Henry M. Baird · 370 of 379

CHAPTER XII · Tanquerel's seditious declaration.

While legate and nuncio labored to put an end to these hateful manifestations by personal solicitation addressed to Catharine, to Cardinal Châtillon, and others, the priests and monks were no less active in stirring up the passions of the people to open resistance. In the scholastic halls of the Collége de Harecourt, one Tanquerel, a doctor of the Sorbonne, enunciated the dangerous maxim that "the Pope can depose heretical kings and emperors." At this menacing declaration, which, under a king in his minority and a regency divided in its sentiments on religious questions, was much more than a theoretical abstraction, the government took alarm. The Parliament of Paris investigated the offence, and the doctrine of Tanquerel was severely condemned. Tanquerel himself having fled from the city to avoid the consequences of his rashness, the Dean of the Sorbonne was required, by order of the supreme court, to utter in his name a solemn recantation in the presence of the assembled theologians and of a committee of parliament; and two theologians were deputed to St. Germain to beg the king's forgiveness.