Henry M. Baird · 285 of 379

CHAPTER XI · Curiosity to hear Huguenot preaching and singing.

So wonderful an awakening as that which was now witnessed in almost every part of France could not long continue without arousing violent resistance. The very signs that seemed to indicate the speedy triumph of the Reformation were, indeed, the occasion of the institution of an organized opposition of the most formidable character. Hints of the propriety of calling in foreign assistance had even before this time been audibly whispered. The theologians of the Sorbonne, alarmed at the apparent favor displayed for the reformed teachers by the court, had despatched one Artus Désiré with a letter to Philip the Second, in which they supplicated his intervention in behalf of the Catholic religion, now threatened with ruin. Happily the enterprise was nipped in the bud, and, on the arrest of Artus at Orleans, on his way to Spain, the nefarious conspiracy was fully divulged. The priestly agent, after craven prayers for his life, was immured for a time in a cloister. Well might the Romish party fear. The curiosity to hear the preaching of the Word of God by men of piety and learning, the desire to hear those grand psalms of Marot solemnly chanted by the chorus of thousands of human voices, had infected every class of society. The records of the chapters of cathedrals, during this period of universal spiritual agitation, are little else, we are told, than a list of cases of ecclesiastical discipline instituted against chaplains, canons, and even higher dignitaries, for having attended the Huguenot services. At Rouen, the chief singer of Notre Dame acknowledged before the united chapter that he had often been present at the "assemblies"—nay, more—"that he had never heard anything there which was not good."