reme
court had summoned to their bar a bishop, and his "official," or vicar,
and had exacted from them an explicit disavowal of any intention to
arrest, in the case of a person whom they had merely detained, as they
asserted, until such time as they could deliver him into the hands of a
competent civil officer.[262] And it had become a maxim of French
jurisprudence, that "an inquisitor of the faith has no power of capture
or arrest, save with the assistance, and by authority, of the secular
arm."[263]

[Sidenote: Parliament breaks down the safeguards of personal liberty.]

But the Parliament of Paris, at the instigation of the regent's
advisers, and with the consent of the bishops, was breaking down these
important safeguards of personal liberty. It not only accorded to the
mixed inquisitorial commission, consisting of two lay and two clerical
members, the authority to apprehend persons suspected of heresy, but
removed the proceedings of the commission almost entirely from review
and correction. A pretext for this extraordinary course was found in the
delays heretofore experienced from the interposition of technical
difficulties. "The commissioners," said parliament, "by virtue of the
authority delegated to them, shall secretly institute inquiries against
the Lutherans, and shall proceed against them by personal summons, by
bodily arrest, by seizure of goods, and by other penalties. Their
decisions shall be executed in spite of any and every opposition and
appeal, save in case of the final sentence."[264] While conferring such
extravagant privileges, parliament took pains to prescribe that the
decisions of the commission should be executed precisely as if they had
emanated from the supreme court itself. Such were the lengths to which
the most conservative judges were willing to go, in the hope of speedily
eradicating the reformed doctrines from French soil.

[Sidenote: The commission endorsed by Clement VII.]

The regent and her master-spirit, the chancellor, did not rest here. The
commission was not irrevocable; and its authority might be disputed. The
work of parliament must receive the papal sanction. For this Clement the
Seventh did not keep them long waiting. He addressed to parliament (May
20, 1525) a brief conceived in a vein of fulsome eulogy, expressing his
marvellous commendation of their acts--acts which he declared to be
worthy of the reputation for wisdom in which the French tribunal was
justly held. An