=A PRIEST HEADS THE RIOT.=
While these songs of thanksgiving were being sung in the houses of the evangelists, the curé was triumphing in the church. The battle was scarcely terminated by the retreat of the reformed, when, proud of the victory he had won by stones and clubs, he laid down the stake with which he had armed himself, covered his head, arranged his disordered doublet, put on his sacerdotal robes, and entered the church of Boudry with a grave and composed air. Seeing it full, and wishing to profit by the advantage he had gained, he went into the pulpit and exclaimed in his burlesque manner: 'Some strangers have come of their own accord into this country. One comes from Paris, another from Lyons, and a third from I do not know where. This one is called Master Anthony, that one Master Berthoud, another Master William, a fourth Master Froment (i.e. wheat) with barley or oats.... They carry a book in their hands and boast of having the Holy Ghost. But if they had the Holy Ghost, would they want a book? The apostles who were filled with the Holy Ghost understood without book all languages and all mysteries. My brethren, will you believe a stranger before a man of the country whom you know? Do not associate with those devils; they will lead you into hell; but come to confession as all your forefathers have done; open yourselves to me upon the seven deadly sins, the five natural senses, and the ten commandments. Do not be afraid; your consciences will be cleansed of all evil. Put me to death in case I do not prove all I have told you.'[559] The catholics left the church very proud of such a fine discourse.
=REFORM ADVANCES AT NEUCHATEL.=
Some of the friends of the reformed hurried off to Fabri, and reported to him that the priest offered to prove all he had said, particularly that he could absolve from the seven deadly sins and those of the five senses. Without loss of time Fabri appeared before the castellan and councillors of Boudry, and asked for a public disputation, offering to die in case he could not show that all he had preached was true, and that what the priest had said was false. The latter bluntly refused all public discussion; he did not like combats of that kind, and compensated himself in another fashion.
One day, as he sat half undressed at his window watching the birds as they darted through the air, and the people who were walking in the street, he saw Fabri passing in front of his house. In great excitement he called to him and began abusing him: 'Gaol-bird! forger!' he said, stretching his head out of window; 'tell me why you corrupt Holy Scripture?' Fabri, hoping the curé would grant him the discussion he had so much desired, made answer: 'Come down and bring out your Bible; we will take a clerk who can read it to the people, and I will show you that I am no forger.' At these words the alarmed priest exclaimed: 'I have something else to do besides disputing with a gaol-bird like you;' and he retired hastily from the window. Such were the struggles the reformers had to go through in order to transform the church. This transformation was going on, and ere long the whole principality of Neuchatel was won to the Reformation.
In 1532 it penetrated into the mountain regions among the shepherds and hunters of Locle and Chaux de Fonds. Claude d'Arberg, who had so often followed the chase in these mountains, had built an oratory there to St. Hubert, the hunters' patron saint. The saint (says the legend) was once met by a bear, which killed his horse, but Hubert got on the bear's back, and rode him home to the great astonishment of everybody. A more formidable hunter was now about to tame the bears of these parts. Jean de Bély, the evangelist of Fontaine, having gone to Locle at the time of the fair of St. Magdalen, Madame Guillemette de Vergy had him seized instantly and forced him to dispute for two hours in her presence with the curé, Messire Besancenet. 'Put him in prison,' said the countess, who was offended at his doctrines; but whilst the high-born dame was so irritated at what she had heard, the priest, a good-natured man, interceded in the kindest manner in favour of the heretic. The lady released him, and the worthy vicar, taking Bély by the arm, led him graciously to the parsonage, and drank wine with him. Already people said that the mountain bears were beginning to be tamed.
From Locle the Gospel made its way to Chaux de Fonds, and thence to Brenets (1534). The earnest mountaineers had taken the images out of the church, desiring to worship God in spirit and in truth, and were preparing to break them in pieces and throw them into the Doubs, when they saw two fine oxen approaching, driven by some devout inhabitants from a neighbouring village of Franche Comté. 'We offer you these beasts,' said they, 'in exchange for your pictures and statues.'—'Pray take them,' said the people of Brenets. The Franche-Comtois gathered up the idols, the Neuchatelans drove away the oxen, and 'each thought they had made a fine exchange,' says a chronicler.
With the exception of one village, the evangelical faith was established throughout the whole principality of Neuchatel, without the aid of the prince and the lords, and indeed in spite of them. A hand mightier than theirs was breaking the bonds, removing the obstacles, and emancipating souls. The Reformation triumphed: and after God, it was Farel's work.[560]
[534] Froment, Gestes de Genève, p. 10.