History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 18

[Footnote 294: Journal d'un bourgeois, 378.]

[Footnote 295: The series of letters ends with a prayer which it would have been difficult, we must suppose, for a brother to resist: "Il vous plera (plaira), Monseigneur, faire en sorte que l'on ne die (dise) point que l'eslongnement vous ait fait oblier vostre tres-humble et tres-obeissante subjette et seur MARGUERITE." Genin, 2de Coll., No. 52.]

[Footnote 296: A MS. of the Bibliotheque Nationale, printed by M. Genin (i. 218, etc.), and G. Guiffrey, Cronique, etc., 76, note, gives these and other interesting details, which are in part confirmed by Erasmus.]

[Footnote 297: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 298: It was a slight suggestion of mercy that prompted the judges to permit him to be strangled before his body was consigned to the flames.]

[Footnote 299: "Ce qui fut faict et expedie ce mesme jour _en grande diligence, affin qu'il ne fut recourru du Roy ne de madame la Regente_, qui estoit lors a Bloys, etc." Journal d'un bourgeois, 383.]

[Footnote 300: For De Berquin's history, see Erasmus, _ubi supra_; Journal d'un bourgeois, 378, etc.; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (ed.

of 1560), fol. 57-59; Histoire eccles., i. 5; Felibien, ii. 985; Haag, s. v.]

[Footnote 301: Journal d'un bourgeois, and Hist. eccles., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 302: So he is styled by Martin of Beauvais, writing some few months later, in a sufficiently bold plea for the use of fire and f.a.got: "Si vero _haeresiarchae Berquini_, et suorum sequacium pervicacia delibutus (haereticus) incorrigibilis videatur, ne forta.s.sis plusquam vipereum venenum latenter surrepat, et sanos inficere possit, subito auferte eum de medio vestrum, execrantes atque aversantes illius perversitatem, et abscisum velut palmitem aridum (juxta Joannis sententiam) _subjectis ignibus torrere facite_." Paraclesis catholica Franciae ad Francos, ut fortes in Fide et Vocatione qua vocati sunt, permaneant, auth.o.r.e Martino Theodorico Bellovaco, Juris Caesarei Professore (Parisiis, 1539), p. 14.--See note at the end of this chapter.]

[Footnote 303: F. W. Barthold, Deutschland und die Hugenoten, i. 15; Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 115-120.]

[Footnote 304: Mezeray, Abrege chronologique, iv. 577.]

[Footnote 305: Soldan, i. 121.]

[Footnote 306: October 28, 1533.]

[Footnote 307: "Con mala sodisfazione di tutta la Francia, perche pare ad ogniuno che Clemente pontefice _abbia gabbato_ questo re cristianissimo." Marino Giustiniano (1535), Relaz. Ven., Alberi, i.

191.]

[Footnote 308: Catharine de' Medici was born April 13, 1519.]

[Footnote 309: These interesting particulars are contained in a MS.

letter in the Zurich Archives (probably written by Oswald Myconius to Joachim Vadian). The writer had them directly from the mouth of Guillaume du Bellay, the French amba.s.sador, who was with the king at the interview of Ma.r.s.eilles. Du Bellay also gave some details of his own conversations with Clement. The latter freely admitted that there were some things that displeased him in the ma.s.s, but naturally wanted so profitable an inst.i.tution to be treated tenderly and cautiously.

Correspond. des reformateurs, iii. 183-186.]

[Footnote 310: The truth respecting Toulouse probably lies about midway between the censures of the Huguenot and the eulogy of the Roman Catholic historian. According to the author of the _Histoire ecclesiastique_, the parliament was the most sanguinary in France, the university careless of letters, the population jealous of any proficiency in liberal studies. According to Florimond de Raemond, writing somewhat later, Toulouse was worthy of eternal praise, because, notwithstanding a marvellous confluence of strangers from all parts, and in spite of being completely surrounded by regions infected with heresy, it had so persisted in the faith as to contain within its walls not a single family that did not live in conformity with the prescriptions of the church! Historia de ortu, progressu et ruina haereseon hujus saeculi, ii. 486.]

[Footnote 311: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 64.]

[Footnote 312: Florimond de Raemond, ii. 394, 395.]

[Footnote 313: March 6, 1535. Journal d'un bourgeois, 453.]

[Footnote 314: Hist. eccles., i. 9; Crespin, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 315: John Calvin gives a contemporary's account in a letter to Francois Daniel from Paris, October, 1533. Herminjard, Correspond. des reformateurs, iii. 106, etc.; and translated in Bonnet, Calvin's Letters, i. 36, etc. See also Jean Sturm's letter of about the same date, Herminjard, iii. 93.]

[Footnote 316: Calvin's letter above quoted, one of the oldest of his MS. autographs. Dr. Paul Henry, in his valuable Life and Times of John Calvin (Eng. trans., i. 37) inadvertently makes Cop rector of the _Sorbonne_, an office that never existed.]

[Footnote 317: A single sentence may serve to indicate the distinctness with which this is a.s.serted: "Evangelium remissionem peccatorum et justificationem gratis pollicetur; neque enim accepti sumus Deo quod legi satisfaciamus, sed ex sola Christi promissione, de qua qui dubitat pie vivere non potest, et gehennae incendium sibi parat." Opera Calvini, Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, x. 34.]

[Footnote 318: Some officious pen has indeed stricken out from the MS.

the sentence, "Quod nos consecuturos spero, si beatissimam Virginem solenni illo praeconio longe omnium pulcherrimo salutaverimus: _Ave gratia plena!_" But on the margin the sensible Nicholas Colladon, a colleague of Beza and an early biographer of Calvin, has written the words: "Haec, quia illis temporibus danda sunt, ne supprimenda quidem putavimus."]

[Footnote 319: "aegre fert Facultas _injuriam toti unversitati illatam_, quod tractus fuerit ad superiorem Judicem ... summus suus magistratus, et, eam ob rem, censet Facultas ut ejus accusatores et qui supplicationem superiori Judici porrexerunt, citentur in facie universitatis, causas rei allaturi." Bullaeus, vi. 238, _apud_ Herminjard, iii. 117, note. See many interesting particulars respecting the privileges claimed by the university, in Pasquier, Recherches de la France, liv. iii. ch. 29.]

[Footnote 320: He was to have been thrown into the _Conciergerie_. See Beza's preface to Calvin's Com. on Joshua, 1565, _apud_ Herminjard, iii.

118, note. Parliament complained to Francis, and the latter in his reply, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, ordered proceedings to be inst.i.tuted for the capture of Cop and the punishment of the person who had facilitated his flight by giving him warning. Francis to parliament, Herminjard, iii. 118. A reward of 300 crowns was accordingly offered for the apprehension of the fugitive rector, dead or alive. Martin Bucer to Amb.

Blaurer, January, 1534, Herminjard, iii. 130.]

[Footnote 321: A fragment of Cop's address--about the first third--was discovered by M. Jules Bonnet in the MSS. of the Library of Geneva, bearing on the margin the note: "Haec Joannes Calvinus propria manu descripsit, et est auctor." This portion is printed in Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 418-420, and Calv. Opera, Baum, Cunitz, et Reuss, ix. 873-876. Merle d'Aubigne used it in his Hist. of the Ref.

in the time of Calvin, ii. 198, etc. Still more fortunate than M.

Bonnet, Messrs. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss very recently found a complete copy of the same address in the archives of one of the churches of Strasbourg. The newly found portion is of great interest. Calvini Op., x. (1872), 30-36.]

[Footnote 322: Calvin to Fr. Daniel (1534), Bonnet, i. 41; Histoire eccles., i. 9.]

[Footnote 323: Francis I. to Council of Berne, Ma.r.s.eilles, Oct. 20, 1533, MS. Berne Archives, Herminjard, iii. 95, 96.]

[Footnote 324: Berne was accustomed to give and take hard blows. So, although the chancellor of the canton endorsed on the king's missive the words, "_Rude lettre du Roi_, ... relative aux Farel," the council was not discouraged; but, when sending two envoys, about a month later, to the French court, instructed them, among other things, again to intercede for a brother of Farel. Herminjard, iii. 96, note.]

[Footnote 325: Du Bellay was himself believed, not without reason, to have sympathy for the reformed doctrine, and it was under his auspices, as well as those of the King and Queen of Navarre, that the evangelical preachers had lately held forth in the pulpits of the capital. See, for instance, Bucer to Blaurer, Jan., 1534, Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 130.]

[Footnote 326: Francis I.'s letter to Du Bellay, Lyons, Dec. 10, 1533, MS. Dupuy Coll., Bibl. nat., Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot.

franc., i. 437. His orders to parliament of same date, Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 114, etc.]

[Footnote 327: Francis to parliament, _ubi supra_, iii. 116.]

CHAPTER V.

MELANCHTHON'S ATTEMPT AT CONCILIATION, AND THE YEAR OF THE PLACARDS.

It appears almost incredible that, so late as in the year 1534, the hope of reuniting the discordant views of the partisans of reform and the adherents of the Roman Church should have been seriously entertained by any considerable number of reflecting minds, for the chasm separating the opposing parties was too wide and deep to be bridged over or filled.

There were irreconcilable differences of doctrine and practice, and tendencies so diverse as to preclude the possibility of harmonious action.

[Sidenote: Hopes of reunion in the church.]

Not so, however, thought many sincere persons on both sides, and not less on the side of the Reformation than on that of the Roman Catholic Church. True, the claims of the papacy were insupportable, and the most flagrant abuses prevailed; but many of the reformers believed it quite within the bounds of possibility that the great body of the supporters of the church might be brought to recognize and renounce these abuses, and break the tyrannical yoke that had, for so many centuries, rested upon the neck of the faithful. The ancient fabric of religion, they said, is indeed disfigured by modern additions, and has been brought, by long neglect, to the very verge of ruin. But these tasteless excrescences can easily be removed, the ravages of time reverently repaired, and the grand old edifice restored to its pristine symmetry and magnificence. In a word, it was a general _reformation_ that was contemplated--no radical reconstruction after a novel plan. And the future _council_, in which all phases of opinion would be freely represented, was to provide the adequate and sufficient cure for all the ills afflicting the body politic and ecclesiastic.

By some of the more sanguine adherents of both parties these flattering expectations were long entertained. With others the attempt to effect a religious reconciliation seems to have served merely as a mask to hide political designs; and at this distance of time it is among the most difficult problems of history to determine the proportion in which earnest zeal and rank insincerity entered as factors into the measures undertaken for the purpose of reconciling theological differences.

Especially is this true respecting the overtures made by the French monarch to Philip Melanchthon, which now claim our attention.

[Sidenote: Melanchthon and Du Bellay.]

[Sidenote: A plan of reconciliation.]