ADDRESS OF THE RECTOR TO THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS.
(NOVEMBER 1533.)
Calvin had not quitted Paris. He was at one moment on the boulevards
with the merchant De la Forge, at another in the university quarter with
Cop; in the dwellings of the poor, and the mansions of the nobles,
'increasing greatly the work of the Lord,' says Beza, 'not only by
teaching truth, but also by opposing the heretics.'[483] He then retired
to his chamber and meditated. He turned his piercing glance upon the
future, and fancied he could see, in a time more or less remote and
through certain clouds, the triumph of the Gospel. He knew that the
cause of God in general advances painfully; that there are rocks in the
way; that interest, ignorance, and servility check it at every moment;
that it stumbles and falls, and men may think it ruined. But Calvin
believed that He who is its Head would help it to overcome all its
enemies. 'Only,' he said, 'those who bear its standard must mount to the
assault with unflinching courage.' Calvin, thinking that the time for
the assault had come, desired that in the university itself, from that
pulpit which all Europe respected, the voice of truth should be heard
after centuries of silence. A very natural opportunity occurred.
[Sidenote: THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY.]
During the month of October Cop was much occupied with a task that had
fallen to him. It was the custom of the university for the rector to
deliver an inaugural address in Latin on All Saints' Day in one of the
churches of Paris. Calvin thought that it was his duty to take advantage
of this opportunity to proclaim the Gospel boldly in the face of France.
The rector replied that he was a physician, and that it was difficult
for him to speak like a divine: 'If, however, you will write the
address,' he said, 'I will promise to deliver it.' The two young men
were soon agreed; they understood the risk they ran, but were ready to
incur it, without presumption however, and with prudence. They agreed to
explain the essence of the Gospel before the university, giving it the
academic name of _Christian Philosophy_. 'Christ,' says Calvin, 'desires
us to be like serpents, careful to avoid all that may hurt us; and yet
like doves, who fly without fear and without care, and who offer
themselves innocently to the fowlers who are laying snares for
them.'[484]
All Saints' Day, 1533, having arrived, the university assembled with
great pomp in the Mathurins' church; many were impatient to hear Cop,
whose conduct in the case of the Queen of Navarre had made him an object
of suspicion to the Sorbonne. A great number of monks, and especially of
Franciscans, took their places and opened their ears. There were however
scattered about the church many steadfast friends of the Gospel, who had
come to be present at the assault and perhaps witness the triumph of
their faith. Among them, and on a bench apart, sat a young man of humble
appearance, calm, modest, and attentive to all that was said. Nobody
suspected that it was he (Calvin) who was about to set the university,
and indeed all France, in commotion. The hour having come, all the
dignitaries, professors, and students fixed their eager eyes upon Cop as
he rose to speak. He pronounced the opening address 'in a very different
fashion,' says Theodore Beza, 'from what was usual.' There was a
simplicity and life in his delivery which contrasted strongly with the
dryness and exaggeration of the old doctors. The discourse is of
importance in the history of the Reformation; we shall give it,
therefore, in part, all the more because it has lain unknown until this
hour among the manuscripts of the library of Geneva, and is now first
presented to the christian public.[485]
[Sidenote: COP'S INAUGURAL DISCOURSE.]
'Christian philosophy is a great thing,' said the rector; 'a thing too
excellent for any tongue to express and even for any mind to conceive
its value. The gift of God to man by Jesus Christ himself, it teaches us
to know that true happiness which deceives nobody, making us believe and
comprehend that we are truly the sons of God.... The brightness of the
splendour of this wisdom of God eclipses all the glimmerings of the
wisdom of the world. It places its possessors as far above the common
order of men, as that order is itself above the brutes.[486] The mind of
man, opened and enlarged by the divine hand, then understands things
infinitely more sublime than all those which are learnt from our feeble
humanity. How admirable, how holy must this divine philosophy be, since,
in order to bring it to men, God was willing to become man, and, to
teach it to us, the Immortal put on mortality! Could God better manifest
his love to us than by the gift of his eternal Word? What stronger and
tenderer bond could God establish between himself and us than by
becoming a man such as we are? Sirs, let us praise the other sciences, I
approve of it; let us admire logic, natural philosophy, and ethics, in
consideration of their utility; but who would dare compare them with
that other philosophy, which explains what philosophers have long been
seeking after and never found ... the will of God? And what is the
hidden will that is revealed to us here? It is this: _The grace of God
alone remits sins.[487]... The Holy Ghost, which sanctifies all hearts
and gives eternal life, is promised to all christians._[488] If there is
any one among you who does not praise this science above all other
sciences, I would ask him, what will he praise? Would you delight the
mind of man, give him repose of heart, teach him to live holy and
happily? Christian philosophy abundantly supplies him with these
admirable blessings; and, at the same time, it subdues, as with a
wholesome rein, the impetuous movements of the soul.[489] Sirs, since
the dignity and glory of this Gospel are so great, how I rejoice that
the office with which I am invested calls upon me to lay it before you
to-day!'
This appeared a strange exordium to a great number of hearers: What! not
a word about the saints whom all catholics glorify on this day?... Let
us wait, however, and see.
The rector then announced that according to custom he would explain the
Gospel of the day, that is, the beatitudes pronounced by Jesus on the
mountain. 'But first of all,' he said, 'unite with me in earnest prayer
to Christ, who is _the true and only intercessor with the Father_, in
order that by his fertilising Spirit he may enlighten our
understandings, and that _our discourse may praise him, savour of him,
be full of him, and reflect his image, so that this divine Saviour,
penetrating our souls, may water them with the dew of his heavenly
grace_!'[490]
Then the rector explained the happiness of those who are _poor in
spirit_, who _mourn_, who _hunger and thirst after righteousness_.
[Sidenote: THE DISCOURSE CAUSES A SENSATION.]
The university had never heard the like. An admirable proportion was
observed throughout the address; it was academical and yet evangelical—a
thing not often seen. Calvin had discovered that tongue of the wise
which useth knowledge aright. But the enemies of the Gospel were not
deceived. Through the thin veil with which he had covered the grandeur
of divine love, they discovered those heights and depths of grace which
are a source of joy to the true christian, but an object of abhorrence
to the adversary. There was an indescribable uneasiness among the
auditory. Certain of the hearers exchanged glances, in this way
indicating to one another the passages which seemed to them the most
reprehensible. University professors, priests, monks, and students—all
listened with astonishment to such unusual language. Here and there in
the congregation signs of approbation might be observed, but far more
numerous signs of anger. Two Franciscans, in particular, were so excited
that they could scarcely keep their seats; and when the assembly broke
up they were heard expressing their indignation in loud terms: 'Grace ...
God's pardon ... the Holy Ghost ... there is abundance of all that
in the rector's discourse; but of penance, indulgences, and meritorious
works ... not a word!' It was pointed out to them that the rector,
according to custom, had ended his exordium with the salutation which
the angel had addressed to Mary; but that, in the opinion of the monks,
was a mere form. The words being in Scripture, how could the rector
refuse to pronounce them? Had he not besides begun by saying that Christ
is the _only true_ intercessor, _verus et unus apud Patrem
intercessor_?... What is left then to Mary, except that she is the
mother of the Saviour? The Sorbonne was filled with anger and alarm....
To select the day of the festival of _All Saints_, in order to proclaim
that there is _only one_ intercessor! Such a crime must not remain
unpunished. If Cop wished to produce a sensation, the monks will produce
one also! The two Franciscans having consulted with their friends, their
opinion was that the university was not to be trusted. Consequently they
hastened to the parliament and laid the rector's heretical propositions
before it.
Cop and Calvin had each retired separately, and been visited in their
respective apartments by many of their friends. Some of them did not
approve of these great manifestations; they would have wished the
evangelicals to be content with a few small conventicles here and there
in retired places. Calvin did not agree with them. In his opinion there
was one single universal christian Church, which had existed since the
time of the apostles, and would exist always. The errors and abuses
abounding in christendom, profane priests, hypocrites, scandalous
sinners, do not prevent the Church from existing. True, it is often
reduced to little more than a small humble flock; but the flock exists,
and it must, whenever it has the opportunity, manifest itself in
opposition to a fallen catholicism. The reformers themselves, though it
is frequently forgotten, maintained the doctrine of a universal Church;
but while Rome counts among the number of signs which characterise it 'a
certain pomp and temporal possessions,'[491] the evangelical doctors, on
the contrary, reckon persecution and the cross as a mark of the true
Church. Cop and Calvin were to make the experiment in their own persons.
[Sidenote: DEBATES IN THE UNIVERSITY.]
The rector was not inclined to give way to the monks: he resolved to
join battle on a question of form, which would dispose his colleagues in
his favour, and perhaps in favour of truth. It was a maxim received in
the university, that all its members, and _a fortiori_ its head, must be
tried first by the corporation, and that it was not permissible to pass
over any degree of jurisdiction.[492] Accordingly, on the 19th of
November, the rector convoked the four faculties, and, having undertaken
the defence of his address, complained bitterly that certain persons had
dared to carry the matter before a foreign body. The privileges of the
university had thus been attacked. 'It has been insulted by this
denunciation of its chief to the parliament,' said Cop; 'and these
impudent informers must give satisfaction for the insult.'
These words excited a great commotion in the assembly. The theologians,
who had hung down their heads in the case of the Queen of Navarre,
... N'osant approfondir
De ces hautes puissances
Les moins pardonnables offenses,
resolved to compensate themselves by falling with their whole strength
upon a plain doctor, who was besides by birth a Swiss. Every one of them
raised a cry against him. The university was divided into two distinct
parties, and the meeting reechoed with the most contradictory appeals.
The theologians shouted loudest: 'Time presses,' they said; 'the crisis
has arrived. If we yield, the Romish doctrine, vanquished and expelled
from the university, will give place to the new errors. Heresy is at our
gates; we must crush it by a single blow!'—'The Gospel, philosophy, and
liberty!' said one party.—'Popery, tradition, and submission!' said the
other. The noise and disturbance became such that nothing could be
heard. At last the question was put to the vote: two faculties, those of
letters and medicine, were for Cop's proposition; and two, namely, law
and divinity, were against it. The rector, to show his moderation,
refused to vote, being unwilling to give the victory to himself.[493]
The meeting broke up in the greatest confusion.
The rector's address, and the discussions to which it gave rise, made a
great noise at court as well as in the city; but no one took more
interest in it than the Queen of Navarre. The question of her poetry had
been the first act; Calvin's address was the second. Margaret knew that
he was the real author of the discourse. She always granted her special
patronage to the students trained in any of her schools. She watched the
young scholars with the most affectionate interest, and rejoiced in
their successes. There was not one of them that could be compared with
Calvin, who had studied at Bourges, Margaret's university. The purity of
his doctrine, the boldness of his profession, the majesty of his
language, astonished everybody, and had particularly struck the queen.
Calvin was one of her students for whom she anticipated the highest
destinies. That princess was not indeed formed for resistance; the
mildness of her character inclined her to yield; and of this she was
well aware. About this time, being commissioned by the king to transact
certain business with one of her relations, a very headstrong woman, she
wrote to Montmorency, 'Employ a head better steeled than mine, or you
will not succeed. She is a Norman woman, and smells of the sea; I am an
Anjoumoise, sprinkled with the soft waters of the Charente.'[494] But,
mild as she was, she took this matter of Cop and Calvin seriously to
heart. When the friends of the Gospel placed the candle boldly on the
candlestick to give light to all France, should a violent wind come and
extinguish it?
[Sidenote: INTERVIEW OF CALVIN AND MARGARET.]
The Queen of Navarre summoned Calvin to the court, Beza informs
us.[495]... The news circulated immediately among the evangelical
christians, who entertained great hopes from it. 'The Queen of Navarre,'
they said, 'the king's only sister, is favourable to true religion.
Perhaps the Lord, by the intervention of that admirable woman, will
disperse the impending storm.'[496] Calvin accordingly went to court.
The ladies-in-waiting having introduced him into the queen's apartment,
she rose to meet him, and made him sit down by her side, 'receiving him
with great honour,' says Beza, 'and hearing him with much
pleasure.'[497] The two finest geniuses which France then possessed were
thus brought face to face—the man of the people and the queen, so
different in outward appearance and even as to the point of view from
which they regarded the Reform, but yet both animated with an ardent
desire to see the triumph of the Gospel. They communicated their
thoughts to each other. Calvin, notwithstanding the persecution, was
full of courage. He knew that the Church of Christ is exposed to changes
and error, like all human things, and the state of christendom, in his
opinion, showed this full clearly; but he believed that it possessed an
incorruptible power of life, and that, at the very moment when it seemed
entirely fallen and ruined, it had by the Holy Spirit the ability to
rise again and be renewed. The hour of this renewal had arrived, and it
was as impossible for men to retard it as to prevent the spring-time
from budding and covering the earth with leaves, blossoms, and fruit.
Yet Calvin was under no delusion as to the dangers which threatened
evangelical christianity. 'When the peril is imminent,' he said, 'it is
not the time to indulge ourselves like silly, careless people; the fear
of danger, serving as an incentive, should lead us to ask for God's
help, and to put on our armour without trembling.' The queen promised to
use all her influence to calm the storm. Calvin was conducted out of the
palace with the same attentions that had been paid him when he entered
it. He afterwards spoke about this interview to Theodore Beza, who has
handed it down to us.[498]
Still the sky became more threatening. The parliament, paying no respect
to the privileges of the university, had entertained the complaint of
the monks; the rector, therefore, received a message from this sovereign
court summoning him to appear before it. Calvin knew quite well that a
similar process would soon reach him; but he never shrank back either
from before the despotism of an unjust power, or from the popular fury.
'We are not in the school of a Plato,' he said, 'where, sitting in the
shade, we can indulge in idle discussions. Christ nobly maintained his
doctrines before Pilate, and can we be so cowardly as to forsake
him?'[499] Cop, strengthened by his friend, determined to appear to the
summons of the parliament. That body had great power, no doubt; but the
rector said to himself that the university possessed incontestable
privileges, and that all learned Europe had been for many centuries
almost at its feet. He resolved to support its rights, to accuse his
accusers, and to reprimand the parliament for stepping out of the lawful
course. Cop, therefore, got himself ready to appear, as became the head
of the first university of the christian world. He put on his academical
robes, and preceded by the beadles and apparitors, with their maces and
gold-headed staves,[500] set out with great ceremony for the Palace of
Justice.
[Sidenote: COP GOES IN STATE TO THE PARLIAMENT.]
He was going to his death. The parliament, as well as Calvin, had
understood the position, but had arrived at very different conclusions.
It saw that the hour was come to strike the blow that would crush the
Reformation, and had resolved to arrest the rector even in the court.
The absence of the king was an opportunity of which they must hasten to
take advantage. A signal vengeance, inflicted in full parliament, was to
expiate a crime not less signal, committed in the presence of the whole
university. A member of the court, converted to the Gospel, determined
to save the unfortunate Cop, and sent a trusty man to warn him of the
impending danger. As he quitted the great hall, the messenger caught
sight of the archers who had been sent for to arrest the rector: might
it not be too late to save him? Cop was already on the road and
approaching the palace, accompanied by a crowd of students, citizens,
and common people, some full of good wishes, others curious to learn the
issue of this singular duel between the parliament and the university.
The man sent to forewarn the rector arrived just as the university
procession was passing through a narrow street. Taking advantage of a
momentary confusion occasioned by the crowd, he approached Cop, and
whispered in his ear: 'Beware of the enemy;[501] they intend shutting
you up in the Conciergerie; Berquin's fate awaits you; I have seen the
officers authorised to seize you; if you go farther, you are a dead
man.' ... What was to be done?... If it had been Calvin instead of Cop,
he would perhaps have gone on. I cannot tell; for the peril was
imminent, and it appeared doubtful if anything would be gained by
braving it. However that may be, Cop was only Calvin's double; it was
his friend's faith that urged him forward more perhaps than his own. To
stand firm in the day of tempest, man must cling to the rock without
human help; Cop, overtaken by this news of death at the very moment he
fancied he was marching to victory, lost his presence of mind, stopped
the procession, was suddenly surrounded by several friends, and, the
disorder being thus augmented, he escaped and hastily returned home.[502]
[Sidenote: THE RECTOR'S FLIGHT.]
Where shall he go now? There could be no doubt that the parliament would
seize him wherever he could be found; his friends therefore insisted
that he should quit France. He was strongly inclined to do so: Basle,
the asylum of his master Erasmus, was his native place, and he was sure
of finding a shelter there. Cop flung off the academical dress, the cap
and gown, which would have betrayed him;[503] caught up hurriedly what
was necessary for his journey, and by mistake, some say, carried away
the university seal with him.[504] I rather believe he did so
designedly; compelled to yield to force, he desired, even when far from
Paris, to retain the insignia of that illustrious body. His friends
hurried him; at any moment the house might be surrounded; he quitted it
stealthily, escaped out of Paris, and fled along the road which leads to
Basle, using every precaution to conceal himself from the pursuit of his
enemies. When the archers went to his house, they searched it in vain:
the rector had disappeared.
The parliament, exasperated at this escape, promised a reward of three
hundred crowns to any one who should bring back the fugitive rector,
_dead or alive_.[505] But Cop in his disguise eluded every eye; he
succeeded through innumerable dangers in getting safely out of the
kingdom, and arrived in Switzerland. He was saved; but the Reformation
was threatened with a still more terrible blow.
The Roman party consoled themselves a little for this escape by saying
that Cop was only a puppet, and that the man who had pulled the strings
was still in their power. 'It is Calvin,' they said, 'whom we must seize.
He is a daring adventurer, a rash determined man, resolved to make the
world talk of him like that incendiary of the temple of Diana, of whom
history speaks. He will keep all Europe in disquietude, and will build
up a new world. If he is permitted to live, he will be the Luther ...
the firebrand of France.'[506]
The lieutenant-criminal, Jean Morin, had kept his eye for some time upon
the young doctor. He had discovered his activity in increasing the
heretical sect, and also his secret conferences with Cop. His agents
were on his track whenever Calvin went by night to teach from house to
house.[507]... Cop was the shadow, said the monks; if the shadow escapes
us, let us strike the substance. The parliament ordered the
lieutenant-criminal to seize the reformer and shut him up in the
Conciergerie.
[Sidenote: FLIGHT OF CALVIN.]
Calvin, trusting to his obscurity and, under God, to the protection of
the Queen of Navarre, was sitting quietly in his room in the college of
Fortret.[508] He was not however free from emotion; he was thinking of
what had happened to Cop, but did not believe that the persecution would
reach him. His friends, however, did not share in this rash security.
Those who had helped Cop to escape, seeing the rector out of his
enemies' reach, said to themselves that the same danger threatened
Calvin.[509] They entered his chamber at a time when they were least
expected. 'Fly!' they said to him, 'or you are lost.' He still
hesitated. Meanwhile the lieutenant-criminal arrived before the college
with his sergeants. Several students immediately hurried to their
comrade, told him what was going on, and entreated him to flee. But
scarcely have they spoken, when heavy steps are heard: it is no longer
time.... The officers are there! It was the noise made by them at
Calvin's door (says an historian) which made him comprehend the danger
that threatened him. Perhaps the college gate is meant, rather than the
door of the reformer's own room.[510] In either case, the moment was
critical; but if they could manage to gain only a few minutes, the young
evangelist might escape. His noble, frank, and sympathetic soul
conciliated the hearts of all who knew him. He always possessed devoted
friends, and they did not fail him now. The window of his room opened
into the street of the Bernardins. They lost not a moment: some of those
who came to warn him engaged the attention of Morin and his officers for
a few minutes; others remaining with Calvin twisted the bed-clothes into
a rope, and fastened them to the window. Calvin, leaving his manuscripts
scattered about, caught hold of the sheets and lowered himself down to
the ground.[511] He was not the first of Christ's servants who had taken
that road to escape death. When the Jews of Damascus conspired against
Paul, 'the disciples took him by night and let him down by the wall in a
basket.'—'Thus early,' says Calvin, 'Paul went through his
apprenticeship of carrying the cross in after years.'[512]
He had hardly disappeared when the lieutenant-criminal, notorious for
his excessive cruelty,[513] entered the room, and was astonished to find
no one there. The youthful doctor had escaped like a bird from the net
of the fowler. Morin ordered some of his sergeants to pursue the
fugitive, and then proceeded to examine carefully all the heretic's
papers, hoping to find something that might compromise other Lutherans.
He did lay his hand on certain letters and documents which afterwards
exposed Calvin's friends to great danger, and even to death.[514] Morin
docketed them, tied them up carefully in a bundle, and withdrew. The
cruel hatred which animated him against the evangelical christians had
been still further increased by his failure.
Calvin, having landed in the street of the Bernardins, entered that of
St. Victor, and then proceeded towards the suburb of that name. At the
extremity of this suburb, not far from the open country (a catholic
historian informs us), dwelt a vine-dresser, a member of the little
church of Paris. Calvin went to this honest protestant's and told him
what had just happened. The vine-dresser, who probably had heard him
explain the Scriptures at their secret meetings, moved with a fatherly
affection for the young man, proposed to change clothes with him.
Forthwith, says the canon to whom we are indebted for the account,
Calvin took off his own garments and put on the peasant's old-fashioned
coat. With a hoe on one shoulder, and a wallet on the other, in which
the vine-dresser had placed some provisions, he started again. If Morin
had sent his officers after him, they might have passed by the fugitive
reformer under this rustic disguise.
[Sidenote: CALVIN IS RECOGNISED.]
He was not far beyond the suburbs of Paris, however, when he saw a canon
whom he knew coming towards him. The latter with astonishment fixed a
curious look on the vine-dresser, and fancying him to be very unlike a
stout peasant, he drew near, stopped, and recognised him. He knew what
was the matter, for all Paris was full of it. The canon immediately
remonstrated with him: 'Change your manner of life,' he said; 'look to
your salvation, and I will promise to procure you _a good appointment_.'
But Calvin, 'who was hot-headed,' replied: 'I shall go through with it
to the last.'[515] The canon afterwards related this incident to the
Abbot de Genlis, who told it to Desmay.[516]
Is this a story invented in the idle talk of a cloister? I think not.
Some of the details, particularly the language of the canon, render it
probable. It was also by the promise of a 'good appointment' that
Francis de Sales endeavoured to win over Theodore Beza. Simony is a sin
so _innocent_ that three priests, a canon, an abbot, and a doctor of the
Sorbonne, combine to relate this peccadillo. If the language of the
canon is in conformity with his character, Calvin's answer, 'I will go
through with it to the last,' is also in his manner. Although we may
have some trouble to picture the young reformer disguised as a peasant,
with his wallet and hoe, we thought it our duty to relate an incident
transmitted to us by his enemies. The circumstance is really not
singular. Calvin was then beginning an exodus which has gone on
unceasingly for nearly three centuries. The disciples of the Gospel in
France, summoned to abjure Christ, have fled from their executioners by
thousands, and under various disguises. And if the gravity of history
permitted the author to revert to the stories that charmed his
childhood, he could tell how many a time, seated at the feet of his
grandmother and listening with attentive ear, he has heard her describe
how her mother, a little girl at the time of the Revocation in 1685,
escaped from France, concealed in a basket which her father, a pious
huguenot, disguised as a peasant, carried carefully on his back.
Calvin, having escaped his enemies, hurried away from the capital, from
his cherished studies and his brethren, and wandered up and down,
avoiding the places where he might be recognised. He thought over all
that had happened, and his meditative mind drew wholesome lessons from
it. He learnt from his own experience by what token to recognise the
true Church of Christ. 'We should lose our labour,' he said in later
days, thinking perhaps of this circumstance, 'if we wished to separate
Christ from his cross; it is a natural thing for the world to hate
Christ, even in his members. There will always be wicked men to prick us
like thorns. If they do not draw the sword, they spit out their venom,
and either gnash their teeth or excite some great disturbance.' The
sword was already 'drawn' against him: acting, therefore, with prudence,
he followed the least frequented roads, sleeping in the cottages or the
mansions of his friends. It is asserted that being known by the Sieur de
Hasseville, whose château was situated beyond Versailles, he remained
there some time in hiding.[517]
The king's first movement, when he heard of Cop's business and the
flight of Calvin, was one of anger and persecution. Duprat, formerly
first president of parliament, was much exasperated at the affront
offered to that body. Francis commanded every measure to be taken to
discover the person who had warned Cop of his danger; he would have had
him punished severely as a favourer of heresy.[518] At the same time, he
ordered the prosecution of those persons whom the papers seized in
Calvin's room pointed out as partisans of the new doctrine.
[Sidenote: MANY EVANGELICALS QUIT PARIS.]
There was a general alarm among the evangelicals, and many left Paris. A
Dominican friar, brother of De la Croix, feeling a growing thirst for
knowledge, deliberated in his convent whether he ought not to remove to
a country where the Gospel was preached freely.[519] He was one of those
compromised by Calvin's papers. He therefore made his escape, reached
Neufchatel, and thence proceeded to Geneva, where we shall meet him
again.
The greater part of the friends of the Gospel, however, remained in
France: Margaret exerted all her influence with her brother to ward off
the impending blow, and succeeded in appeasing the storm.[520] Francis
was always between two contrary currents, one coming from Duprat, the
other from his sister; and once more he followed the better.
The Queen of Navarre, exhausted by all these shocks, disgusted with the
dissipations of the court, distressed by the hatred of which the Gospel
was the object among all around her, turned her face towards the
Pyrenees. Paris, St. Germain, Fontainebleau, had no more charms for her;
besides, her health was not strong, and she desired to pass the winter
at Pau. But, above all, she sighed for solitude, liberty, and
meditation; she had need of Christ. She therefore bade farewell to the
brilliant court of France, and departed for the quiet Béarn.
Adieu! pomps, pleasures, now adieu!
No longer will I sort with you!
Other pleasure seek I none
Than in my Bridegroom alone!
For my honour and my having
Is in Jesus: him receiving,
I'll not leave him for the fleeting!...
Adieu, adieu![521]
Margaret arrived in the Pyrenees.
[Footnote 483: Théod. de Bèze, _Hist. Eccl._ i. p. 9.]
[Footnote 484: Calvini _Opera_.]
[Footnote 485: The document is in the library of Geneva (MS. 145). It
has on the margin: 'Hæc Johannes Calvinus _propria manu_ descripsit, et
est _auctor_.' Dr. Bonnet came upon it in the course of his researches
for his edition of Calvin's Letters, and gave the author a copy.]
[Footnote 486: 'Hac qui excellunt, tantum prope reliquæ hominum
multitudini præstare mihi videntur, quantum homines belluis
antecedunt.'—Geneva MSS. 145.]
[Footnote 487: 'Sola Dei gratia peccata remittit.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 488: 'Spiritum sanctum, qui corda sanctificat et vitam æternam
adfert, omnibus christianis pollicetur.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 489: 'Motus animi turbulentos, quasi habenis quibusdam.'—
Geneva MS.]
[Footnote 490: 'Ut tota nostra oratio illum laudet, illum sapiat, illum
spiret, illum referat. Rogabimus ut in mentes nostras illabatur, nosque
gratiæ cœlestis succo irrigare dignetur.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 491: Bellarmine, _De Controversiis_.]
[Footnote 492: Crévier, _Hist. de l'Université_, v. p. 275.]
[Footnote 493: Crévier, _Hist. de l'Université_, v. p. 276.]
[Footnote 494: _Lettres de la Reine de Navarre_, i. p. 287.]
[Footnote 495: 'In aulam.'—Bezæ _Vita Calvini_.]
[Footnote 496: 'Hanc tempestatem Dominus, reginæ Navariensis, piis tunc
admodum faventis, intercessione, dissipavit.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 497: 'Ibique perhonorifice ab ea accepto et audito Calvino.'—
Ibid.]
[Footnote 498: Théod. de Bèze, _Vie de Calvin_, p. 14. Calvini _Opera_,
passim.]
[Footnote 499: Calvini _Opera_, i. pars iii. pp. 1002, 1003.]
[Footnote 500: 'Citatus rector sese quidem in viam cum suis
apparitoribus dedit.'—Bezæ _Vita Calvini_.]
[Footnote 501: 'Ut sibi ab adversariis caveret.'—Bezæ _Vita Calvini_.]
[Footnote 502: 'Domum reversus.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 503: Maimbourg, _Hist. du Calvinisme_, p. 58.]
[Footnote 504: 'Ablato secum, forte per imprudentiam, signo
universitatis.'—Bucer to Blaarer, Jan. 18, 1534.]
[Footnote 505: 'CCC coronatos ei qui fugitivum rectorem, vivum vel
mortuum adducat.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 506: Flor. Rémond, _Hist. de l'Hérésie_, liv. vii. ch. viii.]
[Footnote 507: Maimbourg, _Hist. du Calvinisme_, p. 58.]
[Footnote 508: Gaillard, _Hist. de François I._ iv. p. 274.]
[Footnote 509: Théod. de Bèze, _Hist. des Egl. Réf._ i. p. 9.]
[Footnote 510: Varillas, _Hist. des Revolutions Religieuses_,
ii. p. 467. This writer is not always correct.]
[Footnote 511: Drelincourt, _Défense de Calvin_, pp. 35, 169.]
[Footnote 512: Acts ix. 25.]
[Footnote 513: 'Morinus, cujus adhuc nomen ab insigni sævitia
celebratur.'—Bezæ _Vita Calvini_.]
[Footnote 514: 'Deprehensis, inter schedas, multis amicorum litteris, ut
plurimi in maximum vitæ discrimen incurrerent.'—Ibid.]
[Footnote 515: 'Je poursuivrai tout outre.']
[Footnote 516: Desmay, _Jean Calvin Hérésiarque_, p. 45. Drelincourt,
_Défense de Calvin_, p. 175.]
[Footnote 517: Casan, _Statistique de Mantes_. _France Protestante_, i.
p. 113.]
[Footnote 518: Registres du Parlement.]
[Footnote 519: Crespin, _Martyrologue_, fol. 106.]
[Footnote 520: Gaillard, _Hist. de François I_. iv. p. 275.]
[Footnote 521: _Les Marguerites de la Marguerite_, i. p. 518.]