VIII.
Cardinal de Richelieu, who had written a method of controversies, in the leisure moments of his youth, was bent upon the execution of his plan of reunion. He thereupon sounded the pastors and the provincial synods, by means of his confidant Father Joseph, a mysterious personage, an emissary at once intriguing, active, and unscrupulous; he was seconded in his work by a certain Théophile de la Milletière, an equivocal Calvinist, and a writer of but little learning, who was ambitious to gain a name by promoting designs of which he did not comprehend the object.
Among the persons who were captivated by this project, were the prudent and skilful, who were desirous of abandoning a religion—if they could do so without dishonour—so little agreeable to [those in] power, as well as simple people, who foolishly believed that (Roman) Catholicism was willing to make serious concessions, no less than some other good folks, who treated the whole matter as a question of charity. In the number of these last, a man of merit, Petit, pastor and professor of theology at Nismes, was for some time found.
However, it soon appeared, that under the pompous word reunion, nothing else was dreamed of than an act of repentance on the part of the Calvinists, and of gracious amnesty on that of the (Roman) Catholics—a no more considerable change than that of a few terms, which shocked the ear of the disciples of Calvin. Certain pastors were to be gained beforehand, who, for form’s sake, should hold a disputation with (Roman) Catholic doctors in the king’s presence, and should oppose no strong objection. Then they were to demand admittance as penitents, and the Church of Rome, like a good mother, would receive them with open arms. Lastly, a meeting, filled with people of this easy mould, was to be got together in a national synod; and when once the project of reunion was officially announced, material force was to be employed to compel the submission of the recalcitrants, or to expel them from the kingdom.
The plan was skilfully conceived: the only flaw, however, was the omission to take honourable and faithful consciences into the account. It failed. The pastors displayed obstinacy, and, what is remarkable, the laity were even more obstinate than their ministers. Not one provincial synod entered into the plot. Petit acknowledged his error; La Milletière was excommunicated, and immediately became a (Roman) Catholic; Richelieu had other matters to attend to, and the idea of the reunion was abandoned, to be again attempted on two or three occasions before the Revocation.
The clergy went a different way to exterminate heresy, namely, by means of missionaries, ambulating controversialists, otherwise called converters, or propagators of the faith, whom we find at work from the year 1630. Some of them were monks, Capuchins and Recollets, of whom Fénélon somewhere says, that they had drawn universal contempt upon themselves by their ignorance and their fanatical rage. The others were laymen of the lowest condition—cordwainers, brokers, tailors, itinerant grinders, little shopmen—who, without any study, abandoned their trade for the championship of the (Roman) Catholic faith.
These vagabonds received a fixed sum per head, for every proselyte, and the rate varied according to the importance of the convert. They were careful to take certificates duly legalized, of their conquests, so that they might insure the receipt of their money. Fraud soon entered into the transaction, as might have been expected. There were wretches who joined the Reformed communion for the express purpose of deserting it, or feigned to belong to it that they might abjure, and afterwards share [the proceeds of their iniquity] with their accomplices.
The converters had learned a catalogue of ridiculous subtilties and gross quibbles by heart, which they retailed on all occasions. The refutation of what was least ignoble in these polemics, was made with a master’s hand by the pastor Drelincourt, in his Abrégé des Controverses, whence he was called the scourge of the propagators of the faith.
One of their favourite arguments consisted in putting this question: “Do you believe that the king is idolatrous and damned?” If the answer was “yes,” the result became a serious affair, pregnant with grave consequences, particularly for those who held any public appointment. If the reply was in the negative, they then asked how it was that any one could refuse to enter a church that opened the door of salvation. Or, again, if they encountered a strong resistance, they pushed their interlocutor to utter irreverent words against the Virgin and the saints; and as the laws punished what was then styled blasphemy, they denounced the offenders.
As they had the priests and the Jesuits for their protectors, the majority of these “converters” were no less insolent than illiterate. They ran from town to town, knocking at the doors of consistories and synods. They even made their way, by force, into private houses, sometimes by the assistance of the judges of the district, and commenced a controversy, according to rule. So long as they were civilly invited to withdraw, they held firm. But if in a moment of anger they were thrust out, they sought to excite their unwilling host to some act of violence before witnesses, in the open street, and immediately carried their complaint before a tribunal.
Many carried their impudence to such an extent as to interrupt the pastors in full assembly, and to give them the lie. These unworthy excesses exposed them to no more than murmurs and words of reprehension. People dared not chastise them as they deserved. If an assembly, less enduring than others, thrust them into the street and a tumult resulted, the consequence was the interdiction of religious worship, or even the imprisonment of the pastor.
Stalls were erected at the crossways; and there these new mountebanks, with piles of great books at their sides, of which they had not read a word, blattered away upon points of controversy, parodied the ministers, and diverted or excited the populace by their vociferations.
The most remarkable of these “converters” was one Véron, or Father Véron. He had worn the habit of a Jesuit, and had been presented with the curacy of Charenton, that he might more conveniently importune the Reformed. This Véron frequently attended the sermons of the pastors, and at the end of the service refuted them on a kind of stage he had caused to be erected at the door of his church. He wearied the most learned doctors of the Reformation with his challenges. The celebrated Bochart had on one occasion the complaisance to open a regular disputation with him. But Véron fled before the questions, which he had himself placed upon the table, were examined, and the pastors ended by opposing him with the silence of contempt.
All these endeavours after conversions had but little success. Not only studious men, but artisans, women, nay even children of the Reformed communion, made themselves masters of controversial subjects, and easily confounded the self-styled propagators of the faith. So also, after the pacific mission came the armed mission—the booted mission, of which we shall speak in its place.
From 1631 to 1645 three national synods were held. The court strove to render them less and less frequent, until it might succeed wholly in suppressing them. The first of these assemblies was opened at Charenton, on the 1st of September, 1631. The commissioner Galland took his seat without opposition. Pastors and laity, all were of a sorrowful heart, and [maintained an] humble attitude: they felt they were at the mercy of their opponents.
The king disgraced the general deputies, whose nomination would be agreeable to himself, and the synod obeyed. Later, one single deputy only was required, the formality of whose re-election was even dispensed with. This high office was concentrated in the family of the Marquis de Ruvigny, and the churches vainly sought to join a general deputy from the Tiers-état with him. The liberal spirit of the Reformation did not suit Louis XIV.
The synod of Charenton declared itself against any projects of reconciliation with the (Roman) Catholics; but it offered the hand of fellowship to the Lutherans, who until then had not been admitted to the Supper of the Calvinists. “Because the churches of the Confession of Augsburg,” it said, “agree with the other Reformed churches in the fundamental points of true religion, and because there is neither superstition nor idolatry in their worship, the faithful of the said confession, who through a spirit of friendship and peace, shall join the communion of our churches in this kingdom, may, without making any abjuration, be received at the table of the Lord.”
The king would vouchsafe no answer to the list of grievances drawn up at Charenton, until after the separation of the synod: “In order,” he said, “that he might treat with his subjects more suitably to his sovereign dignity and the sacred authority of his word.” We may recognise in this (answer) both the genius and accent of Richelieu.
Another national synod was opened in the month of May, 1637, in the town of Alençon. M. de Saint Marc, a councillor of state and a royal commissioner, addressed it in a high tone: “I am come to your synod to make known to you the will of his majesty. All authority is of God, and consequently, on this immoveable basis, you are bound to obey. Besides that the goodness of his majesty obliges you to obedience, as well as the care he takes of you, his clemency and his power are the firmest supports you can have. I have not the slightest doubt that you have often reflected upon the admirable providence of God, which has so ordered that the royal authority is your preservation.” The moderator, Basnage, replied to M. de Saint Marc, that the churches had never had the least thought of departing from that submission, to which the Word of God bound them.
The king (now) forbade the pastors and elders to correspond between synod to synod, or with foreign ecclesiastical bodies; and as many letters had arrived from Geneva and Holland, they were given up sealed to the commissioner, who, after having ascertained their contents, permitted that they should be read to the meeting. These letters treated upon some points of doctrine raised by Amyrant, a professor of the academy of Saumur. We shall return to them by-and-by.
The synod engaged itself upon the question of negro slavery, a matter little agitated in the seventeenth century, and which did not at all excite the attention of the assemblies of the (Roman) Catholic clergy. If it was of opinion that the Word of God does not prohibit the buying and keeping of slaves, it at least laid down conditions very far in advance of that epoch: “This assembly, confirming the canon framed by the provincial synod of Normandy, exhorted the faithful not to abuse this liberty in a manner contrary to the rules of Christian charity, and not to replace these unbelievers in the power of the barbarians, who might treat them inhumanly, or in that of those who were cruel; but to give them to kind-hearted Christians, who might chiefly be in a condition to take care of their precious and immortal souls, by endeavouring to instruct them in the religion of Christ.”
A third national synod was held at Charenton, at the end of the year 1644, shortly after the death of Cardinal de Richelieu and of Louis XIII. The king’s commissioner took the singular part of being the first to complain of the encroachments and usurpations of the Reformed churches, in order, apparently, to prevent the Reformed from making reclamations against the injustice and indignities which they suffered. He then made known the wishes of the king, among which was the order to exclude any from the ministry of the Gospel who had studied at Geneva, in Holland, or in England, because of the republican spirit which prevailed in those countries. This was the period of the struggles of Cromwell and the Puritans against Charles I.
There was, on the reports of some deputies from the maritime provinces, a question about the Independents, who had come from England and settled in France. They were accused of teaching that each flock ought to be self-governed, without any regard to the authority of conferences and synods. The assembly, considering this opinion to be prejudicial to the interests of the Church of God, and to those of the state, enjoined upon the maritime provinces, that they should prevent this evil from taking root in the kingdom.