One day a lansquenet named Guillaume de Sainte Celle, put on the Pope's robes, and placed the triple crown upon his head; others, adorning themselves with the red hats and long robes of the cardinals, surrounded him; and all going in procession upon asses through the streets of the city, arrived at last before the castle of Saint Angelo, where Clement VII. had retired. Here the soldier-cardinals alighted, and lifting up the front of their robes, kissed the feet of the pretended pontiff. The latter drank to the health of Clement VII., the cardinals kneeling did the same, and exclaimed that henceforward they would be pious popes and good cardinals, who would have a care not to excite wars, as all their predecessors had done. They then formed a conclave, and the Pope having announced to his consistory that it was his intention to resign the Papacy, all hands were immediately raised for the election, and they cried out "Luther is Pope! Luther is Pope!"[57] Never had pontiff been proclaimed with such perfect unanimity. Such were the humours of the Germans.
VIOLENCE OF THE SPANIARDS.
The Spaniards did not let them off so easily. Clement VII. had called them "Moors," and had published a plenary, indulgence for whoever should kill any of them. Nothing, therefore, could restrain their fury. These faithful Catholics put the prelates to death in the midst of horrible tortures, destined to extort their treasures from them: they spared neither rank, sex, nor age. It was not until after the sack had lasted ten days, and a booty of ten million golden crowns had been collected, and from five to eight thousand victims had perished, that quiet began to be in some degree restored.
Thus did the pontifical city expire in the midst of a long and cruel pillage, and that splendour with which Rome from the beginning of the sixteenth century had filled the world faded in a few hours. Nothing could preserve this haughty city from chastisement, not even the prayers of its enemies. "I would not have Rome burnt," Luther had exclaimed; "it would be a monstrous deed."[58] The fears of Melancthon were still keener: "I tremble for the libraries," said he, "we know how hateful books are to Mars."[59] But in despite of these wishes of the reformers, the city of Leo X. fell under the judgment of God.
Clement VII., besieged in the castle of Saint Angelo, and fearful that the enemy would blow his asylum into the air with their mines, at last capitulated. He renounced every alliance against Charles the Fifth, and bound himself to remain a prisoner until he had paid the army four hundred thousand ducats. The evangelical Christians gazed with astonishment on this judgment of the Lord. "Such," said they, "is the empire of Jesus Christ, that the Emperor, pursuing Luther on account of the Pope, is constrained to ruin the Pope instead of Luther. All things minister unto the Lord, and turn against his adversaries."[60]
PROFITABLE CALM.
III. And in truth the Reform needed some years of repose that it might increase and gain strength; and it could not enjoy peace, unless its great enemies were at war with each other. The madness of Clement VII. was as it were the lightning-conductor of the Reformation, and the ruin of Rome built up the Gospel. It was not only a few months' gain; from 1526 to 1529 there was a calm in Germany by which the Reformation profited to organize and extend itself. A constitution was now to be given to the renovated Church.
The papal yoke having been broken, the ecclesiastical order required to be reestablished. It was impossible to restore their ancient jurisdiction to the bishops; for these continental prelates maintained that they were, in an especial manner, the Pope's servants. A new state of things was therefore called for, under pain of seeing the Church fall into anarchy. Provision was made for it. It was then that the evangelic nations separated definitely from that despotic dominion which had for ages kept all the West in bondage.