“For more than an hundred years past, a fondness for introducing new modes of worship into the established Religion, had prevailed; and a sect of Men had risen, who, thinking it meritorious to manifest the compunction they felt for their offences, by outward signs, would put on a sack-cloth, in the same manner it was ordered by the antient Law; and from a strained interpretation they gave of the passage in the Psalmist, ad flagella paratus sum, flagellated themselves in public; whence they were called by the name of Flagellants. John Gerson, the Chancellor of the University of Paris, and the purest Theologian of that age, wrote a Book against them. Yet the holy Pontiffs, considering then that Sect with more indulgence than former ones had done, shewed much countenance to it; so that multitudes of Men, all over Italy, in these days inlist in it, as in a kind of a religious militia, thinking to obtain by that means forgiveness of their sins. Distinguished by different colours, blue, white, and black, in the same manner as the Green and Blue factions, though proposing to themselves different objects, were formerly in Rome, they likewise engrossed the attention of the public, and in several places gave rise to the warmest contentions.
“The introduction which was made of these ceremonies into France, where they had till then been almost unknown, forwarded the designs of certain ambitious persons, the contempt they brought on the person of the King, having weakened much the regal authority. While the King mixed thus with processions of Flagellants, and the most distinguished among his Courtiers followed his example, Charles, Cardinal of Lorrain, who was one of the party, was, by the coldness of the evening, thrown into a violent fever, attended with a most intense pain in his head; and a delirium as well as continual watchfulness having followed, he expired two days before Christmas.”
The Historian we have just quoted says, in another place, that the King was principally induced to perform the above superstitious processions, by the solicitations of his Confessor, Father Edmund Auger, who wrote a Book on that subject, and of John Castelli, the Apostolic Nuntio in France; and that the weak complaisance shewn to him on that occasion, by the Chancellor Birague, and the Keeper of the Seals, Chiverny, encouraged him much to pursue his plan in that respect, notwithstanding the strong advices to the contrary, that were given him by Christopher de Thou, President of the Parliament, and Pierre Brulart, President of the Chambre des Enquêtes.
As there was, in those times, a powerful party in France, that opposed the Court, and even was frequently at open war with it, there was no want of Men, in Paris, who found fault with the disciplining processions of the King. When they first made their appearance, some, as the above Historian relates, laughed at them, while others exclaimed that they were an insult both to God and Man. Even Preachers joined in the party, and pointed their sarcasms from the pulpit against those ceremonies.
The most petulant among these popular Preachers, was one Maurice Poncet, of the Abbey of Melun, who, using expressions borrowed from a Psalm, compared the King and his brother Disciplinants, to Men who would cover themselves with a wet sack-cloth, to keep off the rain: he was at last banished to his Monastery. The example which the Court, and the Metropolis, had set, was followed in a number of Country Towns, where fraternities of Flagellants were instituted; and among them particular mention is made of the Brotherhood of the Blue Penitents, in the City of Bourges, on account of the Sentence passed in the year 1601, by the Parliament of Paris, in consequence of a motion of Nicolas Servin, the King’s Advocate General, which expressly abolished it[115].
FOOTNOTES:
[114] Siluerunt tunc tempore omnia musica instrumenta & amatoriæ cantilenæ. Sola cantio pœnitentis lugubris audiebatur ubique, tam in civitatibus quam in villis, ad cujus flebilem modulationem corda saxea movebantur, & obstinatorum oculi lacrymis non poterant continere.——This Monk of St. Justina, whose account is here translated at length, was certainly no mean Writer: he was quite another Man than the Abbé Boileau.
[115] It has no doubt been perceived, that, in the course of this Work, I have commonly taken care to conclude the different Chapters into which it is divided, with a Note or Commentary of a certain length, upon the same subject with the Chapter itself, though of a less grave and serious turn. This precaution I thought necessary for the relief of the Reader, after the great exertion of his mind, occasioned by the weighty objects that had just been offered to his consideration. Such final Note I considered as a farce, after a serious and moral Drama, and as a kind of petite piece, or if you please, of interlude, calculated to revive the exhausted spirits of the Reader, and enable him to begin a fresh Chapter with alacrity.
On this occasion, however, I find great difficulty in pursuing the same plan. The processions of Disciplinants that have just been described, are such a dismal and gloomy subject, that it suggests no ideas but what are of a serious kind; it precludes all thoughts of mirth and jocularity; and I despair, in this Note, of being able to entertain the Reader so well as I flatter myself I have succeeded in doing in the former ones.