another victim. He preached in the town of St. Hippolyte. A threat having been made by the Duke Antoine de Lorraine, that he would destroy the city by fire and sword unless they returned to Rome, the good pastor, to save his flock, came himself to the duke, and was immediately thrown into a filthy prison. Friar Bonaventura, who presided on the trial, exclaimed when he saw him: "Heretic! Judas! devil!" Schuch held up his Bible; whereupon they rushed on him, tore it away from him, and burned it. They then condemned him to be burned alive. On hearing the sentence he raised his eyes to heaven, mildly saying: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." When they brought him to the place of execution they burned his books before his face, and called on him to retract; but he refused, saying: "It is thou, O Lord, who hast called me, and thou wilt give me strength unto the end!" While he stood on the pile, and while the fire burned around him, he repeated the fifty-first psalm until he was stifled by the smoke and flames."* This was in the year 1525. *His. Ref. Franc., par F. Puaux, vol. i, p. 72. Merle d'Aubigné, His. Ref., vol. iii, p. 467. A POLITICAL event of great importance had taken place at this time which turned against the Reformation in France, and was afterward the cause of many of the persecutions which occurred. The young and ambitious Charles V. sat on the imperial throne. Ruling over Spain, Belgium, a part of Italy, and of the present France, joined to his immense states in Germany and America, he was the most powerful monarch of Europe. Only Francis I. on the throne of France could hope to oppose him with any effect. Francis undertook the task, and was captured by Charles, at Pavia, on the 24th of February, 1525, and held as a prisoner of state. The Duke of Alençon, husband of Margaret de Valois, was slain in the same battle. The realm was without a king. A universal panic succeeded, and the priests then raised the cry that it was a judgment of God because they had not extirpated the heretics. Louisa, the mother of Francis, seemed to lose all her religious impressions, which never had been very deep, and thought only of pleasing the pope, hoping that through his influence Francis might be liberated and Charles humbled. She, therefore, had written to his holiness, inquiring how she could most effectually destroy the heresies which were constantly springing up from reading the Bible. The answer of the holy father, vicar of Jesus Christ, head of the Roman Catholic Church, was not long delayed. It was as follows: "Introduce the Inquisition. Inquisitors were accordingly appointed, consisting of two laymen and two ecclesiastics. William Duchesne was one of the latter. He was second only to Bedier in persecuting zeal. The pope sent his brief, dated May 20, 1525, approving of the appointment, and stating that all who were found guilty of being Lutherans were to be delivered over to the secular arm, which was, to be burned alive.* Hence the executions which we have narrated, perpetrated while the king of France was a prisoner and absent from his kingdom. The news from Spain added to the discouragement of the already disheartened friends of the Reformation. The king was sick. They feared his life was in danger, and that the throne would be left in the hands of his mother, Louisa. Margaret of Valois, in this position of affairs, declared her intention of going to Spain, to make an effort to save her brother. The announcement was received with great joy, especially were those who loved the Bible full of hope. The captivity of the king had let loose the hatred of their adversaries; his deliverance they thought would check it. Great preparations were made for her departure. Charles, the emperor, was written to, who at first objected, saying it was the duty of his ministers to arrange the affair. "One hour's conference," exclaimed Selves, the president, "between your majesty the king, my master, and the Duchess of Alençon would forward the treaty more than a month's discussion between diplomatists." *Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. Ref., vol. iii, p. 452. She wrote to her brother before embarking: "I will not delay either on account of my own security, or of the sea, which is unsettled at this season, to hasten toward 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." It was while Margaret was in Madrid that Briçonnet finally and shamefully fell. It does not come within the limits of our task to follow the Duchess d'Alençon in her mission to Spain to save her brother. We will meet her at her return to France, where she learns with grief the persecutions which have taken place during her absence. Immediately she took the suffering Christians under her protection, snatched them from the hands of Bedier, and the second time saved Louis de Berquin from the hands of his enemies. "It is affecting," says a late French writer, "to behold this young and pious woman, serving her God in the midst of a dissolute court, becoming for the reformed the angel who opened to Peter the prison gates within which the priests and Pharisees had thrown him.”* Francis I. returned to his kingdom in the month of March, 1526, after an absence of one year and twenty-two days. Not well satisfied with what had taken place in regard to the Reformers, he allowed his sister to recall the aged Lefevre and Gerard Roussel. It was a day of great joy to the friends of the Reformation when this event took place, and Paris became a kind of rendezvous for those who Histoire de la Ref. Franc., par Puaux, vol. 1, p. 77. 17 Hist. Reformation. preached the Gospel. It was not after all a perfectly safe place. It was not long before the king began to manifest a dislike to the Lutheran doctrines. It was clear that he was more a Roman Catholic than he had been previous to the battle of Pavia. There was some' cause for this. He would not renounce the pleasures of this world for Christ, and having chosen them, he turned naturally from the faith which condemned them. This was not all. His two children were hostages in Madrid, in the power of Charles V., who considered himself as the defender of the Church. It was, he thought, for his interest to take sides in religion both with the pope and Charles.* But this was not all. He began to imagine that the Reformers would attack the authority of kings as well as that of the pope, and that his own crown, which did not feel as secure upon his head since his imprisonment in Spain, might be in danger. Brantome relates that one day Francis accidentally said of the doctrines of Luther: "That this novelty tended principally to the overthrow of monarchy, both divine and human." At another time he was speaking of the pope to the nuncio of the latter, and reminding him of the example of Henry VIII., when the nuncio replied: Truly, sire, you will be the first sufferer; a new religion given to a nation requires afterward only a change of prince."+ We discover here the probable source from which Francis derived his opinion. More and more feeble became the arm which had protected the Protestants. A sister's influence was not sufficient to resist the constant importunity of the Hist. Ref. Franc., par F. Puaux, p. 78. |