IX.—To Francis Daniel.[27]

The Reformation in Paris—rage of the Sorbonne—satirical Comedy directed against the Queen of Navarre—intervention of Francis I.—deliberation of the Four Faculties—revocation of the censure pronounced against the book entitled "The Mirror of the Sinful Soul."

Paris, [October] 1533.

Although I have beside me a forest of materials which furnish most satisfactory evidence of what is written, yet I will restrain my pen, that you may have rather the leading features than a long narrative; to which were I to give way, it would grow almost into a goodly volume. On the first of October, at which time of the year the boys who pass out of the grammar class into that of the dialectics, are wont, for the sake of practice, to act a play, they performed one in the Navarre Gymnasium, which was unusually pungent with the sprinkling of gall and vinegar. The persons brought upon the stage are—a Queen,[28] who, in womanly fashion, was taken up with spinning, and wholly occupied with the distaff and the needle; then the fury Megæra[29] appeared, bringing lighted torches near to her, that she might throw away the rock and the needle. For a little while she opposed and struggled; but when she had yielded, she received the gospel into her hand, and straightway forgets all she had formerly grown into the habit of, and almost even herself. Last of all, she becomes tyrannical, and persecutes the innocent and unfortunate by every method of cruelty. Many other devices were introduced in the same style, most unworthily indeed against that excellent woman, whom, neither indirectly nor obscurely, they tauntingly revile with their reproaches. For a few days the affair was suppressed. Afterwards, however, as Truth is the daughter of Time, the whole matter being reported to the Queen, it seemed to her that it would set a very bad example and encouragement to their wantonness, who are always gaping after something new, if this impertinence were allowed to pass unpunished. The prefect of police, with a hundred officers, proceeded to the Gymnasium, and by his orders, surrounded the building, that no one might slip out. He then entered with some few of his men, but did not succeed in finding the author of the drama. They say, that he had little expected such a proceeding, and had made no provision in the event of it; but that, being by accident in a friend's room, he heard the noise before they could get sight of him, and so hid himself away until an opportunity of escape presented. The prefect in command of the police captured the boyish performers; the master of the Gymnasium, meanwhile, resisted this proceeding; in the midst of their wranglings, stones were thrown by some of the boys. The prefect, nevertheless, keeps hold of his prisoners, and forced them to explain what parts they had acted in the scene. When the author of the mischief could not be apprehended, the next thing was to inquire after those who, when they could have hindered, had permitted the performance, and had so long concealed the whole affair. One who is distinguished above the rest in authority and name, (for he is the great master Lauret,[30]) sought that he might be imprisoned more respectably in the house of one of the Commissaries, (as they call them.) Another of them, Morinus, the second after him, was ordered to keep at home. Meanwhile, the inquiry goes forward. What has been discovered I know not: he is now summoned to appear on a citation of three short days, as they now phrase it. So much for the Comedies. Certain factious theologues have perpetrated another exploit equally malignant, and perhaps almost as audacious. When they searched the shops of the booksellers, among the books which they brought away, they seized the book which is called Le Miroir de l'Ame Pécheresse,[31] the reading of which they wish to prohibit. When the Queen was informed of it, she called on the King her brother, and told him she had written the book. By letters addressed to the masters of the Paris Academy he required them to certify to himself whether they had examined the book, and whether they had classed it among those of unsound religion; that if they considered it such that they would give him the reason of their opinion. Referring to the whole procedure, Nicolas Cop, the physician, at present the rector, stated the affair to the four colleges of arts, of medicine, of philosophy, of theology, and of the canon law. Among the masters of arts whom he first addressed, he inveighed in a long and bitter oration against the doctors, because of their rash and arrogant behaviour towards her majesty the queen. He advised them not to interfere in any way in a matter of so much danger, if they did not wish to incur the displeasure of the king, nor to array themselves against the queen, that mother of all the virtues and of all good learning. Lastly, that they ought not to take the blame of this offence upon themselves, lest they should encourage the presumption of those who were always ready to enter upon anything under cover of the pretext that it was the deed of the academy to which they had committed them, without the academy being at all aware of it. It was the opinion of them all that the act ought to be disavowed. The theologians, canonists, and physicians, were of the same mind. The rector reported the decree of his order; next, the dean of the faculty of medicine; third, the doctor of canon law; fourth, the faculty of theology. Le Clerc, the parish priest of St. Andrew, had the last word, on whom the whole mischief was laid, others retiring from him out of sight. First of all he praised, in lofty expression, the uprightness of the king, the undaunted firmness with which hitherto he has conducted himself as a protector of the faith. That there were some busy-bodies who endeavoured to pervert this excellent person, who also were in league together for the destruction of the sacred faculty; that he, however, entertained the confident expectation that they would not succeed in their wishes, and that, in opposition to such firmness as he knew the king to possess. That as regarded the matter in hand, he was indeed appointed by the decree of the academy to that office; that nothing, however, was less intended by him than to attempt anything against the queen, a woman so adorned by godly conversation as well as by pure religion, in proof of which he adduced the reverence with which she had observed the funeral rites in memory of her deceased mother;[32] that he held as forbidden books, both those obscene productions,—Pantagruel and the Forest of Loves, and others of the same mint; that, in the meantime, he had put aside the book in question as liable to suspicion, because it was published without the approval of the faculty, in fraud and contravention of the arrêt, whereby it was prohibited to put forth anything concerning the faith without the advice and approbation of the faculty; that, in a word, this was his defence, that what was called in question had been done under warrant and commission of the faculty; that all were partakers in the offence, if there was any, although they might point blank deny it. And all this was spoken in French, that all might understand whether he spake the truth; they all cried out, however, that he pleaded this pretended ignorance by way of excuse. There were present also the Bishop of Senlis, L'Etoile, and one of the prefects of the palace. When Le Clerc had made an end of speaking, Parvi[33] said, that he had read the book,—that he had found nothing requiring expurgation unless he had forgot his theology. Finally, he required that they would give out a decree by which they might satisfy the king. Cop, the rector, announced that the academy did not acknowledge that censure as it stood; that they did not approve nor homologate the censure by which the book in question was classed among the prohibited or suspected books; that those who had done so must look to it, on what ground they were to defend the proceeding; that letters would be prepared in due time, whereby the academy might excuse itself to the king, and also return thanks for that he had so kindly addressed them in a fatherly way. The royal diploma was produced, by which permission is granted to the Bishop of Paris to appoint what preachers he pleases to the different parishes, where formerly they were chosen at the will of the parishioners; the chief influence being enjoyed by those who were most obstreperous and possessed by a senseless furor, which they consider zeal, such as never fired Elias, with which, however, he was zealous over the house of God.—Farewell.

[Lat. orig. autogr.—Library of Berne. Vol. 141.]