BEDA'S CONTEST WITH CAROLI.

469 When the martyr reached the place of execution, his books were burnt before his face; he was then called upon to retract; but he refused, saying: "It is thou, O God, who hast called me, and thou wilt give me strength unto the end." * After this he began to repeat aloud the fifty-first psalm: "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness." Having mounted the pile, he continued to recite the psalm until the smoke and the flames stifled his voice.

Thus the persecutors of France and Lorraine beheld a renewal of their victories; at length men paid attention to their advice. The ashes of a heretic had been scattered to the winds at Nancy; it was a challenge to the capital of France. What! shall Beda and Lecouturier be the last to show their zeal for the pope! Let flames reply to flames, and heresy, swept from the soil of the kingdom, would soon be entirely driven back beyond the Rhine.

But before he could succeed, Beda had to sustain a combat, half serious, half ludicrous, against one of those men with whom the struggle against the Papacy is merely an intellectual pastime and not an earnest purpose of the heart.

Among the scholars whom Briçonnet had attracted to his diocese, was a doctor of the Sorbonne, named Peter Caroli, a vain and frivolous man, not less quarrelsome and litigious than Beda himself. In the new doctrine Caroli saw the means of vexing Beda, whose ascendency he could not endure. Accordingly, on his return from Meaux to Paris, he made a great sensation by carrying into the pulpit what was called, "the new way of preaching." Then began an indefatigable struggle between the two doctors; it was blow for blow, and trick for trick. Beda summoned Caroli before the Sorbonne, and Caroli summoned him before the bishop's court by way of reparation. The faculty continued the examination, and Caroli gave notice of an appeal to the parliament. He was provisionally forbidden to enter the pulpit, and he preached in all the churches of Paris. Being

Eum auctorem vocationis suæ atque conservatorem, ad extremum usque spiritum recognovit. Acta Mart. p. 202.

470 CONTEST WITH CAROLI—PAVANNE'S DEJECTION.

positively forbidden to preach at all, he publicly lectured on the Psalms in the College of Cambray. The faculty forbade him to continue his course, and he begged permission to finish the explanation of the 22d Psalm, which he had just begun. Finally, on the refusal of his request, he posted the following placard on the college gates: "Peter Caroli, desirous of obeying the orders of the sacred faculty, has ceased to lecture; he will resume his lectures (whenever it shall please God) at the verse where he left off: THEY HAVE PIERCED MY HANDS AND MY FEET." Thus Beda at last found his match. If Caroli had seriously defended the truth, the burning pile would soon have been his reward; but he was of too profane a spirit to be put to death. How could the judges capitally punish a man who made them lose their gravity. Neither the bishop's court, nor the parliament, nor the council, could ever come to a definite decision in his cause. Two men such as Caroli would have wearied out the activity of Beda himself; but the Reformation did not produce his parallel.*

contest was ended, Beda Happily for the syndic of

As soon as this unseasonable applied to more serious matters. the Sorbonne, there were men who gave persecution a better hold of them than Caroli. Briçonnet, Erasmus, Lefevre, and Farel had escaped him; but since he cannot reach these distinguished individuals, he will content himself with meaner persons. The poor youth, James Pavanne, after his abjuration at Christmas 1524, had done nothing but weep and sigh. He might be seen with a melancholy air, his eyes fixed on the earth, groaning inwardly, and severely reproaching himself for having denied his Saviour and his God.+

Pavanne was undoubtedly the most diffident and inoffensive of men but what mattered that! he had been at Meaux, and in those days that was sufficient. "Pavanne has relapsed," was the cry; "the dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the

• Gerdesius, Hist. seculi xvi. renovati, p. 52; D'Argentré, Collectio judiciorum de novís erroribus, ii. 21; Gaillard, Hist. de François I. iv. 233. + Animi factum suum destestantis dolorem, sæpe declaraverit. Acta Mart. p. 203.

4

HIS JOY AND MARTYRDOM-THE HERMIT.

471

mire." He was immediately arrested, thrown into prison, and taken before his judges. This was all that the youthful James required. He felt comforted as soon as he was in chains, and found strength sufficient to confess Jesus Christ with boldness.* The cruel persecutors smiled as they saw that, this time at least, nothing could save their victim; there was no recantation, no flight, no powerful patronage. The young man's mildness, his candour and courage, failed to soften his adversaries. He regarded them with love; for by casting him into prison, they had restored him to tranquillity and joy; but his tender looks only served to harden their hearts. His trial was soon concluded: a pile was erected on the Grève, where Pavanne died rejoicing, strengthening by his example all those who in that large city believed openly or secretly in the Gospel of Christ.

This was not enough for the Sorbonne. If they are compelled to sacrifice the little ones of the world, their number must at least make amends for their quality. The flames of the Grève struck terror into Paris and the whole of France; but a new pile, kindled on another spot, will redouble that terror. It will be talked of at court, in the colleges, and in the workshops of the people; and such proofs will show more clearly than any edicts, that Louisa of Savoy, the Sorbonne, and the parliament, are resolved to sacrifice the very last heretic to the anathemas of Rome.

In the forest of Livry, three leagues from Paris, and not far from the spot where once stood the ancient abbey of the Augustines, dwelt a hermit, who in his excursions having met with some men of Meaux, had received the evangelical doctrine in his heart. The poor hermit had felt himself rich in his retreat, when one day, returning with the scanty food that public charity bestowed on him, he carried back Jesus Christ and his grace. From that time he found that it was better to give than to receive. He went from house to house in the surrounding villages, and as soon as he had

* Puram religionis Christianæ confessionem addit. Acta Mart. p. 203. + Cette semence de Faber et de ses disciples, prise au grenier de Lüther, germa dans le sot esprit d'un ermite, qui se tenait près la ville de Paris. Hist. cath. de notre temps, par S. Fontaine, Paris, 1562.

472

THE HERMIT OF LIVRY.

opened the doors of the poor peasants whom he visited in their humble huts, he spoke to them of the Gospel, of the perfect pardon that it offers to the burdened soul, and which is far better than absolutions.* Erelong the good hermit of Livry was known in the environs of Paris; people went to visit him in his lowly cell, and he became a mild and fervent missionary for the simple souls of that district.

The rumour of the doings of this new evangelist did not fail to reach the ears of the Sorbonne and of the magistrates of Paris. The hermit was seized, dragged from his hermitage, from his forest, from those fields through which he used to wander daily, thrown into a prison in that great city which he had ever shunned, and condemned" to suffer the exemplary punishment of the slow fire."+

In order to render the example more striking, it was determined that he should be burnt alive in the front of Notre-Dame, before that splendid cathedral, that majestic symbol of Roman-catholicism. All the clergy were convoked, and as much pomp was displayed as on the most solemn festivals. They would, if possible, have attracted all Paris round the stake, "the great bell of the church of Notre-Dame (says an historian) tolling solemnly to arouse the citizens." § The people flocked in crowds through all the streets that led into the square. The deep tones of the bell drew the workman from his toil, the scholar from his books, the merchant from his traffic, the soldier from his idleness, and already the wide space was covered by an immense crowd which still kept increasing. The hermit, clad in the garments assigned to obstinate heretics, with head and feet bare, had been led before the gates of the cathedral. Calm, firm, and collected, he made no reply to the exhortations of the confessors who presented him a crucifix, save by declaring that his sole hope was in the

* Lequel par les villages qu'il fréquentait, sous couleur de faire ses quêtes, tenait propos hérétiques. Hist. cath. de notre temps, par S. Fontaine, Paris, 1562.

+ Ibid.

Avec une grande cérémonie. Hist. des Egl. Réf. par Théod. de Bèze, i. 4. § Ibid.

pardon of God. The doctors of the Sorbonne, in the front ranks of the spectators, seeing his constancy, and the effect it was producing on the people, cried aloud: "He is damned: they are leading him to hell-fire!"* The great bell still continued tolling, and its loud notes, by stunning the ears of the crowd, increased the solemnity of this mournful spectacle. At length the bell was silent, and the martyr having replied to the last questions of his enemies, that he was resolved to die in the faith of his Lord Jesus Christ, was burnt by a slow fire, according to the tenor of his sentence. And thus, in front of Notre-Dame, amid the shouts and emotion of a whole people, under the shadow of the towers raised by the piety of Louis the younger, peacefully died a man, whose name history has not transmitted to us, except as the "Hermit of Livry."

CHAPTER XV.

A Student of Noyon-Character of young Calvin-Early EducationConsecrated to Theology-The Bishop gives him the Tonsure-He leaves Noyon on Account of the Plague-The two Calvins-SlandersThe Reformation creates new Languages-Persecution and TerrorToussaint 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. 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

* Beza, Histoire des Eglises Réf. i. 4.

The