In such language did the Syndic of the Sorbonne endeavour to fight against the faith. He was destined to find supporters in a debauched court, and in another part of the nation more respectable, but not less opposed to the Gospel; I mean those grave men, those rigid moralists, who, devoted to the study of laws and forms of jurisprudence, regard Christianity as no more than a system of legislation; the Church, as a moral police; and who, unable to adapt to those principles of jurisprudence which absorb their whole thoughts the doctrines of the spiritual inability of man, of the new birth, and of justification by faith, look upon them as fanciful dreams, dangerous to public morals and the prosperity of the state. This hostile tendency to the doctrine of grace was manifested in the sixteenth century by two very different excesses; in Italy and Poland by the doctrine of Socinus, the descendant of an illustrious family of lawyers at Sienna; and in France by the persecuting decrees and burning piles of the parliament.
The parliament, in fact, despising the great truths of the Gospel which the reformers announced, and thinking themselves called upon to do something in so overwhelming a catastrophe, presented an address to Louisa of Savoy, full of strong remonstrances on the conduct of the government with regard to the new doctrine. "Heresy," said they, "has raised its head among us, and the king, by neglecting to bring the heretics to the scaffold, has drawn down the wrath of heaven upon the nation."
At the same time the pulpits resounded with lamentations, threats, and maledictions; prompt and exemplary punishments were loudly called for. Martial Mazurier was particularly distinguished among the preachers of Paris; and endeavouring by his violence to efface the recollection of his former connexion with the partisans of the Reformation, he declaimed against the "secret disciples of Luther." "Do you know the rapid operation of this poison?" exclaimed he. "Do you know its potency? Well may we tremble for France; as it works with inconceivable activity, and in a short time may destroy thousands of souls."[1039]
LOUISA CONSULTS THE SORBONNE AND THE POPE.
It was not difficult to excite the regent against the partisans of the Reformation. Her daughter Margaret, the first personage of the court, Louisa of Savoy herself, who had always been so devoted to the Roman pontiff, were pointed at by certain fanatics as countenancing Lefevre, Berquin, and the other innovators. Had she not read their tracts and their translations of the Bible? The queen-mother desired to clear herself of such outrageous suspicions. Already she had despatched her confessor to the Sorbonne to consult that body on the means of extirpating this heresy. "The damnable doctrine of Luther," said she to the faculty, "is every day gaining new adherents." The faculty smiled on the receipt of this message. Till then, its representations had not been listened to, and now their advice was humbly solicited in the matter. At length they held within their grasp that heresy they had so long desired to stifle. They commissioned Noel Beda to return an immediate answer to the regent. "Seeing that the sermons, the discussions, the books with which we have so often opposed heresy, have failed in destroying it," said the fanatical syndic, "all the writings of the heretics should be prohibited by a royal proclamation; and if this means does not suffice, we must employ force and constraint against the persons of these false doctors; for those who resist the light must be subdued by torture and by terror."[1040]
COMMISSION AGAINST THE HERETICS.
But Louisa had not waited for this reply. Francis had scarcely fallen into the hands of the emperor before she wrote to the pope to know his pleasure concerning the heretics. It was of great importance to Louisa's policy to secure the favour of a pontiff who could raise all Italy against the victor of Pavia, and she was ready to conciliate him at the cost of a little French blood. The pope, delighted that he could wreak his vengeance in the "most Christian kingdom" against a heresy that he could not destroy either in Switzerland or Germany, gave immediate orders for the introduction of the Inquisition into France, and addressed a brief to the parliament. At the same time Duprat, whom the pontiff had created cardinal, and on whom he had conferred the archbishopric of Sens, and a rich abbey, laboured to respond to the favours of the court of Rome by the display of indefatigable animosity against the heretics. Thus the pope, the regent, the doctors of the Sorbonne, the parliament, and the chancellor, with the most ignorant and fanatical part of the nation, were conspiring together to ruin the Gospel and put its confessors to death.
The parliament took the lead. Nothing less than the first body in the kingdom was required to begin the campaign against this doctrine, and moreover, was it not their peculiar business, since the public safety was at stake? Accordingly the parliament, "influenced by a holy zeal and fervour against these novelties,[1041] issued a decree to the effect that the Bishop of Paris and the other prelates should be bound to commission Messieurs Philip Pot, president of requests, and Andrew Verjus, councillor, and Messieurs William Duchesne and Nicholas Leclerc, doctors of divinity, to institute and conduct the trial of those who should be tainted with the Lutheran doctrine.
"And that it might appear that these commissioners were acting rather under the authority of the Church than of the parliament, it has pleased his holiness to send his brief of the 20th of May 1525, approving of the appointment of the said commissioners.
"In consequence of which, all those who were declared Lutherans by the bishop or ecclesiastical judges to these deputies, were delivered over to the secular arm, that is to say, to the aforesaid parliament, which thereupon condemned them to be burnt alive."[1042]