History of the Reformation, vol. 3

Chapter 15

A Student of Noyon—Character of young Calvin—Early Education—Consecrated to Theology—The Bishop gives him the Tonsure—He leaves Noyon on Account of the Plague—The two Calvins—Slanders—The Reformation creates new Languages—Persecution and Terror—Toussaint put in Prison—The Persecution more furious—Death of Du Blet, Moulin, and Papillon—God saves the Church—Margaret’s Project—Her Departure for Spain

While men were thus putting to death the first confessors of Jesus Christ in France, God was preparing mightier ones to fill their places. Beda hurried to the stake an unassuming scholar, an humble hermit, and thought he was dragging almost the whole of the Reform along with them. But Providence has resources that are unknown to the world. The Gospel, like the fabulous phoenix, contains a principle of life within itself, which the flames cannot consume, and it springs up again from its own ashes. It is often at the moment when the storm is at its height, when the thunderbolt seems to have struck down the truth, and when thick darkness hides it from our view, that a sudden glimmering appears, the forerunner of a great deliverance. At this time, when all human powers in France were arming against the Gospel for the complete destruction of the Reformation, God was preparing an instrument, weak to all appearance, one day to support His rights and to defend His cause with more than mortal intrepidity. In the midst of the persecutions and blazing piles that followed each other in close succession after Francis became Charles’s prisoner, let up fix our eyes on a youth, one day to be called to the head of a great army in the holy warfare of Israel. HRSCV3 489.1

Among the inhabitants of the city and colleges of Paris who heard the sound of the great bell was a young scholar of sixteen, a native of Noyon in Picardy, of middle stature, sallow features, and whose piercing eye and animated looks announced a mind of no common sagacity. His dress, extremely neat but of perfect simplicity, betokened order and moderation. This young man, by name John Cauvin or Calvin, was then studying at the college of La Marche, under Mathurin Cordier, a rector celebrated for his probity, erudition, and peculiar fitness for the instruction of youth. Brought up in all the superstitions of popery, the scholar of Noyon was blindly submissive to the Church, cheerfully complying with all her observances, and persuaded that the heretics had richly deserved their fate. The blood which was then flowing in Paris aggravated the crime of heresy in his eyes. But although naturally of a timid and fearful disposition, and which he himself has styled soft and pusillanimous, he possessed that uprightness and generosity of heart which lead a man to sacrifice everything to his convictions. Accordingly, in vain had his youth been appalled by those frightful spectacles, in vain had murderous flames consumed the faithful disciples of the Gospel on the Greve and in front of Notre-Dame; the recollection of these horrors could not prevent him from one day entering on the new path, which seemed to lead only to the prison or the stake. Moreover, there were already perceptible in the character of young Calvin certain traits that announced what he would become. Strictness of morals in him led the way to strictness of doctrine, and the scholar of sixteen already gave promise of a man who would deal seriously with every principle he embraced, and who would firmly require in others what he himself found it so easy to perform. Quite and serious during his lessons, never sharing in the amusements or follies of his schoolfellows during the hours of recreation, holding himself aloof, and filled with horror at sin, he would often reprimand their disorders with severity and even bitterness. And hence, as a canon of Noyon informs us, his fellow-students nicknamed him the accusative case. Among them he was the representative of conscience and of duty, so far was he from being as some of his calumniators have depicted him. The pale features and the piercing eyes of the scholar of sixteen had already inspired his comrades with more respect than the black gowns of their masters; and this Picard youth, of a timid air, who daily took his seat on the benches in the college of La Marche, was even then, by the seriousness of his conversation and life, an unconscious minister and reformer. HRSCV3 489.2

It was not in these particulars alone that the youth of Noyon was already far above his schoolfellows. His great timidity sometimes prevented him from manifesting all the horror he felt at vanity and vice; but he already consecrated to study the whole force of his genius and of his will, and to look at him one might see he was a man who would spend his life in toil. He comprehended everything with inconceivable facility; he ran in his studies while his companions were lazily creeping along, and he impressed deeply on his profound genius what others spend much time in learning superficially. Accordingly, his master was compelled to take him out of the classes, and introduce him singly to fresh studies. HRSCV3 490.1

Among his fellow-students were the young De Mommors, belonging to the first nobility of Picardy. John Calvin was very intimate with them, especially with Claude, who afterwards became abbot of Saint Eloi, and to whom he dedicated his commentary on Seneca. It was in the company of these young nobles that Calvin had come to Paris. His father, Gerard Calvin, apostolic notary, procurator-fiscal of the county of Noyon, secretary of the diocese, and proctor of the chapter, was a man of judgment and ability, whose talents had raised him to offices sought after by the best families, and who had gained the esteem of all the gentry in the province, and in particular of the noble family of Mommor. Gerard resided at Noyon; he had married a young woman of Cambray, of remarkable beauty and unassuming piety, by name Jane Lefranq, who had already borne him a son named Charles, when on the 10th of July 1509 she gave birth to a second son, who received the name of John, and who was christened in the church of St. Godeberte. A third son, Anthony, who died young, and two daughters, made up the family of the procurator-fiscal of Noyon. HRSCV3 490.2

Gerard Calvin, living in familiar intercourse with the heads of the clergy and the chief persons in the province, desired that his children should receive the same education as those of the best families. John, whose precocious habits he had observed, was brought up with the sons of the Mommor family; he lived in their house as one of themselves, and studied the same lessons as Claude. In this family he learnt the first elements of literature and of life; he thus received a higher polish than he appeared destined to acquire. He was afterwards sent to the college of the Capettes, founded in the city of Noyon. The child enjoyed but little recreation. The austerity, that was one of the characteristic features of the son, was found also in the father. Gerard brought him up strictly; from his earliest years, John was compelled to bend to the inflexible rule of duty, which soon became habitual to him, and the influence of the father counteracted that of the Mommer family. Calvin, who was of a timid and somewhat rustic character (as he says himself), and rendered still more timid by his father’s severity, shrunk from the splendid apartments of his protectors, and loved to remain alone and in obscurity. Thus in retirement his young mind formed itself to great thoughts. It would appear that he sometimes went to the village of Pont l’Eveque, near Noyon, where his grandfather resided in a small cottage, and where other relatives also, who at a later period changed their name from detestation of the heresiarch, kindly received the son of the procurator-fiscal. HRSCV3 490.3

But it was to study chiefly that young Calvin devoted his time. While Luther, who was to act upon the people, was brought up like a child of the people, Calvin, who was to act especially as a theologian and profound reasoner, and become the legislator of the renovated Church, received even in childhood a more liberal education. HRSCV3 491.1

A spirit of piety early showed itself in the child’s heart. One author relates that he was accustomed, when very young, to pray in the open air, under the vault of heaven; a habit which contributed to awaken in his heart the sentiment of God’s omnipresence. But although Calvin might, even in infancy, have heard the voice of God in his heart, no one at Noyon was so rigid as he in the observance of ecclesiastical regulations. And hence Gerard, remarking this disposition, conceived the design of devoting his son to theology. This prospect no doubt contributed to impress on his soul that serious form, that theological stamp, by which it was subsequently distinguished. His spirit was of a nature to receive a strong impression in early years, and to familiarize itself from childhood with the most elevated thoughts. The report that he was at this time a chorister has no foundation, as even his adversaries admit. But they assure us that, when a child, he was seen joining the religious processions, and carrying a sword with a cross-shaped hilt by way of a crucifix. “A presage,” add they, “of what he was one day to become!” “The Lord hath made my mouth like a sharp sword,” says the servant of Jehovah in Isaiah. The same may be said of Calvin. HRSCV3 491.2

Gerard was poor; his son’s education had cost him much, and he wished to attach him irrevocably to the Church. The Cardinal of Lorraine had been coadjutor of the Bishop of Metz at the age of four years. It was then a common practice to confer ecclesiastical titles and revenues on children. Alphonso of Portugal was made cardinal by Leo X at the age of eight, and Odet of Chatillon by Clement VII at eleven; and subsequent to Calvin’s day, the celebrated Mere Angelique of Port Royal was appointed coadjutrix of that nunnery at the age of seven years. Gerard, who died a good catholic, was regarded with favor by Messire Charles de Hangest, bishop of Noyon, and by his vicars-general. Accordingly, when the chaplain of La Gesine resigned, the bishop, on the 21st May 1521, conferred this benefice on John Calvin, who was then nearly twelve years old. The appointment was communicated to the chapter twelve days after. On the eve of Corpus Christi, the bishop solemnly cut off the child’s hair, and by this ceremony of the tonsure, John became a member of the clergy, and capable of entering into holy orders, and of holding a benefice without residing on the spot. HRSCV3 491.3

Thus was Calvin called to make trial in his own person of the abuses of the Romish Church. Of all who wore the tonsure in France, there was none more serious in his piety than the chaplain of La Gesine, and the serious child was probably astonished himself at the work of the bishop and his vicars-general. But in his simplicity he felt too much veneration towards these exalted personages to indulge in the least suspicion on the lawfulness of his tonsure. He had held the title about two years when Noyon was visited by a dreadful pestilence. Several of the canons petitioned the chapter that they might be allowed to quit the city. Already many of the inhabitants had been carried off by the great death, and Gerard was beginning to fear that his son John, the hope of his life, might in a moment be snatched from his tenderness by the scourge of God. The young de Mommors were going to Paris to continue their studies; this was what the procurator-fiscal had always desired for his son. Why should he separate John from his fellow-students? On the 5th of August 1523, he petitioned the chapter to procure the young chaplain “liberty to go wherever he pleased during the plague, without loss of his allowance; which was granted him until the feast of Saint Remy.” John Calvin quitted his father’s house at the age of fourteen. It requires great audacity in calumny to ascribe his departure to other causes, and in mere wantonness challenge that disgrace which justly recoils on those who circulate charges the falsehood of which has been so authentically demonstrated. It appears that in Paris, Calvin lodged at the house of one of his uncles, Richard Cauvin, who resided near the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois. “Thus flying from the pestilence,” says the canon of Noyon, “he went to catch it elsewhere.” HRSCV3 491.4

Some years after Calvin had quitted Noyon, another individual of the same name arrived in that city. John Cauvin was a young man of corrupt principles, but as he came from another part of France, and was a stranger (or unknown) in Noyon, he was received among the priests who chanted in the choir, and in a short time a chapel was given him, as in the case of the first Calvin. As this took place at a time when the latter had already “turned to heresy,” the good canons looked upon Cauvin’s arrival as a sort of recompense and consolation; but it was not long before the disorderly life of this wretched man excited alarm among his protectors. He was reprimanded, punished, and even deprived of his stipend: but to this he paid no attention, continually lapsing again into incontinence. “Seeing then,” says the canon, “his hardness of heart, which made him neglect every kind of remonstrance,” the canons deprived John Cauvin of his chapel and expelled him from the choir. James Desmay, a priest and doctor of divinity, who had studied at Noyon everything that concerned this church, adds, that he was privately scourged in 1552, and then driven from the town. This is indeed a disgraceful end for a priest! The canon Levasseur disputes the scourging, but admits all the rest. HRSCV3 491.5

In the following year the same circumstances happened again, for the history of popery abounds in such adventures. A certain Baldwin the younger, also chaplain at Noyon, having taken to live scandalously with him certain women of suspicious character, was condemned to attend every service in the church during a month, and to be scourged. HRSCV3 492.1

While these two Romanist authors agree in relating the disorders and punishments inflicted on these young ecclesiastics, they likewise agree in declaring that they had found nothing at Noyon or in its registers against the morals of the great French reformer, and are content to execrate his error; “for to call a man a heretic, is to call him by the most opprobrious of names.” HRSCV3 492.2

The Dean of Noyon goes even farther in his zeal for the papacy, and relates that John Cauvin, who had been expelled in 1552 for incontinence, died a good catholic. “Thanks be to God,” adds he, “that he never turned his coat, nor changed his religion, to which his libertine life and the example of his namesake Calvin seemed to incline him.” The dean concludes his strange narrative, the discovery of which is highly valuable to the history of the Reformation, in these words: “I thought it my duty to add this chapter to the history of the first Calvin the reformer, ad diluendam homonymiam (to guard against the similarity of names), for fear one should be taken for the other, the catholic for the heretic.” HRSCV3 492.3

Never was fear better founded. We know what the popish writers are accustomed to do. They take advantage of the misdeeds of John Cauvin at Noyon, and ascribe them to the reformer. They tell their readers gravely that he was driven from his native town for misconduct, after having been condemned to be scourged and even branded. In spite of all the pains taken by the Dean of Noyon to add a chapter for fear one should be taken for the other, the catholic for the heretic, the apologists of Rome fail not to ascribe to the reformer the debaucheries of his namesake. What engrossed the thoughts of the canon of Noyon was the glory of John Cauvin who died a good catholic, and he feared lest Calvin’s heresy should be laid to him. And, accordingly, he clearly assigns incontinence to the one, and heresy to the other. There have indeed been equivocations, as he says, but in a contrary direction. Let us now return to Calvin at Paris. HRSCV3 492.4

A new world opened before the young man in the metropolis of letters. He profited by it, applied to his studies, and made great progress in Latin literature. He became familiar with Cicero, and learned from this great master to employ the language of the Romans with a facility, purity, and ease that excite the admiration even of his enemies. But at the same time, he found riches in this language which he afterwards transferred to his own. HRSCV3 492.5

Up to this time Latin had been the only language of the learned; and to our own days it has remained the language of the Roman Church. The Reformation created or at least emancipated the vulgar tongue. The exclusive office of the priest had ceased; the people were called to learn and know for themselves. In this one fact was involved the ruin of the language of the priest, and the inauguration of the language of the people. It is no longer to the Sorbonne alone, to a few monks, or ecclesiastics, or literary men, that the new ideas are to be addressed; but to the noble, the citizen, and the laborer. All men are now to be preached to; nay more, all are to become preachers—wool-combers and knights, as well as doctors and parish-priests. A new language is wanted, or at the least the language of the people must undergo an immense transformation, a great enfranchisement, and, drawn from the common uses of life, must receive its patent of nobility from renovated Christianity. The Gospel, so long slumbering, has awoke; it speaks and addresses whole nations, everywhere kindling generous affections; it opens the treasures of heaven to a generation that was thinking only of the mean things on earth; it shakes the masses; it talks to them of God, of man, of good and evil, of the pope and the Bible, of a crown in heaven, and perhaps a scaffold upon earth. The popular tongue, which hitherto had been the language of chroniclers and troubadours only, was called by the Reformation to act a new part, and consequently to new developments. A new world is opening upon society, and for a new world there must be new languages. The Reformation removed the French from the swaddling bands in which it had hitherto been bound, and reared it to its majority. From that time the language has had full possession of those exalted privileges that belong to the operations of the mind and the treasures of heaven, of which it had been deprived under the guardianship of Rome. No doubt the language is formed by the people themselves: they invent those happy words, those energetic and figurative expressions, that impart to language such coloring and life. But there are resources beyond their reach, and which can only proceed from men of intellect. Calvin, when called upon to discuss and to prove, enriched his mother-tongue with modes of connection and dependence, with shadows, transitions, and dialectic forms, that it did not as yet possess. HRSCV3 492.6

These elements were already beginning to ferment in the head of the young student at the college of La Marche. This lad, who was destined to exercise so powerful a mastery over the human heart, was also to subjugate the language he would have to use as his weapon. Protestant France subsequently habituated itself to the French of Calvin, and Protestant France comprehends the most cultivated portion of the nation; from it issued those families of scholars and dignified magistrates who exerted so powerful an influence over the refinement of the people; out of it sprung the Port Royal, one of the greatest instruments that have ever contributed to form the prose and even the poetry of France, and who, after endeavouring to transfer to the Gallican catholicism the doctrine and language of the Reformation, failed in one of his projects, but succeeded in the other; for Roman-catholic France was forced to go and learn of her Jansenist and reformed adversaries how to wield those weapons of language without which it cannot contend against them. HRSCV3 493.1

While the future reformer of religion and language was thus growing to maturity in the college of La Marche, everything was in commotion around the young and serious scholar, who took no part as yet in the great movements that were agitating society. The flames that consumed the hermit and Pavanne had spread terror through Paris. But the persecutors were not satisfied; a system of terror was set on foot throughout France. The friends of the Reformation no longer dared correspond with one another, for fear their intercepted letters should betray to the vengeance of the tribunals both those who wrote them and those to whom they were addressed. One man, however, ventured to carry intelligence from Paris to France to the refugees at Basle, by sewing a letter that bore no signature under his doublet. He escaped the squadrons of arquebusiers, the marechaussee of the several districts, the examinations of the provosts and lieutenants, and reached Basle without the mysterious doublet being searched. His tidings filled Toussaint and his friends with alarm. “It is frightful,” said Toussaint, “to hear of the great cruelties there inflicted!” Shortly before this, two Franciscan monks had arrived at Basle, closely pursued by the officers of justice. One of them named John Prevost had preached at Meaux, and had afterwards been thrown into prison at Paris. All that they told of Paris and Lyons, through which they had passed, excited the compassion of these refugees. “May our Lord send his grace thither,” wrote Toussaint to Farel; “I assure you that I am sometimes in great anxiety and tribulation.” HRSCV3 493.2

These excellent men still kept up their courage; in vain were all the parliaments on the watch; in vain did the spies of the Sorbonne and of the monks creep into churches, colleges, and even private families, to catch up any word of evangelical doctrine that might there be uttered; in vain did the king’s soldiers arrest on the highways everything that seemed to bear the stamp of the Reformation: those Frenchmen whom Rome and her satellites were hunting down and treading under foot, had faith in better days to come, and already perceived afar off the end of this Babylonish captivity, as they called it. “The seventieth year, the year of deliverance, will come at last,” said they, “and liberty of spirit and of conscience will be given to us.” But the seventy years were destined to last nearly three centuries, and it was only after calamities without a parallel that these hopes were to be realized. It was not in man, however, that the refugees placed any hope. “Those who have begun the dance,” said Toussaint, “will not stop on the road.” But they believed that the Lord “knew those whom he had chosen, and would deliver his people with a mighty hand.” HRSCV3 493.3

The Chevalier d’Esch had in effect been delivered. Escaping from the prison at Pont a Mousson, he had hastened to Strasburg; but he did not remain there long. “For the honor of God,” immediately wrote Toussaint to Farel, “endeavour to prevail on the knight, our worthy master, to return as speedily as possible; for our brethren have great need of such a leader?” In truth, the French refugees had new cause of alarm. They trembled lest that dispute about the Lord’s Supper, which had so much distressed them in Germany, should pass the Rhine, and cause fresh troubles in France. Francis Lambert, the monk of Avignon, after visiting Zurich and Wittenberg, had been in Metz; but they did not place entire confidence in him; they feared lest he should have imbibed Luther’s sentiments, and that by controversies, both useless and “monstrous” (as Toussaint calls them), he might check the progress of the Reformation. Esch therefore returned to Lorraine; but it was to be again exposed to great dangers, “along with all those who were seeking the glory of Jesus Christ.” HRSCV3 493.4

Yet Toussaint was not of a disposition to send others to the battle without joining in it himself. Deprived of his daily intercourse with Oecolampadius, reduced to associate with an ignorant priest, he had sought communion with Christ, and felt his courage augmented. If he could not return to Metz, might he not at least go to Paris? True, the piles of Pavanne and the hermit of Livry were smoking still, and seemed to repel from the capital all those who held the same faith as they did. But if the colleges and the streets of Paris were struck with terror, so that no one dared even name the Gospel and the Reformation, was not that a reason why he should go thither? Toussaint quitted Basle, and entered those walls where fanaticism had taken the place of riot and debauchery. While advancing in christian studies, he endeavoured to form a connection with those brethren who were in the colleges, and especially in that of the Cardinal Lemoine, where Lefevre and Farel had taught. But he could not long do so freely. The tyranny of the parliamentary commissioners and of the theologians reigned supreme in the capital, and whoever displeased them was accused of heresy. A duke and an abbot, whose names are unknown to us, denounced Toussaint as a heretic; and one day the king’s sergeants arrested the youth from Lorraine and put him in prison. Separated from all his friends, and treated like a criminal, Toussaint felt his wretchedness the more keenly. “O Lord,” exclaimed he, “withdraw not thou thy Spirit from me! for without it I am but flesh and a sink of iniquity.” While his body was in chains, he turned in heart to those who were still combating freely for the Gospel. There was Oecolampadius, his father, and “whose work I am in the Lord,” said he. There was Leclerc, whom he no doubt believed, on account of his age, “unable to bear the weight of the Gospel;” Vaugris, who had displayed all the zeal “of the most affectionate brother” to rescue him from the hands of his enemies; Roussel, “by whom he hoped the Lord would bring great things to pass; and lastly, Farel, to whom he wrote, “I commend myself to your prayers, for fear that I should fall in this warfare.” How must the names of all these men have softened the bitterness of his imprisonment, for he showed no signs of falling. Death, it is true, seemed hanging over him in this city where the blood of a number of his brethren was to be poured out like water; the friends of his mother, of his uncle the Dean of Metz, and the Cardinal of Lorraine, made him the most lavish offers “I despise them,” answered he; “I know that they are a temptation of the devil. I would rather suffer hunger, I would rather be a slave in the house of the Lord, than dwell with riches in the palaces of the wicked.” At the same time he made a bold confession of his faith. “It is my glory,” exclaimed he, “to be called a heretic by those whose lives and doctrines are opposed to Jesus Christ.” And this interesting and bold young man subscribed his letters, “Peter Toussaint, unworthy to be called a Christian.” HRSCV3 494.1

Thus, in the absence of the king, new blows were continually aimed against the Reformation. Berquin, Toussaint, and many others, were in prison; Schuch, Pavanne, and the hermit of Livry, had been put to death; Farel, Lefevre, Roussel, and many other defenders of the holy doctrine, were in exile, the mouths of the mighty ones were dumb. The light of the Gospel day was growing dim; the storm was roaring incessantly, bending and shaking as if it would uproot the young tree that the hand of God had so recently planted in France. HRSCV3 494.2

Nor was this all. The humble victims who had already fallen were to be succeeded by more illustrious martyrs. The enemies of the Reform in France, having failed when they began with persons of rank, had submitted to begin at the bottom, but with the hope of rising gradually until they procured the condemnation and death of the most exalted personages. The inverse progress succeeded with them. Scarcely had the ashes with which the persecution had covered the Greve and the avenues of Notre-Dame been dispersed by the wind, before fresh attacks were commenced. Messire Anthony Du Blet, that excellent man, the Lyons merchant, sunk under the persecutions of these enemies of the truth, in company with another disciple, Francis Moulin, of whose fate no details have been handed down. They went further still; they now took a higher aim; there was an illustrious person whom they could not reach, but whom they could strike in those who were dear to her. This was the Duchess of Alencon. Michael d’Arande, chaplain to the king’s sister, for whose sake Margaret had dismissed her other preachers, and who proclaimed the pure doctrine of the Gospel in her presence, became the object of attack, and was threatened with imprisonment and death. About the same time Anthony Papillon, for whom the princess had obtained the office of chief master of requests to the Dauphin, died suddenly, and the general report, even among the enemies, was that he had been poisoned. HRSCV3 494.3

Thus the persecution spread over the kingdom, and daily drew nearer to the person of Margaret. After the forces of the Reform, concentrated at Meaux, at Lyons, and at Basle, had been dispersed, they brought down one after another those isolated combatants who here and there stood up for it. Yet a few more efforts, and the soil of France will be free from heresy. Underhanded contrivances and secret practices took the place of clamor and the stake. They will make war in open day, but they will also carry in on in darkness. If fanaticism employs the tribunal and the scaffold for the meaner sort, poison and the dagger are in reserve for the great. The doctors of a celebrated society have made too good a use of these means, and even kings have fallen under the dagger of the assassins. But justice demands that we should remember it. Rome has had in every age its fanatical assassins, it has also had men like Vincent de Paul and Fenelon. These blows struck in darkness and silence were well adapted to spread terror on every side. HRSCV3 495.1

To this perfidious policy and fanatical persecution from within, were added the fatal reverses from without. A veil of mourning hung over the whole nation. There was not a family, particularly among the nobles, whose tears did not flow for the loss of a father, a husband, of a son left on the fields of Italy, or whose hearts did not tremble for the liberty and even the life of one of its members. The great reverses that had fallen upon the nation diffused a leaven of hatred against the heretics. People and parliament, church and throne, joined hand in hand. HRSCV3 495.2

Was it not enough for the Duchess of Alencon that the defeat of Pavia should have deprived her of a husband, and made her brother a prisoner? Must the torch of the Gospel, in whose mild light she so rejoiced, be extinguished perhaps for ever? In May 1525, she had felt increase of sorrow. Charles of Lannoy had received orders to take his prisoner into Spain. Margaret had recourse to the consolations of faith, and having found them, immediately communicated them to her brother. “My lord,” she wrote, “the farther you are removed from us, the stronger is my hope of your deliverance: for when the reason of man is troubled and fails, then the Lord performs his mighty works.—And now, if he makes you partaker of the pains he has borne for you, I beseech you, my lord, to believe that it is only to try how much you love him, and to afford you space to learn how he loves you; for he will have your whole heart, as he through love hath given his own. After having united you to himself by tribulation, he will deliver you to his glory and your consolation, by the merits of his victorious resurrection, in order that by you his name may be known and sanctified, not only in your kingdom, but in all Christendom, until the conversion of the unbelievers. Oh! how blessed will be your brief captivity, by which God will deliver so many souls from unbelief and eternal condemnation!” Francis I deceived the hopes of his pious sister. HRSCV3 495.3

The news from Spain soon increased the general sorrow. Mortification and illness endangered the life of the haughty Francis. If the king remains a prisoner, if he dies, if his mother’s regency is prolonged for many years, will not the Reformation be crushed for ever? “But when all seems lost,” said the young scholar of Noyon at a later period, “God saves his Church in a marvelous way.” The Church of France, which was as if in the travail of birth, was to have an interval of ease before her pains returned; and to this end God made use of a weak woman, who never openly declared in favor of the Reformation. At that time she thought more of saving the king and the kingdom, than of delivering obscure Christians, who nevertheless rested great hopes in her. But under the splendor of worldly affairs God often conceals the mysterious ways by which he governs his people. A noble project arose in the mind of the Duchess of Alencon. To cross the sea or the Pyrenees, and rescue Francis from the power of Charles V, was now the object of her life. HRSCV3 495.4

Margaret of Valois announced her intention, which was suggested by her mother, and all France hailed it with shouts of gratitude. HRSCV3 495.5

Her great genius, the reputation she had acquired, the love she felt for her brother, and that of Francis towards her, were a great counterpoise in the eyes of Louisa and Duprat to her attachment to the new doctrine. All eyes were turned upon her, as the only person capable of extricating the kingdom from its perilous position. Let Margaret visit Spain, let her speak to the powerful emperor and to his ministers, and let her employ that admirable genius which Providence has bestowed on her, for the deliverance of her brother and her king! HRSCV3 496.1

Yet very different sentiments filled the hearts of the nobles and of the people, as they saw the Duchess of Alencon going into the midst of the enemy’s councils, and among the fierce soldiery of the catholic king. HRSCV3 496.2

All admired the courage and devotion of this young woman, but did not share it. The friends of the princess had fears on her behalf, which were but too near being realized. The evangelical Christians were full of hope. The captivity of Francis I had brought unheard-of severities on the friends of the Reform; his liberation, they thought, might bring them to an end. To open the gates of Spain to the king, would be to close those of the prisons into which the servants of the Word of God had been thrown. Margaret encouraged herself in a project towards which all her soul felt attracted by so many different motives. Heaven’s height cannot my passage stay, Nor powers of hell can bar my way, My Saviour holds the keys of both. Her woman’s heart was strengthened by that faith which overcomes the world, and her resolution was irrevocable. Every preparation was made for this important and dangerous journey. HRSCV3 496.3

The Archbishop of Embrun, afterwards Cardinal of Tournon, and the president Selves, were already at Madrid, treating for the king’s deliverance. They were placed under Margaret’s orders, as was also the Bishop of Tarbes, afterwards Cardinal of Grammont; full powers being given to the princess alone. At the same time Montmorency, afterwards so hostile to the Reform, was sent in all haste to Spain to procure a safe-conduct for the king’s sister. The emperor objected at first, and said that it was the duty of his ministers alone to arrange this affair. “One hour’s conference,” exclaimed Selves, “between your majesty, the king my master, and the Duchess of Alencon, would forward the treaty more than a month’s discussion between diplomatists.” HRSCV3 496.4

Margaret, impatient to arrive in consequence of the king’s illness, set off without a safe-conduct, accompanied by a splendid train. She quitted the court, moving towards the Mediterranean; but while she was on the road, Montmorency returned with letters from Charles guaranteeing her liberty for three months only. That matters not; she will not be stopped. The eagerness for this journey was such that the Duchess had been compelled to ask the king whom she should select to accompany her. “Your good servants have so great a desire to see you, that each one prays to be allowed to go with me,” she wrote to her brother. HRSCV3 496.5

Margaret had scarcely reached the shores of the Mediterranean when the fears of those about her on the insufficiency of the safe-conduct, but especially the bad weather and the tempest, made her halt. “The seamen themselves (wrote she to Montmorency) are alarmed.” On the 27th August she made up her mind. “The bearer,” she wrote to the king on the very day, “the bearer will tell you how the heavens, the sea, and the opinions of men have retarded my departure. But He alone to whom all things pay obedience, hath given such favorable weather that every difficulty is solved I will not delay either on account of my own security or of the sea, which is unsettled at this season, to hasten towards the place where I may see you; for fear of death, imprisonment, and every sort of evil are now so habitual to me, that I hold lightly my life, health, glory, and honor, thinking by this means to share your fortune, which I would desire to bear alone.” Nothing therefore could detain this princess at Aigues-Mortes, and in this port Margaret embarked on board the ship prepared for her. Led by Providence into Spain, rather for the deliverance of humble and oppressed Christians, than to free the mighty King of France from his captivity, she confided herself to the waves of that sea which had borne her brother a captive after the disastrous battle of Pavia. HRSCV3 496.6