History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 17

Occidit ergo miser, Divumque hominumque favore, Traduxitque illuc sors malesuada virum.

Nil gravius pugnare Deo, pugnare feroci Fortunae. Vinci magnus uterque nequit."

The other elegy is shorter and less striking in conception, but gives a similar impression of the importance a.s.signed to Louis de Berquin's activity and influence:

"Francia dum hymnidico resonet paeane juventus, Parisia extincto gaudeat hoste phalanx.

Hic dudum, et nuper morbo scabiosus edaci, Francorum reliquas inficiebat oves.

Cognitus haud potuit mundari errore nefando, Quin purgaretur lucidiore foco.

Nam quamvis concessa esset clementia, durus Obst.i.tit, et rapido malluit igne mori."

The library of Soissons contains a MS. lament from a Protestant source over the death of De Berquin, which is at once simple and touching. It is printed in the Bulletin, xi. 129-131.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 256: Registres du parlement, Feb. 26, 1417/8, Preuves des Libertez, i. 124, etc.]

[Footnote 257: Yet the trial of Aime Maigret had been specially committed by Louise to the Sorbonne, as early as January, 1525 (Letter of the Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Beda, Jan. 23, 1525, Herminjard, i. 326); and Zwingle knew, in March, of a more or less successful effort to convince the regent that the evangelical doctrines were subversive of peace--the proof alleged being drawn from Germany, where "everything was turned upside down." Dedication to Francis I., prefixed to De vera et falsa religione commentarius, Herminjard, i.

351.]

[Footnote 258: See Mezeray's unfavorable portrait of the unscrupulous Duprat, Abrege chron., iv. 584.]

[Footnote 259: The four were Philippe Pot, President in the _chambre des enquetes_, and Andre Verjus, a counsellor, from parliament, and Guillaume Du Chesne and Nicholas Le Clerc, doctors of theology. For the first on the list, Jacques de la Barde was soon after subst.i.tuted.

Registres du parlement, March 20, 1524/5, Preuves des Libertez, i. 164.]

[Footnote 260: Registres du parlement, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 261: Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, i. 102.]

[Footnote 262: Registres du parlement, July 29, 1458, Preuves des Libertez, i. 138.]

[Footnote 263: "Un inquisiteur de la foi n'a capture ou arret en ce royaume, sinon par l'aide et autorite du bras seculier." Pithou, Essaie, art. 37.]

[Footnote 264: "Non.o.bstant oppositions ou appellations quelconques, _semota executione a definitiva_, si en est appelle." Registres du parlement, Preuves des Libertez, iii. 164.]

[Footnote 265: "Nos quoque comprobavimus ... sicut per alias nostras _sub plumbo_ literas poteritis cognoscere." Registres du parlement, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 266: Recueil des anc. lois francaises, par Jourdan, Decrusy et Isambert, xii. 232-237.]

[Footnote 267: Isambert, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 268: The author of the anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 383, 384. His description, written in 1528, is interesting: "Ledict Barquin avoit environ 50 ans, et portoit ordinairement robbe de veloux, satin et damas, et choses (chausses) d'or, et _estoit de n.o.ble lignee et moult grand clerc_, expert en science et subtil, mais neantmoins il faillit en son sens." Erasmus makes him some seven years younger, Letter to Utenhoven, July 1, 1529, Opera, ii. 1206, _seq._; and Herminjard, Correspondance des reformateurs, ii. 183, _seq._]

[Footnote 269: His account is important, but too full for insertion here. See the letter above quoted.]

[Footnote 270: Arret du parlement, Aug. 5, 1523, Haag, France prot. s.

v. _Berquin_.]

[Footnote 271: Felibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948; Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170; Haag, s. v.; Erasmus, Opera, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 272: "Etiam in loco sacro." Registres du parlement, January 8, 1526, Preuves des Libertez, iii., 166.]

[Footnote 273: Margaret's grat.i.tude to Montmorency for his kind offices is very fully attested by a pa.s.sage in an extant letter (Genin, Lettres de Marg. d'Ang., 1ere Coll., No. 54): "Vous merciant du plaisir que m'aves fait pour le pauvre Berquin, que j'estime aultant que si c'estoit moy mesmes, et par cela pouves vous dire que vous m'aves tiree de prison, etc." To Francis she expressed the a.s.surance "que Celuy pour qui je croy qu'il a souffert aura agreable la misericorde que pour son honneur avez fait a son serviteur et au vostre." Ibid., 2de Coll., No.

35.]

[Footnote 274: The chief authorities for the first two imprisonments of De Berquin are the long and important letter of Erasmus, to which I shall have occasion again to refer (Opera, ii. 1206, _seq._), Felibien, Hist. de la ville de Paris, ii. 948, 984, 985; Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, 169, 170, 277, 278; Haag, s. v.]

[Footnote 275: It is somewhat amusing, in the light of subsequent events, to read such outbursts of sisterly enthusiasm as this: "O que bien-heureuse sera vostre brefve prison, par qui Dieu tant d'ames deslivrera de celle d'infidelite et esternelle d.a.m.nacion." Lettres de Marg. d'Ang., 2de Coll., No. 5, Lyons, May 1525. See, too, 1ere Coll., No. 26, addressed to Montmorency.]

[Footnote 276: Margaret's letters to Count Hohenlohe were translated into Latin and published by himself. M. Genin has rendered them into French, and inserted them in his Lettres de Marg. d'Angouleme, 1ere Coll., Nos. 48-51. The letter of July 5, 1526, is the most important.]

[Footnote 277: This precious bit of special pleading deserves notice. In the instructions of the king to the Archbishop of Lyons, to be read at the council in that city, Francis thus expressed himself: "Et combien que pour ung tel et si bon uvre que celluy qui se offre de present, _le dict sire fut conseille_, que juridiquement et par tous droicts divins et humains, _il pouvoit et debvoit raisonnablement mettre, subimposer et faire contribuer toutes manieres de gens_, de quelque qualite, auctorite, condition qu'ils fuissent, soient d'eglise, n.o.bles, ou du tiers et commun estat, au paiement de la ditte rancon, etc."

Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1137.]

[Footnote 278: The reason a.s.signed for not convoking the States General in proper form, viz., that time did not permit the necessary delay, must be considered scarcely sufficient to explain the irregularity. Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 279: "Fist un discours farci de latin et de citations de l'ecriture, dans lequel il conclut que le traite de Madrid estoit nul."

Isambert, xii. 299.]

[Footnote 280: The declaration is significant and noteworthy as the first of many similar a.s.surances. Among the doc.u.ments in Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois francaises, is a full account of the proceedings of the notables, xii. 292-301.]

[Footnote 281: If Francis was sanguine of success in suppressing the Reformation in his kingdom, there were others who went farther still.

Barthelemi de Cha.s.sanee this very year (1527) chronicles the destruction of "Lutheranism" in France as _an accomplished fact_! The pa.s.sage is not unworthy of notice. After explaining the significance of the _fleurs-de-lis_ on the royal escutcheon by the wonderful efficacy of the lily as the antidote of the serpent's poison, and remarking that the kings of France had thrice extracted the mortal virus from the bite of Mohammed, "serpentis venenosi," the writer adds: "Et, his temporibus, videmus nostram fidem et religionem Christianam _sanatam esse a morsu pestiferi serpentis Lutheri_, qui infinitas haereses in fide Christiana seminavit, _quae fuerunt extirpatae a Rege nostro Francisco Christianissimo_, qui non cessat insudare, ut Clemens summus Pontifex a sua Sede ejectus rest.i.tuatur, quem Carolus Borbonius dux exercitus Caroli Austriaci electi in Imperatorem, in urbe obsederat _hoc anno Domini_ 1527 die 6 Maii." Catalogus Gloriae Mundi, fol. 143.]

[Footnote 282: Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1160.]

[Footnote 283: The reader may, if his patience will hold out, wade through the prolix decrees of the Council of Sens as published by Cardinal Duprat in 1529, and printed in Labbei Concilia (Venice, 1732), xix. 1149-1202. It is worthy of remark that the confiscation of the property of condemned heretics, if laymen, to the state, is ordered, "_tanquam reorum laesae majestatis_." Fol. 1159.]

[Footnote 284: Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1139.]

[Footnote 285: The words of the decree are sufficiently distinct: "Illam plurimum gravem et onerosam ecclesiis, laicis vero contemtibilem, sacerdotum mult.i.tudinem, qui solent plerumque _illiterati, moribus inculti, servilibus operibus addicti, imberbes, inopes, fict.i.tiis t.i.tulis_ ad sacros ordines obrepere, non sine magno status clericalis opprobrio." Ibid., xix. fol. 1128. The decrees of the councils of Bourges and Lyons are given in Labbei Concilia, xix. 1041-1048, and 1095 etc.]

[Footnote 286: The image was affixed to the house of the Sieur de Beaumont, at the corner of the Rue des Hosiers and the Rue des Juifs.

Felibien, Hist. de Paris, iv. 676.]

[Footnote 287: The strong language of the author of the "Cronique du Roi Francoys I^er" (edited by G. Guiffrey, Paris, 1860) may serve as an index of the popular feeling: "La nuict du dimenche, dernier jour de may, ... _par quelque ung pire que ung chien mauldict de Dieu_, fut rompue et couppee la teste a une ymaige de la vierge Marie ... qui fut _une grosse horreur a la crestiente_." Page 66.]

[Footnote 288: The silver image, though protected by an iron grating, fared no better than its predecessor. Stolen before the death of Francis, it was succeeded by a wooden statue, and, when this was destroyed by "heretics," by one of marble! The detailed accounts of the expiatory processions in Felibien, ii. 982, 983, in the Registres du parlement, ibid., iv. 677-679, in G. Guiffrey, appendix to "Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er," 446-459, from MSS. Nat. Lib., in Gaillard, vi.

434, 435, and in the Journal d'un bourgeois, 348-351, give a vivid view of the picturesque ceremonial of the times. It must have been a very substantial compensation for the trouble to which the unknown author of the outrage of the _Rue des Rosiers_ put the clergy, that the mutilated statue of the Virgin, having been placed above the altar in the church of St. Gervais, was said to have wrought notable miracles, and even to have raised two children from the dead! Journal d'un bourgeois, _ubi supra_. See also "Cronique du Roy Francoys I^er," 67, and especially the poem (Ibid., appendix, 459-464), in twenty-five stanzas of eight lines each, which, I fear, has nothing to recommend it, unless it be _length_!]

[Footnote 289: May, 1530. Felibien, ii 988, 989; Journal d'un bourgeois, 410.]

[Footnote 290: "Quaeris, quid profecerim? Tot modis deterrens, addidi animum."]

[Footnote 291: Erasmus to Utenhoven, _ubi supra_; also his letter to Vergara, Sept. 2, 1527, and Beda's Apology, Herminjard, ii. 38, 39, 40.]

[Footnote 292: Erasmus to Utenhoven, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 293: It was one of the great merits of Francis I., in the eyes of De Thou, the historian, that he had drawn Bude from comparative obscurity, and, following his wise counsels, founded the College Royale.

Erasmus styled him "The Wonder of France" (De Thou, liv. iii., i. 233), and Scaevole de Ste. Marthe, "omnium, qui hoc patrumque saeculo vixere, sine controversia doctissimus" (Elog. 3). He was at this time one of the _maitres de requetes_. Crespin, fol. 58.]