Volume I Part 47 (1/2)
[Sidenote: The progress of letters]
[Sidenote: and of intelligence.]
It may be worth while to pause here, and inquire into some of the causes of this rapid spread of the doctrines of the Reformation after the long period of comparative stagnation preceding. One of these was undoubtedly the astonis.h.i.+ng progress of letters in France during the last forty years. From being neglected and rough, the French language, during the first half of the sixteenth century, became the most polite of the tongues spoken in Western Europe--thanks to a series of eminent prose writers and poets who graced the royal court. The generation reaching manhood in the latter years of the reign of Henry the Second were far better educated than the contemporaries of Francis the First. The public mind, through the elevating tendencies of schools fostered by royal bounty, was to a considerable degree emanc.i.p.ated from the thraldom of superst.i.tion. It repudiated the silly romanese, pa.s.sing for the lives of the saints, with which the public had formerly been satisfied. It scrutinized minutely every pretended miracle of the papal churches and convents, and exposed the trickery by which a corrupt clergy sought to maintain itself in popular esteem. Thus the growing intelligence and widening information of the people prepared them to appreciate the merits of the great doctrinal controversy now occupying the attention of enlightened minds. Interest in the discussion of the most important themes that can occupy the human contemplation was both stimulated and gratified by a constant influx of religious works from the teeming presses of Strasbourg, Basle, Lausanne, Neufchatel, and especially Geneva. And the verdict of the great majority of readers and thinkers was favorable to the Swiss and German controversialists.
[Sidenote: Calvin's Inst.i.tutes.]
[Sidenote: Marot and Beza's Psalms.]
Next to the Bible, translated originally by Oliveta.n.u.s, and in its successive editions rendered more conformable to the Hebrew and Greek texts, the ”Christian Inst.i.tutes” exerted the most powerful influence.
The close logic of Calvin's treatises, speaking in a style clear, concise and nervous, and touching a chord of sympathy in each French reader, made its deep impress upon the intellect and heart, while captivating the ear. Calvin's commentaries on the sacred volume rendered its pages luminous and familiar. Other works exerted an influence scarcely inferior. The ”Actions and Monuments” of the martyrs, by Jean Crespin, printer and scholar, not only perpetuated the memory of the witnesses for the truth, but stimulated others to copy their fidelity.
Marot and Beza's metrical versions of the Psalms, wafted into popularity, even among those who at first little sympathized with the piety of the words, by the novelty and beauty of the music to which they were sung, were powerful auxiliaries to the arguments of the theologian.
They entered the house of the peasant and invested its homely scenes with a calm derived from the contemplation of the bliss of a heaven where the fleeting distinctions of the present shall melt away. They nerved the humble artisan to patience and to the cheerful endurance of obloquy and reproach. They attracted to the gathering of persecuted reformers in the by-street, in the retired barn, or on the open heath or mountain side, the youth who preferred their melody and intelligible words to the jargon of a service conducted in a tongue understood only by the learned. In the royal court, or rising in loud chorus from a thousand voices on the crowded _Pre-aux-Clercs_, they were winged messengers of the truth, where no other messengers could have found utterance with impunity.
[Sidenote: Morals and martyrdom.]
The blameless purity of life of the men and women whom, for religion's sake, the officers of the law put to death with every species of indignity and with inhuman cruelty, when contrasted with the flagrant corruption of the clergy and the shameless dissoluteness of the court, openly fostered for their own base ends by cardinals themselves accused of every species of immorality and suspected of atheism, deeply affected the minds of the reflecting. One Anne Du Bourg put to death by a Charles of Lorraine made more converts in a day than all the executioners could burn in a year.
[Sidenote: Character of the ministers from Geneva.]
But, if the rapid spread of Protestant doctrines at this precise date is due to any one cause more than to another, that cause may probably be found in the character and numbers of the religious teachers. Converts from the Papal Church, princ.i.p.ally priests and monks, were the first apostles of the Reformation. Few of them had received systematic training of any kind, none had a thorough acquaintance with biblical learning. Many embraced the truth only in part; some professed it from improper motives. The Lenten preachers whose leaning towards ”Lutheranism” was sufficiently marked to attract the hatred of the Sorbonne, were generally orators, more solicitous of popularity than jealous for the truth--fickle and inconstant men whose apostasy inflicted deep wounds upon the cause with which they had been identified, and more than neutralized all the good done by their previous exertions. But now a brotherhood of theologians took their place, not less zealous for the faith than disciplined in intellect.
Geneva[856] was the nursery from which a vigorous stock was transplanted to French soil. The theological school in which Calvin and Beza taught, moulded the destinies of France. The youths who came from the sh.o.r.es of Lake Leman were no neophytes, nor had they to unlearn the casuistry of the schools or to throw off a monastic indolence which habit had made a second nature. They embraced a vocation to which nothing but a stern sense of duty, or the more powerful attraction of Divine love, could prompt. They entered an arena where poverty, fatigue, and almost inevitable death stared them in the face. But they entered it intelligently and resolutely, with the training of mind and of soul which an athlete might receive from such instructors, and their prayerful, trustful and unselfish endeavor met an ample recompense.[857]
[Sidenote: The Huguenots of Valence]
[Sidenote: seize the church of the Franciscans.]
The course of events in many cities of Southern France is ill.u.s.trated by the occurrences at Valence, which the most authentic and trustworthy historian of this reign has described at length. This episcopal city, situated on the Rhone, about midway between Lyons and Avignon, had for some time contained a small community of Huguenots. When, in order to avoid persecution, their minister, who had become known to their enemies, was replaced by another, a period of unexampled growth began.
The private houses in which the Protestants met were too small to contain the wors.h.i.+ppers. They now adjourned to the large schools, but at first held their services by night. Soon their courage grew with the advent of a second minister and with large accessions to their ranks.
The younger and more impetuous part of the Protestants, disregarding the prudent counsels of their pastors and elders, ventured upon the bold step of seizing upon the Church of the Franciscans, and caused the Gospel to be openly preached from its pulpit. The people a.s.sembled, summoned by the ringing of the bell; and it was not long before the reformed doctrines were relished and embraced by great crowds. A goodly number of armed gentlemen simultaneously took possession of the adjoining cloisters, and protected the Protestant rites. The co-religionists of Montelimart and Romans, considerable towns not far distant, emboldened by the example of Valence, resorted to public preaching in the churches or within their precincts.[858]
[Sidenote: A public a.s.sembly of citizens.]
[Sidenote: An impressive scene.]
[Sidenote: The public morals.]
On receiving the intelligence of the sudden outbreak of Protestant zeal in his diocese, the Bishop of Valence--himself at one time possibly half-inclined to become a convert--despatched thither the Seneschal of Valentinois with the royal Edict of Forgiveness published at Amboise for all who had taken arms and conspired against the king. The citizens were summoned to a public a.s.sembly, in which the magistrates, the consuls, the clergy, and the chief Huguenots were conspicuous. After reading and explaining the terms of the royal clemency, the seneschal turned to the Protestants, who stood by themselves, and demanded whether they intended to avail themselves of its protection. Mirabel, their chief spokesman, replied that it was the custom of the reformed churches to offer prayer to G.o.d before treating of so important affairs as this, and proffered a request that they be allowed to invoke His presence and blessing.
Permission was granted. A citizen of Valence, who was also a deacon of the Reformed Church, thereupon came forward, and uttered a fervent prayer for the prosperity of the king and his realm, and for the progress of the Gospel. The Protestant gentlemen reverently uncovered their heads and knelt upon the ground, and their Roman Catholic neighbors imitated their example. But it was noticed that the clergy stood unmoved and refused to join in the act of wors.h.i.+p. The prayer being ended, a Huguenot orator delivered the answer of his brethren. It was, that they rejoiced and rendered thanks for the benignity of their young prince; but that they could not avail themselves of the pardon offered. They had never conspired against their king. On the contrary, they professed a religion that enjoined the most dutiful obedience. As for bearing arms, it had only been resorted to by the Huguenots in order that they might protect themselves against the unauthorized insults and violence of private persons. The citizen was followed by a _procureur_, who, for eight years, had kept the criminal records of Valence. He bore public testimony to a wonderful change that had come over the city since the introduction of the preaching of the Gospel. The acts of violence which formerly rendered the streets so dangerous by night that few dared to venture out of their houses, even to visit their neighbors, had almost disappeared. The fearful story of crime which used to confront him every morning had been succeeded by a chronicle of quiet and peace. It would seem that with a change of doctrine had also come a transformation of life. The speaker challenged the other side to gainsay his statements; and when not a voice was heard in contradiction, he administered to the Papists a scathing rebuke for the calumnies which some of them had forged against the Protestants behind their backs. With this triumphant refutation of the charges of disorder, the a.s.sembly broke up.[859]
[Sidenote: The Huguenots of Dauphiny to be exterminated.]
The province of Dauphiny, within whose limits Valence, Romans and Montelimart were comprehended, was a government entrusted to the Duke of Guise. Moved with indignation at finding it become the hotbed of Protestantism, he determined to crush the Huguenots before impunity had given them still greater boldness. The governors of adjacent provinces were ordered to a.s.sist in the pious undertaking. King Francis, in a paroxysm of rage, wrote to Tavannes, acting governor of Burgundy, to take all the men-at-arms under his command and march to the a.s.sistance of Clermart, Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, in cutting to pieces those who had taken up arms under color of religion. They were, he heard, three or four thousand men, and had inst.i.tuted public preaching ”after the Geneva fas.h.i.+on,” with all other insolent acts conceivable. He begged him to punish them as they deserved, showing no pity or compa.s.sion, since they had refused to take advantage of the forgiveness of past offences which had been sent them. He was to _extirpate_ the evil.[860]
These and other equally brutal instructions were obeyed with alacrity; but their execution was effected rather by treachery than by open force. The Huguenots of Valence were first induced by promises of security to lay aside their arms, then imprisoned and despoiled by a party consisting of the very dregs of the population of Lyons and Vienne. Two of the ministers were put to death[861] in company with three of the princ.i.p.al men, one being the _procureur_ who had given such n.o.ble testimony to the morals of the Protestants. More would have been executed had not the Bishop of Valence been induced to intercede for his episcopal city, and obtain amnesty for its citizens. Romans and Montelimart fared little better than Valence.[862]
[Sidenote: Concourse at Nismes.]