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

This man and this woman, so opposite as regards their condition in the world, resemble each other in their principal features. They both possess faith in the great truths of the Gospel; they love Jesus Christ; they have the same zeal for spreading with unwearied activity the truths so dear to them; they have the same compassion for the miserable, and especially for the victims of religious persecution. But while the man sometimes presumes upon his manly strength, the woman truly belongs to the weaker sex. She possesses indeed a moral virtue which resists the seductions of the age; she keeps herself pure in the midst of a depraved court; but she has also that weakness which disposes one to be too indulgent, and permits herself to be led away by certain peculiarities of contemporary society. We see her writing tales whose origin may be explained and even justified, since their object was to unveil the immorality of priests and monks, but they are nevertheless a lamentable tribute paid to the spirit of her age. While Calvin sets up against the papacy a forehead harder than adamant , Margaret, even in the days of her greatest zeal, is careful not to break with Rome. At last she yields, outwardly at least, to the sovereign commands of her brother, the persevering hostility of the court, clergy, and parliament, and though cherishing in her heart faith in the Saviour who has redeemed her, conceals that faith under the cloak of Romish devotion; while Calvin propagates the Gospel, in opposition to the powers of the world, saying: ‘Such as the warfare is, such are the arms. If our warfare is spiritual, we ought to be furnished with spiritual armour.’ 418Margaret doubtless says the same thing; but she is the king’s sister, summoned to his council, accustomed to diplomacy, respected by foreign princes; she hopes that a union with the evangelical rulers of Germany may hasten on the Reformation of France. Finally, while Calvin desires truth in the Church above all things, Margaret clings to the preservation of its unity , and thus becomes the noble representative of a system still lauded by some protestants— to reform the Church without breaking it up : a specious system, impossible to be realised. And yet this illustrious lady, in spite of her errors, plays a great part in the history of the Reformation: she was respected by the most pious reformers. An impartial historian should brave hostile prejudices, and assign her the place which is her due.

Let us enter upon the French Reformation at the moment when, after great but isolated preparations, it is beginning to occupy a place in the affairs of the nation. 419

The defeat at Pavia had plunged France into mourning. There was not a house where they did not weep for a son, a husband, or a father; and the whole kingdom was plunged in sorrow at seeing its king a prisoner. The recoil of this great disaster had not long to be waited for. ‘The gods chastise us: let us fall upon the christians,’ said the Romans of the first centuries; the persecuting spirit of Rome woke up in France. ‘It is our tenderness towards the Lutherans that has drawn upon us the vengeance of heaven,’ said the zealous catholics, who conceived the idea of appeasing heaven by hecatombs.

The great news of Pavia which saddened all France was received in Spain with transports of joy. At the time when the battle was fought, the young emperor was in Castile, anxiously expecting news from Italy. On the 10th of March, 1525, he was discussing, in one of the halls of the palace at Madrid, the advantages of Francis I. and the critical situation of the imperial army. 420‘We shall conquer,’ Pescara had written to him, ‘or else we shall die.’ At this moment a courier from Lombardy appeared at the gate of the palace: he was introduced immediately. ‘Sire,’ said he, bending the knee before the emperor in the midst of his court, ‘the French army is annihilated, and the King of France in your Majesty’s hands.’ Charles, startled by the unexpected news, stood pale and motionless; it seemed as if the blood had stagnated in his veins. For some moments he did not utter a word, and all around him, affected like himself, looked at him in silence. At last the ambitious prince said slowly, as if speaking to himself: ‘The king of France is my prisoner.... I have won the battle.’ Then, without a word to any one, he entered his bed-room and fell on his knees before an image of the Virgin, to whom he gave thanks for the victory. He meditated before this image on the great exploits to which he now thought himself called. To become the master of Europe, to reestablish everywhere the tottering catholicism, to take Constantinople, and even to recover Jerusalem—such was the task which Charles prayed the Virgin to put him in a condition to carry through. If these ambitious projects had been realised, the revival of learning would have been compromised, the Reformation ruined, the new ideas rooted out, and the whole world would have bowed helplessly beneath two swords—that of the emperor first, and then that of the pope. At length Charles rose from his knees; he read the humble letters of the King of France, gave orders for processions to be made, and attended mass next day with every mark of the greatest devotion. 421

All christendom thought as this potentate did: a shudder ran through Europe, and every man said to himself as he bent his head: ‘Behold the master whom the fates assign us!’ At Naples a devout voice was heard to exclaim: ‘Thou hast laid the world at his feet!’

It has been said that if in our day a king should be made prisoner, the heir to the throne or a regent would succeed to all his rights; but in the sixteenth century, omnipotence dwelt in the monarch’s person, and from the depths of his dungeon he could bind his country by the most disastrous treaties. 422Charles V. determined to profit by this state of things. He assembled his council. The cruel Duke of Alva eloquently conjured him not to release his rival until he had deprived him of all power to injure him. ‘In whom is insolence more natural,’ he said, ‘in whom is fickleness more instinctive than in the French? What can we expect from a king of France?... Invincible emperor, do not miss the opportunity of increasing the authority of the empire, not for your own glory, but for the service of God.’ 423Charles V. appeared to yield to the duke’s advice, but it was advice according to his own heart; and while repeating that a christian prince ought not to triumph in his victory over another, he resolved to crush his rival. M. de Beaurain, viceroy of Naples, Lannoy, and the Constable of Bourbon, so detested by Francis I., waited all three upon the royal captive.

Francis had overplayed the part of a suppliant, a character so new for him. ‘Instead of a useless prisoner,’ he had written to Charles, ‘set at liberty a king who will be your slave for ever.’ Charles proposed to him a dismemberment of France on three sides. The Constable of Bourbon was to have Provence and Dauphiny, and these provinces, united with the Bourbonnais which he possessed already, were to be raised into an independent kingdom. The King of England was to have Normandy and Guienne; and the emperor would be satisfied with French Flanders, Picardy, and Burgundy.... When he heard these monstrous propositions, Francis uttered a cry and caught up his sword, which his attendants took from his hands. Turning towards the envoys he said: ‘I would rather die in prison than consent to such demands.’ Thinking that he could make better terms with the emperor, he soon after embarked at Genoa and sailed to Spain. The delighted Charles gave up to him the palace of Madrid, and employed every means to constrain him to accept his disastrous conditions. 424Who will succeed in baffling the emperor’s pernicious designs? A woman, Margaret of Valois, undertook the task. 425The statesmen of her age considered her the best head in Europe; the friends of the Reformation respected her as their mother. Her dearest wish was to substitute a living christianity for the dead forms of popery, and she hoped to prevail upon her brother, ‘the father of letters,’ to labour with her in this admirable work. It was not in France only that she desired the triumph of the Gospel, but in Germany, England, Italy, and even Spain. As Charles’s projects would ruin all that she loved—the king, France, and the Gospel—she feared not to go and beard the lion even in his den.