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

The most decided christians saw his incompetence. In their eyes the men round the Duchess of Alençon who stopped halfway were incapable of reforming France. It needed, they thought, a man of simple soul, intrepid heart, and powerful eloquence, who, walking with a firm foot, would give a new impulse to the work too feebly commenced by Lefèvre and his friends; and then these christians, going to the other extreme, thought of Farel. At that time this reformer was the greatest light of France. What love he had for Jesus Christ! What eloquence in preaching! What boldness in pressing onwards and surmounting obstacles! What perseverance in the midst of dangers! But neither Francis nor Margaret would have anything to do with him: they were afraid of him. When the king recalled the other exiles, Farel was left behind. He was then at Strasburg with one foot on the frontier, waiting the order for his return, but the order did not come. The court had no taste for his aggressive preaching and his heroic firmness; they wished for a softened and a perfumed Gospel in France. The noble Dauphinese, when he saw all his friends returning to their country while he remained alone in exile, was overwhelmed with sorrow and cried to God in his distress.

Roussel understood Margaret’s fears; Farel, he knew, was not a courtier, and would never agree with the duchess. Yet, knowing the value of such a servant of God, the noble and pious Roussel tried whether they could not profit in some other way by his great activity, and if there was not some province that could be opened to his mighty labours. ‘I will obtain the means of providing for all your wants,’ he wrote to him on the 27th of August from the castle of Amboise, ‘until the Lord gives you at last an entrance and brings you to us.’ 532That was also Farel’s earnest desire; he was not then thinking of Switzerland; his country possessed all his love; his eyes were turned night and day towards those gates of France so obstinately closed against him; he went up to them and knocked. They still remained shut, and returning disheartened he exclaimed: ‘Oh! if the Lord would but open a way for me to return and labour in France!’ On a sudden the dearest of his wishes seemed about to be realised.

One day, when there was a grand reception at court, the two sons of Prince Robert de la Marche came to pay their respects to the king’s sister. Since the eighth century La Marche had formed a principality, which afterwards became an appanage of the Armagnacs and Bourbons. 533The Gospel had found its way there. Margaret, who possessed in a high degree the spirit of proselytism, said to Roussel, indicating with her eyes those whose conversion she desired: ‘Speak to those two young princes; seize, I pray, this opportunity of advancing the cause of Jesus Christ.’—‘I will do so,’ replied the chaplain eagerly. Approaching the young noblemen, Roussel began to converse about the Gospel. De Saucy and De Giminetz (for such were their names) showed no signs of astonishment, but listened with the liveliest interest. The evangelist grew bolder, and explained his wishes to them freely. 534‘It is not for yourselves alone,’ he said, ‘that God has given you life, but for the good of the members of Jesus Christ. It is not enough for you to embrace Christ as your Saviour; you must communicate the same grace to your subjects.’ 535Roussel warmed at the idea of seeing the Gospel preached among the green pastures which the Vienne, the Creuse, and the Cher bathe with their waters; through Guéret, Bellac, and the ancient territory of the Lemovices and Bituriges. The two young princes on their part listened attentively to the reformer, and gave the fullest assent to his words. 536Margaret’s chaplain made another step; he thought he had found what he was seeking for the zealous Farel; and when the sons of Robert de la Marche told him they felt too weak for the task set before them, he said: ‘I know but one man fitted for such a great work; it is William Farel; Christ has given him an extraordinary talent for making known the riches of his glory. Invite him.’ The proposition delighted the young princes. ‘We desire it still more than you,’ they said; ‘our father and we will open our arms to him. He shall be to us as a son, a brother, and a father. 537Let him fear nothing: he shall live with us. Yes, in our own palace. All whom he will meet there are friends of Jesus Christ. Our physician, Master Henry, a truly christian man; the son of the late Count Francis; the lord of Château-Rouge, and his children, and many others, will rejoice at his arrival. We ourselves,’ they added, ‘will be there to receive him. Only bid him make haste; let him come before next Lent.’—‘I promise you he shall,’ replied Roussel. The two princes undertook to set up a printing establishment in order that Farel might by means of the press circulate evangelical truth, not only in La Marche, but throughout the kingdom. Roussel wrote immediately to his friend; Toussaint added his entreaties to those of the chaplain. ‘Never has any news caused me more joy,’ he said; ‘hasten thither as fast as you can.’ 538

The young princes of La Marche were not the only nobles of the court whom the Duchess of Alençon’s influence attracted into the paths of the Gospel. Margaret was not one of ‘those who cry aloud,’ says a christian of her time, ‘but of those whose every word is accompanied with teaching and imbued with gentleness.’ Her eye was always on the watch to discover souls whom she could attract to her Master. Lords, ladies, and damsels of distinction, men of letters, of the robe, of the sword, and even of the Church, heard, either from her lips, or from those of Roussel or of some other of her friends, the Word of life. The nobility entertained a secret but very old dislike to the priests, who had so often infringed their privileges; and they would have liked nothing better than to be emancipated from their yoke. Margaret feared that the young nobles would be only half converted—that there would be no renewal of the heart and life in them; and the history of the wars of religion shows but too plainly how well her fears were founded. Knowing how difficult it is ‘to tread the path to heaven,’ she insisted on the necessity of a real and moral christianity, and said to the gay youths attracted by the charms of her person and the splendour of her rank:

Who would be a christian true

Must his Lord’s example follow;

Every worldly good resign

And earthly glory count but hollow;

Honour, wealth, and friends so sweet

He must trample under feet:—

But, alas! to few ’tis given

Thus to tread the path to heaven!

With a willing joyful heart

His goods among the poor divide;

Others’ trespasses forgive;

Revenge and anger lay aside.

Be good to those who work you ill;

If any hate you, love them still:—

But, alas! to few ’tis given

Thus to tread the path to heaven!

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He must hold death beautiful,

And over it in triumph sing;

Love it with a warmer heart

Than he loveth mortal thing.

In the pain that wrings the flesh

Find a pleasure, and in sadness;

Love death as he loveth life,

With a more than mortal gladness:—

But, alas! to few ’tis given

Thus to tread the path to heaven! 539

Would Margaret succeed? A queen with all the splendours of her station is not a good reformer; the work needs poor and humble men. There is always danger when princes turn missionaries; some of the persons around them easily become hypocrites. Margaret attracted men to the Gospel; but the greater part of those who were called by her did not go far; their christianity remained superficial. There were, indeed, many enlightened understandings in the upper ranks of French society, but there were few consciences smitten by the Word of God. Many—and this is a common error in every age—could see nothing but intellectual truths in the doctrine of Jesus Christ: a fatal error that may decompose the religious life of a Church and destroy the national life of a people. No tendency is more opposed to evangelical protestantism, which depends not upon the intellectual, but upon the moral faculty. When Luther experienced those terrible struggles in the convent at Erfurth, it was because his troubled conscience sought for peace; and we may say of the Reformation, that it always began with the awakening of the conscience. Conscience is the palladium of protestantism, far more than the statue of Pallas was the pledge of the preservation of Troy. If the nobility compromised the Reformation in France, it was because their consciences had not been powerfully awakened.