He seeks safety in flight.
Calvin was soon reduced to the necessity of following the rector's example in fleeing from Paris; for the part he had had in preparing the address had become the public talk. The young scholar—he was only in his twenty-fifth year—sought for by the sanguinary lieutenant-criminel, Jean Morin, barely made good his escape. Proceeding to Angoulême, he enjoyed, under the friendly roof of Louis de Tillet, a short period of quiet and an opportunity to pursue his favorite studies.[322]
Francis rejects roughly the intercession of the Bernese.
The incessant representations made to the king respecting the rapid progress of "Lutheran" doctrines in France, and perhaps also the occurrence of such incidents as that just mentioned, seem to have been the cause of the adoption of new measures against the Reformation and its professors. Already, in October, Francis had written a rough answer to the Council of the Canton of Berne, expressing extreme surprise that they had ventured to intercede for the relatives of Guillaume Farel, accused of heresy, and to beg him to give no credit in this matter either to the royal officers or to the inquisitors of the faith.[323] And he had used these significant words: "Desiring the preservation of the name of very Christian king, acquired for us by our predecessors, we have nothing in the world more at heart than the entire extirpation of heresies, and nothing could induce us to suffer them to take root in our kingdom. Of this you may rest well assured, and leave us to proceed against them, without your giving yourselves any solicitude. For neither your prayers, nor those of any one else whomsoever, could be of any avail in this matter with us."[324]
Royal letter to the Bishop of Paris.
On his return from the marriage of his son Henry to Catharine de' Medici, celebrated only four days before Cop's university harangue, Francis was induced to make new provisions for the detection and punishment of dissent. Alarmed by the progress of "Lutheran" sentiments in his very capital, as reported to him by parliament, he not only urged that body to renewed diligence, but directed the Bishop of Paris, the tolerant Jean du Bellay, who may have been suspected of too much supineness in the matter,[325] to confer upon two counsellors of parliament all the authority necessary to act for him, without prejudice to his jurisdiction in other cases.[326] Both parliament and bishop were at the same time notified of the receipt of two fresh bulls, kindly furnished by Pope Clement, at Francis's request, to help in the good work of extirpating "that accursed Lutheran sect."[327]
Elegies on Louis de Berquin.
The number of extant poems on the death of Louis de Berquin attests very clearly the estimate placed upon him by the Roman Catholics as the most dangerous heretic—in fact, the heresiarch of the day. A stanza of eight lines, which seems to have been popular (for it has been discovered in MS. both in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Génin, i. 219, and in the library of Soissons, Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. franç., xi. 131), represents the four elements as conspiring, at God's bidding, to take vengeance upon him:
"Du faux Berquin et de ses documens
Dieu s'est vengé par les quatre élémens:
Terre luy a désnie sépulture;
Feu l'a destruit et sa fausse escripture;
Tisons par eau pluviale arrosez
Se sont plus fort esmeus et embrasez.
Dont (pour la fin du malheureux comprendre)
L'air par les vents en a receu la cendre."