J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8)

The day when the royal agents arrived at Orleans was a day of sorrow to one part of the inhabitants of that city, but of joy to the greater number. People looked with astonishment on these gentlemen from Paris, who would be stronger than the monks, and would punish them for their long tyranny. A crowd followed them to the convent, and when they had entered, waited until they came out again. Oh! how every one of them would have liked to see what was going on within those gloomy walls! The officers of the parliament spoke to the monks with authority, exhibited their powers, and arrested the principal culprits, to the great consternation of all the other monks. Some wretched carts stood at the gate of the monastery; the archers brought out the insolent friars; and the crowd, to its unutterable amazement, saw them mount like vulgar criminals into these poor vehicles, which the maréchaussée was preparing to escort. What inexpressible disgrace for the disciples of St. Francis!

=THE MONKS TAKEN TO PARIS.=

The news of the arrest had spread to all the sacristies, parsonages, and convents of the city, and a cry of persecution arose everywhere. At the moment of departure, a bigoted and excited crowd collected round the carts in which sat the reverend fathers, quite out of countenance at their misfortune. These people, some of whom no doubt were fanatics, but amongst whom were many who felt a sincere affection for the monks, wept bitterly; they uttered loud lamentations, and put money into the friars' hands, 'as much to make good cheer with,' says Calvin, 'as to help in their defence.' 652But in the midst of this dejected crowd might be observed some citizens and jeering students, who exclaimed: 'Fine champions, indeed, to oppose the Gospel!' Certain sayings of Luther had crossed the Rhine, and were circulating among the youths of the schools: 'Who made the monks?' asked one. 'The devil,' answered another. 'God having created the priests, the devil (as is always the case) wished to imitate him, but in his bungling he made the crown of the head too large, and instead of a priest he turned out a monk.' 653Such was the exodus of the reverend fathers: they arrived in Paris, and there they were separated and confined in different places, in order that they might not confer with one another.

The deception was manifest, but it was impossible to obtain a confession. The monks had sworn to keep profound silence, in order to preserve the honour of their order and of religion, and also to save themselves. They called to mind what had happened in the Dominican convent at Berne in 1500: how a soul had appeared there in order to be delivered from purgatory; how the five wounds of St. Francis had been marked on a poor novice; and how, at the request of the papal legate, four of the guilty monks had been burnt alive. 654Might not the same punishment be inflicted on a monk of Orleans? They trembled at the very thought. In vain, therefore, did the councillors of parliament begin their inquiry; in vain did they go from one house to another, and enter the rooms where these reverend fathers were confined: the monks were sullen, unfathomable, and more silent than the ghost itself.

The judges determined to try what they could with the novice who had acted the part of the ghost; but if the monks were silent, sullen, and immovable, the novice was agitated and frightened out of his senses. The friars had uttered the most terrible threats; and hence, when he was interrogated, 'he held firm,' says the Geneva manuscript, 'fearing, if he spoke, that the cordeliers would kill him.' The judges then reminded him of the power of the parliament and the protection of the king. 'You shall never return into the hands of the monks,' they told him. At these words the poor young fellow began to breathe; he recovered from his great fright; his tongue was loosened, and he 'explained the whole affair to the judges,' says Beza. 'I made a hole in the roof,' he said, 'to which I applied my ear, to hear what the provincial said to me from below. Then I struck a plank which I held in my hand, and I hit it hard enough for the noise to be heard by the reverend fathers underneath. That was all the fun ,' he added.

=THEIR CONDEMNATION.=

The friars were then confronted with the novice, who stoutly maintained the cheat got up by them. They were both indignant and alarmed at seeing this pitiful varlet turning against their reverences; but as it was now impossible to deny the fact, they began to protest against their judges, and to plead their privileges once more. They were condemned; the indignation was general, the king especially being greatly irritated. All his life long he looked upon the monks, black or white, as his personal enemies. Besides, the hatred he felt against that lazy and ignorant herd was, he thought, one of his attributes as the Father of Letters. His anger broke out in the midst of his court: 'I will pull down their convent!' he exclaimed, 'and build in its place a palace for the duke!' (that is, for the Duke of Orleans, Catherine's husband). All the councillors of parliament, both lay and clerical, were assembled. The haughty Coliman, the eloquent brother Stephen, and their accomplices were forced to stand at the bar, and sentence was solemnly delivered. They were to be taken to the Chatelet prison at Orleans; there they would be stripped of their frocks, be led into the cathedral, and then, set on a platform with tapers in their hands, they were to confess 'that, with certain fraud and deliberate malice, they had plotted such wickedness.' Thence they were to be taken to their convent, and afterwards to the place of public execution, where they would again confess their crime.

This promised the idlers of Orleans a still more extraordinary spectacle than that given them when the friars got into their carts. Every day they expected to see the sentence carried out; but the government feared to appear too favourable to the Lutherans. The matter was protracted; some of the monks died in prison; the others were suffered to escape; and thus ended an affair which characterises the epoch, and shows the weapons that a good many priests used against the Reformation. If the sentence was never executed, the moral influence of the story was immense, and we shall presently see some of its effects.

649Calvin's manuscript narrative, recently discovered in the Geneva library by Dr. J. Bonnet, has been printed in the Bulletin de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français , iii. p. 33.

650This affair is mentioned by Sleidan and Theodore Beza, both of whom appear to have seen Calvin's narrative.

651Calvin, Hist. de l'Esprit des Cordeliers d'Orléans . Geneva MS. ( Bulletin de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français , iii.) Beza, Hist. Eccles. p. 11. Sleidan, i. p. 361.

652Calvin's MS. Bulletin de l'Hist. du Prot. Fran. iii. p. 36.

653Lutheri Opp. xxii. p. 1463.

654 History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century , vol. ii. bk. viii. ch. ii.

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=FRANCIS CONFESSES HIS ERRORS.=

THE disgust inspired by the imposture of the cordeliers of Orleans, and the jests lavished upon the monks in the Louvre and throughout Paris, were further encouragements to the king to prosecute his alliances with protestantism. He had, however, little need of a fresh incentive; the reform proposed by Melanchthon was in his view acceptable and advantageous, because it diminished the power of the pope, and corrected abuses incompatible with the new light, at the same time that it left untouched that catholicism from which the king had no desire to secede. In his private conversations with Du Bellay, Francis, laying aside all reserve, acknowledged frankly that the Romish Church was upon the wrong track, and said in a confidential tone, that 'Luther was not so far wrong as people said.' He did not fear to add that it was himself rather who had been mistaken. The King of France, and the country along with him, thus appeared to be in a good way for reform.