The rumour of the doings of this new evangelist did not fail to reach the ears of the Sorbonne and of the magistrates of Paris. The hermit was seized, dragged from his hermitage, from his forest, from those fields through which he used to wander daily, thrown into a prison in that great city which he had ever shunned, and condemned "to suffer the exemplary punishment of the slow fire."[1090]
HIS MARTYRDOM.
In order to render the example more striking, it was determined that he should be burnt alive in the front of Notre-Dame, before that splendid cathedral, that majestic symbol of Roman-catholicism. All the clergy were convoked, and as much pomp was displayed as on the most solemn festivals.[1091] They would, if possible, have attracted all Paris round the stake, "the great bell of the church of Notre-Dame (says an historian) tolling solemnly to arouse the citizens."[1092] The people flocked in crowds through all the streets that led into the square. The deep tones of the bell drew the workman from his toil, the scholar from his books, the merchant from his traffic, the soldier from his idleness, and already the wide space was covered by an immense crowd which still kept increasing. The hermit, clad in the garments assigned to obstinate heretics, with head and feet bare, had been led before the gates of the cathedral. Calm, firm, and collected, he made no reply to the exhortations of the confessors who presented him a crucifix, save by declaring that his sole hope was in the pardon of God. The doctors of the Sorbonne, in the front ranks of the spectators, seeing his constancy, and the effect it was producing on the people, cried aloud: "He is damned: they are leading him to hell-fire!"[1093] The great bell still continued tolling, and its loud notes, by stunning the ears of the crowd, increased the solemnity of this mournful spectacle. At length the bell was silent, and the martyr having replied to the last questions of his enemies, that he was resolved to die in the faith of his Lord Jesus Christ, was burnt by a slow fire, according to the tenor of his sentence. And thus, in front of Notre-Dame, amid the shouts and emotion of a whole people, under the shadow of the towers raised by the piety of Louis the younger, peacefully died a man, whose name history has not transmitted to us, except as the "Hermit of Livry."
CHAPTER XV.
A Student of Noyon—Character of young Calvin—Early Education—Consecrated to Theology—The Bishop gives him the Tonsure—He leaves Noyon on Account of the Plague—The two Calvins—Slanders—The Reformation creates new Languages—Persecution and Terror—Toussaint put in Prison—The Persecution more furious—Death of Du Blet, Moulin, and Papillon—God saves the Church—Margaret's Project—Her Departure for Spain.
A SCHOLAR OF NOYON.
While men were thus putting to death the first confessors of Jesus Christ in France, God was preparing mightier ones to fill their places. Beda hurried to the stake an unassuming scholar, an humble hermit, and thought he was dragging almost the whole of the Reform along with them. But Providence has resources that are unknown to the world. The Gospel, like the fabulous phœnix, contains a principle of life within itself, which the flames cannot consume, and it springs up again from its own ashes. It is often at the moment when the storm is at its height, when the thunderbolt seems to have struck down the truth, and when thick darkness hides it from our view, that a sudden glimmering appears, the forerunner of a great deliverance. At this time, when all human powers in France were arming against the Gospel for the complete destruction of the Reformation, God was preparing an instrument, weak to all appearance, one day to support His rights and to defend His cause with more than mortal intrepidity. In the midst of the persecutions and blazing piles that followed each other in close succession after Francis became Charles's prisoner, let us fix our eyes on a youth, one day to be called to the head of a great army in the holy warfare of Israel.
CHARACTER OF YOUNG CALVIN.
Among the inhabitants of the city and colleges of Paris who heard the sound of the great bell was a young scholar of sixteen, a native of Noyon in Picardy, of middle stature, sallow features, and whose piercing eye and animated looks announced a mind of no common sagacity.[1094] His dress, extremely neat but of perfect simplicity, betokened order and moderation.[1095] This young man, by name John Cauvin or Calvin, was then studying at the college of La Marche, under Mathurin Cordier, a rector celebrated for his probity, erudition, and peculiar fitness for the instruction of youth. Brought up in all the superstitions of popery, the scholar of Noyon was blindly submissive to the Church, cheerfully complying with all her observances,[1096] and persuaded that the heretics had richly deserved their fate. The blood which was then flowing in Paris aggravated the crime of heresy in his eyes. But although naturally of a timid and fearful disposition, and which he himself has styled soft and pusillanimous,[1097] he possessed that uprightness and generosity of heart which lead a man to sacrifice everything to his convictions. Accordingly, in vain had his youth been appalled by those frightful spectacles, in vain had murderous flames consumed the faithful disciples of the Gospel on the Grève and in front of Notre-Dame; the recollection of these horrors could not prevent him from one day entering on the new path, which seemed to lead only to the prison or the stake. Moreover, there were already perceptible in the character of young Calvin certain traits that announced what he would become. Strictness of morals in him led the way to strictness of doctrine, and the scholar of sixteen already gave promise of a man who would deal seriously with every principle he embraced, and who would firmly require in others what he himself found it so easy to perform. Quiet and serious during his lessons, never sharing in the amusements or follies of his schoolfellows during the hours of recreation, holding himself aloof,[1098] and filled with horror at sin, he would often reprimand their disorders with severity and even bitterness.[1099] And hence, as a canon of Noyon informs us, his fellow-students nicknamed him the accusative case.[1100] Among them he was the representative of conscience and of duty, so far was he from being as some of his calumniators have depicted him. The pale features and the piercing eyes of the scholar of sixteen had already inspired his comrades with more respect than the black gowns of their masters; and this Picard youth, of a timid air, who daily took his seat on the benches in the college of La Marche, was even then, by the seriousness of his conversation and life, an unconscious minister and reformer.