About the same time, there was the greatest difficulty to get Peter Lescot de Clagny received canon of Our Lady at Paris with his long beard: he had need to join to his personal merit the qualities of counsellor to the court, almoner to the king, &c.
Soon after, the Sorbone gravely decided, that a long beard was contrary to sacerdotal modesty.[[86]] At the same time the clergy, by an edict of the parliament of Toulouse, were forbidden to wear their beards.[[87]] But persecution strengthens what it is eager to destroy: the beards triumphed in their turn; people even went so far as to give them a more agreeable form; they wore them frizzled, as appears by the order of the clergy of Burgundy against frizzled beards. Anthony Hotman wrote at that time his Pogonias, or dialogue on heads of hair and beards; he concludes with the elogy of the latter. In 1576 there was a poem in quatrains printed, intitled: Eloges des barbes rousses. In 1539, there was a book published, intitled la Pogonologie, by R. D. P. printed at Rennes, in 8vo. and Gentian Hervet wrote three essays on beards. We see, by these different writings, that, in those days, people were more taken up with their beards, than now.
[86]. The 1st of July 1561, this celebrated assembly ordered all the members of their university, doctors, bachelors, &c. to wear their beards shaved, &c. Non deferant barbas & veniant tonsi.
[87]. The author of a book intituled Pogonologia, says on this occasion, that those, who wished to take advantage of the equivocation in this edict of the French verb porter (which signifies to carry as well as to wear) had their beards carried by their servants.
As the best things have their traducers, the beard met with one in this Gentian Hervet, a learned Orleanese. He wrote a Latin discourse against beards; but in a little time, being staggered by the forcible reasons of his adversaries, he wrote a second, in which he advanced, that it was indifferent whether a priest wore his beard or not; in short, carried away by the force of truth, he at length wrote a third, in which he ably maintains that a priest absolutely ought to have a long beard on his chin.[[88]]
[88]. The first of these discourses is intitled, de radendâ barbâ Oratio; the second, de vel alendâ vel radendâ barbâ; and the third, de alendâ barbâ.
Notwithstanding its success, its numerous apologists, and powerful partisans, the beard had still enemies; the provinces especially were the theatre of secret cabals, where, far from the court and the bearded powers, plots of vengeance were easily contrived, and their effects often broke out in provincial councils; and most of these councils, actuated by contrary sentiments, contradicted each other in their decisions.
Two provincial councils, held at Narbonne the same year, 1551, ordered all the priests of the diocese to shave themselves at least once a month; another council, held at Rheims in 1583, only recommended the hair of the upper lip to be cut off, in order to be able to receive the communion without any obstacle. A council of Bagneres, of the same year, gives the same orders. A council of Rouen, in 1581, orders the priests to shave off their beards entirely, which it is looked upon (says the council) as debasing for a minister of the altar to wear. A council of Malines, in 1579, absolutely condemns the custom of wearing beards, whilst another council, held in the same town, eight years after, declares nearly the contrary, ordering only a little of the hair of the upper lip to be cut away.[[89]] All that one can conclude from all these provincial councils is, that the rage of party was gotten into the very sanctuary of truth to propagate disorder and irresolution.
[89]. See, for all these provincial councils, Acta Conciliorum of father Hardouin.
All these ephemeral ordinances had no other effect than to prolong the reign of the beards of priests; they still flourished on their chins, when the laity no longer wore them. Fashion brought about, in a short time, what all these redoubled efforts had been unable to effect during more than a century. The popes retained their beards a good while, and the first, who appeared entirely shaved, was Clement XI. who lived at the beginning of this century. Most of the clergy left it off insensibly.