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Frank found him when he himself came to Court in 1579 as lovely and loving as ever; and, at the early age of twenty-five, acknowledged as one of the most remarkable men of Europe, the patron of all men of letters, the counsellor of warriors and statesmen, and the confidant and advocate of William of Orange, Languet, Plessis du Mornay, and all the Protestant leaders on the Continent; and found, moreover, that the son of the poor Devon squire was as welcome as ever to the friendship of nature's and fortune's most favored, yet most unspoilt, minion.
The learned Hubert Languet, companion of Melancthon, tried friend of William the Silent, was his fervent admirer and correspondent.
As a body, they had justified the sarcasm of Hubert Languet, that "the confederated nobles had ruined their country by their folly and incapacity." They had profaned a holy cause by indecent orgies, compromised it by seditious demonstrations, abandoned it when most in need of assistance. Bakkerzeel had distinguished himself by hanging sectaries in Flanders.
"I admire his wisdom, daily more and more," cried Hubert Languet; "I see those who profess themselves his friends causing him more annoyance than his foes; while, nevertheless, he ever remains true to himself, is driven by no tempests from his equanimity, nor provoked by repeated injuries to immoderate action."
The "De Jure Regni" was again prohibited in Scotland, in 1664, even in manuscript; and in 1683, the whole of Buchanan's political works had the honour of being burned by the University of Oxford, in company with those of Milton, Languet, and others, as "pernicious books, and damnable doctrines, destructive to the sacred persons of Princes, their state and government, and of all human society."
Or when I remember what Sidney wrote to his younger brother, "Being a gentleman born, you purpose to furnish yourself with the knowledge of such things as may be serviceable to your country and calling," or what he wrote to Languet, "Our Princes are enjoying too deep a slumber: I cannot think there is any man possessed of common understanding who does not see to what these rough storms are driving by which all Christendom has been agitated now these many years," I seem to hear my friend, as he used to talk on the Sunday evenings when he sat in this huge cane-chair at my side, in which I saw him last, and in which I shall henceforth always see him.
The danger increasing, Languet, a celebrated cure of Saint-Sulpice, who had always rendered himself assiduous, spoke of the sacraments to M. le Duc d'Orleans. The difficulty was how to enter and propose them to Madame la Duchesse de Berry. But another and greater difficulty soon appeared.
Bartholomew; Francis Hotman, who, in his Franco-Gallia, aspired to graft the new national liberties upon the primitive institutions of the Franks; Hubert Languet, the eloquent author of the Vindicice contra tyrannos, or de la Puissance legitime du Prince cur le Peuple et du Peuple sur le Prince; John Bodin, the first, in original merit, amongst the publicists of the sixteenth century, in his six livres de LA REPUBLIQUE; all these eminent men boldly tackled the great questions of political liberty or of legislative reforms.
Yet we have the history of Shakespeare's Sonnets, and the letters addressed by Languet to young Sidney, in evidence that fashion at the end of the sixteenth century differed widely from that which prevails at the close of the nineteenth.
At any rate, his son Andrew was a very flourishing printer; but he too was persecuted for his religious opinions, and narrowly escaped destruction in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. He ran in great danger on that eventful night, and states that he would have been slaughtered but for the kindness of Hubert Languet, who lodged in his house.
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