Читать книгу History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - Страница 66

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WHEN was France to turn herself towards the Word of God? At the time of her brother's return from his Spanish captivity, Margaret had solicited him to grant liberty of preaching the Gospel, and the king, as will be remembered, had deferred the matter until his sons were restored to freedom. That moment seemed to have arrived. In order to recover his children, Francis had sacrificed at Cambray (June 1529), in the Ladies' Peace, the towns he had conquered, the allies who had been faithful to him, and two millions of crowns besides.

It was not, however, until ten months later that the children of France returned. All the royal family hurried to the Spanish frontier to receive them; all, except Margaret. 'As it would be difficult to take you further without danger,' said her mother, 'the king and I have determined to leave you behind for your confinement.'166 Margaret, uneasy and perhaps a little jealous, wrote to Montmorency: 'When the King of Navarre is with you, I pray you to advise him; but I much fear that you will not be able to prevent his falling in love with the Spanish ladies.'167 At the beginning of July the king's children were restored to their father; Margaret was transported with joy, and showed it by her enthusiastic letters to Francis I.168 She loved these princes like a mother. More serious thoughts soon filled her mind: the epoch fixed by her brother had arrived, but would he keep his promise?

=MARGARET PROMOTES UNITY.=

Margaret lost no time. Being left alone at Blois, she endeavoured to strengthen the good cause, and carried on an active correspondence with the leaders of the Reform. 'Alas!' said the priests, 'while King Francis is labouring to protect his kingdom from the inundations of the Rhine (that is, the Reformation), his sister the Queen of Navarre is trying to break the dykes and throw down the embankments.'169 There was one work above all which Margaret had at heart; she wished to put an end to the divisions among the evangelicals. She entreated the Frenchmen who were at Strasburg, 'waiting for the consolation of Israel,' to do all in their power to terminate the disunion; she even commanded Bucer to do so.170 Bucer's fine talents, benevolent character, and cultivated understanding, the eloquence of his language, the dignity of his carriage, the captivating sound of his voice, his discerning of spirits, his ardent zeal—all seemed to fit him for a peace-maker. He set to work without delay, and informed Luther of the princess's injunctions. 'If our opinions are compared with yours,' he said, 'it will be easily seen that they are radically the same, although expressed in different terms. Let us not furnish our enemies with a weapon with which to attack truth.'171

If Margaret had confidence in Bucer, he too had confidence in her. He admired the sincerity of her faith, the liveliness of her piety, the purity of her manners, the beauty of her understanding, the charms of her conversation, and the abundance of her good works. 'Never was this christian heroine found wanting in her duty,' he wrote to Luther.172 The Strasburgers thought that if Luther and the Germans on one side, and Margaret and the French on the other, were united, the cause of the Reformation would be triumphant in Europe. Whenever any good news arrived from France, Bucer thrilled with joy; he ran to communicate it to Capito, to Hedion, to Zell, and to Hohenlohe; and then he wrote to Luther: 'The brethren write to us from France, dear doctor, that the Gospel is spreading among them in a wonderful manner. A great number of the nobility have already received the truth.173 There is a certain district in Normandy where the Gospel is spread so widely that the enemy call it Little Germany.174 The king is no stranger to the good doctrine;175 and as his children are now at liberty, he will no longer pay such regard to what the pope and the emperor demand. Christ will soon be publicly confessed over the whole kingdom.'176

=DEATH OF MARGARET'S CHILD.=

The Queen of Navarre was obliged to discontinue her correspondence with the reformers of Germany; great joys and great anguish gave another direction to her thoughts. About a fortnight after the return of the children of France, Margaret became the mother of a fine boy at the castle of Blois. When the king passed through that place on his return from the Pyrenees, he took his sister with him, after her churching, to Fontainebleau. But erelong bad tidings of her child summoned Margaret to Alençon, where he was staying with his nurse; he died on Christmas day, 1530, at the age of five months and a half. The mother who had watched near him, who had felt his sweet breath upon her cheek, saw him now lying dead in his little cradle, and could not turn away her eyes from him. At one time she thought he would revive, but alas! he was really dead. The queen felt as if her life had been torn from her; her strength was exhausted; her heart bled, but God consoled her. 'I place him,' she said, 'in the arms of his Father;' and as she felt the necessity of giving glory to God publicly, she sent for one of her principal officers, and, with a voice stifled by tears and sighs, ordered that the child's death should be posted up in the principal quarters of the city, and that these words should be at the foot of the notice:

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.

A sentiment of joy mingled, however, with her inexpressible sorrow; and, confident that the little child was in the presence of God, the pious mother ordered a Te Deum to be sung.177 'I entreat you both,' she wrote to her brother and to her mother, 'to rejoice at his glory, and not give way to any sadness.'178 Francis, who had not long before lost two daughters, was moved at this solemn circumstance, and replied to his sister: 'You have borne the grief of mine, as if they were your own lost children; now I must bear yours, as if it were my own loss. It is the third of yours and the last of mine, whom God has called away to his blessed communion, acquired by them with little labour, and desired by us with such great travail.'179 There are afflictions from God which awaken deep feelings, even in the most frivolous hearts, and lips which are ordinarily dumb sometimes utter harmonious sounds in the presence of death. Other consolations were not wanting to the queen. Du Bellay, at that time Bishop of Bayonne, and afterwards of Paris, hastened to Alençon: 'Ah!' said Margaret, 'but for our Lord's help, the burden would have been more than I could bear.'180 The bishop urged her, on the part of the king, to go to St. Germain, where preparations were making for the coronation of Queen Eleanor, the emperor's sister. Margaret, who always obeyed her brother's orders, quitted Alençon, though with sorrow, in order to be present at his marriage.

=MARRIAGE OF FRANCIS AND ELEANOR.=

The court had never been more brilliant. The less happiness there was in this marriage, the more pomp the king desired to display; joy of the heart was replaced by the sound of the fife and drum and of the hautboy. The dresses were glittering, the festivities magnificent.

There were mysteries and games, and the streets were gaily drest,

And the roads with flowers were strewn of the sweetest and the best;

On every side were galleries, and, if 't would pleasure yield,

We'd have conjured up again for thee a new Elysian field.181

Princes, archbishops, bishops, barons, knights, gentlemen of parliament, and the magistrates of the city, were assembled for this illustrious marriage; scholars and poets were not wanting. Francis I. would often repeat the proverb addressed by Fouquet, Count of Anjou, to Louis IV.:

Un roi non lettré

Est un âne couronné.182

Philologers, painters, and architects had flocked to France from foreign countries. They had met in Paris men worthy to receive them. William Budæus, the three brothers Du Bellay, William Petit, the king's confessor; William Cop, the friend of Lascaris and Erasmus; Pierre du Châtel, who so gracefully described his travels in the East; Pellicier, the learned commentator on Pliny, whose papers have not, however, been printed;183 Peter Danès, whose talents and knowledge Calvin esteemed so highly: all these scholars, who entertained sympathies, more or less secret, for the Reform, were then at court. These men of letters passed among the Roman party as belonging to Luther's flock.184 Somewhat later, indeed, when one of them, Danès, was at the Council of Trent, a French orator inveighed strongly against the lax morals of Rome. The Bishop of Orvieto said with contempt: 'Gallus cantat!'—'Utinam,' sharply retorted Danès, then ambassador for France, 'utinam ad galli cantum Petrus resipisceret!'185 But the cock has often crowed, and Peter has shed no tears.

In the midst of all these men of letters was

Margaret, the fairest flower

That ever grew on earth,

as Ronsard called her. But although her fine understanding enjoyed this select society, more serious thoughts occupied her mind. She could not forget, even in the midst of the court, the little angel that had flown away from her; she was uneasy about the friends of the Gospel; the worldly festivities around her left her heart depressed and unsatisfied. She endeavoured to pierce the thick clouds that hung over her, and soaring in spirit to the 'heavenly kingdom,' she grasped the hand that Christ stretched out to her from on high. She returned to the well of Jacob, where she had drunk when she was so tired with her journey. She had been as a parched and weary land, having neither dew nor moisture, and the Lord had refreshed her with the clear springs of his Holy Spirit. 'A continual sprinkling (to use her own words) kept up in her a heavenly eternity;' and she would have desired all who gathered round her to come to that well where she had so effectually quenched her own thirst. Accordingly, in the midst of the worldly agitation of the court, and of all the honours lavished on her rank and her wit, the poor mother, whose heart was bruised but consoled, looked out in silence for some lamb which she could recall from its wandering, and said:

=THE FOUNTAIN PURE AND FREE.=

'Come to my fountain pure and free,

Drink of its stream abundantly.'

Hasten, sinners, to the call

Of your God, who speaks to all:

'Come and drink—it gives relief

To every form of mortal grief;

Come and drink the draught divine,

Out of this new fount of mine.

Wash away each mortal stain

In the blood of Jesu slain.

No return I seek from thee

But works of love and charity.'

Hasten, sinners, to the brink

Of this stream so pure, and drink!

Fill your hearts, so that ye may

Serve God better every day.

Then, well washed of every stain

That of earth might yet remain,

By Jesu's love at last set free,

Live in heaven eternally.

'Come to my fountain pure and free,

Drink of its stream abundantly!'

Listen, sinners, to the call

Of your God, who speaks to all.186

These appeals were not unavailing. The Reformation was advancing in France by two different roads: one was on the mountains, the other in the plain. The Gospel gained hearts among the sons of labour and of trial; but it gained others also among the learned and high-born, whose faculty of inquiry had been aroused, and who desired to substitute truth in the place of monastic superstitions. Margaret was the evangelist of the court and of the king. Her mother, with Duprat and Montmorency, ruled in the council-chamber, the Duchess of Etampes in the court festivities, but the gentle voice of the Queen of Navarre supported Francis in his frequent periods of uneasiness and dejection. Yet not to the king alone did Margaret devote at this time the attentions of her ardent charity. All the affections of her heart were just now concentrated on a single object.

=LOUISA OF SAVOY DYING.=

She had not recovered from the death of her child, when another blow fell upon the Queen of Navarre. The brilliant and gay festivities of the court were succeeded by the sullen silence of the grave; and the icy coldness, which had presided over the marriage of Francis with his enemy's sister, was followed by the keen anguish and the bitter sorrows of the tenderest of daughters. About the end of the year 1531 the Isle of France was visited by an epidemic. Louisa of Savoy was taken seriously ill at Fontainebleau, where the children of the king were staying. Margaret hurried thither immediately. Louisa, that great enemy of the Reformation, weakened by her dissolute life, was suffering from a severe fever, and yet, imagining that she would not die, she continued to attend to business of importance, and, between the paroxysms of the disease that was killing her, dictated her despatches to the king. Never had mother so depraved and daughter so virtuous felt such love for each other. As soon as she saw the Duchess of Angoulême, the Queen of Navarre anticipated 'the greatest of misfortunes,' and never left her side. The king's children afforded their grandmother some diversion. Charles, Duke of Angoulême, then nine years old, thought only of his father. 'If I only meet him,' said the boy one day, 'I will never let go his hand.'—'And if the king should go to hunt the boar?' said his aunt.—'Well! I shall not be afraid; papa will be able to take care of me.'—'When Madame heard these words,' wrote Margaret to her brother, 'she burst into tears, which has done her much good.'

In the midst of all these mournful occupations, Margaret kept watch over the friends of the Gospel. 'Dear nephew,' she wrote to the grand-master Montmorency, 'that good man Lefèvre writes to me that he is uncomfortable at Blois, because the folks there are trying to annoy him. For change of air, he would willingly go and see a friend of his, if such were the king's good pleasure.' Margaret, finding that the enemies of the Reform were tormenting the old man, gave him an asylum at Nerac in her own states. We shall meet with him there hereafter.

On the 20th of September, Louisa, feeling a little better, left Fontainebleau for Romorantin; but she had hardly reached Grez, near Nemours, when her failing voice, her labouring breath, and her words so sad 'that no one could listen to them, gave her daughter a sorrow and vexation impossible to describe.'187 'It is probable that she will die,' wrote Margaret to the king. Louisa, notwithstanding her weakness, still busied herself with affairs of state; she wished to die governing. Deep sorrow filled her daughter's heart. It was too much for her, this sight of a mother whom she loved with intense affection, trifling on the brink of the grave, strengthening herself against death by means of her power and her greatness, 'as if they would serve her as a rampart and strong tower,' forgetting that there was another besides herself, who disposed of that life of which she fancied herself to be the mistress. Margaret did not rest content with only praying for her mother; she sat by her and spoke to her of the Saviour. 'Madame,' she said, 'I entreat you to fix your hopes elsewhere. Strive to make God propitious to you.'188 This woman, so ambitious, clever, false, and dissolute, whose only virtue was maternal love, does not appear to have opened her heart to her daughter's voice. She breathed her last on the 29th of September, 1531, in the arms of the Queen of Navarre.

Thoughts of a different order were soon to engross Margaret's attention. Hers was a sincere and living piety, but she had an excessive fear of contests and divisions, and, like many eminent persons of that epoch, she desired at any cost, and even by employing diplomatic means, to achieve a reform which should leave catholicity intact. To set before herself a universal transformation of the Church was certainly a noble and a christian aim; but Calvin, Luther, Farel, and others saw that it could only be attained at the expense of truth. The Queen of Navarre's fault was her readiness to sacrifice everything to the realisation of this beautiful dream; and we shall see what was done in France (Francis lending himself to it from mere political motives) to attain the accomplishment of this magnificent but chimerical project.

166 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 247.

167 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 246.

168 Ibid. ii. p. 105.

169 Flor. Rémond, Hist. de l'Hérésie, p. 487.

170 'Jussu reginæ Navarræ, ut hoc tandem dissidium tollatur.'—Buceri Opera Anglicana, fᵒ 693. Gerdesius, ii. p. 33.

171 'Præbetur telum hostibus.'—Gerdesius, iv. p. 33.

172 'Nunquam suo officio deest christianissima illa heroīna, regis soror.'—Ibid.

173 'Procerum magnus numerus jam veritati accessit.'—Ibid.

174 'Ut cœperint eam vocare parvam Allemaniam.'—Ibid.

175 'Rex a veritate alienus non est.'—Ibid.

176 'Bona spes est, brevi fore, ut Christus publicum apud ipsos obtineat.'—Gerdesius, iv. p. 33.

177 Charles de Sainte-Marthe, Oraison funèbre de Marguerite.

178 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 269.

179 Ibid.

180 Ibid. i. pp. 272, 273.

181 Marot, Chronique de François I. p. 90.

182 'An unlettered king is a crowned ass.' A.D. 936.

183 Teissier, Eloge des Hommes savants, i. p. 200.

184 Flor. Rémond, Hist. de l'Hérésie, p. 884.

185 The Latin word gallus signifies both Frenchman and cock. 'The Frenchman crows,' said the bishop. 'Would to God,' retorted Danès, 'that Peter (the pope) would repent at the crowing of the cock!' Sismondi, Hist. des Français, xvi. p. 359.

186 Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, i. pp. 505-508.

187 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 280; ii. p. 120.

188 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 269.