Читать книгу History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8) - J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - Страница 71

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THE alliance with England, and the hope of being able, sooner or later, to triumph over Charles V., filled the King of France with joy; and accordingly the carnival of the year 1533 was kept magnificently at Paris. The court was absorbed in entertainments, balls, and banquets. The young lords and ladies thought of nothing but dancing and intriguing, at which soberer minds were scandalised. 'It is quite a Bacchanalia,' said the evangelicals.272 As soon as the carnival was ended, Francis started for Picardy; leaving the King and Queen of Navarre at Paris. Margaret now breathed more freely. She had been compelled, willingly or unwillingly, to take part in all the court fêtes; and she now determined to make up for it by organising a great evangelical preaching instead of the 'bacchanalia' at which she had sometimes been present. Was not Francis holding out his hand to the King of England and to the protestants of Germany? The opportunity should be seized of preaching the new doctrine boldly. The Queen of Navarre sent for Roussel and communicated her intention to him. She will open the great churches of the capital, and from their pulpits the inhabitants of Paris shall hear the mighty summons. The poor almoner, in whom courage was not the most prominent virtue, was alarmed at first. In the handsome saloons of Margaret he might indulge in his pious and rather mystical aspirations; but to enter the pulpits of Paris ... the very thought dismayed him, and he begged the queen to find some other person. Roussel did not deny that it was right to preach the Gospel publicly, but declared himself to be incompetent for the work. 'The minister of the Gospel,' he said, 'ought to possess an invincible faith.273 The enemy against which he fights is the kingdom of hell with all its powers.274 ... He must defend himself on the right hand and on the left.... What do you require of me? To preach peace, but under the cross! To bring in the kingdom of God, but among the strongholds of the devil.... To speak of repose in the midst of the most furious tempests, of life in the midst of death, of blessedness in the midst of hell! Who is fitted for such things?... Doubtless it is a noble task, but no one ought to undertake it unless he is called to it. Now I feel nothing in me which a minister of the Gospel of Christ ought to possess at this moment.'275

=ROUSSEL'S HESITATION.=

Such a man as Calvin would certainly have been preferable, but Margaret would neither have dared nor wished to put him in the front. These sermons undoubtedly formed part of the chaplain's duty; and hence the Queen, an energetic and impulsive woman, being determined to profit by the opportunity of giving the Gospel free entrance into Paris, persisted with Roussel, promised him the help of her prayers and of her favour, and at last prevailed on him to preach. In truth, his modesty is an honour to him: no doubt there was boldness wanted; but many humble and candid souls would have hesitated like him. He was fitter than he imagined for the work which the Queen of Navarre had taken in hand.

This obstacle having been surmounted, Margaret met with another. It was the custom for the Sorbonne to appoint the preachers, and it was impossible to get them to accept Roussel. 'They will nominate some furious and insolent monks,' says Calvin, 'who will make the churches ring with their insults against truth.'276 The struggle began, and despite the absence of Francis, despite the influence of the Queen of Navarre, the Sorbonne gained the day, and the pulpits of the capital were closed against the almoner. Margaret was very indignant at these doctors, who looked upon themselves as the doorkeepers of the kingdom of heaven, and by their tyranny prevented the door from being opened; but Roussel was by no means sorry to be prohibited from a work beyond his strength.

=PREACHINGS AT THE LOUVRE.=

But nothing could stop the queen. Being resolved to give the Gospel to France, she said to herself that it must be done now or never. Her zeal carried her to an extraordinary act. The Sorbonne closed the doors of the churches against Roussel: Margaret opened to him the palace of the king. She had a saloon prepared in the Louvre, and gave orders to admit all who desired to enter. Was the king informed of this? It is possible, and even probable, that he was. He did not fear to show the pope and Charles V. how far his alliance with Henry VIII. and the protestants would extend. He would not have liked to appear schismatic and heretical; but he sometimes was pleased that his sister should do so; and he could always vindicate himself on the ground of absence.

A Lutheran sermon at the Louvre! That was truly a strange thing; and accordingly the crowd was so great that there was not room for them. Margaret threw open a larger hall, but that too was filled, as well as the corridors and ante-chamber.277 A third time the place of meeting was changed.278 She had vainly selected the largest hall; the galleries and adjoining rooms were filled, and room was wanting still. These evangelical preachings at the Louvre excited a lively curiosity in Paris. They were all the fashion, and the worthy Roussel, to his great surprise, became quite famous. He preached every day during Lent,279 and every day the crowd grew larger. Nobles, lawyers, men of letters, merchants, scholars, and tradespeople of every class flocked to the Louvre from all parts of Paris, especially from the quarters of the University and St. Germain. At the hour of preaching, the citizens poured over the bridges in a stream, or crossed the Seine in boats. Some were attracted by piety, some by curiosity, and others by vanity. Four or five thousand hearers crowded daily round Roussel.280

When the worthy citizens, students, and professors had climbed the stairs at the Louvre, crossed the antechambers, and reached the door of the principal saloon, they stopped, opened their eyes wide, and looked wonderingly on the sight presented to them in the monarch's palace. The King and Queen of Navarre were in the chief places, seated in costly chairs, whence the active Margaret cast a satisfied glance on all those courtiers, those notables of the city, those curious Parisians, those friends of Reform, who were flocking to hear the Word of God. There were people of every rank: John Sturm, already so decided for the Gospel, was seen by the side of the elegant John de Montluc, afterwards Bishop of Valence. At length the minister appeared; he prayed with unction, read the Scriptures with gravity, and then began his exhortations to the hearers. His language was simple, but it stirred their hearts profoundly. Roussel proclaimed the salvation obtained by a living faith, and urged the necessity of belonging to the invisible Church of the saints. Instead of attacking the Roman religion, he addressed his appeals to the conscience; and this preaching of the Gospel (rather softened down as it was) won, instead of irritating, men's minds. Accustomed as they were to the babbling of the monks, the congregation listened seriously to the practical preaching of the minister of God. Here were no scholastic subtleties, no absurd legends, no amusing anecdotes, no burlesque declamations, and no unclean pictures: it was the Gospel.281 As they quitted the Louvre, men conversed about the sermon or the preacher. Sturm of Strasburg and John de Montluc, in particular, often talked together.282 The satisfaction was general. 'What a preacher!' they said; 'we have never heard anything like it! What freedom in his language! what firmness in his teaching!'283 Some of his hearers wrote in their admiration to Melanchthon, who informed Luther, Spalatin, and others of it.284 Germany rejoiced to see France begin to move at last.

Margaret, who had a lively imagination and warm heart, was all on fire. She spoke to the worldlings of that 'peace of God which passeth all understanding.' She said to the friends of the Gospel: 'The Almighty will graciously complete what he has graciously begun through us.' She added: 'I will spend myself in it.' She excited and stirred up everybody about her, and the crowded congregations of the Louvre were in great measure the result of her incessant activity. She knew how by a word or a message to attract courtiers whose only thoughts were of debauchery, and catholics whose only wish was for the pope. Like a sabbath-bell, she called Paris to hear the voice of God, and drew the crowd. Possessing in the highest degree, so long as her brother did not check it, that energy which women often show in religious matters, she was resolved to prosecute her work and win the prize of the contest.

She returned to her first idea. She said to herself that the best way to effect a reform in the Church without occasioning a schism, was for the Gospel to be preached in the churches of Paris and of France. The ceremonies of the Roman worship and the jurisdiction of the bishops would remain, but Christ would be proclaimed. This system, which was fundamentally that of Melanchthon and even of Luther at this time,285 she did her best to realise. The victory she had just achieved at the Louvre doubled her courage; she determined to have the churches which had been refused to her at first. She therefore began to work upon the king, and, as he was thinking only of his alliances with Henry VIII. and the protestants, she obtained from him an order authorising the Bishop of Paris to appoint whom he pleased to preach in his diocese.286 The prelate, who was a brother of the diplomatist Du Bellay, passed like him for a friend of the Reformation. At Margaret's request he named two evangelical Augustine monks—Courault and Berthaud. 'Strange!' said the public voice; 'here are men of the order to which Luther belonged going to preach the doctrine of the great reformer in the capital of France.' All the evangelicals were overjoyed and wrote to their friends everywhere that 'Paris was supplied with three excellent preachers, announcing the truth ... with a little more boldness than was customary.'287

=ESSENCE OF EVANGELICAL PREACHING.=

Courault, a sincere scriptural christian, who did not participate in Margaret's subtleties, preached at St. Saviour's. The inhabitants of the quarter of St. Denis and from other parts crowded to this church. Many persons who had said of the preachings at the Louvre, 'They are not for us,' hastened to the place which belonged to the people. The man who occupied the pulpit was about the middle age; he did not possess Roussel's grace, he was even somewhat rough, and preached the Gospel without reserve and without disguise. His lively and aggressive style, his expressive and rather threatening gestures arrested attention. He attacked unsparingly the errors of the Church and the vices of christians. Courault did not come, as the Roman preachers had done up to that very hour, to impose on his hearers certain laws, ceremonies, and acts of worship by means of which they could be reconciled to God and merit his favour. He spoke not of feasts, or of dedications, or of customs, or of those mechanical prayers and chantings, in which the understanding and the heart have no share, and with which the Church burdened believers. He had a special horror of all that mixes up the worship of the creature with the adoration of God, and would not suffer the perfect work of Christ to be obscured by the invocation of other mediators. He preached that the true worship of the New Testament was faith in the Gospel, and the love which proceeds from faith; that it was communion with Christ, patience under the cross, and a holy activity in doing good, accompanied by the constant prayers of the heart. This preaching, so new in the capital, attracted an immense crowd. The enthusiasm was universal. 'This man is in the first rank among good men,' was the general opinion.288 'He is like a sentinel on a tower who, with his eyes fixed on the east, proclaims that the sun, so long hidden, will shine at last upon the earth.'289 Light beamed from Courault's discourses. His sight was weak, and in after years, during his exile in Switzerland, where he was Calvin's colleague, he became quite blind; but his language was always marked by great clearness. It was said of him that 'although blind he enlightens the soul.'290 Among his hearers was Louis du Tillet, Calvin's friend, and the youthful canon was deeply excited by the living faith of the aged Augustine. 'Oh! what piety I found in him!' he exclaimed on a later occasion.291

Berthaud, the other preacher named by the bishop, subsequently deserted the Gospel and died a canon of Besançon: so that each of them reminds us of our Saviour's words: There shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.292

These evangelical preachings in the palace of the king and in the churches of Paris were important facts, and there has been nothing like it since in France. The alarm was consequently at its height. People asked whether the sentinels of the Church were asleep, and whether the bark of St. Peter would founder, while the Gospel ship seemed floating onwards in full sail.

=AGITATION OF THE SORBONNE.=

But the doctors of the Sorbonne were not asleep; on the contrary, they were on the watch, they sent their spies into the evangelical assemblies, received their reports, and took counsel together every day. The members of this society, the principal, the prior, the senior, the recorder, the professors, the proctors, and the librarians declared boldly and unanimously that all was lost if they did not make haste to check the evil. The evangelicals and the men of letters were informed of these fanatical discussions. 'What a horde of scribes and pharisees!' they exclaimed.293 But that did not stop the horde. 'What must be done?' they asked; and Beda replied: 'Let the preachers be seized and put to death like Berquin.' Some, more moderate or more politic, knowing that Roussel was preaching by order of the king's sister, shrank from this proposal, fearing they would offend their sovereign.294 'What foolish policy!' exclaimed Beda, 'what ineffable cowardice!... Is not the Sorbonne the oracle of Europe? Shall it render ambiguous answers, like the pagan oracles of old?'

Beda prevailed, and Roussel was denounced to the king. 'Apply to my chancellor,' said Francis, who did not wish to say either yes or no. The Sorbonne delegates then waited upon Duprat. 'Apply to the bishop,' said the cardinal, who was afraid of displeasing the king. The Sorbonnists went to their diocesan, rather anxious about the reception they would receive from him; and with good reason, for the liberal Du Bellay only laughed at them.295 The exasperated but indefatigable doctors now turned to the first president, who was one of their party; but that magistrate, believing the Sorbonne to be in disgrace, was not anxious to support their cause. The wrath of the doctors now became unbounded. Would there no longer be any justice in France for the champions of the papacy? The friends of letters, who had carefully noted all these repulses, smiled at the confusion of the priests; and Sturm in particular, the reviver of learning at Strasburg, and now professor at Paris, did not spare them: 'Look at these Thersites!' he said, comparing them to the ugliest, most cowardly, and most ridiculous of the Grecian host at Troy. 'They are at the end of their tether and cannot succeed,' continued Sturm; 'for those who can help them will not, and those who will cannot.'296

The doctors of the Sorbonne now lost all moderation. 'The king,' said they, 'who publicly supports the heretics, his sister and the Archbishop of Paris, who protect them, are as guilty as they.' Orders were sent through all the camp: every pulpit became a volcano. Furious declamations, superstitious sermons, scholastic discourses, violent and grotesque speeches—the supporters of Rome made use of all. 'Do you know what an heretical minister is?' asked a monk. 'He is a pig in a pulpit, decorated with cap and surplice, and preaching to a congregation ... of asses.'297

=THE FIREBRAND LE PICARD.=

The most active firebrand in this conflagration was Le Picard, a bachelor of divinity, professor of the college of Navarre, and subsequently dean of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. He was twenty-nine years old, of a 'stormy' temper if ever there was one, and in truth he did 'storm' in the churches and at the meetings of the priests. He went into the pulpit to oppose Courault; and the people who had gone to hear the Augustine monk, crowded also to hear his opponent. The latter gesticulated much, shouted loudly, invoked the Virgin, and attacked the king, accusing him bluntly of heresy. He was a true precursor of those who advised the massacre of St. Bartholomew; and indeed he made a proposal, not long after, worthy of the Guises and the Medici. 'Let the government pretend to be Lutheran,' he said, 'in order that the reformed may assemble openly; then we can fall upon them and clear the kingdom of them once for all.'298 A monk, charmed with his virtues, has written his life under the title of The Perfect Ecclesiastic.299

=SEDITION OF BEDA AND MONKS.=

Yet if Le Picard was the most active champion, Beda was still general. Placed as on a hill, he overlooked the field of battle, examined where it was necessary to send help, wrote every day to the orators of his party—to Le Picard, Maillard, Ballue, Bouchigny, and others, and conjured them not to relax for an instant in their attacks. 'Stir up the people by your discourses,' he said.300 It was a critical moment: it was in the balance whether France would remain catholic or become heretic. 'Though the monarch deserts the papacy,' he said, 'agitate, still agitate!' Then the fanatical monks went into the pulpits and aroused the people by their fiery eloquence: 'Let us not suffer this heresy, the most pestilential of all, to take root among us.... Let us pluck it up, cast it out, and annihilate it.'301

All the forces of the papacy were engaged at this time as in a battle where the general launches his reserves into the midst of the struggle. The mendicant friars, those veteran soldiers of the popedom, who had access into every family, were set to work. Dominicans, Augustines, Carmelites, and Franciscans, having received their instructions, entered the houses of Paris. The women and children, who were used to them, saluted them with 'Good morning, friar John or friar James;' and while their wallet was being filled, they whispered in the ears of the citizens: 'The pope is above the king.... If the king favours the heretics, the pope will free us from our oaths of fidelity.'

They went still further. Whenever it is felt desirable to arouse the people, they require to be excited by some spectacle. A neuvaine was ordered in honour of St. James. The crowd flocked to adore the good saint with his long pilgrim's staff; and for nine days the devout of both sexes, kneeling round his image, crossing themselves and employing other usual ceremonies, loudly called upon the saint to give a knock-down blow with his staff to those who protected the heretics.

These incendiary discourses and bigoted practices succeeded. The people began to be restless and to utter threats.302 They paraded in bands through the streets, they collected in groups in the public places, and cries were heard of: 'The pope for ever! down with his enemies!... Whoever opposes the holy father, even if he be a king, is a knave and a tyrant, to whom the Grand Turk is preferable.... We will dye our streets with the blood of those people.'... There was already in the veins of the inhabitants of Paris the blood of the men of the Reign of Terror. The crowds who filled the streets stopped before the booksellers' shops, where books and pictures, defamatory of the reformers and even of the Queen of Navarre, were displayed. Among the books was a 'stage play' aimed at the king's sister: it was probably that entitled: The Malady of Christendom, with thirteen characters.303

But even that was not sufficient. There was still wanting a theological decision from the first academical authority of christendom, which should place Roussel in the same rank as the arch-heretic Luther. The Sorbonne, wishing to strike a decisive blow, published a certain number of the so-called pernicious and scandalous doctrines imputed to Roussel, and condemned them as being similar to the errors of Luther. The alarm and agitation were now at their height; the people fancied they could see the monk of Wittemberg breathing his impious doctrines over Paris. Rome fought boldly, and everything was in confusion.304

What became of Calvin during all this uproar? 'What is this madness,' he said on a later occasion, 'which impels the pope and his bishops, the priests and the friars, to resist the Gospel with such obstinate rebellion?... The servants of God must be furnished with invincible constancy in order to sustain without alarm the commotions of the people. We are sailing on a sea exposed to many tempests; but nothing ought to turn us aside from doing our duty conscientiously.305 The Lord consoles and strengthens his servants when they are thus agitated.... He has in his hand the management of every whirlwind and of every storm, and appeases them whenever it seems good to him.... We shall be roughly handled, but he will not suffer us to be drowned.'306

272 'Bacchanalia factis multis regiis conviviis.'—Siderander Bedroto, Strasburg MSS. ed. Schmidt.

273 'Exigit invictum fidei robur.'—Roussel to Œcolampadius, Ep. Ref. Helvet. p. 20.

274 'Adversus totum inferorum regnum, a dexteris et a sinistris.'—Ibid.

275 'Nihil minus in me sentiam quam quod ad evangelicum dispensatorem et ministrum attinet.'—Ibid.

276 'Quisque erat clamosissimus et stolido furore præditus.'—Calvinus Danieli, Epp. p. 3. Genève, 1575.

277 'Vix enim locus inveniebatur qui satis capax esset.'—Letter dated Paris, May 28, 1533, by Peter Siderander. Strasburg MSS. Schmidt, G. Roussel, p. 201.

278 'Adeo ut ter mutare locum coactus sit.'—Ibid.

279 'Concionatus est autem quotidie per totam hanc quadragesimam.'—Ibid.

280 'Ut nulla fere concio facta fuerit quin hominum quatuor vel quinque millia adfuerint.'—Siderander, Strasburg MSS.

281 Schmidt, G. Roussel, p. 85.

282 See Sturm to Montluc, June 17, 1562.

283 'Gerardus libere docet Evangelium in ipsa Lutetia ... in aula reginæ Navarræ magna animi constantia.'—Melanchthon, Corp. Ref. ii. p. 658.

284 'Hæc certa sunt et mihi, ex Parisiis, ab optimis viris diligenter perscripta.'—Ibid.

285 Negotiations of Smalcald, Aug. 1531.

286 'Allatum est regium diploma quo parisiensi episcopo permittitur præficere quos velit singulis parochiis concionatores.'—Calvini Epp. p. 3.

287 Théod. de Bèze, Hist. des Eglises Réformées, i. p. 9.

288 'Qui inter bonos postremus non erat.'—Calvini Epp. p. 3.

289 'In specula nostra, donec appareat quod nunc absconditum est.'—Ibid.

290 Théod. de Bèze, Hist. des Eglises Réformées, i. p. 9.

291 Correspondance de Calvin et Du Tillet, p. 78.

292 Matthew, xxiv. 40.

293 'Turba illa scribarum et pharisæorum.'—Strasburg MSS.

294 'Non facile contra regem temere ausi sunt certamen suscipere.'—Ibid.

295 'Hic aperte eos illusit.'—Sturm to Bucer, ed. Strobel, p. 106.

296 Isti Thersitæ . . . hi qui possunt nollent, et qui cuperent non auderent adesse.'—Ibid.

297 One of the stalls in a church at Toulouse represents a similar scene, with these words: Calvin the pig preaching.

298 Labitte, Démocratie des Prédicateurs de la Ligue, p. 3.

299 H. de Coste, Le parfait Ecclésiastique, ou Histoire de Le Picard, 12mo, Paris, 1658.

300 'Beda sollicitabat suos oratores ut ne cessarent in suis demegoriis concitare populum.'—Sturm to Bucer. Strasburg MSS.

301 'Populum stimulare ne hæresim hanc pestilentissimam radices agere pateretur.'—Siderander Bedroto. Ibid.

302 'Ad extremum populus etiam mussitare et minari cœpit.'—Sturm to Bucer.

303 Typographi in suis pægmatis scriptura et pictura et ludo scenico læserunt reginam.'—Ibid. The Moralité de la Maladie de la Chrétienté, 8vo, appeared at Paris this very year (1533). The learned biographer of Roussel and of Sturm supposes, very reasonably as it appears to me, that this is the ludus scenicus, the play of which Sturm speaks.

304 'Omnino res cœpit esse θορυβώδης.'—Sturm to Bucer.

305 'En rondeur de conscience.'—Calv. Opusc.

306 Calvin, in Acta xix.