§ 64. Antoine Froment.
§ 64. Antoine Froment.
A. Froment: Les actes et gestes merveilleux de la cité de Genève, nouvellement convertie à l’Evangile. Edited by G. Revilliod, Genève, 1854. A chronicle from 1532 to 1536, fresh and lively, but partial and often inac-curate. Much used by Merle D’Aubigné. Letters in Herminjard, Tom. IV.
There is no special monograph of Froment, and he is omitted in Beza’s Icones and also in Verheiden’s Imagines et Elogia (Hagae, 1725), probably on account of his spotted character. Sketches in La France Protest., VI. 723–733, and notices in Roget, Merle D’Aubigné, Gaberel, Polenz. A good article by Th. Schott in Herzog2, IV. 677–699, and by Roget in Lichtenberger’s "Encycl.," V. 342–344. On his literary merita see Phil. Godet, Histoire litteraire de la Suisse Romande, 82 sqq.
Antoine Froment was born in 1509 in Mens, in Dauphiné, and was one of the earliest disciples of Farel, his countryman. He accompanied him in his evangelistic tours through Switzerland, and shared in his troubles, persecutions, and successes. In 1532 he went for the first time to Geneva, and opened an elementary school in which he taught religion. He advertised it by placards in these words: "A man has arrived, who in the space of one month will teach anybody, great or small, male or female, to read and write French; who does not learn it in that time need not pay anything. He will also heal many diseases without charge." The people flocked to him; he was an able teacher, and turned his lessons into addresses and sermons.
On new year’s day, in 1533, he preached his first sermon on the public place, Molard, attacked the pope, priests, and monks as false prophets (Matt. 7:15 sq.), but was interrupted by armed priests, and forced by the police to flee to a retreat. He left the city by night, in February, but returned again and again, and aided Farel, Viret, and Calvin.
Unfortunately he did not remain faithful to his calling, and fell into disgrace. He neglected his pastoral duties, kept a shop, and at last gave up the ministry. His colleagues, especially Calvin, complained bitterly of him.356 In December, 1549, he was engaged by Bonivard, the official historian of the Republic, to assist him in his Chronicle, which was completed in 1552. Then he became a public notary of Geneva (1553). He got into domestic troubles. Soon after the death of his first wife, formerly abbess of a convent, he married a second time (1561), but committed adultery with a servant, was deposed, imprisoned, and banished, 1562.
His misfortune seems to have wrought in him a beneficial change. In 1572 he was permitted on application to return to Geneva in view of his past services, and in 1574 he was reinstated as notary. He died in 1581(?). The Genevese honored his memory as one, though the least important, and the least worthy, of the four Reformers of their city. His chief work is the Chronicle mentioned above, which supplements the Chronicles of Bonivard, and Sister Jeanne de Jussie.357
La Suisse française orla Suisse romande. Vaud has 1244 square miles; Neuchâtel, 312; Geneva, 109. The first numbered, in 1889, 251,000 inhabitants; the second, 109,000; the third, 107,000.
See Vulliemin, Le canton de Vaud, Lausanne, 3d ed., 1885. Verdeil, Histoire du canton de Vaud, Lausanne, 1854-’57, 4 vols.
See the historical works on Neuchâtel by Chambrier, Matile, Boyve, Majer, Benoît.
Pierre de la Baume was bishop of Geneva from 1523 to 1536, became bishop of Besançon 1542, and died 1544. Bonivard (as quoted by Audin, who praises the bishops of Geneva) says of him: "He was a great dissipator of goods, in all things superfluous, esteeming it a sovereign virtue in a prelate to have his table loaded with large dishes of meat and all sorts of wines; and when there he gave himself up so completely as to exceed thirty-one courses." Audin adds (p. 116): "This shaft would have been much more pointed, had not Bonivard often seated himself at this table and drank far otherwise than became the prior of St. Victor."
Merle D’Aubigné, I. 119: "Until after the Reformation, this sobriquet had a purely political meaning, in no respect religious, and designated simply the friends of independence. Many years after, the enemies of the Protestants of France called them by this name, wishing to stigmatize them and impute to them a foreign, republican, and heretical origin. Such is the true etymology of the term." There are, however, two other etymologies,—one from Hugh Capet, from whom descended Henry IV., the political and military leader of the Huguenots.
For the details of these political struggles, which have little interest for Church history, see Merle D’Aubigné, I. 1-426; the Histories of Geneva, and Am. Roget, Les Suisses et Genève, ou l’emancipation de la communautégenevoise au XVIesiècle, Genève, 1864, 2 vols. Also Kampschulte, l.c. I. 3-90.
It is famous for the organ in the Church of St. Nicolas, for a suspension bridge, and a Catholic university. It is the seat of the bishop of Lausanne, and must not be confounded with Freiburg-im-Breisgau in the Grand Duchy of Baden, which is also a stronghold of Romanism.
Beza, in his Icones, thus describes Farel’s best qualities: "Hic enim ille est qui nullis diffictultatibus fractus, nullis minis, convitiis, verberibus denique inflictis territus, Mombelgardenses, Neocomenses, Lausanenses, Aquileienses, Genevenses denique Christo lucrifecit. Fuit enim in hoc homine praeter pietatem, doctrinam, vitae innocentiam, eximiamque modestiam, singularis quaedam animi praesentia, ingenium acre, sermo vehementiae plenus, ut tonare potius quam loqui videretur: ardorque denique tantus in precando, ut audientes quasi in coelum usque subveheret." And he compares Calvin, Farel, and Viret in these verses (in 1568):—
"Gallica mirata est Calvinum ecclesia nuper,
Quo nemo docuit doctius.
Est quoque te nuper mirata, Farelle, tonantem,
Quo nemo tonuit fortius.
Et miratur adhuc funden tem mella Viretum,
Quo nemo fatur dulcius.
Scilicet aut tribus his servabere testibus olim,
Aut interibis Gallia."
"L’homme du midi [Farel] était fait pour conquérir; l’homme du nord [Calvin] pour conserver et discipliner la conquête. Farel en eut le sentiment si distinct, qu’il s’effaça spontanément devant Calvin le jour oùil le contraignit par les ’tonnerres’ de sa parole de demeurer àGenève, qui avait besoin de son génie." Philippe Godet, Hist. litter. de la Suisse française, p. 51.
"Mon fils, Dieu renouvellera le monde et tu en seras le témoin." Herminjard, I. 5, note. Compare the passage there quoted from Le Fèvre’s work on St. Paul.
Herminjard (I. 3) begins his Correspondance des Réf. with a letter of Le Fèvre to Briçonnet, Dec. 15, 1512, in which he dedicated to him his Commentary on the Epistles of Paul.
Herminjard (I. 193-195) gives the theses from the Archives of Zürich. The first is the most characteristic: "Absolutissimam nobis praescripsit Christus vivendi regulam, cui nec addere licet, nec detrahere." OEcolampadius served as interpreter, since Farel’s French pronunciation of Latin made it difficult to understand him.
"Nimirum instructus ad totam Sorbonicam affligendam, si non et perdendam." Letter of May 15, 1524, in Herminjard, I. 215.
He described him in a letter to the official of Besançon, 1524: "Nihil vidi unquam mendacius, virulentius aut seditiosius." Quite natural from his standpoint. The two characters had no points of contact.
In August, 1526, Bucer addressed him, "Ursinus, Ælae episcopus." Herminjard, I. 461.
For a graphic account of his labors in Neuchâtel, see Vuillemin’s Le Chroniqueur, pp. 86 sqq., and F. Godet, Histoire de la reformation et du refuge dans le pays de Neuchâtel (1859), pp. 69-190.
Le commencement de l’hérésie en Gènève. Grénus, Fragments historiques, pp. 199-208; Le Chroniqueur, 147-150. Ruchat (III. 383, ed. Vulliemin) doubts the simplicity of these good sisters, and suspects them of occasional communication with the Franciscans through subterranean passages: "Il y a pourtant quelque lieu de douter si ces religieuses étaient aussi simples que la soeur de Jussi voudrait nous le faire accroire. Les chemins souterrains qu’on découvrit après leur départ sous leur couvent (et qui conduissaient àcelui des Cordeliers qui était a quelques pas de là), donnent tout lieu de soupçonner qu’elles recevaient de temps en temps des visites de ces bons frères, et qu’ainsi elles n’étaient pas tant novices dans les affaires du monde."
Six years afterwards he became the father of a son, his only child, who survived him three years. John Knox surpassed him in matrimonial enterprise: he married, as a widower of fifty-eight, a Scotch lass of sixteen, of royal name and blood (Margaret Stuart), who bore him three daughters, and two years after his death (1572) contracted a second marriage. If Erasmus had lived, he might have pointed to these examples in confirmation of his witticisms on the marriages of Luther and Oecolampadius.
Calvin, Opera, XX. 302, where this epistola is called "ultima omnium et valedictoria."
La France Prot., VI. 409: "Toute sa succession se monta à120 livres, preuve de son entière desintéressement." Godet, l.c, p. 185: "Calvin mourant ne laissa que 125 écus de fortune àses héritiers. Le petit trésor de Farel trouvéaprès sa mort se montait à120 livres du pays."
See a list of 18 in Schmidt, l.c., p. 38; a more complete one (24) in La France Protest., VI. 410-414. Herminjard, in the 7 vols. of his Correspond. des Réf, gives 107 of his letters, and 242 letters addressed to him.
The acts of this disputation are printed in Vulliemin’s Chroniqueur en l’an 1536, No. 17, pp. 315-326. The chapter of Lausanne protested, pp. 316, 325.
See his letter of submission to Pope Paul III., June, 1537, in Herminjard, IV. 248 sqq.
C. Schmidt, in his monograph on Viret, pp. 56-71, gives a list of them with extracts. Comp. Phil. Godet, l.c. 70 sqq.
356 "Froment," says Farel, "a dégénéréen ivraie (ivresse)."
357 Michelet (Hist. de France, XI. 91): "Nul livre plus amusant que la chronique de Froment, hardi colporteur de la grâce, naif et mordant satirique que les dévotes génevoises, plaisamment dévoilées par lui, essayèrent de jeter au Rhône."