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The Great Controversy
The priests, bent upon keeping the popular fury at its height, cir-
culated the most terrible accusations against the Protestants. They
were charged with plotting to massacre the Catholics, to overthrow
the government, and to murder the king. Not a shadow of evidence
could be produced in support of the allegations. Yet these prophecies
of evil were to have a fulfillment; under far different circumstances,
however, and from causes of an opposite character. The cruelties that
were inflicted upon the innocent Protestants by the Catholics accu-
mulated in a weight of retribution, and in after centuries wrought the
very doom they had predicted to be impending, upon the king, his
government, and his subjects; but it was brought about by infidels
[227]
and by the papists themselves. It was not the establishment, but the
suppression, of Protestantism, that, three hundred years later, was to
bring upon France these dire calamities.
Suspicion, distrust, and terror now pervaded all classes of society.
Amid the general alarm it was seen how deep a hold the Lutheran
teaching had gained upon the minds of men who stood highest for
education, influence, and excellence of character. Positions of trust
and honor were suddenly found vacant. Artisans, printers, scholars,
professors in the universities, authors, and even courtiers, disappeared.
Hundreds fled from Paris, self-constituted exiles from their native
land, in many cases thus giving the first intimation that they favored
the reformed faith. The papists looked about them in amazement at
thought of the unsuspected heretics that had been tolerated among
them. Their rage spent itself upon the multitudes of humbler victims
who were within their power. The prisons were crowded, and the very
air seemed darkened with the smoke of burning piles, kindled for the
confessors of the gospel.
Francis I had gloried in being a leader in the great movement for the
revival of learning which marked the opening of the sixteenth century.
He had delighted to gather at his court men of letters from every
country. To his love of learning and his contempt for the ignorance
and superstition of the monks was due, in part at least, the degree of
toleration that had been granted to the reform. But, inspired with zeal
to stamp out heresy, this patron of learning issued an edict declaring
printing abolished all over France! Francis I presents one among the
many examples on record showing that intellectual culture is not a
safeguard against religious intolerance and persecution.