Lefevre was the special object of hostility. His commentary on the four Gospels, and particularly the "Epistle to Christian Readers," prefixed to it, had inflamed the anger of Beda and his allies. They denounced this writing to the faculty. "Does he not dare to recommend all the faithful to read the Scriptures?" said the fiery syndic. "Does he not tell therein that whoever loves not Christ's Word is not a Christian;[831] and that the Word of God is sufficient to lead to eternal life?"
But Francis I. looked on this accusation as a mere theological squabble. He appointed a commission; and Lefevre, having justified himself before it, came off from this attack with all the honours of war.
Farel, who had not so many protectors at court, was compelled to leave Meaux. It would appear that he first repaired to Paris;[832] and that, having unsparingly attacked the errors of Rome, he could remain there no longer, and was forced to retire to Dauphiny, whither he was eager to carry the Gospel.
At the time of the dispersion of the Christians at Meaux, another Frenchman, quitting his native country, crossed the threshold of the Augustine convent at Wittemberg, where Luther resided. This was in January 1523.
Farel was not the only man in the south of France whom God had prepared for his work. A little further to the south than Gap, on the banks of the Rhone, in that city of Avignon called by Petrarch "the third Babylon," may still be seen the walls of the "apostolic palace," which the popes and cardinals had long filled with their luxury and debauchery, and which a Roman legate now inhabited, lonely and dejected in the midst of this deserted city, whose narrow filthy streets were seldom trod but by the feet of monks and priests.
FRANCIS LAMBERT—HIS NOVICIATE.
The little court of the legate was, however, sometimes enlivened by a beautiful, amiable, and laughing boy, who gambolled about its halls.[833] This was Francis Lambert, son of the secretary of the apostolic palace, born in 1487, two years before Farel. The child was at first astonished at the irreligion and crimes of these prelates,—"crimes so numerous and so enormous," says he, "that I cannot describe them."[834] He became habituated to them, however, by degrees, and it would appear that he was himself seduced by bad example.[835] Yet God had implanted in his heart a desire for holiness. His father being dead, his mother had the charge of his education, and, according to the custom of the times, intrusted him to the care of the Franciscans. The sanctified air of these monks imposed on Francis, and his timid looks followed them respectfully, as he saw them clad in coarse garments, barefoot, or with rude sandals only, moving to and fro, begging in the city and calling on his mother; and if at any time they chanced to smile upon him, he fancied himself (he tells us) almost in heaven.[836] The monks worked upon this disposition, and Francis, attracted by them, assumed the cowl at the age of fifteen. "It was God's pleasure," said he in after-years, "that I might make known to the world the impurity of these whited sepulchres."
LAMBERT'S APOSTOLIC LABORS.
During the year of his noviciate everything went on smoothly; he was studiously kept in the dark; but no sooner had he pronounced his vows, than the monks showed themselves in all their deformity, and the halo of sanctity that he had discovered around their heads faded away, and he remained incensed, alarmed, and dejected. Francis soon began to feel a secret strength within him, that drove him forcibly towards the Holy Scriptures,[837] and bound him to believe and to teach the Word of God. In 1517, he was nominated apostolical preacher of the convent, and instead of running about like his colleagues after "fat presents and well-stored tables," he employed himself in travelling afoot through the deserted country, and calling those ignorant people to conversion whom the fire and sincerity of his language drew around him in crowds. But when, after spending several months in passing through the Comtat Venaissin and the surrounding districts, he returned exhausted to his convent on a mule that had been given him to carry his weakened frame, and went to seek a brief repose in his poor cell, some of the monks received him with coldness, others with raillery, and a third party with anger; and they hastened to sell the animal, which they all agreed in saying was the only profit of these evangelical journeys.
One day, as brother Francis was preaching in a certain town, with a gravity quite apostolic and the vivacity of a native of the south: "Kindle a fire," exclaimed he, "before this sacred porch, and there consume the spoils of your luxury, your worldly-mindedness, and your debauchery." Immediately the whole assembly was in commotion; some lighted up a fire; others ran into their houses and returned with dice, playing-cards, and obscene pictures; and then, like the Christians of Ephesus at the preaching of St. Paul, cast all into the flames. A great crowd was gathered round the fire, and among them some Franciscans, who perceiving an indecent drawing of a young female, cunningly drew it away, and hid it under one of their frocks, "to add fuel to their own flames," says Lambert. This did not escape the eye of brother Francis; a holy indignation kindled within him, and boldly addressing the monks, he inveighed against their lubricity and theft. Abashed at being discovered, they sunk their heads, gave up the picture, but swore to be revenged.[838]