nuity has been able to contrive. Through fire and sword, the
victim now of persecution, again of open war, the faith denominated
heresy was yet to survive, not only the last lineal descendant of the
king then sitting on the throne of France, but the rule of the dynasty
which was destined to succeed to the power, and reproduce not a few of
the mistakes, of the Valois race.

[Sidenote: The provincial council of Sens.]

In accordance with the suggestion of the Cardinal of Bourbon, three
provincial councils were held early in the ensuing year (1528). The most
important was the council of the ecclesiastical province of _Sens_,
which met, however, in the Augustinian monastery at Paris. It was
scarcely to be expected that a synod presided over by Antoine Duprat,
who, to the dignity of cardinal and the office of Chancellor of France,
added the Bishopric of Albi and the Archbishopric of Sens, with the
claim to be Primate of the Gauls and of Germany, should discuss with
severity the morals of the clergy, or issue stringent canons against the
abuse of the plurality of benefices. As an offset, however, the Council
of Sens had much to say respecting the new reformation. The good fathers
saw in the discordant views of Luther and Carlstadt, of Melanchthon and
Zwingle, proof positive that the new doctrines the reformers advanced
were devoid of any basis of truth. They ridiculed the claim of the
Protestants to the presence of the Spirit of God. But they reserved
their severest censures for the practice of holding secret conventicles,
and, with an irony best appreciated by those who understand the
penalties inflicted by the law on the discovered heretics, they gently
reminded the men and women to whom the celebration of a single religious
service according to the dictates of their conscience would have insured
instantaneous condemnation and a death at the stake, that God hates the
deeds of darkness, and that Christ himself said, "What I tell you in
darkness, that speak ye in light."[282]

[Sidenote: The punishment of heretics.]

More practical were the prescriptions of the council's decrees
respecting the punishment of offenders against the unity of the faith.
Heretics who, after conviction, refused to be "united to the church,"
were to be consigned to prison for life, priests to be degraded, the
relapsed to be given over to the secular arm without a hearing.
Heretical books, including translations of the Bible, were to be
surrendere