indifference or
something worse. The question naturally arose, What new and more
effective procedure could be devised?

[Sidenote: A commission appointed to try "Lutherans."]

After mature deliberation, the privy council resolved upon a plan which
was virtually to remove the cognizance of crimes against religion from
the clergy, and commit it to a mixed commission. The Parliament of Paris
was accordingly notified that the bishop of that city stood ready to
delegate his authority to conduct the trial of all heretics found within
his jurisdiction to such persons as parliament might select for the
discharge of this important function; and the latter body proceeded at
once to designate two of its own members to act in conjunction with two
doctors of the Sorbonne, and receive the faculties promised by the
Bishop of Paris.[259] A few days later (March 29, 1525), in making a
necessary substitution for one of the members who was unable to serve,
parliament not only empowered the commission thus constituted to try the
"Lutheran" prisoners, Pauvan and Saulnier, but directed the Archbishops
of Lyons and Rheims, and the bishops or chapters of eight of the
remaining most important dioceses, to confer upon it similar authority
to that already received at the hands of the bishop of the
metropolis.[260]

[Sidenote: The commission a new form of inquisition.]

[Sidenote: The inquisition hitherto jealously watched.]

It was, however, no ordinary tribunal which the highest civil court of
the kingdom was erecting. The commission was in effect nothing less than
a new phase of the Inquisition, embodying many of the most obnoxious
features of that detested tribunal. It is true that the "Holy Office,"
in a modified form, had existed in France ever since the persecutions
directed against the Albigenses and the bloody campaigns of Simon de
Montfort. But the seat of the solitary Inquisitor of the Faith was
Toulouse, not Paris, and his powers had been jealously circumscribed by
the courts of justice and the diocesan prelates, both equally interested
in rearing barriers to prevent his incursions into their respective
jurisdictions. The Inquisitor of Toulouse was now only a spy and
informer.[261] Parliament, in particular, had clearly enunciated the
principle that neither inquisitor nor bishop had the right to arrest a
suspected heretic, inasmuch as bodily seizure was the exclusive
prerogative of the officers of the crown. The judges of this sup