The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 228

subjects; but it was brought about by infidels 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.
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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