History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 57

[825] Les Marguerites, i. 40.

Then turning towards Meaux, Margaret would exclaim in her anguish: "I return to you, to M. Fabry (Lefevre) and all your gentlemen, beseeching you, by your prayers, to obtain of the unspeakable Mercy an alarum for the poor weak and sleepy one, to arouse her from her heavy and deadly slumber."[826]

[826] MS. Bibl. Roy. S. F. No. 337.

Thus had Meaux become a focus whence the light of the Gospel emanated.

The friends of the Reformation indulged in flattering illusions. Who could resist the Gospel if the power of Francis cleared the way? The corrupting influence of the court would then be changed into a holy influence, and France would acquire a moral strength that would render her the benefactress of the world.

[Sidenote: ROMA--THE MONKS AND THE BISHOP.]

But, on their side, the friends of Rome had taken the alarm. Among those at Meaux was a Jacobin monk named Roma. One day, as Lefevre, Farel, and their friends were talking with him and some other of the papal partisans, Lefevre could not suppress his antic.i.p.ations. "The Gospel is already gaining the hearts of the great and of the people,"

said he, "and in a short time, spreading all over France, it will everywhere throw down the inventions of men." The aged doctor was animated; his eyes sparkled; his worn-out voice grew sonorous; one might have compared him to the aged Simeon returning thanks to the Lord, because his eyes had seen His salvation. Lefevre's friends shared in his emotion: their amazed opponents were dumb. On a sudden Roma started up impetuously, and exclaimed in the tone of a popular tribune: "Then I and all the other religioners will preach a crusade; we will raise the people; and if the king permits the preaching of your Gospel, we will expel him from his kingdom by his own subjects."[827]

[827] Farel, Epitre au Duc de Lorraine, Gen. 1634.

Thus did a monk venture to rise up against the knightly monarch. The Franciscans applauded this language. They must not allow the doctor's prophecy to be fulfilled. Already the friars were returning daily with diminished offerings. The Franciscans in alarm went about among private families. "These new teachers are heretics," said they; "they attack the holiest observances, and deny the most sacred mysteries."

Then growing bolder, the most incensed among them issued from their cloister, and proceeded to the bishop's residence. On being admitted, they said to the prelate: "Crush this heresy, or else the pestilence, which is already desolating the city of Meaux, will spread over the whole kingdom."

Briconnet was moved, and for an instant disturbed by this attack, but he did not give way; he felt too much contempt for these ignorant monks and their interested clamours. He went into the pulpit, justified Lefevre, and called the monks pharisees and hypocrites.

Still this opposition had already excited trouble and conflict in his soul; he sought to encourage himself by the persuasion that such spiritual combats were necessary. "By this warfare," said he, in his somewhat mystical language, "we arrive at a vivifying death, and by continually mortifying life, we die living, and live dying."[828] The way would have been surer if, casting himself upon the Saviour, as the apostles when tossed by the winds and waves, he had exclaimed; "Lord, help me! or I perish."

[828] M.S. Bibl. Roy. S. F. No. 337.

[Sidenote: THE MONKS AND THE PARLIAMENT.]

The monks of Meaux, enraged at their unfavourable reception by the bishop, resolved to carry their complaints before a higher tribunal.

An appeal lay open to them. If the bishop will not give way, he may be reduced to compliance. Their leaders set out for Paris, and concerted measures with Beda and d.u.c.h.esne. They hastened before the parliament, and denounced the bishop and the heretical teachers. "The city and all the neighbourhood," said they, "are infected with heresy, and its polluted waters flow from the episcopal palace."

Thus did France begin to hear the cry of persecution raised against the Gospel. The sacerdotal and the civil power, the Sorbonne and the parliament, grasped their arms,--arms that were to be stained with blood. Christianity had taught mankind that there are duties and rights anterior to all civil a.s.sociations; it had emanc.i.p.ated the religious mind, promoted liberty of conscience, and worked a great change in society; for antiquity, which contemplated the citizen everywhere and the man nowhere, had made religion a mere matter of state. But these ideas of liberty had scarcely been given to the world, ere the papacy corrupted them; for the despotism of the prince it had subst.i.tuted the despotism of the priest; and not unfrequently it had raised both prince and priest against the christian people. A new emanc.i.p.ation was needed; it took place in the sixteenth century.

Wherever the Reformation established itself, it broke the yoke of Rome, and the religious mind was again enfranchised. But so rooted in the nature of man is the disposition to tyrannize over truth, that among many protestant nations, the Church, liberated from the arbitrary power of the priest, has again in our days fallen under the yoke of the civil power; destined, like its founder, to be bandied from one despotism to another, to pa.s.s from Caiaphas to Pilate, and from Pilate to Caiaphas.

[Sidenote: BRIcONNET'S FALL.]

Briconnet had not the courage necessary for resistance. He would not yield everything, but what he did concede satisfied Rome. "We may well do without Luther's writings," he thought, "if we keep the Gospel; we may easily accede to a certain invocation of the Virgin, if we add that it is only by the mediation of Jesus Christ that she possesses any influence." If beside the truth we place the power of error, the papacy is satisfied. But the sacrifice which Briconnet felt the deepest, and which yet was required of him, was the loss of his friends. If the bishop would escape, he must sacrifice his brethren.

Of timid character, but little prepared to give up his riches and his station for Christ's sake, already alarmed, shaken, and cast down, he was still further led astray by treacherous advisers: if the evangelical doctors should quit Meaux (said some), they will carry the Reformation elsewhere. His heart was torn by a painful struggle. At last the wisdom of this world prevailed; he gave way, and, on the 15th of October 1523, published three mandates, the first of which enjoined prayers for the dead, and the invocation of the Virgin and of the saints; the second forbade any one to buy, borrow, read, possess, or carry about with him Luther's works, and ordered them to be torn in pieces, to be scattered to the winds, or to be burnt; and the last established in express terms the doctrine of purgatory. Then, on the 13th of November in the same year, Briconnet forbade the parish priests and their curates to permit the "Lutherans" to preach.[829]

This was not all. The first president of the Parliament of Paris, and Andrew Verjus, councillor in the same court, and before whom Briconnet had shortly afterwards to appear, arrived at Meaux during Lent 1524, no doubt to satisfy themselves of the bishop's proceedings. The poor prelate did all he could to please them. Already on the 29th of January he had taken the images of the saints under his especial protection; he now began to visit his churches, to preach, and to struggle hard in the presence of the first president and of councillor Verjus to "weed out the heresies that were there shooting up."[830]

The deputies of the Parliament returned to Paris fully satisfied. This was Briconnet's first fall.

[829] Hist. Genealogique de Briconnet, ad annum.

[830] MS. Bibl. Roy. S. F. No. 337.

[Sidenote: LEFEVRE AND FAREL--PERSECUTION.]

Lefevre was the special object of hostility. His commentary on the four Gospels, and particularly the "Epistle to Christian Readers,"

prefixed to it, had inflamed the anger of Beda and his allies. They denounced this writing to the faculty. "Does he not dare to recommend all the faithful to read the Scriptures?" said the fiery syndic. "Does he not tell therein that whoever loves not Christ's Word is not a Christian;[831] and that the Word of G.o.d is sufficient to lead to eternal life?"

[831] Qui verb.u.m ejus hoc modo non diligunt, quo pacto hi Christiani essent. Praef. Comm. in Evang.

But Francis I. looked on this accusation as a mere theological squabble. He appointed a commission; and Lefevre, having justified himself before it, came off from this attack with all the honours of war.

Farel, who had not so many protectors at court, was compelled to leave Meaux. It would appear that he first repaired to Paris;[832] and that, having unsparingly attacked the errors of Rome, he could remain there no longer, and was forced to retire to Dauphiny, whither he was eager to carry the Gospel.

[832] Farel, apres avoir subsiste tant qu'il put a Paris. Beza, Hist.

Eccl. i. 6.

At the time of the dispersion of the Christians at Meaux, another Frenchman, quitting his native country, crossed the threshold of the Augustine convent at Wittemberg, where Luther resided. This was in January 1523.

Farel was not the only man in the south of France whom G.o.d had prepared for his work. A little further to the south than Gap, on the banks of the Rhone, in that city of Avignon called by Petrarch "the third Babylon," may still be seen the walls of the "apostolic palace,"

which the popes and cardinals had long filled with their luxury and debauchery, and which a Roman legate now inhabited, lonely and dejected in the midst of this deserted city, whose narrow filthy streets were seldom trod but by the feet of monks and priests.

[Sidenote: FRANCIS LAMBERT--HIS NOVICIATE.]

The little court of the legate was, however, sometimes enlivened by a beautiful, amiable, and laughing boy, who gambolled about its halls.[833] This was Francis Lambert, son of the secretary of the apostolic palace, born in 1487, two years before Farel. The child was at first astonished at the irreligion and crimes of these prelates,--"crimes so numerous and so enormous," says he, "that I cannot describe them."[834] He became habituated to them, however, by degrees, and it would appear that he was himself seduced by bad example.[835] Yet G.o.d had implanted in his heart a desire for holiness. His father being dead, his mother had the charge of his education, and, according to the custom of the times, intrusted him to the care of the Franciscans. The sanctified air of these monks imposed on Francis, and his timid looks followed them respectfully, as he saw them clad in coa.r.s.e garments, barefoot, or with rude sandals only, moving to and fro, begging in the city and calling on his mother; and if at any time they chanced to smile upon him, he fancied himself (he tells us) almost in heaven.[836] The monks worked upon this disposition, and Francis, attracted by them, a.s.sumed the cowl at the age of fifteen. "It was G.o.d's pleasure," said he in after-years, "that I might make known to the world the impurity of these whited sepulchres."

[833] In palatio saepe versatus, quod genitor meus legationis ejus secretarius esset. Lamb. Epistola ad Galliae Regem.

[834] Impietates et horrenda scelera tam multa et enormia. Ibid.

[835] Olim seductus et peccator. Ibid.

[836] Rationes propter quas minoritarum conversationem, habitumque rejecerit. Wittenberg, 1523.

[Sidenote: LAMBERT'S APOSTOLIC LABORS.]

During the year of his noviciate everything went on smoothly; he was studiously kept in the dark; but no sooner had he p.r.o.nounced his vows, than the monks showed themselves in all their deformity, and the halo of sanct.i.ty that he had discovered around their heads faded away, and he remained incensed, alarmed, and dejected. Francis soon began to feel a secret strength within him, that drove him forcibly towards the Holy Scriptures,[837] and bound him to believe and to teach the Word of G.o.d. In 1517, he was nominated apostolical preacher of the convent, and instead of running about like his colleagues after "fat presents and well-stored tables," he employed himself in travelling afoot through the deserted country, and calling those ignorant people to conversion whom the fire and sincerity of his language drew around him in crowds. But when, after spending several months in pa.s.sing through the Comtat Venaissin and the surrounding districts, he returned exhausted to his convent on a mule that had been given him to carry his weakened frame, and went to seek a brief repose in his poor cell, some of the monks received him with coldness, others with raillery, and a third party with anger; and they hastened to sell the animal, which they all agreed in saying was the only profit of these evangelical journeys.

[837] Urgebat me vehementer latens quaedam vis (confido non aliena a Domini spiritu) ad sacrarum studia literarum. Exegesis in S. Johannis Apocalypsia, praef.

One day, as brother Francis was preaching in a certain town, with a gravity quite apostolic and the vivacity of a native of the south: "Kindle a fire," exclaimed he, "before this sacred porch, and there consume the spoils of your luxury, your worldly-mindedness, and your debauchery." Immediately the whole a.s.sembly was in commotion; some lighted up a fire; others ran into their houses and returned with dice, playing-cards, and obscene pictures; and then, like the Christians of Ephesus at the preaching of St. Paul, cast all into the flames. A great crowd was gathered round the fire, and among them some Franciscans, who perceiving an indecent drawing of a young female, cunningly drew it away, and hid it under one of their frocks, "to add fuel to their own flames," says Lambert. This did not escape the eye of brother Francis; a holy indignation kindled within him, and boldly addressing the monks, he inveighed against their lubricity and theft.

Abashed at being discovered, they sunk their heads, gave up the picture, but swore to be revenged.[838]

[838] Lambert von Avignon, by Professor Baum.

[Sidenote: LAMBERT'S STRUGGLES--HE QUITS AVIGNON.]

Lambert, surrounded with debauchery, and become an object of hatred to the monks, felt from time to time an ardent desire to return into the world, which appeared to him infinitely more holy than the cloister: but he found something still better. Luther's works, carried to the fairs of Lyons, descended the Rhone and reached his cell. They were soon taken from him and burnt; but it was too late. The spirit that animated the Augustine of Wittemberg had pa.s.sed into the Franciscan of Avignon: he was saved. Vainly until then had he resorted to frequent fasting; vainly had he slept sitting on a stool;[839] vainly had he shunned the looks of woman, worn haircloth next his skin, scourged himself, and so weakened his body that he could scarcely hold himself upright, and sometimes even fainted in the churches and fields as he was preaching to the people. All this, he tells us, could not extinguish the desires and banish the thoughts that preyed upon him, and it was only in faith on the free grace of G.o.d and in the sanct.i.ty of a married life that he found purity and peace.[840] This is one of those numerous examples which prove that marriage, being of Divine appointment, is a means of grace and holiness, and that the celibacy of priests and monks, the invention of man, is one of the most effectual agents to foster impurity, sully the imagination, disturb the peace of families, and fill society with innumerable disorders.

[839] Non aliter dormuisse multo tempore quam in scamno nudo sedentem.

Lamb. de sacro conjugio.

[840] Donec secundum altissimi jussionem conjux factus est. Ibid.

At last the friar had made up his mind; he will quit the convent, he will abandon popery, he will leave France. He will go where the streams of the Gospel flow abundant and pure, and he will there plunge into them, and quench the fires that are consuming him.[841] Since all his efforts are unavailing, he will go to Wittemberg, to that great servant of G.o.d, whose name alone conjures and affrights the devil, in order that he may find peace.[842] He took advantage of some letters that were to be carried to one of the superiors of the order, and having donned his frock, quitted the Franciscan convent of Avignon in the spring of 1522, after twenty years of struggle. He ascended the Rhone, traversed Lyons, and crossed the forests that cover the lower ridges of the Jura. This tall, thin, ungraceful monk still wore the habit of his order, and rode on an a.s.s, his bare feet almost touching the ground. We have already seen him pa.s.s through Geneva, Lausanne, Berne, and Zurich.[843] In the beginning of 1523, he was at Wittemberg, and embraced Luther. But let us return to France and to the Church of Meaux.

[841] Urebar tamen etiamsi nescirent alii. Ibid.

[842] Tametsi non habeam scorta et multis modis niterer ad continentiam, nunquam pacem habui. Ibid.