'It is your business, Sire,' said Calvin to the king, 'not to avert either your ears or your heart from so just a defence. A great matter is at stake. We have to learn how God's glory shall be maintained on earth, how his truth shall retain its honour, and how Christ's kingdom shall remain in its integrity.... A matter truly worthy of your ears, worthy of your government and of your royal throne!... The idea which makes a true king, is that the king knows himself to be a true minister of God in the management of his kingdom. A reign which has not God's glory for its aim, is not a reign but a mere brigandage.'
Calvin had hardly spoken thus when he seemed to see Francis refusing to turn aside from his brilliant fêtes to lend his ears to the meanest of his subjects. The king listens to Montmorency, to Tournon ... he hastens to meet the Duchess d'Etampes; he even welcomes artists and men of letters; but these miserable religionists ... never!
'Sire,' said Calvin, 'do not turn away in disdain of our meanness. Verily, we confess that we are poor despicable folks,—miserable sinners before God, reviled and rejected before men.... Nay, if you like it, we are the scum of the earth or anything more worthless still, that can be named. Yes, we have nothing left in which we can glory before God, except his only mercy ... and nothing before men, except our weakness!'
But the apologist immediately lifts up his head with holy pride:
'Nevertheless,' he says, 'our doctrine must remain exalted, invincible, and far above all the power and glory of the world. For it is not ours, but that of the living God and his Christ, whom God has made King to rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth, ... and whose magnificence the prophets have foretold, saying that he shall overthrow kingdoms strong as iron and brass, and shining like silver and gold.'
Here the advocate of his brethren hears an objection from their enemies. He sees them clustering round Francis, and incessantly repeating to him that these folks, even while putting forward the Word of God, are only its perverse corruptors.... 'Sire,' he continues, 'you can judge for yourself, by reading our confession (the Institutes) to what an extent the reproach is nothing but wicked calumny and brazen impudence. What is more conformable with the christian faith, than to acknowledge ourselves stripped of all virtue to be clothed with God? empty of all good to be filled with Him? the slaves of sin to be freed by Him? blind, to have our sight restored by Him? lame, that He may make us walk? weak, to be supported by Him? in a word, to put off from us all manner of glory, that He alone may be glorified?... Ah! we do not read of men being blamed for drinking too deeply at the fountain of living waters; on the contrary, the prophet bitterly reproves those who have hewed out broken cisterns that can hold no water.'[362]
Calvin even attempted—and a hopeless attempt it was—to touch the king's heart: 'Consider, Sire, all parts of our cause. We are persecuted, some of us are kept in prison, others are scourged, others forced to do penance, others banished, others escape by flight.... We are in tribulation, insulted, treated cruelly, looked upon as outlaws, and accursed.... And for what?... Because we place our hope in the living God, and believe that life everlasting is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent.'
Calvin knew very well, however, that the victory would not be easy. He had seen the priests closely, in the capital, in cities of second rank, and in the country. He fancied he could hear the cries raised by the curés in their parishes, and the monks in their convents. Wishing, therefore, to enlighten the king, he did so in a rather coarse manner, after the fashion of the times. 'Why,' he asked, 'do our enemies fight so stoutly and so sternly for the mass, purgatory, pilgrimages, and such rubbish?' ... Because the belly is their God, and the kitchen their religion. Because, although some treat themselves delicately and others starve upon crusts, they all eat out of the same pot which, without these branches to warm them (the mass, purgatory, &c.) would not only grow cold, but freeze entirely.'
Calvin was not ignorant however that the really dangerous enemies of the Reformation were not those priests and friars whom Erasmus and so many others had often flagellated to the great delight of the king. He imagined he saw haughty nobles, fanatical priests and doctors entering the king's closet, and pouring their perfidious accusations into his ear. 'I hear them,' he says, 'they call our doctrine new.... Verily, I have no doubt it is new, so far as they are concerned, seeing that even Christ and his gospel are quite new to them. But he who knows that this preaching of St. Paul's is old, namely, that Christ died for our sins and was raised again for our justification, finds nothing new among us. True, it has long been hidden and unknown, but the crime must be laid to the wickedness of man; and now that by God's goodness it is restored to us, it ought at least to be received into its ancient authority.'
Here the enemies persist: they claim the old doctors of the Church as being in their favour. This was the strongest argument in the eyes of Francis, who affected a certain respect for ancient christian literature. Calvin was familiar with the writings of the doctors: he had studied them night and day at Angoulême, Paris, and Basle. 'The Fathers have been mistaken, just like other men,' he said, 'but these good and obedient sons (the Romish friars) adore the errors of the Fathers, and put out of sight what they have said aright, as if they had no other care but to pick out the rubbish from among the gold.... And then they attack us with loud clamours as despisers of the Ancients. Far from despising them, we could prove from their testimony the greater part of what we are now saying. But those holy persons often differ from each other and sometimes contradict themselves. They ought not to tyrannise over us. It is Christ alone whom we must obey wholly and without exception. Why do not our adversaries take the Apostles for their Fathers, since it is their landmarks and theirs only that we are forbidden to remove? And if they desire the landmarks of the Fathers to be observed, why do they, whenever it suits their pleasure, overleap them so audaciously?'