Lust and avarice thus characterized these two persons, who, being both devoted to the pope, endeavoured to conceal the disorders of their lives by the blood of the heretics.[765]
One of their first acts was to deliver up the kingdom to the ecclesiastical dominion of the pope. The king, after the battle of Marignan, met Leo X. at Bologna, and there was sealed the famous concordat, in virtue of which these two princes divided the spoils of the Church between them. They annulled the supremacy of councils to give it to the pope; and depriving the churches of their right to fill up the vacant bishoprics and livings, conferred it on the king. After this, Francis I., supporting the pontiff's train, proceeded to the minster-church of Bologna to ratify this negotiation. He was sensible of the injustice of the concordat, and turning to Duprat, whispered in his ear: "It is enough to damn us both."[766] But what was salvation to him? Money and the pope's alliance were what he wanted.
RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT AND UNIVERSITY.
The parliament vigorously resisted the concordat. The king made its deputies wait several weeks at Amboise, and then calling them before him one day, as he rose from table, he said: "There is a king in France, and I will not have a Venetian senate formed in my dominions." He then commanded them to depart before sunset. Evangelical liberty had nothing to hope from such a prince. Three days after, the high-chamberlain La Tremouille appeared in parliament, and ordered the concordat to be registered.
Upon this the university put itself in motion. On the 18th of March 1518, a solemn procession, at which all the students and the bachelors with their hoods were present, repaired to the church of Saint Catherine of the Scholars, to implore God to preserve the liberties of the Church and of the kingdom.[767] "The colleges were closed, strong bodies of the students went armed through the city, threatening and sometimes maltreating the exalted personages who were publishing and carrying out the said concordat by the king's orders."[768] The university eventually tolerated the execution of this edict; but without revoking the resolutions on which it had declared its opposition; and from that time, says the Venetian ambassador Correro, "the king began to give away the bishoprics with a liberal hand at the solicitation of the court ladies, and to bestow abbeys on his soldiers; so that at the court of France a trade was carried on in bishoprics and abbeys, as at Venice in pepper and cinnamon."[769]
THE SORBONNE—BEDA.
While Louisa and Duprat were preparing to destroy the Gospel by the destruction of the liberties of the Gallican Church, a fanatical and powerful party was forming against the Bible. Christian truth has always had to encounter two powerful adversaries, the depravity of the world and the fanaticism of the priests. The scholastic Sorbonne and a profligate court were now to march forward hand in hand against the confessors of Jesus Christ. In the early days of the Church, the unbelieving Sadducees and the hypocritical Pharisees were the fiercest enemies of Christianity; and so they have remained through every age. Erelong from the darkness of the schools emerged the most pitiless adversaries of the Gospel. At their head was Noel Bédier, commonly called Beda, a native of Picardy and syndic of the Sorbonne, reputed to be the greatest brawler and most factious spirit of his day. Educated in the dry maxims of scholasticism, matured in the theses and antitheses of the Sorbonne, having a greater veneration for the distinctions of the school than for the Word of God, he was transported with anger against those whose daring mouths ventured to put forth other doctrines. Of a restless disposition, unable to enjoy any repose, always requiring new pursuits, he was a torment to all around him; confusion was his native element; he seemed born for contention; and when he had no adversaries he fell foul of his friends. This impetuous quack filled the university with stupid and violent declamations against literature, against the innovations of the age, and against all those who were not, in his opinion, sufficiently earnest in repressing them. Many smiled as they listened to him, but others gave credit to the invectives of the blustering orator, and the violence of his character secured him a tyrannical sway in the Sorbonne. He must always have some new enemy to fight, some victim to drag to the scaffold; and accordingly he had created heretics before any existed, and had called for the burning of Merlin, vicar-general of Paris, for having endeavoured to justify Origen. But when he saw the new doctors appear, he bounded like a wild beast that suddenly perceives an easy prey within its reach. "There are three thousand monks in one Beda," said the cautious Erasmus.[770]
These excesses, however, were prejudicial to his cause. "What!" said the wisest men of the age, "does the Roman Church rest on the shoulders of such an Atlas as this?[771] Whence comes all this disturbance, except from the absurdities of Beda himself?"
LOUIS DE BERQUIN.
In effect, the very invectives that frightened weak minds, disgusted more generous spirits. At the court of Francis I. was a gentleman of Artois, named Louis de Berquin, then about thirty years of age, and who was never married. The purity of his life,[772] his profound knowledge, which procured him the title of "the most learned of the nobles,"[773] the openness of his disposition, his tender care for the poor, and his unbounded attachment to his friends, distinguished him above his equals.[774] There was not a more devout observer of the ceremonies of the Church, fasts, festivals, and masses;[775] and he held in the greatest horror all that was denominated heretical. It was a matter of astonishment to witness so much devotion at the court.