ful impofitions, were certainly right in a moral view; let us fee how far they were fo with regard to us, in a political one.

They afferted, that as Jefus Chrift had never exacted annates, nor reverfions, nor fold dif penfations for this world, nor indulgences for the next, they faw no reafon why they should pay a foreign prince his price for these things. Suppofing that the annates, the law proceedings in the pope's court, and the difpenfations which ftill fubfift, were to coft us no more than five hundred thousand crowns a year; it is clear, that fince the time of Francis I. that is, in two hundred and fifty years, we have paid a hundred and twenty millions; and if we calculate the different value of the mark of filver, we fhall find this fum to amount to about two hun

dred and fifty millions of the present money. It may therefore, I think, without any blafphemy be allowed, that the heretics in propofing the abolition of these very extraordinary taxes, which will be the admiration of pofterity, did, in that refpect, no great injury to the kingdom, and showed themfelves rather good calculators than bad fubjects. Add to this, that they were the only perfons who understood the Greek

Janguage, or had any knowledge of antiquity; let us own likewife, without diffimulation, that with all their errors, we are indebted to them for the opening of our understandings, which had been long buried beneath the most barbarous obfcurity.

But as they denied the doctrine of purgatory, concerning which no one ought to have the leaft doubt, and which, moreover, brought in a comfortable revenue to the monks; as they paid. no reverence to relics which every one ought to reverence, and which brought in ftill greater profits; and laftly, as they attacked the most refpectable tenets their adverfaries made

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2

They revived the opinion of Berengarius concerning the Eucharift; they denied that a body can exist in a thousand different places at one time, even by all the exertion of divine omnipotence; they alfo denied, that attributes can fubfift without a fubject; they held, that it was absolutely impoffible that what appears to be fimple bread and wine to the fight, the tafte, and the ftomach, can in the very instant of its existence, be annihilated or changed into another fubftance; in a word, they maintained all those errors for which Berengarius

was

them no other reply, than by committing them to the ftake. The king, who filed him felf

was formerly condemned. They founded their belief on feveral paffages of the antient fathers of the church, and particularly of St. Juftin, who fays expressly in his dialogue against Typhonius, "That the offering of fine flour is the figure of "the Eucharift, which Chrift has ordered us "to make in commemoration of his paffion;" σε καὶ ἡ τῆς σεμιδάλεως &c. τύπος ἦν τῷ ἄρτυ τῆς εὐχα σε ρισίας, ὃν εἰς ανάμνησιν το παθους &c. Ιησές Χρισὸς ὁ οι κύριον ἡμῶν παρέδωκε τποιεῖν.”

n

They revived all that had been advanced in the first ages against the worship of relics, and brought thefe words of Vigilantius for their authority: "What neceffity is there for your paying adora"tion or even respect to a mass of vile duft? "Can it be fuppofed that the fouls of deceafed 66 martyrs retain after their death an affection for "their afhes? The cuftoms of the antient idola❝ters are now introduced into the church; we be"gin to light tapers at noon-day; we may, in

deed, during our life-time, mutually pray for each other; but of what fervice can fuch prayers ❝ be after death."

their protector, and who kept a body of them in pay in Germany, marched at the head of a proceffion through Paris, which was concluded by the execution of a number of thefe unhappy wretches; which was as follows:

They were fufpended at the end of a long beam, which played upon a pole erected for that purpose; and underneath them was kindled a large fire, into which they were alternately lowered and then raised up again, by which they experienced the most excruciating torments; till a lingering death at laft put a period to the longest and most dreadful punishment that eruelty ever invented.

But they did not take notice how warmly St. Jerom has oppofed this passage in Vigilantiùs. In fhort, they referred wholly to the primitive times of the apostles, nor could they be brought to acknowledge, that as the church became more extended and strengthened, there was a neceffity for extending and strengthening its difcipline likewife; they condemned every thing that had the appearance of riches or grandeur in religion, which, however, feem abfolutely neceffary towards fupporting the dignity of that worship we pay the Deity.

A

A fhort time before the death of Francis I. the members of the parliament of Provence, whom the clergy had incenfed against the inhabitants of Mirandol and Cabriére, applied to the king for a body of troops to attend the execution of nineteen perfons of that country who had been condemned by them; with the affistance of this armed force, they maffacred about fix thousand fouls, without sparing fex or age, and reduced thirty villages to afhes. The people who were the objects of these executions, and who had, till then, been in a manner unknown, were doubtless to blame for having been born Vaudois, but this was their only crime. They had been settled for upwards of three hundred years in deferts and on mountains, which they had rendered fertile by incredible labour, and led a paftoral and quiet life, the perfect image of the innocence which we find attributed to the first ages of the world. They had no other acquaintance. with the towns or villages round about them, but from carrying the produce of their grounds thither to fell. Totally ignorant of all military operations, they made no defence; but were flaughtered like timorous animals,, whom we, C 5 drive.