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

Another joy was in store for Margaret. Francis perceived at last that Henry VIII. preferred Anne Boleyn to his illustrious sister, whose maid of honour she had formerly been. From that hour he no longer opposed the wishes of the King of Navarre, and in November consented to his union with Madame of Alençon.

On the 24th of January, 1527, a brilliant throng filled the chapel of the palace of St. Germain, where the marriage of the king’s sister was to be solemnised, and every mouth extolled the genius, grace, and virtues of the princess. Margaret of France and Henry d’Albret were united, and for a week there were magnificent tournaments. Francis made very fine promises to the married pair. ‘Make your mind easy,’ he said to Henry; ‘I will summon the emperor to restore your kingdom of Navarre, and if he refuses, I will give you an army to recover it.’ 545But not long after, this prince, when drawing up a diplomatic paper by which he bound Charles V. to restore his two sons, then hostages at Madrid, inserted this clause: ‘ Item , the said king promises not to assist or favour the King of Navarre in recovering his kingdom, although he has married his beloved and only sister.’ 546

At that time Margaret was thinking of other things than earthly kingdoms. At this solemn moment she turned her eyes towards eternity, and poured out her heart on the bosom of a friend. ‘A thousand chances may separate us from this world,’ she said to Madame de la Rochefoucauld. ‘Whether we be near or far, in peace or in war, on horseback or in our bed ... God takes and leaves whom he pleases.’ 547The queen soon found that her lot was not all sunshine, and that Henry d’Albret’s humour was not always the same. Her husband’s weakness urged her to seek more earnestly ‘the heavenly lover,’ as she said to Madame de la Rochefoucauld; and the splendid wedding, which was long talked of, made her desire the better marriage. It was then she wrote:

Would that the day were come, O Lord,

So much desired by me,

When by the cords of heavenly love

I shall be drawn to thee!

United in eternal life,

The husband thou, and I the wife.

That wedding-day, O Lord,

My heart so longs to see,

That neither wealth, nor fame, nor rank

Can pleasure give to me.

To me the world no more

Can yield delight.

Unless thou, Lord, be with me there ...

Lo! all is dark as night. 548

Prayer did not constitute the sole happiness of the new queen: activity, charity, an eagerness to help others, did not bring her less pleasure. By her marriage she acquired more liberty to protect the Reform. ‘All eyes are fixed on you,’ Capito wrote to her. 549She thought that Roussel her confessor, and Michael of Aranda her bishop, were about to advance notably the kingdom of God, and rejoiced at seeing these men of learning and morality pronounce daily more strongly in favour of the truth. 550

The world was at one of the great turning-points of its history; and the friends of letters and of the Gospel said to themselves that France, which had always been in the van of society during the middle ages, would not now fall to the rear. Pure faith, they thought, would penetrate every class, would renew the fountains of moral life, and teach the people at once obedience and liberty. Placed between the middle and the modern age, Francis I. would make the new times replace the old in everything. All, in fact, was changing. Gothic architecture gave way to the creations of the Renaissance; the study of the classic authors took the place of the scholasticism of the universities; and in the halls of the palace, mingled with nobles and priests, was seen a crowd of new persons—philologers, archæologists, poets, painters, and doctors of the Roman law. When the light was thus making its way everywhere, would the Church alone remain closed against it? The Renaissance had opened the gates to a new era; and the Reformation would give the new generation the strength necessary to enter them.

But where was the man who could give to the world, and especially wherever the French language was spoken, that strong and salutary impulse? It was not Lefèvre, Roussel, Farel, or Berquin.... Who was it then?

It is time that we should learn to know him.

Table of Contents

The tendencies of an epoch are generally personified in some man whom it produces, but who soon overrules these tendencies and leads them to the goal which they could not otherwise have reached. To the category of these eminent personages, of these great men, at once the children and the masters of their age, the reformers have belonged. But whilst the heroes of the world make the forces of their epoch the pedestal of their own greatness, the men of God think only how they may be made to subserve the greatness of their Master. The Reformation existed in France, but the reformer was still unknown. Farel would have been a powerful evangelist; but his country had rejected him, and, being besides a man of battle, he was neither the doctor nor the guide which the work of the sixteenth century required. A greater than Farel was about to appear, and we shall proceed to watch his first steps in the path along which he was afterwards to be the guide of many nations.

In the classes of the college of La Marche in Paris there were, in the year 1526, a professor of about fifty, and a scholar of seventeen: they were often seen together. The scholar, instead of playing with his class-fellows, attached himself to his master during the hours of recreation, and listened eagerly to his conversation. They were united as a distinguished teacher and a pupil destined to become a great man sometimes are. Their names were Mathurin Cordier and John Calvin. 551Mathurin was one of those men of ancient mould, who always prefer the public good to their own interests and glory; and accordingly, neglecting the brilliant career which lay before him, he devoted his whole life to the education of children. Prior to Calvin’s arrival at Paris, he had the head class in the college and taught it with credit; but he was not satisfied; he would often pause in the middle of his lessons, finding that his pupils possessed a mere superficial knowledge of what they should have known thoroughly. Teaching, instead of yielding him the pleasure for which he thirsted, caused him only sorrow and disgust. ‘Alas!’ he said, ‘the other masters teach the children from ambition and vain-glory, and that is why they are not well grounded in their studies.’ He complained to the director of the college. ‘The scholars who join the first class,’ he said, ‘bring up nothing solid: they are puffed out only to make a show, so that I have to begin teaching them all over again.’ 552Cordier therefore desired to resign the first class and descend to the fourth, in order to lay the foundations well.

He had just taken this humble department upon himself, when one day, in the year 1523, he saw a boy entering his school, thin, pale, diffident but serious, and with a look of great intelligence. This was John Calvin, then only fourteen years old. At first he was shy and timid in the presence of the learned professor; but the latter discovering in him a scholar of a new kind, immediately became attached to him, and took delight in developing his young and comprehensive intellect. Gradually the apprehensions of the Noyon boy were dissipated, and during the whole time he spent at college he enjoyed the instructions of the master, ‘as a singular blessing from God.’ Accordingly, when both of them, in after years, had been driven from France, and had taken up their abode among the mountains of Switzerland, Calvin, then one of the great doctors of Europe, loved to turn back with humility to these days of his boyhood, and publicly displaying his gratitude, he said to Cordier: ‘O Master Mathurin, O man gifted with learning and great fear of God! when my father sent me to Paris, while still a child, and possessing only a few rudiments of the Latin language, it was God’s will that I should have you for my teacher, in order that I might be directed in the true path and right mode of learning; and having first commenced the course of study under your guidance, I advanced so far that I can now in some degree profit the Church of God.’ 553