Farel was never content with sending others to battle; he burned to return to it in person, and to lead to the heavenly King, whose servant he was, all the population which, enclosed between the Alps and the Jura, spoke the language of his country. He thought that if the intelligent people placed at the gates of France were won over to the divine Word, they would become a focus to cast the light of the gospel into that kingdom, and an asylum where the Christians persecuted by Francis I. might find a refuge.
A town lying at the foot of the lower slopes of the Jura attracted his thoughts during his solitary hours at Morat: this was Orbe. The ancient city of Urba, built, it is said, in the same century as Rome, was situated on the Roman way that led from Italy to Gaul. Being rebuilt later some little distance off, the kings of the first race of France, as the people of Orbe boasted, had taken up their residence there, as if, immediately after crossing the Jura, they had exclaimed at the ravishing prospect of the Alps: 'It is enough! we will stop here.' A torrent issuing from the lakes that are found in the high Jurassic valleys plunges into the gigantic clefts of the mountain, and after pursuing a subterranean and mysterious career, reappears on the other slope, towards the plain, whence descending from one fall to another, it gracefully sweeps round the beautiful hill on which the town of Orbe is situated, surrounded with vineyards, gardens, and orchards, 'with all kinds of plants and good things.'[380]
=FAREL PREACHES AT ORBE.=
A dealer in indulgences, attracted by this wealth, was just at this time noisily selling his pardons for every offence. Farel, still detained at Morat, hearing the sound of his drum, as Luther says, made an effort to walk: he left the latter town, and proceeded to Orbe. On the next market-day, being determined to resist the new Tetzel, he quitted his inn and went to the market-place, where he found the indulgence-seller offering his wares with much shouting. The monk, whose eye was always on the watch, soon noticed in the middle of the crowd a little man with a red beard and piercing eyes who caused him some uneasiness. Farel, approaching slowly, took his place quietly before the stall and said to the quack, just as an ordinary purchaser would have done, but with concentrated anger: 'Have you indulgences for a person who has killed his father and mother?' Without waiting for an answer, and wishing to undeceive the superstitious crowd, he boldly stept on the basin of the public fountain, and began to preach as if he were in the pulpit. The astonished market-people left the monk and gathered round the new orator, whose sonorous voice entreated the multitude to ask pardon of the Saviour instead of buying indulgences from the monk. As the priests and the devout were exceedingly irritated at both preaching and preacher, Farel could not remain at Orbe; but a few drops of living water had gushed forth, and some souls had had their thirst quenched by them. A tradesman, Christopher Hollard by name, and one Mark Romain, a schoolmaster, were converted to the gospel at this time.
The whole town was in commotion, and the sisters of St. Claire, as bigoted as those of Geneva, entreated their confessor to preach against heresy. Such a request had great weight and must be attended to, for these sisters were held in great consideration. Philippina of Chalons, Louisa of Savoy, recently canonised at Rome, and Yoland, grand-daughter of St. Louis, had assumed the veil in this convent. The struggle might take place more freely in Orbe than in many other Vaudois towns. The Sires of Chateau-Guyon, who possessed the lordship at the time of the war between Switzerland and Burgundy, having taken the part of Charles the Bold, had been deprived of their possessions by the League, and the suzerainty adjudged in 1476 to the cantons of Berne and Friburg. The municipal magistrates, chosen from the principal burgesses or nobles of the city, were good catholics; but the superior authority belonged to a bailiff, living at Echallens, and who was by turns a Friburger or a Bernese. Now Berne was zealous for the Reform. The friar-confessor, full of confidence in himself, smiled at the flattering request the nuns of St. Claire had made him, and having no mistrust of his eloquence, he said to the banneret, the Sire de Pierrefleur: 'I shall create these Lutherans anew in the faith, as they were before.' Noble de Pierrefleur, a fervent catholic but a man of good sense, who knew the firmness of the reformers and saw Berne in the background, did not believe that the new creation, with which the monk flattered himself, was such an easy thing, and answered: 'I am far from your opinion, father, for such people have more obstinacy than knowledge, and great is the folly of those who desire to remonstrate with them.'[381]
=FRIAR MICHAEL'S SERMON.=
Michael Juliani (for that was the friar's name) was not to be stopped by this opinion, and he gave notice of his sermons against the Reform, which were talked about all over the city. The bells rang; priests, monks, and devotees filled the church, and even those suspected of Lutheranism attended. The orator was filled with joy at the sight of the unusual crowd, and his head was turned. Had not his patron saint, the archangel Michael, armed with a golden spear, trampled Satan under his feet; and should he not gain a similar victory? Losing all moderation, he began to extol in the most pompous terms Rome, the priesthood, and celibacy, and to attack the reformers with violence and abuse. Five or six Lutherans were noticed in the church, pen in hand, writing down all the father said on a piece of paper which they held on their knees. When the sermon was over, the offended bailiff of Diesbach, the grand banneret and other notables, displeased with the presumptuous discourse, accosted the friar and begged him to desist from abusive language and to preach simply the doctrines of the Church. But in the eyes of certain devout folks, the greater Michael's abuse, the greater his eloquence.
The confessor, delighted at his success, and thinking, as they did in many convents, that knowledge is a sign of the children of the devil (Farel had studied at the university of Paris), and ignorance that of the children of God, went into the pulpit again on the 25th March, and took for his text: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 'Sirs,' he exclaimed, 'the poor in spirit here referred to are the priests and friars. They have not much learning, I confess, but they have what is better; they are mediators between man and God, worshippers of the Virgin Mary, who is the treasure-house of all graces, and friends of the saints who cure all diseases.... What then can those want who listen to them? But who are the people who say they are justified by faith? who are they who throw down the crosses on our roads and in our chapels?... Enemies of Christ. What are those priests, monks, and nuns who renounce their vows in order to marry?—Unclean, impure, infamous, abominable apostates before men and before God.'[382]
The friar was continuing in this strain, when suddenly a loud noise was heard in the church. The evangelicals present had been excited at the very commencement of the discourse; at first they had restrained themselves, and then whispered to each other; but when the monk began to insult those who thought (as the Bible says) that marriage is honourable to all men, one of them, unable to contain himself, stood up and before the whole assembly repeated twice and with sonorous voice, the words: 'You lie!'... The orator stopped in amazement, and everybody turned towards the quarter whence these words proceeded. They saw a man of middle age standing there greatly agitated. It was Christopher Hollard, who had been converted by Farel's first sermon, and who combined an honest heart with a violent character. His brother, John Hollard, the late dean of Friburg, had embraced the Reformation and married; Christopher, fancying the monk was reflecting on his brother, had hastened to protest, rather coarsely, it must be acknowledged, but with the frankness of an honest heart, which sees the commandment of God blasphemed.
=HOLLARD IMPRISONED.=