Volume I Part 60 (2/2)
[Sidenote: Advantages gained.]
It could not be denied that Beza had spoken with great effect. For the first time in forty years the Reformation had obtained a partial hearing. The time-honored fas.h.i.+on of condemning its professors without even the formality of a trial had for once been violated; and, to the satisfaction of some and the dismay of many, it was found that the arguments that could be alleged in its behalf were neither few nor insignificant. The Huguenots had acquired a new position in the eyes of the court; that was certain. They were not a few seditious persons, who must be put down. They were not a handful of enthusiasts, whom it were folly to attempt to reason with. The child had become a full-grown man, whose prejudices--if prejudices they were--must be overcome by calm argument, rather than removed by chastis.e.m.e.nt.[1129] If the studied arrangement of the bar at the Colloquy of Poissy had been employed by the petty malice of their opponents in order to give them the aspect of convicted culprits, public opinion, unbia.s.sed by such solemn trifling, regarded the disputants as equals in the eye of the law, and attempted to derive from the bearing of the champions some impression concerning the justice of their respective positions.
The change in the basis for the settlement of the controversy was not less apparent. For an entire generation the advocates of Protestantism had been pressing the claims of the Holy Scriptures as the ultimate authority for the decision of all doubtful questions. The only reply was a reference to the dogmas of the Church, and the demand of an unconditional submission to them. Beza had only reiterated the offer, made a thousand times by his fellow-reformers, to surrender at once his religious position should it be rendered untenable by means of proofs drawn from the Scriptures. Cardinal Tournon had again made the trite rejoinder of the clergy; but sensible persons were tired of the unsatisfactory repet.i.tion. Catharine had given expression to the peremptory requisition of all enlightened France when she announced the sole appeal as lying to the ”simple Word of G.o.d.”
[Sidenote: Brilliant success of Beza.]
From this exhibition of his brilliant oratorical powers, and from those displays that shortly followed, Theodore Beza acquired the highest reputation both with friend and foe. Even those who would have it that ”he deceived the people,” that his acquirements were superficial, that he lacked good judgment, and, on the whole, had ”a very hideous soul,”
could not help admitting that he was of a fine presence, ready wit, and keen intellect, and that his excellent choice of language and ready utterance ent.i.tled him to the credit of eloquence.[1130] On the other hand, nothing could exceed the admiration and love excited by his ardent espousal of their cause in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Protestants in all parts of the kingdom. His appearance at Poissy became their favorite episode in recent history. His portrait was hung up in many a chamber. He was almost adored by whole mult.i.tudes of Frenchmen,[1131] as one whom n.o.ble birth, learning, and brilliant prospects had not deterred from following the dictates of his conscientious convictions; whom security in a foreign land had not rendered indifferent to the interests of the land of his birth; whose persuasive eloquence had won new adherents to the cause of the oppressed from among the rich and n.o.ble; who had maintained the truth unabashed in the presence of the king and ”of the most ill.u.s.trious company on earth.”
[Sidenote: His frankness justified.]
Nor will the candid student of history, if he but consider the att.i.tude of the prelates at the colloquy of Poissy, be more inclined than were the Protestants of his own day to censure Theodore Beza for any degree of alleged injudiciousness exhibited in that celebrated sentence in his speech which provoked the outburst of indignation on the part of Tournon and his colleagues. What, forsooth, had their reverences come to the colloquy expecting to hear from the lips of the reformed orators? If not the most orthodox of sentiments--more orthodox than many sentiments whose proclamation had been tolerated in their own private convocation--was there not a moderate allowance of hypocrisy in their pretended horror at the impiety of the heretic Beza? For certainly it was scarcely to be antic.i.p.ated by the most sanguine that he would profess an unwavering belief in the trans.m.u.tation of the substance of the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ that suffered on the cross; seeing that for a little more than a third of a century those of whom he was the avowed representative had, it must be admitted, pretty clearly testified to the contrary on a thousand ”estrapades” from the _Place de Greve_ to the remotest corner of France.
Surely this extreme sensitiveness, this refined orthodoxy, unable to endure the simple enunciation of an opinion differing from their own on the part of an avowed opponent, savored a little of affectation; the more so as it came from prelates whose solicitude for their flocks had been manifested more in the way of seeking to obtain as large a number of folds as possible, than in the way of giving any special pastoral supervision to one, and who found a more congenial residence at the dissolute court where pleasures and preferment could best be obtained, than in obscure dioceses where a rude peasantry were thirsting for instruction in the first rudiments of a Christian education. The truth was--and no one was so blind as not to see it--that the Romish prelates had come determined to seize the first good opportunity to break up the colloquy, because from the colloquy they had good reason to apprehend serious injury to their interests. Nothing short of a complete betrayal of his cause by Beza could have precluded this.[1132] Had he been never so cautious, he could not have avoided giving some handle to those who were watching him so closely. Not the nature of the sentiment he expressed, but the danger lest the prelates might take advantage of it to refuse peremptorily to proceed with the colloquy, was the true ground of Catharine's displeasure.[1133] In order to remove this, so far as it might be based upon any misapprehension of the import of his words, Beza addressed to the queen, on the next day, a dignified but conciliatory letter of explanation.[1134]
[Sidenote: The prelates' notion of a conference.]
A full week elapsed before the Cardinal of Lorraine was ready to make his reply. Meantime the prelates had met, and had resolved that, instead of embracing a discussion of the entire field of controversy between the two churches, the conference should be restricted to _two_ points--the nature of the church and the sacraments. It was even proposed that a formula of faith should be drawn up and submitted to the Protestant ministers. If they refused to subscribe to it, they were to be formally excommunicated, and the conference abruptly broken off. Such was the crude notion of a colloquy conceived by the prelates. No discussion at all, if possible![1135] Otherwise only on those points where agreement was most difficult, and it was easiest to excite the _odium theologic.u.m_ of the by-standers. On the other hand, when this came to the ears of the Protestants, they felt constrained to draw up another solemn protest to the king against the folly of making the prelates judges in a suit in which they appeared also as one of the parties--a course so impolitic that it would rob the colloquy of all the good effects that had been expected to flow from it.[1136]
[Sidenote: September 16th.]
[Sidenote: Peter Martyr arrives.]
[Sidenote: The Cardinal of Lorraine's reply.]
[Sidenote: The Huguenots to wait for their faith to grow old.]
The remonstrance was not without its effect. On the next day, the sixteenth of September, the same a.s.semblage was again gathered in the conventual refectory of Poissy, to hear the reply of the Cardinal of Lorraine. The reformers appeared as on the previous occasion; but their ranks had received a notable accession in the venerable Peter Martyr, just arrived from Zurich. The prelates had, it is true, objected to the admission of a native of Italy; for the invitation, it was urged, had been extended only to Frenchmen. But the queen, who had greeted her distinguished countryman with flattering marks of attention, interfered in his behalf, and, at the last moment, announced it to be her desire that he should appear at the colloquy.[1137] The same trickery that had brought Beza to the bar, in order to give him the appearance of a criminal put upon trial, rather than that of the representative of a religious party claiming to possess the unadulterated truth, a.s.signed Charles of Lorraine a pulpit among his brother prelates, where, with a theologian more proficient in theological controversy at his elbow, he could a.s.sume the air of a judge giving his final sentence respecting the matters in dispute.[1138] His long exordium was devoted to a consideration of the royal and the sacerdotal authority, each of which he in turn extolled. Then pa.s.sing to the particular occasion of the convocation of so goodly a number of archbishops, bishops, and theologians--to all of whom he professed himself inferior in intelligence, knowledge, and eloquence--he expressed most sincere pity for the persons who a week ago had, by the king's command, been introduced into this a.s.sembly--persons long separated from the prelates by a discordant profession of faith and by insubordination, but showing, according to their own a.s.sertions, some desire to be instructed by returning to this their native land and to the house of their fathers, who stood ready to receive and embrace them as children so soon as they should recognize the Church's authority. He would utter no reproaches, but compa.s.sionate their infirmity. He would recall, not reject; unite, not separate. The prelates had gladly heard the confession of faith the Huguenots had made, and heartily wished that, as they agreed in the words of that doc.u.ment, so they might also agree in the interpretation of its articles. Dismissing the consideration of the remaining points, as requiring more time than could be given on a single day, the cardinal undertook to prove only two positions, viz.: that the Church is not an invisible, but a visible organization, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is really and bodily present in the Holy Supper. He then called upon the reformed ministers, if, in their views respecting the eucharist, they could accord neither with the Latin Church, nor with the Greek, nor with the Lutherans of Germany, at least to seek that solitude for which they seemed to long. ”If you have so little desire to approach our faith and our practice,” he said, ”go also farther from us, and disturb no longer the flocks over which you have no legitimate charge, according to the authority which we have of G.o.d; and, allowing your new opinions, if G.o.d permit, to grow as old as our doctrine and traditions have grown, you will restore peace to many troubled consciences and leave your native land at rest.” He urged Charles to cling steadfastly to the faith of his ancestors, of whom none had gone astray, and who had transmitted to him the proud t.i.tle of ”Very Christian” and of ”First Son of the Church.” He exhorted the queen mother and his other n.o.ble hearers to emulate the glorious examples set for their imitation by Clotilde, who brought Clovis to the Christian religion, and by their own ill.u.s.trious ancestry; and he concluded by declaring the unalterable determination of the ecclesiastics of the Gallican Church never to forsake the holy, true, and Catholic doctrine which they preached, and to sustain which they would not spare their blood nor their very lives.[1139]
[Sidenote: Tournon's new demand.]
[Sidenote: Beza asks a hearing.]
Such was the substance of the speech of Charles of Lorraine, so long heralded by his brother ecclesiastics and by the devout Roman Catholics of the land as the sure refutation of all the heresies which the reformers might advance. It was fitting that some signal proof of its success should be given. Scarcely had Lorraine ceased when the whole body of prelates arose and gathered around the throne. Tournon was again their spokesman. He declared the full approval with which the Gallican bishops regarded the address of the Cardinal of Lorraine. They were ready, if need be, to sign it with their own blood, for it was in accordance with the will of Christ and of his bride, our Mother Holy Church. They begged Charles to give it full credit, and persevere in the Catholic faith of his fathers. Let the Protestants sign what the cardinal had said, as a preliminary to their receiving further instruction. If they refused, let Charles purge his very Christian realm of them, so that there might be only ”_une foy_, _une loy_, _un roy_.”[1140] He was followed at once by Theodore Beza, who, on the contrary, urged his Majesty to grant him the liberty of replying on the very spot to the arguments of his opponent. But Catharine, after a brief consultation with the members of the royal council seated near her, denied the request, and adjourned the discussion until another occasion.[1141]
[Sidenote: Advancing shadows of civil war.]
The opportunity thus promised, however, seemed distant and doubtful. The determination of the prelates to have nothing to do with any project for a fair and equal conference was undisguised, and rumors were frequent and ominous that the queen would yield before their resolute att.i.tude.
The decision of the reformers, under these circ.u.mstances, was soon taken: it was, that, if these repeated delays were persisted in, they would leave the court, protesting against the injustice which had been manifested to them and to their cause.[1142] Yet their anxiety was great. That dark cloud of portentous aspect could be descried by all sharp-sighted observers. It was the approaching storm of civil war, every moment rising higher above the horizon.[1143] Even now its advent was heralded by the anarchy pervading entire provinces--a righteous retribution for the sanguinary legislation and the yet more barbarous executions ordered by the courts of law, to repress the free action of the human intellect in the most n.o.ble sphere in which its energies could be exercised--the region of religious thought.
[Sidenote: Another conference reluctantly conceded, September 24th.]
[Sidenote: Beza's reply to the Cardinal of Lorraine.]
[Sidenote: Claude D'Espense.]
[Sidenote: Claude de Sainctes.]
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