French Reformation
189
France by a solemn and public ceremony was to commit herself
fully to the destruction of Protestantism. The priests demanded that
the affront offered to High Heaven in the condemnation of the mass be
expiated in blood, and that the king, in behalf of his people, publicly
give his sanction to the dreadful work.
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The 21st of January, 1535, was fixed upon for the awful ceremonial.
The superstitious fears and bigoted hatred of the whole nation had
been roused. Paris was thronged with the multitudes that from all the
surrounding country crowded her streets. The day was to be ushered
in by a vast and imposing procession. “The houses along the line of
march were hung with mourning drapery, and altars rose at intervals.”
Before every door was a lighted torch in honor of the “holy sacrament.”
Before daybreak the procession formed at the palace of the king. “First
came the banners and crosses of the several parishes; next appeared the
citizens, walking two and two, and bearing torches.” The four orders
of friars followed, each in its own peculiar dress. Then came a vast
collection of famous relics. Following these rode lordly ecclesiastics
in their purple and scarlet robes and jeweled adornings, a gorgeous
and glittering array.
“The host was carried by the bishop of Paris under a magnificent
canopy, ... supported by four princes of the blood.... After the host
walked the king.... Francis I on that day wore no crown, nor robe of
state.” With “head uncovered, his eyes cast on the ground, and in his
hand a lighted taper,” the king of France appeared “in the character
of a penitent.”—Ibid., b. 13, ch. 21. At every altar he bowed down
in humiliation, nor for the vices that defiled his soul, nor the innocent
blood that stained his hands, but for the deadly sin of his subjects who
had dared to condemn the mass. Following him came the queen and
the dignitaries of state, also walking two and two, each with a lighted
torch.
As a part of the services of the day the monarch himself addressed
the high officials of the kingdom in the great hall of the bishop’s
palace. With a sorrowful countenance he appeared before them and in
words of moving eloquence bewailed “the crime, the blasphemy, the
day of sorrow and disgrace,” that had come upon the nation. And he
called upon every loyal subject to aid in the extirpation of the pestilent
heresy that threatened France with ruin. “As true, messieurs, as I
am your king,” he said, “if I knew one of my own limbs spotted or
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