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=THE GOSPEL IN THE PARIS CHURCHES.=

THE consequences of the meeting at Marseilles were to be felt at Paris. After Calvin's flight, the Queen of Navarre, as we have seen, had succeeded in calming the storm; and yet the evangelical cause had never been nearer a violent persecution. The prisons were soon to be filled; the fires of martyrdom were soon to be kindled. During the year 1533 Lutheran discourses had greatly multiplied in the churches. 'Many notable persons,' says the chronicler, 'were at that time preaching in the city of Paris.'551 The simplicity, wisdom, and animation of their language had moved all who heard them. The churches were filled, not with formal auditors, but with men who received the glad-tidings with great joy. 'Drunkards had become sober; libertines had become chaste; the fruits which proceeded from the preaching of the Gospel had astonished the enemies of light and truth.'

The doctors of the Sorbonne did not wait for the king's orders to attack the evangelicals; his interview with the pope, and the news of the bull brought from Rome, had filled the catholic camp with joy. 'What!' they exclaimed, 'the king is uniting with the pope at Marseilles, and in Paris the churches are opened to heresy! ... let us make haste and close them.'

In the meanwhile Du Bellay, the Bishop of Paris, who had made such a fine Latin speech to Clement VII., and who went at heart half-way with his brother, arrived in the capital. The leaders of the Roman party immediately surrounded him, urged him, and demanded the realisation of all the hopes which they had entertained from the interview at Marseilles. The bishop was embarrassed, for he knew that his brother and the king were just then occupied with a very different matter. Yet it was the desire of Francis that, for the moment, they should act in conformity with his apparent and not with his real action. The bishop gave way. The pious Roussel, the energetic Courault, the temporising Berthaud, and others besides, were forbidden to preach, and one morning the worshippers found the church doors shut.552

=PRIVATE MEETINGS.=

Great was their sorrow and agitation. Many went to Roussel and Courault, and loudly expressed their regret and their wishes. The ministers took courage, and 'turned their preaching into private lectures.' Little meetings were formed in various houses in the city. At first none but members of the family were present; but it seemed that Christ, according to his promise, was in the midst of them, and erelong friends and neighbours were admitted. The ministers set forth the promises of Holy Scripture, and the worshippers exclaimed: 'We receive more blessings now than before.'

There were others besides Parisian faces which Courault, Roussel, and their friends saw on the humble benches around their little table: there were persons from many provinces of France, and even from the neighbouring countries. Among them was Master Pointet, a native of Menton, near Annecy, in Savoy, 'who practised the art of surgery in the city of Paris.' He had been brought to a knowledge of the Gospel in a singular way. 'Monks and priests,' says the chronicler, 'used to come to him to be cured of the diseases peculiar to those who substitute an impure celibacy for the holy institution of marriage.'553 Pointet, observing that godliness was not to be found among the priests, sought for it in the Scriptures; and, having discovered it there, began to remonstrate seriously with those unhappy men. 'These punishments,' he told them, 'proceed from your accursed celibacy: they are your wages, and you would do much better to take a wife.' Pointet, while reading these severe lessons, loved to go and learn in the lowly assemblies held by the humble ministers of the Word of God, and no one listened with more attention to the preaching of Roussel and Courault.

The Sorbonnists, having heard of these conventicles, declared 'that they disliked these lectures still more than the sermons.' In fact, if the preaching in the churches had been a loud appeal, the Divine Word in these small meetings spoke nearer to men's hearts, enlightening them and making them fast in Jesus Christ; and accordingly the conversions increased in number. The lieutenant-criminal once more took the field: he posted his agents at the corners of the more suspected streets, with orders to watch the Lutherans and ferret them out. These spies discovered that on certain days and hours many suspicious-looking persons, most of them poor, were in the habit of frequenting certain houses. Morin and his officers set to work immediately: they made the round of these conventicles, seizing the pastors and dispersing the flocks. 'We are deprived of everything,' said the worshippers; 'we remain without teaching and exhortation. Alas! poor sheep without shepherds, shall we not go astray and be lost?' Then with a sudden impulse they exclaimed: 'Since our guides are taken away from us here, let us seek them elsewhere!' Many French evangelicals fled into foreign countries.

While the poor reformed554 who remained in Paris were thus forsaken and sorrowful, the Sorbonne loudly demanded the return of Beda and the other exiles. The theologians canvassed the most influential members of the parliament, and besieged Cardinal Duprat. The king and the pope had just met solemnly at Marseilles; one of the Medici had just entered the family of the Valois; a royal letter, despatched from Lyons, ordered proceedings to be taken against the heretics: could they leave the champions of the papacy in disgrace? The demand was granted, and the impetuous Beda returned in triumph to the capital with his friends. That wicked little fairy Catherine had, unconsciously, and by her mere presence, restored him to liberty.

=FRESH EFFORTS OF THE SORBONNE.=

The wrath and fanaticism of Beda, excited by exile, knew no bounds. The repression of obscure preachers did not satisfy him; he determined to renew the attack he had formerly made upon the learned. 'I accuse the king's readers in the university of Paris,' he said to the parliament. These were the celebrated professors Danès, Paul Paradis, Guidacieri, and Vatable, learned philologists, esteemed by Francis and honoured over all literary Europe. 'Their interpretations of the text of Scripture,' continued Beda, 'throw discredit on the Vulgate, and propagate the errors of Luther. I demand that they be forbidden to comment on the Holy Scriptures.'555

Beda did not stand alone. Le Picard had returned from exile with his master, and the Sorbonne, wishing to give him a striking mark of their esteem, had conferred on him the degree of doctor of divinity. Beda and Le Picard took counsel together with some other priests. War was resolved upon, the legions were mustered, the plan of the campaign drawn up, and the various battle-fields allotted among the combatants. They took possession of the pulpits from which the preachers of the Reform had been expelled, and loud voices were heard everywhere giving utterance to violent harangues against 'the Lutherans.' Beda, Le Picard, and their followers denounced the heretics as enemies of the altar and the throne. In the Gospel, the germ of every liberty, they saw the cause of every disorder. 'It is not enough to put the Lutheran evangelists in prison,' said these forerunners of the preachers of the League; 'we must go a step further, and burn them.'556

The arrests were begun immediately; but early in the year 1534 the burning pile was declared to be the best answer to heresy. The parliament of Paris published an edict, according to which whoever was convicted of Lutheranism on the testimony of two witnesses, should be burnt forthwith.557 That was the surest way: the dead never return. Beda immediately demanded that the decree should be applied to the four evangelists: Courault, Berthaud, Roussel, and one of their friends. Notwithstanding his moderation and his concessions, Roussel particularly excited the syndic's anger. Was he not Margaret's chaplain? The terror began to spread. Whilst Francis at Bar-le-Duc was endeavouring to please the most decided of the protestants, the evangelicals of Paris, alarmed by the inquiries of the police, shut themselves up in their humble dwellings. 'Really,' they said, 'this is not much unlike the Spanish inquisition.'558 The Sorbonne dared not, however, burn Roussel and his friends without the consent of the king.

=THREE HUNDRED EVANGELICAL PRISONERS.=

In the meanwhile the ultramontane party formed the design of catching all the Lutherans in Paris in one cast of the net. Morin set to work: he urged on his hounds; his sergeants entered the houses, went down into the cellars and up into the garrets, taking away, here the husband from the wife; there, the father from the children; and in another place, the son from the mother. Some of these poor creatures hid themselves, others escaped by the roofs; but the chase was successful upon the whole. The alguazils of the Sorbonne lodged about three hundred prisoners in the Conciergerie.559 When this news spread, with its concomitants of terror and distress, the flight recommenced on a larger scale: some were stopped on the road, but many succeeded in crossing the frontier. Among their number was a christian courtier, Maurus Musæus, a gentleman of the king's chamber, who took refuge at Basle, whence he wrote describing his numerous perplexities to Bucer.560

All this was done by the Sorbonne and parliament, as the king had not yet spoken out. At last he returned to the capital, and everybody thought he would be eager to fulfil the promises he had made the pope; but, on the contrary, he hesitated and affected to be scrupulous. The evil spirit that he had received from Clement VII. under the form of a Medici, was too young to have any influence over him. Besides, he was thinking much more just then of his alliance with the protestants of Germany than of his union with the pope, and the attacks made against his professors in the university annoyed him.

Beda was not discouraged: he got some persons, who had access to the king, to beg that Roussel and his friends might be burnt. But how could that prince send the Lutherans of France to the stake at the very time he was seeking an alliance with the Lutherans of Germany? 'Nobody is condemned in France,' he said, 'without being tried. Beda wishes to have Roussel and his friends burnt; very well! let him first go to the Conciergerie and reduce them to silence.'561 This was not what Beda wanted: he knew that it was easier to burn the chaplain than to refute him. But the king compelled him to go to the prison; and there the impetuous Beda and the meek Roussel stood face to face. The disputation began in the presence of witnesses. The prisoner brought forward, with much simplicity, the Scriptures of God; the syndic of the Sorbonne replied with scholastic quibbles and ridiculous trifling.562 His own friends were embarrassed; everybody saw his ignorance; Beda left the prison overwhelmed with shame, and Roussel was not burnt.563

=THE KING'S IRRITATION.=

While Beda and Roussel were disputing in the Conciergerie, a different scene was passing at the Louvre. A friend of letters, belonging to the royal household, knowing the king's susceptibility, placed a little book elegantly bound on a table near which the king was accustomed to sit. Francis approached, took up the book heedlessly, and looked at it. He was greatly surprised on reading the title: Remonstrance addressed to the King of France by the three doctors of Paris, banished and relegated, praying to be recalled from their exile. It was a work published by Beda before his return to Paris, and had been carefully concealed from the monarch. 'Ho! ho!' said he, 'this book is addressed to me!' He opened and read, and great was his anger on seeing how he was insulted and slandered.... 'Francis I. regards neither pope nor Medici: in his eyes, the chief infallibility is always his own.' 'Send those wretches to prison,' he exclaimed; and immediately Beda, Le Picard, and Le Clerq were shut up in the bishop's prison on a charge of high treason.564

And now the chiefs of both causes were in confinement: Gerard Roussel, Courault, and Berthaud on one side; Beda, Le Picard, and Le Clerq on the other. Would any one dare affirm that the King of France did not hold the balance even between the two schools? Who shall be released? who shall remain a prisoner? was now the question. It would have been better to set them all at large; but neither Francis nor his age had attained to religious liberty. Contrary winds agitated that prince, and drove him by turns towards Rome and towards Wittemberg. One or other of them, however, must prevail. Margaret, believing the time to be critical, displayed indefatigable activity. She pleaded the cause of her friends to the king and to his ministers. Still mistaken, or seeming to be mistaken, as regards Montmorency, she begged this treacherous friend to save the very persons whose destruction he had sworn. 'Dear nephew,' she wrote to him, 'they are just now completing the proceedings against Master Gerard, and I hope the king will find him worthy of something better than the stake, and that he has never held any opinion deserving such punishment, or savouring of heresy. I have known him these five years, and, believe me, if I had seen anything doubtful in him, I should not so long have put up with such a pagan.'565 The king could not resist his sister's earnest solicitations and the desire of making friends among the protestants of Germany. In the month of March 1534 he published an ordinance vindicating the evangelical preachers from the calumnies of the theologians, and setting them at liberty.566

Surprising thing! Roussel, Courault, and Berthaud at liberty; Beda, Le Picard, and Le Clerq in prison! The champions of heresy triumph, and the champions of the Church are in chains! And this, too, after the king's return from Marseilles (the interview at Bar-le-Duc was not known at Paris), and four months after the marriage of Henry of France with the pope's niece!... Where are the promises made to Clement VII.? Both the city and the Sorbonne were deeply excited by this measure.567 The greater the hopes aroused by the union with the papacy, the greater the fears caused by the king's conduct towards its most intrepid defenders. Would Francis I. become a Henry VIII.? Would Roman catholicism be ruined in France? The priests were afraid—many of them even despaired.

The evangelicals, on the contrary, were delighted. The Word of God was about to triumph, they thought, not only in Paris, but also throughout France. Surprising news indeed came from Lyons, where an invisible preacher kept the whole population in suspense.

=ALEXANDER AT GENEVA.=

The friar De la Croix, whom we have already mentioned, having abandoned Paris, his convent, his cowl, and his monkish title, had reached Geneva under the name of Alexander. Cordially welcomed by Farel and Froment, he had been instructed by their care in the knowledge of the truth. His transformation had been complete. Christ had become to him 'the sun of righteousness; he had a burning zeal to know him, and great boldness in confessing him. Incontinent, he showed himself resolute, and resisted all gainsayers.' Accordingly the Genevan magistracy, which was under the influence of the priests, had condemned him to death as a heretic; the sentence had, however, been commuted, 'for fear of the King of France,' who would not suffer a Frenchman, even if heretical, to be maltreated, and Alexander was simply turned out of the city. When on the high-road beyond the gates, and near the Mint, he stopped and preached to the people who had followed him. Such was the power of his language that it inspired respect in all around him. 'Nobody could stop him,' says Froment, 'so strongly did his zeal impel him to win people to the Lord.'568

Alexander first went to Berne with Froment, and then, retracing his steps, seriously reflected whether he ought not to return into France. He did not deceive himself: persecution, imprisonment, death, awaited him there. Then ought he not rather, like so many others, to preach the Gospel in Switzerland? But France had so much need of the light and grace of God.... should he abandon her? To preach Christ to his countrymen, Alexander was ready to bear all manner of evil, and even death. One single passion swallowed up all others. 'O my Saviour! thou hast given thy life for me; I desire to give mine for thee!' He crossed the frontier; and, learning that Bresse and Maconnais (Saône-et-Loire), where Michael d'Aranda had preached Christ in 1524, were without evangelists, he began to proclaim the forgiveness of the Gospel to the simple and warm-hearted people of that district, among whom fanaticism had so many adherents. He did not mind this: wandering along the banks of the Bienne, the Ain, the Seille, and the Saône, he entered the cottages of the poor peasants, and courageously scattered the seed of the Gospel.569 A rumour of his doings reached Lyons, where certain pious goldsmiths, always ready to make sacrifices for their faith, invited Alexander to come and preach in their city.

=HIS WORK AT LYONS.=

It was a wider field than the plains of Bresse. Alexander departed, arrived at Lyons, and entered the goldsmiths' shops. He conversed with them, and made the acquaintance of several poor men of Lyons, who were rich in faith; they edified one another, but this did not satisfy him. The living faith by which he was animated gave him an indefatigable activity. He was prompt in his decisions, full of spirit in his addresses, ingenious in his plans. He began to preach from house to house; next 'he got a number of people together here and there, and preached before them, to the great advancement of the Word.' Opposition soon began to show itself, and Alexander exclaimed: 'Oh that Lyons were a free city like Geneva!'570 Those who desired to hear the Word grew more thirsty every day; they went to Alexander, and conversed with him; they dragged him to their houses, but the evangelist could not supply all their wants. He wrote to Farel, asking for help from Geneva, but none came; the persecution was believed to be so fierce at Lyons, that nobody dared expose himself to it. Alexander continued, therefore, to preach alone, sometimes in by-streets, and sometimes in an upper chamber. The priests and their creatures, always on the watch, endeavoured to seize him, but the evangelist had hardly finished his sermon when the faithful, who loved him devotedly, surrounded him, carried him away, and conducted him to some hiding-place. But Alexander did not remain there long: wistfully putting out his head, and looking round the house, to see that there was no one on the watch, he came forth to go and preach at the other extremity of the city. He had hardly finished when he was carried away again, and the believers took him to some new retreat, 'hiding him from one house to another,' says the chronicler, 'so that he could not be found.'571 The evangelist was everywhere and nowhere. When the priests were looking after him in some suburb in the south, he was preaching in the north, on the heights which overlook the city. He put himself boldly in the van, he proclaimed the Gospel loudly, and yet he was invisible.

Alexander did more than this: he even visited the prisons. He heard one day that two men, well known in Geneva, who had come to Lyons on business, had been thrown into the bishop's dungeons on the information of the Genevan priests: they were the energetic Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, and his friend Cologny.572 The gates opened for Alexander: he entered, and that mysterious evangelist, who baffled the police of Lyons, was inside the episcopal prison. If one of the agents who are in search of him should recognise him, the gates will never open again for him. But Alexander felt no uneasiness; he spoke to the two Genevans, and exhorted them; he even went and consoled other brethren imprisoned for the Gospel, and then left the dungeons, no man laying a hand on him. The priests and their agents, bursting with vexation at seeing the futility of all their efforts, met and lamented with one another. 'There is a Lutheran,' they said, 'who preaches and disturbs the people, collecting assemblies here and there in the city, whom we must catch, for he will spoil all the world, as everybody is running after him; and yet we cannot find him, or know who he is.'573 They increased their exertions, but all was useless. Never had preacher in so extraordinary a manner escaped so many snares. At last they began to say that the unknown preacher must be possessed of satanic powers, by means of which he passed invisible through the police, and no one suspected his presence.

=MARGARET AND ROUSSEL.=

Thus the Gospel was proclaimed in the first and in the second city of France. The Sorbonne and the catholic party had been intimidated by the king, and the Easter festival of 1534, which was approaching, might give the evangelicals of Paris a striking opportunity of proclaiming their faith. This was what the Queen of Navarre desired. She had passed some time at Alençon, and also at Argentan, not far from Caen, with her sister-in-law, Catherine d'Albret, abbess of the convent of the Holy Trinity; at length she had returned to Paris. The priests dared not name her, but they made certain allusions to her in their sermons which their hearers very well understood. These things were reported to Margaret, who cared neither to pacify nor to punish her accusers, and answered them only by endeavouring still more to advance the cause of piety in France. The little conventicles only half pleased her: she wanted the evangelical doctrine to enter the kingdom by the churches, and not by the 'upper chambers.' She would have desired for France a reformation similar to that of England, which, while giving it the Word of God, preserved its archbishops and bishops, its cathedrals, its liturgy, and its grandeur. Queen of France, she would have been its Elizabeth; but doubtless with more grace. Her ambition was to install the Gospel at Notre Dame. She paid a visit to the king; she spoke to the bishop ... Roussel shall preach there. He was not a Farel in boldness, but Margaret encouraged him; besides, the idea of preaching the Gospel to the people of Paris in that old cathedral was pleasing to him. He determined, therefore, to comply with the queen's wishes.

The report of Margaret's intentions had hardly become known, when the canons were in commotion. How scandalous! What! shall these evangelicals, of whom they wished to purge France, assemble in the cathedral?... A disciple of Luther ... in the temple ennobled by so many holy bishops!... Finding themselves betrayed by the king, the priests resolved to turn to the people. These fanatics did not scruple to become mob-leaders; they traversed the city and the suburbs, entered the shops, distributed little handbills, and stuck up placards: under the excitement of this mission the oldest Sorbonnists regained all the activity of youth. 'We must resist these scandalous meetings at any cost,' they said. 'Let the people crowd before the gates of Notre Dame, and hinder the evangelicals from entering; or, if they do not succeed, let them fill the cathedral, and prevent Roussel from ascending the pulpit, and drown his heretical voice by the shouts of the believers.' When the day came, a great movement took place among the citizens of Paris. An immense crowd hastened from all the neighbouring quarters, who surrounded Notre Dame and filled the interior of the church. The Lutherans could not get in, and Roussel was forced to give up his sermon.574

A favourable wind seemed generally to be breathing over the Reformation: its enemies were still in prison and its friends at liberty; Francis appeared to be more than ever in harmony with his sister and with the protestants of Germany; and an evangelical orator was authorised to preach at Notre Dame: a violent hurricane, however, suddenly burst upon the metropolis. A pious and active christian was there to lose his life, and Paris was to witness at the same time—a triumph and a martyrdom.

=ALEXANDER AT LYONS.=

One day, a few weeks after Easter, a man loaded with chains entered the capital: he was escorted by archers, all of whom showed him much respect. They took him to the Conciergerie. It was Alexander Canus, known among the Dominicans by the name of Father Laurent de la Croix. At Lyons, as at Paris, Easter had been the time appointed by the evangelicals for boldly raising their banner. The goldsmiths, who were to Alexander what the Queen of Navarre was to Roussel, were no longer satisfied with preachings in secret. Every preparation was made for a great assembly; the locality was settled; pious christians went through the streets from house to house and gave notice of the time and place. Many were attracted by the desire of hearing a doctrine that was so much talked about, and on Easter-day the ex-dominican preached before a large audience.575 Was it in a church, in some hall, or in the open air? The chronicler does not say. Alexander moved his hearers deeply, and it might have been said that Christ rose again that Easter morn in Lyons, where he had so long lain in the sepulchre. All were not, however, equally friendly; some cast sinister glances. Alexander was no longer invisible: the spies in the assembly saw him, heard him, studied his physiognomy, took note of his blasphemies, and hurried off to report them to their superiors.576

While the police were listening to the reports and taking their measures, there were voices of joy and deliverance in many a humble dwelling. A divine call had been heard, and many were resolved to obey it. Alexander, who had belonged to the order of Preachers, combined the gift of eloquence with the sincerest piety. Accordingly, his hearers requested him to preach again the second day of Easter. The meeting took place on Monday, and was more numerous than the day before. All eyes were fixed on the evangelist, all ears were attentive, all faces were beaming with joy; here and there, however, a few countenances of evil omen might be seen: they were the agents charged to seize the mysterious preacher. The assembly heard a most touching discourse; but just when Alexander's friends desired, as usual, to surround him and get him away, the officers of justice, more expeditious this time, came forward, laid their hands upon him, and took him to prison. He was brought before the tribunal and condemned to death. This cruel sentence distressed all the evangelicals, who urged him to appeal; he did appeal, which had the effect of causing him to be transferred to Paris. 'That was not done without great mystery,' says Froment, 'and without the great providence of God.'577 People said to one another that Paul, having appealed to the emperor, won over a great nation at Rome; and they asked whether Alexander might not do the same at Paris. The evangelist departed under the escort of a captain and his company.

The captain was a worthy man: he rode beside Alexander, and they soon entered into conversation. The officer questioned him, and the ex-dominican explained to him the cause of his arrest. The soldier listened with astonishment; he took an interest in the story, and by degrees the words of the pious prisoner entered into his heart. He heard God's call and awoke; he experienced a few moments of struggle and doubt, but erelong the assurance of faith prevailed. 'The captain was converted,' says Froment, 'while taking him to Paris.' Alexander did not stop at this; he spoke to each of the guards, and some of them also were won over to the Gospel. The first evening they halted at an inn, and the prisoner found means to address a few good words to the servants and the heads of the household. This was repeated every day. People came to see the strange captive, they entered into conversation with him, and he answered every question. He employed in the service of the Gospel all the skill that he possessed in discussion. 'He was learned in the doctrine of the sophists,' says a contemporary, 'having profited well and studied long at Paris with his companions (the Dominicans).' Now and then the people went and fetched the priest or orator of the village to dispute with him; but they were easily reduced to silence. Many of the hearers were enlightened and touched, and some were converted. They said, as they left the inn: 'Really we have never seen a man answer and confound his adversaries better by Holy Scripture.'578 The crowd increased from town to town. At last Alexander arrived in Paris: 'Wonderful thing!' remarks the chronicler, 'he was more useful at the inns and on the road than he had ever been before.'579

=A PRISONER IN PARIS.=

This remarkable prisoner was soon talked of in many quarters of Paris. The case was a very serious one. 'A friar, a Dominican, an inquisitor,' said the people, 'has gone over to the Lutherans, and is striving to make heretics everywhere.' The monks of his own convent made the most noise. The king, who detained Beda in prison, desired to preserve the balance by giving some satisfaction to the catholics. He was not uneasy about the German protestants; he had observed closely the landgrave's ardour, and had no fear that the fiery Philip would break off the alliance for a Dominican monk. Francis, therefore, allowed matters to take their course, and Alexander appeared before a court of parliament. 'Name your accomplices,' said the judges; and as he refused to name the accomplices, who did not exist, the president added: 'Give him the boot.' The executioners brought forward the boards and the wedges, with which they tightly compressed the legs of the evangelist. His sufferings soon became so severe that, hoping they had converted him, they stopped the torture, and the president once more called upon him to name all who, like himself, had separated from the Church of Rome; but he was not to be shaken, and the punishment began again. 'He was severely tortured several times,' say the Actes, 'to great extremity of cruelty.' The executioners drove the wedges so tightly between the boards in which his limbs were confined, that his left leg was crushed. Alexander groaned aloud: 'O God!' he exclaimed, 'there is neither pity nor mercy in these men! ... oh that I may find both in thee!'—'Keep on,' said the head executioner. The unhappy man, who had observed Budæus among the assessors, turned on him a mild look of supplication, and said: 'Is there no Gamaliel here to moderate the cruelty they are practising on me?'580 The illustrious scholar, an honest and just man, although irresolute in his proceedings, kept his eyes fixed on the martyr, astonished at his patience. 'It is enough,' he said: 'he has been tortured too much; you ought to be satisfied.' Budæus was a person of great authority; his words took effect, and the extraordinary gehenna ceased. 'The executioners lifted up the martyr, and carried him to his dungeon a cripple.'581

=ALEXANDER TORTURED.=

It was the custom to deliver sentence in the absence of the accused, and to inform him of it in the Conciergerie through a clerk of the criminal office. The idea occurred of pronouncing it in Alexander's presence; perhaps in his terror he might ask for some alleviation, and by this means they might extort a confession. But all was useless. The court made a great display, and a crowd of spectators increased the solemnity, to no purpose: Alexander Canus, of Evreux, in Normandy, was condemned to be burnt alive. A flash of joy suddenly lit up his face. 'Truly,' said the spectators, 'is he more joyful than he was before!'582

The priests now came forward to perform the sacerdotal degradation. 'If you utter a word,' they told him, 'you will have your tongue cut out.'—'The practice of cutting off the tongue,' adds the historian, 'began that year.' The priests took off his sacerdotal dress, shaved his head, and went through all the usual mysteries. During this ceremony Alexander uttered not a word; only at one of the absurdities of the priests he let a smile escape him. They dressed him in the robe de fol—a garment of coarse cloth, such as was worn by the poorer peasantry. When the pious martyr caught sight of it, he exclaimed, 'O God, is there any greater honour than to receive this day the livery which thy Son received in the house of Herod?'583

A cart, generally used to carry mud or dust, was brought to the front of the building. Some Dominicans, his former brethren, got into it along with the humble christian, and all proceeded towards the Place Maubert. As the cart moved but slowly, Alexander, standing up, leant over towards the people, and 'scattered the seed of the Gospel with both hands.' Many persons, moved even to tears, exclaimed that they were putting him to death wrongfully; but the Dominicans pulled him by his gown, and annoyed him in every way. At first he paid no attention to this; but when one of the monks said to him coarsely: 'Either recant, or hold your tongue,' Alexander turned round and said to him with firmness: 'I will not renounce Jesus Christ.... Depart from me, ye deceivers of the people!'

At last they reached the front of the scaffold. While the executioners were making the final preparations, Alexander, observing some lords and ladies in the crowd, with common people, monks, and several of his friends, asked permission to address a few words to them. An ecclesiastical dignitary, a chanter of the Sainte Chapelle, carrying a long staff, presided over the clerical part of the ceremony, and he gave his consent. Then, seized with a holy enthusiasm, Alexander confessed, 'with great vehemence and vivacity of mind,'584 the Saviour whom he loved so much, and for whom he was condemned to die. 'Yes,' he exclaimed, 'Jesus, our only Redeemer, suffered death to ransom us to God his Father. I have said it, and I say it again, O ye christians who stand around me, pray to God that, as his son Jesus Christ died for me, he will give me grace to die now for him.'

=ALEXANDER'S TRIUMPHANT DEATH.=

Having thus spoken, he said to the executioner: 'Proceed.' The officers of justice approached, they bound him to the pile and set it on fire. The wood crackled, the flames rose, and Alexander, his eyes upraised to heaven, exclaimed: 'O Jesus Christ, have pity on me! O Saviour, receive my soul!' He saw the glory of God; by faith he discerned Jesus in heaven, who received him into his kingdom. 'My Redeemer!' he repeated, 'O my Redeemer!' At last his voice was silent. The people wept; the executioners said to one another: 'What a strange criminal!' and even the monks asked: 'If this man is not saved, who will be?' Many beat their breasts, and said: 'A great wrong has been done to that man!' And as the spectators separated, they went away thinking: 'It is wonderful how these people suffer themselves to be burnt in defence of their faith.'585

The Romish party having obtained this satisfaction, the political party thought only of overthrowing popery in one of the states of Germany, and of paving the way for its decline in the kingdom of St. Louis.

551 Crespin, Martyrologue, fol. 111.

552 Théod. de Bèze, Hist. Eccl. i. p. 9.

553 Crespin, Martyrologue, fol. 107 verso.

554 The words reform and reformed apply especially to the religious movement in France.

555 Crévier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris v. p. 278.

556 'Hos Beda vellet incendio tradere.'—Myconius to Bullinger, Ep. Helvet. Ref. p. 121, 8vo.

557 'Edictum, omnem qui duobus testibus convinceretur lutheranus, statim exurendum esse.'—Bucer to Blaarer, Strasburg MSS.

558 'Res erit non absimilis inquisitioni Hispaniæ.'—Ibid.

559 'Nunc circa trecentos Parisiis jam captos.'—Bucer to Blaarer, Strasburg MSS.

560 His letters are preserved in the Seminary at Strasburg.

561 'Tum coegit Bedam ut privatim cum eis congredi oporteret.'—Letter of Oswald Myconius, Ep. Helvet. Ref. p. 121.

562 'Pessime enim nugas suas ad scripturas Dei adhibuit.'—Ibid.

563 'Inscitiam suam ostendere, quod et ei cessit in magnam ignominiam.'—Ibid.

564 'Beda conjectus est in carcerem, accusatus criminis læsæ majestatis.'—Cop to Bucer, Strasb. MSS. See also H. de Coste, p. 77. Schmidt, p. 106.

565 Lettres de la Reine de Navarre, i. p. 299.

566 'Prorsus liberatus est theologorum calumniis, ac decreto regis absolutus.'—Cop to Bucer, Strasburg MSS.

567 'Quo multi commoti sunt et perturbati.'—Cop to Bucer, Strasburg MSS.

568 Froment, Actes et Gestes de Genève, p. 76.—The Mint was near the present railway station.

569 Crespin, Martyrologue, fol. 106.

570 Froment, Actes et Gestes, p. 74.

571 Ibid.

572 Froment, Actes et Gestes, p. 75.

573 Ibid. p. 74.

574 Coste, Hist. de Le Picard, p. 46; Schmidt, Mémoires de Roussel, p. 107.

575 Crespin, Martyrologue, fol. 106.

576 Froment, Actes et Gestes, p. 75.

577 Actes et Gestes, p. 75.

578 Froment, Actes et Gestes, p. 75.

579 Ibid.

580 Crespin, Martyrologue, fol. 107.

581 Crespin, Martyrologue, fol. 107.

582 Ibid.

583 Crespin, Martyrologue, fol. 107. Froment, Actes et Gestes, p. 76.

584 Ibid.

585 Crespin, Martyrologue, fol. 107 verso. Froment, Actes et Gestes, p. 78.