Henry Martyn Baird

“ Tu fais mourir ceux qui conspirent contre toy: et tu vis encore, qui as conspiré contre la couronne de France, contre les biens des veuves et des orphelins, contre le sang des tristes et des innocens! Tu fais profession de prescher de sainteté, toy qui ne connois Dieu que de parole; qui ne tiens la religion chrétienne que comme un masque pour te déguiser; qui fais ordinaire trafic, banque et marchandise d'éveschés et de bénéfices: qui ne vois rien de saint que tu ne souilles, rien de chaste que tu ne violes, rien de bon que tu ne gâtes!... ”

“ Du Bourg's martyrdom was the most terrible blow the established church had ever received in France. Never had a more disastrous blunder been committed by the Guises, than when they stirred Henry to imprison and try, and Francis to execute, the most virtuous member of the Parisian senate. Such strength of principle in the midst of affliction, such fortitude upon the brink of death, had never been seen before. The witnesses of the execution never forgot the scene. ”

“ The king's three sons—the dauphin, and the Dukes of Orleans and Angoulême—with a fourth prince of the blood—the Duke of Bourbon Vendôme—held the supports of a magnificent canopy of velvet, sprinkled with golden fleurs-de-lis, above the bishop and his sacred charge. Francis himself walked behind him, with a retinue of nobles, officers of government, judges of parliament, and other civilians closing the line. The king was naturally the object of universal observation. ”

“ France the foremost kingdom of Christendom.
The same pursuit of territorial aggrandizement under successive kings extended the domain of the crown, in spite of disaster and temporary losses, until in the sixteenth century France was second to no other country in Europe for power and material resources. United under a single head, and no longer disturbed by the insubordination of the turbulent nobles, lately humbled by the craft of Louis the Eleventh, this kingdom awakened the warm admiration of political judges so shrewd as the diplomatic envoys of the Venetian Republic. ”

“ Scarcely more encouraging to the advocates of persecution was the scene in the area in front of Notre-Dame de Paris, when, at the sound of the great cathedral bell, an immense crowd was gathered to witness the execution of an obscure person, known to us only as "the hermit of Livry"—a hamlet on the road to Meaux. With such unshaken fortitude did he encounter the flames, that the astonished spectators were confidently assured by their spiritual advisers that he was one of the damned who was being led to the fires of hell. ”

“ Excluded from the luxurious capital, the Huguenots were, during a long series of years, to draw their inspiration from a city at the foot of the Alps—a city whose invigorating climate was no less adapted to harden the intellectual and moral constitution than the bodily frame, and where rugged Nature, if she bestowed wealth with no lavish hand, manifested her impartiality by more liberal endowments conferred upon man himself. Geneva henceforth becomes the centre of reformatory activity, of which fact we need no stronger evidence than the severe legislation of France to destroy its influence ”

“ Under Leo the Tenth Germany was lost to the papacy, under Clement the Eighth England had apostatized, and now under Pius the Fourth, a third Pope of the same ill-starred race, France was on the brink of ruin. The king was a boy, without experience and without authority, the council full of discord, the supreme power in the hands of the queen, who, though sagacious, was yet only a woman, and both timid and irresolute. The King of Navarre, while noble and gracious, was a prince of little constancy and limited practice in government. The people were in disorder and manifest division. ”

“ Its advocates in vain urged that they had received from a prince of the blood (entitled, by the immemorial custom of the realm, to the first place in the council, in the absence of his brother, the King of Navarre) the promise to present their confession of faith to the young monarch of France, and that thousands would espouse his defence if he were assailed. The reformer saw more clearly than they the rising of the clouds of civil war portending ruin to his native land. "Let but a single drop of blood be shed," said Calvin, "and streams will flow that must inundate France." ”

“ He assured Francis that the book contained nothing more nor less than the creed for the profession of which so many Frenchmen were being visited with imprisonment, banishment, outlawry, and even fire, and which it was sought to exterminate from the earth. He drew a fearful picture of the calumnies laid to the charge of this devoted people, and of the wretched church of France, already half destroyed, yet still a butt for the rage of its enemies. It was the part of a true king, as the vicegerent of God, to administer justice in a cause so worthy of his consideration. ”

“ It was not astonishing that the church itself did little to remove the barbarism prevailing among the common people, for, in point of fact, buffoonery, immodesty, and cruelty had intruded into the very ceremonial of religion. Never were there more disgusting exhibitions of the low state of the public morals than when the occurrence of pestilence, drought, or some other signal visitation of the displeasure of heaven induced a clergy scarcely less rude than the laity to institute propitiatory processions. ”

“ The grains of truth long since lodged in an arid soil, and apparently destitute of all vitality, had suddenly developed all the energy of life. France to the reformers, whose longing eyes were at length permitted to see this day, was "white unto the harvest," and only the reapers were needed to put forth the sickle and gather the wheat into the garner. There was not a corner of the kingdom where the number of incipient Protestant churches was not considerable. Provence alone contained sixty, whose delegates this year met in a synod at the blood-stained village of Mérindol. ”

“ No, no, none shall be able to separate us from Christ, whatever snares are laid for us, whatever ills our bodies may endure. We know that we have long been like lambs led to the slaughter. Let them, therefore, slay us, let them break us in pieces; for all that, the Lord's dead will not cease to live, and we shall rise in a common resurrection. I am a Christian, yes, I am a Christian. I will cry yet louder, when I die, for the glory of my Lord Jesus Christ! ”

“ It was not within the power of a single virtuous statesman to allay the storm and quiet the surging waters; but by good-will, perseverance, and nerve, he might steer the ship of state through many a narrow channel and by many a hidden rock. An ardent lover and earnest advocate of toleration, he yet considered it politic to consent to urge the Parliament of Paris, in the king's name, to register the Edict of Romorantin, in accordance with which the system of persecution was for a while to be continued. ”

“ When Francis, in his irritation at the Pope, suggested, on one occasion, to the Nuncio, that he might be compelled to follow the example Henry the Eighth, of England, had set him, and permit the spread of the "Lutheran" religion in France, the astute prelate replied: "Sire, to speak with all frankness, you would be the first to repent your rash step. Your loss would be greater than the Pope's; for a new religion established in the midst of a people involves nothing short of a change of prince." ”

“ Will the [Pg 376] terror of the estrapade quench the burning courage of a sect which has spread over the whole of France, if it could not stifle the fire when first kindled at Meaux and at Paris? Has not the policy of extermination thus far persisted in only accelerating the growth of the new doctrines? Shall the sword rage forever, and must princes of the blood and the noblest and purest in lower ranks of society incur a common fate? ”

“ For who can abstain from wonder when simple women willingly undergo tortures in order to give a proof of their faith, and, while led to death, call upon Jesus Christ their Saviour, and sing psalms; when maidens hasten to the most excruciating torments with greater alacrity than to their nuptials; when men leap for joy at the terrible sight of the preparations for execution, and, half-burned, from the funeral pile mock the authors of their sufferings ”

“ But D'Oppède, finding no other human being upon whom to vent his rage, paid the soldier the two crowns from his own pocket, and ordered the youth to be tied to an olive-tree and shot. The touching words uttered by the simple victim, as he turned his eyes heavenward and breathed out his life, have been preserved: "Lord God, these men are snatching from me a life full of wretchedness and misery, but Thou wilt give me eternal life through Jesus Thy Son." ”

“ The kingdom was by no means invulnerable, for the capital itself might easily reward a well-executed invasion from the side of Flanders. The recuperative energies of the country could be put forth to little advantage, so long as the place of the king—fons omnis jurisdictionis, as the French legists styled him—was filled by a woman in the capacity of regent. France bade fair to exhibit to the world the inherent weakness of a despotism wherein all power, in fact as well as in theory, centres ultimately in the single person of the supreme ruler as autocrat. ”

“ Of popularizing knowledge, especially religious knowledge, the clergy and their adherents had little thought. Latin alone was deemed suitable for the discussion of matters of faith. It was enough to condemn the employment of French for this purpose, that it could be understood by the people. For the reformers was reserved the honor of raising the dialect of the masses to the dignity of a language fit for the highest literary uses, and of compelling even their antagonists to resort to it in self-defence, though, it must be confessed, with a very poor grace. ”

“ Evidently the Cardinal of Lorraine and the other advisers of the king were of the same mind with the great advocate of unlicensed printing, when he said: "Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.... I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men." ”

“ Francis, who happened to be at his castle of Amboise, on the Loire, now sent word that parliament should appoint a deputation to convey to him the reasons of its refusal. But when the delegates reached the castle-gate, an entire month elapsed before Francis would condescend to grant them audience. They were at length admitted, only to be treated with studied contempt. "There can be but one king in France," was the arrogant language of the young prince to the judges who had grown gray in the service of Charles the Eighth and the good King Louis. ”

“ The monarch, greedy of glory, ambitious of association with cultivated minds, and aspiring to the honor of ushering in the new Augustan age, more than once seemed half-inclined to embrace those religious views which commended themselves to his taste by association with the fresh and glowing ideas of the great masters in science and art. ”

“ Addressing parliament and representatives of the lower judiciary, Francis plainly disclaimed all sympathy with the Reformation. "The errors," he said, "which have multiplied, and are even now multiplying, are but of our own days. Our fathers have shown us how to live in accordance with the word of God and of our mother Holy Church. In that church I am resolved to live and die, and I am determined to prove that I am entitled to be called Very Christian. I notify you that it is my will that these errors be driven from my kingdom. ”

“ At Rouen, four brave reformers were thrown into a tumbril, reeking with filth, to be drawn to the place of execution, one of them exclaiming with radiant countenance: "Truly, as says the apostle, we are the offscouring of the earth, and we now stink in the nostrils of the men of the world. But let us rejoice, for the savor of our death will be a sweet savor unto God, and will profit our brethren." ”

“ But her ambitious plan, while securing the authority of her children, to rule herself, was likely to be frustrated by the pretensions of the two families of Montmoreney and Guise, raised by the late monarch to inordinate power in the state, and by the claim to the regency which Antoine of Bourbon-Vendôme, King of Navarre, might justly assert. To establish herself in opposition to all these, her sagacity taught her was impossible. To prevail by allying herself to the most powerful and those from whom she could extort the best terms seemed to be the most politic course. ”

“ At the age of forty-two years, Beza, after having successively discharged with great ability the functions of professor of Greek in the Académie of Lausanne, and of professor of theology in that of Geneva, was, next to Calvin, the most distinguished Protestant teacher of French origin. He was a man of commanding presence, of extensive erudition, of quick and ready wit, of elegant manners and bearing. No better selection could have been made by the Huguenots of a champion to represent them at the court of Charles the Ninth. ”

“ Everywhere there were seditious and insolent men, who, under the pretext of religion, had disturbed the general peace, overturned customs and discipline, and put in doubt the royal authority and the safety of all. Oh, that Philip the Second had the courage of his father, or that Charles the Fifth had had his son's glorious opportunity—then would France be France no longer! ”

“ Rarely has an important secret been so long and so successfully kept. It was deemed little short of a miracle that, in a time of peace, and in a country where the regal authority was so implicitly obeyed, a deliberative assembly of no mean size had been convened from all the provinces of France, and the Guises had obtained intimations of the conspiracy of their enemies by letters from Germany, Spain, and Italy, before any tidings of it reached the ears of their spies carefully posted in every part of the kingdom. ”