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

He was not the only man of his native city who had to make expiation for the zeal with which he had received the Reform. A fuller, also a native of Meaux, who followed like him the ‘sect of Luther,’ suffered a similar punishment about the same time. 476‘This Lutheran,’ said the burghers of Paris, ‘has the presumption to say that the Virgin and the saints have no power, and such like nonsense.’

Picardy next furnished its tribute. Picardy in the north and Dauphiny in the south were the two provinces of France best prepared to receive the Gospel. During the fifteenth century many Picardins, as the story ran, went to Vaudery . Seated round the fire during the long nights, simple catholics used to tell one another how these Vaudois (Waldenses) met in horrible assembly in solitary places, where they found tables spread with numerous and dainty viands. These poor christians loved indeed to meet together from districts often very remote. They went to the rendezvous by night and along by-roads. The most learned of them used to recite some passages of Scripture, after which they conversed together and prayed. But such humble conventicles were ridiculously travestied. ‘Do you know what they do to get there,’ said the people, ‘so that the officers may not stop them? The devil has given them a certain ointment, and when they want to go to Vaudery , they smear a little stick with it. As soon as they get astride it, they are carried up through the air, and arrive at their sabbath without meeting anybody. In the midst of them sits a goat with a monkey’s tail: this is Satan, who receives their adoration!’ ... These stupid stories were not peculiar to the people: they were circulated particularly by the monks. It was thus that the inquisitor Jean de Broussart spoke in 1460 from a pulpit erected in the great square at Arras. An immense multitude surrounded him; a scaffold was erected in front of the pulpit, and a number of men and women, kneeling and wearing caps with the figure of the devil painted on them, awaited their punishment. Perhaps the faith of these poor people was mingled with error. But be that as it may, they were all burnt alive after the sermon. 477

A young student, who already held a living, though not yet in priest’s orders, had believed in the Gospel, and had boldly declared that there was no other saviour but Jesus Christ, and that the Virgin Mary had no more power than other saints. 478This youthful cleric of Thérouanne in Picardy had been imprisoned in 1525, and terrified by the punishment. On Christmas-eve, with a lighted torch in his hand and stripped to his shirt, he had ‘asked pardon of God and of Mary before the church of Notre Dame.’ In consideration of his ‘very great penitence,’ it was thought sufficient to confine him for seven years on bread and water in the prison of St. Martin des Champs. Alone in his dungeon, the scholar heard the voice of God in the depths of his heart; he began to weep hot tears, and ‘forthwith,’ says the chronicler, ‘he returned to his folly.’ Whenever a monk entered his prison, the young cleric proclaimed the Gospel to him; the monks were astonished at such raving; all the convent was in a ferment and confusion. Dr. Merlin, the grand penitentiary, went to the prisoner in person, preached to him, advised and entreated him, but all to no effect. By order of the court, the young evangelist ‘was burnt at the Grève in Paris,’ and others underwent the same punishment. Such was the method employed in that cruel age to force the doctrine of the Church back into the hearts of those who rejected it: they made use of scourges to beat them, and cords to strangle them.

It was not only in Paris that severity was used against the Lutherans: the same was done in the provinces. Young Pierre Toussaint, prebendary of Metz, who had taken refuge at Basle after the death of Leclerc, 479having regained his courage, returned to France and proclaimed the Gospel. His enemies seized him, and gave him up to the Abbot of St. Antoine. This abbot, a well-known character, was a violent, cruel, and merciless man. 480Neither Toussaint’s youth, nor his candour, nor his weak health could touch him; he threw his victim into a horrible dungeon full of stagnant water and other filth, 481where the young evangelist could hardly stand. With his back against the wall, and his feet on the only spot in the dungeon which the water did not reach, stifled by the poisonous vapours emitted around him, the young man remembered the cheerful house of his uncle the Dean of Metz and the magnificent palace of the Cardinal of Lorraine, where he had been received so kindly while he still believed in the pope. What a contrast now! Toussaint’s health declined, his cheeks grew pale, and his trembling legs could hardly support him. Alas! where were those days when still a child he ran joyously round the room riding on a stick, 482and when his mother seriously uttered this prophecy: ‘Antichrist will soon come and destroy all who are converted.’ The wretched Toussaint thought the moment had arrived.... His imagination became excited, he fancied he saw the terrible antichrist foretold by his mother, seizing him and dragging him to punishment; he screamed aloud, and was near dying of fright. 483He interested every one who saw him; he was so mild; harmless as a new-born child, they said, so that the cruel abbot knew not how to justify his death. He thought that if he had Toussaint’s books and papers, he could find an excuse for burning him. One day the monks came to the wretched young man, took him out of the unwholesome pit, and led him into the abbot’s room. ‘Write to your host at Basle,’ said the latter; ‘tell him that you want your books to amuse your leisure, and beg him to send them to you.’ Toussaint, who understood the meaning of this order, hesitated. The abbot gave utterance to terrible threats. The affrighted Toussaint wrote the letter, and was sent back to his pestilential den.

Thus the very moment when the evangelical christians were hoping to have some relief was marked by an increase of severity. The Reform—Margaret was its representative at that time in the eyes of many—the afflicted Reform saw her children around her, some put to death, others in chains, all threatened with the fatal blow. The sister of Francis I., heartbroken and despairing, would have shielded with her body those whom the sword appeared ready to strike; but her exertions seemed useless.

Suddenly a cry of joy was heard, which, uttered in the Pyrenees, was reechoed even to Calais. The Sun (for thus, it will be remembered, Margaret called her brother) appeared in the south to reanimate the kingdom of France. On the 21st of March Francis quitted Spain, crossed the Bidassoa, and once more set his foot on French ground. He had recovered his spirits; an overflowing current of life had returned to every part of his existence. It seemed that, delivered from a prison, he was the master of the world. He mounted an Arab horse, and, waving his cap and plume in the air, exclaimed as he galloped along the road to St. Jean de Luz: ‘Once more I am a king!’ Thence he proceeded to Bayonne, where his court awaited him, with a great number of his subjects who had not been permitted to approach nearer to the frontier.

Nowhere was the joy so great as with Margaret and the friends of the Gospel. Some of them determined to go and meet the king and petition him on behalf of the exiles and the prisoners, feeling persuaded that he would put himself at the head of the party which the detested Charles V. was persecuting. These most pious Gauls , as Zwingle calls them, 484petitioned the monarch; Margaret uttered a cry in favour of the miserable; 485but Francis, though full of regard for his sister, could not hide a secret irritation against Luther and the Lutherans. His profane character, his sensual temperament, made him hate the evangelicals, and policy demanded great reserve.