23 - FRANÇOIS I. Letter signed “Françoys,” countersigned by his secretary Jean-René Robertet. Saint-Germain-en-Laye, January 13, [1522]. One folio page, address on the back; two marginal tears.

FRANÇOIS I. Letter signed “Françoys,” countersigned by his secretary Jean-René Robertet. Saint-Germain-en-Laye, January 13, [1522]. One folio page, address on the back; two marginal tears. Order to proceed with the trial of Berquin and Papillon to bring these matters to a close. “Our beloved and faithful ones, although you recently wrote to us and sent a special envoy to attend with all due diligence to THE CONDUCT OF THE TRIALS OF BERQUIN AND PAPILLON, nevertheless, since we suspect that you might wish to delay[r] to proceed with their trial under the pretext of other matters with which we have charged you, we have seen fit to send you our repeated letters so that you may understand our will and desire that this matter be brought to a close. WE THEREFORE BEG YOU, AND NONE THE LESS ORDER AND COMMAND YOU most expressly, that all other matters of any kind be set aside for the grave, just, and reasonable reasons mentioned in our other letters addressed to you, THAT YOU IMMEDIATELY ATTEND TO THE DISPUTE AND JUDGMENT OF THE SAID LAWSUITS so that the said Berquin and Papillon may no longer have cause to turn to us for justice. Fail not to do so, inasmuch as you wish to please us, for such is our pleasure...” THE HUMANIST AND EVANGELIST LOUIS DE BERQUIN, MARTYR OF RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. A man of strong character, Louis de Berquin (1490–1429) made a name for himself in intellectual circles through his French translations, notably of texts by Erasmus, with whom he was acquainted. However, he also translated Luther and Melanchthon, and published his own militant, caustic texts, criticizing, for example, the veneration of the Virgin Mary. In fact, he accepted only those aspects of Lutheranism that aligned with his own evangelical views, but he was nonetheless attacked by the Faculty of Theology in Paris, and despite the protection of Francis I, his sister Marguerite de Valois, and their mother Louise of Savoy: in 1523, following a complaint from the Sorbonne, Louis de Berquin’s home was searched, and books by Luther or authors sympathetic to Luther—which were deemed heretical—were found there; he was subsequently imprisoned, but Francis I had him released. During the period when the king was held captive by Charles V, the Faculty renewed its attacks, condemned four of his translations of Erasmus, and had him arrested in January 1526—Francis I once again managed, from afar, to secure his release. Perhaps too confident of royal protection, Louis de Berquin then published a pamphlet against his chief accuser at the Sorbonne, Noël Béda, which led to his arrest again in June 1526 and the resumption of his trial—the king intervened once more, demanding that he be tried by a commission of laymen including intellectuals such as Guillaume Budé (a friend of the accused). However, two events worked against Louis de Berquin: on the one hand, the French army was suffering setbacks in Italy, and Francis I found himself in a strategic position where he needed to build closer ties with the pope; on the other hand, the desecration of a statue of the Virgin Mary on a Paris street caused great public outrage. The Sorbonne seized the opportunity to assert that there was a link between Louis de Berquin’s ideas and this act of vandalism, and on April 15, 1529, the commission was led to hand down a severe sentence: life imprisonment. Whether out of recklessness or defiance, Louis de Berquin appealed the sentence before the Parliament of Paris, despite its hostility toward him and his ideas: the sentence was commuted to death by strangulation and burning, and carried out on April 17, 1529. A friend of Erasmus and a correspondent of Zwingli, Antoine Papillon was a member of the Grand Council and the Dauphin’s chief master of requests. Close to the evangelical circle, he had been commissioned by Marguerite d’Angoulême to translate Luther’s treatise against monastic vows.