History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 14

Aleander to Sanga, Brussels, November 25, 1531, Vatican Library, Laemmer, Monumenta, 90. See Lambert's autobiographical sketch, ent.i.tled: "Rationes propter quas Minoritarum conversationem habitumque rejecit,"

Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 21-28, and translated, Herminjard, i. 118, etc.; F.

W. Ha.s.sencamp, Fr. Lambert von Avignon; Haag, France prot., s. v.; Baum, Lambert von Avignon.]

[Footnote 245: So says Lambert, who states: "Novi ilium ex intimis; fuit enim mihi perinde atque Jonathas Davidi." Praef. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium antiquarium, vi. 490.]

[Footnote 246: The Bishop of Metz was _John_, Cardinal of Lorraine, uncle of the more notorious Cardinal _Charles_. Chatellain had written a poetical chronicle of Metz reaching to the year 1524. A friendly hand continued it, and recorded the fate of Chatellain, described as

"Augustin, grand Docteur Qui estoit grand predicateur."

The chronicle, which certainly possesses no striking literary merit, is printed among the _Preuves_ of Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine (Nancy, 1748), iii. pp. cclxxii., etc.]

[Footnote 247: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol.

44-46.]

[Footnote 248: "Quorum (Antichristi prophetae) faex in eadem civitate tam multa est, ut eosdem nongentos esse ferant." Lamberti praef. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium Antiq., vi. 485, etc.]

[Footnote 249: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 250: Hist. de l'eglise gallicane, _apud_ Gaillard, vi. 404.]

[Footnote 251: The letter is given by Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 50; also Gerdes., iv. (Doc), 48-50.]

[Footnote 252: Gerdes., iv. 51; Crespin, fol. 49-52; Haag, s. v.]

[Footnote 253: The incident, it must be confessed, is by no means above suspicion (see Kirchhofer, Life of Wm. Farel, London ed., p. 40, and Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, p. 6), although, as Merle d'Aubigne observes, Hist. of the Reformation, bk. xii. c. 13, it is in keeping with Farel's character. colampadius, foreseeing the possibility of his indulging in such inconsiderate words and actions, warned him, as early as Aug.

19, 1524, to temper his zeal with mildness, and to treat his opponents rather as was most expedient, than as they deserved to be treated.

Herminjard, i. 265-267.]

[Footnote 254: "Ceste heresie lutherienne, _qui commance fort a pulluler par deca. Et jam plures de cineribus valde (Valdo) renasc.u.n.tur plantulae_." Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Noel Beda, January 23, 1525. The t.i.tle of primate was a.s.sumed both by the Archbishop of Sens and the Archbishop of Lyons, the former having apparently the better claim and enjoying nominally a Wider supremacy (as "Primat des Gaules et de Germanie"); but the latter gradually vindicated his pretension to spiritual authority over most of France. See Encyclopedie methodique, s.

v. Sens, and Lyon.]

[Footnote 255: Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 408.]

CHAPTER IV.

INCREASING SEVERITY.--LOUIS DE BERQUIN.

[Sidenote: Captivity of Francis I.]

The year 1525 was critical as well in the religious as in the political history of France. On the twenty-fourth of February, in consequence of the disaster at Pavia, Francis fell into the hands of his rival--Charles, by hereditary descent King of Spain, Naples, and Jerusalem, sovereign, under various t.i.tles, of the Netherlands, and by election Emperor of Germany--a prince whose vast possessions in both hemispheres made him at once the wealthiest and most powerful of living monarchs. With his unfortunate captivity, all the fanciful schemes of conquest entertained by the French king fell to the ground. But France felt the blow not less keenly than the monarch. One of the most gallant armies that ever crossed the Alps had been lost. The kingdom was by no means invulnerable, for the capital itself might easily reward a well-executed invasion from the side of Flanders. The recuperative energies of the country could be put forth to little advantage, so long as the place of the king--_fons omnis jurisdictionis_, as the French legists styled him--was filled by a woman in the capacity of regent.

France bade fair to exhibit to the world the inherent weakness of a despotism wherein all power, in fact as well as in theory, centres ultimately in the single person of the supreme ruler as autocrat. For it was his standing boast that he was "emperor" in his own realm, holding it of none other than G.o.d, and responsible to G.o.d alone, and that as king and emperor he had the exclusive right to make ordinances from which no subject could appeal without rendering himself liable to the penalties p.r.o.nounced upon traitors.[256] Now that the head was taken away, who could answer for the harmonious action of the body which had been wont to depend upon him alone for direction?

[Sidenote: Change in the religious policy of Louise de Savoie.]

Louise de Savoie, to whom the direction of affairs had been confided during her son's absence in Italy, had, for greater convenience, transferred the court temporarily to the city of Lyons, where, under the protection of Margaret of Angouleme, the most evangelical preachers of France had been allowed to proclaim the tenets of the reformers within the churches and in the hearing of thousands of eager listeners. The queen mother had not yet ventured decidedly to depart from the tolerant system hitherto pursued by the crown.[257] But the announcement of the capture of Francis effected a complete revolution in her policy. There is no inherent improbability in the story that Chancellor Duprat--the statesman and ecclesiastic who had gained so strong an ascendancy over the mind of Louise that he was shortly promoted to the Archbishopric of Sens and rewarded with the rich abbey of Saint Benoit-sur-Loire--insinuated to the queen mother that the misfortunes befalling France were tokens of the Divine displeasure. Had Francis spared no exertions to destroy the first germs of the heresy so insidiously introduced into his kingdom, he would not now, said the churchman, be languis.h.i.+ng in the dungeons of Milan or Madrid. Nor could hopes be entertained of his deliverance, and of a return of Heaven's favor, unless the queen mother bestirred herself to retrieve his mistake by the introduction of new measures to crush heresy. Thus is the chancellor said to have argued, and to have earned the cardinal's hat at the Pope's hands. However this may be, it is certain that motives of policy were no less influential than the pious considerations which, perhaps, might have carried full as much conviction had they come from the lips of a more exemplary prelate.[258] The regent was certainly not ignorant of the fact that the support of Clement the Seventh, now specially needed in the delicate diplomacy lying immediately before her, could best be secured by proving to the pontiff's satisfaction that the house of Valois was clear of all suspicion of harboring or fostering the "Lutheran" doctrines and their adherents.

The ordinary appliances for the suppression of heresy--a duty entrusted by canon law, so far as the preliminary search and the trial of the suspected was concerned, to the bishops and their courts--had confessedly proved inadequate. The prelates were in great part non-residents, and could not from a distance narrowly watch the progress of the objectionable tenets in their dioceses. One or two of their number were accused of culpable sluggishness, if not of indifference or something worse. The question naturally arose, What new and more effective procedure could be devised?

[Sidenote: A commission appointed to try "Lutherans."]

After mature deliberation, the privy council resolved upon a plan which was virtually to remove the cognizance of crimes against religion from the clergy, and commit it to a mixed commission. The Parliament of Paris was accordingly notified that the bishop of that city stood ready to delegate his authority to conduct the trial of all heretics found within his jurisdiction to such persons as parliament might select for the discharge of this important function; and the latter body proceeded at once to designate two of its own members to act in conjunction with two doctors of the Sorbonne, and receive the faculties promised by the Bishop of Paris.[259] A few days later (March 29, 1525), in making a necessary subst.i.tution for one of the members who was unable to serve, parliament not only empowered the commission thus const.i.tuted to try the "Lutheran" prisoners, Pauvan and Saulnier, but directed the Archbishops of Lyons and Rheims, and the bishops or chapters of eight of the remaining most important dioceses, to confer upon it similar authority to that already received at the hands of the bishop of the metropolis.[260]

[Sidenote: The commission a new form of inquisition.]

[Sidenote: The inquisition hitherto jealously watched.]

It was, however, no ordinary tribunal which the highest civil court of the kingdom was erecting. The commission was in effect nothing less than a new phase of the Inquisition, embodying many of the most obnoxious features of that detested tribunal. It is true that the "Holy Office,"

in a modified form, had existed in France ever since the persecutions directed against the Albigenses and the b.l.o.o.d.y campaigns of Simon de Montfort. But the seat of the solitary Inquisitor of the Faith was Toulouse, not Paris, and his powers had been jealously circ.u.mscribed by the courts of justice and the diocesan prelates, both equally interested in rearing barriers to prevent his incursions into their respective jurisdictions. The Inquisitor of Toulouse was now only a spy and informer.[261] Parliament, in particular, had clearly enunciated the principle that neither inquisitor nor bishop had the right to arrest a suspected heretic, inasmuch as bodily seizure was the exclusive prerogative of the officers of the crown. The judges of this supreme court had summoned to their bar a bishop, and his "official," or vicar, and had exacted from them an explicit disavowal of any intention to arrest, in the case of a person whom they had merely detained, as they a.s.serted, until such time as they could deliver him into the hands of a competent civil officer.[262] And it had become a maxim of French jurisprudence, that "an inquisitor of the faith has no power of capture or arrest, save with the a.s.sistance, and by authority, of the secular arm."[263]

[Sidenote: Parliament breaks down the safeguards of personal liberty.]

But the Parliament of Paris, at the instigation of the regent's advisers, and with the consent of the bishops, was breaking down these important safeguards of personal liberty. It not only accorded to the mixed inquisitorial commission, consisting of two lay and two clerical members, the authority to apprehend persons suspected of heresy, but removed the proceedings of the commission almost entirely from review and correction. A pretext for this extraordinary course was found in the delays heretofore experienced from the interposition of technical difficulties. "The commissioners," said parliament, "by virtue of the authority delegated to them, shall secretly inst.i.tute inquiries against the Lutherans, and shall proceed against them by personal summons, by bodily arrest, by seizure of goods, and by other penalties. Their decisions shall be executed in spite of any and every opposition and appeal, save in case of the final sentence."[264] While conferring such extravagant privileges, parliament took pains to prescribe that the decisions of the commission should be executed precisely as if they had emanated from the supreme court itself. Such were the lengths to which the most conservative judges were willing to go, in the hope of speedily eradicating the reformed doctrines from French soil.

[Sidenote: The commission endorsed by Clement VII.]

The regent and her master-spirit, the chancellor, did not rest here. The commission was not irrevocable; and its authority might be disputed. The work of parliament must receive the papal sanction. For this Clement the Seventh did not keep them long waiting. He addressed to parliament (May 20, 1525) a brief conceived in a vein of fulsome eulogy, expressing his marvellous commendation of their acts--acts which he declared to be worthy of the reputation for wisdom in which the French tribunal was justly held. And he incited the judges to fresh zeal by the consideration that the new madness that had fallen upon the world was prepared to confound and overturn, not religion alone, but all rule, n.o.bility, pre-eminence and superiority--nay, all law and order. The reader, it may be feared, will tire of the frequency with which the same trite suggestions recur. It is, however, not a little important to emphasize the argument which the Roman Curia, and its emissaries at the courts of kings, were never weary of reiterating in the ears of the rich and powerful. And as they seized with avidity every slight incident of disorder that could by any means be a.s.sociated with the great religious movement now in progress, and presented it as corroboratory proof of the charge preferred against the "Lutherans," it is not surprising that they were generally successful in their appeal to the fears of a cla.s.s which had so much at stake.

In addition to his endors.e.m.e.nt of their pious zeal, Clement's brief informed the judges of parliament that they would find in the accompanying bull his formal confirmation of the inquisitorial commission.[265]

This "letter with the leaden seal," dated the seventeenth of May, might well have opened the eyes of less devoted subjects of the Roman See to the injury they were inflicting upon the French liberties, heretofore so cherished an object of judicial solicitude. Addressing itself to the four commissioners named by parliament, the bull recited the lamentable progress of the doctrines of that "son of iniquity and heresiarch, Martin Luther," and praised the ardor displayed to stay their dissemination in France. It next declared that the Pope, by the advice and with the unanimous consent of the cardinals, instructed the commissioners to proceed either singly or collectively against those persons who had embraced heretical views, "simply and quietly, without noise or form of judgment." He empowered them to act independently of the prelates of the kingdom and the Inquisitor of the Faith, or to call in their a.s.sistance, as they should see fit. They might summon witnesses, under pain of ecclesiastical censures. They might make investigations against and put on trial all those infected with heresy, even should the guilty be bishops or archbishops in the church, or be clothed with the ducal authority in the state. When convicted, such persons were to be punished by arrest and imprisonment, or cut off, "like rotten members, from the communion of the church, and consigned to eternal d.a.m.nation with Satan and his angels." The commissioners were further authorized _to grant permission to any one of the faithful who chose so to do to invade, occupy, and acquire for himself the lands, castles, and goods of the heretics, seizing their persons and leading them away into life-long slavery_. From the sentence of the commissioners all appeal, even to the "Apostolic See" itself, was expressly cut off.[266]

[Sidenote: Its powers enlarged by the papal bull.]

Rome had made one of its most brilliant strokes. While adopting as his own the commissioners appointed by parliament, Clement had enlarged their already exorbitant prerogatives, and consummated their independence of secular interference. A new and more efficient inquisition was thus introduced into France, with its secret investigation and unlimited power of inflicting punishment. The Parliament of Paris had, however, committed itself too fully to think of demurring. Accordingly, it proceeded (June 10th) to enter on its records both the regent's letter and the bull of the Pope, to which the letter enjoined obedience.[267]

We have in a previous chapter seen some of the first fruits of the establishment of the inquisitorial commission, in the proceedings inst.i.tuted against Lefevre d'etaples, Gerard Roussel, and others who took part in the attempted reformation of the diocese of Meaux. But, chief among those whom it was sought to destroy, through the agency of the new and well-furbished weapon against heretics, was a n.o.bleman of Artois, whose repeated and remarkable escapes from the hand of the executioner, viewed in connection with the tragic fate that at last overtook him, invest his story with a romantic interest.

[Sidenote: Character of Louis de Berquin.]

[Sidenote: He becomes a warm partisan of the Reformation.]

Louis de Berquin was a man of high rank, whom friends and enemies alike admired for his uncommon acuteness of mind and his great attainments in letters and science. A contemporary Parisian, whose diary has supplied us more than one of those graphic traits that a.s.sist much in bringing before our eyes the living forms of the great actors in the world's past history, seems to have been strongly impressed by the commanding appearance and elegance of dress of De Berquin, at this time in the very prime of life.[268] But the great Erasmus, his correspondent, stood in far greater admiration of his extraordinary learning, his purity of life--a rare excellence in a n.o.bleman of the court of Francis the First--his kindness and freedom from all ostentation, his uncompromising hatred of every form of meanness and injustice,[269] and a fearless courage which, in the eyes of the timid sage of Rotterdam, appeared to fall little short of foolhardiness. Like most of the really earnest reformers, De Berquin was originally a very strict observer of the ordinances of the church, and was unsurpa.s.sed in attention to fasts, feast-days, and the ma.s.s. It was indignation and contempt for the petty persecution inaugurated by Beda and his a.s.sociates of the Sorbonne that first led him to examine the tenets of Lefevre. From Lefevre's works he naturally pa.s.sed to those of the German reformers. His curiosity turning to admiration, he began to translate and annotate the most striking treatises that fell into his hands. Not content with this, he set himself to writing books on the same topics, and incidentally depicted in no flattering colors the intolerance and ignorance of the Paris theologians. As he made no attempt at concealment, his activity was soon known.

[Sidenote: His first imprisonment.]

In the spring of 1523, De Berquin's house was visited, his books and papers were seized, and an inventory was made. Beda was the leader of the authorities in the whole affair. Parliament ordered the books and ma.n.u.scripts to be examined and reported upon by the theological faculty.

What the report would be, it was not hard to surmise. When such works were found in De Berquin's possession as that ent.i.tled "Speculum Theologastrorum," and another giving Luther's reasons for maintaining the universal priesthood of Christian believers; when the notes in De Berquin's own handwriting condemned as blasphemous, and as derogatory to the power of the Holy Ghost, the ascription of praise to the Virgin Mary as the "fountain of all grace"--but one answer could be expected to the requisition of parliament. The books and ma.n.u.scripts were p.r.o.nounced heretical; their author was commanded to retract. This De Berquin refused to do, and he was, consequently, shut up in the _conciergerie_--the civil prison within the walls of the ancient palace in which parliament sat. Four days later he was transferred to the dungeons of the Bishop of Paris, to be judged by him with the aid of two counsellors of parliament and of such theologians as he should see fit to call in.[270]

[Sidenote: He is released by order of the king.]

The case was fast becoming serious. De Berquin was made of sterner stuff than the weaklings who recant through fear of the stake; and the syndic of Sorbonne was fully resolved to have him burned if he remained constant. Happily, just at this critical moment the king interfered.

From Melun, which he had reached on his way toward the south of France, he despatched an officer--one "Captain Frederick," as his name appears in the records--to demand the release of De Berquin, whose trial he had evoked for the consideration of his own royal council. Parliament attempted to interpose technical difficulties, and responded that the prisoner was no longer in its keeping. But "Captain Frederick" was provided against any quibbling. As his instructions were to break open whatever prison-doors might be barred against him, it was not long before the expected prey of the theologians was given into his custody.

In the end De Berquin was set at liberty, such an examination of his case having been made by the king's council as courtiers are wont to inst.i.tute when the accused is the favorite of the monarch.[271]

[Sidenote: Advice of Erasmus.]