=PRIVATE MEETINGS.=
Great was their sorrow and agitation. Many went to Roussel and Courault, and loudly expressed their regret and their wishes. The ministers took courage, and 'turned their preaching into private lectures.' Little meetings were formed in various houses in the city. At first none but members of the family were present; but it seemed that Christ, according to his promise, was in the midst of them, and erelong friends and neighbours were admitted. The ministers set forth the promises of Holy Scripture, and the worshippers exclaimed: 'We receive more blessings now than before.'
There were others besides Parisian faces which Courault, Roussel, and their friends saw on the humble benches around their little table: there were persons from many provinces of France, and even from the neighbouring countries. Among them was Master Pointet, a native of Menton, near Annecy, in Savoy, 'who practised the art of surgery in the city of Paris.' He had been brought to a knowledge of the Gospel in a singular way. 'Monks and priests,' says the chronicler, 'used to come to him to be cured of the diseases peculiar to those who substitute an impure celibacy for the holy institution of marriage.'[553] Pointet, observing that godliness was not to be found among the priests, sought for it in the Scriptures; and, having discovered it there, began to remonstrate seriously with those unhappy men. 'These punishments,' he told them, 'proceed from your accursed celibacy: they are your wages, and you would do much better to take a wife.' Pointet, while reading these severe lessons, loved to go and learn in the lowly assemblies held by the humble ministers of the Word of God, and no one listened with more attention to the preaching of Roussel and Courault.
The Sorbonnists, having heard of these conventicles, declared 'that they disliked these lectures still more than the sermons.' In fact, if the preaching in the churches had been a loud appeal, the Divine Word in these small meetings spoke nearer to men's hearts, enlightening them and making them fast in Jesus Christ; and accordingly the conversions increased in number. The lieutenant-criminal once more took the field: he posted his agents at the corners of the more suspected streets, with orders to watch the Lutherans and ferret them out. These spies discovered that on certain days and hours many suspicious-looking persons, most of them poor, were in the habit of frequenting certain houses. Morin and his officers set to work immediately: they made the round of these conventicles, seizing the pastors and dispersing the flocks. 'We are deprived of everything,' said the worshippers; 'we remain without teaching and exhortation. Alas! poor sheep without shepherds, shall we not go astray and be lost?' Then with a sudden impulse they exclaimed: 'Since our guides are taken away from us here, let us seek them elsewhere!' Many French evangelicals fled into foreign countries.
While the poor reformed[554] who remained in Paris were thus forsaken and sorrowful, the Sorbonne loudly demanded the return of Beda and the other exiles. The theologians canvassed the most influential members of the parliament, and besieged Cardinal Duprat. The king and the pope had just met solemnly at Marseilles; one of the Medici had just entered the family of the Valois; a royal letter, despatched from Lyons, ordered proceedings to be taken against the heretics: could they leave the champions of the papacy in disgrace? The demand was granted, and the impetuous Beda returned in triumph to the capital with his friends. That wicked little fairy Catherine had, unconsciously, and by her mere presence, restored him to liberty.
=FRESH EFFORTS OF THE SORBONNE.=
The wrath and fanaticism of Beda, excited by exile, knew no bounds. The repression of obscure preachers did not satisfy him; he determined to renew the attack he had formerly made upon the learned. 'I accuse the king's readers in the university of Paris,' he said to the parliament. These were the celebrated professors Danès, Paul Paradis, Guidacieri, and Vatable, learned philologists, esteemed by Francis and honoured over all literary Europe. 'Their interpretations of the text of Scripture,' continued Beda, 'throw discredit on the Vulgate, and propagate the errors of Luther. I demand that they be forbidden to comment on the Holy Scriptures.'[555]
Beda did not stand alone. Le Picard had returned from exile with his master, and the Sorbonne, wishing to give him a striking mark of their esteem, had conferred on him the degree of doctor of divinity. Beda and Le Picard took counsel together with some other priests. War was resolved upon, the legions were mustered, the plan of the campaign drawn up, and the various battle-fields allotted among the combatants. They took possession of the pulpits from which the preachers of the Reform had been expelled, and loud voices were heard everywhere giving utterance to violent harangues against 'the Lutherans.' Beda, Le Picard, and their followers denounced the heretics as enemies of the altar and the throne. In the Gospel, the germ of every liberty, they saw the cause of every disorder. 'It is not enough to put the Lutheran evangelists in prison,' said these forerunners of the preachers of the League; 'we must go a step further, and burn them.'[556]