Volume I Part 32 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Villegagnon sent with Protestant emigrants to Brazil.]
While the influence of the royal court was exerted, in the manner just indicated, to obtain entrance for the Spanish Inquisition, two events occurred equally deserving our attention--an attempt at the colonization of the New World with emigrants of the reformed faith, and the organization of the first Protestant church in France. Through the countenance and under the patronage of an ill.u.s.trious personage whose name will, from this time forward, frequently figure on these pages--Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France--a knight of Malta named Villegagnon, Vice-admiral of Brittany, obtained from Henry ”two large s.h.i.+ps of two hundred tons burthen,” fully equipped and provided with the requisite armament, as well as a third vessel carrying provisions.[601]
Having embarked with a large number of gentlemen, artisans, and sailors, and having lost some time by being driven back into port to refit after a storm, he at length set sail for America, and anch.o.r.ed in the bay of Rio de Janeiro on the thirteenth of November, 1555. Most of the colonists were adherents of the religion at this time violently persecuted in France; and it is said that Coligny's support had been gained for the enterprise by the promise, on the part of Villegagnon, that in America the reformed should find a safe asylum.[602]
[Sidenote: Fort Coligny founded.]
No sooner, therefore, had the small company effected a lodgment on a small and rocky islet, opposite the present city of Rio de Janeiro, than Villegagnon conferred on the fort he had erected the name of Coligny, and wrote to the admiral, as he did subsequently to Calvin, requesting that pastors should be sent from Geneva.[603] The pet.i.tion being granted, Pierre Richier and Guillaume Chartier were despatched--the first Protestant ministers to cross the Atlantic. They were received by the vice-admiral with extravagant demonstrations of joy. A church was inst.i.tuted on the model of that of Geneva; and Villegagnon recognized the validity of its rites by partaking of the holy communion when for the first time administered, on the sh.o.r.es of the Western Continent, according to the reformed practice.
[Sidenote: Villegagnon becomes an enemy to the Protestants,]
[Sidenote: and brings ruin to the expedition.]
Before long, however, a complete revolution of sentiment and plan was disclosed. The pretext was an animated discussion touching the eucharist, between the Protestant pastors, on the one hand, and Villegagnon, supported by Jean Cointas, a former doctor of the Sorbonne, on the other.[604] The solicitations of the Cardinal of Lorraine, together with a keener appreciation of the danger of harboring the ”new doctrines,” may have been the cause.[605] Chartier was put out of the way by being sent back to Europe, ostensibly to consult Calvin. Richier and others were so roughly handled that they were glad to leave the island for the continent, and subsequently to return in a leaky vessel to their native land.[606] But the infant enterprise had received a fatal blow. Nearly all the deceived Protestants carried home the tidings of their misfortunes, and deterred others from following their disastrous example. Three, remaining in Brazil, were thrown into the sea by Villegagnon's command. A few suffered martyrdom after the fall of the intended capital of ”Antarctic France” into the hands of the Portuguese.
As to Villegagnon himself, he returned to Europe the virulent enemy of Coligny, and turned his feeble pen to the refutation of Protestantism.[607]
[Sidenote: The first Protestant church organized in Paris.]
But if ruin overtook an enterprise from which French statesmen had looked for new power and wealth for their country, and the reformers had antic.i.p.ated the rapid advance of their religion in the New World, the founding of the first Protestant church in Paris proved a more auspicious event. More than thirty years had Protestantism been gradually gaining ground; but, up to the year 1555, it had been wanting in organization. The tide of persecution had surged too violently over the evangelical Christians of the capital to permit them to think of inst.i.tuting a church, with pastors and consistory, after the model furnished by the free city of Geneva, or of holding public wors.h.i.+p at stated times and places, or of regularly administering the sacraments.
”The martyrs,” says a contemporary writer, ”were, properly speaking, the only preachers.”[608] But now, the courage of the Parisian Protestants rising with the increased severity of the cruel measures devised against them, they were prepared to accept the idea of organizing themselves as an ecclesiastical community. To this a simple incident led the way. In the house of a n.o.bleman named La Ferriere, a small body of Protestants met secretly for the reading of the Scriptures and for prayer. Their host had left his home in the province of Maine to enjoy, in the crowded capital, greater immunity from observation than he could enjoy in his native city, and to avoid the necessity of submitting his expected offspring to the rite of baptism as superst.i.tiously observed in the Roman Catholic Church. On the birth of his child, he set before the little band of his fellow-believers his reluctance to countenance the corruptions of that church, and his inability to go elsewhere in search of a purer sacrament. He adjured them to meet his exigency and that of other parents, by the consecration of one of their own number as a minister. He denounced the anger of the Almighty if they suffered his child to die without a partic.i.p.ation in the ordinance inst.i.tuted by the Master whom they professed to serve. So earnest an appeal could not be resisted. After fasting and earnest prayer the choice was made (September, 1555). John le Macon, surnamed La Riviere, was a youth of Angers, twenty-two years of age, who for religion's sake had forsaken home, wealth, and brilliant prospects of advancement. He had narrowly escaped the clutches of the magistrates, to whom his own father, in his anger, would have given him up. This person was now set apart as the first reformed minister of Paris. A brief const.i.tution for the nascent church was adopted. A consistory of elders and deacons was established.
In this simple manner were laid the foundations of a church destined to serve as the prototype of a mult.i.tude of others soon to arise in all parts of France.[609] It was not the least remarkable circ.u.mstance attending its origin, that it arose in the midst of the most hostile populace in France, and at a time when the introduction of a new and more odious form of inquisition was under serious consideration. Nor can the thoughtful student of history regard it in any other light than that of a Providential interposition in its behalf, that for two years the infant church was protected from the fate of extermination that threatened it, by the rise of a fresh war between France and Spain--a war originating in the perfidy of the Pope and of Henry the Second, the two great enemies of the reformed doctrines in France--and terminating in a peace ignominious to the royal persecutor.
[Sidenote: The example followed in the provinces.]
[Sidenote: The f.a.got still reigns.]
The signal given by Paris was welcomed in the provinces. In rapid succession organized churches arose in Meaux, Angers, Poitiers, Bourges, Issoudun, Aubigny, Blois, Tours, Pau, and Troyes--all within the compa.s.s of two years.[610] The Protestants, thirsting for the preaching of the Word of G.o.d, turned their eyes toward Geneva, Neufchatel, and Lausanne, and implored the gift of ministers qualified for the office of instruction. Hitherto the awakening of the intellect and heart long stupefied by superst.i.tion had been partial. Now it seemed to be general.
Three months had scarcely elapsed since the foundation of the church at Paris, before it was asking of the Swiss reformers a second minister.[611] A month later, Angers already had a corps of three pastors. ”Entreat the Lord,” writes the eminent theologian who has left us these details, ”to advance His kingdom, and to confirm with the spirit of faith and patience our brethren that are in the very jaws of the lion. _a.s.suredly the tyrant will at length be compelled either to annihilate entire cities, or to concede someplace for the truth._[612]”
Meanwhile the fires of persecution blazed high in various parts of France, but produced no sensible impression on the growth of the Reformation.[613]
[Sidenote: Henry II. breaks the truce of Vaucelles.]
[Sidenote: Cardinal Caraffa.]
On the fifth of February, 1556, Henry concluded with Charles the Fifth, who had lately abdicated the imperial crown, and with Philip the Second, his son, the truce of Vaucelles, which either side swore to observe for the s.p.a.ce of five years.[614] In the month of July of the same year Henry broke the truce and openly renewed hostilities. Paul the Fourth, the reigning pontiff, was the agent in bringing about this sudden change. The inducement held out to Henry was the prospect of the invest.i.ture of the duchy of Milan and the kingdom of Naples; and Paul readily agreed to absolve the French monarch from the oath which he had so solemnly taken only five months before. Constable Montmorency and his nephew, Admiral Coligny, opposed the act of perfidy; but it was advocated by the Duke of Guise, by the Cardinal of Lorraine, and by one whose seductive entreaties were more implicitly obeyed than those of all others--the dissolute Diana of Poitiers.[615] And the negotiation had been intrusted to skilful hands.[616] Cardinal Caraffa, the pontiff's nephew, was surpa.s.sed in intrigue by no other member of the Sacred College. No conscientious scruples interfered with the discharge of his commission. For Caraffa was at heart an unbeliever. As his hand was reverently raised to p.r.o.nounce upon the crowds gathered to witness his entry into Paris the customary benediction in the name of the triune G.o.d, and his lips were seen to move, there were those near his person, it is said, that caught the ribald words which were really uttered instead: ”Let us deceive this people, since it wishes to be deceived.”[617]
[Sidenote: Fresh projects to introduce the Spanish Inquisition.]
[Sidenote: Henry's letter to the Pope.]
It was fitting that to such a legate should be committed the task of making a fresh effort to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into France.
The Cardinal of Lorraine had been absent in Italy the year before, when the first attempt failed through the resolute resistance of parliament.
He was now present to lend his active co-operation. Yet with all his exertions the king could not silence the opposition of the judges,[618]
and was finally induced to defer a third attempt until the year 1557, and to give a different form to the undertaking. In the month of February of this year, Henry applied to the Pontiff, begging him to appoint, by Apostolic brief, a commission of cardinals or other prelates, who ”_might proceed to the introduction of the said inquisition_ in the lawful and accustomed form and manner, under the authority of the Apostolic See, and with the invocation of the secular arm and temporal jurisdiction.” He promised, on his part, to give the matter his most lively attention, ”_since he desired nothing in this world so much as to see his people delivered from so dangerous a pestilence as this accursed heresy_.”[619] And he solicited the greatest expedition on the part of the Pope, for it was an affair that demanded diligence.
[Sidenote: The papal bull.]
[Sidenote: The three inquisitors-general.]