I.
All the recent statutes upon matters of religion were only provisional. They announced the approaching reunion of a council, which was to close the controversies definitively; and this was soon a general cry throughout France.
The idea was not new. From the moment of the Reformation, Germany had demanded the convocation of an Œcumenical and altogether free council. The popes had long refused; they remembered the great gatherings of Constance and Bâle, and feared to find themselves face to face with these States-General of the Church. Overcome at last by the urgent demands of the princes and people, they had chosen an Italian town for the place of meeting; they had filled the council with their creatures; and had suspended or reopened the sessions, now at one point, now at another, according to the calculations of their policy. Protestants could not recognise this vain semblance of an universal council, and they kept away. The enlightened (Roman) Catholics of France were themselves offended, and it was determined to have a national council.
Most of the French cardinals and bishops were opposed to this. “To what purpose is it, to dispute with such obstinate people,” said the old Cardinal de Tournon; “if they wish to show their means of defence, let them go to the council of Trent; they will have safe conduct, and they may justify themselves if they can.” However, the Cardinal de Lorraine, who was better acquainted with the temper of the court, and counted a good deal upon his eloquence to overthrow the Huguenots, as the writers on their side reproach him, was of a different opinion. He proposed to authorize, not a council, but a simple theological conference, and he obtained the consent of the chiefs of the clergy by the help of this compromise.
The whole affair, however, was full of equivocations and misunderstandings, and that is enough to make us understand the character and issue of the conference of Poissy.
The Reformed pastors, remembering what had happened at Zurich, at Geneva, and other places of Switzerland and Germany, wished to treat with the priests as equals, taking the Bible as the supreme arbiter of the controversy, and giving to the chiefs of the state the right to decide finally between the two parties.
The cardinals and bishops meant quite otherwise. [They would admit] no equality. They held themselves to be the only true representatives of the Church, and looked upon the doctors of the Reformation as men who had gone astray, and whom they listened to out of pure condescension. They did not accept the Bible as the sole arbiter of the debate. In fact, they reserved to themselves the right of being judges in their own cause, and of themselves deciding what should be admitted or condemned.
The (Roman) Catholic clergy, in one sense, were in the right, because it does not belong to the civil power to resolve religious questions; but in another sense, they were altogether wrong, for in consenting to discuss these matters before the depositaries of political authority, they appeared to give up that, which in reality they would not concede. The conference of Poissy then could only be a simple theological passage of arms, or rather, as it afterwards turned out, an empty mockery. The priests were sure, whatever happened, to win their cause, since they reserved to themselves the right of bringing it to a close.
The pastors, convoked to the number of twelve, came accompanied by twenty-two lay deputies. The most eminent amongst them was Theodore de Bèze; he came to fill the place of Calvin, for whom the magistrates of Geneva had in vain demanded hostages of high rank.
Theodore de Bèze was born, in 1519, at Vézelay, a little town of Burgundy, of a noble family. He had been confided to the care of the celebrated professor Melchior Wolmar, who made him read the Scriptures, and by his example, as much as by his lessons, planted in his heart the first seeds of piety. Thirty years later, Bèze testified his gratitude to his instructor, and greeted him as his father, when he sent him his confession of faith.
These pious instructions at first appeared to have been stifled beneath the passions of youth. Surrounded in Paris by all that could lead him astray, amiable, rich, and witty, he lived as a man of the world, published a volume of light poetry under the name of Juvenilia, and contracted a secret marriage. He kept it secret, because one of his uncles, who was in orders, had made over to him the revenues of some ecclesiastical benefices.
A serious illness awakened his conscience. “As soon as I had strength to raise myself,” he writes to Wolmar, “I broke all my chains, packed up my travelling effects, and left my country, my parents, my friends, to follow Christ. I went into voluntary exile, and retired to Geneva with my wife.” He caused his marriage to be sanctioned by the Church, and condemned all the errors of his youth. This was in the month of November, 1548; he was then twenty-nine years and four months old.
The Jesuits Garasse and Maimbourg, and, which more astonishes us, the Cardinal de Richelieu, have seized upon the poems of a student of twenty, to attack the austere Memoirs of the Reformer. Could they not understand the sacred duties of repentance?
Become poor, since he had given up all to his convictions, Theodore de Bèze, the man who had been the ornament of the saloons of Paris, determined to make himself a printer, joining with him Jean Crispin, the author of the History of the Martyrs. But if he had humility enough to accept this position, he had too much merit to remain in it. He was made professor of theology, rector of the Academy, and pastor at Geneva.
Then he contracted intimate relations with Calvin. Both lived in the same faith, and in the same hope; both brought the same zeal to the propagation of the doctrines of the Reformation in France. Calvin was gifted with a broader and more masculine genius, a severer logic, a more penetrating vision, a science more profound, and a stronger will. He was the genius and the master of Theodore de Bèze. But Bèze had an easier and more flowing eloquence, and more amiable manners, which were better suited to the relations of social life. The one was more fitted to stir up and govern men, the other to negotiate with them. It has been said that Bèze was the Melancthon of the new Luther. There is truth in the comparison. But the Reformer of Germany seems to have needed Melancthon more than the Reformer of Geneva required Theodore de Bèze. Melancthon was the counsellor, the support of Luther, and finished his work; Bèze was but the most illustrious of the disciples of Calvin.
It is pleasant to see with what modesty he placed himself beneath Calvin, listening with deference, and seeking no other glory, if indeed he sought any, than that of reproducing the image of his master. “He attached himself so strongly to Calvin,” says his biographer, Antoine de la Faye, “that he scarcely ever left him. The conversation of this great man was of such advantage to him, that he made incredible progress, both in the doctrine and in the knowledge of ecclesiastical discipline.”[39]
He composed many works, of which the greater part have a polemical character. His most considerable works are Commentaries upon the New Testament, collections of sermons, the translation into French verse of a part of the Psalms, and the History of the Reformed Churches of France up to the year 1562.
Bèze went to preach at Nérac and Béarn in 1560, on the invitation of the king of Navarre. He had scarcely returned to Geneva, before he was summoned to the conference of Poissy, being esteemed, next to Calvin, as the most capable of upholding the cause of the Reformation in that assembly. “He was,” says his biographer, “of ordinary height, he had a handsome face, an agreeable bearing.... God had given him an understanding above the vulgar, an exquisite judgment, a marvellous memory, a rare eloquence, and an affability so engaging that he won the hearts of all who saw him.”
From the moment of his arrival at Poissy, he preached publicly at the court, before an attentive and select assembly. This was on the 24th of August, 1561. Eleven years later, to the very day, Charles IX. and Catherine de Medicis caused the tocsin of the [massacre of] Saint Bartholomew to knell. The inconstancy of human things! O profound mysteries of the future!
The same evening, meeting the Cardinal de Lorraine in the apartments of the king of Navarre, they held a conversation upon the articles of doctrine, and especially upon the Communion. The cardinal appeared to hold little to the dogma of transubstantiation, provided that the real presence could be in someway maintained, and after having listened to Bèze to the end, said to him: “I am glad to have seen and heard you, and I beseech you, in God’s name, to confer with me, that I may hear your reasons, and you mine, and you will find that I am not so black as I am represented.”
Thereupon Madame de Crussol, who was free-spoken, cried: “You are a good man to-day, but what will you be to-morrow? Bring ink and paper, and make the cardinal sign what he has said and confessed; for he will soon say the reverse.” She had guessed right. The rumour went, the day after, that at the very first blow the cardinal had closed the mouth of the professor of Geneva. The constable expressed his joy to the queen at dinner. “I was there,” coldly replied Catherine de Medicis, “and I can assure you that you are not rightly informed.”
The pastors presented requests, in which they demanded that the bishops should not be their judges, since they were hostile parties; that the conference should be presided over by the king and the great persons of the state; that all the differences should be decided solely by the Word of God, and that secretaries, equal in number on either side, should draw up minutes of the proceedings, which should not be held to be authentic until they were approved and signed. This was putting the finger upon the knot of the question; but the bishops would have broken up twenty conferences rather than consent to such arrangements. The queen-mother knew this well; she gave an indefinite answer, or she invited the pastors to content themselves with her simple word, that the prelates should not be the judges of the discussion; but she refused to promise anything in writing.
On the eve of the conference, twelve doctors of the Sorbonne arrived at Saint Germain, with a sorrowful air, and entreated Catherine not to let the heretics speak, or at least only to grant them this favour with closed doors. “The (conference) will bring no edification,” they said; “and the king is so young, that he may be infected by this doctrine.” “I have engaged myself for good reasons,” answered the queen, “and cannot go back; but be quiet, all will go well!”