tion. For
Morus, uncomfortable at Amsterdam, and every day under some fresh
discredit there, a splendid escape had at length presented itself. He
had received an invitation to be one of the ministers of the
Protestant church of Charenton, close to Paris. This church of
Charenton was indeed the main Protestant church of Paris itself and
the most flourishing representative of French Protestantism
generally. For the French law then obliged Protestants to have their
places of worship at some distance from the cities and towns in which
they resided, and the village of Charenton was the ecclesiastical
rendezvous of the chief Protestant nobility and professional men of
the capital, some of whom, in the capacity of lay-elders, were
associated in the consistory of the church with the ministers or
pastors. Of these, in the beginning of 1657, there had been five, all
men of celebrity in the French Protestant world--viz. Mestrezat,
Faucheur, Drelincourt, Daille, and Gaches; but the deaths of the two
first in April and May of that year had occasioned vacancies, and it
was to fill up one of these vacancies that Morus had been invited
from Amsterdam. Oldenburg, as we understand, had heard this piece of
news, when passing through Paris on his way to Saumur, probably in
June. He had heard it, seemingly, on board the Charenton boat--i.e.
as we guess, on board the boat plying on the Marne between Paris and
Charenton. Hence the punning phraseology of Milton's reply. He would
rather that such a piece of news had been heard by anybody on board
_Charon's/_ boat than by Oldenburg on board the _Charenton_
wherry. Altogether the idea that Morus should be admitted as one of
the pastors of the most important Protestant church in France was, we
can see, horrible to him; and he hoped the calamity might yet be
averted.--For the time it seemed likely that it would be. There had
been ample enough knowledge in Paris of the coil of scandals about
the character of Morus; and copies of Milton's two Anti-Morus
pamphlets had been in circulation there long before Oldenburg took
with him into France his new bundle of them for distribution.
Accordingly, though there was a strong party for Morus, disbelieving
the scandals, and anxious to have him for the Charenton church on
account of his celebrity as a preacher, there were dissentients among
the congregation and even in the consistory itself. One hears of
Sieur Papillon and Sieur Beauchamp, Parisian advocates,