[259] 'Innumera denique plebis multitudine.'—Flor. Rémond, Hist. Hérés. ii. p. 229. See also the Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris; Fontaine, Hist. Catholique; Maimbourg, Hist. du Calvinisme; and the Chronique de François I.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ELOQUENCE AND TORTURES OF FRANCIS I.
(21st January 1535.)
=DINNER AT THE BISHOP'S.=
=THE KING'S SPEECH.=
ALL was not over: they had had the comedy (as it appeared to some); they were now to have the oratorical address, and then the tragedy. In order to stifle the Reformation, something more was wanted than relics, chanting, and images: blood must be shed. But first of all there should be a speech from the throne. We do not doubt the sincerity of the king in his oratorical movements. The personal offence that had been done to him, and the obstacles raised by the placards to his political plans, most assuredly engrossed him more than the cause of Catholicism; but all this was mixed up in his mind, and he was eloquent. The ambassadors,[260] the court, the parliament, the Bishop of Paris attended by the most distinguished of his clergy, the rector of the university with his principal doctors, the provost of the merchants, the sheriffs, and a great number of the leading officers and merchants of the city had received orders to assemble after dinner in the bishop's great hall. They expected a speech from the king, an event of no frequent occurrence in those times, which made them all the more impatient. Ere long Francis I. entered: his countenance was serious, sad, and even gloomy. His children, the other princes of the blood, the cardinals and great officers of state surrounded the throne, whence the king could be seen and heard by the whole assembly. He took his seat and said:[261] 'Messieurs, be not surprised if you do not see in my face that look which is usual to me, and that joy which animates me whenever I meet you. Do not marvel if the tricks of eloquence are foreign to my speech. I do not come to talk to you of myself; we have to treat this day of an offence done to the King of kings. It is proper that I should assume another style and language, another look and countenance, for I do not speak to you as a king and a master speaks to his subjects and his servants, but as being a subject and servant myself, and addressing those who are fellow-servants with me of our common King, of the Master of masters, who is God Almighty. What honour, what reverence, what obedience do we not owe to that great King!... What obligations does not this kingdom, more than any other, owe to Him, seeing that for thirteen or fourteen hundred years He has maintained it in peace and tranquillity with its friends, and in victory against its enemies! And if, sometimes, for sins committed against His divine goodness, He has wished to visit us with punishment in temporal things, He has done it with so little severity, that He has never exceeded the chastisement which a kind and gracious father may use towards the faults of a humble and obedient son. But as for spiritual things, which touch the Holy Catholic faith, God has never forsaken France so far as to let her stray ever so little from it; and He has shown her this favour, that, by common accord, she has enjoyed the privilege of being the only power that has never nurtured monsters, and which, above all others, bears the name and title of Most Christian.... So much the more ought we to feel grief and regret in our hearts, that there should be at this time in France men so wicked and wretched as to desire to soil that noble name,—men who have disseminated damnable opinions, who have not only assaulted the things which our great King desires to be honoured, and acted so evilly that they do not leave to others the power of doing worse, but have all at once attacked Him in the holy sacrament of the altar. People of low condition, and less learning, wicked blasphemers, have used with regard to that sacrament, terms rejected and abhorred by every other nation. So that our realm, and even this good city of Paris, which from the time when letters were transported hither from Athens, has always shone in sound and holy learning, might remain scandalised, and its light be obscured.... Wherefore we have commanded that severe punishment be inflicted on the delinquents, in order that they may be an example to others, and prevent them from falling into the like damnable opinions. And we entreat the misguided ones to return into the path of the Holy Catholic faith, in which I, who am their king, with the spiritual prelates and temporal princes, persevere.... Oh! the crime, the blasphemy, the day of sorrow and disgrace! Why did it ever dawn upon us?'
'There were few of all the company,' says the chronicle, 'from whose eyes the king did not draw tears.' After a few minutes' silence, interrupted by the exclamations and sighs of the assembly, the king resumed: 'It is at least a consolation that you share my sorrow. What a disgrace it will be if we do not extirpate these wicked creatures!... For this reason I have summoned you to beg you to put out of your hearts all opinions that may mislead you; to instruct your children and your servants in the Christian doctrine of the Catholic faith; and if you know any person infected by this perverse sect, be he your parent, brother, cousin, or connection, give information against him. By concealing his misdeeds, you will be partakers of that pestilent faction.' The assembly gave numerous signs of assent; the king saw the devotion, zeal, and affection visible in their faces. 'I give thanks to God,' he resumed, 'that the greatest, the most learned, and undoubtedly the majority of my subjects, and especially in this good city of Paris, are full of zeal for the Catholic religion.' Then, says the chronicle, you might have seen the faces of the spectators change in appearance, and give signs of joy; acclamations prevented the sighs, and sighs choked the acclamations. 'I warn you,' continued the king, 'that I will have the said errors expelled and driven from my kingdom, and will excuse no one.' Then he exclaimed, says our historian, with extreme anger: 'As true, Messieurs, as I am your king, if I knew one of my own limbs spotted or infected with this detestable rottenness, I would give it you to cut off.... And further, if I saw one of my children defiled by it, I would not spare him.... I would deliver him up myself, and would sacrifice him to God.'[262]
=EFFECTS OF THE ROYAL RHETORIC.=
At these words the king stopped: he was agitated and wept. The spectators, affected by the sight of this new Abraham, burst into tears. After the interruption necessarily occasioned by this moving scene, Du Bellay, bishop of Paris, and John Tronson, Lord of Couldray on the Seine and prevost of the merchants, approached, and kneeling before the king, thanked him for his zeal—the first in the name of the clergy, the other on behalf of the citizens—and swore to make war against heresy. Thereupon all the spectators exclaimed, with voices broken by sobbing: 'We will live and die for the Catholic religion.' The author of the Chronicle of Francis I., who was probably present in the assembly, dwells upon the emotion caused by the monarch's address: 'We may clearly show by this,' he says, 'that the speech of an eloquent and powerful man may lead men's hearts at his will; for there was not a man in all the company, whether native or foreigner, who did not more than once change countenance, according to the different affections the words expressed.'[263]
Other emotions, those of anguish and terror, were next to be aroused. After displaying his eloquence, the king was about to display his cruelty. 'Francis, always in extremes,' says a very catholic historian,[264] 'did not disdain to pollute his eyes with a spectacle full of barbarity and horror.' On the road between St. Genevieve and the Louvre, two scaffolds had been prepared, one at the Marksman's Cross in the Rue St. Honoré, and the other at the Halles. Some of the most excellent men that France possessed were about to be burnt after suffering atrocious tortures. Altars, galleries, and inscriptions had been placed on the bridges and in the streets. On the bridge of Notre Dame, around a fountain, surmounted by a large crucifix, these lines were inscribed: