Louis de Berquin, who was liberated by the king, in November 1526, from the prison into which the Bedists had thrown him, had formed the daring plan of rescuing France from the hands of the pope. He was then thirty years of age, and possessed a charm in his character, a purity in his life, which even his enemies admired, unwearied application in study, indomitable energy, obstinate zeal, and firm perseverance for the accomplishment of his work. Yet there was one fault in him. Calvin, like Luther, proceeded by the positive method, putting the truth in front, and in this way seeking to effect the conversion of souls; but Berquin inclined too much at times to the negative method. Yet he was full of love, and having found in God a father, and in Jesus a saviour, he never contended with theologians, except to impart to souls that peace and joy which constituted his own happiness.
Berquin did not move forward at hazard; he had calculated everything. He had said to himself that in a country like France the Reformation could not be carried through against the king’s will; but he thought that Francis would allow the work to be done, if he did not do it himself. When he had been thrust into prison in 1523, had not the king, then on his way to Italy, sent the captain of the guards to fetch him, in order to save his life?[625] When in 1526 he had been transferred as a heretic by the clerical judges to lay judges, had not Francis once more set him at liberty?[626]
But Berquin’s noble soul did not suffer the triumph of truth to depend upon the support of princes. A new era was then beginning. God was reanimating society which had lain torpid during the night of the middle ages, and Berquin thought that God would not be wanting to the work. It is a saying of Calvin’s ‘that the brightness of the divine power alone scatters all silly enchantments and vain imaginations.’ Berquin did not distinguish this truth so clearly, but he was not ignorant of it. At the same time, knowing that an army never gains a victory unless it is bought with the deaths of many of its soldiers, he was ready to lay down his life.
At the moment when he was advancing almost alone to attack the colossus, he thought it his duty to inform his friends: ‘Under the cloak of religion,’ he wrote to Erasmus, ‘the priests hide the vilest passions, the most corrupt manners, the most scandalous unbelief. We must tear off the veil that conceals this hideous mystery, and boldly brand the Sorbonne, Rome, and all their hirelings, with impiety.’
At these words his friends were troubled and alarmed; they endeavoured to check his impetuosity. ‘The greater the success you promise yourself,’ wrote Erasmus, ‘the more afraid I am.... O my friend! live in retirement; taste the sweets of study, and let the priests rage at their leisure. Or, if you think they are plotting your ruin, employ stratagem. Let your friends at court obtain some embassy for you from the king, and under that pretext leave France.[627] Think, dear Berquin, think constantly what a hydra you are attacking, and by how many mouths it spits its venom. Your enemy is immortal, for a faculty never dies. You will begin by attacking three monks only; but you will raise up against you numerous legions, rich, mighty, and perverse. Just now the princes are for you; but backbiters will contrive to alienate their affection. As for me, I declare I will have nothing to do with the Sorbonne and its armies of monks.’
This letter disturbed Berquin. He read it again and again, and each time his trouble increased. He an ambassador ... he the representative of the king at foreign courts! Ah! when Satan tempted Christ he offered him the kingdoms of this world. Better be a martyr on the Grève for the love of the Saviour! Berquin separated from Erasmus. ‘His spirit,’ said his friends, ‘resembles a palm-tree; the more you desire to bend it, the straighter it grows.’ A trifling circumstance contributed to strengthen his decision.
One day Beda, syndic of the Sorbonne, went to court, where he had some business to transact with the king on behalf of that body. Some time before, he had published a refutation of the ‘Paraphrases and Annotations’ of Erasmus, and Francis I., who boasted of being a pupil of this king of letters, having heard of Beda’s attack, had given way to a fit of passion. As soon, therefore, as he heard that Beda was in the palace, he gave orders that he should be arrested and kept prisoner. Accordingly the syndic was seized, shut up in a chamber, and closely watched. Beda was exasperated, and the hatred he felt against the Reformation was turned against the king. Some of his friends, on hearing of this strange adventure, conjured Francis to set him at liberty. He consented on the following day, but on condition that the syndic should appear when called for.[628]
The Sorbonne, said Berquin to himself, represents the papacy. It must be overthrown in order that Christ may triumph. He began first to study the writings of Beda, who had so bitterly censured those of his adversaries, and extracted from them twelve propositions ‘manifestly impious and blasphemous’ in the opinion of Erasmus. Then, taking his manuscript, he proceeded to court and presented it to the king, who said: ‘I will interdict Beda’s polemical writings.’ As Francis smiled upon him, Berquin resolved to go further, namely, to attack the Sorbonne and popery, as equally dangerous to the State and to the Church, and to make public certain doctrines of theirs which struck at the power of the throne. He approached the king, and said to him in a lower tone: ‘Sire, I have discovered in the acts and papers of the Sorbonne certain secrets of importance to the State ... some mysteries of iniquity.’[629] Nothing was better calculated to exasperate Francis I. ‘Show me those passages,’ he exclaimed. Meantime he told the reformer that the twelve propositions of the syndic of the Sorbonne should be examined. Berquin left the palace full of hope. ‘I will follow these redoubtable hornets into their holes,’ he said to his friends. ‘I will fall upon these insensate babblers, and scourge them on their own dunghill.’ Some people who heard him thought him out of his mind. ‘This gentleman will certainly get himself put to death,’ they said, ‘and he will richly deserve it.’[630]
Everything seemed to favour Berquin’s design. Francis I. was acting the part of Frederick the Wise: he seemed even more ardent than that moderate protector of Luther. On the 12th of July, 1527, the Bishop of Bazas appeared at court, whither he had been summoned by the king. Francis gave him the twelve famous propositions he had received from Berquin, and commanded him to take them to the rector of the university, with orders to have them examined, not only by doctors of divinity, of whom he had suspicions in such a matter,[631] but by the four assembled faculties. Berquin hastened to report this to Erasmus, still hoping to gain him over by the good news.
Erasmus had never before felt so alarmed; he tried to stop Berquin in his ‘mad’ undertaking. The eulogies which this faithful christian lavished upon him particularly filled him with terror; he would a thousand times rather they had been insults. ‘The love which you show for me,’ he wrote to Berquin, ‘stirs up unspeakable hatred against me everywhere. The step you have taken with the king will only serve to irritate the hornets. You wish for a striking victory rather than a sure one; your expectations will be disappointed; the Bedists are contriving some atrocious plot.[632] ... Beware!... Even should your cause be holier than that of Christ himself, your enemies have resolved to put you to death. You say that the king protects you ... do not trust to that; the favour of princes is short-lived. You do not care for your life, you add; good! but think at least of learning, and of our friends who, alas! will perish with you.’