Arthur Augustus Tilley

“ Such was the policy which Francis I began definitely to adopt towards Protestantism after the affair of the placards, and which he put into active execution during the last seven years of his life. How far was it successful? As we have seen, it drove a large number of persons into exile; and these consisted chiefly of the better-born and better-educated among the Reformers. It intimidated many into outward conformity with the Church. It prevented all public exercise of the Reformed religion, and all open propaganda. ”

“ The Reformation in France never developed into a national movement. Though the Protestants under the stress of persecution consolidated themselves into a powerful and well-organised party, they never formed more than a minority of the nation. The majority, whose attachment to the Catholic Church was stronger than their desire for her reformation, detested the Reformers as schismatics and separatists even more than as heretics. When the Protestant ranks were recruited by the accession of numerous political malcontents, a more worldly leaven pervaded the whole cause ”

“ Though the Cardinal was a liberal patron of learning and letters, he was a relentless and untiring foe to the new religious doctrines. "He is worth to France an Inquisition in himself," said a contemporary. It is significant also that just at this time Francis lost one of his ablest and most enlightened ministers, and the French Reformers one of their best friends in Guillaume du Bellay, who died in January, 1543.
With such a man in power as the Cardinal de Tournon there was not likely to be any slackness in the execution of the Edicts. ”

“ An active element of discontent was furnished by the younger sons of the nobility, whose only trade was war, and who were pressing in vain for their arrears of pay. To the Protestants the Cardinal's rule was a natural source of apprehension. He was known to be a thoroughgoing opponent of heresy and an advocate of the severest measures of repression. At first the Reformers had hopes in Catharine, but these were soon disappointed. She had no power apart from the Cardinal. Severe persecutions were set on foot, and Paris began to have the air of a captured city. ”

“ Religious meetings were held by night or in cellars; doctrines were spread by secret house-to-house teaching, or by treatises concealed amongst the wares of pretended pedlars. On the other hand the frequent executions helped to spread the evil they were meant to repress. The firm courage with which the victims faced death did as much as the purity of their lives to convert others to their faith. Moreover, the influence of the exiles reacted on their old homes. From Geneva and the other Swiss centres of Protestantism missionaries came to evangelise France. ”

“ During the whole of Lent, 1533, Gérard Roussel, at the instigation of Margaret, now Queen of Navarre, and of her husband, preached daily in the Louvre to large congregations; and when Noel Beda and some other doctors of the Sorbonne ventured to accuse the King and Queen of heresy, and to stir up the people to sedition, Francis, on the matter being reported to him, issued from Melun an edict banishing the doctors from the city. ”

“ As the result of success the Protestants became insolent and defiant. At Agen and Montauban they seized unused Catholic places of worship. In many towns the mob rose against them and the disturbances ended in bloodshed. At Beauvais, where the Cardinal de Châtillon was Bishop, there was a dangerous riot on Easter Monday, in consequence of which an Edict was issued on April 19 forbidding all provocation to disturbance. It remained a dead letter. At the end of the month a Paris mob having attacked the house of a Protestant nobleman was fired on by the defenders. ”

“ All acts and words tending to faction or disturbance were forbidden. Attendance at any assembly at which worship was celebrated otherwise than according to the forms of the Catholic Church was to be punished by imprisonment and confiscation of property. The cognisance of cases of simple heresy was left to the ecclesiastical Courts. If the accused was handed over to the secular arm no penalty higher than banishment could be imposed. Finally it was stated that the Edict was only provisional, pending the decision of either a General or a National Council. ”

“ Italians shared largely in the royal patronage, and in 1560 it was estimated that they held one-third of all the benefices in the kingdom. It was this new method of patronage which more than anything paralysed all attempts at reform. It was idle to talk of reform at the bottom when at the top every personal interest was bound up with the existing corruption. ”

“ On March 17 Francis returned from captivity; and on the very day of his arrival in France he sent an order for the Parliament to suspend all action against Berquin, who after considerable delay was set at liberty. Lefèvre, Roussel, and Arande, who still called themselves members of the Catholic Church, were recalled from exile, and Lefèvre was appointed tutor to the King's third son. In spite of the execution of Jacques Pauvan, one of the Meaux preachers against whom proceedings had been taken with the full approval of the King (August 28, 1526) , the hopes of the Reformers began to rise ”

“ Both the nobles and the Third Estate insisted strongly on the need for a reformation of the Church. As regards Protestantism the Third Estate pressed for complete toleration, while the clergy demanded vigorous measures of repression. The nobles, being divided in their opinions, presented three cahiers representing three groups of provinces. One group, consisting of the central provinces, were in favour of rigid repression; another, formed by the western provinces and the towns of Rouen and Toulouse, demanded toleration ”

“ About the same time Antoine de Bourbon, the titular King of Navarre, who was the next in succession to King Henry II and his sons, joined the ranks of the Reformers. He was followed by his brother Louis, Prince of Condé.
The most active of these converts was d'Andelot. In April, 1558, he visited his wife's large estates in Britanny together with one of the Paris pastors, Gaspard Carmel, and thus helped to spread Protestantism in that remote and conservative province. But soon after his return to Paris he was arrested by the King's order, and confined at Melun for two months. ”

“ Within a week fifty Lutherans were in prison; and an edict was issued that anyone convicted by two witnesses of being a Lutheran should be burned forthwith, "It will be like the Spanish Inquisition" wrote Martin Bucer,
But the King's Catholic fever quickly cooled down. On January 24, 1534, he entered into a secret treaty with the German Protestant Princes; and when he returned to Paris in the first week of February the persecutions ceased. Evangelical doctrines were again preached in the Louvre. "I see no one round me but old women," was the complaint of a Sorbonne doctor from his pulpit ”

“ Partly in consequence of these outbreaks Catharine summoned a fresh conference to meet at St Germain on January 3, 1562. On the 7th the actual business began with a remarkable speech by the Chancellor in which, far in advance of his time, he enunciated modern principles of religious toleration. The question before them, he said, was a political, not a religious one; " a man may be a citizen without being a Christian." ”

“ Many persons were imprisoned; Lefèvre's translation of the New Testament was condemned to be burned; and proceedings were instituted against the Meaux preachers. They saved themselves by flight, finding a refuge at Strassburg in the house of Capito (October, 1525) . In January, 1526, Berquin was imprisoned, and on February 17 a young bachelor of arts named Joubert was burnt at Paris for holding Lutheran doctrines. ”

“ Thus the wisest statesman in France stood boldly forward as the champion of the Protestants. The assembly broke up on August 25, and on the following day the Estates were summoned for December 10 and an assembly of the clergy for January 20. Meanwhile all prosecutions for simple heresy, apart from sedition, were to cease. ”

“ It is chiefly of isolated cases that we hear, at most of three or four at a time; there were no autos-de-fe. The stress of persecution had compelled the Reformers to practise prudence and secrecy, but each fresh execution added strength to the cause. One martyr made many converts.
The Peace of Crépy, September 18, 1544, with its vague provisions for the reunion of religion, and "for the prevention of the extreme danger" which threatened it, boded evil to the Reformers. ”

“ Thus Protestantism for the first time in France obtained legal recognition. The Protestants were far from satisfied, but, acting on the advice of their leaders, they accepted the compromise. The Catholics were less submissive. It was not till after a long and obstinate resistance that the Parliament of Paris registered the Edict on March 6. ”

“ On August 29, 1542, another Edict was addressed to the Parliament of Toulouse, followed on the next day by a mandamus to those of Paris, Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, and Rouen. The Parliament of Aix required no such stimulus. Meanwhile the Sorbonne had been engaged in drawing up twenty-six articles in which the true Catholic faith on all the disputed points was set forth. It was their answer to the French translation of the Institutio which Calvin had completed in 1541 from the second and greatly enlarged Latin edition. ”

“ Accordingly on September 9 the village of Poissy, three miles west of St Germain, celebrated as the birthplace of St Louis, was the scene of unusual splendour. The Protestants were represented at the "Colloquy" (as it came to be called) by twelve ministers, including Beza, François de Morel, the president of the first National Synod, and Nicolas des Gallars, the minister of the French Protestant Church in London, and by twenty laymen. Six Cardinals, forty Archbishops and Bishops, twelve doctors of the Sorbonne, and as many canonists, represented the French Catholic Church. ”

“ But its barbarous suppression increased the unpopularity of the government and the disorder in the state of the kingdom. In April and May there were frequent disturbances in Dauphiné and Provence. In Dauphiné, where the Bishop of Valence, Jean de Montluc, and the Archbishop of Vienne, Charles de Marillac, were in favour of toleration, the Protestants had an able leader in Montbrun. In Provence Protestantism was spreading rapidly, and, at a conference held at Mérindol on February 15, 1560, sixty Churches were represented. ”

“ It penetrated the Limousin by the Vienne and La Marche by the Creuse. It made its way along the Seine from Rouen to Troyes and along the Yonne to Sens and Auxerre. From Lyons it travelled down the Rhone to Tournon, and up the Saône to Macon and Chalons. At Dijon, the old capital of the duchy of Burgundy, a Lutheran was executed in 1530, and soon afterwards a pastor was sent there from Geneva. Agen on the Garonne formed a connecting link between Bordeaux and Toulouse; Sainte Foy and Bergerac were reached by the Dordogne, and Villeneuve by the Lot. ”

“ The fact is significant. During the last few years Protestantism, which at first affected mainly the artisan class, had begun to spread among the higher ranks of society, and it now received some notable accessions. ”

“ The immediate cause of his arrest was his alleged presence in the Pre-aux-Clercs, where, for five successive evenings (May 13-17) , a large concourse of persons of all ranks had assembled to take part in the singing of Marot's Psalms. ”