The cause of Olympia's disgrace is not clearly apparent. M. Bonnet, who writes her biography with the sympathy of a co–religionist, attributes[76] it to the evil machinations of one Jerome Bolsec, a name of very ill savour in the annals of Calvinistic Protestantism. The suspicion that Bolsec had a hand in this, as in so much other mischief, would seem to rest on some phrases from a letter of John Sinapi to Calvin, cited by M. Bonnet from the inedited correspondence of that intolerant Geneva pope. But the few words given do not seem at all conclusive on the subject. It may be that the context is more so.
Jerome Hermes Bolsec was at all events a very sorry knave, capable enough of any wickedness of the sort. He had been a Carmelite monk at Paris, and having got into trouble by unorthodox preaching there, fled across the mountains, says Bayle,[77] "to Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara, the common asylum of those who were persecuted for adhering to the new doctrines." The Duchess made him her almoner, as we learn from Sinapi. And Bayle says that he married and practised as a physician at Ferrara, till he was exiled for some unknown cause. He went thence to Geneva, and there had the fatal misfortune to differ from Calvin on some points of doctrine. In one of his pastorals to the Swiss churches, the latter recounts how one day at sermon time "this rogue got up and said ... that men are not saved because they are elect, but are elect because they believe, and that no man is damned by the mere decree of God—nudo Dei placito—but those only who have by their own acts deprived themselves of the election common to all." Whereupon, says Theodore Beza,[78] Calvin "so confuted him, belaboured him, overwhelmed him with testimony from holy writ, passages from St. Augustin, and weighty arguments, that all present, except the brazen–faced monk himself, were ashamed of the figure he cut." Plenty of reason for being ashamed of themselves for all parties concerned doubtless. But Calvin, who was not wont to be contented with mere argumentative belabouring of those who disagreed with him, had him forthwith hauled off to prison, and finally banished from the Canton, as he might have anticipated, when he ventured on the dangerous enterprise of attacking the pet tenet of the Geneva pope's tremendous devil worship.
Bolsec went to Berne, but Calvin's resentment followed him there, and finally harried him out of Switzerland. So he returned to his old faith to spite the reformers, and published lives of Beza and Calvin filled with calumnies so gross that even the controversialists of the Romish Church have admitted their falsehood, and given up Jerome Bolsec as a discredit to either or any party.
JEROME BOLSEC.
It may be admitted then that this "most slippery fellow, Almoner to the Court of Ferrara, by your leave," as Sinapi calls him,—vaferrimus in aulâ Ferrariense, si diis placet, Eleemosynarius,—was capable enough of making mischief, if his ill passions prompted him to do so. But as he was on his Protestant tack when under the protection of the Duchess, it hardly seems probable that he should have practised against Olympia by denouncing her as a heretic to the Catholics. Yet it seems plain[79] that her shortcomings in the matter of orthodoxy were the real cause of her disgrace at court. The Duchess, who, as has been seen, was much attached to her, did not, we are told, attempt to interfere in her favour. And the most probable explanation of this abandonment is to be found in the supposition, that the suspicion and ill–repute under which the Duchess herself laboured in the matter of religion, made the danger of openly defending an heretical delinquent greater than she was willing to meet.
"The Duke," writes M. Bonnet,[80] "urged as he had been for some time past to give proofs of his fidelity to the Apostolic See, watched with a jealous eye the different movements of his court. He believed blindly such calumnies as always find a ready echo in a palace. His wrath, increased by the long suppression of his suspicions, burst forth in violence the more terrible. Olympia was the first victim."
The Duchess was herself by no means in a secure position. When a little after the period in question, one Matthew Ori, a Dominican monk, was sent from Paris to Ferrara, as Grand Inquisitor, Henry II. "who knew well enough which foot Renée was lame of,"[81] especially charged him "to heal her." The monk came and did his best, "gaining some ground, as it seemed by his efforts." For "the Duchess feared her husband, and his terrible method of proceeding against those accused of offences in matters of religion."
The Duke's "method" in spiritual affairs became indeed more and more compendious and energetic, as Rome's fears and exigencies became more urgent.
Paul III. died on the 10th of November, 1549, and was succeeded by the Cardinal del Monte, who took the name of Julius III.; an easy and good–natured, though passionate old gentleman, who loved pleasure, quiet, and luxury,—inscribed over the palace he built, "Honeste voluptarier cunctis fas honestis esto!"—"Let all honest men enjoy themselves decently without scruple!"—and troubled himself as little about the business of life as might be.