=ALEXANDER AT GENEVA.=
The friar De la Croix, whom we have already mentioned, having abandoned Paris, his convent, his cowl, and his monkish title, had reached Geneva under the name of Alexander. Cordially welcomed by Farel and Froment, he had been instructed by their care in the knowledge of the truth. His transformation had been complete. Christ had become to him 'the sun of righteousness; he had a burning zeal to know him, and great boldness in confessing him. Incontinent, he showed himself resolute, and resisted all gainsayers.' Accordingly the Genevan magistracy, which was under the influence of the priests, had condemned him to death as a heretic; the sentence had, however, been commuted, 'for fear of the King of France,' who would not suffer a Frenchman, even if heretical, to be maltreated, and Alexander was simply turned out of the city. When on the high-road beyond the gates, and near the Mint, he stopped and preached to the people who had followed him. Such was the power of his language that it inspired respect in all around him. 'Nobody could stop him,' says Froment, 'so strongly did his zeal impel him to win people to the Lord.'[568]
Alexander first went to Berne with Froment, and then, retracing his steps, seriously reflected whether he ought not to return into France. He did not deceive himself: persecution, imprisonment, death, awaited him there. Then ought he not rather, like so many others, to preach the Gospel in Switzerland? But France had so much need of the light and grace of God.... should he abandon her? To preach Christ to his countrymen, Alexander was ready to bear all manner of evil, and even death. One single passion swallowed up all others. 'O my Saviour! thou hast given thy life for me; I desire to give mine for thee!' He crossed the frontier; and, learning that Bresse and Maconnais (Saône-et-Loire), where Michael d'Aranda had preached Christ in 1524, were without evangelists, he began to proclaim the forgiveness of the Gospel to the simple and warm-hearted people of that district, among whom fanaticism had so many adherents. He did not mind this: wandering along the banks of the Bienne, the Ain, the Seille, and the Saône, he entered the cottages of the poor peasants, and courageously scattered the seed of the Gospel.[569] A rumour of his doings reached Lyons, where certain pious goldsmiths, always ready to make sacrifices for their faith, invited Alexander to come and preach in their city.
=HIS WORK AT LYONS.=
It was a wider field than the plains of Bresse. Alexander departed, arrived at Lyons, and entered the goldsmiths' shops. He conversed with them, and made the acquaintance of several poor men of Lyons, who were rich in faith; they edified one another, but this did not satisfy him. The living faith by which he was animated gave him an indefatigable activity. He was prompt in his decisions, full of spirit in his addresses, ingenious in his plans. He began to preach from house to house; next 'he got a number of people together here and there, and preached before them, to the great advancement of the Word.' Opposition soon began to show itself, and Alexander exclaimed: 'Oh that Lyons were a free city like Geneva!'[570] Those who desired to hear the Word grew more thirsty every day; they went to Alexander, and conversed with him; they dragged him to their houses, but the evangelist could not supply all their wants. He wrote to Farel, asking for help from Geneva, but none came; the persecution was believed to be so fierce at Lyons, that nobody dared expose himself to it. Alexander continued, therefore, to preach alone, sometimes in by-streets, and sometimes in an upper chamber. The priests and their creatures, always on the watch, endeavoured to seize him, but the evangelist had hardly finished his sermon when the faithful, who loved him devotedly, surrounded him, carried him away, and conducted him to some hiding-place. But Alexander did not remain there long: wistfully putting out his head, and looking round the house, to see that there was no one on the watch, he came forth to go and preach at the other extremity of the city. He had hardly finished when he was carried away again, and the believers took him to some new retreat, 'hiding him from one house to another,' says the chronicler, 'so that he could not be found.'[571] The evangelist was everywhere and nowhere. When the priests were looking after him in some suburb in the south, he was preaching in the north, on the heights which overlook the city. He put himself boldly in the van, he proclaimed the Gospel loudly, and yet he was invisible.
Alexander did more than this: he even visited the prisons. He heard one day that two men, well known in Geneva, who had come to Lyons on business, had been thrown into the bishop's dungeons on the information of the Genevan priests: they were the energetic Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve, and his friend Cologny.[572] The gates opened for Alexander: he entered, and that mysterious evangelist, who baffled the police of Lyons, was inside the episcopal prison. If one of the agents who are in search of him should recognise him, the gates will never open again for him. But Alexander felt no uneasiness; he spoke to the two Genevans, and exhorted them; he even went and consoled other brethren imprisoned for the Gospel, and then left the dungeons, no man laying a hand on him. The priests and their agents, bursting with vexation at seeing the futility of all their efforts, met and lamented with one another. 'There is a Lutheran,' they said, 'who preaches and disturbs the people, collecting assemblies here and there in the city, whom we must catch, for he will spoil all the world, as everybody is running after him; and yet we cannot find him, or know who he is.'[573] They increased their exertions, but all was useless. Never had preacher in so extraordinary a manner escaped so many snares. At last they began to say that the unknown preacher must be possessed of satanic powers, by means of which he passed invisible through the police, and no one suspected his presence.
=MARGARET AND ROUSSEL.=
Thus the Gospel was proclaimed in the first and in the second city of France. The Sorbonne and the catholic party had been intimidated by the king, and the Easter festival of 1534, which was approaching, might give the evangelicals of Paris a striking opportunity of proclaiming their faith. This was what the Queen of Navarre desired. She had passed some time at Alençon, and also at Argentan, not far from Caen, with her sister-in-law, Catherine d'Albret, abbess of the convent of the Holy Trinity; at length she had returned to Paris. The priests dared not name her, but they made certain allusions to her in their sermons which their hearers very well understood. These things were reported to Margaret, who cared neither to pacify nor to punish her accusers, and answered them only by endeavouring still more to advance the cause of piety in France. The little conventicles only half pleased her: she wanted the evangelical doctrine to enter the kingdom by the churches, and not by the 'upper chambers.' She would have desired for France a reformation similar to that of England, which, while giving it the Word of God, preserved its archbishops and bishops, its cathedrals, its liturgy, and its grandeur. Queen of France, she would have been its Elizabeth; but doubtless with more grace. Her ambition was to install the Gospel at Notre Dame. She paid a visit to the king; she spoke to the bishop ... Roussel shall preach there. He was not a Farel in boldness, but Margaret encouraged him; besides, the idea of preaching the Gospel to the people of Paris in that old cathedral was pleasing to him. He determined, therefore, to comply with the queen's wishes.
The report of Margaret's intentions had hardly become known, when the canons were in commotion. How scandalous! What! shall these evangelicals, of whom they wished to purge France, assemble in the cathedral?... A disciple of Luther ... in the temple ennobled by so many holy bishops!... Finding themselves betrayed by the king, the priests resolved to turn to the people. These fanatics did not scruple to become mob-leaders; they traversed the city and the suburbs, entered the shops, distributed little handbills, and stuck up placards: under the excitement of this mission the oldest Sorbonnists regained all the activity of youth. 'We must resist these scandalous meetings at any cost,' they said. 'Let the people crowd before the gates of Notre Dame, and hinder the evangelicals from entering; or, if they do not succeed, let them fill the cathedral, and prevent Roussel from ascending the pulpit, and drown his heretical voice by the shouts of the believers.' When the day came, a great movement took place among the citizens of Paris. An immense crowd hastened from all the neighbouring quarters, who surrounded Notre Dame and filled the interior of the church. The Lutherans could not get in, and Roussel was forced to give up his sermon.[574]
A favourable wind seemed generally to be breathing over the Reformation: its enemies were still in prison and its friends at liberty; Francis appeared to be more than ever in harmony with his sister and with the protestants of Germany; and an evangelical orator was authorised to preach at Notre Dame: a violent hurricane, however, suddenly burst upon the metropolis. A pious and active christian was there to lose his life, and Paris was to witness at the same time—a triumph and a martyrdom.