History of the Rise of the Huguenots Volume I Part 25

271-273. See also Mignet, etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la reforme religieuse a Geneve, Mem. historiques, ii. 308, etc. Also, Merle d'Aubigne, Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, v. 395, etc.]

[Footnote 390: In dedicating to Wolmar his commentary on II.

Corinthians, Calvin deplored the loss sustained in the interruption of his Greek studies under his old teacher, "manum enim, quae tua est humanitas, porrigere non recusa.s.ses ad totum stadii decursum, nisi me, _ab ipsis prope carceribus_, mors patris revoca.s.set." Upon the basis of the words here italicized, Merle d'Aubigne builds up a story of outcries and intrigues of priests (against Calvin) who "did all in their power _to get him put into prison_"! Ref. in Time of Calvin, ii. 28. M.

Herminjard observes hereupon that one need not be very thoroughly versed in Latin or in Roman antiquities to understand Calvin's allusion; and every cla.s.sical scholar will sympathize with M. Herminjard when he expresses, in view of the historian's blunder, "un etonnement proportionne a la celebrite de l'auteur." Corresp. des reformateurs, ii.

333.]

[Footnote 391: See the very sensible remarks of Herminjard, _ubi supra_, iii. 202.]

[Footnote 392: A. Crottet, Histoire des eglises ref. de Pons, Gemozac, et Mortagne en Saintonge (Bordeaux, 1841), 10-11, and Merle d'Aubigne, Hist. of the Ref. in the Time of Calvin (Am. ed.), iii. 53, tell the story without any misgivings, and the latter with characteristic embellishment. But it rests on the unsupported and slender authority of Florimond de Raemond, lib. vii. c. 14, from whose account I cannot even find that the scene was laid in the caverns.]

[Footnote 393: Stahelin (Johannes Calvin, Leben und ausgewahlte Schriften, i. 33) well remarks that what makes this address very suspicious is the circ.u.mstance that a quite similar pa.s.sage occurs in Calvin's letter to Sadolet, leading us to the conclusion that we have here only a "reminiscence" of this much later doc.u.ment.]

[Footnote 394: He resigned his chapel of La Gesine and his curacy of Pont l'Eveque, May 4, 1534. Herminjard, iii. 201.]

[Footnote 395: This, and not the persecution at that time raging in France, is the reason a.s.signed by Calvin himself in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, where he tells us that, the very year of his conversion, seeing "que tous ceux qui avoyent quelque desir de la pure doctrine se rangeoyent a lui pour apprendre," he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawing from men. "Et de faict," he adds, "je veins en Allemagne, de propos delibere, afin que la je peusse vivre a requoy en quelque coin incognu." Corresp. des reformateurs, iii. 242, 243. See the same in the Latin ed., Calvini opera (Amsterdam, 1667), iii. c. 2. This preface is dated Geneva, July 23, 1557.]

[Footnote 396: Whether before or after the appearance of the "Placards,"

is uncertain. On Calvin's early life, see Beza's Life, already referred to; the Histoire ecclesiastique; various letters in J. Bonnet's Letters of Calvin, and Herminjard, Corresp. des reformateurs; Haag, France protestante; the reformer's life by Paul Henry, D.D., and especially the scholarly work of Dr. E. Stahelin (2 vols., Elberfeld, 1860-1863).]

[Footnote 397: The mooted question whether Calvin wrote the Inst.i.tutes originally in Latin or in French--in other words, whether there was a French edition before the first Latin edition of 1536--has been set at rest by M. Jules Bonnet, who, in a contribution to the Bulletin de l'histoire du protestantisme francais, vi. (1858) 137-142, establishes the priority of the Latin. The chief points in the proof are: 1st, the absence of even a single copy of the supposed French edition of 1535; 2d, Calvin's statement to Francis Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, "I am kept continually occupied upon the French version of my little book;" 3d, his decisive words in the preface to the edition of 1551: "_Et premierement l'ay mis en latin_ a ce qu'il pust servir a toutes gens d'estude, de quelque nation qu'ils fussent; puis apres desirant de communiquer ce qui en pouvoit venir de fruict a nostre nation francoise, _l'ay aussy translate en nostre langue_." See also chap. iii. of Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Introd. to Inst.i.tution de la religion chretienne (Calv. Opera, t. iii.).]

[Footnote 398: Opera Calvini (Amst., 1667), t. ix.]

[Footnote 399: "La dedicace a Francois I^er, qui est peut-etre une des plus belles choses que possede notre langue." Paul L. Jacob, bibliophile (Lacroix), "Avertiss.e.m.e.nt" prefixed to uvres francaises de Calvin.

The Inst.i.tutes he designates "ce chef-d'uvre de science theologique, de philosophie religieuse et de style." "Here," says Henri van Laun, "was a force and concision of language never before heard in France....

The influence of Calvin's writings upon the style of his successors, and upon the literary development of his country, cannot easily be over-estimated. With him French prose may be said to have attained its manhood; the best of his contemporaries, and of those who had preceded him, did but use as a staff or as a toy that which he employed as a burning sword." History of French Literature (New York, 1876), i. 338, 339.]

[Footnote 400: Yet it is more probable, as Stahelin suggests (Joh.

Calvin, ii. 93), that the cla.s.sical a.s.sociations of Italy drew him to the peninsula, which was at that time the home of art, than that his fame, having already penetrated to Ferrara, procured him a direct invitation from Renee to visit her.]

[Footnote 401: Showing, according to Brantome, "en son visage et en sa parole qu'elle estoit bien _fille du Roy et de France_." Dames ill.u.s.tres, Renee de France.]

[Footnote 402: See the pompous ceremonial on this occasion and the epithalamium of Clement Marot, in Cronique du Roy Francois I^er (G.

Guiffrey, 1860), 68-73.]

[Footnote 403: Dames ill.u.s.tres, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 404: "Que voulez-vous? Ce sont des pauvres Francois de ma maison; et _lesquels si Dieu m'eust donne barbe au menton_ et que je fusse homme, _seroient maintenant tous mes sujets_. Voire me seroient-ils tels, _si cette meschante Loy Salicque ne me tenoit trop de rigueur_." Ibid., _ubi supra_. A readable account of the life of this remarkable woman is given in "Some Memorials of Renee of France, d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara" (2d edit., London, 1859), a volume enriched, to some extent, with letters drawn from the Paris National Library, and from less accessible collections in Great Britain.]

[Footnote 405: Possibly including the wonderfully precocious child, Olympia Morata. See M. Jules Bonnet's monograph, Vie d'Olympia Morata, episode de la Renaissance et de la Reforme en Italie. Stahelin has well traced Calvin's religious influence upon Renee and the important family of Soubise. Joh. Calvin, i. 94-110. The extant letters of Calvin to Renee are full of manly and Christian frankness, and affectionate loyalty. Lettres francaises, i. 428, etc.]

[Footnote 406: Stahelin is skeptical about, and Prof. Billiet and M.

Douen reject altogether the story of Calvin's labors at Aosta. Thus much M. Bonnet believes to be established by concurrent MS. and traditional authority: That, early in the year 1536, Calvin had succeeded in gaining over to the reformed doctrines a number of influential men in this Alpine valley, of the families of La Creste, La Visiere, Vaudan, Borgnion, etc.; that he and his converts were accused of plotting to induce the district to embrace Protestantism, and imitate the example of its Swiss neighbors, by const.i.tuting itself a canton, free of the Duke of Savoy; that the estates, on the 28th of February, 1536, declared their intention (with a unanimity procured, perhaps, by the expulsion of the opposite party) to live and die in the obedience of the Duke of Savoy and of mother Holy Church; that Calvin and his princ.i.p.al adherents escaped with difficultly into Switzerland; and that expiatory processions were inst.i.tuted at Aosta, in token of grat.i.tude for deliverance from heresy, in which the bishop and the most prominent n.o.blemen, as well as the common people, "walked with bare feet and in sackcloth and ashes, notwithstanding the rigor of the season." Tradition still points out the "_farm-house_ of Calvin," his "_bridge_," and the _window_ by which he is said to have escaped. The event is commemorated by a monument of the market-place, bearing an inscription that testifies to its having been erected in 1541, and renewed in 1741 and 1841. See the interesting Aostan doc.u.ments contributed by M. Bonnet to the Bulletin de l'hist. du protest. francais, ix. (1860) 160-168, and his letter to Prof. Rilliet, ibid., xiii. (1864) 183-192.]

[Footnote 407: This is Calvin's distinct statement: "quum r.e.c.t.u.m iter Argentoratum tendenti bella clausissent, hac (Geneva) celeriter transire statueram, ut _non longior quam unius noctis morae_ in urbe mihi foret."

Calvin, Preface to Psalms.]

[Footnote 408: "Unus h.o.m.o, qui nunc turpi defectione iterum ad Papistas rediit, statim fecit ut innotescerem." Ibid., _ubi supra_. Consequently Beza, in his Latin Life of Calvin, is mistaken when he a.s.serts: "eos [sc. Farel and Viret] igitur quum, ut inter bonos fieri solet, Calvinus transiens invisisset," etc.; for it was Farel that sought _him_ out, on Du Tillet's information.]

[Footnote 409: Calvin, in the preface to the Psalms already quoted, says: "Genevae non tam _consilio_, vel _hortatu_, quam _formidabili_ Gulielmi Farelli _obtestatione_ retentus sum, _ac si Deus violentam mihi e clo manum injiceret_. Et quum privatis et occultis studiis me intelligeret esse deditum, ubi se vidit _rogando_ nihil proficere, _usque ad maledictionem descendit, ut Deus otio meo malediceret, si me a ferendis subsidiis in tanta necessitate subducerem. Quo terrore perculsus_ susceptum iter ita omisi," etc.--Beza throws these words into Farel's mouth: "At ego tibi, inquit, studia tua praetextenti denuntio Omnipotentis Dei nomine, futurum ut nisi in opus istud Domini n.o.bisc.u.m inc.u.mbas, tibi non tam Christum quam teipsum quaerenti Dominus maledicat." Vita Calvini (Op. Calv., Amst. 1661, tom. i).]

[Footnote 410: This interesting letter, dated Neufchatel, June 6, 1564, was communicated by M. Herminjard to the editor of the fine edition of Farel's _Du Vray Usage de la Croix_, printed by J. G. Fick, Geneva, 1865, who gives it entire, pp. 314, etc.]

[Footnote 411: "Sane non possum de aliis aliud sentire quam quod de me statuo." Farel to Calvin, Sept. 8, 1553, Calv. Opera, ix. (Epistolae), 71.]

[Footnote 412: Declaration pour maintenir la vraye foy que tiennent tous chrestiens de la Trinite des personnes en un seul Dieu. Par Jean Calvin.

Contre les erreurs detestables de Michel Servet Espaignol. Ou il est aussi monstre, qu'il est licite de punir les heretiques: et qu'a bon droict ce meschant a este execute par justice en la ville de Geneve.

1554.--In this famous little book the author cla.s.sifies doctrinal errors according to their gravity. Slight superst.i.tions and the ignorance into which simple folk have fallen, are to be borne with till G.o.d reveal the truth to them. Offences of greater magnitude, because injurious to the church, should be visited with mild penalties. "But when malicious spirits attempt to overthrow the foundations of religion, utter execrable blasphemies against G.o.d, and disseminate d.a.m.nable speeches, like deadly poison, to drag souls to perdition--in short, engage in schemes to cause the people to revolt from the pure doctrine of G.o.d--then it is necessary to have recourse to the extreme remedy, so that the evil may not spread farther" (pp. 48, 49).]

[Footnote 413: See Calvin to C. and T. Zollicoffre, March 28, and the same to Peloquin and De Marsac, Aug. 22, 1553. Servetus was burned Oct.

27.]

[Footnote 414: Two months before the execution Calvin wrote to Farel, Aug. 20, 1553: "Spero capitale saltem fore judicium _pnae vero atrocitatem remitti cupio_;" and on the 26th of October, he again wrote, "_Genus mortis conati sumus mutare_, sed _frustra_. Cur non profecerimus, coram narrandum differo." Calv. Opera, ix. 70, 71. As it is thus in evidence not only that Calvin _did not burn_ Servetus, but _desired him not to be burned_, and made an ineffectual attempt _to rescue him from the flames_, we might antic.i.p.ate for the stale calumny a speedy end, were not the tenacity of life characterizing such inventions so notorious as to have pa.s.sed into a proverb.]

[Footnote 415: Melanchthon, for example, after expressing his entire satisfaction with Calvin's treatise, and his conviction that the church both now and hereafter owes and will owe him grat.i.tude for it, adds: "Affirmo etiam, vestros magistratus _juste fecisse, quod hominem blasphemum_, re ordine judicata, _interfecerunt_." Mel. to Calvin, Oct.

14, 1554, Opera (Bretschneider), viii. 362.]

[Footnote 416: Laborie, one of the heroic "five," sending from prison an account of his examination, states that, when one of his judges asked him whether he did not know that G.o.d had by Moses sanctioned the punishment of heretics, he freely admitted it: "Haereticos certe puniendos _facile concessi_, et in exemplum proposui _impurum illum canem Servetum_, qui Genevae ultimo supplicio affectus fuit: verum sedulo caverent, _ne in Christianos et Dei filios_ velut haereticos animadvertant," etc. Letter in Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum (Genevae, 1560), fol. 291.]

[Footnote 417: "Ego qui natura timido, molli et pusillo animo esse fateor." Preface to the Psalms.]

[Footnote 418: "Porro, an propositum esset mihi famam aucupari, patuit ex brevi discessu, praesertim quum nemo illic sciverit me auth.o.r.em esse."

Ibid.]

[Footnote 419: "Me tamen non tanta sustinnit magnanimitas, quin turbulenta ejectione plus quam deceret laetatus sim." Ibid.]

[Footnote 420: "Praestantissimus Christi minister, M. Bucerus me iterum simili qua usus fuerat Farellus, obsecratione, ad novam stationem retraxit. Jonae itaque exemplo, quod proposuerat, territus," etc. Ibid.]

[Footnote 421: "La difficulte est," he writes to M. de Falaise, April, 1546, "des fascheries et rompemens de teste qui interviennent, pour _interrompre vingt fois une lettre_, ou encore d'advantaige." He adds (and the details are interesting) that, although his general health is good, "je suis tormente sans cesse d'une doleur qui _ne me souffre quasi rien faire_. Car oultre les _sermons et lectures_, il y a desja un mois que _je n'ay gueres faict_, tellement que j'ay presque honte _de vivre arnsi inutile_." Lettres francaises, i. 141, 142. Many a scholar of his day, or of ours, would consider a week of _health_ well occupied with the preparation and delivery of two sermons and three theological lectures.]

[Footnote 422: "Ginevra ... che e la minera di questa sorte di metallo."

Relazione di M. Suriano, 1561. Relations des Amb. Venitiens, i. 528.]

[Footnote 423: This period of his life was referred to by him in his last address to the body of his colleagues: "J'ay vescu icy en combats merveilleux; j'ay este salue par mocquerie le soir devant ma porte de 50 ou 60 coups d'arquebute. Que pensez-vous que cela pouvoit estonner un pauvre escholier, timide comme je suis, et comme je l'ay toujours este, je le confesse?... On m'a mis les chiens a ma queue, criant _here, here_, et m'ont prins par la robbe et par les jambes." Adieux de Calvin, _apud_ Bonnet, Lettres francaises, ii. 575.]

[Footnote 424: "This sacrifice," M. Gaberel forcibly observes, "has scarcely a parallel in history. Men willingly consent to make the greatest efforts, to perform the most painful acts of self-denial, with the aim of saving their country. Formerly the Genevese suffered unto death to preserve their independence. Now the same unselfish spirit is demanded of them in ordinary times that they exhibited in evil days.

And, if the people accepts the 'Ordinances,' it is because it has narrowly scanned the slavery to which that moral license was leading it, which Rome authorizes in order to confiscate all other liberties. It accepts the 'Ordinances' because it has just escaped the treacherous machinations, the servitude prepared for it by men whose principle is to go just as their own heart leads them.... Strengthened by this vote, Calvin can henceforth hope to succeed in his project, and make of Geneva the Protestant metropolis, bearing as its motto, 'Holiness to the Lord.'" Histoire de l'eglise de Geneve, i. 346, 347.]

[Footnote 425: Recherches de la France (ed. of 1621), p. 769. Giovanni Michiel, in 1561, told the Doge of Venice: "Ne potria vostra Serenita creder l'intelligenza e le pratiche grandi che ha nel regno il princ.i.p.al ministro di Genevra che chiamano il Calvino, Francese e Picardo di n.a.z.ione, uomo di estraordinaria autorita, per la vita, per la dottrina, e per i scritti appresso tutti quelli di questa sette." Rel. des Amb.

Ven., i. 415.]

[Footnote 426: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 13-17; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 65, etc.]

[Footnote 427: Histoire ecclesiastique, i. 15.]

[Footnote 428: "En maneire que pensions nostredit royaume en estre purge du tout et nettoye," Francis is made to say in the Edict of Fontainebleau. Isambert, Recueil des anciennes lois francaises, xii.

677, etc.]

[Footnote 429: "Tellement qu'il est fort a douter que les nouveaux erreurs soient pires que les premiers." Ibid., xii. 677.]