The persecution spared no one. It was often sufficient for an enemy to accuse a person of having a liking for the Gospel, when immediately the police laid their hands on him. This was not the king's intention: he had ordered that the judges should inquire whether 'enmity, pique, or revenge gave rise to false accusations;' but the magistrates were not so scrupulous. The terror was universal. 'One sees nothing in Paris,' said a catholic eye-witness, 'but gibbets set up in various places, which surely terrify the people of the said Paris, and those of other places who also see gallowses and executions.'[280] Mezeray, while describing these events, says: 'But for ten that were put to death, a hundred others sprang up from their ashes.'[281]
The enemies of the Reformation, feeling that the moment was decisive, redoubled their efforts to destroy it. The French, save a certain numerous class submissive to the clergy, were disposed to receive it. They went to church, indeed, but the majority of the population would willingly have embraced a religion in which the priest did not interpose between man and God. 'Alas!' said the more fervent, 'if the king does not interfere to save the Church, all the warmth of the French for the catholic religion will soon be turned into ice.'[282]
=THE KING'S MOTIVES.=
The king had a special motive in supporting popery. A striking transformation was going on in France as well as in other parts of Europe; limited monarchy was changing into absolute monarchy. Francis I. thought that men who set God above the king, and died rather than invert the order of these two powers, were very dangerous to despotism, and he swore that, though he courted this religion without his kingdom, he would crush it within. Alas! the task was but too easy. Many were only superficially gained. Nobles without high-mindedness or independence; men of letters who jeered at obscurantism, but who had not tasted the Gospel; ignorant and timid crowds turned their backs upon the Word of God when the flames of the burning piles rose into the air.
=STURM'S LETTER TO MELANCHTHON.=
Terror spread through the ranks of the friends of the Reformation. Sturm, who was deeply engaged with literature and philosophy, broken-hearted at the sight of all these woes, abandoned his labours. Many of the martyrs were his friends, and had eaten at his table. Dejected, disturbed in the midst of the lessons he gave at the Royal College (which the celebrated Ramus attended), having constantly before his eyes the murderous flames which had reduced to ashes those whom he loved, it seemed to him that barbarism was about to extinguish the torch of learning, and once more overrun society, hardly awakened from its long sleep. He condemned the placards; in his opinion, the Reformation should make its way by a learned exposition of its doctrines, and not by attacking popular superstitions; but at the sight of the punishments, he thought only of the victims. He turned towards Germany where he had so many friends, where there was possibly less decision than in France, but a deeper and more inward faith; he thought of Melanchthon, sat down at his desk, and as if he were in the presence of that tender-hearted man, poured all his sorrows into his bosom. 'If the letters which I have sometimes written you on the affairs of this country have been agreeable to you,' he said, 'if you then desired that all should go well for good men,—oh! what uneasiness, what anxiety, must not your heart feel in this hour of furious tempests and extreme danger![283] We were in the best, the finest position, thanks to wise men; and now behold us, through the advice of unskilful men, fallen into the greatest calamity and supreme misery. I wrote you last year that everything was going on well, and what hopes we entertained from the king's equity. We congratulated one another; but alas! extravagant men have deprived us of those propitious times. One night in the month of October, in a few moments, all over France, and in every corner, they posted with their own hands a placard concerning the ecclesiastical orders, the mass, and the eucharist—one would think they were rehearsing a tragedy[284]—they carried their audacity so far as to fasten one even on the door of the king's apartments, wishing by this means, as it would seem, to cause certain and atrocious dangers. Since that rash act, everything has been changed; the people are troubled, the thoughts of many are filled with alarm, the magistrates are irritated, the king is excited, and frightful trials are going on. It must be acknowledged that these imprudent men, if they were not the cause, were at least the occasion of this. Only, if it were possible for the judges to preserve a just mean! Some, having been seized, have already undergone their punishment; others, promptly providing for their safety, have fled; innocent people have suffered the chastisement of the guilty. Informers show themselves publicly; any one may be both accuser and witness.[285] These are not idle rumours that I write to you, Melanchthon; be assured that I do not tell you all, and that in what I write I do not employ the strong terms that the terrible state of our affairs would require. Already eighteen disciples of the Gospel have been burnt, and the same danger threatens a still greater number. Every day the danger spreads wider and wider.[286] There is not a good man who does not fear the calumnies of informers, and is not consumed with grief at the sight of these horrible doings. Our adversaries reign, and with all the more authority, that they appear to be fighting in a just cause, and to quell sedition. In the midst of these great and numerous evils there is only one hope left—that the people are beginning to be disgusted with such cruel persecutions, and that the king blushes at last at having thirsted for the blood of these unfortunate men. The persecutors are instigated by violent hatred and not by justice. If the king could but know what kind of spirit animates these bloodthirsty men, he would no doubt take better advice. And yet we do not despair. God reigns, he will scatter all these tempests, he will show us the port where we can take refuge, he will give good men an asylum where they will dare speak their thoughts freely.'[287]
=LUTHER'S LETTER.=
This letter to Melanchthon is important in the history of the Reformation. Liberty of speech and of religious action is what protestantism claimed in France; and in claiming these liberties for itself, it secured them for all. We may imagine what an impression this letter produced at Wittemberg. Melanchthon, who received it, and even Luther himself, blamed a certain excess of vivacity in the French reformers; but, like Sturm, they recognised in them disciples of the Divine Word. A few days after, Luther writing to his friend Link, complained of the evil times in which they lived, and especially of the kings. 'With the exception of our prince (the Elector of Saxony),' he said, 'there is not one whom I do not suspect. You may understand by this language how little love and zeal for the Word of God there is in this world. For the present, sing, I pray you, this psalm: Expectans expectavi Dominum, I waited patiently for the Lord. It is through glory and disgrace, through stumblings and strayings, through the righteous and the wicked, through devils and angels, that we come to Him who alone is good, alone is without evil.[288] Therefore, dear brother, I conjure you lend no ear to any discourse, and have no other conversation than what you have with Him. There are many excellent people among men, but alas! they have less patience than stern justice. God help us!... He permits the devil to be strong, and how weak he makes us! God puts us to the proof. To trust in a man, were he even a prince, is not conformable with piety; but to fear a man is shameful and even impious in a Christian. May Christ, our life, our salvation, and our glory, be with you and all yours!' Luther did not name Francis I. in this letter, but it is well known that of all princes the king of France was the one in whom he had the least hope. He was not mistaken.
From this time Francis I. no longer showed the same favour to learning, and especially to evangelical learning. The excommunication launched against Henry VIII., the schism which followed, the hope of seeing Paul III. embroiled with Charles V., and other motives besides, made him incline once more towards Rome. But the placards were the principal cause of this change. His wrath was unappeasable; he was determined to abolish these new doctrines which were paraded even on the gate of his palace. His indignation broke out in the midst of his courtiers and cardinals, bishops and councillors of parliament. Nay more, he laid it even before the protestant princes of Germany. Writing to them on the 15th February, he said: 'The enemy of truth has stirred up certain people who are not fools but madmen, and who have incurred the guilt of sedition and other antichristian actions. I am determined to crush these new doctrines; and to check this disease, which leads to frightful revolts, from spreading further. No one has been spared whatever his country or his rank.'[289]
Such were the king's intentions. Protestantism, and with it liberty, perished in France, but God was mighty to raise them up again.