This proclamation afflicted Margaret very seriously. Will her brother ratify these fierce monastic prohibitions, or will he cooperate in the victory of truth? Will he permit the Reformation to pass from Germany into France? One circumstance filled the Duchess of Alençon with hope: the king declared in favour of Berquin. It will be recollected that this gentleman had been imprisoned in the Conciergerie. Three monks, his judges, entered his prison, and reproached him with having said that ‘the gates of hell can do nothing against him who has faith.’ This notion of a salvation entirely independent of priests exasperated the clergy.—‘Yes,’ answered Berquin, ‘when the eternal Son of God receives the sinner who believes in his death and makes him a child of God, this divine adoption cannot be forfeited.’ The monks, however, could see nothing but a culpable enthusiasm in this joyful confidence. Berquin sent Erasmus the propositions censured by his judges. ‘I find nothing impious in them,’ replied the prince of the schools.
The Sorbonne did not think the same. The prior of the Carthusians, the prior of the Celestines, monks of all colours, ‘imps of antichrist,’ says the chronicler, ‘gave help to the band of the Sorbonne in order to destroy by numbers the firmness of Berquin.’—‘Your books will be burnt,’ said the pope’s delegates to the accused, ‘you will make an apology, and then only will you escape. But if you refuse what is demanded of you, you will be led to the stake.’—‘I will not yield a single point,’ he answered. Whereupon the Sorbonnists, the Carthusians, and the Celestines exclaimed: ‘Then it is all over with you!’ Berquin waited calmly for the fulfilment of these threats.
When the Duchess of Alençon heard of all this, she immediately wrote to her brother, and fell at her mother’s knees. Louisa of Savoy was not inaccessible to compassion, in the solemn hour that was to decide her son’s liberty. That princess was one of those profane characters who think little of God in ordinary times, but cry to him when the sea in its rage is about to swallow them up. Shut in her closet with Margaret, she prayed with her that God would restore the king to France. The duchess, full of charity and a woman of great tact, took advantage of one of these moments to attempt to soften her mother in favour of Berquin. She succeeded: the regent was seized with a sudden zeal, and ordered the pope’s delegates to suspend matters until after the king’s return.[466]
The delegates, in great surprise, read the letter over and over again: it seemed very strange to them. They deliberated upon it, and, thinking themselves of more consequence than this woman, quietly pursued their work. The haughty and resolute Louisa of Savoy, having heard of their insolence, was exasperated beyond measure, and ordered a second letter to be written to the pontiff’s agents,[467] who contented themselves with saying ‘Non possumus,’ and made the more haste, for fear their victim should escape them. The king’s mother, still more irritated, applied to the parliament, who held Berquin in respect, and who said boldly that the whole thing was nothing but a monkish conspiracy. At this the members of the Roman party made a still greater disturbance. Many of them (we must acknowledge) thought they were doing the public a service. ‘Erasmus is an apostate,’ they said, ‘and Berquin is his follower.[468] ... Their opinions are heretical, schismatic, scandalous.... We must burn Erasmus’s books ... and Berquin with them.’[469]
But Margaret did not lose courage. She recollected that the widow in the Gospel had obtained her request by her importunity. She entreated her mother, she wrote to her brother: ‘If you do not interfere, Berquin is a dead man.’[470] Francis I. yielded to her prayer, and wrote to the first president that he, the king, would make him answerable for Berquin’s life if he dared to condemn him. The president stopped all proceedings; the monks hung their heads, and Beda and his friends, says the chronicler, ‘were nigh bursting with vexation.’[471]
Yet Margaret did not hide from herself that she had still a hard struggle before her, which would require strength and perseverance. She felt the need of support to bring to a successful end in France a transformation similar to that which was then renewing Germany. The Count of Hohenlohe, at Strasburg, was not enough: she wanted at her side a staff that would enable her to bear with her brother’s rebukes. God appeared willing to give her what she wished.
There was at court a prince, young, lively, witty, handsome, brave and gay, though somewhat harsh at times: he had already gone through surprising adventures, and, what was no small recommendation in Margaret’s eyes, had been the companion of Francis in the field and in prison. He was Henry d’Albret, King of Navarre—king by right, if not in fact—and at that time twenty-four years old. Community of misfortune had united Francis and Henry in close friendship, and young d’Albret soon conceived a deep affection for his friend’s sister. Henry loved learning, possessed great vivacity of temper, and spoke with facility and even with eloquence. It was a pleasant thing to hear him gracefully narrating to the court circles the manner in which he had escaped from the fort of Pizzighitone, where he had been confined after the battle of Pavia. ‘In vain,’ he said, ‘did I offer the emperor a large ransom; he was deaf. Determined to escape from my gaolers, I bribed two of my guards; I procured a rope-ladder, and Vivis and I—(Vivis was his page)—let ourselves down from the window during the night. My room was at a great height, situated in the main tower above the moat. But, resolved to sacrifice my life rather than the states of my fathers, I put on the clothes of one of my attendants, who took my place in my bed. I opened the window; it was a dark night; I glided slowly down the high walls; I reached the ground, crossed the ditches, quitted the castle of Pavia, and, by God’s help, managed so well that I got to St. Just on Christmas Eve’ (1525).[472]
Henry d’Albret, having thus escaped from his enemies, hastened to Lyons, where he found Madame, and where Margaret arrived soon after, on her return from Spain. Smitten with her beauty, wit, and grace, the King of Navarre courted her hand. Everything about him charmed all who saw him; but Margaret’s hand was not easy to be obtained. She had been first asked in marriage for the youthful Charles, King of Spain; and such a union, if it had been carried out, might not perhaps have been without influence upon the destinies of Europe. But the age of the monarch (he was then but eight years old) had caused the negotiation to fail, and the sister of the King of France married the Duke of Alençon, a prince of the blood, but a man without understanding, amiability, or courage. Chief cause of the disasters of Pavia, he had fled from the field of battle and died of shame.
Margaret did not at first accept the homage of the young King of Navarre. She was not to find in him all the support she needed; but that was not the only motive of her refusal; she could not think of marriage so long as her brother was a prisoner. Henry was not discouraged; he did all he could to please the duchess, and, knowing her attachment for the Gospel, he never failed, when present in the council, to take up the defence of the pious men whom Cardinal Duprat wished to put to death. This intervention was not a mere idle task. The persecution became such, that Margaret, withdrawing from the attentions of the prince, thought only of the dangers to which the humble christians were exposed whose faith she shared.
We shall see that the pope and the Sorbonne had more influence in France than the regent and the king.