Mornay, in a treatise upon the Eucharist, had collected five or six thousand texts of the Fathers, which appeared to him opposed to the doctrine of transubstantiation. This was, so to speak, the voice of the first centuries of Christianity, which he summoned to testify against the inventions of succeeding ages, and all the venerable doctors of the primitive church rose one after the other, in his book, to protest against the alteration of the Sacrament of the Supper. This treatise was at the same time both a religious and political event; and this is not to be wondered at, if we reflect, on the one side, that the author had lived thirty years in familiarity with the king; on the other, that the dogma of the Eucharist was the great question of the era between (Roman) Catholicism and the Reformation. It was upon this point that the sentences of death pronounced against the heretics had been principally founded, and nothing contributed more, as we have seen, to break up the colloquy of Poissy.
The Cardinal de Medicis, legate of the pope, sent six copies of Mornay’s work to Rome, promising to have it refuted by Bellarmine. In place of a refutation, there came despatches from Clement VIII. denouncing a new conspiracy on the part of the heresy. Henry IV. was the more vexed at this because he was then suing before the Holy See for a divorce from his marriage with Marguérite de Valois. The Parliaments also took part in the quarrel; and during a whole winter, the pulpits of the old preachers of the League re-echoed with violent anathemas against the audacious adversary of the real presence.
Henry IV. made known his displeasure to Mornay, by means of M. de la Force. “I have always regulated my services,” answered Mornay, “according to the following order—first to God, then to my king, next to my friends; and I cannot, with a good conscience, change my method.”
However, Duperron, bishop of Evreux, said publicly, that he had discovered in the tract “more than five hundred enormous falsehoods,” and that he would undertake to prove them [to be so]. The report of this having reached Mornay, he accused this assertion of being an unworthy calumny, and demanded the opportunity of justifying himself in a public conference.
At the single word “public conference,” the legate, the bishop of Paris, the doctors of the Sorbonne raised an outcry; for the priests had generally been worsted in their oral discussions with the theologians of the Reformation. “Rest easy,” said the king, “the affair shall be so well conducted that the defeat shall be with the heretics.”
For this end Henry IV. chose as judges of the controversy four very decided (Roman) Catholics, and only two Calvinists, who were moreover suspected. Dufrêne Canaye, who had already pledged his troth to the king to embrace (Roman) Catholicism, and De Casaubon, who, caring only for Greek and Latin manuscripts, affected great indifference for matters of faith. It is related of him that he replied to his son, who asked for his blessing, after having entered the order of the Capuchins: “I give you my blessing with all my heart: I do not blame you; do not blame me either.”
Mornay perceived the snare, and remonstrated against such a want of impartiality. “Sire,” said he to the king, “if there were nothing more concerned than my life, or even my honour, I would cast them at your feet. But since I am obliged to defend the truth, where the honour of God is concerned, I beseech your majesty to pardon me, if I seek just and reasonable means to secure it.”
Far from acceding fairly to this request, the king answered roughly that he had greatly offended him by attacking the pope, to “whom he was under more obligations than to his own father.” “Well! sire,” said Mornay, “since it so pleases God, I see the thing is settled: you will be made to condemn the truth between four walls, and God will give me grace, if I live, to make it echo to the four corners of the world.”
The day was fixed for the conference. Henry had imported into this quarrel so violent a passion that he could not sleep the night preceding. M. de Loménie, who slept in his room, said to him, as an historian writes: “‘Your majesty must take this affair strangely to heart: on the eve of Coutras, Arques, and Ivry, three battles where all was at stake, your majesty was not so troubled.’ All this the king confessed; so eagerly did he desire to content the pope by the ruin of M. Duplessis!”
But the unfair choice of commissioners was not enough. The incriminated texts were not indicated to Mornay until the very day of the conference at one o’clock, and he lost another hour before he could obtain the books that were required to verify his quotations. At eight o’clock, he was summoned to the king’s presence, although the discussion was not to open till noon; the object was, to use the expression of an historian, “to make him lose his time.” At this last trait, Mornay’s whole soul was moved with indignation, “Sire,” he exclaimed, “may your majesty pardon me! This extraordinary rigour towards a good servant is unnatural in you.”