[654] History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, vol. ii. bk. viii. ch. ii.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
FRANCIS PROPOSES A REFORMATION TO THE SORBONNE.
(Autumn 1534.)
=FRANCIS CONFESSES HIS ERRORS.=
THE disgust inspired by the imposture of the cordeliers of Orleans, and the jests lavished upon the monks in the Louvre and throughout Paris, were further encouragements to the king to prosecute his alliances with protestantism. He had, however, little need of a fresh incentive; the reform proposed by Melanchthon was in his view acceptable and advantageous, because it diminished the power of the pope, and corrected abuses incompatible with the new light, at the same time that it left untouched that catholicism from which the king had no desire to secede. In his private conversations with Du Bellay, Francis, laying aside all reserve, acknowledged frankly that the Romish Church was upon the wrong track, and said in a confidential tone, that 'Luther was not so far wrong as people said.' He did not fear to add that it was himself rather who had been mistaken. The King of France, and the country along with him, thus appeared to be in a good way for reform.
Francis determined to acquaint the protestant princes with his sentiments on Melanchthon's memoir. 'My envoy, on his return to Paris,' he wrote, 'having laid before me the opinions of your doctors on the course to be pursued, I entertain a hope of seeing the affairs of religion enter upon a fair way at last.'[655] Du Bellay, well satisfied on his part with the impression made on his master by the opinions of the evangelical divines, informed the magistrates of Augsburg, Ulm, Nuremberg, Meiningen, and other imperial cities, that the King of France approved of the Lutheran doctrines, and would protect the protestants. The Melanchthonian reformation was therefore in progress, and already men were preparing the stones for the edifice of the reformed Catholic Church. The French government did not confine itself to writing letters; but, strange to say! the sovereign, the absolute monarch, did not fear to make an acknowledgment of his errors, and to express his regret: he sent a thorough palinode into Germany. He who was putting the Lutherans to death was not far from declaring himself a Lutheran. In October and November 1534, an agent from Francis I. visited the cities of the Germanic empire, announcing everywhere that 'the king now saw his mistake in religious matters,'[656] and that the Germans who followed Luther thought correctly as regards the faith that is in Christ.[657] The worthy burgomasters and councillors of Germany were amazed at such language, and looked at one another with an incredulous air; but the French envoy assured them repeatedly that the King of France desired a reform even in his own country.... 'The emperor,' he added, 'wishes to constrain the protestants by force of arms to keep to the old doctrine; but the King of France will not permit it. He has sent me into Germany to form an alliance with you to that intent.' Such was the strange news circulated beyond the Rhine. It reached the ears of the Archbishop of Lunden, who immediately forwarded it to Charles V.
When Francis I. annulled the pragmatic sanction at the beginning of his reign, he had reserved the right of appointing bishops, and had thus made the Church subordinate to the State. The time seemed to have arrived for taking a second step. It was necessary to put an end to the popish superstitions and abuses, condemned by the friends of letters, whose patron he claimed to be, and thus satisfy the protestants; and, by a wise reform, maintain in Europe the catholicity of the Church, which the popes were about to destroy by their incredible obstinacy. The king would thus appear to be a better guardian of European catholicism than even the pope, and secure for himself that European preponderance which Charles V. had hitherto possessed.
=FRENCH VERSION OF THE ARTICLES.=
He must set his hand to the work and begin with the clergy. The king, seeing that it would be unwise to communicate to them unreservedly the opinions of the reformers, as they had been read at the Louvre, resolved to have a new edition of them prepared, which should contain the essential ideas. It would appear that he confided this task to a numerous commission.[658] William du Bellay and his brother the Bishop of Paris were doubtless the two chief members. The commissioners set to work, correcting, suppressing, adding, hitting certain popular superstitions a little harder even than the reformers, and at length they prepared a memoir which may be considered as a statement of what the French government meant by the proposed reformation.[659] The changes made by the French excited much discontent among the German protestants, and Melanchthon himself complained of them bitterly.[660]
The king, who carried into every pursuit the courage and fire of which he had given so many proofs on the field of battle, appeared at first to attack the papacy with the same resolution that he would have employed in attacking one of Charles's armies. It must be clearly remembered that, in his idea, the reform which he was preparing carried with it the cessation of schism, and that his plan would restore the catholicity torn to pieces by Roman insolence and imprudence. This remark, if duly weighed, justifies the king's boldness. He sent the project to Rome, we are assured, asking the pope to support or to amend it.[661] We may imagine the alarm of the Vatican on reading this heretical memoir. Then Du Bellay, taking the Sorbonne in hand, had a conference with the deputies of that illustrious body, whose whole influence was ever employed in maintaining the factitious unity that characterises the papacy. 'Gentlemen,' he said to them, 'by the king's commands I have endeavoured to prevail upon the German churches to moderate the doctrines on which they separated from the Roman Church, wishing thus to lead them back to union. By order, therefore, of my master, I hand you the present articles, to receive instruction from you as to what I shall have to say to the German doctors.'[662] The deputies having received the paper from Du Bellay, forwarded it to the sacred faculty. The latter delegated to examine it 'eminent men, doctors of experience in such matters,'[663] who immediately set to work.