Читать книгу History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - Страница 49

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Will the reformer whom God is now preparing for France find in Francis I. the support which Luther found in Frederick the Wise? Since his return from captivity in Spain, the king, as we have seen, appeared to yield to the influence of his sister and to the movement of the age. Slightly touched by the new breath, he sometimes listened to the sermons of the evangelicals, and read fragments of the Holy Scriptures with Margaret. One day, when the beauty of the Gospel had spoken to his heart, he exclaimed: ‘It is infamous that the monks should dare to call that heresy which is the very doctrine of God!’ But the Reformation could not please him; liberty, which was one of its elements, clashed with the despotism of the prince; and holiness, another principle, condemned his irregularities.

Opposition to popery had, however, a certain charm for Francis, whose supreme rule it was to lower everything that encroached upon his greatness. He well remembered that the popes had more than once humbled the kings of France, and that Clement VII. was habitually in the interest of the emperor. But political motives will never cause a real Reformation; and hence there are few princes who have contributed so much as Francis I. to propagate superstition instead of truth, servility instead of liberty, licentiousness instead of morality. If the Word of God does not exercise its invisible power on the nations, they are by that very defect deprived of the conditions necessary to the maintenance of order and liberty. They may shine forth with great brilliancy, but they pass easily from disorder to tyranny. They are like a stately ship, decorated with the most glorious banners, and armed with the heaviest artillery; but as it wants the necessary ballast, it drives between two extreme dangers, now dashing against Scylla, and now tossed upon Charybdis.

While Francis I. was trifling with the Reform, other powers in France remained its irreconcilable enemies. The members of the parliament, honourable men for the most part, but lawyers still, unable to recognise the truth (and few could in those days) that spiritual matters were not within their jurisdiction, did not confine themselves to judging temporal offences, but made themselves the champions of the law of the realm against the law of God. The doctors of the Sorbonne, on their part, seeing that the twofold authority of Holy Scripture and of conscience would ruin theirs, opposed with all their strength the substitution of the religious for the clerical element. ‘They inveighed against the reformers,’ says Roussel, ‘and endeavoured to stir up the whole world against them.’623 The more the king inclined to peace, the more the Sorbonne called for war, counting its battalions and preparing for the fight. The general placed at its head was, Erasmus tells us, ‘a many-headed monster, breathing poison from every mouth.’624 Beda—for he was the monster—taking note of the age of Lefèvre, the weakness of Roussel, the absence of Farel, and not knowing Calvin’s power, said to himself that Berquin would be the Luther of France, and against him he directed all his attacks.

Louis de Berquin, who was liberated by the king, in November 1526, from the prison into which the Bedists had thrown him, had formed the daring plan of rescuing France from the hands of the pope. He was then thirty years of age, and possessed a charm in his character, a purity in his life, which even his enemies admired, unwearied application in study, indomitable energy, obstinate zeal, and firm perseverance for the accomplishment of his work. Yet there was one fault in him. Calvin, like Luther, proceeded by the positive method, putting the truth in front, and in this way seeking to effect the conversion of souls; but Berquin inclined too much at times to the negative method. Yet he was full of love, and having found in God a father, and in Jesus a saviour, he never contended with theologians, except to impart to souls that peace and joy which constituted his own happiness.

Berquin did not move forward at hazard; he had calculated everything. He had said to himself that in a country like France the Reformation could not be carried through against the king’s will; but he thought that Francis would allow the work to be done, if he did not do it himself. When he had been thrust into prison in 1523, had not the king, then on his way to Italy, sent the captain of the guards to fetch him, in order to save his life?625 When in 1526 he had been transferred as a heretic by the clerical judges to lay judges, had not Francis once more set him at liberty?626

But Berquin’s noble soul did not suffer the triumph of truth to depend upon the support of princes. A new era was then beginning. God was reanimating society which had lain torpid during the night of the middle ages, and Berquin thought that God would not be wanting to the work. It is a saying of Calvin’s ‘that the brightness of the divine power alone scatters all silly enchantments and vain imaginations.’ Berquin did not distinguish this truth so clearly, but he was not ignorant of it. At the same time, knowing that an army never gains a victory unless it is bought with the deaths of many of its soldiers, he was ready to lay down his life.

At the moment when he was advancing almost alone to attack the colossus, he thought it his duty to inform his friends: ‘Under the cloak of religion,’ he wrote to Erasmus, ‘the priests hide the vilest passions, the most corrupt manners, the most scandalous unbelief. We must tear off the veil that conceals this hideous mystery, and boldly brand the Sorbonne, Rome, and all their hirelings, with impiety.’

At these words his friends were troubled and alarmed; they endeavoured to check his impetuosity. ‘The greater the success you promise yourself,’ wrote Erasmus, ‘the more afraid I am.... O my friend! live in retirement; taste the sweets of study, and let the priests rage at their leisure. Or, if you think they are plotting your ruin, employ stratagem. Let your friends at court obtain some embassy for you from the king, and under that pretext leave France.627 Think, dear Berquin, think constantly what a hydra you are attacking, and by how many mouths it spits its venom. Your enemy is immortal, for a faculty never dies. You will begin by attacking three monks only; but you will raise up against you numerous legions, rich, mighty, and perverse. Just now the princes are for you; but backbiters will contrive to alienate their affection. As for me, I declare I will have nothing to do with the Sorbonne and its armies of monks.’

This letter disturbed Berquin. He read it again and again, and each time his trouble increased. He an ambassador ... he the representative of the king at foreign courts! Ah! when Satan tempted Christ he offered him the kingdoms of this world. Better be a martyr on the Grève for the love of the Saviour! Berquin separated from Erasmus. ‘His spirit,’ said his friends, ‘resembles a palm-tree; the more you desire to bend it, the straighter it grows.’ A trifling circumstance contributed to strengthen his decision.

One day Beda, syndic of the Sorbonne, went to court, where he had some business to transact with the king on behalf of that body. Some time before, he had published a refutation of the ‘Paraphrases and Annotations’ of Erasmus, and Francis I., who boasted of being a pupil of this king of letters, having heard of Beda’s attack, had given way to a fit of passion. As soon, therefore, as he heard that Beda was in the palace, he gave orders that he should be arrested and kept prisoner. Accordingly the syndic was seized, shut up in a chamber, and closely watched. Beda was exasperated, and the hatred he felt against the Reformation was turned against the king. Some of his friends, on hearing of this strange adventure, conjured Francis to set him at liberty. He consented on the following day, but on condition that the syndic should appear when called for.628

The Sorbonne, said Berquin to himself, represents the papacy. It must be overthrown in order that Christ may triumph. He began first to study the writings of Beda, who had so bitterly censured those of his adversaries, and extracted from them twelve propositions ‘manifestly impious and blasphemous’ in the opinion of Erasmus. Then, taking his manuscript, he proceeded to court and presented it to the king, who said: ‘I will interdict Beda’s polemical writings.’ As Francis smiled upon him, Berquin resolved to go further, namely, to attack the Sorbonne and popery, as equally dangerous to the State and to the Church, and to make public certain doctrines of theirs which struck at the power of the throne. He approached the king, and said to him in a lower tone: ‘Sire, I have discovered in the acts and papers of the Sorbonne certain secrets of importance to the State ... some mysteries of iniquity.’629 Nothing was better calculated to exasperate Francis I. ‘Show me those passages,’ he exclaimed. Meantime he told the reformer that the twelve propositions of the syndic of the Sorbonne should be examined. Berquin left the palace full of hope. ‘I will follow these redoubtable hornets into their holes,’ he said to his friends. ‘I will fall upon these insensate babblers, and scourge them on their own dunghill.’ Some people who heard him thought him out of his mind. ‘This gentleman will certainly get himself put to death,’ they said, ‘and he will richly deserve it.’630

Everything seemed to favour Berquin’s design. Francis I. was acting the part of Frederick the Wise: he seemed even more ardent than that moderate protector of Luther. On the 12th of July, 1527, the Bishop of Bazas appeared at court, whither he had been summoned by the king. Francis gave him the twelve famous propositions he had received from Berquin, and commanded him to take them to the rector of the university, with orders to have them examined, not only by doctors of divinity, of whom he had suspicions in such a matter,631 but by the four assembled faculties. Berquin hastened to report this to Erasmus, still hoping to gain him over by the good news.

Erasmus had never before felt so alarmed; he tried to stop Berquin in his ‘mad’ undertaking. The eulogies which this faithful christian lavished upon him particularly filled him with terror; he would a thousand times rather they had been insults. ‘The love which you show for me,’ he wrote to Berquin, ‘stirs up unspeakable hatred against me everywhere. The step you have taken with the king will only serve to irritate the hornets. You wish for a striking victory rather than a sure one; your expectations will be disappointed; the Bedists are contriving some atrocious plot.632 ... Beware!... Even should your cause be holier than that of Christ himself, your enemies have resolved to put you to death. You say that the king protects you ... do not trust to that; the favour of princes is short-lived. You do not care for your life, you add; good! but think at least of learning, and of our friends who, alas! will perish with you.’

Berquin was grieved at this letter. In his opinion the moment was unparalleled. If Erasmus, Francis I., and Berquin act in harmony, no one can resist them; France, and perhaps Europe, will be reformed. And it is just when the King of France is stretching out his hand that the scholar of Rotterdam draws his back!... What can be done without Erasmus?... A circumstance occurred, however, which gave some hope to the evangelist.

The Sorbonne, little heeding the king’s opposition, persevered in their attacks upon learning. They forbade the professors in the colleges to read the ‘Colloquies’ of Erasmus with their pupils, and excommunicated the king of the schools in the schools themselves.... Erasmus, who was a vain, susceptible, choleric man, will now unite with Berquin: the latter had no doubt of it. ‘The time is come,’ wrote Berquin to the illustrious scholar; ‘let us pull off the mask behind which these theologians hide themselves.’ But the more Berquin urged Erasmus, the more Erasmus shrank back; he wished for peace at any cost. It was of no use to point to the blows which the Sorbonne were aiming at him; it pleased him to be beaten, not from meekness, but from fear of the world. The wary man, who was now growing old, became impatient, not against his slanderers, but against his friend. His ‘son’ wanted to lead him as if he were his master. He replied with sadness, almost with bitterness: ‘Truly I admire you, my dear Berquin. You imagine, then, that I have nothing else to do than spend my days in battling with theologians.... I would rather see all my books condemned to the flames than go fighting at my age.’ Unhappily, Erasmus did not abandon his books only, he abandoned truth; and there he was wrong. Berquin did not despair of victory, and undertook to win it unaided. He thought to himself: ‘Erasmus admires in the Gospel a certain harmony with the wisdom of antiquity, but he does not adore in it the foolishness of the cross; he is a theorist, not a reformer.’ From that hour Berquin wrote more rarely and more coldly to his illustrious master, and employed all his strength to carry by main force the place he was attacking. If Erasmus, like Achilles, had retired to his tent, were not Margaret and Francis, and Truth especially, fighting by his side?

The catholic party grew alarmed, and resolved to oppose a vigorous resistance to these attacks. The watchword was given. Many libels were circulated; men were threatened with the gaol and the stake; even ghosts were conjured up; all means were lawful. One sister Alice quitted the fires of purgatory and appeared on the banks of the Rhone and Saone to confound ‘the damnable sect of heretics.’ Any one might read of this prodigy in the ‘Marvellous History of the Ghost of Lyons,’ written by one of the king’s almoners. The Sorbonne knew, however, that phantoms were not sufficient; but they had on their side something more than phantoms. They could oppose Berquin with adversaries who had flesh and blood like himself, and whose power seemed irresistible. These adversaries were a princess and a statesman.