At the same time that Calvin was anxious to conciliate persons of importance he took great pains to secure publicity and success for his book. On the 22d April, 1532, he wrote to his friend Francis Daniel, at Orleans, 'The die is cast: my commentaries on Seneca's treatise "De CLementia" have appeared; but they are printed at my own expense and have cost me more money than you will believe. I am now trying to gather a little of it in again. If you wish to help me in that way I will send you a hundred copies, or as many as you think it well to take. Meanwhile accept the copy which I send you, and do not think that I impose any law upon you in this matter, for I wish you to feel perfectly free in all your dealings with me.'
Calvin was not slow in recognising that in the presence of questions and passions which agitated men's minds more violently from day to day, prudence and conciliation were of very little use, and that, whether for defence or attack, it was necessary to have recourse to more powerful weapons. He was one of those who do not rush to the fore-front of every struggle, but who, at the same time, will not make any sacrifice of their own belief or opinion to avoid a contest, and who enter into it heart and soul when once it becomes inevitable. Before long an incident occurred which gave rise to this necessity. Calvin was very intimate with Nicholas Cop, rector of the University of Paris, who in virtue of his position was to deliver a discourse on All Saints' day, in 1533, at the church of the Mathurins. Calvin offered to compose the sermon, and 'constructed a very different kind of oration,' says Beza, 'from the ordinary one, for he spoke of religious matters with great freedom, and in a liberal tone of which the Sorbonne and the "Parlement" did not at all approve; so much so that the "Parlement" sent to seek Nicholas Cop, and he set out to go to them with his attendants; being warned, however, that they intended to imprison him, he did not go to the palace, but turned back and fled from the kingdom, going to Basle, the native place of his father, William Cop, physician to the king, and a man of great renown.' [Footnote 55] Calvin also was accused, and Jean Morin, the judge in criminal causes, went to his rooms and examined all his papers, with the intention of arresting him. Calvin had been warned, however; he 'escaped by the window, took refuge in the Faubourg St. Victor, at the dwelling of a vine-dresser, changed his clothes,' and left Paris, scarcely knowing whither he was going.
[Footnote 55: Beza, Histoire des Églises réformées de France, vol. i. p. 14, and Histoire de la Vie et de la Mort de Calvin, 1657, p. 14.]
Chapter IV.
Calvin A Fugitive.
Persecution Of The Protestants In Paris.
For more than a year Calvin led a wandering and unsettled life; he took refuge first of all at the Château d'Hazeville, near Mantes; next at Angoulême, with the canon Louis du Tillet, who cautiously befriended religious reform; and then at Nérac, where Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre and sister of Francis I., held her court, and offered a welcome asylum to all more or less openly avowed reformers. Calvin met there the learned Le Fèvre d'Etaples, or Faber Stapulensis, at that time an old man, and one of the first who had sown the seeds of the Reformation in France. Thanks to the friendship which the bishop, William Briçonnet, entertained for him, he had begun the good work in the diocese of Meaux, but had not dared to carry it on, or to call it by its true name. Twelve years previously, one of the boldest and most ardent reformers, William Farel, had been staying with him at Meaux, and one day Le Fèvre said to him, with a burst of prophetic conviction: 'My dear William, God will renew the face of the earth, and you will see it, even you.' When he saw Calvin at Nérac in 1533, he often conversed with him, and had a presentiment of his destiny; he 'looked at this young man with a favourable eye,' says Beza, 'as if he foresaw that he would be the author of the restoration of the Church of France.'
Another guest, who was also Queen Margaret's chaplain at Nérac, Gérard Roussel, had much conversation with Calvin, and endeavoured to persuade him that it was necessary 'to purify the house of God, but not to destroy it.' But Calvin had already abandoned that notion; and subsequent events, as well as reflection, confirmed him more and more in the belief that any such attempt would be fruitless.
Whilst he was thus wandering from one place of refuge to another, sheltered by sincere but timorous friends, the contest on both sides and the passions of both parties were becoming daily more and more violent. Charles V. had just granted some concessions to the German Protestants; Francis I. became, in consequence, more hostile to the Protestants of France, in the hope of thereby winning over the recently elected Pope, Paul III. The excesses of the Anabaptists, and their outburst at Munster in 1534, had given rise to great irritation and alarm at the new doctrines and their abettors; and these feelings, although they were strongest in the Catholic governments, were yet general in all. A very rash and indiscreet manifestation on the part of certain French Protestants furnished their enemies with new weapons, by means of which they influenced both the king and the public. Violent placards against the mass and the doctrine of transubstantiation were printed at Neufchâtel, in Switzerland, and in October, 1534, were posted up by night at all the crossways in Paris, and were even affixed to the chamber-door of Francis I. in the castle of Blois. The king's anger knew no bounds: he determined to make the most ample reparation to the Catholic faith, and at the same time to give a terrible lesson to Protestant audacity. On the 21st of January, 1535, a solemn procession left the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois; John du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, bore the sacred elements in his hands, whilst the three royal princes of France and the Duke de Vendôme walked on either side, and held the canopy over him; the king followed with a lighted torch in his hand, walking between the Cardinals de Bourbon and de Lorraine. At every oratory which they passed, the king gave his torch to the Cardinal de Lorraine, and then joining his hands, he humbly prostrated himself and implored the forgiveness of God for his people. When the procession was ended, the king stayed to dinner with John du Bellay, and there was afterwards a meeting of the leading members of all the religious orders. The king took his seat upon a kind of throne which had been erected for him. From thence he uttered a discourse which breathed sorrow for his realm, and curses on the authors of an outrage against the faith and the Church. He ended by saying, 'Whatever progress this contagion may have made already, the remedy is still easy, if all of you are animated by the same zeal which is felt by me—if you forget the ties of flesh and blood, remember only that you are Christians, and denounce without pity all those who are partisans or abettors of this heresy. As for me, if my right arm was gangrened, I would cut off my right arm; and if my sons who now hear me were to suffer so great a calamity as to fall into these cursed and detestable opinions, I would give them up, and offer them as a sacrifice to God.' [Footnote 56] At these words the Constable de Montmorency [Footnote 57] said to the king, 'Sire, you must begin with your sister.' 'Oh, as for her,' answered the king, 'she loves me so well that she will never believe anything except what I wish.'