"May I be allowed one word? I know now where I am; and I can imagine what motive induced my generous friend, Monsieur de Coligny, to bring me to this house, where are met those whom King Henri calls his heretics, and looks upon as his mortal enemies. But I have certainly more need to be educated in the faith than has Master Ambroise Paré. Like him, I have been a man of action; but, alas! I have done but little thinking, and he would be doing a great service to a new inquirer into all these new ideas, if he would consent to enlighten me as to the reasons or motives which have inclined his noble intellect to the Reformed sect."
"No interested motive at all," replied Ambroise Paré; "for to succeed in my profession it would be for my interest to conform to the belief of the court and the princes. So it is not interested motives, but the force of reason, Monsieur le Vicomte, as you suggest: and if the illustrious persons before whom I am now speaking authorize me so to do, I will try to set forth my reasons in a few words."
"Go on! go on!" cried Coligny, La Renaudie, and Theodore de Bèze at once.
"I will be brief," rejoined Ambroise, "for my time does not belong to me. In the first place, I tried to disentangle the leading idea of the Reform from all theories and formulas. The brushwood once cut away, these are the principles which I laid bare, for which I would most assuredly submit to persecution in every form."
Gabriel was listening with admiration which he made no attempt to conceal, to this disinterested expounder of the truth.
Ambroise Paré continued.
"Religious and political domination, the Church and royalty, have hitherto substituted their regulations and their laws for the will and reasoning of the individual. The priest says to every man, 'Believe this;' and the prince, 'Do thus and so.' Now, matters have gone on in this way so long that men's minds remained as the minds of babes, and had perforce to lean upon this double discipline to make their way through life. But now we feel that we are strong, and hence we are. Nevertheless the prince and the priest, the Church and the king, are unwilling to lay down one jot of the authority which has become a principle of existence with them. It is against this anachronism of iniquity that the Reformed religion protests, in my view. Hereafter let every soul examine carefully its belief, and reason out its submission to this domination; and then I believe we shall see the regeneration to which our efforts are devoted. Am I wrong, gentlemen?"
"No, but you go too far and too fast," said Theodore de Bèze; "in this bold way of mingling politics and moral questions—"
"Ah! it is that very boldness which attracts me," Gabriel interrupted.
"But it is not boldness; it is logic!" rejoined Ambroise Paré. "How can that which is fair and just in the Church not be equally so in the State? How can you disavow as a rule of action that which you admit as a rule of thought?"