, one of the greatest ornaments of the Gallican church, but a man
, one of the greatest ornaments of
the Gallican church, but a man of great inconsistency of
character, was born in 1594, at Gant, in Bearn, of a very
ancient family in that principality. He went through his
course of philosophy among the Jesuits, and then studied
the law for three years; after which he was received a
counsellor in 1615, in the supreme council at Pau. In
1621 he was made president of the parliament of Bearn;
and going to Paris in 1639, about the affairs of his province, was made a counsellor of state. In 1640 he published “The History of Bearn,
” which confirmed the good
opinion that was conceived of his knowledge and parts.
He was thought, therefore, a very proper person to undertake a delicate and important subject, which offered itself
about that time. The court of France was then at variance
with the court of Rome, and the book which Peter de Puy
published, concerning the liberties of the Gallican church,
greatly alarmed the partisans of the court of Rome; some
of whom endeavoured to persuade the world that they were
the preliminaries of a schism contrived by cardinal Richelieu; as if his eminency had it in his head to erect a patriarchate in that kingdom, in order to render the Gallican
church independent of the pope. A French divine, M.
Hersent (see Hersent), who took the name of Optatus
Gallus, addressed a book to the clergy upon the subject;
and insinuated that the cardinal had brought over to his
party a great personage, who was ready to defend this
conduct of the cardinal; and this great personage was
Peter de Marca. But an insinuation of this nature tending
to make the cardinal odious, as it occasioned a rumour
that he aspired to the patriarchate, the king laid his commands on de Marca to refute Hersent’s work, and at the
same time to preserve the liberties of the Gallican church
on the one hand, and to make it appear on the other that
those liberties did not in the least diminish the reverence
due to the holy see. He accepted of this commission, and
executed it by his book “De Concordia sacerdotii & imperii,
sive, de libertatibus ecclesisæ Gallicæ,
” which he published
in 1641. He declared in his preface, that he did not enter
upon the discussion of right, but confined himself to the
settling of facts: that is, he only attempted to shew what
deference the Western churches had always paid to the
bishop of Rome on the one side; and on the other, what
rights and privileges the Gallican churclh had always possessed. But though he had collected an infinite number
of testimonies in favour of the pope’s power, the work was
of too liberal a cast not to give offence: perhaps even the
very attempt to throw the subject open to discussion was not
very agreeable and accordingly, the court of Rome made
a great many difficulties in dispatching the bulls which
were demanded in favour of de Marca, who had, in the
end of 1641, been presented to the bishopric of Conserans.
That court gave him to understand that it was necessary
he should soften some things he had advanced; and caused
his book to pass a very strict examination. After the
death of Urban VIII. cardinal Bichi warmly solicited Innocent X. to grant the bulls in favour of the bishop of Conserans; but the assessor of the holy office recalled the
remembrance of the complaints which had been made
against his book “De Concordia,
” which occasioned this
pope to order the examination of it anew. De Marca,
despairing of success unless he gave satisfaction to the
court of Rome, published a book in 1646, in which he
explained the design of his “De Coocordia,
” &c. submitted himself to the censure of the apostolic see, and
shewed that kings were not the authors, but the guardians
of the canon laws. “I own,” says he, “that I favoured the
side of my prince too much, and acted the part of a president
rather than that of a bishop. I renounce my errors, and promise for the future to be a strenuous advocate for the authority of the holy see.” Accordingly, in 1647, he wrote
a book entitled “De singulari primatu Petri,” in which he
proved that St. Peter was the only head of the church;
and this he sent to the pope, who was so pleased with it,
that he immediately granted his bulls, and he was made
bishop of Conserans in 1648. This conduct of de Marca
has been noticed by lord Bolingbroke, in his posthumous
works, with becoming indignation. He calls him “a time-serving priest, interested, and a great flatterer, if ever
there was one;” and adds, that, “when he could not get
his bulls dispatched, be made no scruple to explain away
all that he had said in favour of the state, and to limit the
papal power.”