History of the Reformation, vol. 3

Chapter 6

Briconnet visits his Diocese—Reform—The Doctors persecuted in Paris—Philiberta of Savoy—Correspondence between Margaret and Briconnet

Thus Paris was beginning to rise against the Reformation, and to trace the outlines of that circumvallation which was destined for more than three centuries to bar the entrance of the reformed worship. It had been God’s will that the first beams of light should shine upon the capital; but men immediately arose to extinguish them; the spirit of the Sixteen was already fermenting in the metropolis, and other cities were about to receive the light which Paris rejected. HRSCV3 449.2

Briconnet, on returning to his diocese, had manifested the zeal of a Christian and of a bishop. He had visited every parish, and, assembling the deans, the incumbents, and their curates, with the church-wardens and principal parishioners, had inquired into the doctrine and lives of the preachers. At collection time (they answered) the Franciscans of Meaux begin their rounds; a single preacher will visit four or five parishes in a day, always delivering the same sermon, not to feed the souls of his hearers, but to fill his belly, his purse, and his convent. Their wallets once replenished, their end is gained, the sermons are over, and the monks do not appear again in the churches until the time for another collection has arrived. The only business of these shepherds is to shear their sheep. HRSCV3 449.3

The majority of the parish priests spent their stipends at Paris. “Alas!” exclaimed the pious bishop, finding a presbytery deserted that he had gone to visit, “are they not traitors who thus desert the service of Jesus Christ?” Briconnet resolved to apply a remedy to these evils, and convoked a synod of all his clergy for the 13th of October 1519. But these worldly priests, who troubled themselves but little about the remonstrances of their bishop, and for whom Paris had so many charms, took advantage of a custom in virtue of which they might substitute one or more curates to tend their flocks in their absence. Out of one hundred and twenty-seven of these curates, there were only fourteen of whom Briconnet could approve upon examination. HRSCV3 449.4

Worldly-minded priests, imbecile curates, monks who thought only of their belly;—such was then the condition of the Church. Briconnet interdicted the Franciscans from entering the pulpit; published a mandate on the 27th of October 1520, in which he declared “traitors and deserters all those pastors who, by abandoning their flocks, show plainly that what they love is their fleece and their wool; selected others who were found to be capable, and gave them to the poor sheep, ransomed by the most holy blood of Jesus Christ;” and feeling convinced that the only means of providing able ministers for his diocese was to train them himself, he determined to establish a theological school at Meaux, under the direction of pious and learned doctors. It was necessary to find them, and Beda soon provided them. HRSCV3 449.5

This fanatic and his band did not relax their exertions; and, bitterly complaining of the toleration of their government, declared that they would make war on the new doctrines with it, without it, and against it. In vain had Lefevre quitted the capital; did not Farel and his friends remain behind? Farel, it is true, did not preach, for he was not in holy orders; but at the university and in the city, with professors and priests, students and citizens, he boldly maintained the cause of the Reformation. Others, inspirited by his example, were inculcating the Gospel more openly. A celebrated preacher, Martial Mazurier, president of St. Michael’s college, threw aside all reserve, depicted the disorders of the age in the darkest and yet truest colors, and it seemed impossible to resist the torrent of his eloquence. The anger of Beda and his theological friends was at its height. “If we tolerate these innovators,” said he, “they will invade the whole body, and all will be over with our teaching, our traditions, our places, and the respect felt towards us by France and the whole of Christendom!” HRSCV3 449.6

The divines of the Sorbonne were the stronger party. Farel, Mazurier, Gerard Roussel, and his brother Arnold, soon found their active exertions everywhere thwarted. The Bishop of Meaux entreated his friends to come and join Lefevre; and these excellent men, hunted down by the Sorbonne, and hoping to form, under Briconnet’s protection, a sacred phalanx for the triumph of the truth, accepted the bishop’s invitation, and repaired to Meaux. Thus the light of the Gospel was gradually withdrawn form the capital, where Providence had kindled its earliest sparks. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. It is impossible not to discover that Paris then drew down upon its walls the judgment of God pointed out in these words of Jesus Christ. HRSCV3 450.1

Margaret of Valois, successively deprived of Briconnet, Lefevre, and their friends, felt anxious at her lonely position in the midst of Paris and the licentious court of Francis I. A young princess, Philiberta of Savoy, her mother’s sister, lived in close intimacy with her. Philiberta, whom the King of France had given in marriage to Julian the Magnificent, brother to Leo X, in confirmation of the concordat, had repaired to Rome after her nuptials, when the pope, delighted at so illustrious an alliance, had expended 150,000 ducats in sumptuous festivities on the occasion. Julian, who then commanded the papal army, died, leaving his widow only eighteen years of age. She became attached to Margaret, who by her talents and virtues exercised a great influence over all around her. Philiberta’s grief opened her heart to the voice of religion. Margaret imparted to her all she read; and the widow of the lieutenant-general of the Church began to taste the sweets of the doctrine of salvation. But Philiberta was too inexperienced to support her friend. Margaret often trembled as she thought of her exceeding weakness. If the love she bore the king and the fear she had of displeasing him led her to any action contrary to her conscience, trouble immediately entered into her soul, and turning sorrowfully towards the Lord, she found in him a brother and a master more compassionate and dearer to her than Francis himself. It was then she said to Jesus Christ:—Sweet brother, who, when thou might’st justly chide Thy foolish sister, tak’st her to thy side; And grace and love giv’st her in recompense Of murmurings, injury, and great offence. Too much, too much, dear brother, thou hast done, Too much, alas! for such a worthless one. HRSCV3 450.2

Margaret seeing all her friends retiring to Meaux, looked sadly after them from the midst of the festivities of the court. Everything appeared to be deserting her again. Her husband, the Duke of Alencon, was setting out for the army; her youthful aunt Philiberta was going to Savoy. The duchess turned to Briconnet. HRSCV3 450.3

“Monsieur de Meaux,” wrote she, “knowing that One alone is necessary, I apply to you, entreating you to be, by prayer, the means that He will be pleased to guide according to His holy will, M. d’Alencon, who by command of the king is setting out as lieutenant-general in his army, which I fear will not be disbanded without a war. And thinking that, besides the public weal of the kingdom, you have a good title in whatsoever concerns his salvation and mine, I pray for your spiritual aid. Tomorrow, my aunt of Nemours departs for Savoy. I am obliged to meddle with many things that cause me much fear. Wherefore, if you should know that master Michael could undertake a journey hither, it would be a consolation to me, which I beseech only for the honor of God.” HRSCV3 450.4

Michael of Aranda, whose aid Margaret sought, was a member of the evangelical society of Meaux, and who subsequently exposed himself to many dangers in preaching the Gospel. HRSCV3 450.5

This pious princess beheld with alarm the opposition against truth becoming more formidable every day. Duprat and the creatures of the government, Beda and those of the Sorbonne, filled her with terror. Briconnet, to encourage her, replied: “It is the war which the gentle Jesus told us in the Gospel he came to send on earth and also the fire the great fire that transformeth earthliness into heavenliness. I desire with all my heart to aid you, madam, but from my own nothingness expect nothing but the will. Whoso hath faith hope, and love, hath all he requires, and needeth not aid or support God alone is all in all, and out of him can nothing be found. To fight, take with you that great giant love unspeakable The war is led on by love. Jesus demandeth the presence of the heart: wretched is the man who withdraws from him. Whoso fighteth in person is sure of victory. He often faileth who fighteth by others.” HRSCV3 450.6

The Bishop of Meaux was beginning to know by personal experience what it is to fight for the Word of God. The theologians and monks, irritated by the asylum he gave to the friend of the Reformation, accused him with such violence that his brother, the Bishop of St. Malo, came to Paris to inquire into the matter. Hence Margaret was the more touched by the consolations that Briconnet addressed to her, and she replied with offers of assistance. HRSCV3 450.7

“If in anything,” she wrote, “you think that I can pleasure you or yours, I pray you believe that every trouble will turn to my comfort. May everlasting peace be yours after these long wars you are waging for the faith, in which battle you desire to die Wholly your daughter, Margaret.” HRSCV3 451.1

It is to be lamented that Briconnet did not die in the contest. Yet he was then full of zeal. Philiberta of Nemours, respected by all for her sincere devotion, her liberality towards the poor, and the great purity of her life, read with increasing interest the evangelical writings transmitted to her by the Bishop of Meaux. “I have all the tracts that you have sent me,” wrote Margaret to Briconnet, “of which my aunt of Nemours has her part, and I will forward her the last; for she is in Savoy at her brother’s wedding, which is no slight loss to me; wherefore I beseech you have pity on my loneliness.” Unhappily Philiberta did not live long enough to declare herself openly in favor of the Reformation. She died in 1524 at the castle of Virieu le Grand, in Bugey, at the age of twenty-six. This was a severe blow to Margaret. Her friend, her sister, she who could fully comprehend her, was taken from her. There was perhaps only one individual, her brother, whose death would have occasioned her more sorrow than this: Such floods of tears fall from my eyes, They hide from view both earth and skies. HRSCV3 451.2

Margaret, feeling her inability to resist her grief and the seductions of the court, entreated Briconnet to exhort her to the love of God, and the humble bishop replied:— HRSCV3 451.3

“May the mild and gentle Jesus, who wills, and who alone is able to effect what he mightily will, in his infinite mercy visit your heart, exhorting you to love him with your whole being. Other than he, madam, none has the power to do this; you must not seek light from darkness, or warmth from cold. By attracting he kindles; and by warmth he attracts to follow him, enlarging the heart. Madam, you write to me to have pity on you, because you are alone. I do not understand that word. Whoso lives in the world and has his heart there is alone; for many and evil go together. But she whose heart sleeps to the world, and is awake to the meek and gentle Jesus, her true and loyal husband, is truly alone, for she lives on the one thing needful; and yet she is not alone, not being forsaken by him who fills and preserves all things. Pity I cannot, and must not, such loneliness, which is more to be esteemed than the whole world, from which I am persuaded that the love of God had saved you, and that your are no longer its child… Abide, madam, alone in your only One who has been pleased to suffer a painful and ignominious death and passion. HRSCV3 451.4

“Madam, in commending myself to your good graces, I entreat you not to use any more such words as in your last letters. Of God alone you are the daughter and bride: other father you should not seek I exhort and admonish you, that you will be such and as good a daughter to him, as he is a good Father to you and forasmuch as you cannot attain to this, because the finite cannot correspond to infinity, I pray that he will vouchsafe to increase your strength, that you may love and serve him with your whole heart.” HRSCV3 451.5

Notwithstanding these exhortations, Margaret was not consoled. She bitterly regretted the spiritual guides whom she had lost; the new pastors forced upon her to bring her back did not possess her confidence and whatever the bishop might say, she felt herself alone in the midst of the court, and all around her appeared dark and desolate. “As a sheep in a strange country,” wrote she to Briconnet, “wandering about, not knowing where to find its pasture, through lack of knowing its new shepherds, naturally lifts its head to catch the breeze from that quarter where the chief shepherd was once accustomed to give her sweet nourishment, in such sort am I constrained to pray for your charity… Come down from the high mountain, and in pity regard, among this benighted people, the blindest of all thy fold. “Margaret.” HRSCV3 451.6

The Bishop of Meaux, in his reply, taking up the image of the stray sheep under which Margaret had depicted herself, uses it to describe the mysteries of salvation under the figure of a wood: “The sheep entering the forest, led by the Holy Ghost,” said he, “is immediately enchanted by the goodness, beauty, straightness, length, breadth, depth, and height, and the fragrant and invigorating sweetness of this forest and when it has looked all around, has seen only Him in all, and all in Him; and moving rapidly through its depths, finds it so pleasant, that the way is life, and joy, and consolation.” The bishop then shows her the sheep searching in vain for the limits of the forest (an image of the soul that would fathom the mysteries of God), meeting with lofty mountains, which it endeavours to scale, finding everywhere “inaccessible and incomprehensible infinity.” He then teaches her the road by which the soul, inquiring after God, surmounts all these difficulties; he shows how the sheep in the midst of the hirelings finds “the cabin of the great Shepherd,” and “enters on the wing of meditation by faith;” all is made smooth, all is explained; and she begins to sing: “I have found him whom my soul loveth.” HRSCV3 451.7

Thus wrote the Bishop of Meaux. At that period he was burning with zeal, and would gladly have seen all France regenerated by the Gospel. Often would his mind dwell especially on those three great individuals who seemed to preside over the destinies of its people,—the king, his mother, and his sister. He thought that if the royal family were enlightened, all the people would be so, and the priests, stirred to rivalry, would at last awaken from their lethargy. “Madam,” wrote he to Margaret, “I humbly entreat Almighty God, that he will be pleased of his goodness to kindle a fire in the hearts of the king, of his mother, and in your own so that from you there may go forth a light burning and shining on the rest of the nation; and particularly that class by whose coldness all others are frozen.” HRSCV3 452.1

Margaret did not share these hopes. She speaks neither of her brother nor of her mother; they were subjects she dared not touch upon; but, replying to the bishop in January 1522, with a heart wrung by the indifference and worldliness of those around her, she said: “The times are so cold, my heart so icy;” and signs her letter, “your frozen, thirsty, and hungry daughter, “Margaret.” HRSCV3 452.2

This letter did not discourage Briconnet, but it made him ponder; and feeling how much he, who desired to re-animate others, required to be animated himself, he commended himself to the prayers of Margaret and of Madam de Nemours. “Madam,” wrote he, with great simplicity, “I beseech you to awaken the poor slumberer with your prayers.” HRSCV3 452.3

Such in 1521 were the sentiments interchanged at the court of France. A strange correspondence, no doubt, and which, after more than three centuries, a manuscript in the Royal Library has revealed to us. Was this influence of the Reformation in such high places a benefit to it or a misfortune? The sting of truth penetrated the court; but perhaps it only served to arouse the drowsy beast, and exciting his rage, caused it to spring with deadlier fury on the humblest of the flock. HRSCV3 452.4