Mundi tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus the King returned him an answer with an Epithite sutable to his arrogancy Sciat maxima tua fatuitas nos intemporalibus alicui non subesse c. The like answer though in modester termes was sent to another of the Popes by St. Lewis a man of a most mild and sweet disposition yet unwilling to forgoe his Royalties His spiritual power is almost as little in substance though more in shew for whereas the Councill of Trent hath been an especiall authorizer of the Popes spiritual supremacy the French Church never would receive it by this means the Bishops keep in their hands their own full authority whereof an obedience to the decrees of that Councill would deprive them It was truly said by St. Gregory and they well knew it Lib. 7. Epist 70. Si unus universalis est restat ut vos Episcopinon Sitis Further the Vniversity of Paris in their Declaration Anno 1610. above mentioned plainly affirme that it is directly opposite to the doctrine of the Church which the Vniversity of Paris hath alwaies maintained that the Pope hath power of a Monarch in the spiritual Government of the Church To look upon higher times when the Councill of Constance had submitted the authority of the Pope unto that of a Councill John Gerson Theologus Parisiensis magni nominis defended that deeree and entitleth them Perniciosos esse ad modum adulatores qui tyranidem istam in Ecclesia invexere quasi nullis Regum teneatur vinculis quasi neque parere debeat Concilio Pontifex nec ab eo judicare queat The Kings themselves also befreind their Clergy in this Cause and therefore not onely protested against the Council of Trent wherein the spiritual tyranny was generally consented to by the Catholike faction but Henry the second also would not acknowledge them to be a Council calling them in his Letters by no other name than Conventus Tridentinus An indignity which the Fathers took very offensively Put the principal thing in which it behooveth them not to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy is the Collation of Benefices and Bishopricks and the Annates and first fruits thence arising The first and greatest controversie between the Pope and Princes of Christendom was about the bestowing the Livings of the Church and giving the investiture unto Bishops The Popes had long thirsted after that authority as being a great meanes to advance their followers and establish their own greatness for which cause in divers petty Councels the receiving of any Ecclesiastical preferment of a Lay-man was decreed to be Simony But this did little edifie with such patrons as had good Livings As soon as ever Hiâ—el brand in the Catalogue of the Popes called Gregory the seventh came to the throne of Rome he set himself entirely to effect the business as well in Germany now he was Pope as he had done in France whilst he was Legate He commandeth therefore Henry the third Emperour Ne deinceps Episcopatus Beneficia they are Platina's own words per cupiditatem Simoniacam committat aliter se usurum in ipsum censuris Ecclesiasticis To this injustice when the Emperour would not yeild he called a solemn Council at the Lateran where the Emperour was pronounced to be Simoniacal and afterwards excommunicated Neither would this Tyrant ever leave persecuting of him till he had laid him in his grave After this followed great strugling between the Popes and the Emperours for this very matter but in the end the Popes got the victory In England here he that first bickered about it was William Rufus the controversie being whether he or Pope Vrban should invest Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury Anselme would receive his investiture of none but the Pope whereupon the King banished him the Realm into which he was not admitted till the raign of Henry the second He to endear himself with his Clergy relinquished his right to the Pope but afterwards repenting himself of it he revoked his grant Neither did the English Kings wholly loose it till the raign of that unfortunate Prince King John Edward the first again recovered it and his Successors kept it The Popes having with much violence and opposition wrested into their hands this Priviledge of nominating Priests and investing Bishops they spared not to lay on what taxes they pleased as on the Benefices First fruits Pensions Subsidies Fifteenths Tenths and on the Bishopricks for Palls Mitres Crosiers Rings and I know not what bables By these means the Churches were so impoverished that upon complaint made unto the Council of Basel all these cheating tricks these aucupia eapilandi rationes were abolished This Decree was called Pragmatica sanctio and was confirmed in France by Charles the seventh Anno 1438. An act of singular improvement to the Church and Kingdom of France which yearly before as the Court of Parliament manifested to Lewis the eleventh had drained the State of a million of Crowns Since which time the Kings of France have sometimes omitted the vigour of the Sanction and sometimes also exacted it according as their affairs with the Pope stood for which cause it was called fraenum pontificum At the last King Francis the first having conquered Millain fell unto this composition with his Holiness namely that upon the falling of any Abbacie or Bishoprick the King should have six moneths time to present a fit man unto him whom the Pope legally might invest If the King neglected his time limited the Pope might take the benefit of the relapse and institute whom he pleased So is it also with the inferior benifices between the Pope and the Patrons insomuch that any or every Lay-patron and Bishop together in England hath for ought I see at the least in this particular as great a spiritual supremacy as the Pope in France Nay to proceed further and to shew how meerly titular both his supremacies are as well the spiritual as the temporal you may plainly see in the case of the Jesuites which was thus In the year 1609. the Jesuites had obtained of King Henry the fourth license to read again in their Colledge of Paris but when their Letters Patents came to be verified in the Court of Parliament the Rector and Vniversity opposed them On the seventeenth of December Anno 1611. both parties came to have an hearing and the Vniversity got the day unless the Jesuits would subscribe unto these four points Viz. First that the Council was above the Pope Secondly that the Pope had not temporal power over Kings and could not by Excommunication deprive them of their Realms and Estates Thirdly that Clergy men having heard of any attempt or conspiracy against the King or his Realm or any matter of treason in Confession they were bound to reveal it And fourthly that Clergy men were subject to the Secular Prince or Politick Magistrate It appeared by our former discourse what title or no power they had left the Pope over the estates
and preferments of the French By these propositions to which the Jusuits in the end subscribed I know not with what mental reservation it is more than evident that they have left him no command neither over their consciences nor their persons So that all things considered we may justly say of the Papal power in France what the Papists falsly say of Erasmus namely that it is Nomen sine rebus In one thing onely his authority here is entire which is his immediate protection of all the Orders of Friers and also a superintendency or supreme eye over the Monks who acknowledge very small obedience if any at all to the French Bishops For though at the beginning every part and member of the Diocess was directly under the care and command of the Bishop yet it so happened at the building of Monestaries in the Western Church the Abbots being men of good parts and sincere life grew much into the envy of their Diocesan For which cause as also to be more at their own command they made suit to the Pope that they might be freed from that subjection Vtque intutelam Dive Petri admitterentur A proposition very plausible to his Holiness ambition which by this meanes might the sooner be raised to his height and therefore without difficulty granted This gap opened first the several Orders of Friers and after them the Deans and Chapters purchased to themselves the like exemptions In this the Popes power was wonderfully strengthened in having such able and so many props to uphold his authority it being a true Maxime in State Quod qui privilegia obtenent ad eadem conservanda teneantur authoritatem concedentis tueri This continued till the Council of Trent unquestioned where the Bishops much complained of their want of authority and imputed all the schismes and vices in the Church to this that their hands were tied Hereupon the Popes Legates thought it fit to restore to their jurisdiction their Deans and Chapters At that of the Monks and Monestaries they were more sticking till at the last Sebastian Pighinus one of the Popes Officers found out for them this satisfaction that they should have an eye and inspection into the lives of the Monks not by any authority of their own Sed tanquam a sede Apostolica delegati But as for the Orders of Friers the Pope would not by any means give way unto it They are his Janizaries and the strongest bulwarks of his Empire and are therefore called in a good Author Egregia Romanae Curiae instrumenta So that with them the Diocesan hath nothing to do each severall religious House being as a Court of Peculiars subject onely to the great Metropolitan of Rome This near dependance on his Holiness maketh this generation a great deal more regardless of their behaviour than otherwise it would be though since the growth of the reformation shame and fear hath much reformed them They have still howsoever a spice of their former wantonness and on occasions will permit themselves a little good fellowship And to say truth of them I think them to be the best Companions in France for a journey but not for acquaintance They live very merrily and keep a competent table more I suppose than can stand with their vow and yet far short of that affluency whereof many of our books accuse them It was my chance to be in an house of the Franciscans in Paris where one of the Friers upon the entreaty of our Friend had us into the Hall it being then the time of their Refectory a favour not vulgar There saw we the Brothers sitting all on a side and every one a pretty distance from the other their several commons being a dish of pottage a chop of mutton a dish of Cherries and a large glass of water This provision together with a liberal allowance of ease and a little of study keepeth them exceeding plump and in good liking and maketh them having little to take thought for maketh them as I said before passing good Company As I travelled to Orleans we had in coach with us three of these mortified sinners two of the Order of St. Austin and one Franciscan the merriest Crickets that ever chirped Nothing in them but mad tricks and complements and for musick they would sing like Hawks when we came to a vein of good Wine they would chear up themselves and their neighbour with this comfortable doctrine Vivamus ut bibamus et bibamus ut vivamus and for Courtship and toying with the Wenches you would easily beleeve it had been a trade with which they had not a little been acquainted Of all men when I am married God keep my wife from them and till then my neighbours On the other side the common Priests of France are so dull and blockish that you shall hardly meet with a more contemptible people The meanest of our Curats in England for spirit and discourse are very Popes to them for learning they may safely say with Socrates Hoc tantum scimus quod nescimus but you must not look that they should say it in Latine Tongues they have none but those of their Mother and the Masse Book of which last they can make no use unless the Book be open and then also the Book is fain to read it self for in the last Romanum Missale established by the authority of Pius the fifth and recognized by Clement the eighth Anno 1600. every sillable is diversly marked whether it must be sounded long or short just as the varifying examples are in the end of the English Grammer When I had lost my self in the streets of Paris and wanted French to enquire homeward I used to apply my self to some of this reverend habit But O soeclum insipiens et infacitum you might as easily have wrought water out of the flint as a word of Latine out of their mouthes Nor is this the disease of the vulgar Masse mumbler onely it hath also infected the right worshipful of the Clergy In Orleans I had business with a Chanoin of the Church of St. Croiz a fellow that wore his surplice it was made of Lawne and Lace with as good a credit as ever I saw any and for the comliness and capacity of his cap he might have been a Metropolitan perceiving me to speak to him in a strange Tongue for it was Latine he very learnedly asked me this question Num potestis loqui Gallica which when I had denied at last he brake out into another Interrogatory viz. Quandiu fuistis in Gallice To conclude having read over my Letter with two or three deadly pangs and six times rubbing of his temples he dismissed me with this cordial and truly it was very comfortable to my humor Ego necotias vestras curabo A strange beast and one of the greatest prodigies of Ignorance that ever I met with in mans apparrel Such being the Romish Priests it is no marvail if the French be no more setled and resolute
live happily if they can be content to live obediently that which is taken from them being matter of strength onely not priviledge Let us now look upon them in their Churches which we shall find as empty of magnificence as ceremony to talk amongst them of Common prayers were to fright them with a second coming of the Mass and to mention Prayers at the burial of the dead were to perswade them of a Purgatory Painted glass in a Church window is accounted for the flag and ensign of Antichrist and for Organs no question but they are deemed the Devils Bap pipes Shew them a Surplice and they cry out a rag of the Whore of Babylon yet a Sheet upon a Woman when she is in childâ—bed is a greater abomination than the other A strange people that could never think the Mass-book sufficiently reformed till they had taken away Prayers nor that their Churches could ever be handsome until they were ragged This foolish opposition of their first Reformers hath drawn the Protestants of these parts into a world of dislike and envy and been no small disadvantage to their side whereas the Church of England though it dissent as much from the Papists in point of doctrine is yet not uncharitably thought on by the moderatest Catholikes by reason it retained such an excellency of discipline When the Liturgie of our Church was translated into Latine by Doctor Mocket once Warden of All-Souls Colledge in Oxford it was with great approof and applause received here in France by those whom they call Catholikes Royal as marvelling to see such order and regular devotion in them whom they were taught to condemn for heretical An allowance which with some little help might have been raised higher from the practise of our Church to some points of our judgement And it is very worthy of our observation that which the Marquess of Rhosney spake of Canterbury when he came as extraordinary Embassadour from King Henry the fourth to welcome King James into England for upon the view of our solemn Service and Ceremonies he openly said unto his fellows that if the reformed Churches in France had kept the same orders amongst them which we have he was assured that there would have been many thousands more of Protestants than now there are But the Marquess of Rhosney was not the last that said so I have heard divers French Papists who were here at the Queens coming over and ventured so far upon an excommunication as to be present at our Church solemn Services extolling them and us for their sakes even almost unto Hyperboles So graciously is our temper entertained amongst them As are their Churches such is their discipline naked of all antiquity and almost as modern as the men which embraced it The power and calling of Bishops they abrogated with the Mass upon no other cause then that Geneva had done it As if that excellent man Mr. Calvin had been the Pythagoras of our age and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Ipse dixit had stood for Oracle The Hierarchi of Bishops thus cast out they have brought in their places Lay-Elders a kind of Monsters never heard of in the Scriptures or first times of the Gospel These men leap from the stall to the Bench and partly sleeping and partly stroaking their beard they enact Laws of government for the Church So that we may justly take up the complaint of the Satyrist saying Surgunt nobis e Sterquitineo magistratus nec dum tot is manibus publica tractant negotia yet to these very men composed equally of ignorance and a Trade are the most weighty matters of the Church committed In them is the power of ordaining Priests of conferring places of Charge and even of the severest censure of the Church Excommunication When any business which concerneth the good of the Congregation is befallen they must be called to counsel and you shall find them there as soon as ever they can put off their aprons Having blotted out there a little classical non-sense and passed their consents rather by nodding of their heads than any other sensible articulation they hasten to their Shops as Quinctius the Dictator in Florus did to his Plow Vt adopus relictum festinasse videatur Such a platform though it be as needeth no further confutation then to know it yet had it been the more tolerable if the Contrivers of it had not endeavoured to impose it on all the reformation by which meanes what troubles have been raised by the great Zealots here in England there is none so young but hath heard some tragical relations God be magnified and our late King praised by whom this weed hath been snatched up out of the garden of this our Israel As for their Ministery it is indeed very learned in their study and exceeding painful in their calling by the first they confute the ignorant of the Romish Clergy by the second their laziness And questionless it behoveth them so to be for living in a Country full of opposition they are forced to a necessity of book-learning to maintain the Cause and being continually as it were beset with spies did therefore frequent the Pulpits to hold up their credits The maintenance which is alotted them scarce amounteth to a competency though by that name they please to call it With receiving of tythes they never meddle and therefore in their Systematical Tractats of Divinity they do hardly allow of paying of them Some of them hold that they are Jewish and abrogated with the Law Others think them meerly to be Jure Humano and yet that they may be lawfully accepted where they are tendered It is well yet that there are some amongst theÌ„ which will commend grapes though they cannot reach them This Competency may come to forty or fifty pound yearly or a little more Beza that great and famous Preacher of Geneva had but eighty pound a year and about that rate was Peter du Moulins pension when he preached at Clarenton These stipends are partly paid by the King and partly raised by way of Collection So the Ministers of those Churches are much of the nature of the English Lecturers As for the Tythes they belong to the several Parish Priests in whose precincts they are due and those I warrant you according to the little learning which they have will hold them to be Jure Divino The Sermons of the French are very plain home-spun little in them of the Fathers and less of humane learning it being concluded in the Synode of Sappe that onely the Scriptures should be used in their Pulpits they consist much of exhortation and use and of nothing in a manner which concerneth knowledge A ready way to raise up and edifie the will and affections but withall to starve the understanding For the education of them being Children they have private Schools when they are better grown they may have free recourse unto any of the French Academies besides the new Vniversity of Saumus which
by the sweat of their brows is the Court fed and the Souldier paid and by their labours are the Princes maintained in idleness What impositions soever it pleaseth the King to put upon them it is almost a point of treason not onely to deny but to question Apud illos vere regnatur nefasque quantum regi liceat dubitare as one of them The Kings hand lieth hard upon them and hath almost thrust them into an Egyptian bondage the poor Paisant being constrained to make up daily his full tale of brick and yet have no straw allowed him Upon the sight of these miseries and poverties of this people Sir John Fortescue Chancellor of England in his book intituled De laudibus Regum Angliae concludeth them to be unfit men for Jurers or Judges should the custom of the Country admit of such a trial for having proved there unto the Prince he was Son unto Henry the sixth that the manner of trial according to the Common Law by twelve Jurats was more commendable than the practise of the Civil or Imperial Laws by the deposition onely of two Witnesses or the forced confession of the person arraigned the Prince seemed to marvel Cur ea lex Angliae quae tam frugi optabilis est non sit toti mundo communis to this he maketh answer by shewing the free condition of the English Subjects who alone are used at these Inditements men of a fair and large estate such as dwell nigh the place of the deed committed men that are of ingenuous education such as scorn to be suborned or corrupted and afraid of infamy Then he sheweth how in other places all things are contrary the Husbandman an absolute beggar easie to be bribed by reason of his poverty The Gentlemen living far asunder and so taking no notice of the fact The Paisant also neither fearing infamy nor loss of goods if he be found faulty because he hath them not In the end he concludeth thus Nec mireris igitur princeps si lex quae Anglia veritas inquiritur ab ea non pervagetur in alias nationes Ipsae namque ut Anglia nequeunt facere sufficientes consimilesque juratas The last part of the Latine savoureth somewhat of the Lawyer the word Jurata being there put to signifie a Jury To go over all those impositions which this miserable people are afflicted withal were almost as wretched as the payment of them I will therefore speak onely of the principal and here I meet in the first place with the gabel or imposition on Salt This gabelle de Sel this Impost on Salt was first begun by Philip the Long who took for it a Double which is half a Sol upon the pound After whom Philip de Valoys Anno 1328. doubled it Charles the seventh raised it unto three Doubles and Lewis the eleventh unto six since that time it hath been altered from so much upon the pound to a certain rate on the Maid which containeth some thirty bushels English the rates rising and falling at the Kings pleasure This one Commodity were very advantagious to the Exchequer were it all in the Kings hands but at this time a great part of it is morgaged It is thought to be worth unto the King three millions of Crowns yearly that onely of Paris and the Provosts seven Daughters being farmed at 1700000. Crowns the year The late Kings since Anno 1581. being intangled in warrs have been constrained to let it to others insomuch that about Anno 1599. the King lost above 800000. Crowns yearly and no longer then Anno 1621. the King taking up 600000. pounds of the Provost of the Merchants and the Eschevins gave unto them a Rent charge of 40000. pound yearly to be issuing out of the customs of Salt till their money were repaid them This gabel is indeed a Monopolie and that one of the unjustest and unmeasurablest in the world for no man in the Kingdom those Countries hereafter mentioned excepted can eat any Salt but he must buy it of the King and at his price which is most unconscionable that being sold at Paris and elsewhere for five liures which in the exempted places is sold for one Therefore that the Kings profits might not be diminished there is diligent watch and ward that no forrain Salt be brought into the Land upon pain of forfeiture and imprisonment A search that is made so strictly that we had much ado at Diepe to be pardoned the searching of our Trunks and Port-mantues and that not but upon our solemn protestations that we had none of that Commodity This Salt is of a brown colour being onely such as we in England call Bay Salt is imposed on the Subjects by the Kings Officers with great rigor For though they have some of their last provision in the house or perchance would be content through poverty to eat their meat without it yet will these cruel villains enforce them to take such a quantity of them howsoever they will have of them so much money But this tyranny is not general the Normans and Picards enduring most of it and the other Paisants the rest Much like unto this was the licence which the Popes and Bishops of old granted in matter of keeping Concubines for when such as had the charge of gathering the Popes rents happened upon a Priest which had no Concubine and for that cause made denial of the tribute the Collectors would return them this answer that notwithstanding this they should pay down the money because they might have had the keeping of a Wench if they would This gabel as it sitteth hard upon some so are there some also who are never troubled with it of this sort are the Princes in the general release and many of the Nobless in particular insomuch that it was proved unto King Lewis Anno 1614. that for every Gentleman which took of his Majesties Salt there were two thousand of the Commons There are also some entire Provinces which refuse to eat of this Salt as Britain Gascoine Poictou Queren Naintogne and the County of Boulonnois Of these the County of Boulonnois pretendeth a peculiar exemption as belonging immediately to the patrimony of our Lady Nostre-Dame of which we shall learn more when we are in Bovillon The Britains came united to the Crown by a fair marriage and had strength enough to make their own Capitulations when they first entered into the French subjection besides here are yet divers of the Ducal Family living in the Country who would much trouble the quiet of the Kingdom should the people be oppressed with this bondage and they take the protection of them Poictou and Queren have compounded for it with the former Kings and pay a certain rent yearly which is called the Equivalent Xaintogne is under the command of Rochell of whom it receiveth sufficient at a better rate And as for the Gascoynes the King dareth not impose it upon them for fear of rebellion They are a
1594. John Chastell of Novice of this order having wounded King Henry the fourth in the mouth occasioned the banishment of this Society out of all France Into which they were not againe received till the yeare 1604. and then also upon limitations more strict than ever Into Paris they were not re-admitted untill Anno 1606. neither had they the liberty of reading Lectures and instructing the Youth confirmed unto them untill Anno 1621. which also was compassed not without great trouble and vexation Per varios casus tot discrimina rerum as Aeneas and his companions came into Latium In this Vniversity they have at this instant three Houses one of Novices a second of Institutors which they call the Colledge and a third of professed Jesuits which they stile their Monastery or the professed House of St. Lewis In their house of Novices they traine up all those whom they have called out of their Schooles to be of their order and therein imitate them in the art of Jesuitisme and their mysteries of iniquity There they teach them not Grammaticall construction or composition but instruct them in the paths of Vertue Courage and Obedience according to such examples as their Authors afford them But he that made the Funerall Oration for Henry the fourth Anno 1610. reported otherwise Latini Sermonis obtentu saith he impurissime Gallicae juventutis mores ingenuos foedant Bonarum artium praetextu pessimas edocent artes Dum ingenia excolunt animas perdunt c. In their College they have the same method of teaching which the others of their company use in Orleans A Colledge first given unto them by Mr. William Prat Bishop of Clermont whose House it was but much beautified by themselves after his decease for with the money which he gave unto them by his Will which amounteth as it was thought to 60000. Crowns they added to it the Court called de Langres in S. James's street An. 1582. Their Monastery or house of prayer or profession is that unto which they retire themselves after they have discharged their duties in the College by reading and studying publickly in their severall Classes when they are here their study both for time and quality is ad placitum though generally their onely study in it is Policy and the advancing of their cause And indeed out of this Trojan Horse it is that those firebrands and incendiaries are let out to disturb and set in combustion the affaires of Christendome Out of this Forge come all those Stratagems and tricks of Machiavillianisme which tend to the ruine of the Protestants the desolation of their Countries I speak not this of their house of Profession here in Paris either onely or principally wheresoever they settle they have a House of this nature out of which they issue to overthrow the Gospel Being once sent by their superiours a necessity is laid upon them of obedience be the imployment never so dangerous and certainly this nation doth most strictly obey the rules of their order of any whosoever not excepting the Capuchins nor the Carthusians This I am witnesse unto that whereas the Divinity Lecture is to end at the tolling of a Bell one of the Society in the College of Clermont reading about the fall of the Angells ended his Lecture with these words Denique in quibuscunque for then was the warning given and he durst not so farre trespasse upon his rule as to speak out his sentence But it is not the fate of these Jesuites to have great persons onely and Vniversities to oppose their fortunes they have also the most accomplisht malice that either the Secular Priests or their friends amongst whom they live can fasten upon them Some envy them for the greatnesse of their possessions some because of the excellency of their Learning some hate them for their power some for the shrewdnesse of their braines all together making good that saying of Paterculus that Semper eminentis fortunae comes est invidia True indeed it is that the Jesuites have in a manner deserved all this clamor and stomack by their own insolencies for they have not onely drawne into their owne hands all the principall affaires of Court and State but upon occasions cast all the storme and contempt they can upon those of the other Orders The Janizaries of the Turke never more neglectfully speak of the Asapi than these doe of the rest of the Clergie A great crime in those men who desire to be accounted such excellent Masters of their owne affections Neither is the affection borne to them abroad greater then that at home amongst those I mean of the opposite party who being so often troubled and frumped by them have little cause to afford them a liking and much lesse a welcome Upon this reason they were not sent into England with the Queen although at the first they were destinate to that purpose It was well known how odious that name was among us and so little countenance the Court or Countrey would have afforded them They therefore that had the governance of that businesse sent hither in their places the Oratorians or Fratres Congregationis Oratorii were a race of men never as yet offensive to the English further than the generall defence of the Romish cause and so lesse subject to envie and exception They were first entituled by Philip Nerius not long after the Jesuits and advanced and dignified by Pope Sixtus the fifth principally for this end that by their incessant Sermons to the People of the lives of Saints and other Ecclesiasticall antiquitie they might get a new reputation and so divert a little the torrent of the peoples affections from the Jesuits Baronius that great and excellent Historian and Bozius that deadly enemy to the soveraignty of Princes were of the first foundation of this new order I have now done with Orleans and the Jesuits and must prepare for my returne to Paris which journey I began the 13. of July and ended the day following We went back the same way that we came though we were not so fortunate as to enjoy the same company we came in formerly Instead of the good and acceptable society of one of the French Noblesse some Gentlemen of Germany and two Friers of the Order of S. Austin we had the perpetuall vexation of foure Tradesmen of Paris two Fulles de Joy and an old Woman The Artizans so slovenly attired and greazy in their apparell that a most modest apprehension could have conceived no better of them than that they had been newly raked out of the Scullery one of them by an inkhorne that hung by his side wouâ—d have made us believe that he had been â— Notary buâ— by the thread of his discourse we found out that hâ— was a Sumner so full of Ribaldry was it and so rankly did it savour of the French Bawdy court The rest of them talked according to their skill concerning the price of Commodities and whâ— was the most likely man
of the Cittadel together with the Lordship of Pigingin both which he obtained by marrying the Daughter and Heir of the last Visedame of Amiens and Lord of Pigingin Anno 1619. A marriage which much advanced his fortunes which was compassed for him by the Constable Luynes his brother who also obtained for him of the King the title of Duke His highest attribute before being that of Mr. de Cadinet by which name he was known here in England at such time as he was sent extraordinary Ambassadour to King James This honour of Visedame is for ought that ever I could see used onely in France True it is that in some English Charters we meet with Vice-Dominus as in the Charter of King Edred to the Abbey of Crowland in Lincoln-shire dated in the year 948. there is subscribed Ego Bingulph Vice-dominus c. but with us and at those times this title was onely used to denotate a subordination to some superior Lord and not as an honorary attribute in which sense it is now used in France besides that with us it is frequently though falsly used for Vicecomes between which two Offices of Vicount and Vidame there are found no small resemblances For as they which did agere Vicem Comitis were called Vicecomites or Vicomits so were they also called Vidames or Vice-Domini qui Domini Episcopi vicem gerebant in temporalibus And as Vicountes from Offices of the Earles became honorary so did the Vidames disclaim the relation to the Bishop and became Seigneural or honorary also The Vidames then according to the first institution were the substitutes of the greater Bishops in matters of secular administration for which cause though they have altered their tenure they take all of them their denomination from the cheif Town of some Bishoprick neither is there any of them who holdeth not of some Bishoprick or other Concerning the number of them that are thus dignified I cannot determine Mr. Glover otherwise called Sommerset Herald in his discourse of Nobility published by Mr. Miles of Canterbury putteth it down for absolute that here are four onely Viz. of Amiens of Chartres of Chalons and of Gerbery in Bauvice but in this he hath deceived both himself and his Readers there being besides these divers others as of Rhemes Mans and the like but the particular and exact number of them together with the place denominating I leave to the French Heralds unto whose profession it belongeth CHAP. III. The Church of Nostre-Dame in Amiens The Principal Churches in most Cities called by her name More honour performed to her than to her Saviour The surpassing beauty of this Church on the outside The front of it King Henry the seventh's Chappel at Westminster The curiousness of this Church within By what means it became to be so The three sumptuous Massing-Closets in it The excellency of Perspective works Indulgencies by whom first founded The estate of the Bishoprick THere is yet one thing which addeth more lustre to the Citie of Amiens than either the Visdamate or the Cittadel which is the Church of Nostre Dame a name by which most of the principal Churches are known in France there have we the Nostre Dame in Roven a second in Paris a third in this City a fourth in Boulogne all Cathedrall so also a Nostre Dame in Abbeville and another in Estampes the principal Churches in those Towns also Had I seen more of their Towns I had met with more of her Temples for so of many â— have heard that if there be more than two Churches in a Town one shall be sure to be dedicated to her and that one of the fairest Of any Temples consecrated to the Name and memory of our Saviour Ne gry quidem there was not so much as a word stirring neither could I marvel at it considering the honours done to her and those to her Son betwixt which there is so great a disproportion that you would have imagined that Mary and not Jesus had been our Saviour for one Pater Noster the people are enjoyned ten Ave Maries and to recompence one pilgrimage to Christs Sepulchre at Hierusalem you shall hear of two hundred undertaken to our Lady of Loretto And whereas in their Kalendar they have dedicated onely four Festivals to our Saviour which are those of his birth circumcision resurrection and ascension all which the English Church also observeth for the Virgins sake they have more than doubled the number Thus do they solemnize the feast of her Purification and Annunciation at the times which we also do of her Visitation of Elizabeth in July of her Dedication and Assumption in August of her Nativity in September of her Presentation in November and of her Conception in the womb of her Mother in December To her have they appropriated set forms of prayers prescribed in the two books called one Officium and the other Rosarium beatae Mariae Virginis whereas her Son must be contented with those Orisons which are in the Common Mass Book her Shrines and Images are more glorious and magnificent then those of her Son and in her Chappel are more Vows paid than before the Crucifix But I cannot blame the Vulgar when the great Masters of their souls are thus also besotted The Officium before mentioned published by the Command of Pius the fifth saith thus of her Gaude Maria Virgo tu sola omnes haereses intermistâ— in universo mundo Catherinus in the Council of Trent calleth Fidelissimam Dei sociam and he was modest if compared with others In one of their Councils Christs name is quite forgotten and the name of our Lady put in the place of it for thus it beginneth Authoritate Dei Patris beatae Virginis omnium Sanctorum c. but most horrible is that of one of their Writers I am loath to say it was Bernard Beata Virgo monstra te esse Matrem jube filium which Harding in his confutation of the Apologie endeavouring to make good would needs have it to be onely an excess of mind or a spiritual sport and dalliance but from all such sports and dalliances good Lord deliver us Leaving our Lady let us go see her Church which questionless is one of the most glorious piles of building under the Heavens what Velleius saith of Augustus that he was homo qui omnibus omnium gentium viris inducturus erat caliginem or what Suetonius spake of Titus when he called him Delias humani generis both these attributes and more too may I most fitly fasten on this magnificent structure The whole body of it is of most curious and polished stones every where born up by buttresses of excellent composure that they seem to add more of beauty to it than of strength the Quire of it is as in great Churches commonly it is of a fairer fabrick than the body thick set with dainty pillars and most of them reaching unto the top of it in the fashion of an Arch.