vehemently against them. Luther
and his progress were beginning to make a great noise in France. After
his discussion with Dr. Eck at Leipzig in 1519 he had consented to take
for judges the Universities of Erfurt and Paris; on the 20th of January,
1520, the quoestor of the nation of France bought twenty copies of
Luther's conference with Dr. Eck to distribute amongst the members of his
committee; the University gave more than a year to its examination. "All
Europe," says Crevier, "was waiting for the decision of the University of
Paris." Whenever an incident occurred or a question arose, "We shall
see," said they of the Sorbonne, "what sort of folks hold to Luther.
Why, that fellow is worse than Luther!" In April, 1521, the University
solemnly condemned Luther's writings, ordering that they should be
publicly burned, and that the author should be compelled to retract. The
Syndic of the Sorbonne, Noel Bedier, who, to give his name a classical
twang, was called _Beda,_ had been the principal and the most eager actor
in this procedure; he was a theologian full of subtlety, obstinacy,
harshness, and hatred. "In a single Beda there are three thousand
monks," Erasmus used to say of him. The syndic had at court two powerful
patrons, the king's mother, Louise of Savoy, and the chancellor, Duprat,
both decided enemies of the Reformers. Louise of Savoy, in consequence
of her licentious morals and her thirst for riches; Duprat, by reason of
the same thirst, and of his ambition to become an equally great lord in
the church as in the state; and he succeeded, for in 1525 he was
appointed Archbishop of Sens. They were, moreover, both of them, opposed
to any liberal reform, and devoted, in any case, to absolute power.
Beaucaire de Peguilhem, a contemporary and most Catholic historian,--for
he accompanied the Cardinal of Lorraine to the Council of Trent,--calls
Duprat "the most vicious of bipeds." Such patrons did not lack
hot-headed executants of their policy; friendly relations had not ceased
between the Reformers and their adversaries; a Jacobin monk, De Roma by
name, was conversing one day at Meaux with Farel and his friends; the
Reformers expressed the hopes they had in the propagation of the gospel;
De Roma all at once stood up, shouting, "Then I and all the rest of the
brotherhood will preach a crusade we will stir up the people; and if the
king permits the preaching of your gospel, we will have him expelled by
his own s