[485] The name of the Princess of Navarre has already appeared several times in this collection, pp. 36, 207, 342. Th. de Bèze does not hesitate to place her among the most illustrious witnesses for the truth in the sixteenth century. Endowed with the noblest and most brilliant qualities both of the head and heart, which rendered her the idol of her brother Francis I., and an object of admiration to all her contemporaries, she was long a steady friend of the Reformation, whose early representatives she protected in the persons of Lefevre d'Etaples, Bishop Briçonnet, and Gérard Roussel, and whose ministry she encouraged in the kingdom of Navarre. She died in 1549. In the later years of her life her piety gradually degenerated into a kind of contemplative mysticism, whose chief characteristic was indifference towards outward forms, uniting the external ordinances of the Romish Church with the inward cherishing of a purer faith. We find numerous proofs of this in her poems, published during her life, as well as in her letters, published for the first time in Paris by M. Genin, under the following title:—Lettres de Marguerite d'Angoulême; 8vo, 1841.—Nouvelles Lettres de la Reine de Navarre; 8vo, 1842.
Calvin corresponded at different times with this Princess, whose character and talents he admired, while, with holy boldness, he censured her infirmities. Unfortunately only one of these letters has been preserved, and is here presented to the reader as a testimony of the faithful courage of the Reformer.—Bèze, Hist. Eccl., tom. i. p. 49.
[486] This was the treatise, Contre la Secte Fantastique et Furieuse des Libertins qui se disent Spirituels. 1544, in 8vo. This sect spread more particularly in the Netherlands, denied the authority of the written word, and, by a false spiritualism, overturned the foundations of all Christian truth. Two of the principal leaders, Quintin and Pocquet, were attached to the household of the Queen of Navarre.
[487] Gerard Roussel, preacher to the Queen of Navarre, one of the earliest missionaries of the Reformation at Paris. Appointed Abbot of Clerac and Bishop of Oleron, he continued to preach the new doctrines without breaking with the Roman Catholic Church, and thus he drew upon himself the most severe censure of both Farel and Calvin. This latter addressed a letter to him in 1536, concerning the duty of a Christian man in the administration or the rejection of the benefices of the Papal Church, and urged him in vain to separate from the Romish Church, to which he remained attached until his death in 1550. "His life," says a Roman Catholic writer, "was without reproach; his kennel of dogs and of greyhounds was a great crowd of poor people; his horses and his train a flock of young children instructed in letters. He had much credit among the people, upon whom he stamped by degrees a hatred and contempt for the religion of their fathers."—Florimond de Rémond, Hist. de l' Héresie, lib. vii. pp. 850, 851. See especially the ingenious and learned Biography of Gerard Roussel, by M. Charles Schmidt, Strasbourg, 1845, in 8vo.
[488] Misled by the false reports of the secret agents of the Cardinal du Tournon, and by the calumnious denunciations of the Baron d'Oppède, Francis I. at length was prevailed upon to carry into execution the sentence pronounced by the Parliament of Aix against the Vaudois of Provence, and to give the signal of the dreadfully atrocious massacres of Cabrières and of Merindol.—Hist. des Martyrs, lib. iii.; De Thou, lib. vi. On hearing the sad intelligence, Calvin set out from Geneva in all haste for Berne, to implore at Berne and Zurich the interference of the Reformed cantons, even at the eleventh hour, in favour of these unhappy victims of intolerance and fanaticism.
[489] The Jesuit Maimbourg, in his Histoire du Calvinisme, lib. ii., states the number of these victims as amounting to 3600, and carries the number of the houses pillaged and destroyed as high as 900. According to De Thou, twenty-two bourgs and villages were reduced to ashes. The whole country, which had previously presented the aspect of a cheerful pleasure garden, was reduced to a desert and uncultivated wilderness.
[490] Calvin was already on his return from the journey which he had undertaken in Switzerland, and which he had accomplished with extraordinary despatch. In succession he had visited Berne, Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basle, Strasbourg, everywhere exhorting the magistrates to make energetic intercession in favour of their French brethren, so cruelly persecuted. Last of all, he had gone to the Diet of Arau, and had addressed the same entreaties to the deputies of the Cantons. These latter wrote to the King, Francis I., with much force of language; but their tardy interference had no influence upon the resolution of the monarch, blinded by perfidious counsels, and which were not entirely cleared away until two years afterwards upon a deathbed.—Extract from the Council Registers of Geneva, May 1545; Ruchat, Hist. de la Réf., tom. v. p. 253.
[491] At the approach of the Imperial army, M. de Falais had withdrawn from Cologne to Strasbourg. When there, he received a visit from the Reformer in May 1545, when on a tour to Berne, Zurich, and Basle, which he had undertaken in order to rouse the Protestant cantons in favour of the unhappy victims of Cabrières and Merindol.
[492] Allusion is made to the Emperor Charles V., who was then at Worms, with the intention of presiding at the Diet which was opened in that town in the following year.
[493] David de Busanton, a gentleman of Hainault, and a refugee, then residing at Geneva. He died in July 1545, in the most pious frame of mind, as may be gathered from a letter of Calvin's addressed to Viret. "When your letter was delivered to me our good friend David was just expiring. A short time after he delivered up his soul into the keeping of Christ with a rare and truly admirable composure. You will have an opportunity of reading his will when you come...." July 1545. David de Busanton bequeathed 1000 crowns to the poor of Strasbourg, and as much to those of Geneva, appointing Calvin one of his executors.