by their contemporaries ”the _Nicodemites_”--scarcely less danger threatened the same doctrines from the insidious a.s.saults 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.sion 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 a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.d'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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sociate 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 ma.s.sacre 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.ser 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 Pet.i.tot), xviii.
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