Volume I Part 64 (2/2)

[Footnote 1144: La Place, Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., Jean de Serres, etc., _ubi supra_, Castelnau, l. iii., c. 4.]

[Footnote 1145: No wonder; the prelates had just solemnly decreed, as Abbe Bruslart informs us (Mem. de Conde, i. 52): ”Non erat congrediendum c.u.m his qui principia et fundamentum totius nostrae fidei et religionis christianae negant.” Not only so; but they had protested against the heretics being heard, and had declared that _whoever conferred with them would be excommunicated_! ”Disants que ceux qui confereroient avec eux seroient excommunies.” The reader, if he cannot admire their consistency, will certainly be struck with astonishment at the fort.i.tude of the prelates who, a few hours later, could bring themselves with so little apparent trepidation under the highest censures of the Church.

Bruslart goes on to tell us that it was the Cardinal of Lorraine who brought them into this dreadful condemnation, partly hoping to convert the Huguenots, _partly to please Catharine de' Medici_!]

[Footnote 1146: ”Mais ce ne fut pas en si grande compagnie qu'auparavant. Car Messieurs les preslats croignoyent que le monde ne fut infecte de nos heresies, qu'ils appellent.” Letter of Beza to the Elector Palatine, Oct. 3, 1861, Baum, ii., App., p. 88.]

[Footnote 1147: Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 311, 312.]

[Footnote 1148: Ib., _ubi supra_, Hist. eccles., i. 349. Letter of N.

des Gallars to the Bishop of London, Sept. 29th, Baum, ii., App., 80.]

[Footnote 1149: Beza's speech is given in full by La Place, 179-189; Hist. eccl. des egl. ref., i. 350-362; and J. de Serres, i. 282-312. See also De Thou, iii. 71, and N. des Gallars, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1150: ”Et hoc quidem prorsus inepte, quia neque conquesti eramus, neque quemquam poterat videri magis accusare, quam eum ipsum [sc. Cardinal Loth.] cui accesserat advocatus.” Letter of Beza, Sept.

27th, _apud_ Baum, ii., App., 75. It was Beza's firm belief that D'Espense had been hired by Lorraine to compose his speech of the 16th of September, as well as to defend him on the present occasion. He therefore not inappositely calls him, in this letter to Calvin, ”conduct.i.tius Balaam.”]

[Footnote 1151: La Place, 189, 190; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 364; Jean de Serres, i. 315; Beza, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 1152: La Place, 192; Jean de Serres, i. 321-323; Hist. eccles.

des egl. ref., i. 370; Beza to Calvin, Baum, ii., App., 77; N. des Gallars to the Bishop of London, ibid., 81; De Thou, iii. 73.]

[Footnote 1153: Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 27th, _ubi supra_.

Besides permitting the communication of this information, the break in the conferences (caused by the discovery, on Catharine's part, that the majority of the prelates had resolved to submit a proposition respecting the ma.s.s, drawn up in a strictly Romish sense--a refusal to sign which they intended to take as the signal for declining to hold any further intercourse with the Protestants) furnished an opportunity for Montluc, Bishop of Valence--a prelate suspected of Protestant proclivities--and Claude d'Espense, one of the most moderate of the theologians of the Sorbonne, to meet privately, by request of Catharine de' Medici, with Beza and Des Gallars. The result of their interview was the provisional adoption of a declaration on the subject of the eucharist, which, though undoubtedly Protestant in its natural import, was rejected by the rest of the ministers as not sufficiently explicit. Hist. eccles. des egl.

ref., _ubi supra_. See a full account in Baum, Theodor Beza, ii.

342-344. They rightly judged that where there is essential discrepancy of belief, little or nothing can be gained by cloaking it in ambiguous expressions.]

[Footnote 1154: Beza's address is inserted in La Place, 193-196; Hist.

eccles. des egl. ref., i. 371, etc. See also De Thou, iii. (liv.

xxviii.), 74; letters of Beza to Calvin, and N. des Gallars to the Bishop of London, _ubi supra_; Jean de Serres, i. 327, etc.]

[Footnote 1155: La Place, De Thou, letters of Beza, and des Gallars, etc., _ubi supra_. ”Comme si les feu rois Francois le grand, Henry le debonnaire, Francois dernier decede, et Charles a present regnant (et faisoit sonner ces mots autant qu'il pouvoit) avoient ete tyrans et simoniacles.” Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 375.]

[Footnote 1156: La Place, Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., etc., _ubi supra_. Letter of Beza to the Elector Palatine, Oct. 3d, Baum, ii., App., 88, 89.]

[Footnote 1157: Because he was not sufficiently familiar with French, according to La Place, 197 (ne scachant parler francois); and in order to make himself better understood by the queen ”ut a regina intelligi posset,” than he would have been had he spoken in Latin. Letter of Beza, Baum, ii., App., 79. ”D'Espense,” says La Place _ubi supra_, ”lors donna ceste louange audict Martyr, qu'il n'y avoit eu homme de ce temps qui si amplement et avec telle erudition eust escript du faict du sacrement que luy.”]

[Footnote 1158: Although Lainez spoke in Italian (see Baum, ii. 363), it is needless to say that the Cardinal of Lorraine made no objection to the use of a language which, it may be added, he understood perfectly.

The reader may see some reason in the summary of Lainez's speech given in the text, for dissenting from the remark of MM. Oimber et Danjou, iv.

34, note: ”Il [Lainez] fit entendre dans le colloque de Poissy, des _paroles de paix et de conciliation_.”]

[Footnote 1159: ”I said,” writes Beza, in giving an account of his brief reply to Lainez, ”that I would concede all the Spaniard's a.s.sertions when he proved them. As to his statement that we were foxes, and serpents, and apes, _we no more believed it than we believed in transubstantiation_.” Letter to Calvin, Baum, ii., App., 79.]

[Footnote 1160: La Place, 198; Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 377-379; Jean de Serres, i. 335-339; Letter of Beza to Calvin, Sept. 27th, Baum, ii., App., 79.]

[Footnote 1161: ”Qui prae ceteris doctrina et ingenio, atque etiam moderatione praestare existimantur.” Letter of N. des Gallars, _ubi supra_, 82. ”Gens doctes et traictables.” Letter of Beza to the Elector Palatine, ibid., 90.]

[Footnote 1162: _Ante_, p. 475.]

[Footnote 1163: ”Fateor equidem (nec causa est cur id negem) _falsam istam doctrinam_, non tam forta.s.se aperte, quam ipsi facere soletis, confuta.s.se: Babylonem tamen c.u.m cuniculis, tum aperto etiam marte, ut res et tempus ferebat, ita semper oppugnavi, ut noster iste in eo genere conatus optimo cuique semper probaretur.” Letter of Salignac to Calvin, Calvini Opera, ix. 163, 164. Calvin (probably, as Prof. Baum remarks, at Beza's suggestion) wrote to Salignac, about a month after the termination of the Colloquy of Poissy, a respectful but extremely frank letter, in which he urged him to espouse with decision the cause he secretly advocated. He reminded him that it was no mean honor to have been among the first fruits of the revival of truth in France. He urged him to put an end to his inordinate hesitation, by the consideration of the number of those who were still vacillating, but who would forthwith imitate his example if he forsook the enemy's camp for the fold of Christ. Letter of Calvin to Salignac, Nov. 19, 1561, Calvini Opera, ix.

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