Finally, there were, particularly in Germany, a few evangelical Christians who consented to accept the episcopalian form, and even the primacy of a bishop, in the hope of obtaining the transformation of the doctrine and manners of the universal Church. Melancthon at Wittemberg, Bucer at Strasburg, and Professor Sturm at Paris, were the most eminent men of this school. Melancthon went farther than his colleagues. He believed that the great revolution then going on was salutary and even necessary; but he would have liked to see it limited and directed. Former ages had elaborated certain results which ought, in his opinion, to be handed down to ages to come; and he imagined that if the pope could be induced to receive the Gospel, that despot of old times might still be useful to the Church. Another and a still more urgent interest animated these pious men: it was necessary to rescue the victims of fanaticism, to extinguish the burning piles. The bloody and solemn executions which had taken place in Paris on the 21st of January, 1535, in presence of the king and court, had excited an indescribable horror everywhere. One might have imagined that those noble-hearted men foresaw the miseries of France, the battle-fields running with blood, and the night of St. Bartholomew with its murders ushered in by the death-knell from the steeple of St. Germain l’Auxerrois; that they saw pass before them those armies of fugitives whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes scattered over the wide world.
One common feature characterized all three classes. Those who composed them were in general of an accommodating disposition, an easy manner, ready to sacrifice some part of what they thought true, in order to attain their end. But there were in Europe, on the side of Rome many inflexible papists, and on the side of the Reformation many determined protestants, who set truth above unity, and were resolved to do everything ‘so that the talent which God had entrusted to them might not be lost through their cowardice, or taken from them on account of their ingratitude.’[[671]]
Effects Of The Placards.
The famous placards posted up in the capital and all over France on that October night of 1534 had carried trouble into the hearts of the peacemakers. They had seen, as they imagined, the torch suddenly applied to the house in which they were quietly laboring to reconcile Rome and the Reformation. ‘Such a seditious act agitates the whole kingdom, and exposes us to the greatest dangers,’[[672]] wrote Sturm from Paris to Melancthon. ‘The authors of those placards are men of a fanatical turn, rebels who circulate pernicious sentiments, and who deserve chastisement,’ wrote Melancthon to the Bishop of Paris. But at the same time the most energetic of the German protestants, revolted by the cruelty of Francis I., refused to join in union with a prince who burnt their brethren. The King of France had formed the plan of a congress, destined to restore peace to Christendom; but an imprudent hand had applied the match to the mine, and the friends of peace were struck with terror and confusion. From that moment there was nothing heard but recriminations, reproaches, and altercations.
Francis I. saw clearly that, if his project was on the brink of failing, the fault was due mainly to his own violence; he therefore undertook to set straight the affairs he had so imprudently damaged. On the 1st February, 1535, he wrote to the evangelical princes of the empire, assuring them that there was no similarity between the German protestants and the French heretics, his victims. The contriver of the strappadoes of the 21st January, assumed a lofty tone, as if he were innocence itself. ‘I am insulted in Germany,’ he said, ‘in every place of assembly, and even at public banquets. It is said that people dressed like Turks can walk freely about the streets of Paris, but that no one dares appear there in German costume. People say that the Germans are looked upon here as heretics, and are arrested, tortured, and put to death. We think it our duty to reply to these calumnies. Just when we were on the point of coming to an understanding with you, certain mad-men endeavored to upset our work. I prefer to bury in darkness the paradoxes they have put forth; I am loth to set them before you, most illustrious princes, and thus display them in the sight of the world.[[673]] I think it sufficient to say that even you would have devoted them to execration. I wished to prevent the pestilence from spreading over France, but not a single German was sent to prison.[[674]] The men of your nation, princes and nobles, continue to be graciously received at my court; and as for the German students, merchants, and artisans who work in my kingdom, I treat them like my other subjects, and, I may say, like my own children.’ The letter produced some little effect, and there was a reaction on the other side of the Rhine. Melancthon resumed his schemes of reunion.
But a new change then occurred: suddenly, and with greater violence than ever, new difficulties arose, which threatened to make shipwreck of the whole business. Francis I. had caused the conciliatory opinions of Melancthon, Hedio, and Bucer to be circulated in Germany.[[675]] Some unwise and by no means upright adherents of catholicism mutilated and abridged those opinions,[[676]] and then proclaimed with an air of triumph that the heretics, with Melancthon at their head, were about to return into the bosom of the Church!... Excessive was the irritation of the evangelical flocks, and loud cries arose from every quarter against the temporizers and their weakness. They called to mind that truth is not a merchandise which can be cheapened; but a chain, of which if but one link be broken, all the rest is useless. ‘Melancthon is of opinion,’ said some, ‘that a single pontiff, residing at Rome, would be very useful to maintain harmony of faith between the different nations of Christendom. Bucer adds that we must not overthrow all that exists in popery, but restore in the protestant churches many of the practices observed by the ancients. The men who speak thus are deserters and turncoats. They betray our cause, they commit a crime.’[[677]] If such protestants as these were heard among the Lutherans, doctors such as Farel and Calvin spoke out still more plainly against all attempts at a union with popery. ‘It is wrong,’ wrote Calvin afterwards to some English friends, ‘to preserve such paltry rubbish, the sad relics of papal superstition, every recollection of which we ought to strive to extirpate.’[[678]] The thought that Francis I. was at the head of these negotiations filled the Swiss theologians in particular with ineffable disgust. ‘What good can be expected of that prince,’ said Bullinger, ‘that impure, profane, ambitious man?[[679]] He is dissembling: Christ and truth are of no account in his projects. His only thought is how to gain possession of Naples and Milan. What does this or that matter, so that he makes himself master of Italy?’ These honest Swiss were not wanting in common sense. Alarmed at the trap that was preparing for Reform, Bullinger, Blaarer, Zwyck, and other reformed divines wrote to Bucer: ‘It is of no use your contriving a reunion with the pope; thousands of protestants would rather forfeit their lives than follow you.’
At the same time the Sorbonne and its followers raised their voices still higher against all assimilation with Lutheran doctrines. The storm swelled on both sides, and burst upon the moderate party. Poor Bucer, driven in different directions, succumbed under the weight of his sorrow. ‘Would to God,’ he exclaimed, ‘that, like the French martyrs, I were delivered from this life to stand before the face of Jesus Christ!’[[680]]
Hope Of Union Lost.
Every hope of union seemed lost. The ship which the politic King of France had launched, and to which the hand of the pious Melancthon had fastened the banners of peace, had been carried upon the breakers; all attempts to get her out to sea again appeared useless; there was neither water enough to float her, nor wind enough to move her. She was about to be abandoned, when a sudden breeze extricated her from the shallows, and launched her once more upon the wide ocean.
Clement VII. having died of chagrin, occasioned by the prospect of a future in which he could see nothing but deception and sorrow,[[681]] the King of France considered himself thenceforward liberated from the promises made to Catherine’s uncle. Ere long the choice of the Sacred College gave him still greater liberty. Alexander Farnese, who, under the title of Paul III., succeeded Clement, was a man of the world; he had studied at Florence in the famous gardens of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and from his youth had lived an irregular life. On one occasion, being imprisoned by his mother’s orders in the castle of St. Angelo, he took advantage of the moment when the attention of his jailers was attracted by the procession of Corpus Christi to escape through a window by means of a rope. Although he had two illegitimate children, a son and a daughter, he was made cardinal, and from that hour kept his eyes steadily fixed upon the triple crown. He obtained it at last, at the age of sixty-seven, and declared that in religious matters he would follow very different principles from those of his predecessors. This man, who had so much need of reformation for himself and his family, was engrossed wholly with reforming the Church. We shall find not only a king of France, but a pope of Rome also, making advances to Melancthon. Leo X. bequeathed schism to Christendom. Paul III. undertook to restore unity, and thus hoped to acquire a greater glory than that of the Medicis. He promised the ambassadors of Charles V. to call a council, and four days after his election declared his intentions in full consistory. ‘I desire a reform,’ he said; ‘before we attempt to change the universal Church, we must first sweep out the court of Rome;’ and he nominated a congregation to draw up a plan of reform. Proud of his skill, he thought that everything would be easy to him, and already triumphed in imagination over the Germans, who were, in his opinion, so boorish, and the Swiss, who were so barbarous. Francis I., satisfied with this disposition of the pope, was not unaware, besides, that he had private means of communicating with him. The first secretary of his Holiness was Ambrosio, an influential man and by no means averse to presents. A person who had need of his services having given him sixty silver basins with as many ewers, ‘How is it,’ said a man one day, ‘that with all these basins to wash in, his hands are never clean?’[[682]]