THOMAS CONNECTE. 209 not to be disregarded. Besides, at that time Eugenius IV. was engaged in a losing struggle with the Council of Basle, which was bent on reforming the curia, in obedience to the universal demand of Christendom, and Sigismund's envoys were representing to Eugenius, with more strength than courtliness, the disastrous re- sults to be expected from his efforts to prorogue the council. Connecte might well be suspected of being an emissary of the fathers of Basle, or, if not, his eloquence at least was a dangerous element in the perturbed state of public opinion. Twice Eugenius sent for him, but he refused to come, pretending to be sick ; then the papal treasurer was sent to fetch him, but on his appearing Thomas jumped out of the window and attempted to escape. He was promptly secured and carried before Eugenius, who commis- sioned the Cardinals of Rouen and Navarre to examine him. These found him suspect of heresy ; he was duly tried and condemned as a heretic, and his inconsiderate zeal found a lasting quietus at the stake.* There are certain points of resemblance between Thomas Con- necte and Girolamo Savonarola, but the Italian was a man of far rarer intellectual and spiritual gifts than the Breton. With equal moral earnestness, his plans and aspirations were wider and of more dangerous import, and they led him into a sphere of political activity in which his fate was inevitable from the beginning. In Italy the revival of letters, while elevating the intellectual faculties, had been accompanied with deeper degradation in both the moral and spiritual condition of society. Without removing superstition, it had rendered scepticism fashionable, and it had weakened the sanctions of religion without supplying another basis for morality. The world has probably never seen a more defiant disregard of all law, human and divine, than that dis- played by both the Church and the laity during the pontificates of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI. Increase of culture and of wealth seemed only to afford new attractions and enlarged opportunities for luxury and vice, and from the highest to the lowest there was indulgence of unbridled appetites,
- Monstrelet, II. 53, 127.— Martene Auapi. Coll. VIII. 92.— Altmeyer, Pr6cur
seurs de la Reforme aux Pays-Bas, I. 237. III.— 14
