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=UNEASINESS OF THE ULTRAMONTANES.=

THE Romish party would not be comforted under its defeat. Beda, Le Picard, and Mathurin in exile; evangelical sermons freely preached in the great churches of the capital; the new doctrines carried through Paris from house to house; and the Queen of Navarre seated, as it were, upon the throne during her brother's absence, protecting and directing this Lutheran activity—it was too much! The anxiety and alarm of the ultramontanists increased every day: they held numerous conferences; and if the young Alsatian whom we saw at the gate of the Sorbonne, or any other inquisitive person, could have crept into these catholic committees, he would have heard the most violent addresses. 'It is not only the approach of the enemy that alarms us,' they said: 'he is there ... the revolutionary, immoral, impious, atheistic, abominable, execrable monster!' Other epithets were added, to be found only in the popish vocabulary. 'He is making rapid progress; unless we resist him vigorously, it is all over! The world will perhaps see crumbling under his blows those ancient walls of Roman catholicism under which the nations have taken shelter for so many ages.' And hence the Sorbonne was of the same opinion with the priests and the most hot-headed laymen, that, overlooking for the moment secondary persons, it was necessary to strike the most dangerous. In their eyes the Queen of Navarre was the great enemy of the papacy; the monks, in particular, whose disorders she had not feared to expose, were full of fury against her; their clamours were heard in every quarter. 'The queen,' they said, 'is the modern Eve by whom the new revolt is entering into the world.'—'It is the nature of women to be deceived,' said one; and to prove it he quoted St. Jerome. 'Woman is the gate of the devil,' said another, citing the authority of Tertullian. 'The wily serpent,' said the greatest doctors, 'remembers that memorable duel fought in Paradise. Another fight is beginning, and he is again putting in practice the stratagems that succeeded so well before. At the beginning of the world and now, it is always against woman—that tottering wall, that pannel so weak and easy to break down—that he draws up his battery. It is the Queen of Navarre who supports the disciples of Luther in France; she has placed them in schools; she alone watches over them with wonderful care, and saves them from all danger.397 Either the king must punish her, or she must publicly recant her errors.' The ultramontanists did not restrict themselves to words: they entered into a diabolical plot to ruin that pious princess.

=PLOTS AGAINST MARGARET.=

This was not an easy thing to do. The king loved her, all good men revered her, and all Europe admired her. Yet, as Francis was very jealous of his authority, the priests hoped to take advantage of his extreme susceptibility and set him at variance with a sister who dared to have an opinion of her own. Besides, the Queen of Navarre, like every other eminent person, had powerful enemies at court, 'people of Scythian ingratitude,' who, having been received in her household and raised by her to honours, secretly did all in their power to bring her into discredit with the king and with her husband.398 The most dangerous enemy of all was the grand-master Montmorency, an enterprising, brave, and imperious man, skilful in advancing his own fortune, though unlucky with that of the kingdom; he was besides coarse and uncultivated, despising letters, detesting the Reformation, irritated by the proselytism of the Queen of Navarre, and full of contempt for her books. He had great influence over Francis. The Sorbonne thought that if the grand-master declared against her, it would be impossible for Margaret to retain the king's favour.

An opportunity occurred for beginning the attack, and the Sorbonne caught at it. The Queen of Navarre, sighing after the time when a pure and spiritual religion would displace the barren ceremonial of popery, had published, in 1531, a christian poem entitled: The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, in which she discovers her Faults and Sins, as also the Grace and Blessings bestowed on her by Jesus Christ her Spouse.399 Many persons had read this poem with interest, and admired the queen's genius and piety. Finding that this edition, published in a city which belonged to her, had made no noise, aroused no persecution, and had even gained her a few congratulations, she felt a desire to issue her pious manifesto to a wider circle. Encouraged, moreover, by the position which her brother had just taken up, she made an arrangement with a bookseller rather bolder than the rest, and in 1533 published at Paris a new edition of her book, without the author's name, and without the authorisation of the Sorbonne.

The poem was mild, spiritual, inoffensive, like the queen herself; but it was written by the king's sister, and accordingly made a great sensation. In her verses there were new voices, aspirations towards heaven long unknown; many persons heard them, and here and there certain manifestations showed themselves of a meek and inward piety long since forgotten. The alarmed Sorbonne shouted out—'heresy!' There was, indeed, in the Mirror something more than aspirations. It contained nothing, indeed, against the saints or the Virgin, against the mass or popery, and not a word of controversy; but the essential doctrine of the Reformation was strongly impressed on it, namely, salvation by Jesus Christ alone, and the certain assurance of that redemption.

=BEDA DISCOVERS HERESY IN THE POEMS.=

At the time of which we are writing, Beda had not been banished. At the beginning of 1533 he had been intrusted by the Sorbonne with the examination of all new books. The fiery syndic discovered the Mirror, and with excess of joy he fell upon it to seek matter of accusation against the king's sister. He devoured it; he had never been so charmed by any reading, for at last he had proof that the Queen of Navarre was really a heretic.400 'But understand me well,' he said; 'they are not dumb proofs nor half proofs, but literal, clear, complete proofs.' Beda prepared therefore to attack Margaret. What a contrast between the formal religion of the Church and that of this spiritual poem! St. Thomas and the other chiefs of the schools teach that man may at least possess merits of congruity; that he may perform supererogatory works, that he must confess his sins in the ear of the priest, and satisfy the justice of God by acts of penance, satisfactio operis. But according to the Mirror, religion is a much simpler thing ... all is summed up in these two terms: man's sin and God's grace. According to the queen, what man needs is to have his sins remitted and wholly pardoned in consequence of the Saviour's death; and when by faith he has found assurance of this pardon, he enjoys peace.... He must consider all his past life as being no longer for him a ground of condemnation before God: these are the glad tidings. Now these tidings scandalised Beda and his friends exceedingly. 'What!' he exclaimed, holding the famous book open before them, 'what! no more auricular confessions, indulgences, penance, and works of charity!... The cause of pardon is the reconciliatory work of Christ, and what helps us to make it our own is not the Church, but faith!' The syndic determined to make the 'frightful' book known to all the venerable company.

The Sorbonne assembled, and Beda, holding the heretical poem in his hand, read the most flagrant passages to his colleagues. 'Listen,' he said, and the attentive doctors kept their eyes fixed on the syndic. Beda read:

Jesus, true fisher thou of souls!

My only Saviour, only advocate!

Since thou God's righteousness hast satisfied,

I fear no more to fail at heaven's gate.

My Spouse bears all my sins, though great they be,

And all his merits places upon me....

Come, Saviour, make thy mercies known....

Jesus for me was crucified:

For me the bitter death endured,

For me eternal life procured.401

It has been said that Margaret's poems are theology in rhyme. It is true that her verses are not so elegant as those of our age, and that their spirit is more theological than the poetry of our days; but the theology is not that of the schools, it is that of the heart. What specially irritated the Sorbonne was the peace and assurance that Margaret enjoyed, precious privilege of a redeemed soul, which scholasticism had condemned beforehand. The queen, leaning upon the Saviour, seemed to have no more fear. 'Listen again,' said Beda:

Satan, where is now thy tower?

Sin, all withered is thy power.

Pain or death no more I fear,

While Jesus Christ is with me here.

Of myself no strength have I,

But God, my shield, is ever nigh.402

=ASSURANCE OF SALVATION.=

Thus, argued the doctors of the Sorbonne, the queen imagines that sins are remitted gratuitously, no satisfaction being required of sinners. 'Observe the foolish assurance,' said the syndic, 'into which the new doctrine may bring souls. This is what we find in the Mirror:

'Not hell's black depth, nor heaven's vast height,

Nor sin with which I wage continual fight,

Me for a single day can move,

O holy Father, from thy perfect love.'403

This simple faith, supported by the promises of God, scandalised the doctors. 'No one,' said they, 'can promise himself anything certain as regards his own salvation, unless he has learnt it by a special revelation from God.' The council of Trent made this declaration an article of faith. 'The queen,' continued her accuser, 'speaks as if she longed for nothing but heaven:

'How beautiful is death,

That brings to weary me the hour of rest!

Oh! hear my cry and hasten, Lord, to me,

And put an end to all my misery.'404

Some one having observed that the Queen of Navarre had not appended her name to the title of her work, her accuser replied: 'Wait until the end, the signature is there;' and then he read the last line:

The good that he has done to me, his Margaret.405

In a short time insinuations and accusations against the sister of the king were heard from every pulpit. Here a monk made his hearers shudder as he described Margaret's wicked heresies; and there another tried to make them laugh. 'These things,' says Theodore Beza, 'irritated the Sorbonne extremely, and especially Beda and those of his temper, and they could not refrain from attacking the Queen of Navarre in their sermons.'406

Other circumstances excited the anger of the monks. Margaret did not love them. Monachism was one of the institutions which the reformers wished to see disappear from the Church, and the Queen of Navarre, in spite of her conservative character, did not desire to preserve it. The numerous abuses of the monastic life, the constraint with which its vows were often accompanied, the mechanical vocation of most of the conventuals, their idleness and sensuality, their practice of mendicancy as a trade, their extravagant pretensions to merit eternal life and to atone for their sins by their discipline, their proud conviction that they had attained a piety which went beyond the exigencies of the divine law, the discredit which the monastic institution cast upon the institutions appointed by God, on marriage, family, labour, and the state politic; finally, the bodily observances and macerations set above that living charity which proceeds from faith, and above the fruits of the Spirit of God in man:—all these things were, according to the reformers, entirely opposed to the doctrine of the Gospel.

=THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE'S TALES.=

Margaret went further still. She had not spared the monks, but on the contrary had scourged them soundly. If Erasmus and Ulrich von Hutten had overwhelmed them with ridicule, the Queen of Navarre had in several tales depicted their grovelling character and dissolute life. She had, indeed, as yet communicated these stories to few besides her brother and mother, and never intended publishing them; but, some copies having been circulated among the attendants of the court, a few leaves had fallen into the hands of the monks, and this was the cause of their anger. Margaret, like many others of her time, was mistaken—such at least is our opinion—as to the manner in which the vices of the monasteries ought to be combated. Following the example of Menot, the most famous preacher of the middle ages, she had described faithfully, unaffectedly, and sometimes too broadly the avarice, debauchery, pride, and other vices of the convents. She had done better than this, however; to the silly nonsense and indecent discourses of the grey friars she had opposed the simple, severe, and spiritual teaching of the Gospel. 'They are moral tales,' says a contemporary author (who is not over favourable to Margaret); 'they often degenerate into real sermons, so that each story is in truth only the preface to a homily.'407 After a narrative in illustration of human frailty, Margaret begins her application thus: 'Know that the first step man takes in confidence in himself, by so much he diverges from confidence in God.' After describing a false miracle by which an incestuous monk had tried to deceive Margaret's father, the Count of Angoulême, she added: 'His faith was proof against these external miracles. We have but one Saviour who, by saying consummatum est (it is finished), showed that we must wait for no successor to work out our salvation.' No one but the monks thought, in the sixteenth century, of being scandalised by these tales. There was then a freedom of language which is impossible in our times; and everybody felt that if the queen faithfully painted the disorders of the monks and other classes of society, she was equally faithful in describing the strict morality of her own principles and the living purity of her faith. It was her daughter, the austere Jeanne d'Albret, who published the first correct edition of these Novels; and certainly she would not have done so, if such a publication had been likely to injure her mother's memory.408 But times have changed; the book, harmless then, is so no longer; in our days the tales will be read and the sermons passed over: the youth of our generation would only derive harm from them. We acquit the author as regards her intentions, but we condemn her work. And (apologising to the friends of letters who will accuse us of barbarism) if we had to decide on the fate of this book, we would willingly see it experience a fate similar to that which is spoken of in the Bible, where we are told that many Corinthians brought their books together and burned them.409

=THE MIRROR SEIZED BY THE SORBONNE.=

Let us return to the Mirror, in which the pious soul of Margaret is reflected.

The Faculty decided that the first thing to be done was to search every bookseller's shop in the city and seize all the copies found there.410 Here Beda disappeared: he no longer played the principal part. It is probable that the proceedings against him had already begun; but this persecution, by removing its leader, helped to increase the anger of the Romish party, and consequently the efforts of the Sorbonne to ruin the Queen of Navarre. As Beda was absent, the priest Le Clerq was ordered to make the search. Accompanied by the university beadles, he went to every bookseller's shop, seized the Mirror of the Sinful Soul, wherever the tradesman had not put it out of sight, and returned to the Sorbonne laden with his spoils. After this the Faculty deliberated upon the measures to be taken against the author.

This was no easy matter: they knew that the king, so hasty and violent, had much esteem and affection for his sister. The most prudent members of the Faculty hesitated. Their hesitation exasperated the monks, and the rage with which the more fanatical were seized extended even to the provinces. A meeting of the religious orders was held at Issoudun in Berry to discuss what ought to be done. The superior of the grey friars, an impetuous, rash, and hardly sane person, spoke louder than all the rest. 'Let us have less ceremony,' he exclaimed; 'put the Queen of Navarre in a sack and throw her into the river.'411 This speech, which circulated over France, having been reported to the Sorbonne doctors, alarmed them, and many counselled a less violent persecution, to which a Dominican friar answered: 'Do not be afraid; we shall not be alone in attacking this heretical princess, for the grand-master is her mortal enemy.'412

Montmorency, who next to Francis was now the most important personage in the kingdom, concealed under the cloak of religion a cruel heart and peevish disposition, and was feared by everybody, even by his friends. If he were gained over, the Queen of Navarre, attacked simultaneously by the priestly and the political party, must necessarily fall.

Margaret supported these insults with admirable mildness. At this very time she was carrying on an almost daily correspondence with Montmorency, and subscribed all her letters: 'Your good aunt and friend.' Full of confidence in this perfidious man, she called on him to defend her. 'Dear nephew,' she wrote, 'I beg you to believe that, as I am just now away from the king, it is necessary for you to help me in this matter. I rely upon you; and in this trust, which I am sure can never fail me, confides your good aunt and friend, Margaret.' The queen made some allusion to the violent language of the monks, but with great good-humour. 'I have desired the bearer,' she said, 'to speak to you about certain nonsense that a Jacobin monk has uttered in the faculty of theology.' This was all: she did not make use of one bitter word.413 Montmorency, that imperious courtier who before long persecuted the protestants without mercy, began to think himself strong enough to ruin Margaret, and we shall soon see what was the result of his perfidious insinuations. The Sorbonne deliberated as to what was to be done. According to the decrees of Sixtus IV. and Alexander VI., no books, treatises, or writings whatsoever414 could be printed without an express authorisation; but the Queen of Navarre had printed her book without any such permission. The society, without pretending to know the author, declared the Mirror of the Sinful Soul prohibited, and put it in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

=THE PRIESTS' COMEDY.=

This was not enough. The priests excited the students; but while the former were playing a tragedy, the latter (or rather their teachers) resorted to satire. The scholars of the college of Navarre, who passed from the grammar to the logic class, were in the habit of giving a dramatic representation on the 1st of October. The clerical heads of the college, wishing to render the queen hateful to the people and ridiculous to the court, composed a drama. The parts were distributed among the pupils; the rehearsals began, and those who were admitted to them agreed that the author had so seasoned the plot with gall and vinegar, that success was certain.415 The report spread through the Latin quarter: and even Calvin heard of it, for he kept himself well informed of all that took place in the schools. While applying himself constantly to the work of God, he kept watch also upon the work of the adversary. There was so much talk about this play, that, when the day of the representation arrived, there was a rush for admission, and the hall was crammed. The monks and theologians took their seats in front, and the curtain rose.

A queen, magnificently dressed and sitting calmly on the stage, was spinning, and seemed to be thinking of nothing but her wheel. 'It is the king's sister,' said the spectators; 'and she would do well to keep to her distaff.'

Next a strange character appeared: it was a woman dressed in white, carrying a torch and looking fiercely around her. Everybody recognised the fury Megæra. 'That is Master Gerard,' they said, 'the almoner of the king's sister.'416 Megæra, advancing cautiously, drew near the queen with the intention of withdrawing her from her peaceful feminine occupation, and making her lay aside her distaff. She did not show her enmity openly, but came slily forward, putting on a smiling look, as if bringing additional light. She walked round and round the queen, and endeavoured to divert her attention by placing the torch boldly before her eyes.417

At first the princess takes no heed, but continues spinning; at length, alas! she stops and permits herself to be attracted by the false light before her; she gives way, she quits her wheel.... Megæra has conquered, and in exchange for the distaff she places the Gospel in the queen's hand.418 The effect is magical; in a moment the queen is transformed. She was meek, she becomes cruel; she forgets her former virtuous habits; she rises, and, glaring around with savage eyes, takes up a pen to write out her sanguinary orders, and personally inflicts cruel tortures on her wretched victims. Scenes still more outrageous than these follow. The sensation was universal! 'Such are the fruits of the Gospel!' said some of the spectators. 'It entices men away to novelties and folly; it robs the king of the devoted affection of his subjects, and devastates both Church and State.'419

=SUCCESS OF THE COMEDY.=

At last the play was ended. The Sorbonne exulted; the Queen of Navarre, who had formerly lashed the priests and monks, was now scourged by them in return.

Shouts of approbation rose from every bench, and the theologians clapped the piece with all their might; such applause as that of these reverend doctors had never been heard before.420 There were, however, a few reasonable men to whom such a satire written against the king's sister appeared unbecoming. 'The authors have used neither veil nor figure of speech,' they said: 'the queen is openly and disgracefully insulted in the play.'421 The monks, finding they had gone too far, wished to hush up the matter; but in a short time the whole city was full of it, and a few days after a mischievous friend went and spoke of it at court, describing the whole play, scene after scene, to the queen herself.422

The Sorbonne, the highest authority in the Church after the pope, had struck the first blow; the second had been given in the colleges; the third was to be aimed at Margaret by the court. By ruining this princess in the eyes of her brother, the enemies of the Reformation would cause her the most unutterable sorrow, for she almost adored Francis. Afterwards they would get her banished to the mountains of Béarn. Montmorency lent himself to this intrigue; he advanced prudently, speaking to the king about heresy, of the dangers it was bringing upon France, and of the obligation to free the kingdom from it for the salvation of souls. Then, appearing to hesitate, he added: 'It is true, Sire, that if you wish to extirpate the heretics, you must begin with the Queen of Navarre.'423 ... And here he stopped.

Margaret was not informed of this perfidious proceeding immediately; but everybody told her that if she allowed the impertinence of the monks and the condemnation of the Sorbonne to pass unpunished, she would encourage their malice. She communicated what had taken place to her brother, declared herself to be the author of the Mirror, and insisted on the fact that it contained nothing but pious sentiments, and did not attack the doctrines of the Church: 'None of us,' she said, 'have been found sacramentarians.' Finally, she demanded that the condemnation by the theological faculty should be rescinded, and the college of Navarre called to account.

=CHRISTIANS MADE A SHOW.=

Calvin watched the whole business very closely; it might almost be said, after reading his letter, that he had been among the spectators. He censured the behaviour of both scholars and masters.424 'Christians,' he said later, 'are made a show of, as when in a triumph the poor prisoners are paraded through the city before being taken to prison and strangled. But the spectacle made of believers is no hindrance to their happiness, for in the presence of God they remain in possession of glory, and the Spirit of God gives them a witness who dwells steadfast in their hearts.'425

397 Flor. Rémond, Hist. de l'Hérésie, pp. 847-849.

398 Sainte-Marthe, Oraison funèbre de Marguerite, p. 45.

399 The first edition of the Miroir de l'Ame pécheresse, was published at Alençon, by Simon Dubois.

400 Théod. de Bèze, Hist. des Eglises Réformées, i. p. 8. Génin, Notice sur Marguerite d'Angoulême, p. iii. Freer, Life of Marguerite d'Angoulême, ii. p. 112.

401 Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, i. p. 60.

402 Ibid. p. 63.

403 Les Marguerites, i. p. 65.

404 Ibid. pp. 51, 57.

405 Ibid. p. 70.

406 Théod. de Bèze, Hist. des Eglises Réformées, i. pp. 8, 9.

407 Génin, Notice sur Marguerite d'Angoulême, p. 95, preceding her letters.

408 Marguerite de Valois, Reine de Navarre, étude historique, 1861.

409 Acts xix. 19.

410 'Quum excuterent officinas bibliopolarum.'—Calvini Epp. p. 2; Genève, 1617.

411 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 282. Freer, Life of Marguerite, ii. p. 118. Castaigne, Notice sur Marguerite.

412 Lettre de la Reine Marguerite à Montmorency. Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 282.

413 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. pp. 282, 283.

414 'Libri, tractatus aut scripturæ quæcunque.'—Raynald, Annales Eccl. xix. p. 514.

415 'Fabula felle et aceto, ut ait ille, plusquam mordaci conspersa.'—Calvini Epp. p. 1.

416 The word Megæra is made up of the first syllables of Magister Gerardus. 'Megæram appellant alludens ad nomen Magistri Gerardi.'

417 'Tunc Megæra illi faces admovens, ut acus et colum abjiceret.'—Calvini Epp. p. 1.

418 'Evangelia in manus recepit.'—Ibid.

419 Flor. Rémond, Hist. de l'Hérésie, p. 844.

420 'Mirabiliter applaudentibus theologis.'—Sturmius Bucero.

421 'Quam non figurate, nec obscure, conviciis suis proscindebant.—Calvini Epp. p. 1.

422 'Re ad reginam delata.'—Ibid.

423 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 58.

424 'Indigna prorsus ea muliere.'—Calvini Epp. p. 1.

425 Calvini Opp. passim.