Enmity of the Franciscans. Weakness of Bishop Briçonnet

But the bishop had excited the active enmity of a resolute and

suspicious foe. In forbidding the Franciscan monks entrance to any

pulpit within his jurisdiction, he had, even before the advent of

Lefèvre and the reformed teachers, incurred their violent

animosity.² The new movement, while arousing their indignation, gave

them the opportunity they coveted for invoking the power of the

university and of parliament. At first the bishop was bold enough to

denounce the doctors of the Sorbonne as Pharisees and false

prophets,³ while in his private correspondence he stigmatized the

clergy as "the estate by the coldness of which all the others are

frozen,"⁴ or even as "that which is the ruin of all the

rest."⁵ But, frightened by the incessant clamor and attacks of his

enemies, he began gradually to waver, and presently lost all courage. In

the end he yielded so far as to suffer to be published in his name

official documents which were intended to overturn from the foundation

the very fabric he had been striving to rear. In one of these, a

"Synodal Decree" addressed to the faithful of his diocese,

quotidie una hora mane, epistolas Pauli lingua vernacula editas, non

concionando, sed per modum lecturæ interpretando." Lefèvre to Farel,

ubi supra, i. 222. He gives the names of four such "lectores

puriores"--Gadon, Mangin, Neufchasteau, and Mesnil--of whom we know little.

² Parliament, however, as late as June 1, 1525, sustained

his episcopal authority by prohibiting the monks from preaching in

Meaux, whether in the morning or in the evening, when the bishop either

himself preached or had preaching before him in that part of the day.

Reg. of Parliament, Preuves des Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, iv. 102.

³ Gaillard, vi. 409.

⁴ "L'estat par la froideur duquel tous les aultres sont gelléz." Briçonnet to
Margaret of Angoulême, Dec. 22, 1521, Herminjard, i. 86.

⁵ "Celluy qui tous ruyne." Same to same, Jan. 31, 1524, ibid., i. 186.

the bishop was made to condemn the books of Martin Luther, and to

description of the clergy this from either of the descriptions which he

gave to Margaret of Angoulême! The other document was a letter to the

clergy of his diocese, warning them against certain preachers "brought

in by himself to share his pastoral cares," who, under cover of

proclaiming the Gospel, had "dared, in defiance of the evangelical

truth, to preach that purgatory does not exist, and that, consequently,

we must not pray for the dead, nor invoke the very holy Virgin Mary and

the saints."²

The precise time of Briçonnet's pusillanimous defection, as marked by

the publication of these pastoral letters, is involved in some

obscurity; for assuredly the date affixed to the transcripts that have

come down to us conflicts too seriously with the well-known facts of

history to be accepted as correct.³

Later Roman Catholic historians have asserted that the act was a

voluntary one; that Briçonnet had never in reality sympathized with the

religious views of reformers whom he had invited to Meaux simply because

of his admiration for learning; that no sooner did he discover the

heretical nature of their teachings than he removed them from the posts

to which they had been assigned; and that he spent the residue of his

life in the vain endeavor to retrieve the fatal consequences of his

mistake.⁴ But this view is confirmed by nothing in the prelate's

extant correspondence. Everywhere there is evidence that until his

courage broke down, Briçonnet was in full accord with the

translated by Herminjard, i. 154.

documents ought to be placed nearly, if not quite, two years later. See

M. Herminjard's remarks on this difficult point, Correspondance des

réformateurs, i. 158, note. The same uncertainty affects Briçonnet's

subsequent pastoral, revoking the powers accorded to "Lutheran

preachers," attributed to December 13, 1523, ibid., i. 171.

11-14; Daniel, Histoire de France (Paris, 1755), x. 23.

reformers. His first step may possibly have been justified at the bar of
conscience by the plausible suggestion that, since the anger of the Sorbonne

had been directed specially against Meaux, the evangelical preachers could

be more serviceable elsewhere. But, from the mere withdrawal of support

to positive measures of repression, the transition was both natural and speedy.

Unsatisfied by Bishop Briçonnet's merely negative course, the Parliament

of Paris at length cited him to appear and answer before a commission

consisting of two of its own counsellors. The information thus obtained

was next to be submitted to the judges delegated by the Pope, a tribunal

of the institution of which an account will be given in another

chapter.¹ To this secret investigation Briçonnet objected, and

begged to be tried in open court by the entire body of parliament;²

but his petition was rejected, and his examination proceeded before the

inquisitorial commission. What measures were there taken to influence

him is not known. To Martial Mazurier, lately an enthusiastic preacher

of the "Lutheran" doctrines, who had himself, through fear, receded from

his advanced position, the doubtful honor is ascribed of having been

prominent in exertions to overcome the prelate's lingering scruples.

However this may be, when Briçonnet had given sufficient guarantees to

satisfy the Sorbonne that no apprehension need be entertained of a

repetition in Meaux of the dangerous experiment of the public

instruction of the people in the Holy Scriptures, there was nothing to

be gained by his condemnation. He was accordingly acquitted of all

charge of heresy, although condemned to pay the sum of two hundred

livres as the expense of bringing to trial the "heretics" whom he had

himself helped to make such.³ Hereupon he is said to have

et non par Commissaires." Registres du parlement, Oct. 20, 1525, ibid., iv. 103.

of Meaux is ordered to pay 200 livres parisis for the trial of the

heretics, prisoners from Meaux (Preuves des Libertez, iii. 166), and the

receipt for the same (Ibid., ubi supra). This was, however, merely an

application of the general prescription of Nov. 24, 1525, requiring all

prelates to defray the expenses of the trial of any heretics discovered in their dioceses, with the right to indemnify themselves from the property of the convicted heretics (Ibid., iii. 165).

Papillon, Feb. 5, 1526 (Ibid., iii. 167).

returned to his diocese, and, having convened a synod, to have prohibited, as we

have seen, the circulation of Luther's writings, reintroduced the

ecclesiastical practices that had been condemned or discarded, and given

to the persecution now set on foot his unequivocal sanction.¹

The teachers whom Briçonnet had so cordially invited to assist him were

compelled one by one to abandon Meaux. Among the earliest to leave was

Farel.² His was no faint heart. If he gave up his activity in Brie,

it was only to return to his native Dauphiny, where a young nobleman,

Anemond de Coct, and a preacher, Pierre de Sebeville, were among the

leading men whose conversion was the fruit of his indefatigable

exertions. After a visit to Guyenne, of which little is known, he passed

into German Switzerland, and labored successively in Basle, Strasbourg,

and Montbéliard.³

Lefèvre and Roussel were among the last to withdraw; but, beset with

watchful enemies, they found their position neither safe nor

comfortable. It was as difficult to maintain a semblance of friendship

with an ecclesiastical system which they detested in their hearts, as to

refuse their sympathy and support to the persecuted whose opinions they

shared without possessing the courage necessary to suffer in attestation

of the common faith. Busy informers at one time found evidence, more

than warranting the suspicion that Roussel's manuscripts had furnished

the material of which scandalous placards defamatory of the Pope were

framed.⁴ A little later the proctor of the cathedral drew attention to the


¹ Daniel, x. 23, 24; Gaillard, vi. 409-411.

² Neither the reason nor the precise time of his departure

is known. It was apparently as early as 1523.

Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, in Hagenbach, Leben d. Väter und Begründer der

Reformirten Kirche, vii. 3, etc. A brief but very accurate sketch in

Herminjard, i. 178, etc.

irregular conventicles held in the church itself, every Sunday

and feast-day, after Roussel had preached. These "combers, carders, and

other persons of the same stamp, unlettered folk,"¹ brought with

them books containing the Epistles of St. Paul, the Gospels, and the

Psalms, in flagrant disregard of the prohibitions they had heard

respecting the discussion of such topics as faith, the sacraments, the

privileges of Rome, and the use of pictures in the churches. It was made

the occasion of "charitable rebuke" and then of formal complaint against

Roussel by his fellow canons, that he failed to repeat the angelic

salutation, according to the orthodox practice, after the exordium of

his sermon. To the combined exhortations and threats of his accusers

Roussel replied in the chapter that, if he had done wrong, it belonged

to the bishop to reprove him, but that as to himself he esteemed the

repetition of the Lord's Prayer quite as efficacious as the recital of

the Ave Maria.²

At last danger thickened, and Lefèvre and Roussel found themselves

forced to leave Meaux (October, 1525), and sought refuge within the

hospitable walls of Strasbourg; for the persecuting measures adopted by

the regent, Louise de Savoie, and the Parliament of Paris, during the

king's captivity, as we shall shortly see, had placed the lives of even

such prudent reformers in peril.³ In the free city on the banks of

the Rhine, Lefèvre met his pupil Farel, and in the midst of cordial

greetings was reminded by him that the day of "renovation" which he had

long since predicted and desired had really come.⁴ But the contrast

between the two men had become sharply drawn. The fearless athlete, soon

to measure his strength with no puny antagonists at Neufchâtel,

Lausanne, Geneva, and so many other places in French
¹ "Plusieurs peigneurs, cardeurs et autres gens de même trempe, non lettrés."

² MS. Seminary of Meaux, February 6, 1524/5, Bulletin, x.220.

³ Compare for the date, Herminjard, i. 378, 389, 401.

Gérard Roussel was ordered by parliament to be seized wherever found,

etiam in loco sacro. So, too, were Caroli and Prévost. Jacques Lefèvre

was cited to appear. Régistres du parlement, Oct. 3, 1525, Preuves des

Libertez de l'Égl. gall., iii. 102, 103.

⁴ Farel to Pellican, 1556, Herminjard, i. 481.

Switzerland, whose course was to be a succession of rough encounters,

with fair prospects of preferment, could not bring himself openly to

espouse the quarrel of oppressed truth. A mysticism investing his entire

belief, and perverting his moral perceptions, led him to imagine that

the heart might be kept pure in the midst of many external corruptions,

and that the enlightened could worship the Almighty acceptably in spite

of superstitious observances, which, while countenancing by apparent

acquiescence, they rejected in their hearts. The excellence of the

reformation already inaugurated at Strasbourg made a deep and very

favorable impression upon Roussel. He wrote to Bishop Briçonnet that the

daily preaching of a pure doctrine, "without dross or leaven of the

Pharisees,"¹ the crowds of attentive hearers, the schools presided

over by men as illustrious for piety as for letters, and the careful

provision for the poor, would delight his correspondent were he to see

them. He did not dissemble his own great satisfaction that the

monasteries had been changed into educational establishments, the

pictures taken away from the churches, and every altar removed except

one, on which the communion was celebrated, as nearly as possible,

according to the plan of its institution.² At the same time he

renounced none of his excessive caution. His words were still those he

had uttered when urged, a twelvemonth earlier, by Farel,

Œcolampadius, and Zwingle, to strike out boldly and by an open

dispute on religion compel the attention of the thoughtless world. "The

flesh is weak! As my friends, Lefèvre and others, urge, the convenient

season has not yet come, the Gospel has not yet been scattered

sufficiently far and wide. We must not assume the Lord's prerogative for

sending laborers into the harvest, but leave

¹ "Ita invigilent Verbo ecclesiarum ministri, ut, nulla

pene hora diei, suum desit pabulum et quidem syncerum, ut nulla subsit

palea aut fermenti pharisaici commissura."

² Roussel to Briçonnet, Strasbourg, Dec, 1525, Herminjard, i. 406, 407.

the work to Him whose it is, and who can easily raise up a far richer harvest than

Such were the paltry evasions of cowardly souls, to excuse themselves

for the neglect of admitted duty. We cannot wonder at the burning words

of condemnation which this pusillanimity called forth from the pen of

brave Pierre Toussain. "I have spoken to Lefèvre and Roussel," he wrote

some months later, "but certainly Lefèvre has not a particle of courage.

May God confirm and strengthen him! Let them be as wise as they please,

let them wait, procrastinate, and dissemble; the Gospel will never be

preached without the cross! When I see these things, when I see the

mind of the king, the mind of the duchess [Margaret of Angoulême] as

favorable as possible to the advancement of the Gospel of Christ, and

those who ought to forward this matter, according to the grace given

them, obstructing their design, I cannot refrain from tears. They say,

indeed: 'It is not yet time, the hour has not come!' And yet we have

here no day or hour. What would not you do had you the Emperor and

Ferdinand favoring your attempts? Entreat God, therefore, in behalf of

France, that she may at length be worthy of His word."²

The remainder of the task imposed on the weak Bishop of Meaux and his

new allies, the monks of St. Francis, proved a more difficult

undertaking. The shepherds had been dispersed, but the flock refused to

forsake the fold. From the nourishing food they had discovered in the

Word of God, they could not be induced to return to the husks offered to

them in meaningless ceremonies, celebrated in an unknown tongue by men

of impure lives. The Gospels in French remained more attractive

271--a document that throws a flood of light upon the motives of the

conduct of both Roussel and Lefèvre. A letter of the same date to

Œcolampadius is, in some respects, even more instructive. Notice the

pitiful weakness revealed in these sentences: "Reclamabunt episcopi,

reclamabunt doctores, reclamabunt scholæ, assentiente populo, occurret

Senatus (parliament). Quid faciet homuncio adversus tot leones?"

Herminjard, i. 278. A reference to the book of Daniel might have enabled

the Canon of Meaux to answer his own question.

² Pierre Toussain to Œcolampadius, Malesherbes, July 26,

1526, Herminjard, i. 447.

than the legendary, even after the bishop had abandoned the championship of

the incipient reformation. Briçonnet's own expressed wish was granted:

if he had "changed his speech and teaching," the common people, at

least, had not changed with him.

Among the first fruits of the Reformation in Meaux was a wool-carder,

Jean Leclerc, into whose hands had fallen one of Lefèvre's French

Testaments. He was a man of strong convictions and invincible

resolution. A bull, issued by Clement the Seventh in connection with the

approaching jubilee, had been posted on the doors of the cathedral

(December, 1524). It offered indulgence, and enjoined prayers, fasting,

and partaking of the Communion, in order to obtain from heaven the

restoration of peace between princes of Christendom. Leclerc secretly

tore the bull down, substituting for it a placard in which the Roman

pontiff figured as veritable Antichrist. Diligent search was at once

instituted for the perpetrator of this offence, and for the author of

the subsequent mutilation of the prayers to the Virgin hung up in

various parts of the same edifice. A truculent order was also issued in

the bishop's name, threatening all persons that might conceal their

knowledge of the culprits with public excommunication, every Sunday and

feast-day, "with ringing of bells and with candles lighted and then

extinguished and thrown upon the earth, in token of eternal

malediction."¹ Leclerc was discovered, and taken to Paris for

trial. The barbarous sentence of parliament was, that he be whipped in

Paris by the common executioner on three successive days, then

transferred to Meaux to receive the like punishment, and finally branded

on the forehead with a red-hot iron, before being banished forever from

the kingdom.²

diocèse, le 21 janvier, 1525, Herminjard, i. 320, etc.

stake in punishment of his temerity. But the reason is found in the

circumstance that he was tried, not for heresy, but for irreverence.

This appears from the Registres du parlement for March 20, 1524/5. The

interesting discussions of that session, printed in the Bulletin de la

Soc. de l'hist. du prot. français, iii. (1854) 23, etc., establish the

fact that the reformed doctrines were already making formidable headway

in Paris and the adjoining towns. A brother of Bishop Briçonnet took a

prominent part in the debate, and gave a deplorable view of the

prevalence of impiety and heresy in the higher circles of society.

The cruel prescription was followed out to the letter (March, 1525). A

superstitious multitude flocked together to see and gloat over the

condign punishment of a heretic, and gave no word of encouragement and

support. But, as the iron was leaving on Leclerc's brow the ignominious

imprint of the fleur-de-lis,¹ a single voice suddenly broke in

upon the silence. It was that of his aged mother, who, after an

involuntary cry of anguish, quickly recovered herself and shouted, "Hail

Jesus Christ and his standard-bearers!"² Although many heard her

words, so deep was the impression, that no attempt was made to lay hands

upon her.³

From Meaux, Leclerc, forced to leave his home, retired first to Rosoy,

and thence to Metz.⁴ Here, while supporting himself by working at

his humble trade, he lost none of his missionary spirit. Not content

with communicating a knowledge of the doctrines of the Reformation to

all with whom he conversed, his impatient zeal led him to a new and

startling protest against the prevalent, and, in his view, idolatrous

worship of images. Learning that on a certain day a solemn procession

was to be made to a shrine situated a few miles out of the city gates,

he went to the spot under cover of night, and hurled the sacred images

from their places. On the morrow the horrified worshippers found the

objects of their devotion prostrated and mutilated, and their rage knew

no bounds. It was not long before the wool-carder was apprehended. His

religious sentiments were no secret, and he had been seen returning from

the scene of his nocturnal exploit. He promptly acknowledged his guilt,


¹ For a description of the punishment, see Bastard

d'Estang, Les parlements de France.]

to Theodore Beza (Ed. of Lille, 1841), i. 4; Crespin, Actiones et

Monimenta Martyrum (Geneva, 1560), fol. 46; Haag, La France protestante,

art. Leclerc; Daniel, x. 23, who finds no more suitable epithet for

Leclerc than "ce scélérat."]

⁴ At this time a city of the Empire, and not conquered by

France until the reign of Henry II. (1552).]

and was rescued from the infuriated populace only to undergo a more

terrible doom at the hands of the public executioner (July 22, 1525).

His right hand was cut off at the wrist, his arms, his nose, his breast

were cruelly torn with pincers; but no cry of anguish escaped the lips

of Leclerc. The sentence provided still further that, before his body

should be consigned to the flames, his head be encircled with a red-hot

band of iron. As the fervent metal slowly ate its way toward his very

brain, the bystanders with amazement heard the dying man calmly repeat

the words of Holy Writ: "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of

men's hands." He had not completed the Psalmist's terrific denunciation

of the crime and folly of image-worship when his voice was stifled by

the fire and smoke of the pyre into which his impatient tormentors had

hastily thrown him. If not actually the first martyr of the French

Reformation, as has commonly been supposed, Jean Leclerc deserves, at

least, to rank among the most constant and unswerving of its early apostles.¹