Margaret thought that the terrible disaster of Pavia would complete what the first trial had begun; and most earnestly desiring that the Word of God might be with Francis in his prison, she wrote a very touching letter, which deserves to be preserved, to Marshal Montmorency, who had been taken prisoner along with the king. It is very probable that she speaks of herself and Bishop Briçonnet in the graceful allegory which serves as an introduction to her request:—
"Dear cousin, there is a certain very devout hermit who for these three years past has been constantly urging a man whom I know to pray to God for the king, which he has done; and he is assured that if it pleases the king by way of devotion, daily, when in his closet, to read the epistles of St. Paul, he will be delivered to the glory of God; for He promises in His Gospel, that whosoever loveth the truth, the truth shall make him free. And forasmuch as I think he has them not, I send you mine, begging you to entreat him on my part that he will read them, and I firmly believe that the Holy Ghost, which abideth in the letter, will do by him as great things as he has done by those who wrote them; for God is not less powerful or good than He has been, and his promises never deceive. He has humbled you by captivity, but he has not forsaken you, giving you patience and hope in his goodness, which is always accompanied by consolation and a more perfect knowledge of Him, which I am sure is better than the king ever knows, having his mind less at liberty, on account of the imprisonment of the body.
"Your good Cousin, Margaret."
REACTION AGAINST THE REFORM.
In such language did Margaret of Valois, full of anxiety for the salvation of her brother's soul, address the king after the battle of Pavia. It is unfortunate that her letter and the Epistles of St. Paul were not sent direct to Francis; she could not have selected a worse medium than Montmorency.
The letters which the king wrote from the Castle of Pizzighitone, where he was confined, afforded his sister some little consolation. At the beginning of April she wrote to him: "After the sorrow of the Passion this has been a Holy Ghost (i. e. a Pentecost), seeing the grace that our Lord has shown you."[1035] But unhappily the prisoner did not find in the Word of God that truth which maketh free, and which Margaret so earnestly desired he might possess.
All France, princes, parliament, and people, was overwhelmed with consternation. Erelong, as in the first three ages of the Church, the calamity that had befallen the country was imputed to the Christians; and fanatical cries were heard on every side calling for blood, as a means of averting still greater disasters. The moment, therefore, was favourable; it was not enough to have dislodged the evangelical Christians from the three strong positions they had taken; it was necessary to take advantage of the general panic, to strike while the iron was hot, and sweep the whole kingdom clear of that opposition which had become so formidable to the papacy.
ACCUSATIONS AND MENACES.
At the head of this conspiracy and of these clamours were Beda, Duchesne, and Lecouturier. These irreconcilable enemies of the Gospel flattered themselves they might easily obtain from public terror the victims that had been hitherto refused them. They instantly employed every device; conversations, fanatical harangues, lamentations, threats, defamatory writings, to excite the anger of the nation, and particularly of their governors. They vomited fire and flame against their adversaries, and covered them with the most scurrilous abuse.[1036] All means were good in their eyes; they picked out a few words here and there, neglecting the context that might explain the passage quoted; substituted expressions of their own for those of the doctors they criminated, and omitted or added, according as it was necessary to blacken their adversaries' characters.[1037] We have this on the testimony of Erasmus himself.
Nothing excited their wrath so much as the fundamental doctrine of Christianity and of the Reformation,—salvation by grace. "When I see these three men," said Beda, "Lefevre, Erasmus, and Luther, in other respects endowed with so penetrating a genius, uniting and conspiring against meritorious works, and resting all the weight of salvation on faith alone,[1038] I am no longer astonished that thousands of men, seduced by these doctrines, have learned to say: 'Why should I fast and mortify my body?' Let us banish from France this hateful doctrine of grace. This neglect of good works is a fatal delusion from the devil."
JURISPRUDENCE AND THE GOSPEL.