The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

"After them, the choristers of the same Seigneur, those attached to the domestic service as well as those attached to the holy chapel of the palace. They marched together, singing: O salutaris Hostia, and other beautiful anthems.

"After these, ten priests robed in chasubles, their heads bare, and carrying the relic of Monsieur St. Louis, once King of France, encased and studded with quantities of precious stones of inestimable value.

"After these, the holy and precious relic of the holy CROWN OF THORNS of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, an inestimable relic which, as far back as the memory of man runs, was never before carried in any procession whatever, and caused the hair to stand on end of all those who saw it, and rendered them charmed with God, as they considered His blessed passion.

"After this, the true cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. It was taken from the Holy Chapel, besides another piece of the said true cross from Notre Dame of Paris.

"After that the rod of Aaron, an old relic; the holy iron of the lance wherewith Longus pierced the precious side of our Savior Jesus Christ; one of the HOLY NAILS with which He was nailed to the cross; the SPONGE, the CARCAN, the CHAIN with which our Lord was fastened to the pillar; His IMMACULATE ROBE; the SHEET in which He was wrapped in the tomb as in a winding-cloth; the NAPKINS of His babyhood; the REED stuck into His hand when He was crowned with thorns; the TABLE OF STONE which the children of Israel hewed in the desert; a DROP OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD of our Lord Jesus; finally a DROP OF MILK of the glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God. The which beautiful relics, all taken from the treasury of the Holy Chapel, were accompanied and carried by ten archbishops and bishops dressed in their pontifical vestments, and marching two by two.

"After these, the ambassadors from the Emperor, from the King of England, from Venice, and other potentates and seigneurs.

"After these, and marching abreast, the Cardinals of Tournon, Veneur and Givry; the Bishop of Soissons; and Monsieur Gabriel of Saluces, carrying a beautiful relic of a cross studded with several precious stones.

"After these, Knights with their battle-axes escorting the precious and sacred body of our Lord Jesus Christ at the sacrament of the altar, which was carried by Monsieur the Bishop of Paris on a cross under a canopy of crimson velvet spangled with gold fleur-de-lis, the canopy being borne aloft by our Seigneurs, the King's sons, to wit, Monsieur the Dauphin, Monsieur of Orleans, Monsieur of Angoulème, and Monsieur of Vendosme, all the said Princes bareheaded, and clad in robes of black velvet with heavy gold borders and lined with white satin, and near them several counts and barons to relieve them.

"After these, came the King our Sire, bareheaded, in great reverence. He was clad in a robe of black velvet lined with black silk, girded with a girdle of taffeta, and in his hand a large white wax candle furnished with a holder of crimson velvet. Beside him, the Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom, every time the holy sacrament rested at the halting places, the said Seigneur our King passed the wax candle, while he himself made his prayers with his hands joined. Seeing the which, there was none among the spectators, whether grown or little, who did not weep warm tears, and who did not pray to God for the King whom the said people saw in such great devotion, and performing so devout an act and so worthy of remembrance for all time. And it may well be presumed that neither Jew nor infidel present, seeing the example of the King and his good people, failed of being converted to the Catholic faith.

"After these, the parliaments, with the ushers walking before, each with a staff in his hands; the four notaries; the clerks of the criminal courts, dressed in scarlet gowns and wearing their furred hats; messieurs the presidents with their mantles over their shoulders and their mortars on their heads; the chiefs of departments, and the counsellors, in red robes.

"After these, the Chief Justices, and heads of the treasury and the mint; the comptrollers of the city of Paris, each with a lighted white wax candle in his hand, and clad in their parti-colored robes of red and blue, the city colors.

"Finally, the archers, the cross-bowmen, and the arquebusiers of Paris, dressed in their uniforms, and each holding a wax candle."[40 - Dom Felibien, History of the Town of Paris, vol. V, pp. 343-347; French Ceremonial, pp. 940 and following; Registers of the Town Hall of Paris, etc.]

Such was that great Catholic procession!

The procession wound its way through St. Honoré, St. Denis and St. James-of-the-Slaughterhouse Streets, and then crossed the Notre Dame Bridge.

Cages full of birds were opened, and the little feathered brood flew from their prisons with open wings. The procession deployed on the square before the parvise of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. All the surrounding houses, tapestried from top to bottom, were lined with spectators at the windows, on the cornices, the shafts of pillars and the roofs. As they stood waiting for the procession to go by near the Arcade of Eschappes, the Franc-Taupin and his nephew caught sight of Hervé among the Cordelier monks, whose garb he wore.

"My brother!" cried Odelin, making to rush forward towards Hervé and embrace him. "There is my brother!"

But Josephin seized his nephew by the arm, and whispered to him:

"My boy, if a single move made by you draws attention upon us, we shall be discovered and arrested."

Odelin's exclamation, being drowned by the psalmody of the Cordeliers, did not reach the ears of Hervé. The latter did not even notice his brother, whose face was partially covered by his cowl. The Cordeliers passed by, then the Augustinians, the Carmelites, the Dominicans, the Genevievians, the Jacobins, and many other monks of differently shaped and colored garbs. Josephin sought to place the greatest distance possible between himself and Hervé. He fell in line with the Mathurins, who brought up the rear of the division of monks.

Odelin began to feel disturbed in mind. The events in which he had already that day participated, his apprehensions regarding his family, the sight of his brother in the habits of a Cordelier monk, the preparations for the torture and death of the heretics, a spectacle that he now saw himself forced to witness – everything combined to harass his mind with perplexities. At times Odelin imagined himself under the obsession of a nightmare. His uncertain and almost stumbling step was noticed by the Superior of the Mathurins, who expressed his surprise thereat to Josephin. The Franc-Taupin merely answered that this was the first time the novice attended an execution of heretics.

The procession having arrived before the parvise of Notre Dame, each division of which it was composed took the place assigned to it. A stage, covered with rich tent-cloth was prepared for King Francis I, the Queen, the Princes and Princesses of the royal family, the court ladies, the Cardinals, the Archbishops, the Marshals, the presidents of the parliaments, and the principal courtiers. The pyre faced the royal platform at a convenient distance, in order that the noble assemblage be annoyed neither by the heat nor smoke of the fire, and yet could follow closely the cruel details of the tragedy. The pyre consisted of a heap of fagots from fifteen to twenty feet long, and about six or seven feet high. Close to the pyre rose six machines. Each consisted of a perpendicular beam, the bottom driven into the earth and the top furnished with an iron clamp in the socket of which a cross-beam was attached. This beam could be made to tip forward over the fagots. At the forward extremity of the cross-beam, and hanging from chains, was an iron chair provided with a back and foot-board after the fashion of a swing. To the rear extremity of the cross-beam ropes and pulleys were attached, holding it down to the ground.

The Franc-Taupin contemplated with horror those implements of torture, while he gave his support to poor Odelin, who shook convulsively. The Superior of the Mathurins, who happened to stand near Josephin, addressed him with a smile:

"Perhaps you do not understand the value of those machines which we shall shortly see put into operation?"

"No, dear brother, you are right. I have no idea of what those machines are for in this affair."

"They are an invention due to the genius of our Sire the King, to whom the men put to the torture for coining false money already owe the rack on which they are executed.[41 - De Thou, History of France, book I, p. 271.] To-day the application of these new machines, which you are contemplating with so much interest, is inaugurated in our good city of Paris. The process is very simple, besides ingenious. When the pyre is well aflame, the patient is chained fast to the chair which you see there, dangling from the end of that cross-beam; then, the beam acting as a lever, he is, by slacking and pulling in the ropes at the other end, alternately sunk down into the flames and pulled out again, to be re-plunged, and so on, until, after being plunged and re-plunged, death ensues. Do you now understand the process?"

"Clearly, my reverend. Death by fire, as formerly practiced, put too speedy an end to the patient's torture."

"Altogether too speedy. A few minutes of torture and all was over, and the heretic breathed his last breath – "

"And now," broke in the Franc-Taupin, "thanks to this royal invention by our Sire Francis I, whom may God guard, the patient is afforded leisure to burn slowly – he can relish the fagot and inhale the flame! How superb and meritorious an invention!"

"It is that, my dear brother! Your expressions are correct – quite so —relish the fagot —inhale the flame. It is calculated that the agony of the patients will now last from twenty to thirty minutes.

"There are to-night three such pyres raised in Paris," the Superior of the Mathurins proceeded to explain. "The one before us, a second at the market place, and the third at the Cross-of-Trahoir. After our good Sire shall have assisted at the executions in this place, he will be able to visit the two others on his way back to the Louvre."[42 - These monstrosities seem to exceed the boundaries of the possible. Let us quote literally the text of the historians:"On the evening of the same day (January 21, 1535) the six culprits were taken to the parvise of Notre Dame, where the fires were prepared to burn them. Above the pyres rose a sort of scaffolding on which the patients were tied fast. The fire was then lighted under them, and the executioners, GENTLY slacking the rope of the lever, allowed the miscreants to dip down to the level of the flames, in order that they be caused to feel the sharpest smart; they were then raised up again, kept hanging ablaze in midair, and, after having been several times put through that painful torment, they were dropped into the flames where they expired." (History of France by Father Daniel of the Society of Jesus, vol. IV, page 41, Paris, 1751.)"On the said day (January 21, 1535) in the presence of the King, the Queen and all the court, and after the aforesaid remonstrances, the six heretics were brought forward to make the amende honorable before the church of Notre Dame of Paris, and immediately after they were burned alive." (Acts and Deeds of the Kings of France and England, by Jean Bouchet. Poitiers, 1557, in-folio, pp. 271-272.)"In order to purge their sin, the said heretics were burned to death on the said day (January 21, 1535) at several places, as the King passed by, while in vain the poor sufferers cried and implored him for mercy." (History of the State of Religion, by Jean Sleidan. 1557, vol. IX, p. 137). (Quotations from Catholic works.)]

The colloquy with the monk was interrupted by a great noise. From mouth to mouth ran the word: "Silence! Silence! The King wishes to speak!"

During the Franc-Taupin's conversation with the Mathurin, the King, his family, the court, the high dignitaries of the Church and of the kingdom had taken their seats on the platform. Anne of Pisseleu, Duchess of Etampes, who shared her favors between Francis I and his eldest son, drew the eyes of the multitude upon herself with the costliness of her apparel, which was as dazzling as her beauty, then at its prime. The royal courtesan cast from time to time a look of superb triumph upon her two rivals – the Queen of France, and Catherine De Medici, the wife of Henry, the King's son. The young Princess, at that season barely sixteen years of age, born in Florence, the daughter of Laurent De Medici and niece of Pope Clement VII, presented a perfect type of Italian beauty. Pale with chestnut hair, and white of skin, her black, passionate and crafty eyes frequently lingered surreptitiously with an expression of suppressed hatred upon the Duchess of Etampes. Whenever their eyes met accidentally, Catherine De Medici had for her a charming smile. Conspicuous among the great seigneurs seated on the platform were the Constable of Montmorency, Duke Claude of Guise and his brother Cardinal John of Lorraine, the crapulous, dissolute Prince immortalized by Rabelais under the name of "Panurge." These Guises – Princes of Lorraine, ambitious, greedy, haughty and turbulent – whom Francis I at once flattered and curbed, inspired him with so much apprehension that he was wont to allude to them in his conversations with the Dauphin in these words: "Be on your guard; I shall leave you clothed in a coat, they will leave you in your shirt." In close proximity to the Guises stood John Lefevre, the disciple of Ignatius Loyola, chatting with great familiarity with Cardinal Duprat. Already the Jesuits had gained a footing at the court of Francis I; they dominated the Chancellor, the evil genius of that King. And what was that sovereign, physically and morally? Here is his picture, as left by the writers of his time: "Six feet high; broad-shouldered, wide of girth, round faced, fat, ruddy of complexion, with short cropped hair, long beard, and a prominent nose" – features that betray sensual appetites. The Sire walked towards his throne, swaying to right and left. The heavy colossus affected the gait and postures of a gladiator. He sat down, or rather dropped into his seat. All present on the platform rose to their feet with heads uncovered, the women excepted. He addressed himself to the Princes, the Princesses of his family, and the dignitaries of the Church and the kingdom:

"It will not seem strange to you, messieurs, if you do not find in me the mien, the countenance and the words, which I have been in the habit of being seen in and of using on previous occasions when I called you together. To-day, I do not address you as a King and Master addresses his subjects and servitors. I speak as being myself the subject and servitor of the King of Kings, of the Master of Masters – the All-powerful God.

"Some wicked blasphemers, people of little note and of less doctrine, have, contrary to the honor of the holy Sacrament, machinated, said, proffered and written many great blasphemies. On account thereof I have willed that this solemn procession be held, in order to invoke the grace of our Redeemer. I order that rigorous punishment be inflicted upon the heretics, as a warning to all others not to fall into the said damnable opinions, while admonishing the faithful to persevere in their doctrines, the wavering to become firm, and those who have strayed away to return to the path of the holy Catholic faith, in which they see me persevere, together with the spiritual prelates.

"Therefore, messieurs, I entreat and admonish you – let all my subjects keep watch and guard, not only over themselves, but also over their families, and especially over their children, and cause these to be so properly instructed that they may not fall into evil doctrines. I also order that each and all shall denounce whomsoever they may happen to know, or to suspect, of being adherents to the heresy, without regard to any bonds, whether of family or of friendship. As to myself," added Francis I in a thundering voice, "on the same principle that, had I an arm infected with putrefaction, I would cause it to be separated from my body, so if ever, should it unhappily so befall, any child of mine relapse into the said damnable heresies, I shall be ready to immolate, and to deliver him as a sacrifice to God."[43 - Exhortation of the King of France against the Heretics, Jean Bouchet, Poitiers, 1557, in-folio, p. 272.]

The discourse of Francis I was listened to amid religious silence, and applauded enthusiastically.

The prostituted pack of clergymen, courtiers and warriors who surrounded the Very Christian King knew the trick how to inherit the property of heretics. To burn or massacre the reformers was to coin money for the royal pack, the sovereign having the right to transmit to the good Catholics the wealth confiscated from condemned heretics. But, to kill the heretics, to torture them, to burn them alive, that did not satisfy the pious monarch. Human thought was to be shackled. The sovereign proceeded with his allocution:

"It is notorious that the pestilence of heresy spreads in all directions with the aid of the printing press. My Chancellor shall now read a decree issued by me abolishing the printing press in my estates under pain of death."

The Chancellor, Cardinal Duprat, read in a loud voice the decree of that Father of Letters, as the court popinjays styled Francis I with egregious adulation:

"We, Francis I, by the grace of God, King of France. – It is our will, and we so order, and it pleases us to prohibit and forbid all printers in general, and of whatever rank and condition they may be, TO PRINT ANYTHING, UNDER PAIN OF HANGING.

"Such is our good pleasure.

    FRANCIS."[44 - On the subject of this decree, which was later forcibly annulled, see Extracts of the Registers of the Parliament of Paris, LXXVI, folio 113, collated and extracted by M. Taillandier. – Cited in the introduction to the History of the Printing Press in Paris, Memoirs of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. XII.]

Come! One more effort; listen to the end of this tale, O, sons of Joel. My hand trembles as I trace these lines, my eyes are veiled in tears, my heart bleeds. But I must proceed with my story.

After the reading of the edict which prohibited the printing press in France under pain of death, the Criminal Lieutenant stepped forward to receive the orders of the Chancellor. He turned to the King, and the King commanded that the heretics be put to the torture and death without further delay. The gallant chat among the courtiers was hushed, and the eyes of the royal assembly turned towards the pyre.

The Franc-Taupin and Odelin stood in the midst of the Mathurins, close to the spot of execution. Not far from them were ranked the Cordeliers. Standing between Fra Girard and the Superior General of his Order, Hervé seemed to be the object of the dignitary's special solicitude. Both the sons of Christian Lebrenn were about to witness the execution. Their sister Hena, sentenced together with Ernest Rennepont to the flames as a relapsed and sacrilegious heretic, was to figure, along with her bridegroom, among the victims. The frightful spectacle passed before the eyes of Odelin like a vision of death. Without making a single motion, without experiencing a shiver, without dropping a tear, petrified with terror, the lad gazed – like him, who, a prey to some stupefying dream, remains motionless, stretched upon his bed. It was a horrible nightmare!

The order to proceed having gone from Francis I and been transmitted to the Mathurin monks, several of these proceeded to the portico of the Basilica of Notre Dame, whither the culprits had first been taken to make the amende honorable on their knees before the church. One of the patients had his tongue cut out for preferring charges against the Catholic clergy on his way from prison to the parvise.[45 - It was no infrequent occurrence to cause the tongues of heretics to be cut out, in order to prevent them from confessing aloud the Evangelical doctrine as they marched to the stake. – See the following citation, from Theodore of Beze.] The Mathurins led the victims in procession to the pyre. As they approached, all the religious Orders intoned in a sonorous voice the funeral psalmody —

De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine!

The heretics, to the number of six, marched two by two, bareheaded and barefooted, holding lighted tapers in their hands. John Dubourg and his friend Etienne Laforge led; behind them came St. Ernest-Martyr supporting the architect Poille. The wretched man had his tongue cut out. Blood streamed from his mouth, and dyed his long white shirt red. Mary La Catelle and Hena, called in religion Sister St. Frances-in-the-Tomb, came next. Their feet were bare, their hair hung down loose upon their shoulders. They were clad in long white shifts held at the waist with a cord. Hena pressed against her heart a little pocket Bible which Christian had printed in the establishment of Robert Estienne, and which she was allowed to keep. It was a cherished volume from which the Lebrenn family often read together of an evening, and which recalled to Hena a whole world of sweet remembrances.

Hervé recognized his sister among the condemned heretics. A thrill ran through his frame, a deadly pallor overcast his countenance, and, turning his face away, he leaned for support on the arm of Fra Girard. The executioners had set fire to the fagots, which soon presented the sight of a sheet of roaring flames. As the prisoners arrived at the place of their torture and death, and caught sight of the seats swaying over the lambent flames, they readily surmised the cruel torments to which they were destined. In her terror, poor Hena began to emit heartrending cries, and she clung to the arm of Mary La Catelle. The taper and the little pocket Bible which she held rolled to the ground. The holy book fell upon a burning ember and began to blaze. One of the executioners stamped out the fire with his heels and threw the book aside. It fell near the Franc-Taupin. Josephin stooped down quickly, picked up the precious token and dropped it into the pocket of his wide frock. Petrified with terror, Odelin only gazed into space. The frightful cries of his sister were hardly heard by him, drowned as they were by the buzz and throb of the arteries in his own temples. The executioners were at work. Hena and the other five martyrs were seized, placed in their respective seats, and chained fast. All the six levers were then set in motion at once, and dipped over the fire. It was a spectacle, an atrocious spectacle – well worthy of a King! The victims were plunged into the furnace, then raised up high in the air with clothes and hair ablaze, to be again swallowed up in the flaming abyss, again to be raised out of it, in order once more to be precipitated into its fiery embrace![46 - "Among those burnt at Paris that day, January 21, 1535, were: John Dubourg, a merchant-draper of Paris, living in St. Denis Street, at the sign of the Black Horse; Etienne Laforge, of Tournay, but long an inhabitant of Paris, a man very rich and very charitable; a schoolmistress named Mary La Catelle; and Anthony Poille, an architect formerly of Meaux, and blessed of God in that he carried off the palm among the martyrs, for having been the most cruelly treated. He had his tongue cut out, as more fully it is set forth in the book of the martyrs." —Ecclesiastical Chronicles, Theodore of Beze, vol. I, p. 1.]

Odelin still gazed, motionless, his arms crossed over his breast, and rigid as if in a state of catalepsy. The Franc-Taupin looked at his unhappy niece Hena every time the lever raised her in the air, and also every time it hurled her down into the abyss of flames. He counted the plungings, as the Superior of the Mathurins humorously called them. He counted twenty-five of them. At the first few descents poor Hena twisted and writhed in her seat while emitting piercing cries; in the course of a few subsequent descents the cries subsided into moans; when she disappeared in the burning crater for the sixteenth time she was heard to moan no more. She was either expiring or dead. The machine continued to dip twenty-five times – it was only a blackened, half naked corpse, the head of which hung loose and beat against the back of the seat. The Franc-Taupin followed also with his eyes Ernest Rennepont, who was placed face to face with Hena. The unhappy youth did not emit a single cry during his torment, he did not even utter a wail. His eyes remained fixed upon his bride. Etienne Laforge, John Dubourg and Mary La Catelle gave proof of the sublimest courage. They were heard singing psalms amidst the flames that devoured them. Of these latter, only Anthony Poille, whose tongue had been cut out, was silent. The death rattle finally silenced the voice of the heretics. It was but charred corpses that the executioners were raising and dropping.