Such were the circumstances under which Calvin came to reside in Paris at the house of his friend La Forge, at the sign of the Pelican, in the Rue St. Martin. The pious tradesman and his wife received him with the most cordial hospitality, and fearing lest he should again expose a life so precious to the Church, they conjured him not to trust too much to what was said about the king's disposition, and to beware of teaching in public, if he would not risk his life.[144] The flame of persecution which appeared extinct, might break out again at any moment.
=MARTYRDOM OF POINTET.=
One martyrdom, of which he was told all the particulars, was well calculated to enforce these rules of prudence. Calvin did not find in Paris that strong and decided christian, Pointet the surgeon, whom he had often seen at the meetings.[145] The monks, whom this bold man had reprimanded so soundly for their immoralities, had raised a clamour against him; Leclerc, the priest of St. André-des-Arts, had prosecuted him; he had been imprisoned in the Conciergerie and condemned to be burnt after being strangled. This was paying very dearly for the lessons of morality he had given the friars. Before the hour of execution, the gaoler had taken him into the prison chapel, and left him there with a monk before an image. The confessor began to exhort him: 'Kneel down before that image and ask pardon for your sins.' Seeing that his penitent remained motionless, he seized him by the neck to force him upon his knees. But Pointet, who was naturally of a 'violent temper,' thrust the monk back roughly, saying: 'Satan, begone, and do not tempt me to turn idolater.' The confused and exasperated confessor ran hastily out of the chapel, and going to the criminal chamber told the president and his two assessors what had passed, and begged them to come and bring the man to reason. 'He is a madman, he is out of his senses,' exclaimed the magistrates, as they accompanied the confessor. These three individuals, who had just condemned Pointet to be strangled, having repeated the invitation which the monk had given him, the prisoner, who was annoyed by this persecution, treated them as he had treated the monk; he called them 'bloodthirsty wretches, murderers, robbers, who unjustly and against all reason put to death the children of God!' The three judges, excited and terrified in their turn, hurried back to the court, and there, heated by passion, they increased the severity of the sentence, adding that Pointet should have his tongue cut out before anything else was done to him. Had not that tongue called them murderers? It was hoped that he would now show himself more tractable, but they were mistaken. The steadfast christian could not speak, but he refused to make the least sign of recantation, and to bend his head before an image. The enemies of truth (as the chronicle styles them) seeing this, had recourse to a fresh aggravation of the sentence: they condemned him to be burnt alive, 'which was done as cruelly as they could devise.' This death produced a deep impression on the minds of the evangelical christians of Paris.[146]
Calvin, yielding to the representations of his friends, resolved to substitute 'private admonitions' for preaching at the assemblies, and began by visiting the humble christians whom he had heard spoken of at La Forge's.
=THE PARALYTIC.=
In the street which lay between the two gates of the law courts, there was a shoemaker's shop. On entering it, no one was seen but a poor hunchback, crippled in all his limbs, except the tongue and the arms. This paralytic creature was the shoemaker's son, and by name Bartholomew. 'Alas!' said his father, Robert Milon, to those who expressed their compassion at the sight, 'he was not always so; he was quite another person in his youth, endowed with excellent gifts both of body and mind.'[147] In fact, Bartholomew was once the handsomest man of the parish, very clever, and full of liveliness and imagination. He had abused these gifts; he had followed his impassioned disposition, and had launched into life, indulging in all the lusts of youth, in foolish amours and other kinds of irregularities with which young folks willingly defile themselves. Continually carried away by his impetuous temper, he equally courted pleasures and quarrels, he rushed into the midst of the strife as soon as any discussion arose, and displayed unparalleled temerity in all his disputes. He got up balls and concerts, despised the things of God, turned the priests into ridicule, and laughed at pious men. Everybody in the quarter talked about Berthelot (as he was called) and of his exploits; some with admiration, others with fear. All the young men looked up to him as their leader.
=MILON'S CONVERSION.=
One day, while giddily indulging in his ordinary diversions, he met with a fall and broke his ribs. As he would not apply any remedy, the mischief grew worse; the various parts of his body 'died little by little,' and he was entirely paralysed. What a change in his life! Poor Bartholomew, who had been so proud of his beauty, now weak, brokendown, deprived of the use of his limbs, unable any more to associate with his friends, was obliged to keep in his father's shop all day long. He was deeply distressed, not only by the severe pains he suffered, but more by the sight of his deformity. Sitting near the window, he had no other amusement than to watch the passers-by, and his temper being still the same, or rather soured by his misfortunes, he was not sparing of his sarcasms. One day, seeing one of the evangelicals passing before the shop, he began to insult him, and 'to scoff at the terrible majesty of God.'—'Holloa! Lutheran!' he called out, adding all sorts of taunts. The christian stopped; he was touched when he saw the pitiful condition of the wretched individual who insulted him, and going up to him, said affectionately: 'Poor man, why do you mock at the passers-by? Do you not see that God has bent your body in this way in order to straighten your soul?'[148] These simple words struck Milon: he had never thought that his soul was bent as well as his body. 'Can it be true,' he asked, 'that God has made these misfortunes fall upon me, in order to reform his misguided creature?' He lent an ear to the Lutheran, who spoke with him, and gave him a New Testament, saying: 'Look at this book, and a few days hence you will tell me what you think of it.' Milon took the Gospel, opened it, and having begun, says the chronicler, 'to taste the fruit of this reading, he continued at it night and day.' This little volume was enough for him: he had no need of any teacher. The sword of the Word of God pierced to the bottom of his heart, and his past life terrified him. But the gospel consoled him: 'It was to him like a loud trumpet sounding the praise of the grace of Christ.' Milon found the Saviour: 'Mercy has been shown me,' he said, 'in order that the love of God which pardons the greatest sinners, should be placed as on a hill, and be seen by all the world.' He had now a curb that restrained him, and prevented him from 'indulging in abuse, quarrels, bickerings, squabbles and contentions.' The wolf had become a lamb. Bartholomew imparted the riches he had found in the book of God to his father, to the other members of his family, and to all the customers who visited the shoemaker's shop. There was not a room in Paris that offered a spectacle at once so interesting and so varied.
Bartholomew's christian charity became as inexhaustible as his worldly skill had once been fertile in inventing amusements. He devoted entirely to God the restless activity which he had lavished on the world. At certain hours of the day, the poor young man, 'unequalled in the art of writing,' would collect the children of the neighbourhood round his bed and dictate to them a few words of the Bible, teaching them how to form their letters properly. At other times he thought of the necessities of the poor, and laboured diligently with his own hands: 'etching with aquafortis on knives, daggers, and sword-blades,' he executed many unusual things for the goldsmiths. He spent the proceeds of his labour in supporting several needy persons who possessed a knowledge of the Gospel. He had also a fine voice, and played on several instruments 'with singular grace;' accordingly, every morning and evening he consecrated to the praise of the Lord those gifts which he had formerly dedicated to pleasure, accompanying himself as he sang psalms and spiritual songs. People came from all quarters to this shop, which was situated in the centre of Paris: some came 'by reason of the excellent and rare things he did;' others 'visited him to hear his singing.' A large number were attracted by the great and sudden change that had taken place in him. 'If God has bestowed these gifts on me,' said the poor paralytic, 'it is to the end that His glory should be magnified in me.' He meekly taught the humble to receive the Gospel, and if any hypocrites presented themselves, 'he took them aside, and launched on them the thunderbolts of God.' 'In short,' adds the chronicler, 'his room was a true school of piety, day and night, re-echoing with the glory of the Lord.'
=DU BOURG AND VALETON.=