§ 1 The Rise of the Huguenots During the Reign of Francis I.
The first French Reformers.
While France, in pursuit of her policy of opposition to the House of Hapsburg, had been allying herself with the Protestants of Germany, heresy had been growing apace within her own borders. Jacques Lefèvre of Étaples may fairly claim the title of father of French Protestantism. A lecturer on theology at Paris, he had in a commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul (1512) taught the Doctrine of Justification by Faith five years before Luther had denounced indulgences. In 1521, he had, under the patronage of Briçonnet, the Bishop, collected a small band of men at Meaux in Champagne, of whom Farel of Dauphiné was the most important, and had also influenced Louis de Berquin, the friend of Erasmus, who was a nobleman and a courtier.
Francis at first inclined to toleration.
Persecution begins in absence of Francis. 1525.
Francis adopts a policy of persecution. 1529.
The rise of these new opinions had at once excited the fears of the Sorbonne or theological faculty in the University of Paris, and of the ‘Parlement’ of Paris. But Francis had no love for either of these institutions. The ‘Parlement’ had opposed him in the matter of the Concordat (cf. p. 81), the Sorbonne had viewed with jealousy his new foundation, the ‘Collège de France’ (cf. p. 218). Moreover, he disliked the monks and friars, while his sympathy with literature and culture, the redeeming traits of his otherwise worthless character, as well as the influence of his sister, Margaret of Navarre, led him to tolerate the new opinions; indeed, he is said to have entertained the idea of founding a literary and philosophic institution in France with Erasmus at its head. Accordingly in 1523, he saved de Berquin from the ‘Parlement,’ and had he been victorious at Pavia he might have continued this policy of toleration. His defeat and imprisonment, however, altered the condition of the Protestants for the worse, for his mother, Louise of Savoy, took advantage of his absence to crush out heresy. Leclerc, a wool-carder of Meaux, was burnt, July, 1525; Briçonnet was ordered to disperse the brotherhood of Meaux (October 1525); and de Berquin was again arrested (January, 1526). He was, indeed, once more saved from his enemies by Francis, who, on his return to France, even appointed Lefèvre tutor to his children. But a change soon came over the policy of the fickle King. His political necessities demanded an alliance with the Pope, who was forming the Holy League against the Emperor (cf. p. 184), and with the clergy at home, who could supply him with money wherewith to continue the war. He had never sympathised with the religious views of the reformers, but only with the literary side of the movement; while the iconoclastic and other extravagances of some of the more hot-headed reformers gave colour to the suggestion that the movement had a political significance. De Berquin, although in no way responsible for these extravagances, refused to listen to the timid caution of Erasmus ‘not to disturb the hornets,’ and in consequence was seized again and executed (April, 1529).
Massacre of the Vaudois. 1545.
In 1534, an intemperate placard on the abuses of the Mass not unnaturally increased the indignation of the King; in 1535, the outbreak of the Anabaptists in Münster still further frightened him; and in January 1545, convinced by the misrepresentations of the ‘Parlement’ of Aix that the Vaudois of Provence were attempting to set up a republic, he gave the fatal order which, whether he intended it or no, led to a massacre. More than twenty towns and villages were destroyed, and some three thousand Protestants in the valley of the Durance perished. The reign of Francis closed in the following year with the execution of the ‘fourteen’ poor artisans at Meaux, the cradle of French Protestantism.