Note 671 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

Among the many important services which the French Protestant Historical Society has rendered, the rescue from oblivion of the interesting correspondence relating to D'Andelot's imprisonment merits to be reckoned by no means the least (Bulletin, iii. 238-255). Even the graphic narrative of the Histoire ecclésiastique fails to give the vivid impression conveyed by a perusal of these eight documents emanating from the pens of D'Andelot, Macar (one of the pastors at Paris), and Calvin. The dates of these letters, in connection with a statement in the Hist. ecclés., fix the imprisonment of D'Andelot as lasting from May to July, 1558. A month later Calvin wrote to Garnier: "D'Andelot, the nephew of the constable, has basely deceived our expectations. After having given proofs of invincible constancy, in a moment of weakness he consented to go to mass, if the king absolutely insisted on his doing so. He declared publicly, indeed, that he thus acted against his inclinations; he has nevertheless exposed the gospel to great disgrace. He now implores our forgiveness for this offence.... This, at least, is praiseworthy in him, that he avoids the court, and openly declares that he had never abandoned his principles." Letter of Aug. 29th, Bonnet, Eng. tr., iii. 460; see also Ath. Coquerel, Précis de l'histoire de l'égl. réf. de Paris, Pièces historiques, pp. xxii.-lxxvi.; twenty-one letters of Macar belonging to 1558. If the reformers condemned D'Andelot's concession, Paul the Fourth, on the other hand, regarded his escape from the estrapade as proof positive that not only Henry, but even the Cardinal of Lorraine, was lukewarm in the defence of the faith! Read the following misspelt sentences from a letter of Card. La Bourdaisière, the French envoy to Rome, to the constable (Feb. 25, 1559), now among the MSS. of the National Library of Paris. The Pope had sent expressly for the ambassador: "Il me declara que cestoit pour me dire quil sebayssoit grandement comme sa magesté ne faysoit autre compte de punyr les hereticques de son Royaume et que limpunite de monsieur dandelot donnoit une tres mauvayse reputation a sadicte mageste devant laquelle ledict Sr. dandelot avoit confessé destre sacramentayre et qui leust (qu 'il l'eût) mené tout droit au feu comme il meritoit ... que monsieur le cardinal de Lorrayne, lequel sa Saincteté a fait son Inquisiteur, ne se sauroit excuser quil nayt grandement failly ayant layssé perdre une si belle occasion dun exemple si salutayre et qui luy pouvoit porter tant dhonneur et de reputation, mais quil monstre bien que luy mesme favorise les hereticques, dautant que lors que ce scandale advynt, il estoit seul pres du roy, sans que personne luy peust resister ne l'empescher duser de la puyssance que sadicte Saincteté luy a donnée." Of course, Paul could not let pass unimproved so fair an opportunity for repeating the trite warning that subversion of kingdoms and other dire calamities follow in the train of "mutation of religion." The punishment of D'Andelot, however, to which he often returned in his conversation, the Pontiff evidently regarded as a thing to be executed rather than spoken about, and he therefore begged the French ambassador to write the letter to the king in his own cipher, and advise him "to let no one in the world see his letter." Whereupon Card. La Bourdaisière rather irreverently observes: "Je croy que le bonhomme pense que le roy dechiffre luy mesme ses lettres!" a supposition singularly absurd in the case of Henry, who hated business of every kind. La Bourdaisière conceived it, on the other hand, to be for his own interest to take the first opportunity to give private information of the entire conversation to the constable, D'Andelot's uncle, and to advise him that it would go hard with his nephew, should he fall into Paul's hands ("quil feroit un mauvais parti sil le tenoit"). Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frank., i. (appendix), 607, 608; Bulletin de l'histoire du prot. français, xxvii. (1878), 103, 104.