History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 59

[Sidenote: MAZURIER'S APOSTACY.]

Such were not all who had embraced the evangelical doctrine. Martial Mazurier had been one of the most zealous preachers. He was accused of teaching very erroneous opinions,[862] and even of having committed certain acts of violence while at Meaux. "This Martial Mazurier, being at Meaux," says a ma.n.u.script of that city, which we have already quoted, "going to the church of the reverend Grayfriars, and seeing the image of St. Francis, with the five wounds, outside the convent-gate, where that of St. Roch now stands, threw it down and broke it in pieces." Mazurier was apprehended, and sent to the Conciergerie,[863] where he suddenly fell into deep reflection and severe anguish. It was the morality rather than the doctrine of the Gospel that had attracted him to the ranks of the reformers; and morality left him without strength. Alarmed at the prospect of the stake, and decidedly of opinion that in France the victory would remain on the side of Rome, he easily persuaded himself that he would enjoy more influence and honour by returning to the papacy.

Accordingly he retracted what he had taught, and caused doctrines the very opposite of those he had previously held to be preached in his parish;[864] and subsequently joining the most fanatical doctors, and particularly the celebrated Ignatius Loyola, he became from that time the most zealous supporter of the papal cause.[865] From the days of the Emperor Julian, apostates, after their infidelity, have always become the most merciless persecutors of the doctrines they had once professed.

[862] Hist. de l'Universite, par Crevier, v. 203.

[863] Gaillard, Hist. de Francois I. v. 234.

[864] "Comme il etait homme adroit, il esquiva la condemnation," says Crevier, v. 203.

[865] c.u.m Ignatio Loyola init amicitiam. Launoi, Navarrae gymnasti historia, p. 621.

[Sidenote: FALL AND CONTRITION OF PAVANNE.]

Mazurier soon found an opportunity of showing his zeal. The youthful James Pavanne had also been thrown into prison. Martial hoped that, by making him fall like himself, he might cover his own shame. The youth, amiability, learning, and uprightness of Pavanne, created a general interest in his favour, and Mazurier imagined that he would himself be less culpable, if he could persuade Master James to follow his example. He visited him in prison, and began his manuvres by pretending that he had advanced further than Pavanne in the knowledge of the truth: "You are mistaken, James," he often repeated to him; "you have not gone to the depths of the sea; you only know the surface of the waters."[866] Nothing was spared, neither sophistry, promises, nor threats. The unhappy youth, seduced, agitated, and shaken, sunk at last under these perfidious attacks, and publicly retracted his pretended errors on the morrow of Christmas-day 1524. But from that hour a spirit of dejection and remorse was sent on Pavanne by the Almighty. A deep sadness preyed upon him, and he was continually sighing. "Alas!" repeated he, "there is nothing but bitterness for me in life." Sad wages of unbelief!

[866] Actes des Martyrs, p. 99.

[Sidenote: METZ--AGRIPPA AND CHATELAIN.]

Nevertheless, among those who had received the Word of G.o.d in France, were men of more intrepid spirit than Mazurier and Pavanne. About the end of the year 1523, Leclerc had withdrawn to Metz in Lorraine, and there, says Theodore Beza, he had followed the example of Saint Paul at Corinth, who, while working at his trade as a tentmaker, persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.[867] Leclerc, still pursuing his occupation as a wool-carder, instructed the people of his own condition; and many of them had been really converted. Thus did this humble artisan lay the foundation of a church which afterwards became celebrated.

[867] Acts of the Apostles, xviii. 3, 4.--Apostoli apud Corinthios exemplum secutus. Bezae Icones.

Leclerc was not the first individual who had endeavoured to shed the new light of the Gospel over Metz. A scholar, renowned in that age for his skill in the occult sciences, Master Agrippa of Nettesheim, "a marvellously learned clerk, of small stature, who had spent much time in travel, who spoke every language, and had studied every science,"[868] had fixed his residence at Metz, and had even become syndic of the city. Agrippa had procured Luther's works, and communicated them to his friends,[869]and among others to Master John, priest of Sainte-Croix, himself a great clerk, and with whom Master Agrippa was very intimate. Many of the clergy, n.o.bility, and citizens, stirred by the courage Luther had shown at Worms, were gained over to his cause,[870] and already in March 1522, an evangelical placard extolling what Luther had done was posted in large letters on a corner of the episcopal palace, and excited much public attention. But when Leclerc arrived, the flames, for an instant overpowered, sprung up with renewed energy. In the council-room, in the hall of the chapter, and in the homes of the citizens, the conversation turned perpetually on the Lutheran business. "Many great clerks and learned persons were daily questioning, discussing, and debating this matter, and for the most part taking Luther's side, and already preaching and proclaiming that accursed sect."[871]

[868] Les chroniques de la ville de Metz. Metz, 1838.

[869] Apud Metenses mihi nonnulla Lutherana communicare dignatus sis.

Amicus ad Agrippam, Epp. lib. iii. ep. 10.

[870] Lambert von Avignon, by Prof. Baum, p. 59.

[871] Chroniques de Metz, anno 1523.

Erelong the evangelical cause received a powerful reinforcement.

"About this same time (1524)," says the chronicle, "there came to Metz an Augustine friar named John Chaistellain (Chatelain), a man declining in years, and of agreeable manners, a great preacher and very eloquent, a wondrous comforter to the poorer sort. By which means he gained the good-will of most of the people (not of all), especially of the majority of the priests and great rabbins, against whom the said friar John preached daily, setting forth their vices and their sins, saying that they abused the poor people, by which great animosity was stirred up."[872]

[872] Ibid. p. 808.

[Sidenote: LAMBERT AT WITTEMBERG.]

John Chatelain, an Augustine monk of Tournay, and doctor of divinity, had been brought to the knowledge of G.o.d[873] by his intercourse with the Augustines of Antwerp. The doctrine of Christ, when preached by him attired in chasuble and stole, appeared less extraordinary to the inhabitants of Metz, than when it fell from the lips of a poor artisan, who laid aside the comb with which he carded his wool, to explain a French version of the Gospel.

[873] Vocatus ad cognitionem Dei. Act. Mart. p. 180.

Everything was fermenting in Metz during that famous Lent of 1524, when a new character appeared on the stage, a priest, a doctor, an ex-friar, and (what had never yet been seen in France or Lorraine) having a wife with him.[874] This was Lambert of Avignon.

[874] Y vient ung, se disant docteur, qui premier avait este religieulx et a present estait marie. Chroniques de Metz, p. 807.

On Lambert's arrival at Wittemberg, which had been the object of his journey on leaving the convent, he was well received by Luther, and the reformer had hastened to recommend to Spalatin and to the elector this friar, who, "on account of persecution, had chosen poverty and exile......He pleases me in all respects," added Luther.[875] Lambert had begun to lecture on the prophet Hosea at the university, before an auditory who could not conceal their surprise at hearing such things from the mouth of a Gaul.[876] And then, with eyes ever turned towards his native land, he had begun to translate into French and Italian several evangelical pamphlets published by Luther and other doctors.

He was not the only Frenchman at Wittemberg: he there met with counts, knights, n.o.bles, and others come from France to see the elector and to converse with Luther, "the overseer of the works that were accomplishing in the world."[877] These Frenchmen mutually encouraged each other, and, as is usual with emigrants, exaggerated the state of affairs, imagining that a speedy revolution would lead to the triumph in their own country of the cause which they had so much at heart.

"Almost the whole of Gaul is stirring," wrote Lambert to the Elector of Saxony. "Although in France the truth has no master and no leader, its friends are very numerous."[878]

[875] Ob persecutionem exul atque pauper factus; mihi per omnia placet vir. L. Epp. ii. 302.

[876] Aliquid nostri Martini consilio exordiar, vel Oseam Prophetam, vel Psalmos, vel Lucam, vel aliquid tale. Schelhorn, Amnitates Litt. iv. 336.

[877] Veniunt pa.s.sim Wittembergam Comites, Equites, n.o.biles, et alii etiam e Gallia nostra ut te inclytum Ducem (the Elector) videant, et Praefectum Operum, M. Lutherum. Comment. in Oseam praef.

[878] Gallia pene omnis commota est, et absque magistro sinceros habet veritatis dilectores. Schelhorn, Amn. iv.

[Sidenote: EVANGELICAL PRESS AT HAMBURG.]

One thing alone checked these Frenchmen at Wittemberg: the printing of the pamphlets intended for their countrymen. "Would that I could find some one," exclaimed Lambert, "that could print not only in Latin, but in French and even in Italian."[879] This was the posture of affairs when certain strangers appeared: they were from Hamburg. "We come to ask you for some French treatises," said they to Lambert; "for we have some one in Hamburg who will print them carefully."[880] It would appear that there were also a number of French emigrants at Hamburg, and a printer among the rest. Lambert could not restrain his joy; but there was still another difficulty: "And how," said he, "can we convey these books into France from the banks of the Elbe?"--"By sea; by the vessels that sail to and fro," replied the Hamburgers.[881] "Every necessary arrangement has been made." Thus the Gospel had hardly been restored to the Church, before the ocean became an instrument of its dissemination. _The Lord hath made a way in the sea._[882]

[879] Si inveniatur qui imprimat non tantum Latine sed Gallice et Italice, haec atque alia tradam. Ibid.

[880] Quod ad me ex Amburgo nuntii advenerint tractatus Gallicos postulantes; aiunt enim quod illic sit qui ea lingua elimatissimos posset cudere libros. Ibid. p. 343.

[881] Quos demum navigio in Galliam mitt.i.t. Ibid.

[882] Isaiah xliii. 16.

Yet this could not suffice; every Frenchman returning into France was to carry a few books with him, although the scaffold might be the reward of his enterprise. _Now_ there is more talking, _then_ there was more action. A young French n.o.bleman, Claude of Taureau, who left Wittemberg in May 1523, took with him a great number of evangelical treatises and letters which Lambert had written to many of the most conspicuous men of France and Savoy.[883]

[883] Occupatus multis scriptis potissimum quae pluribus in Gallia misi. Junior quippe n.o.bilis Claudius de Tauro abiit. Ibid.

[Sidenote: LAMBERT'S MARRIAGE--LONGINGS FOR FRANCE.]

On the 13th of July 1523, Lambert, then at the age of thirty-six, "determined (in his own words) to flee the paths of impurity as he had always done," entered into the holy bonds of wedlock, two years before Luther, and the first of the French monks or priests. When married, he called to mind that he ought not to think "how he might please his wife, but how he might please the Lord." Christina, the daughter of a worthy citizen of Herzberg, was ready to be the companion of his sufferings. Lambert told his Wittemberg friends that he intended returning to France.

Luther and Melancthon were terrified at the thought. "It is rather from France to Germany," said Luther, "than from Germany to France, that you should go."[884] Lambert, all whose thoughts were in France, paid no attention to the reformers advice.[885]

[884] Potius ad nos illinc, quam ad vos hinc, cuiquam migrandum esse.

L. Epp. ad Gerbellium Strasburg, ii. 438.

[885] Nec audit meum consilium, sic occupatus suo proprio. Ibid. 437.

[Sidenote: THE LOTS.]

And yet Luther's sentiments could not fail to make some impression on him. Should he go to Zurich, whither Luther urges him? or to France or Lorraine, where Farel and, as he believes, Christ himself are calling him? He was in great perplexity.[886] At Zurich he would find peace and safety; in France peril and death.[887] His rest was broken, he could find no repose;[888] he wandered through the streets of Wittemberg with downcast eyes, and his wife could not restore him to serenity. At last he fell on his knees, and called upon the Lord to put an end to his struggle, by making known His will in the casting of lots.[889] He took two slips of paper; on one he wrote _France_, on the other _Switzerland_; he closed his eyes and drew; the lot had fallen on France.[890] Again he fell on his knees: "O G.o.d," said he, "if thou wilt not close these lips that desire to utter thy praise, deign to make known thy pleasure."[891] Again he tried, and the answer still was _France_. And some hours after, recollecting (said he) that Gideon, when called to march against the Midianites, had thrice asked for a sign from heaven near the oak of Ophrah,[892] he prayed G.o.d a third time, and a third time the lot replied _France_. From that hour he hesitated no longer, and Luther, who could not put such confidence in the lot, for the sake of peace, ceased urging his objections, and Lambert, in the month of February or March 1524, taking his wife with him, departed for Strasburg, whence he repaired to Metz.

[886] In gravissima perplexitate. Lambert de Fidelium vocatione, cap.

22.

[887] In priore vocatione erat pax et serenitas; in alia vero multa et eadem gravissima, etiam mortis pericula erant.

[888] Nulla erat misero requies, ut quidem vixdum somnium caperet.