iscovered that, in spite of continued severities, the "new faith" had
so spread--partly by means of persons suffered to return, in virtue of
the royal declaration of Coucy (on the sixteenth of July, 1535), and
partly through the teachings of others who lay concealed during the
first violence of the storm--that he had good reason to fear that the
last errors were worse than the first.[429] What rendered the matter
still more serious was the favor shown to the heretics by persons of
high rank and influence.[430]

[Sidenote: Edict of Fontainebleau cuts off appeal, June 1, 1540.]

With the view of employing still more rigid means for the detection and
punishment of the offenders, a fresh edict was published from
Fontainebleau, on the first of June, 1540. In this long and sanguinary
document the monarch--or the Cardinal of Tournon, who enjoyed the credit
of a principal part in its preparation--enjoined upon the officers of
all the royal courts, whether judges of parliament, seneschals, or
bailiffs, to institute proceedings concurrently against all persons
tainted with heresy. No appeal was to be permitted to delay their
action. The examination of the suspected took precedence of all other
cases. Tribunals of inferior jurisdiction were instructed to send
prisoners for heresy, together with the record of their examination, to
the sovereign courts of parliament, there to be tried in the "Chambre
criminelle." The appeal to the "Grand' chambre," customarily allowed to
persons claiming immunity on account of order or station, was expressly
cut off, so as to render the course of justice more expeditious.
Negligent judges were threatened with suspension and removal from
office. The high vassals of the crown were ordered to lend to the royal
courts their counsel and assistance, and to surrender to them all
offenders as guilty of sedition and disturbance of the public
peace--crimes of which the king claimed exclusive cognizance.
Ecclesiastics were exhorted to show equal diligence in the prosecution
of culprits that were in orders. In short, every servant of the king was
bidden to abstain from harboring or favoring the "Lutherans," since the
errors and false doctrines the latter disseminated, it was said,
contained within them the crime of treason against God and the king, as
well as of sedition and riot.[431] Every loyal subject must, therefore,
denounce the heretics and employ all means to extirpate them, just as
all men are bound t