§ 75. PERSECUTION OF THE PEOTESTANTS IN PARIS. 321
heroes. The more educated among them had their tongues slit. Twenty-four innocent Protestants were burned alive in public places of the city from Nov. 10, 1534, till May 5, 1536. Among them was Etienne de la Forge (Stephanus Forgeus), an intimate friend of Calvin. Many more were fined, imprisoned, and tortured, and a considerable number, among them Calvin and Du Tillet, fled to Strassburg.i
These cruelties were justified or excused by charges of heresy, immorality, and disloyalty, and by a reference to the excesses of a fanatical wing of the Anabaptists in Miinster, which took place in the same year.^ But the Huguenots were then, as their descendants have always been, and are now, among the most intelligent, moral, and orderly citizens of France.^
The Sorbonne urged the king to put a stop to the printingpress (Jan. 13, 1535). He agreed to a temporary suspension (Feb. 26). Afterwards censors were appointed, first by Parliament, then b}^ the clerg}^ (1542). The press stimulated free thought and was stimulated by it in turn. Before 1500, four millions of volumes (mostly in folio) were printed ; from 1500 to 1536, seventeen millions ; after that time the number
1 Beza (XXI. 124) gives a brief account of the persecution : " Eousque injiammata fascinati Francisci Regis ira oh schedas quasdam adversus viissam per urhem sparsas ipsiusque regii cubiculi foribus adjixas, ut puhlica decreta supplicatione, cui una cum liberis sids tribus nudo capite ardentem facem quasi erpiationis causa gestans interfuit, quatuor urbis celebrioribus locis octonos martijres vivos ustulari juberet, atque adeo solemni jure jurando testaretur, se ne liberis quidem suis parsurum, si forte teterrimis illis, ut vocabat, hveresibus essent infecti." The Protestant reports are verified by that of a Roman Catholic, "Bourgeois de Paris," who witnessed the burnings with satisfaction, as a spectacle well pleasing to God, and mentions the dates and places of execution (namely, Nov. 10, 1534, Nov. 18, Nov. 19, Dec. 4 ; Jan. 21, 1535, Jan. 22, Feb. 16, 19, 26, March 3, May 5), as well as the occupations of the victims, most of whom were workingmen, one a rich merchant. This report was published in 1854 and is reprinted in Michelet's Histoire de France (vol. X. 340 sq.).
- " Pour excuser envers les princes proteslants les persecutions qiC on faisait contre I'Evangile." Colladon (XXI. 57).
^ Michelet (X. 339) says : " Rien de plus saint, de phis pur, que les origines du protestantisme fran^ais. Rien de plus doign€ de la sanglante orgie de Munster."
322 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
is beyond calculation.^ The printing-press is as necessary for liberty as respiration for health. Some air is good, some bad ; but whether good or bad, it is the condition of life.
This persecution was the immediate occasion of Calvin's Institutes^ and the forerunner of a series of persecutions which culminated under the reign of Louis XIV., and have made the Reformed Church of France a Church of martyrs.
§ 76. Calvin as a Wandering Evangelist. 1533-1536.
For nearly three years Calvin wandered as a fugitive evangelist under assumed names ^ from place to place in Southern France, Switzerland, Italy, till he reached Geneva as his final destination. It is impossible accurately to determine all the facts and dates in this period.
He resigned his ecclesiastical benefices at Noyon and Pont I'Eveque, May 4, 1534, and thus closed all connection with the Roman Church.^ That year was remarkable for the founding of the order of the Jesuits at Montmartre (Aug. 15), which took the lead in the Counter-Reformation ; by the ■election of Pope Paul III. (Alexander Farnese, Oct. 13), v*rho confirmed the order, excommunicated Henry VIII., and established the Inquisition in Italy ; and by the bloody persecution of the Protestants in Paris, which has been described in the preceding section.^
The Roman Counter-Reformation now began in earnest, and called for a consolidation of the Protestant forces.
Calvin spent the greater part of the year 1533 to 1534, under the protection of Queen Marguerite of Navarre, in her
1 Michelet, I.e. 342 sq.
2 Such as Charles d'Espeville, Martianus Lucanius, Carolus Passelius, Alcuin, Deper^an, Calpurnius. There is a monograph on these assumed names, Diatribe de Pseudonymia Calvini, bj Liebe, Amsterdam, 1723, which includes several letters of importance. So says Kampschulte, I. 245.
3 Le Vasseur, 1161. Herminjard, V. 104. Op. XXI. 193.
* Beza calls the year 1534 "korrenda in multos pios scevitia insignis" (Calv. X)p. XXI. 124).