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

Yet the Duchess of Alençon did not see all her prayers refused. On leaving his prison, the sight of Francis I. was confused. By degrees he saw more clearly into the state of things in Europe, and took a few steps towards that religious liberty which Margaret had so ardently desired of him. It would even seem that, guided by his sister, he rose to considerations of a loftier range.

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There was an instinctive feeling in christendom that up to this time its society had been but fragmentary, a great disorder, an immense chaos. 496It felt an earnest want of that social unity, of that supreme order, and of that all-ruling idea which the papacy had not been able to give. By proclaiming a new creation, the Reformation was about to accomplish this task. The isolation of nations was to cease; all would touch each other; reciprocal influences would multiply from generation to generation.... The Reformation prepared the way for the great unity in the midst of the world.

Evangelical christians felt a consciousness, indistinct perhaps, though deep, of this new movement in human affairs, and many would have wished that France should not yield to Germany or England the privilege of marching in the van of the new order of things. They said that since the emperor had put himself at the head of the enemies of the Reformation, the king ought to place himself in the front rank of its defenders. The Duchess of Alençon in particular was constantly soliciting the king, and praying him to recall to France the men who would bring into it the true light. But Francis received her proposals coldly, sometimes rudely, and cut short every attempt to answer; still the duchess was indefatigable, and when the king shut the door against her, ‘she got in through the keyhole.’ At last Francis, who loved his sister, esteemed learning, and despised the monks, yielded to her pressing entreaties, and above all to the new ideas and the exigencies of his political plans. The gates of the prisons were opened.

Berquin was still a prisoner, sorrowful but comforted by his faith, unable to see clearly into the future, but immovable in his loyalty to the Gospel. The king determined to save him from ‘the claws of Beda’s faction.’ ‘I will not suffer the person or the goods of this gentleman to be injured,’ he said to the parliament on the 1st of April; ‘I will inquire into the matter myself.’ The officers sent by the king took the christian captive from his prison, and, though still keeping watch over him, placed him in a commodious chamber. Berquin immediately set about forming plans for the triumph of truth.

Clement Marot had paid dearly for the privilege of being Margaret’s secretary; he was in prison, and consoled himself by composing his little poems. Margaret obtained his full release, and Marot hastened to his friends, exclaiming in a transport of joy:

In narrow cell without a cause,

Shut up in foul despite of laws

By wicked men, the king’s decree

In this New Year has set me free. 497

Michael of Aranda, who, in 1524, had preached the Gospel with such power at Lyons, had been removed from Margaret, whose almoner he was. She sent for him and imparted to him her plan for introducing the Gospel into the Catholic Church of France, by renewing without destroying it. ‘I have procured your nomination to the bishopric of Trois-Châteaux in Dauphiny,’ 498she said. ‘Go, and evangelise your diocese.’ He accepted; the truth had already been scattered in Dauphiny by Farel and others. Did Aranda share Margaret’s views, or had ambition anything to do with his acceptance? It is hard to say.

A fourth victim of the persecution was soon saved. The young prebendary of Metz, the amiable Pierre Toussaint, was still in the frightful den into which the abbot of St. Antoine had thrust him. His host at Basle had not sent the books which the treacherous priest had constrained him to write for; no doubt the worthy citizen, knowing in whose hands his friend was lying, had foreseen the danger to which their receipt would expose him. Several evangelical christians of France, Switzerland, and Lorraine, particularly the merchant Vaugris, had successively interceded in his favour, but to no purpose. Finding all their exertions useless, they applied at last to Margaret, who warmly pleaded the cause of the young evangelist before the king. In July 1526, the order for his release arrived. The officers charged with this pleasing task descended to the gloomy dungeon selected by the abbot of St. Antoine, and rescued the lamb from the fangs of that wild beast. Toussaint, thin, weak, pale as a faded flower, came out slowly from his fearful den. His weakened eyes could hardly support the light of day, and he knew not where to go. At first he went to some old acquaintances; but they were all afraid of harbouring a heretic escaped from the scaffold. The young prebendary did not possess Berquin’s energy; he was one of those sensitive and delicate natures that need a support, and he found himself in the world, in the free air, almost as much alone as in his dungeon. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘God our heavenly Father, who has fixed bounds to the wrath of man which it cannot pass, has delivered me in a wonderful manner from the hands of the tyrants; but, alas! what will become of me? The world is mad and spurns the rising Gospel of Jesus Christ.’ 499A few timid but well-meaning friends said to him: ‘The Duchess of Alençon alone can protect you; there is no asylum for you but at her court. Make application to a princess who welcomes with so much generosity all the friends of learning and of the Gospel, and profit by your residence to investigate closely the wind that blows in those elevated regions.’ Toussaint did what they told him; he began his journey, and, despite his natural timidity, arrived at Paris, where we shall meet with him again.

More important deliverances still were in preparation. Strasburg was to rejoice. There was no city out of France where the king’s return had been hailed with so much enthusiasm. Many evangelical christians had sought refuge there from the cruelties of Duprat, and were sighing for the moment that would restore them to their country. Among the number of the refugees was the famous Cornelius Agrippa. His reputation was not unblemished; a book on the ‘Vanity of Science’ does him little credit; but he seems at this time to have been occupied with the Gospel. Having received a letter from the excellent Papillon, who told him how favourable the king appeared to the new light, Agrippa, who, surrounded by pious men, took their tone and tuned his voice in harmony with theirs, exclaimed: ‘All the Church of the saints with us, hearing of the triumphs of the Word at the court and in the most part of France, rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 500I bless the Lord for the glory with which the Word is crowned among you. Would to God that we were permitted, as well as you, to return to France!’ Another country was equally attractive to this scholar: ‘Write to me what they are doing at Geneva ... tell me if the Word is loved there, and if they care for learning.’ 501

Men more decided than Cornelius Agrippa were to be found at Strasburg. During all the winter the hospitable house of Capito had often witnessed the meetings of those christians who had raised highest the standard of the Gospel in France. There assembled the aged Lefèvre, the first translator of the Bible, who had escaped the stake only by flight; the pious Roussel, Vedastes, Simon, and Farel who had arrived from Montbéliard. These friends of the Reformation concealed themselves under assumed names: Lefèvre passed as Anthony Peregrin; Roussel as Tolnin; but they were known by everybody, even by the children in the streets. 502They often met Bucer, Zell, and the Count of Hohenlohe, and edified one another. Margaret undertook to bring them all back to France. The court was then in the south; the king was at Cognac, his birthplace, where he often resided; the duchesses (his mother and sister) at Angoulême. One day when they met, Margaret entreated her brother to put an end to the cruel exile of her friends: Francis granted everything.