.■'T^
LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
PRINCETON, N. J.
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CC B3C 9410 "-Aeei^ .
A^O] Audin, 1793-1851.
History of the life, works,
and doctrines of John
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HISTORY
OF THE
LIFE, WORKS, AND DOCTRINES
OF
JOHN CALVIN,
FROM THE FRENCH OF
J. M. V. AUDIN,
KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF ST. GREGORY THE GREAT, MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY
AND LITERARY CIRCLE OF LYONS, OF THE TIBERINE ACADEMY, AND
OF THE ACADEMY OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION, OF ROME.
TRANSLATED BY REV. JOHN McGlLL.
"POST TENEBRAS SPERO LUCEM."
Device of Catholic Geneva.
BALTIMORE: — JOHN MURPHY,
B. J. WEBB & BEOTHEE: LOUISVILLE.
COPY RIGHT SECURED ACCORDING TO LAW
B. J. WEBB & BROrHER, PRINTERS.
PREFACE TO THE MST FRENCH EDITION.
When, in some pamphlet of Luther, Cochleus, Eck, Emser, Catharin,
had encountered, — and this good fortune frequently befell them, — some
faults against dogma, morals, history or grammar, which they immedi-
ately denounced to the Catholic world, the furious Doctor amused
himself by casting in the face of his adversaries, all the injurious expres-
sions which he found in his dictionary or his brains, and both were
equally rich in these materials. His anger being appeased, the monk
revised his work, expunged, blotted, effaced, corrected the assailed
passages, and, quite joyous, for his own justification, threw the blame
upon his printer. Of Hans Lufft he said : "My printer is called John,
and John he wnll remain. Paper, impression, proofs — every thing he
presents me is detestable. Moreover, they are all like him : what do
they care for the glory of a poor devil of an author, provided they
get money?"
We prefer the method employed, about the same period, by our Ca-
tholic writers, who thought that they had reason to complain of their
proof-reviser, when a skillful reader had discovered some typographical
error in their works.
"Friendly reader," said one of them, "the theologian to whom we are
Indebted hx ''The Antiquity of the Orthodox Doctrine,'" not having
been able to preside over the printing of our book, please excuse faults,
as an i for ij, cBrianis for arianis, garo for saxoj'
We must admit, that this formula is greatly more polite. We shall,
therefore, say, like Master John Lefebvre, cur6 of Totes, in Normandy:
we were not at Paris when our History of Calvin was printed, and
the reader will believe our word ; but, we must conscientiously confess,
that some of those errata which critics have had the signal kindness to
place to the account of typography, belong legitimately to ourselves;
this avowal costs our self-love nothing whatever.
At present, we have given the greatest attention possible to there,-
vision of our proofs, aided by skillful correctors. Should the reader
PREFACE.
have the misfortune to meet, in the present edition, the faults which had
given oflfence in the former, we know not what excuse we should be
able to allege : our publishers would be similarly embarrassed.
But a conscientious writer should not limit his duty merely to the
material amelioration of the text. A man of the world, it is probable,
that our expressions, in a book in which difficult problems of Psycolo-
gy are agitated, were not always characterized by the severity of the
language of the schools. We bad but one resource, which was to
submit our labours to masters versed in this holy science, designated,
by the sixteenth century, the mistress of all the sciences.
Our first volume, in all that trenches upon dogma, has been revised
by a member of that celebrated society of Jesuits, which, at Rome,
had so materially aided us in our historical researches. The second has
been examined by a professor of theology. How much do we regret,
not to be allowed to mention here the names of these two ecclesiastics;
our readers would perceive what a pledge of correct information, their
aid offered to the historian.
If the critics, who with such indulgent kindness gave an account of
our first labour, should deign glance at this new edition, they will see
that we have profited by the suggestions they have made us. In pursu-
ance of ancient usage, we have inscribed on the title-page of our work :
revised and augmented. This is not a vain promise, but a reality.
Our revisions have affected the literary form of the work ; our additions
consist in a certain number of documents, relative either to the Refor-
mation or to its representative Calvin, which we have procured at Rome,
from that rich collection of Theses, dissertations, pamphlets, sometimes
stray leaves, which the Cardinal Passionei, with the passion of a Savant
and Bibliophilist, had gathered together, and which he afterwards pre-
sented to the Bibliotheca Angelica. While giving insertion to these
documents, we have remained faithful to the law, to which we volunta-
rily subjected ourselves in the History of Luther, to admit, against the
memory of him whose biography we were writing, no testimony, which
was not derived either from the works of the individual himself, or from
the books of his co-religionists. Meiiage, one day, had the fancy to
inscribe on one of his publications: revised and diminished: We
might have used the formula of this writer of many books. In fact,
we have retrenched from this edition some facts, in support of which
we were not able to invoke the authority of reformed writers : this we
did, because, above every thing, we desire to merit the eulogy of an
impartial historian, awarded to us, publicly, by one of our most learn-
ed professors, in one of his lectures in the College de France.
INTRODUCTION,
We should not deceive ourselves respecting the character of the Re-
formation of tlie sixteenth century. At Wittenberg, it was a revolt of
the cloister ; at Geneva, a political movement. Under this double
form, it deluded the souls whom it bore along upon its tide. In Saxo-
ny, its destiny was to terminate in anarchy; in Switzerland, to end in
despotism. Carlstadt was the first to suffer the penalty of his faith in
the Protestant principle. In magnificent terms, the superiority of reason
over authority, had been proclaimed by the Monk of Eisleben. Carl-
stadt was exiled, and forced to beg his bread from village to village,
because he had interpreted a demonstrative pronoun, differently from
Doctor Martin. Schwenkfeld, (Ecolampadius, and other grave minds,
experienced the wrath of the reformer, for not having believed in his
infallibility. There were heresies in a church whicli had erected free ex-
amination into a dogma. But, besides this intellectual disorder, God
reserved other chastisements for Germany ; she was punished in blood.
The preachings of Luther aroused the peasants of Thuringia and Suabia,
who were desirous to fish in the pools, and hunt in the forests of their
masters, in virtue of the right which Luther had given to the electors,
to pasture their horses on the meadows of the monks, to drink out of the
cups of the convents, and to sew the precious stones of the Bishops upon
their vesture.
"Father," said they, "wq have read the Bible. It is written in the
holy book, that God makes his sun shine for all men. Our princes,
therefore, revolt against the Lord ! for we hardly ever behold this great
luminary: — we miners, — shut up, as we are, in the bowels of the earth,
and compelled daily to forge lances for our masters, iron for their
horses, and collars for their dogs. They cause us to pay for the air we
breathe, and for the light of which we are deprived ; the tythes of our
flocks and of our fields belong to them. Father, to these electors, al-
leady so rich, thou hast given croziers, mitres, ostensers of gold, the
1^
6 INTRODUCTION.
wine from the convent cellars, the carpets of the Cathedrals, sacred
vessels quite covered with precious stones ; abbeys, monasteries, pre-
bends: * We ask simply to be allowed to cut in the forests, and only in
winter, a little wood, with which to warm ourselves; in summer, to
take a little grain from the fields of our Seigniors ; in autumn, some
grapes for our newly born babes, and, once a week, to gather a little
grass on the meadows for our sheep. If, like them, we are children of
God, sons of Adam, created from the same slime, why should our con-
ditions be so different? This is not in the order of Providence. The
book, which you have recommended us to read, has told us so. We
send you our grievances; put them under the eyes of our princes. If
they will not do us justice, God has given us arms, an anvil, a hammer,
pikes; we will use them ; and, as it is written in the Bible, we will
combat for the Lord. God will send us his angel, who shall overturn
the mighty and raise up the feeble. We will strike, pink ! pank \ upon
the anvil of Nimrod, and the turrets shall tumble under our blows,
dran ! dran ! dran !"t
This is the substance of the long prayer of the peasants, which you
may read in Sarlorius,i or in our own Father Catrou,§ an historian too
much neglected.
The Princes, alarmed, asked Luther if, in the Scriptures, there were
not some texts which could be opposed to those with which the miners
had swelled their memorial. The monk was not long searching for
them : he found some at almost every page, which he collected and'
drew up, in the form of a notice or iuarning\\ to the revolted labourers.
Munzer, their leader, replied by new quotations from the Bible, and in
the name of the Lord, summoned his brethren to arms. Luther, on his
side, shouted the same cry, to which the princes responded. He main-
tained, as may be seen in his works, that a little straw or fodder is
sufficient for a peasant, as well as for an ass : that if he shake his head,
the stick must be used ; should he become restive or kick, a bullet must
whistle. 1" The princes made use of these arguments in the order indi-
cated by the reformer, and the peasants yielded. The number of dead
* Luthnr gab den ftirstcn die Stifter, Kloster und Abtein; den Priestern jjah
cr die Wuibur; deni geincincn Mannc die Frcilieit, und das that viel zur Sache,
Pred. Gasp. Brochniand, in examine politico. Conf. Aug. p. 163,
t Menzel, (Ad.) Neure Gcscliichte der Deutschen.
t Sirtoiius, Versuch einer Geschichto dcs Deutschen Bauornkriegs, Ber-
lin, 1795.
^ Histoire du fanatisme dans la religion Protestantc, depuis son origine.
2 vols, in 12mo. Paris, 1733.
11 Verniahnunor an de Fiirsten und an de Bauern.
If An. Joh. Ruhel,— Luther's Briefe. de Wcttc. p. 669, t. 11.
INTRODUCTION.
is said to have reached one hundred and twenty thousand. A new seed
of sectarians sprang from the blood of the miners. The Anabaptists
appeared, announcing, — what Eck, Miltitz, Prierias, and other Catholics
had taught, — that Luther was marching amid darkness; and they added,,
tliat they only had the light and understanding of the holy word. For-
tunately for Catholicism, Luther's gospel had given birth to a crowd-
of sects, such as those of the Sacramentarians, of the GEcolampadians,
of the Majorists^ of the Antinomists, which,, in their turn, protested, in
the name of the Holy Ghost, against the pretensions to infallibility
claimed for itself by Anabaptism. So that, as in the days of Pagan-
ism, every thing was God except God himself, and every pulpit infalli-
ble except the Chair of Truth.
At GenevcL, they had scarcely become acquainted with a single line of.
the Lutheran Symbol, when Froment and Farel appeared there, to.
preach their novelties. An unjust hatred for the house of Savoy, drove
into the ranks of the revolution, a crowd of Patriots, who foolishly im-
agined that Catholicism, in the moment of danger, would refuse its aid
and assistance. As if, in the person of its bishops, it had not already
nobly allied itself with the people, against the pretensions of the Em-
perors ! as if the city had not been indebted for its franchises to Adhe-
mar Fabri, one of the ornaments of the Genevan Episcopacy ! We
shall invoke some of those holy prelates in the present work, and you
will then see what was their worth, and wlietlier they were wanting in
courage, devotedness, charity and science ! Geneva has been able to
forget them, but it is our duty to recall them to its remembrance. Car
tholicism has not left, upon the path of its progress, even one human
glory, with which it has not essayed to ornament its crown. That
bridge of Arve, from which Froment sounded his summons to the peo-
ple to revolt against the spiritual sovereign, was erected by a bishop at
the expense of his own purse. Was it not Catholicism that, in the
middle ages, resuscitated the arts, reanimated the cultivation of the muses.,
revived industry, and gave fecundity to the spirit of association ? It
could no more leave people in darkness than in servitude ! Behold it,
at the epoch of its greatest development ! Does it not sustain the cities
and the Italian republics, in their struggles with the Germanic empire?
la the thirteenth century, does it not infuse itself into that political
movement which agitates all nations ? At Grutli, does it not come for-
ward to sanction the oath, of the three liberators, against the oppression
of the house of Austria? Was it not a Catholic hand, which planted,
at Fribourg, the Linden-tree of Morat ? And did not Byron see, groping
through the chambers of the little tower of Stanztadt, the shade of
8 INTRODUCTION.
Nicholas de Flue, as good a patriot as William Tell ? A glance at the
German nation would suffice to convince an impartial observer, that, of
all the forms of religion, Protestantism is the most inimical to the liber-
ties of the people. And let no one appeal to England, in disproof of
this fact, for there Catholicism had so deeply laid the foundations of liber-
ty, that Protestantism had no alternative but to adopt them as laws of the
state.*
At the period of Calvin's arrival at Geneva, the Reformation had
been accomplished. The line of its march could be followed, like the
soldiers of Vitellius, by the traces of disorder which it had left in its
passage. Its triumph was recorded upon the ruins of our churches,
upon the palaces of our bishops, upon the tombs of our canons, upon
our cemeteries, and even upon the walls of certain dwellings still stain-
ed with blood. A poor maiden, a nun of St. Clara, has described
these scenes of mourning, spoliation, and murder ! We shall be thank-
ed, without doubt, fo having preserved some pages of her simple but
dramatic narrative.
Certain modern historians, anxious about the destinies of the refor-
mation, have speculated about its probable fate, had not Calvin appear-
ed to seize upon it as an instrument of domination. Some think that it
w^ould have been absorbed by Lutheranism. Perhaps, fatigued by
doubts, Geneva would have obeyed its natural inclinations, and returned
to the bosom of the Catholic church. We must acknowledge that
Calvin was the most powerful obstacle to this measure. Still, it would
have been difficult to effect a reconciliation. The victors, would not,
without many pangs, have restored to the vanquished the spoils which they
had taken. We will tell you the means resorted to by the reformation
in Switzerland, to prevent all return to order ; upon the walls of the
city were affixed notices for the sale of the goods of the churches and
monasteries ; the purchasers were numerous, for the magistrates had
orders to sell at any price. Thus, the priory of Divosne, in the country
of Lausanne, was sold to the Lord of the place, for 1,000 ecus : that
of Porroy, was sold to M. de Senarchans for 1,125 francs; and the
lands of Villars-le-Moine and Clavelayre, near Morat, w^ere sold to the
advocate John James de Watteville, for 1,300 francs. f
" The Electors," said Melancthon, "keep the treasures of the church-
es and convents, and every thing else for ihemselves, and will not even
* Revue du Nord, p. 251.
t Ilaller. Histoirc de la refonne protestante dans [la Suisse Occidentale, in,
12mo. p. 320.
INTEODUCTION. 9
give something for the support of the schools !"* They consented to
break off the marriages of the priests, but they would not hear of a resti-
tution of the spoils of the clergy, upon which they had seized, and which
Luther had abandoned to them. For them, the goods of others became
a family patrimony. f
Luther, at his appearance, only found the germs of revolution. It
was his mission to make them prolific, and, to the misfortune of humani-
ty, God permitted him to succeed. But when Calvin came, the rup-
ture of Geneva with authority was a fact accomplished. Luther em-
bodies a spiritual idea: he is the apostle of reason — but of fallen
reason — opposed to faith and authority. His life is that of a theologian,
who has marked his progress with sufficient noise, style, poesy, wrath,
ruins and blood, to give interest to the drama in w^hich he played the
principal part. In the last act, the curtain falls, and the actor, still a
theologian, appears in another scene, where, in a miserable bar-room,
he exhausts the last dregs of a disordered imagination. Let him die,
and still Protestant Germany will continue each day to lose some other
rag of its nationality, some trait of its primitive imagination, some tie
which bound it to its historical and intellectual past ; for by the hand
of power it is chained to the work of the reformer.
Informed Protestants, refuse to Calvin the title of demagogue, which
they bestow upon Christ and Luther. Tzschirner calls Jesus, Luther
the first, and regards Calvin as a mere usurper, who used the people to
place the crown upon his brow 4
The Psycological life of Calvin commences at the time when that
of Luther ends ; that is, when the reformation begins to live and move. /
For Calvin, like Henry VIII., adopted the Protestant idea in order to
make himself head of church and state. In him, therefore, there is a
.twofold individuality.
As sectary, his power is greatly inferior to that of Luther, who resus-
citated, under the name of free examination, the principle of fatalism,
illumination by the Bible, justification through faith without works, and
*DieFursten reiszen die Einktinfte der Kloster und die Kirchenguter an
sich, und geben kaum was weniges zu den Bedtirfnissen der Kirchen und
Schulen.
t Die Groszen lieszeu sich guten Thiels durch die KirchengUter bewegen —
Arnold.
ij: Und den (Christus) wir, nacli Hrn. Dr. Tzschirner's Ansicht eigentlich
Luther den Ersten nennon mu:NZten. — Bermerkungen eines Protestanten in
Preuszen tiber die Tzschirner' schen Anfeindungen ect. 1824, p. 52.
See; Honinghaus, Das Resultat meiner Wanderungen, Aschaffenburg, 1835.
8. p. 349.
10 INTRODUCTIONS.
the serf.will of man; old errors indeed, but invested widi new interest
and colours by his picturesque language. Calvin was forced to receive
the Saxon symbol, in part ; what belongs to himself in the confession
bearing his name, is his hermaphrodite system on the Lord's Supper-
half Zwinglian, half Lutheran ; but his God, or rather, his Destiny,
damning at his own good pleasure, may be found in (Ecolampadius.
What providential lessons are given in the existence of these two refor-
mers! Both, if you believe their own testimony, raised up by God, to estab^
lish the Kingdom of Christ; the apostles of fatalism, w^hichitis their mis-
?ion to introduce into Christianity ; the steel-gloved knights of brute force^
which, under the name of reason, they crown king. And in order to
be saved, it is necessary to believe blindly in their word ! The Impa-
nation of Luther, and the Predestination of Calvin, are two truths of
salvation : the one devotes to eternal flames, all who refuse to accept
his eucharistic symbol ; and who refuse to believe ? (Ecolampadius,
Zwingle, Bucer, Brenz, Bullinger, Calvin himself, the glorious repre-
sentatives of religious emancipation : the other has not enough of the
fire of the eternal future to punish those who resist him. He expels
Bolsec, exiles Gentilis, burns Servetus, decapitates Gruet, because they
will not adore him as their God ! If the dogmatic life of Luther be
more dramatic, because it is passed in the presence of Popes and Empe-
rors, Kings and Electors, in the Patmos of the Wartbourg, and in the
anti-chambers of the legates of Leo X. ; upon the benches of the
taverns of Orlamund, and in the imperial cities of Worms and Augs-
burg; that of Calvin possesses a different, but far more powerful inter-
est. John of Noyon, contending with all the deserters of the Catholic
school, — with Gentilis, Ochin, Castalion, Westphal, — who exert them-
selves to expose how much of feebleness, deception and inanity there is
in his magisterial speech, is a spectacle which, in our contest with the
reformation, we have a right to re-produce. Rejected by Westphal,
cursed by Bellius, despised by Leo Judae, anathematized by Luther,
what opinion is it that he personifies? His own only. His masters,
his disciples, his predecessors, and his successors in the way of revolu-
tion;— Zwingle, on his mountains of Albis, Melancthon at the Universi-
ty of Wittenberg, (Ecolampadius at the foot of Hauenstein, Bucer at
Strasbourg, brother Martin at Marbourg, — all teach a doctrine different
from the one we shall hear in the church of St. Peter at Geneva.
While confining ourselves to our task as historian, we could not, in
our biography of Calvin, prevent ourselves from indicating the miseries
of human reason, which remains alone, isolated, and pow^erless, when-
INTRODUCTION. 11
ever it emancipates itself from the great principle of authority ; unity
or truth. And if our task be now more easy than in the life of Luther,
how much more striking shall our words be, when we shall bring into
antagonism, not the Reformation and Catholicism, as in our former
work, but two principles, having the same mother, and a common
genesis ! At Verriers, near Pontarlier, stands a habitation whose double
roof turns the waters of heaven into a twofold rivulet, which gently
conducts them off, part to the ocean, and part to the Mediterranean.
This is the image of that reformed word, which is lost in two different
rivers, whilst ours has but one source, and but one reservoir.
Calvin endeavoured to be like Luther, in building upon ruins. It is
this work of reconstruction for which we were waiting, and here we
shall exhibit him in his sterile attempts to form a liturgy, where the soul
suffers as much as the body. We shall call to our aid the Calvinists
tliemselves, to judge these forms, whose sterility sensibly afflicts them :
you shall hear their lamentations in union with our own, and you shall
judge, whether that fallen spirit has understood the poetry of our worship
better than the truth of our gospel.
M. Paul Henry recently said, that the laws of Calvin are written,
not only with blood, but with fire ; and, be it remembered, the writer
is a fanatical admirer of the Genevan reformer. We shall make you
acquainted with the legislator ; we will appreciate those institutions,
which one would say, had been stolen from Decius or Valens, — a med-
ley of buffoonery and barbarism, — where, to speak ill, ''ofM. Calvin,"
is blasphemy; where prohibition, under pain of imprisonment, is made
against wearing shoes a la mode Bernoise ; where, io cast a side-glance
at a French refugee, is an offence w^orthyof the lash. In the Calvinist
code we find every thing belonging to Pagan legislation, anathemas*
scourges, melted lead, pincers, cords for hanging up by the arm-holes,
props, a sword, faggots, a crown of sulphur. The torturer is an apos-
tate jurist, named CoUadon, w^ho continues to tear the flesh of his patients,
even after the avowal of their real or supposed crime. Those who have
cognizance of heresy, are laymen, who scarcely know how to read.*
The denunciators are judges, under the appellation of Elders, and the
.security for the denunciator, is a secretary or disciple of Calvin.
After having perused the process against Servetus or Gruet, one im-
agines himself just out of a poetic dream like those described by Shake-
speare, and says to the vision :
* Quippe illiterati homines.— Castal. Contra Calvinum.
12
INTEODUCTIO
"Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? Or art thou but
**********, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"
But it is not a dream. The things that shall pass before your startled
gaze, are funeral realities; but another than ourselves shall write the
recital of them ; now it shall be the Secretary of the Archives of the
State Council of the Republic, and again, Calvin himself. Did we
narrate them ourselves, we should be accused of calumny.
However, our great discussion with Calvin, shall be held upon the
political territory. Too long has the reformation made boast of having
emancipated the human intellect. It is enougli to have enjoyed for
thirty years the triumph, which it one day obtained, when the French
Institute crowned it, in the work of Charles Villers, for having saved the
world from the darkness of the Papacy. At that time, not one of the
judges had studied the condition of Saxon society, when it was invaded
by Protestantism. In Germany, they have lately translated a writing
of M. Spazier, inserted, by fragments, in the Revue du Nord, in which
the author proves that the reformation of Luther was equally fatal to
the development of knowledge, to social progress, to popular liberty,
and to Germanic unity. And M. Spazier has taken care, in a note,
to intimate, "that he must be the more above all suspicion, as he is a
Protestant, and has been educated amid all the prejudices, and even
almost in the intolerance of Protestantism ; moreover, that he has lived
in the north of Germany, and the opinion that he sets forth is the fruit
of conscientious meditation, and has, in no wise, been induced by ex-
terior influences.'^"*
We are, therefore, about to demand from Calvin an account of those
franchises which had been bestowed upon Geneva by the Episcopacy.
You will see those sacred liberties, violated, destroyed, stifled amid
blood ; the heads of the patriots, Avho imagined they had escaped from
the tyranny of a royal house, too Catholic to be despotic, will fall, one
by one. Peter Vandel, Berthelier, Ami Perrin, Francis Favre, shall
be obliged to bend before one Abel Poupin, who, in the pulpit, will
call them dogs, and ''scurvy fellows;" to appear before a consistory of mer-
chant popes, in order to render an account of their faith ; to solicit ab-
solution from some apostate monk, chased from his own country for
theft or debauchery ; to offer honorable satisfaction to some refugee, a
citizen of Geneva, by the grace of Calvin, at the same price as the ex-
* Revue du Nord, No. 2. premiere annee, Avril, 1835.
INTEO D U CT ION. 13
ecutioner, that is, gratuitously. The wives of these patriots will be
jnsulted in the temple, driven from the communion table, thrown into
prison for having danced, or for having beheld others dance : this is
written in the records : scaffolds, swords, and faggots, such is the
spectacle, which, during his theocracy of twenty-four years, Calvin will
exhibit to the city that had received him, expelled, as he had been, says
M. Galiffe, from every country "which he sought to subject to his
dominion."*
On leaving the council, the temple, the street, we shall follow Calvin
to his own lodgings, at Strasbourg and Geneva ; we will study the
private man, and we shall see if he merits the praises of Beza. Farel
and Beza — behold the only friends wlio will remain faithful ; all the
rest will withdraw, voluntary exiles, or martyrs of their opinion, to
escape this Jbillious despot, who seeks to impose his yoke upon the
necks of ail who approach him, to crush every thing that resists him, to
blast all that is opposed to him, whether men or doctrines. From this
absolute apostle of selfishness, we will demand, what he has done with
Ochino and Gentilis ?
The biographer of Calvin has a beautiful part to perform ! What
matters it that the reader peruses his work Avith prejudices, opposition,
or malevolent instincts ? The historian is not under the necessity to
say : this is a true and faithful narrative. The clerks of the courts of
justice do not lie ; and we write under their dictation. Thus Calvin,
in all the phases of his life — Calvin, a young man at the schools of
Paris ; Calvin at Geneva, with Farel and Froment, when the germ of
reform is being developed and ripening; Calvin banished, at Stras-
iDOurg, taking part in the religious discussions of the Diets of Worms,
Frankfort, and Ratisbon ; Calvin, returned from exile, theocrat, theolo-
gian, legislator, in all his contests with the representatives of free-will —
with Bolsec, Castalion, Gentilis, Servetus, Gruet ; and with the enthu-
siastic apostles of national franchises — Ameaux, Peter Ami, Francis
Favre, Berthelier ; Calvin, in fine, contending with authority repre-
sented by Paul III., the Sorbonne, and the clergy of Lyons : — This
is our whole work.
In the History of Luther, it was our idea, to vindicate the memory
of those intelligences, who devoted themselves to the defense of au-
thority. In the biography of Calvin, we have desired to prove that the
refugee of Noyon was fatal to civilization, to the arts, and to civil and
religious liberty.
* Lettre a uii Protestant.
14 INTRODUCTION.
Still, however, we must avow that we have not told the whole truth:
but it was not for the want of courage to do so. Men of lively faith
and high intelligence, among others, M. de Bonald, had blamed us for
having, in our History of Luther, reproduced certain pages, transparent
even to nudity. We imagined ourselves still in that Catholic Germany,
the land of free speech : We were mistaken. They shall not here
have occasion for the same reproach; we have been forced to show
ourselves more chaste than the reformer. When we find his language
too free, we will make him speak Latin. We shall not do violence to
the text ; Calvin has been his own translator.
W^e know not how to thank the critics, for the good will they have
ejjhibited, in their account of our first work. This work is the sequel
of the one we have published ; may it be received with the same indul-
gence! While composing the biography of the Saxon monk, we col-
lected the materials for the history of Calvin. There is not in Germany
or France, a literary depot which we have not visited. Gotha, Berne,
Geneva, have furnished us a great number of the reformer's letters, in
part inserted in the German work of M. Paul Henry. For the first
time, we reprint entire the epistle of Calvin to Farel, (1545,) regard-
ing Servetus, the existence of which has been so long contested, and
which we found among the manuscripts of the Royal Library of Paris.
Some pieces in verse and prose, published in the sixteenth century, have
been furnished us by Lyons and Dijon ; some German pamphlets, on
the dogmatic discussions of the reformation and of Protestantism, by
Mayence and Cologne. At Bale, Berlin and Darmstadt, we found
many curious facts, in the literary and scientific journals and reviews ;
and in Schroeckh, Plank and Muller, some profound estimates of men
and events.
Admiration and affection for Catholicity, the principle of all true
liberty, form the complex sentiment which has inspired this history.*
* We can affirm that, for the composition of this work, we have consulted
more tlian a thousand volumes. We have given references to these works, in
ilie progress of ourliistory.
LIFE OF CALVIN.
CHAPTER I.
FIKST YEARS OF CALVIN. 1509-1529.
Birth of Calvin. — His parents. — His Father, Gerard, destines him for the study
of Theology. — The family of the Mommors. — Calvin at Paris, in the house
of his uncle Richard. — Mathurin Cordier. — Farel. — Return to Noyon.
Ox the 10th of July, in the year 1509, John Calvin'^ was born, at
i^oyon, In the house where, at present, hangs the sign of the stag, and
which his father had purchased at the wheat-market. He was baptised
at St. Godbert's; the canon, John de Vatines, was his God-father. — "I
retain my baptism," did Calvin frequently say to Beza, "but I re-
nounce the chrism."!
••'His father, Gerard, a native of Pont-l'Eveque, an ardent spirit, and
greatly skilled in the cunning and intricacies of the law, was wanting
neither in diligence nor invention, but pushed himself forward in busi-
ness, and was very meddlesome. He was apostolical notary, fiscal
agent, scribe in the ecclesiastical court, secretary of the bishop, and
promoter of the chapter."
'•'Gerard had two wives, the first o[ whom was named Jeanne-le-
Franc, a native of Cambray, and the daughter of a tavern-keeper,
who lived retired at Noyon. She had a fine person, but was of suffi-
ciently poor reputation. By her, Gerard had six children, four sons
and two daughters. The eldest, was named Charles, the second, John,
the third, Anthony, and the name of the fourth is unknown, as he died
very young. The two daughters were married in the Catholic church,
and one of them dwelt at Noyon, and had a daughter married to Luke
* The forefathers of Calvin wrote their name Cauvin. — Calvin had several
pseudo-names.
t Beza. Life of Calvin, Geneva. 1657. p . 5.
16 , LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
de Molle, a furbisher of armour, who lived at Compeigne. From this
marriage Avere born two children ; Anthony and Mary. Anthony, who
pursued the avocation of his father, died at Noyon, a good Catholic, on
the third Sunday of Advent, in the year 1614. Mary became the wife
of a man named Bruyant, of Compeigne, and had a son, Adrien, atone
time, the landlord of the Silver Lion, at Chartres, near Mount Hery.
Anthony de Molle left tw^o children, Luke and Mary. Luke was a
surgeon in the suburb of St. Germain-des-Pres ; Mary became the wife
of John Fauquet, a baker of the city of Noyon."*
For these details we are indebted to the abbe James le Vassenr,
canon and dean of the church of Noyon, who extracted them from the
registers of the cathedral. He adds in a whisper ;
" Damoiselle Jeanne de Bure, femme d'honorable homme feumaistre
" Claude Jeuffrin; Fran^oise Maresse, mere de M. Vincent Wiard,
" president au grenier a sel, et Helene Hauet, femme de feu M. Wal-
" lerand de Neufville, orfevre a Noyon, la plus ancienne de la ville,
" naguere vivante, ont plusieurs fois declare avoir entendu rapporter a
" leur meres, qu'elles etaient presentes a I'accouchement de la mere de
'" Jean Calvin, lorsqu'elle I'enfanta, et qu'avant la sortie de Fenfant,
'■ sortit du ventre de la mere une quantite de grosses mouches, presage
" du bruit que Jean devait faire dans la chretiente."t
Nearly about this period, a child, destined to fill the world with
trouble, w^as wandering on the highway of Magdebourg, begging his
bread from door to door, and singing the song du hon Dieu,% for each
kind soul who threw him a groeshen : this was Martin Luther, son of
Hans Luther, a peasant of the village of Mserha, in Saxony. John
Calvin was not fated to undergo such rude trials.
His father, who designed him for the study of theology, § read the fu-
ture, for he was a man of foresight and judgment, jj The limpid and
prominent eye of the child, his large forehead, his nose, modeled after
the style which the ancients delighted to contemplate in their statues,
his lips curled with disdain and sneers, his leaden and billious com-
plexion, were the signs of cunning, artifice, and obstinacy. When
you meet with the portrait of Luther, beside that of Calvin, in the
library of Geneva, you immediately divine the mental idiosyncracy of
the two reformers. The first, widi his florid face, in which the blood
courses and boils ; with his eagle-eye, and brilliant tints of colour quite
* Annalos de I'Eglise de Noyon, par Jacques le Vasseur, in4to. Paris, 1623.
|). 1156. — "Jacques Desniay and Jacques le Vasseur, Doctors of the Sorbonne,
have given a very exact journal of the life of Calvin, up to the time of his de-
parture from the kingdom, and that too, taken from the registers of Noyon" —
Drelincourt.
t We must leave this curious statement, respecting the circumstances of
Calvin's birth, under its French dress. We should not know how to set it be-
fore the world in English.
ij: Mathesius: In seinem vierzehnten Jahre Kam er nach Magdeburg in die
^chule. Allda ist dieser Knabc nach Brod gangen, und hat sein panem propter
Deum gcschrien.
{ Theologiae me pater tencllum adhuc puerum destinaverat.
II Erat is Gerard us non parvi judicii et concilii homo. Beza.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
17
Venetian, personifies popular eloquence, brutal force, and lyrical en-
thusiasm;— his place is the tribune, the forum, the tavern. The other,
with his anchoret face, emaciated by vigils or disease, his faded flesh,
his unquiet air, his cadaverous hue, his prominent bones piercing the
skin,* will represent obstinate sophistry and dry argument. He is the
man of the school, of the temple, of the cabinet— the diplomatic theo-
logian,— the fox, who has assumed the monk's cap, for a disguise.
Gerard Calvin w^as a poor man. His office of fiscal agent brought
him scarcely seven hundred francs' salary, and he had to support a wife
and six children ; but the noble family of the Mommors came to his
aid, in the hour of his distress, whenever the winter was too rigorous,
bread too dear, or when Noyon was made desolate by famine. Then,
all the Calvins, — father, mother, children, — took refuge under the wings
of that subsidiary providence, which gave them food and raiment. It
w^ere to be wished, that John, in his attempts at literature, should
call to remembrance the good pastor of Noyon, with a more tender re-
gard. It is true, that when on the threshold of manhood, Calvin dedi-
cated his Com-mentary upon Seneca, "to the holy, pious Hangest, abbe
of Saint-Eloy," a member of the family of the Mommors, but this is
all ; and yet,' in this family, besides material bread, he had found the
bread of life, for which he had so great an appetite. The family of the
Mommors had taken care of the soul and body of their protegee ; for
preceptor, they had given him the master of their own children ; arid
with these, Calvin had opened his first Latin grammar, and, as he said
himself, received the first discipline of life and 1 earning. f It is then
a Catholic roof which shelters the infancy of Calvin ; it is at the hearth
of the Mommors that he warms himself, at their table that he is fed,
with their children that he plays and studies; it is, as he says himself,
from their books that he sips the first drops of "the milk" of learning.
And one day, when the images and associations of childhood shall be
blotted from his mind, when he shall have become pow^erful, exalted,
and when a whole nation shall listen to his voice, he will forget the
manna of Noyon and the hand that distributed it ; and, in his puritan
humour, he will damn all who shall have adored Baal,— Baal, that is
the god invoked by his preceptor, the abbe Hangest, and to whom, each
morning, prayers were addressed by his fellow disciples, the children of
the Mommors, in that house of charity, which, in his eyes, will be no-
thing more than "a fri.shtful nest of papists."
The teacher in the Mommor family was a skillful man, who gave to
his pupil all that he possessed himself; a phraseology, abundant, but
unrelieved; an idiom, made up of obsolete provincialisms, and colour-
ed with all the literary glories of the epoch, Greek, Latin and French; —
an instrument without edge or point, w^hich the scholar might use
♦Colore siibpallido et mg^ricante, oculis ad mortem usque limpidis, quique
ingenii sagacitatem testarentur. Beza. Hist. Calv.
t Veram etiam magis, quod domi vestrae puer educatus, iisdem tecum studiis
initiatus, primam vitse et littorarum disciplinam, familise vestrae nobilissimae
acceptam refero. Calv. prsef. in Senecam, ad sanctiss. et Sapientissimum
piaesulem Claudium Hangestium, abbatem Divi Eligii.
2*
18 LIFE OF JOHN CALVm.
against a college pedant, but never against a man of the people. Add
to this, some shreds of Latin prosody and poesy, and you have all the
literary treasures obtained by Calvin, while in this family ; yet, for a
child, this was a great deal. As we have already seen, he was intend-
ed for the ecclesiastical state : by means of some hundreds of francs,
present(id to him by his benefactors, he purchased, on the 15th of May,
1521, the prepend of the chapel of IVotre Dame dt la Gesine.
He was then twelve years old. "His body was dry and slender; but
he already exhibited a sharp and vigorous intellect, prompt at repartee,
bold in attack ; he was a great faster, whether he did so for the good of
his health, or to arrest the fumes of that megrim which continually be-
sieged him, or to improve his memory, and keep his mind more free for
study and composition. He spoke but little ; his language was se-
rious, and always to the point. He entered seldom into company, and
sought retirement."*
The task of the Noyon professor was accomplished, and Calvin de-
parted for Paris, at that time the great rendezvous of the choice spirits
of the provinces. Its learned chairs were occupied by literati, who
enjoyed an European reputation : Aleandro, having came from Venice,
with his head full of Greek, Latin, Syriac and Chaldaic — the treasures
which he had amassed in the printing-oiRce of Andrew d'Asola, where
also, with the aid of certain students, he had collected the materials for
his Greek lexicon, — was lecturing there with credit and eclat.
The Sorbonne had just come forth, glorious, from a struggle with the
apostle of German reform, after having condemned most of the propo-
sitions of the Saxon monk : but its triumph was doomed to be cruelly
expiated ! Melancthon, whose name was known to all the learned of
France, delivered the Parisian Sorbonnists over to the gross ridicule of
the Germans. His satire, which had traversed the Rhine, and which
was exhibited in secret, electrified the students. Alciati, then professor
at Bourges, wept for joy while perusing it, and compared it with the
best comedies of Aristophanes. The name of Luther had suddenly re-
sounded through the colleges of the capital. His treatise, the Captivi-
ty of Babylon, had been translated into French, by Louis B^rquin, the
friend of Farel ; and one morning, all the students 'm law and theolo-
gy, had learned that the Pope was the Anti-christ announced by the
prophets; that the monks were the acolytes of satan; the Cardinals,
the porters of hell ; the priests, debauchees ; the doctors, asses ! Now,,
imagine the dolorous sensation which must have been felt by a city like
Paris, quite full of priests, bishops, cardinals, monks and Sorbonnists !
The Sorbonne went immediately to the quarter St. Jacques, to awake an
old doctor, Jose Clitowe, a pupil of James le-Fevre, who set to work to
compose a treatise against the Saxon monk, which met with great suc-
cess. We are indebted to Beza for these details. f
* FloritTiond de Raemond oil Remond, Histoire de la naissance, progres et
decadence de rhcresic de ce siecle. Rouen in 4to. 162'2.,liv. 7. ch. io.
t "Luther having commenced to write against the Indulgences, which were
pToached in the crusade of 1517, went still farther in the chase, and published
his treatise entitled r The Captivity of Babylon. This caused the Sorbonne io
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
19
Scholasticism was at that epoch queen of the world ! To create a
sensation, she had assumed every costume : the red robe of the cardi-
nal, the cape of the bishop, the priest's soutan, the monk's frock, the
judge's ermine, the professor's square cap, the warrior's coat of mail,
and even the petticoat of the ladies. Margaret, the sister of Francis
L, in her hotel, fabricated the fashions, poesy, dogmas, and libertine
stories. She sang :
La mort est chose heureuse
Al'ame qui de luy est amoureuse (Dieu.)
O mort! par vous J'espere tant d'honneur,
Qu 'a deux genoux, en cry, soupir et pleur,
Je vous requiers, venez hativement
Et mettez lin a nion gemissement.
O heureuses -ernes, filles tres saintes, 4
En la cite de Jerusalem jointes,
Baissez vos yeux par miseration,
Et regardez ma desolation, etc.*
Having finished the canticle, she read for the duchess d' Etampes, the
adulterous or incestuous amours of certain Parisian citizens, or perhaps,
of some provincial nun, or else regaled her director, William Roussel,
with a satire against the Sorbonne, which, to the great scandal of her
daughters and chambermaids, had been bold enough to prohibit the
Miroirde'Vaine pecheresse: "A princess," says Beza, "of an excellent
condemn him as a heretic, in the year 1521, and finally to write a book against
him, entitled: Anti-Luther, the author of which was a person named Jose
Clitowe, a disciple of Jacques Fabri, but not of the same opinions with his
master." Beza. Hist. Eccl. des Eglises reformees au Royaume de France,
depuis 1321, jusqu'n 1563. Anvers, 1580. 3 vols, in 8vo. t. 1. p. 5.
* At different epochs, Margaret wrote: 1st. Les Nouvelles de la reine de
Navarre; 2d. Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses, avec quatre
mysteres on comedies pieuses, et deux farces; 3d. Le Triomphe del'Agneau;
4th. Des chansons spirituelles; 5th. Le Miroir de Tame pecheresse. For her
device, she had at first chosen a marigold, with this motto: non mferiora secu-
tus: afterwards, a lilly with a daisy, and: Mirandum natura apns.
Here are some verses of a work censured by the Sorbonne.
Mary says to Jesus:
O quel repos de mere et filz ensemble!
Mon doux enfant, mon dieu, honneur et gloire
Soit a vous seul et a chacun notoire
De ce qu'il plaist a votre humilite,
Moy, moins que rien, toute nichilite,
Mere nommer: plus est le cas estrange,
Et plus en ha vostre bonte louenge. (i)
(I) Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses, tres illustre royne de Na-
varre, Lyon, 1547, in Bvo. p. 34, 51, 59 68.
Mr. Genin has endeavoured to vindicate the memory of the queen of Na-
varre, from the charge of heterodoxy, brought by Beda, agaiiist the mirror of
Vie sinful sovl See the notice published at the head of Margaret's Letters..
Paris, 8vo. 1841. ie Sew^wr, a Protestant journal, claims this princess, as a
glorious conquest of the doctrines of the reformation.
20 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
understanding, and whom God at that time raised up, in order, as far
as possible to frustrate the cruel designs of the Chancellor of France,
A. Duprat, and the rest, who were urging the King to oppress those
whom they called heretics."* This chancellor Daprat, an inflexible
magistrate, and a man of profound foresight and exquisite logic, had
committed the grievous wrong of seeing through the schemes of two
ladies, the queen of Navarre and the duchess d'Etampes, who desired, as
they averred, to convert Francis I., t "because the severity of the
laws of the church, and especially the restraint of confession, embar-
rassed their consciences. "J
The court of the king of France was the asylum and rendezvous of
all the glories of the epoch, and particularly of the glories of literature,
whom this prince both loved and patronized. There, was found Wil-
liam Bude, "who, in his erudition, was so fortunate as to meet with a
king of excellent mind, and a great lover of polite letters, to whom
the writer dedicated that fine work, entitled : Commentaries on the
Greek language; at the same time persuading the prince, that the three
languages ought to be allied together, in the schools and universities of
his kingdom, and that he should erect for them a magnificent college."§
A JESUS SAUVEUR ET JUSTIFICATEUR..
O mon Sauveur par Foy Je suis plantee,
Et par amour en vous jointe et entee.
Quelle union, quelle bienheurete,
Puisque par Foy J'ai de vous seurete I
Done monseigneur, qui me condemnera:
Et quel juge jamais me damnera,
Quand celuy-la, qui m'est donne pour juge
Est mon espoux, mon pere, mon refuge?
Jesus Christ qui est mon redempteur
Qui par sa mort nous a restitue
Notre heritage, et s'est constitue
Notre advocat, devant Dieu presentant
Les merites : qui sont et valent tant.
Que ma grande depte en est si surmontee H
Que pourrien n'est enjugement comptee.
Quand vos vertus, mon Sauveur, presentez
Certes assez justice contentez,
Et sur la croix par votre passion
En avez fait la satisfaction
Moy donques ver de terre, moins que riens
Et chicnne morte, ordure de fiens,
Cesser doy bien parler de V altitude
De ceste amour.
*Bezn. Hist. Eccl. t. 1. 5.
t Und sic Sowohl als die Maitresse des KOnigs, die Herzogin von Etampes,
fUhrten den Knoig fast bis zum evangelischen Glauben. Das LebenJahariR
Calvins. von Paul Henry. Hamburg. 1835. 1. 1. p. 18.
\ Fiorimond de Remond. liv. viii. chap. iii. p. 347.
5 Theodore Beza. Hist. eccl. 1. 1. p. 5,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 21
There, too, were found John da Bellay, who cherished Horace with an
affection so ardent, that he placed him under his pillow ; and Ramus,
d-estined to perish so miserably at St. Bartholomew ; and Scaliger,
whose name is a sufficient eulogy ; and Melchior Wolmar, one of those
lawyers whom Luther, at the bar-room in Wittenberg, pursued with his
biting ironies ; "Verbal critics," said he, ''who would remake the
Lord's Prayer." You beheld there, also, William Cop, Peter de 1' Etoile,
*'who both meddled with the Greek, and slightly with the Hebrew, to the
great annoyance of the Sorbonne," says Beza, maliciously, ''which was
opposed to all progress, with so great fury, that, to listen to our masters,
the study of the Greek is one of the greatest heresies in the world." A
gratuitous calumny, this ; for most of the Sorbonnists were at the same
time versed in both the Greek and Hebrew.* Do you not admire the
ways of God, who, as Beza testifies, raises up a lady gallant to reform
religion, and withdraws understanding from men like the Sorbonnists,
who have grown gray in meditating on the Scriptures !
Theologians thronged forward to ,give further splendour to this array
of humanists, poets and literati. Especially, is to be remarked, James
le Fevre d'Etaples, who had quite recently published his commentary
on the Epistles of St. Paul, and who, in the silence of his retirement,
was then preparing his French translation of the Holy Bible, At that
very moment, Luther announced that the bible had been a proscribed
book among Catholics, until his advent ; and master John Mathesius,
a disciple of the Saxon monk, w^as uttering lamentations over the
chains by which the papacy shackled Christendom, in withholding from
it the word of God.f This is an abominable falsehood, which is suffi-
ciently refuted by Cajetan's commentaries on the Psalms, by fragments
of the sacred books, translated at Venice, Rome and Florence, and by
the version of the bible, published at Nuremberg. Among the vota-
ries of science, were distinguished William Farel, Arnold Roussel and
Gerard Roussel, whom a bishop of Meaux, Monseigneur Briconnet,
had summoned to his diocess, that they might labour to diffuse a relish
for polite learning. This prelate, animated with the best intentions,
was deceived in the selection of his instruments : the greater number of
these theologians had become infatuated at Strasbourg, with heterodox
notions, concerning liberty, grace, justification, works, and had come
forth converts, some to the Lutheran idea, others, to Zwinglianism, and
the rest to the opinions of Bucer. Not one of them possessed an uni-
form symbol, and all dreamed of a reform of Catholicism, by an immo-
lation, of authority to individual sense, of tradition to private interpre-
tation, of positive dogma to figurative meaning, of conscience, enlight-
* See Vecritde la Sorhonne^ on the subject of the dispute between Luther
and Eck at Leipsic, Luther, before his condemnation, appealed to the Sor-
bonne: the mother and nurse of learning, t.1 L of his correspondence, pub-
lished by de Wette.
t Historien vondes EhrwQrdigen in Gott seligen M. Luther Anfang, Lehre
so durch Magister Mathesius,l627. p. 28. cited in the edition of Arnim. 1^2T.
22 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
ened by the instruction of pastors, to the capricious illumination of
the Holy Spirit.
It M^as into the midst of these theologians, agitated by doubt, incre-
dulity, the love of novelty, and pride, that the young Calvin was soon
to be thrown ! It was in the midst of religious factions of every hue
and colour, that he was one day to search for truth !
He w^ent to the house of his uncle Richard, a locksmith, near the
church of St. Germain 1' Auxerrois.* Richard Calvin was an honest
workman, who, at his own cost, fed and lodged his brother's son for
many years. The youth had a little room looking out upon the church,
whose chants roused him from slumber each morning. The two sons
of the Mommors, who had accompanied their fellow-disciple, left him
at the threshold of the locksmith's door, and went to lodge in the street
St. Jacques. They met daily at the college de la Marche, at the lec-
ture of the professor, and on Sundays and festivals, at the table of some
noble seignior, allied to the Mommor family, or else in the gardens of
the g>i'nnasium, where they walked together, and rehearsed from memo-
ry the fine things which they had learned during the week. Richard
Calvin, proud of the success of his nephew, — for the child was success-
ful,— continued to go every morning to the mass of his parish, to abstain
from flesh on Fridays and Saturdays, to tell his beads, to fast on the
ember days : practices at which the proud student scoffed and laughed.
For, at fourteen, John had already read some of Luther's books, and
doubt glided into his soul, then disquiet, afterwards, anguish. He en-
vied the repose enjoyed by the poor artisan, but this repose fled from
him. That interior peace, however, was not a hidden secret ; and his
uncle would have willingly revealed it to him : to believe, to love, and
to pray, was the whole science of the locksmith.
The professor of the college de la Marche was Mathurin Cordier,t
who, of the writers of ancient Rome, made his friends, his hosts, his
gods : — "a very good personage," says Beza, "of great simplicity, and
very exact in his profession ; he since has passed his days in teaching
children, as well at Paris, as at Nevers, Bordeaux, Geneva, Neuchatel,
Lausanne, and finally again at Geneva, where, in this year, 1564, he died,
at the age of 85, while instructing the youth of the sixth class. "J A verita-
ble revolutionist at heart, who, after having introduced a salutary disorder
into the science of instruction, would have desired to treat the catechism as
a theory. In the chair, he was elegant and flowery ; his style, slightly
familiar, savoured of the antique; a poet, after finishing his lecture, he
descended from the Greek or Roman Olympus, and began to extempo-
rize hymns to the Lord. His verses, which, perhaps, Sadolet might not
have disavowed, did not always exhale that perfume of orthodoxy,
* Haec causa fuit cur pater cum quam doctissimum fieri cuperet, mitteretque
Lutcliani, et Ricardo fratri comrnendaret, in vico divi Germani, Altissiodoren-
sis, fabro ferrario. Pap. Masso. Elogia, p. 410. Parisiis, in 8vo. 1638.
t Maturinus Corderius spectatae turn probitatis, turn eruditionis vir. Beza.
His colloquies have long been in the hands of pupils. He tried his skill in
French poetry, by writing spiritual hymns, of about the same value as the
canticles of Marot. (Lyons, 1552.)
I Beza. Life of Calvin.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 23
which the learned Italian has so well understood how to combine with
the pagan ambrosia. Cordier inclined towards the German novelties,
because they were doctrines born yesterday, and because those who pro-
pagated them were marvelously well acquainted with the language of
Homer and Virgil. As yet, he knew nothing of the works of Bembo,
of Vida, and of Sadolet : his eye paused upon Bale, where (Ecolampa-
dius, Capito, Erasmus, were resuscitating antiquity, but it never travers-
ed the Alps, to behold, at Rome, pagan statues issuing from the earth,
and their recovery chanted in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. While Ger-
many was essaying some new gloss upon a text of scripture ; while, in
the little letters of Hutten, she was persecuting monastic obscurity ;
while, at Wittenberg, she listened, in ravishment, to the commentaries
of Melancthon on Aristophanes, or, at the Augustinian convent of Er-
furth, became inflamed beneath the fiery words of Luther: — Melanc-
thon, Luther, Hutten, brilliant and fatal meteors of the revival ! —
Italy produced a Machiaval, an annalist after the manner of Tacitus ;
an Ariosto, poet like Homer ; a Guichardin, historian, often as warm
as Salust ; a Sannazar, whom Plato would not have had the strength to
exile from his republic ; a Michael Angelo, a Raphael, a Benvenuto
Cellini — a beautiful heaven of poets, painters, sculptors, historians,
jurists, orators, which each hour of the day unfolded its portals, to send
forth some divinity, like that which lighted at Bourges, under the name
of Alciati, to teach there the science of the law, or at the University of
Paris, under that of Aleandro, to diffuse a taste for Greek literature.
This spectacle was hidden from Cordier, who was unwilling to see it,
and obstinately persevered in predicting a speedy waking up of intellect,
when already Italy, thanks to the papacy, could point to her epic
poets.*
The professor of the college Montaigu, under whom Calvin studied
dialectics, resembled the professor of La Marche, in nothing : a Span-
iard by birth, he made Aristotle his idol, in spite of all the sarcasms
showered upon the stagyrite,t by the learned of Germany. Among
the humanists of doubtful faith, it was then the fashion to ridicule Aris-
totle, by whom, in the schools, authority was represented, as in the
Catholic world, it was symbolized by the papacy. Besides, Aristotle
must have been a favourite of Calvin, who was captious, fond of retort,
and of sylogisms, which Luther left behind him, "as Abraham did his
ass." The scholar of Noyon could feel no love for Plato : his imagi-
nation was too cold to be captivated by the poetic reveries of this moralist.
It was about this period, that Calvin first met and became acquainted
with Farel, that puritan of the reformation, who would have desired to
establish the kingdom of God, by aid of fire and sword, and whose lips
(Ecolampadius essayed, in vain, to tinge with honey; "a lying, viru-
* Our readers will allow us to refer them to the chapter of our Life of Luther,
entitled, Leo the Tenth, where we have shown the influence upon letters, ex-
ercised by this Pope.
tHispanum habuit doctorem non indoctum. A quo exculto ipsius ingenio, >
quod ei jam turn acerrimum erat, ita profecit, ut cceteris sodalibus in gramma-
tices curriculo relictis, ad dialectices et aliarum quas vocant artium studium
promoveretur. Beza. vit. Calv.
24 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
lent, seditious soul,"* as described by Erasmus, who had a right to know
him well. Farel, a native of Gap, and the son of a notary, called
Fareau, visited Bale. "Zwingle, the burning and shining candle of
Zurich ; Haller, the vessel of election of Berne, and QEcolampadius,
the lamp of the house of God, welcomed him warmly, and recognized
him as a brother."! He was engaged in parading his vagabond prose-
lytism through Switzerland, when he arrived at Bale, and demanded a
discussion. Louis Berus, a renowned theologian of the University, ob-
jected to this, under pretext that the principles of the stranger savoured
of heresy. Farel posted his propositions at the college gate : the grand
vicar, and the rector of the University, forbid any to assist at the dis-
pute, under penalty of excommunication. The Senate took the alarm,
imagined its authority in danger, and commanded all — theologians, cures,
students, — to assist at the religious tournament; at the same time declar-
ing, that all who should not be present, should forfeit their right to the
use of the mills and ovens, or to purchase their meat and vegetables at
the city markets. J Therefore, on the fifteenth of February, all deal-
ers in theology, at least all who dreaded a death by starvation, were at
their posts. Farel defended his thesis ; reviled, calumniated, grew an-
gry, and was compelled to leave the city, which he cursed in his wrath.
Calvin was then just entering upon his nineteenth year. On the
27th of September, 1527,§ he was invested with the charge of Marte-
ville : being only tonsured. || Some years later, his father, who was
esteemed by the bishop, succeeded in procuring for his son an exchange
of Marteville for Pont-1-Eveque, "the parish in which his grandfather
had his domicile, and where his son Gerard had been baptised. Thus did
they summon the wolf to keep watch over the sheep. "IF It is still the
good abbe Claude d'Hangest who presents him to his charge : the pu-
pil is now grown up ; he is a man ; and yet he dreams not of blessing
the hand, which thus, for the future, secures him bread. He feels no
other joy, than that of a proud child, who, by means of a single thesis,
has become cure of a parish.** Search his books or his letters, and
you will not discover one word of affection or gratitude for this new
bounty of the house of Mommors ! An icy heart, which has no me-
mory for anything but an insult or an injury. Oh! how much we pre-
fer the character of Luther to that of Calvin ! With the Saxon monk,
every thing is a passion, even gratitude itself. In the midst of his
triumphs, quite sufficient to intoxicate a youthful brain, he still cherishes
* Habetis in propinquo novum Evangelistam Pharellum quo nihil vidi un-
quam mendacius, virulentius, aut seditiosius. Er. ep. xxx. lib. xviii. p. 798.
t Ancillon. vie de Farel, p. 197-198.
I Melch. Adam in vitis Theol. exter. Francof. ad Mcenum, 1705. fol. 113
—114.
^Moreri, Article Calvin.
II Calvin never was a priest, and was not allied to the clergy, except in virtue
of nis tonsure. Bayle. Art. Calvin. Quo loco (Font-1-Eveque) Constat J. ip-
sum Calvinum antequam Gallia excederet, nuUis alioqui pontificiis ordinibus
unquam initiatum, aliquot ad pop ulum conciones habuisse. Beza.
*i Desmay, Acts of the Chapter of Noyon, cited by Drelincourt, p. 168.
** Paul Henry, lib. cit. 1. 1. p. 24.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 25
tender memories for Cotta, from whom he received his first alms. This
female image, which, now and again, glides before us, and takes its
stand between the Pope and the doctor, possesses an ineffable charm,
and seems greatly to soften down the outbursts of the reformer. Flori-
mondde Remond was right : "Calvin, after having lived at the expense
of the crucifix, forgot who had fed and educated him.*"
He returned to Noyon, and sometimes preached at Pont-l-Eveque.f
In his letters, Calvin does not tell us of his parting with his college
chums, his preceptor, Mathurin Cordier, and his uncle, the locksmith.
Here would have been a tender scene for the descriptive pen of Luther,
and the monk of Wittenberg would not have let it pass unrecorded !
About this time, we are told, Calvin entered into communication with
his relative, Robert Olivetan, who was then labouring at his French
translation of the Bible : — one of those spirits of doubt and pride,
whom Dante places in hell
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro •
Misericordia et giustitia gli sdegna.
Non ragionain di lor, ma guarda e passa.
Inferno. Cant. 3.
* riorimond de Remond, Histoire de I'heresie de ce siecle. f Beza.
3
CHAPTER II.
THE UNIVERSITIES,
The Student at the University. — Renting of chambers. — When he must pay
the rent. — His right to eject all renters who make a noise, — Is not bound tt>
render service to the State. — -Costume. — His books not seizable. — Civil rights
of students. — They cannot be excommunicated,— Student's prayer.— Re-
buffy's advice.
Calvin is about to become the inhabitant of a new world, whither
we must foUoAv him- In the sixteenth century, the students of the uni-
versities constituted a distinct society, governed at once by the canon law,
the civil law, and local customs. Collected from all parts of France,
they brought with them to the city, to which they resorted for study,
manners, a language, a costume, quite peculiar, and the form cf which
could be changed but slowly. The student of that epoch, in some things,
resembles the student of the nineteenth century : both, careless, noisy,
quarrelsome : with good hearts, but bad judgments. Religious and po-
litical opposition, which at that time could not use books and journals
as its organs, had taken refuge in the schools. The student was then a
living ballad, censuring throne and altar, monarch and Pope. In Sax-
ony, when Luther's voice resounded from Wittenberg, the students
rushed to the college, gathered up their books, and made a bonfire of
them, before the church of All-Saints, imagining themselves forever dis-
inthralled from the yoke of their preceptors. In France, they welcom-
ed with infantile joy, the first Lutheran missionaries, who preached the
abolition of the law of abstinence on Fridays and Saturdays. Pro-
tected by popes and kings, our students, in their civil and religious
life, enjoyed privileges of which they were jealous, and which could
not have been wrested from them with impunity. The picture of these
scholastic franchises has been drawn by Peter Rebuffy,* who was pro-
fessor at Montpellier, at the time Calvin went to study at Paris. The
examination of these immunities, granted to the university students,
during so many centuries, would, it seems to us, be a curious moral
study. Precious are these images, which carry us back to an epoch,
when the human mind was marching onward to utter confusion.
We are at Paris, where the student seeks for a room, nearly always
in the Latin quarter, convenient to the college which he frequents. As
* Petri Rebuff Monspessulani jurisconsulti, in privilegia et immunitates
universitatum, doctorum, magistrorum et studiosorum, commentationes enu-
cleatissimae. Anturpiae, 1583, in 4to.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
21
saoR as he has announced his title, the proprietor is compelled to rent ;
and in case of need, the student can force the proprietor to dislodge an
old renter, for his accommodation,*
The student, on giving security, can likewise compel his habitual
landlord to hire him a horse, according to this maxim : "The host, who
has put up the sign of an inn, is bound to fulfil the duties thereof. "f If
the horse, beaten with rods, and not with the stirrup-leather, dies under
the flagellation, he must pay its value : but, if for want of fodder, the
animal has become lean and lank, he is bound for no damages, accord-
ing to the text i7i Animalia; C. de curso publico; lib. 12., and the
opinion of Platea, thus ruled: — The student is not obliged to stuff a
hired horse with fodder, seeing that his income is very slight. J If he
can give no security, he must employ a guide or runner.
If the owner of a house demanded too much from the student for his
rooms, the latter appealed to the rector, who fixed the rent.§ At Mont-
pellier, in virtue of a privilege accorded to the city, in the month of
January, 1322, by king Charles IV., it was the judge of theparvtim
sigillum, who fixed the price to be paid by the student. At Paris, the
amount was decided by two magistrates, selected by the University, as-
sisted, if there was need, by two citizens, in virtue of the bull of Grego-
ry IX., given at St. John of Lateran, on the 6th of the Calends of
May, and deposited in the archives of this learned body.
But when must the student pay his rent ? If there be a contract, the
act obliges; in default of a contract, custom makes the rule.
Should the proprietor, for important motives, need his whole house,
he cannot eject the student to whom he has rented rooms, for the simple
and apparent reason — that in cities, where there are universities, it is
often very difficult for students to procure lodgings ; that they ought not,
in seeking rooms, to be made to lose their time, destined for study ; and
because every good citizen should consult the good of his country, rather
than his own private comfort and convenience.
Innocent IV., by a bull given at Lyons, on the second of the
nones of March, in the second year of his pontificate, had, under penal-
ty of excommunication, prohibited any owner of a house, to rent a room
which was already occupied by a student or a doctor.
Was the student annoyed in his studies, by the hammer of a forger,
the wheel of a turner, or the song of a w^orkman, dwelling under the
same roof with him, he could procure the dismissal of his troublesome
neighbour, as ive are informed by Barthole and Platea, 1| and as was ef-
fected by Peter RebufFy, in the case of a weaver (textor,) who lodged
near the college du Vergier, at Montpellier, and who, rising each
* Q,ui si noninveniant domos, possunt compellere habitantes ad illis locar-
dum. Gull, de Cugno.
t Nam hospes, pastquam signa hospitii erexit, cogitur hospites recipere. Joe.
Ruft'us in 1. carsura c. de curso publico, lib. 12. arg. 4.
I Nam studentes non solent equos locates avena pinquefacere, cum modicum
sit eis.
^ Panormit, in lib. de locat.
jj In lib. 1. in line. Et solut, mat. in lib. 2. ; c. qui aetate lib. 10. ; lib. 1. de
Excusat. artif.
28
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
morning with the cock, sang so loud as to deafen all the professors.*
This privilege of ejection reached also the manipulator of offensive
odours, which might impair the health of the student, according to the
precept : iVo7i licet aliciti immittere in alienum quicquam, quamvis
in suo possit facere quod libet,f and — because, were it the devil him-
self, we have the right to prevent him from troubling us, or from poison-
ing us in our lodgings, as confirmed by Barba, in C. 1. deprolat.^
provided, always, a valet could be found bold enough to announce the
prohibition to the archfiend; J and no forger, no turner, no exciter of
unclean odours, shall be able to stay the sentence, which shall be car-
ried into execution in spite of opposition or appeal.
The student's father is obliged, in the beginning of the scholastic
year, to pay at least one month's board for his son, who, at his father's
death, cannot be held to account for the sums he has received, nor to
charge the amount upon his portion of the succession, because the father
is presumed to have given this gratuitously. If, during the progress of
his studies, the student have contracted debts for the interest of science,
he is not obliged, after the death of the head of the family, to pay them
out of his own share, but only to satisfy his creditor at the expense of
the common inheritance.
The student should listen to his master in silence, and not disturb
the lecture, by making noises with his feet, hands, and voice, as, unfor-
tunately, says professor Rebuffy, too frequently happened at Toulouse
and Orleans, where the students are so turbulent, that, when two of
them have resolved to disturb the class, the professor is compelled to
leave his chair. §
Though a father may whip his son, place him under arrest, or put
him in prison for more than twenty hours, even till he solicits pardon ;
doctors, the fathers of students, cannot, however, buffet them, because,
for one blow, the students would return four |I; and moreover, for the
correction of youth, mild treatment is the most efficacious.
Under no pretext, shall the student be distracted from his studies for
the service of the state. On the 23d of February, in the year 1345,
Philip VI. enacted the following ordinance :
" That, of the said masters and students, no goods whatever be taken
for our garrisons of war, our hotel, or that of our loved companion, the
queen, or for our children, or for any others whatever of our lineage,
our lieutenants, captains, constables, or others desiring or pretending
to have care of our kingdom, under what authority soever, but that
the said masters and students be left in peaceable possession of their
goods."
The student had a right to refuse for examiner any doctor whom he
suspected : the chancellor and deans were bound to see that no precep-
* Petri Rebuffi in privilen;ia et immunitates univorsitatum, etc. p. 1 1.
+ L. Sicut ^ aristo. ff. servit., vendic,
^ Etiam si esset cUabolus qui potest prohiberi ne strepitnm faciat in domo sua
si tamen invenirctur serviens qui banc illi inbibitionem facere auderct.
^Rebuffus. p. 124.
JIQuia forte ipsi, cum sint jam magni, roJderent suis doctoribus quadniplura.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 29
for, resting under the weight of legitimate suspicion, should enter the
hall of examination. The examination must be conscientious, and
mild, rather than severe : "quinimis emungit, elicit sangidnem."
Professors, beadles, and college messengers, were prohibited to re-
ceive dinners from students who were commencing their- course, even in
those universities where a contrary custom prevailed, as at Montpellier.
In the universities, and particularly at Toulouse, Poictiers, and at
Cahors, it was the custom for masters to receive no salary from students
that were poor, and they should even remit the whole sum which such
students were required to pay. At Bourges, when a poor person had a
suit against the crown, the king was obliged to employ two advocates ,
one for himself and the other for his adversary,* that the case might be
no fiction.
The student was at that epoch compared with the poor, parurn ha-
hens, who returned to his home with an empty purse.
Non unquam gravis aere domum milii dextra redibat.
In the year 1295, on the Tuesday after Trinity, Philip the Fair ex-
empted the masters and students of the University of Paris from all state
imposts, even for the expenses of war.f
Students had the right to wear short garments, vestes hreves, and of
any colour which suited their fancy. In traveling, they could carry
arms at their side. At Avignon and Montpellier, even the clergy wore
red shoes, caligas ruhras.
"We professors," said Rebuffy, ''judge the intellect of our pupils from
their costume.
A feather in the hat, the sign of levity.
Grave dress, mark of se7ni wisdom.
Brilliant robes, sign of heedlessness.
Dirty garments, sign of gluttony."
"Do you desire now to know the fashion proper for a student ? Ask
Simachus, the philosopher, and he will tell you that his robe should not
sweep the dust, and if it trails upon the ground, the mud should not be
seen on it ; he ought therefore to choose a gray colour ; gray denotes
hope."
In case of grave offence towards a student, the judge could investigate
it officially. For the protection of students, St. Louis, in the month of
August, in the year 1229, passed an ordinance running thus:
"Let not our overseer, or officer of justice, lay his hand upon a stu-
dent, or send him to prison, unless the offence be one requiring a prompt
repression: then the officer shall arrest him without a blow, if the guilty
person do not defend himself: he shall be placed under the authority of
the ecclesiastical tribunal, which shall confine him until satisfaction be
made us. "J
* Quod si pauper habet litem cum rege et non habeat unde facial expensas,
rex administrat advocatum ut Veritas causae servetur.
t Rebuffus, 148.
:j: Et tunc justitia nostra arrestabit eum in eodem loco sine percussione, nisi
se defenderit, et reddet eum ecclesiasticae justitiae quae eustodire debet pro
satisfaciendo nobis.
3*
30 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
The books of a student, like the arms of a soldier, could not be seized.
The creditor could not take them as a pledge, but must wait until the
student had completed his course. "For," this privilege said, " it is
important for the student to have books to improve and strengthen his
intellectual faculties. Society is interested in his studies, and, conse-
quently, so is the creditor, as a member of the community. He ought
then to have patience, for the sake of the public good, and wait till the
student shall have finished his course:" &:c. VVhat is deferred is not
lost.*
The Jews, who, in many parts of the kingdom, had the right to keep
stolen goods, which had been sold to them, or placed in pawn, until
claimed by the lawful owner, who had to pay what had been advanced,
did not enjoy the same privilege where students were concerned, who
iiad been robbed of their books by some domestic. The book being
recognised, the student took it away without any compensation to the
one who had bought it, or who held it in pawn. Severe prohibitions
were made to all boarding-house keepers, against taking books as the
price for dinners or repasts.
As wives, in right of dower, had preference over every creditor, widi
regard to the property of their husbands, so in every distribution of a
debtor's e fleets, the student had the same advantage, and that in behalf
of the professors and rectors of colleges, whose pay must be assured to
them.
The student enjoyed all the civil rights of the city in which he was
studying, whether he had a domicile there or not; by this privilege it
was intended to rescue him from the acdon of the common law, which
allowed a citizen, even for the claim of one cent, to imprison a stranger,
and detain him until he had given bail.f
The student was dispensed, from standing sentinel at the city gates,
even in time of war or pestilence, from mounting guard, or from other
duties imposed on citizens, in virtue of an immunity conceded by Charles
VI., at Pontoise, on the 12th of June, 1419, and this, notwithstanding
any charter of Norniandy to the contrary.}:
During the whole time of their studies, students w^ere not required to
pay any of those taxes known under the name of excise, {gahelles.)
In the month of June, 1340, Philippe de Valois had enacted the follow-
ing ordinance: "In virtue of our plenary power, it is our will that no
layman, whatever his office or dignity, whether bailifFor overseer, should,
under any pretext, disturb or molest the students in passing to or from
college, or require them to pay any impost, under the title of toll, tax,
customs, etc." ,, This privilege was confirmed by Charles V., who , on
the 26th of September, 1369, ordered that the student should be dis-
pensed from all tax, tani in aqua quam in terra Tax-
gatherers, who exacted from a student any impost which he did not owe,
* Q,u(xl difTorotur non auferetur.
t Quo cavetur quod civis, cum Uteris clamoris unius solidi, possit debitorem
forensem etiam ad corpus non oblig ituin capi facere et in carcerea detruderc,
(ioncc dederit tidei-jussores. RebutTus, p. 305.
:j:Bar. per. Mum. tex. in. 1. 1. c. qui eetate, lib. 10.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVI». 51
were condemned to compensate to the party in damages, according to a
jjrivilege granted to the University o( Paris, by Charles VII., on the 25th
of Novea"iber, in the year 1460.
At Montpellier there is preserved a charter of Charles VIII., wherein
the monarch, — taking into consideration the services rendered to France
by the Universiiy of that city, and tlie labours and pains undergone by
those devoted to letters, who, in their studies, search for the pearl of
wisdom* at so great a cost, — frees the masters and students from all
duties of the excise.
The rector of the University of Paris, and the managers, were accus-
tomed to assemble together three times each week, — at two o'clock on
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, — to exercise what they termed
jurisdiciionem in suos ; that is, to examine everything regarding the
charges of professors and beadles, the respective rights of the students
and landlords, and to regulate whatever concerned literature, as manu-
scripts, bookbinding, and the art of iJlumination or colouring. f
Neither the masters nor the students of the University of Paris could
be excommunicated. Innocent IV. had thus decreed: Let no one dare
pass or publish a sentence of excommunication against any rector, mas-
ter, manager, or student of the University of Paris, even for the crime of
murder, without an express permission of the Apostolical See.J
By the canon la-.v, the student was allowed to occupy himself in his
studies on festival days; because, if, for the good of the State, it be law-
ful on the Lord's day to repair or construct bridges, there is greater reason
for allowing studies by which the kingdom of God may be benefited.
The civil, came to the aid of the canon law, and decided that if it be
allowable to. engage in occupations, but for which men could not subsist,
there is stronger reason for allowing the study of sciences, without which
the world would cease to exist.
Here is a beautiful prayer, taken from St. Thomas, which the pious
student was wont, each morning, to recite on rising from his slumbers.
" Oh ineffable Creator, who, from the treasures of thy wisdom,
hast formed nine choirs of angels, which, in marvelous order, thou hast
established above the firmament : thou, who hast with such order distri-
buted the spheres of the universe! fountain of light, sovereign principle
of all things, deign to illumine the darkness of my understanding with
the rays of thy splendour, and to correct that twofold misery which I
inherit at my birth — ignorance and sin. Oh thou who makest eloquent
the infant's tongue, instruct my tongue and spread upon my lips the
treasures of thy grace: Grant perspicacity to my understanding, facility
to my memory, subtilty to my intellect, and grace and abundance to my
elocution : sustain my efforts, direct my progress, and complete my
instruction."
Rebuffy, the Montpellier professor, who never let a morning pass
* Margarita Sapientiae.
t Robert Goulet in compendio — Rebuffus, p. 233.
t Rebuffus, pp. 240,-241.
32 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
■without saying this prayer of tho angel of the schools, certifies that those
who will recite it devoutly, will be saccessful in their studies.*
His '' Manuel for Students,'' (scholasticis necessarium,) is a moral
code, where, in his advices to his pupils, one may study the life of a
student of the sixteenth century. It appears that it was an agitated,
tumultuous, idle life. RebufFy complains of young men, who, at college,
give very little heed to the lectures of the professor, amuse themselves
in counting the tiles on the neighbouring houses, and whose minds are
ever in the dishes. f He would wish them to stay in their rooms instead of
going forth to study in the open air, on the public promenades, where
they are disturbed by the noise of persons passing, and are tempted by
the ogling of ladies, who peep at them from the windows. He wishes
them to be laborious the first year, more laborious the second, very
laborious the third, and most laborious the fourth. Gather, during
your young days, does he say to them, collect, and keep in mind the
beautiful verses of the poet:
Ut ver dat florem, flos fructum, fructus honorem,
Sic studium morem, mos sensum, sensus honorem.
He would desire that, at each university, the student should be made
do what he had seen practised at Toulouse, where the student, before
taking a drink, had to expound a text of the Roman law, or recite it
from memory. He recommends to his pupils not to chatter at table
like women, to have only one or two dishes, and, if possible, not to eat
oftener than three times every two days.:}: "Oh shame!" he exclaims,
"in our times we not only eat oftener than thrice in every two days, but
ten times, and frequently even three times in every hour ! Oh ! how much
preferable is the rain which falls slowly and gently, to those showers
which inundate and tear the soil!"
*Et qui hoc fecerint, venient ad studiorum suorum frucrem, multamque
scientiam accipieiit, et omnia eis prospera succedent — scholasticis necessarium,
p. 270.
t Sed sunt in studio tegulas domus numerantes et animum in patinishaben-
tes, p. 276.
:{: Ter in duobus diebus comedere.
CHAPTER III.
CALVIN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BOURGES. 1529-1532.
Death of Gerard Calvin. — Letter of John Calvin to Daniel. — Bourges, Andrew
Alciati. — Melchoir Wolmar. — Calvin resumes the study of theology. — Theo-
dore Beza. — System of Predestination. — Calvin's return to Paris. — The
Civil Power deals severely with the Reformers.
The views of Gerard Calvin underwent a change. Whether he had
divined the religious tendencies of his son, or had foreseen those con-
tests to which Catholicism was destined to be subjected, and amid which
the faith of the neophyte might yield ; or, perhaps, because, in his view,
theology presented but a rude career, overspread with perils, and offer-
ing but little prospect of profit or glory, he determined to give a differ-
ent direction to the studies of his child. The paternal bosom was
agitated by worldly thoughts, as Calvin himself remarks.* At that
epoch, the law was the path to honours, to dignities, to the councils of
the prince, and to fortune. Andrew Alciati had just been summoned
from Italy, by Francis I., to teach at Bourges, for an annual salary of
twelve hundred crowns (ecus) of gold.f -'The king has made an ex-
cellent disposition of the twelve hundred crowns of gold, which he has
granted to master Alciati," said the aldermen of Bourges, "for never
before was the city so illustrious or happy; never had its magistrates so
much business. "J Gerard resolved that his son should study law.
The student submitted, without a murmur, and at first went to Orleans,
where the lectarer was Peter de I'Estoile, an able man, who afterwards
became president of the parliament of Paris, and, in his day, enjoyed
the reputation of being the most acute jurist in France. Peter de I'-
Estoile instructed his pupil to give more closeness and solidity to his
logic, to prune his rather exuberant phraseology, to be more sober in
his use of figures and ornaments, and to render his style more free and
unembarrassed in its march. John Calvin constituted the delight of
his master ; he was assiduous, docile, and full of zeal for study : already
* Cum videret pater, legum scientiam passim augere suo3 eultores opibus,
spes ilia repente euni impulit ad mutandum consilium. Ita factum est ut revo-
catus a philosophiae studio ad leges discendas traherer, quibus tametsi ut patris
voluntati obsequerer, fidelem operam impendcre conatus sum. Calv. preef.
ad Psalm.
t Paul Freherus, Theatrum virorum eruditione singulari clarorum Norim-
bergae, 1588. p. 826.
X Letter to Chancellor Duprat.
34 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
he was ranked "as teacher, rather than pupil," says one of his biog-
raphers;* Master Francis Baudoin, (Balduinus,) relates that Calvin
pursued no other occupation at college, except that of calumniating his
comrades : hence, they gave him the surname of accusativus. They
were wont to say of him : — John knows how to decline even to the
accusative, t
From Orleans he went to the University of Bourges, where his studies
were suddenly interrupted. He was hurried away to take care of his
sick father, whom God was soon to remove from him altogether. Gerard
Calvin slept in the faith of his ancestors, reconciled with the church
which he had afflicted, and praying silently for the salvation of a son,
who was about to be exposed to the temptations of the world. Calvin,
was not willing to leave a description of the last moments of his father;
most probably, because he would have been obliged to paint the hopes
of a soul, which burst its earthly ties and soared away, at this exhorta-
tion of the priest : "Depart, christian soul, from this body of clay, and
go to meet thy God." Plere are the first lines traced by the student of
Paris and of Orleans. The letter is addressed to Nicholas Duchemin.
" When we parted, I promised to rejoin you soon again, and I ex-
pected to do so ; but the sickness of my father has delayed my departure.
The physicians induced me to look for his restoration to health, and
then I thought only of you. Days have passed away; at last nothing
remains butdispair, death is at hand. Whatever happens, I shall see
you again ; embrace Francis Daniel, Philip, and all the family. Have
you enrolled your name among the professors of literature?^"
This letter is written by the bedside of a dying father, at the moment
the physician has declared that all hope is gone, and when the priest,
at the sound of die parish bell, is bringing the last consolations of re-
ligion to the dying man. . . . And Calvin has no tear to shed while
announcing this sad news to his friend ! See whether he breathes a
prayer, or solicits one from Duchemin! He narrates the scene as we
would describe an ordinary drama. "There is no more hope of recove-
ry; deatii is certain." The physician, who issues from the chamber
of the sick man in his agony, would not have spoken otherwise ; and
yet the kiss, which John has, no doubt, impressed on the lips of his
father, is the last : he will see him no more; the father and child will
never meet again. "Gerard, an impenitent papist," according to Beza,
"is now in a dwelling of flames; John, the Evangelist, the elect of
God, will see the Lord face to face." Thus has the reformation already
♦Theodore Bcza.
t Franc. Balduiuus, Apol, sccunda contra Calv.
t Manssc. ex Bibl. Gen. Quod tibi proniiseram discedens me brevi adfutu-
nun, ea mo expcctatio diutius suspensum habuit, nam dum reditum ad vos
meditor, patris morbus attulit causam remoiee. Scd cum medici spem facercnt
posse redire in prosperam valctudinem, nihil aliud visum est quam tui desideri-
um, quod me antea graviter affecorat, aliquot dierum intervallo acui. Interim
dies de die trahitur, donee eo ventum est ut nulla spes vitee sit reliqua, certum
mortis periculum. Utcumque res ceciderit ad vos revisam. Saluta Francis-
cum Danielem, Philippuni, et totum domus tuai contubernium. Jam dedisti
nomen inter rei literaree professore.s ^
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK. 35
Stifled in this young heart, every throb of filial sensibility. Luther did
not have the sad consolation to be present at the death of old Hans,
He was far from his father, when he learned the news that the last hour
of the miner of Moehra had struck, and then he also wrote to a friend, but
with what bitter sadness, with what poignant sorrow !
Calvin departed from Noyon, in order to continue the study of law.
A professor was then figuring at Bourges, whose reputation was wide-
ly spread as jurist, theologian, historian, and poet : this was Alciati of
Milan, the man of all sciences,* of whom we have spoken already,
and whose great fame induced Francis I. to invite him to France. He
had received honours almost divine, from the several university cities
through which he passed. Calvin heard him, and was filled with won-
der. Alciati was as well acquainted with the Rome of the age of Jus-
tinian, as if he had then inhabited it : he might be taken for a pleader
of the Via Sacra, coming to explain the customs., laws, and usages of
Latium. When some thought vividly engrossed him, he transferred it
to verse, that his auditory might preserve the memory of it eternally.
One day, when speaking of Horace, he commenced chanting the
poet's arms :
Gentiles clypeos sunt qui Jovis alite gestant;
Sunt quibus aut serpens aut leo signa ferunt.
Dira sed hsec vatum fugiant animalia ceras,
Doctaque sustineat stemmata pulcher olor.
Hie Phoebo sacer et nostrae regionis alumnus
Rex olim veteres servat adhuc titulos.
Beautiful verses, which one of the pupils of Alciati translated on the
instant, but less poetically;
ARMOIRIES DES POETES,
D'aucuns ont en leurs armes aigles;
D'aiitres lions, serpents ou foines (fouines.)
Mais nous ne tenons point ces regies:
Ains (mais) avons trop plus nobles signes.
Nous, poetes, portons le cygne
De Phebus, oiseau bien chantant.
8a naissance nous est voisine :
Roy fut dont est le nom portant.
Calvin, among the first to come to the lecture of the doctor, took his
place near the chair, and with eye fixed and mouth wide open, listened
to Alciati, in a sort of ecstacy. On his return to his lodgings., and in
his little study chamber, he hastened to fill his note-books with all the
fine things he had just heard. "He wrote and studied till night, and
to be able to do this, he ate very sparingly at supper : then, on awaken-
ing in the morning, he was wont to remain awhile in his bed, recalling
to mind and ruminating upon all he had learned the evening before."!
* Qui omnium doctrinarum orbem absolvit. Epitaph of Alciati, engraved
on the tomb of this jurist, in the church of St. Epiphanius, at Paris,
t Beza.
36 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIlf.
His memory was thus fertilized; and without suspecting it, upon those
benche-s, filled with students of all countries, he learned the very thing
which was then taught in the convents; the mechanical process of
argumentation. There was this difference, that at Bourges, Alciati's
sylogism was coloured with profane poesy, that it might produce a more
vivid impression. Calvin would have left the convent with but one
God, Aristotle ; but from the benches of the university he brought away
a thousand, which Alciati had presented to him for his adoration. These
were the several founders of Roman jurisprudence, whom in his lyrical
enthusiasm, the Milanese compared with Romulus.
The student soon exchanged the emperors, consuls, ediles, and magis-
tracy of Rome, for the gods and poets of Greece, to propagate whose
worship in France, the king had given the mission to a German Luthe-
rari, by name Melchior Wolmar. Melchior cherished as the sons of
his own flesh, the pupils which he engendered, rather for Luther than for
Sophocles or Demosthenes : he took especial care of them, caressed
them, and, in case of need, even paid their debts. It appears that he
manifested a marked predilection for John Calvin, whose nature seem-
ed a compound of two; for he was Teutonic, in his laborious persever-
ance at «tudy, and Gallic, "in his great, promptness to apprehend his
master''^ lessons and the sallies of oral disputation."*
Melchior Wolmar made great calculations upon his pupil, to aid the
•work of the reformation. It appears that particularly did he found his
hopes of the future upon the capricious humours of Calvin : he wrote
to Farel : ''As to John, I do not fear so much as I hope from his whim-
sical disposition : for this vice is well suited to advance our cause, and
make him an able defender of our opinions ; because he will not so
easily be taken himself, as he will be able to entrap his adversaries in
still greater snares. "f Calvin did not forget this college friendship, and
let him be praised for it ! Very long after his departure from the uni-
versity, he called to mind his good Wolmar, and said to him :
" During my whole life I shall cherish the memory of your zeal for
my advancement, of your love for your disciple, of your delight in
ornamenting my mind with all the gifts of science. It was under you,
that I studied Greek letters ; and you were not content to watch over
my progress in literature, but also were kind enough to open for me
your purse. "J
Wolmar often, on finishing his lecture, would take Calvin's arm,
and, walking in the college court, discourse with him on the Greek
mythology, of which he was passionately fond. But this passion did
not blind him. He had divined that Calvin was not born to be a com-
mentator of Aristophanes, like a college pedant, or to attach himself,
like Aleandro, to some famous printer, for the purpose of illustrating,
with notes and variations, some recently discovered manuscript.
* Beza.
t De Calvino non tarn metuo ingenii sui ten Strebloten, quam bene spero, id
enim vitii aptum est rebus noslris, ut in magnum assertorem nostrorum dogma-
tum evadat; non enim facile capi poterit quin majoribus tricis adversaries
involvdt.
:t:PraBf. Comment, in Ep. ad Cor.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 37
One day, the two were taking their usual evening walk : — "Bo you
know," said Wolmar to his pupil, "that your father has mistaken your
vocation? You have not been called like Alciati to preach law, nor
like myself to spout Greek ; give yourself up to theology, for theology
is the mistress of all sciences."*
These words decided the future destiny of John Calvin, who closed
his Homer, and from that day set himself to the study of the word of
God. Now, the word which he found in the Bible, -vvas not that of the
Latin Vulgate, — still today read in the school and the church, — but the
French of Le Fevre d'Etaples, or perhaps, of John Olivetan, which,
with the zeal of a neophyte, he endeavoured to expound, as he would
have done one of those ancient comedies, upon which Melchior was
then commenting, A Catholic preceptor would not have neglected to
inform him that there existed a beautiful exegesis of the holy books,
transmitted from age to age — from Jesus to Leo X. — and against which
no human voice, were it that of Berengarius, of Arius, or of Luther,
could ever prevail — the exegesis of authority. Such preceptor would
have shown him the Bible, at that very moment a prey to the disputes
of men fond of novelties; — of Zwingk, Luther, Melancthon, (Ecolam-
padius, Capito, Hedio, Bucer, — who could not come to an understanding
among themselves, and were engaged in erecting a tower of Babel,
which still stands a monument of confusion.
Among the students who crowded round the chair of Melchior Wol-
mar, to catch, drop by drop, the dew of magisterial instruction, was
Theodore Beza, less harshly judged by Catholicism than by Protestant-
ism, which calls him "the opprobrium of France, a simoniac, and an
infamous libertine. "f An elegant young man, quite perfumed w^ith
amber and poesy, who, at the same time, made court to women, to the
muses, and to his professor Wolmar. The professor spoiled him, the
muses inspired him with chants that Catullus would not have disavowed,
and the women deceived him. It appears that the student of Vezelay
had reason to complain of the last, and that he was compelled to seek
in a suburb of Paris, for the health which he had compromised in their
service. J He is the only artist belonging to the Genevan reformation.
At that epoch, he thought little about the word of God : his whole con-
cern was to study Anacreon and Horace, and to set forth his conquests
in trochees or iambics, which, with a voice still sweeter than his lyrics,
he read to his comrades. At times, he was too antique in his fancies,
and essayed to imitate the poet of Teos, even in his shameful amours.
He sang a youth, named Audebert, whose beauty he eulogised in verses,
which formerly Rome would have applauded, but which, in France,
should have been consigned to the flames. In his later years, many a
bitter regret was caused by these libertine pages, which Beza, the minis-
ter, would willingly have torn from his book of epigrams ! But the
* Florimond de Remond. p. 882.
tGalliae probrum, simoniacus , sodomita, omnibus vitiis coopertus.
4: He led a dissolute life at Paris, and, in one of the suburbs of that city,
was subjected to a course of medicine. Bolsec. Histoire de laviede Theodore
de MezQ, Paris, in 12mo. 1582,
4
38 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIS,
scandal was without remedy, as the pages had been made impeTishable;r
by Robert Etienne, who had lent the aid of his presses. We must
quote Catullus, as witness of Beza's virtue, in default of cbsistian poets,
ancient or modern, whom we should in vain exhume to certify the in-
nocence of his verses to Candida and Audebert.*
In our history of Luther, we have exhibited the Saxon monk amus-
ing himself at the tavern of the Black-Eagle, in Wittenberg, and with
his lips steeped in the beer of Thorgau, treating of woman more like
an anatomist than an apostle of the gospel : but in his Table-talk, there
is no Corydon chanting his Alexis. We had a right, at least to expect^
from Beza a little more modesty, and that he would not put himself
forward, as he has done, to tell us of the sad state of morals at Orleans
and Bourges, previously to Calvin's arrival. It was not becoming,,
?n this poet of equivocal amours, to affirm, that the spark of faith at that
time was only kept alive in two or three hearts ;t — in those of Daniel^
* THEODORUS BEZA, DE SUA IN CANDIDAM ET AUDEBERTU2VI BENEVOLENTIA-
Abest Candida; Beza, quid morarisi
Audebertus abest: quid hie moraris'?
Tenent Parisii tuos amores,
llabent Aurelii tuos lepores;
Et tu Vezeliis manere pergis,
Procul Candidulaque, amoribusque,
Et leporibus, Audebertuloque?
Immo Vezelii procul valete;
Et vale, pater, et valete, fratres!
Namque Vezeliis carcre possum,
Et carere parente, et his, et illis :
At non Candidula, Audebertuloque.
Sed utrum rogo praeferam duorum'?
Utrum invisere mo decet priorem ?
An queniquam tibi, Candida, anteponani ?
An queuiquam antefcram tibi, Audebertel
(4,uid si me in geminas ipse partes,
Haruni ut altera Candidam revisat,
Currat altera versus Audebertum?
At est Candida sic avara, novi,
Ut totum cupiat tenere Bezam.
Sic Bezae est cupidus sui Audebertus,
Beza ut gestiat integro potiri.
Amplector quoque sic et hunc, et illani,
Ut totus cupiam vidcre utrumque;
Integrisque frui integer duobus.
Praet'erre attamen alterum necesse est;
O duram nimium necessitateml
Sed postquam tamen alterum necesse est
Priores tibi defero, Audeberte.
Quod si Candida forte conqueratur
Quid turn? basiolo tacebit uno,
tHist. Eccl. lib. 1. p. 9, and the following.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 39
(the lawyer, and of Nicholas Duchemin : — that then hope in Christ, our
Kedeemer, was extinct ; that the- merits of his blood were no longer in-
voked by sinners ; calumnies spread upon their path, by Luther, when
he appeared at Wittenberg ; by (Ecolampadius, on his entry into Bale;
by Zwingle, om his mountains of Schwytz ; and by Bucer, at Stras-
bourg.* This accusation must fill us with astonishment, issuing from
the lips of a young student, who must sometimes have entered the cathe-
dral of Bourges, were it only to listen to those magnificent hymns of
our venerable old church, in which they sang that "a drop of the divine
blood was suffici-ent to save the world." Where then did Beza pass
his time ? What ! did this poetic spirit, in visiting Strasbourg, never
cast his eye upon the portal of Munster, on which the architect Ervin
de Steinbach, has sculptured this beautiful alegory ? — On the right, a
female (the church) holding in one hand a chalice full of hosts; in the
other, a cross ; while above her head, in the form of a crown of glory,
is this motto :
Mit Christi Blut uberwind' icli Dich.
The blood of Jesus Christ makes me triumph over thee.
On the left, a female with her eyes closed, (the synagogue,) one hand
grasping a broken arrow, and the other resting on the shattered tables
of Moses, and her head surmounted by these words :
Dasselbig Blut verblindet mich.
This blood blinds me.
And was he never inside the temple ? For he would have beheld upon
the door of the tabernacle, priests vested in surplices, kneeling before
the blessed Sacrament, and murmuring : 0 Jesic qui passus es pro
nolis niiseri», misero pecatori miserere. Oh Jesus, who suffered for ixs
miserable, have mercy on a loretched sinner. "f
A comparison has been instituted between Beza and Melancthon,
two natures entirely different. In Beza it was matter poetically
organized : his musical ear would have been tortured by a limping
verse, a doubtful epithet, or a word which did not savour of antiquity ;
his brain opened, on the least excitement, to pour forth metrical trea-
sures of every sort, but his soul had little share in this mechanical la-
bour. Thus, when the reformers carried their devastation into the abbey
of Cluny, you beheld him moved, and that but feebly, at the sight of
mutilated statues, of arabesques shivered by some soldier's lance, and
of all the wonders of art effaced by fanaticism, in its ruinous march.
But on seeing the priests, who had erected those monuments, blessed
them and consecrated them to the Lord, driven forth without a shelter
and without bread, he will remain cold as marble. Melancthon is not
thus constituted. With him, it is the soul that lives and feels. Hence,
when Luther, at Cobourg, shall essay ^to break to pieces the clerical
*Christum a nobis primum vulgatum audemus gloriari. John Pappus, in der
Wid£xlegung des Zweybrttckisch-Berichts, p. 427.
t Osias Schadaus, Beschreibung des Mtlnsters, 56, 57.
40 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
hierarchy, then observe the countenance of Melancthon, and you will
surprise the tears stealing from his eyelids. He weeps over the ruins of
the episcopacy, but from human respect, and a too carnal affection for
his father, he conceals his tears. Should he, like Beza, ever visit Stras-
bourg, be assured he will listen to the concert which the very stones of
its cathedral will sing for him, and not insult the faith of the bishops
sleeping in the vaults of the church. He will not, like Beza, the
scholar of Vezclay, damn the prelates. The reason is, because his
mother, like that of Beza and of Calvin, is a Catholic, and he cannot
comprehend that God has not had mercy on the woman, who nourished
him with her milk. Calvin, in his puritanism, sent to the flames of
hell, all who did not walk in the light of the reformation. You are
mistaken, if you imagine that God placed Beza near Calvin, in order
to moderate his ferocious zeal. Beza has indeed his lyre, but he will
not use it : and, besides, would Calvin, who compares himself to a
prophet,* listen to its soothing tones ? Music or poetry can never ex-
ercise sway upon a soul as cold as his.f
Thus, the friendship which, on the benches of the school of Bourges,
brings them together, will be one entirely worldly in its character, with-
out a single holy ingredient. Both, workmen of evil, will labour for
the ruin of the papacy, or, to borroAV their language, of the papolatry,
without commiseration for the white heads of the priests, whom they
will rob of their daily bread, and of their ancient charge of souls. If
they enter the temple of St. Peter, at Geneva, and stumble over some
statue of a saint, reversed by popular fury . . . , neither of them
will stoop to gather up the fragments, because, in their opinion, this
image will recall the memory of a religion which they desire to abolish.
If a pyre be raised on Champel, and a man be seen ascending it, chant-
ing hymns to God, be assured that Calvin will not even, wink in con-
templating the scene ; and should a tear come to moisten the eye of
Beza, he will know how, with the hem of his ministerial robe, to wipe
it away so completely, that his master shall not detect the slightest trace
of its presence. Perhaps, in the case of Beza at least, you will ex-
plain this entire want of human sensibility, by the creed which Calvin
has taught him : they both believed in predestination. Luther under-
stood this degrading system, which, delivering man over to despair,
would make him doubt of God ; he expressed his opinion of it to Me-
lancthon, and cursed him who first introduced it into the world. Sin-
gular destiny ! the reformation dries up the noblest sentiments of the
soul ; in the serf-will of Luther, it degrades it to a level with the brute;
in the work of the illumined Carlstadt, it deprives ii of those places of
expiation, beyond the present life, where it can still, by its tears and
sufferings, make satisfaction to divine justice ; and in Calvin's Institutes,
it nails it to fatalism, like a criminal upon his gibbet. Behold, then,
the three grand truths which the reformation comes to present to man :
the servitude of the interior self, the inutility of prayer, and the mark
of damnation upon the forehead of the new-born babe.
^Preface to the Psalms. tSee the chapter entitled : Theodore Beza,
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 41
It seems that Calvin had elevated his ideas about predestination into
a system, and was frightened at his own doctrines : for, at this period,
we behold him agitated by remorses, which disturb the tranquility of his
soul. Fear is apparent in his letters.* He writes to one of his friends,
Francis Daniel : "I behold around me no secure asylum, although my
friends offer me one on every side. De Coiffart, the elder, has his
house ready to receive me." It is in virtue of the mission of his bishop,
that he preaches his desolating dogmas to his Catholic flock. Though
he has renounced the '-'papism," he still discharges the ofRce of a
*"'papist." ''Yes," he relates, "I was then at all times very far from an
assured tranquility of conscience. For, Avhenever, and as often as I
descended into myself, or lifted my heart to thee (God!) such ex-
treme horror seized me, that no purifications, no satisfactions, could, in
any manner, cure me. Ah ! the more closely I looked into myself,
the sharper stings pierced my conscience, in such sort, that no solace or
comfort remained for me, except to forget, and thus to deceive my-
self."!
Afterwards, on a sudden, this interior struggle ceased : the ''solace
and comfort" came, and usurped dominion over his soul : and the reason
was, that he no longer belonged to Catholicism. "God," if we shall
credit his own assertion, "by a sudden conversion, subdued his heart,
and made it docile; for, age considered, it had hitherto been somew^hat
too hardened in such things. "J Calvin has neglected to inform us
what stroke of Providence this was, which rescued him so suddenly
from the darkness of "papism."' Nor is there any explanation how it
happened, that God, who illumined him, did not impel him to send to
his bishop his clerical letters, renounce his benefices, and cease to live
on bread prepared by heretical hands; for he still continues to eat, and
live upon, the bread of Pont-1-Eveque. Had it not been for this bread
of episcopal charity, he would not now be at Paris, or preaching his
doctrines in the neighbouring villages ; but for this bread, he might,
perhaps, be labouring at the trade of his uncle, the locksmith ; or at
Noyon, engaged in continuing the occupation of his father. For his
mother is no more ; and, for support, he is dependent upon the liberali-
ty of the Mommors, who would, no doubt, Avithhold their contributions
did they know the use that he makes of their bounty; or upon the
revenues of his modest benefice, w^hich his bishop might still let him
enjoy, as an alms, to save him from despair and starvation, even though
aware of the new path which he is treading. His panegyrists are quite
proud because they can say to us : Observe now^ ! Calvin never re-
ceived orders, he never belonged to the Catholic priesthood, and did not
imitate the conduct of Luther. We answer them . that Luther, in
*Quoties enim vel in me descendebam, vel animum ad te attollebam, extre-
mus horror me incessebat, cui nulla piacula, nulles satisfactiones mederi pos-
sent. praef. ad. Psalm.
tOpusfr. p. 194. Geneva. 1611.
\ Deus tamen arcano Providentiae suae freno cursum meum alio tandem re-
flexit: ac primo, cum superstitionibus Papatus magis pertinaciter addictus
essem quam ut facile esset e tarn profundo luto me extrahi, animum meuna*
subita conversione, ad docilitatem subegit, Preef. ad Psalm.
4*
42 LIFE or JOHN CALVIN.
affixing his theses publicly on the front of the church of Wittenberg,
displayed a courage, of which the student of Noyon was destitute.
Galvin hides himself; he denies his faith, but he does so in silence, and
wrapped up in secresy and darkness. He imitates those electors of
Saxony, who, while declaiming against monkish intemperance, become
intoxicated out of the goblets which they had stolen from the convents.
If it be by a stroke from heaven, that he has been smitten while on the
route to Damascus, let him then cease to think of the morrow : God will
provide for him. When, about this time, Ignatius of Loyola knocks
at a convent gate, demanding a mission to preach to the infidel, he does
not say : Give me bread; but he asks for the staff of a pilgrim, and
sets forth upon his journey, supported on his way by the God who feeds
the birds of heaven. We connot comprehend this distrust of Provi-
dence in a man who, like Calvin, calls himself another David, "seen,
as it were, in a mirror,"* and who, upon his epistles, impresses a beau-
tiful seal, representing the hand of a youth, offering to God his heart,
around which are the letters J. C. f It was a want of confidence in
God; — a timid nature ; a soft, pusillanimous spirit,:]: (and it is Calvin
that gives this testimony of himself,) who is driven on by circumstances^
but who never could have been able to command circumstances.
Calvin had left the University of Bourges, in the year 1532, and re-
turned to Paris, for the purpose of advancing the cause of the reforma-
tion; searching for souls like his own, easily seduced, amorous of
change, whom he soon intoxicated with that wine of novelties, so sweet
to the taste, but so fatal to the brain. These allowed themselves, one by
one, to be taken in his net, seduced by his siren voice, the spell of which
could lull those, whose reason it did not disturb. To youth, he preach-
ed contempt of confession, the inutility of works, the danger of pilgrim-
ages. He poured out his ridicule upon monks, convents, and Catholic
priests. He declaimed against the luxury of' bishops, the wealth of
churches, and the ignorance of the priesthood. He preached against
the pomp and state of the successors of Leo X., the lavishment of in-
dulgences, and the revenue paid to the papacy by the court of France.
He announced a word, destined, as he boasted, to change the world,
moralize society, destroy superstition, and diffuse light. H© pointed to
a new star, which first appeared at Wittenberg, and was then gleaming
in the horizon of France. They listened to him, and his success was
fir greater than he could have anticipated. He wrote : "I was quite
astonished, that, in less than a year, all those who manifested a desire
for pure doctrine, thronged around me to learn, although I had myself
but just commenced. For my part, inasmuch as I am naturally a little
unpolished and bashful, I have always loved repose and tranquility, and
I began to seek for some lurking-place, and pretence to withdraw from
men ; but so far from attaining the object of my desire, on the contrary,
*Preface to the Ps;\lms.
t See pag'^ 24th de rAvertissemcnt des lettres a Bourgogne, with regard to
Calvin's seal.
^ Ego qui natura timido, molli et pusillo animo me esse fateor. Praef. ad.
Psalm.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 43
every retreat and private place became for me like a public school. In
short, however much it has been my wish to live retired and unknown^
God has so made me travel, and subjected me to such different changes,
that he has never allowed me repose any where ; but in spite of my
natural disposition,, he has, as it is termed, brought me to light,, and
made me take a prominent part."*
Calvin formed acq.uaintance at Paris, with a merchant^ named Etienne
de la Forge,t an ardent Lutheran, whose shop served, every evening,
as a rendezvous for his sect, and where John commonly preached.
His discourses, replete with outbursts against Catholicism, were always
terminated by the same formula : If God is with us, who shall be against
us ? By Luther it was said : If our work be from men, it will fail ;.
if from God, it cannot perish. It is the same thought, expressed in
different terms, and its truth has been disputed by Adolphus Menzel ;
as if, he says, in his preface to his history of the reformation in Ger-
many, fact, in its extreme power, can ever constitute right !
What had occurred in Germany,, now was witnessed in France : from
these nocturnal and clandestine predications, there issued forth — a host
of neophytes, quite inflamed with a fire which they called divine ; im-
promptu prophets, who imagined themselves called to regenerate the
work of fifteen centuries ; doctors without learning or study, who pre-
tended to convict our sacred interpreters of falsehood ; Levites without
soutans, transformed into apostles by the breath of Calvin ; Sorbon-
nists v.^ithout diplomas, who asked to- dispute with master and maid-ser-
vant. Artizans in the morning, disciples at noon, and preachers in the
evening, they were like the buffoon described by Walter Scott : with
an archer's head, the waist of a major-domo, and the feet of a runner.
These new men were then called Lutherans, for the name Huguenot had
not yet been discovered. These Lutherans existed in many of the cities
of France, and especially at Meaux, where they excited great disturb'
ance : the civil authority w^as more than once compelled to repress
their fanatical zeal and insolent language. Before the magistrates, they
were proud and bold ; in prison, radiant with serenity : they thought
them.selves called by God, and inspired Avith his word. At Paris, Cal-
vin had founded a little church, where he preached at night, with closed
doors, and attacked tradition, in its Catholic organs, faith, in its myste-
ries, the magistracy, in its representatives, the church, in the papacy,
and society, in its religious forms ; thus, at once, revolting against the
constitution of tlie country, its creed, and its laws. Pasquier presents
him to us, "in the midst of his books and study, with a nature exerting
its ,gi'eatest energies for the progress of his sect. We sometimes beheld,
says he, our prisons crowded with poor, abused people, whom, without
ceasing, he exhorted, consoled, encouraged by his letters ; nor did he
* Pra?f. ad Psal. Ego qui natura subrust'oas umbram etotium amavi, tunc
latebras captare coepi, quee adeo concessae non sunt, ut mihi secessus omnes
instar publicee scholce essent.
t Etienne de la Forge, deceased, whose memory (according to Calvin,),
should be hallowed among tke faithful, as a holy martyr o£ Christ,
€ontre les Libertins. cb. 4.
44 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIBf,
want messengers, to whom, in spite of all the precautions taken by the
gaolers, the prison doors were opened. It was by this process, in the
commencement, that he succeeded to secure by degrees a portion of our
France, in such sort, that after considerable time, beholding the hearts
of many predisposed for his designs, be resolved on a further step, and
sent to us ministers, — by us termed preachers, — to exercise his religion
privately, especially in our city of Paris, where fires were enkindled
against them."*
At first, the civil power had recourse to menaces : but menaces
proved useless ; it employed the prison : but the prison convert-
ed nobody. The Lutherans, in their pamphlets, circulated by night,
devoted the magistrates to the indignation of the populace, their judges
to the execration of posterity, the prince to the anger of the Lord, and
papists to eternal flames. Were they banished, they soon again re-
entered to France, with a zeal for proselytism increased by all the suf-
ferings they had endured in exile. Was a passage read to them from
the Bible, in which the apostle recommends obedience to the powers of
earth? they pointed to their father in Christ, at the Diet of Worms,
hurling his defiance in the teeth of the emperor and orders, and choos-
ing rather to obey God than men. In their eyes, Luther was a new
Paul, whose word would rescue the earth from the darkness of super-
stition. Were they told that Luther had been condemned by the Holy
See, they responded, by quoting some Latin verses which had found
their way across the Rhine ; If Luther be guilty of heresy, Christ
himself must be brought to judgment. f The magistrates, for the most
part, were ignorant of the circumstances which had transpired in the
country, which heresy had ravaged, else they could have, at that very
hour, pointed to poor Carlstadt flying from the wrath of Luther, and
forced to abandon Saxony, and beg his bread, because he had credited
the monk's word, and essayed to introduce a new doctrine into the re-
formed world.
Violence was resorted to : pyres were erected, and various fanatics
perished, whose death was transformed into a martyrdom ! Credulous
souls, and meriting commiseration rather than anger, who expected to
gain heaven by apostacy, and died joyously for the glory of a word
which they did not comprehend, and for which not one of Calvin's suc-
cessors would at this day shed so much as a drop of ink ! for the Christ
made after the image of Calvin, no longer resembles the Christ of cer-
tain ministers of Geneva in our day. The Christ of John of Noyon
possessed a double nature ; he was God and man ; and the Christ of the
reformer's successors is no more than a son of Adam, formed out of the
slime of the earth, and only a little greater than Mahomet or Alexander^
* Pasquicr, Rechcrches sur la France, liv. 8. p. 769.
t Hosrosibus si dignus erit Luthcrus in ullis,
Et Christus dignus criminis hujus erit.
Sagtman, dasz Lutherus sey schuldig einiger Ketzereven;
Ey so musz dann Christus selbst dieses La&ters schuldig seyn.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TREATISE ON CLEMENCY. 1532.
Examination of the work. — Trouble and torments of the author. — Various
letters. — Calvin sells his benefice, and his part of the family inheritance.
When the sword of the law fell upon one of his followers, the voice
of Luther was magnificent; it exclaimed, in the ears of emperors,
kings, and dukes : You have shed the blood of the just. And then the
Saxon, in honor of the martyr, extemporized a hymn w^hich was chanted
in the very face of the civil power :
"In the low countries at Brussels,
The Lord his greatness hath displayed,
In the death of two of his loved children,
On whom grand gifts he had bestowed."*
Calvin had not the courage to imitate Luther. He has told us that
he wanted courage ; he again repeats it : he says — that he, a plebian,
trifling as a man, and having but little learning, has nothing in him
which could deserve celebrity. f And yet he essayed a timid protest in
favour of certain Huguenots who had been burned on the public square :
'*The work," says Papire Masson, "of a double-faced writer, a Catho-
lic in his writings, and a Lutheran in his bed-chamber. "J
Tliis is his first book. It is entitled : De dementia, or, Treatise on
Clemency, and is a paraphrase of some Latin writer of the decline. §
Moreover, this is the first time that a commentator is ignorant of the
life of him whose twork he publishes. Calvin has confounded the two
Senecas, the father and the son, the rhetorician and the philosopher, of
*Zu BrUssel in dem Niederland
Wohl durch zween junge Knaben
HatGott sein Wunder macht bekannt.
Die er mit seinen Gaben
So reichlich hat gezieret.
tUnus de plebe homuncio, mediocri, seu potius modica eruditione prceJitus,
nihil in me habebam, quod spem aliquam celebritatis excitare possit.
:};Ediderat Calvinus Commentarios illos de Clementia, aliud agens, aliud
simulans.
^Lutetia transiens quum annum ageret vigesimum quartum, egregium ilium
commentarium scripsit in Senecse libellum de Clementia: quo scriptore gra-
vissimo, et ipsius Calvini moribus plane conveniente valde delectatum fuisse
constat. Beza, vita Calvini, at the head of the reformer's epistles. Geneva,
1576, in folio, p. 3.
46
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
both of whom he makes but one literary personage, living the ver)''
patriarchal life of more than one hundred and fifteen years.
We must pardon Varillas,* for having, with sufficient acrimony,,
brought into relief this mistake of the biographer of Seneca, the phi-
losopher, and not, like the historians of the reformation, become vexed
at the proud tone of the French historian. Had the fault been com-
mitted by a Catholic, where is the Protestant who would not have done
the same thing as Varillas ?
The literary work, which Calvin, in the shape of a commen-
tary, has interwoven with the treatise of Seneca, is a production
not unworthy a literato of the revival ; it is an amplification,
which one would suppose to have been written in the cell of a
Benedictine monk, so numerous are the citations, so great is the display
of erudition, so replete is it with the names, Greek and Latin, of poets,
historians, moralists, rhetoricians, philosophers, and philologists. Cal-
vin is a coquetish student, who loves to parade his reading^and his
memory. His workf is a gallery, open to all the ancient and modern
glories of literature, whom the commentator calls to his aid, often for
the elucidation of a doubtful passage. The young rhetorician glorifies
his country, and when upon his march he encounters some historic
name, by which his idea can be illustrated, he hastens to proclaim it^
with all its titles to admiration. He there salutes Bude in magnificent
terms : "Bude, the pillar and glory of human learning, thanks to
whom, at this day, France can claim the palm of erudition. "J The^
portrait which he draws of Seneca is the production of a practiced pen:
"Seneca, whose pure and polished phrase savours, in some sort, of his
age ; his diction florid and elegant ; his style, without labour or re-
straint, moves on, free and unembarrassed. "§ It may be seen that the
student had the honour to study under Mathurin Cordier, and to attend
the lectures of Alciati ; but, after all, his book is but a defective allego-
ry ; for what reader could have divined that the writer designed to repre-
sent Francis 1., under the name of Nero, as addressed by the Cordovan?
The treatise could produce no sensation, and, like the work of Seneca,
must be shipwrecked in that sea of the passions, which, at the two
epochs, raged around both writers. ||
Calvin experienced much trouble in having his Latin commentary
printed : he was in need of funds, and the revenues of his benefice of
Pont-1-Eveque, were insufficient to defray the expense of printing.
*Varrillas, Histoire de I'Heresie, etc. liv. x. Bayle, Art. Calvin.
t Joannis Calvini in L. Annaei Senecae, Romani senatoris ac philosophi cla-
rissiini, libros duos de dementia ad Ncronem Caesareni, commentarii, Genevse,
ex typographia Jacobi Steer, 1611.
The first edition published at Paris bears the title: L. Annei Senecae, Ro»
mani senatoris, ac philosophi clarissimi, libri duo de Clementia ad Neronem
Ceesareni: Joannis Calvini Novioduneei commentariis illustrati. Parisiis apud
Ludovicum Cyaneum sub duobus gallis, in via Jacobsea, 1532. in 4to.
:j:Rei literariae decusac columen, cujus beneficio palmam eruditionis hodie
sibi vindicat nostra Gallia.
i Sermo purus ac nitidus, suum scilicet saeculum redolens; genus dicendi
clegans ac floridum, stylus illaboratus ac sine anxietate fluens.
II Und wurden in diesem tobenden Meere von Leidenshaften tiberhSrt und
nicht beachtet. Paul Henry, p. 55.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 4^
How could he apply to the Mommor family ? Moreover, he was in
dread that his book should prove a failure, and thereby injure his bud-
-ding reputation. All these alarms of a maiden author are set forth in
various letters, which he addressed on this subject to the dear friends of
.his bosom.
*' Behold my books of Seneca, concerning Clemency, printed at my
own expense and labour !* They must now be sold, in order that I
may again obtain the money which I have expended. I must also
watch that my reputation does not suffer. You will oblige me, then,
by informing me how the work has been received, whether with favour
or indifference ?" The whole anxiety of the poor author is to lose no-
thing by the enterprise ; his purse is empty ; it needs replenishing : and
he urges the professors to give circulation to the treatise ; he solicits one
of his friends at Bourges, a member of the University, to bring it for-
ward in his lectures ; and appeals to the aid of Daniel, to whom he
sent a hundred copies. f Papire Masson was mistaken : the com-
mentary on Clemency did not first appear, as he supposes, under the
title o( Lucius Calvinus, civrs Romanus,X but under that of Calvinus,
a name ever after retained by the reformer. §
This treatise introduced Calvin to the notice of the learned world :
Bucer, Capito, (Ecolampadius, sent congratulations to the writer ; Cal-
vin, in September 15.32, had sent a copy of his work to Bucer, who
was then at Strasbourg. The person commissioned to present it, was a
poor young man, suspected of Anabaptism, and a refugee from France.
Calvin's letter of recommendation is replete with tender compassion
for the miseries of the sinner. '^My dear Bucer," he writes, "you will
not be deaf to my entreaties, you will not disregard my tears ; I implore
you, come to the aid of the proscribed, be a father to the orphan.." ||
This was sending the sick man to a sad physician : Bucer, by turns,
Catholic, Lutheran, Anabaptist, Zwinglian ! Besides, why this prose-
lytism of a moral cure ? The exile was Anabaptist by the same title
that Calvin was predestinarian, in virtue of a text of scripture : "Go,
whoever shall believe and be baptised, will be saved." The Anabap-
tist believed in the ineflicacy of baptism, without faith manifested by
an external act ; but is not Calvin, at this very hour, as much to be
pitied as the Anabaptist ? He also doubted, searched, and interrogated
his bible, and imagined that he had caught the meaning of a letter,
*LibriSenec8e de dementia tandem excusi sunt meis sumptibus et mea
opera; nunc curandum ut undique colligatur pecunia quee in sumtus impensa
est; deinde ut salva sit mea existimatio, primum velim mihi ut rescribas quo
favore vel frigore excepti fuerint. Mss. Arch. Eccl. Bernensis. — The first
book of this treatise on Clemency contains twenty-six chapters, the second,
seven.
t Tandem jacta est alea. Exierunt commentarii mei in libros Senecae de
dementia, sed meis sumptibus, qui plus pecuniae exhauserunt quam tibi per-
suaderi possit, etc. Mss. Arch. Eccl. Bern.
XCalvin, a Roman citizen., Papirius Masso, Vita Cavini. p. 412, t. lb
elogiorum.
jMaimbourg. Histoire du Calvinisme, p. 57.
II Paul Henry, p. 55. t. 1.
/
48 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
which no intelligence before him had been able to seize. And what
was this truth, the conquest of which infused such fear into his soul^
that, before he could announce it to the Avorld, he sold his charge of
Pont-1-Eveque, and even his paternal inheritance ?
In the year 1531, John Calvin presented himself before Simon Le-
gendre and Peter Le Roy, royal notaries at Paris, to invest his brothers
with powers of attorney, to sell what had been left him by his father
and mother.
" To all to whom these present letters shall come ; John de la Barre,
Chevalier Count d'Estampes, Governor of Paris, and Chief of the ju-
dicial tribunal of said city, greeting ; We make known that before
Simon Legendre, and Peter Le Roy, notaries of our Lord the King, at
Paris, came in person, master John Cauvin, licentiate at law, and An-
thony Cauvin, his brother, clerk, living at Paris, and sons of Gerard
Cauvin, — while yet alive, secretary of M. the Bishop of Noyon, — and of
Jeanne le Franc, his wife ; who jointly and severally, make, name,
ordain, appoint and establish as their general agent and special attor-
ney, master Charles Cauvin, their brother, to whom bearing these pre-
sent letters they grant, and, by these presents, do give full power and
right to sell, concede and alienate, to whatever person or persons, the
two undivided thirds belonging to the aforesaid constituents, coming to
them in proper right of succession by the demise of the aforesaid de-
ceased Jeanne le Franc, their mother, also the fourth undivided part of a
piece of meadow, containing fourteen acres, or thereabouts, sit-
uated in the territory of Noyon, and pertaining on one part to the
wood of Chastelain ; on another to the nuns and abbess of the French
Convent, the Abbey aux Bois; on another, to the monks and sisters of
the Hotel-Dieu of St. John, at Noyon, and to the chapter of the church
of Notre Dame, of the said city, and running up to the highway passing
from Noyon to Genury; to make sale and alienation of the same, for
such price, and at such costs, as the aforesaid master Charles Cauvin,
their brother, shall judge for the better ; to collect the money and give se-
curity, with lean upon all their future possessions. Done, and passed, on
Wednesday, the fifteenth day of February, in the year 1531."
Some short time after this, Calvin resigned his charge of the chapel
de la Gesiue to Anthony de la Marliere, mediante pretio converdionis,
for the sum agreed on, says the act of transfer, and also to Ca'im his
benefice of Pont-1-Eveque, for a similar consideration.*
* All the above details are grounded on the information of the late M.
Antoine de Mesle, Doctor of Law, Treasurer and Canon of the church of
Noyon, ordinary judge of the Episcopal court of the place; and further, on tlie
testimony of Papire Masson: Duo ilia beneficia vendidit, Antonio Marliero
unum, alterum Guilielmo Bosio presbytero Noviomensis ecclesiae. Papirius
Masson has taken Bosius (du Bois) for Caim. — le Vasseur.
CHAPTER V.
€ALVIN AT THE COURT OF MARGARET. THE PSYCHOPANNYCHIA
1534-1535.
Cop and Calvin fly from Paris. — The Court of Nerac. — Calvin at Claix. — Du
Tillet, — Calvin at Orleans. — The Reformation in France. — Servetus — Exile,
of Calvin. — Strasbourg. — Bale. — The Psychopannychia. — Examination of
the work. — Judgment of Calvin.
The storm was gathering : Calvin wished to expose to its fury
some other head than his own, and chose that of Nicholas Cop, rector
of the Sorbonne, at Paris. Cop was a German of Bale, who was
captivated with the student, because of his ready speech, his airs of vir-
tue, his scriptural knowledge, his raileries against the monks, and his
ridicule of the University. As to the rest, he was a man of a dull,
heavy mind, understood nothing of theological subjects, and would have
been much better placed in a refectory, than in a learned body ; at
table, than in the professor's chair. Cop had to pronounce his usual
discourse on All-Saints' day, in presence of the Sorbonne and the Uni
versity. He had recourse to Calvin, who set to work, and "built him
up a discourse," says Beza, — ^'an oration quite different from those which
were customary."* The Sorbonne and tjniversity did not assist at the
discourse, but only some Franciscans, who appeared to be scandalized
at certain propositions of the orator, and among others, at one concern-
ing justification by faith alone in Christ : — an old error, which, for many
ages, has been trailed along in all the writings of heretics ; often dead
and resuscitated — and which Calvin, in Cop's discourse, dressed out in
tinsel, in order to give it some appearance of novelty. Bat our Fran-
ciscans had sight and hearing equally good ; they detected the heresy
easily, and denounced to the parliament the evil sounding propositions,
which they had taken pains to note down in writing. Cop was greatly
embarrassed by his new glory ; he had not expected so much fame.
He, however, held up well, and convoked the University at the Mathu-
rins. The University assembled in a body in order to judge the cause.
The rector there commenced a discourse, drawn up by Calvin, in
which he formally denied having preached the propositions denounced,
with the exception of one only, precisely the worst, that concerning
justification. Imagine the tumult which the orator excited ! Scarce-
ly could he make himself heard, and ask mercy. The old Sorbonnists
* Beza. Hist. Eccl. t. 1. p. 14.
60 l.iri OF JOHN CALYIN.
shuddered on their benches. The unfortunate Cop would have been
seized, had he not made his escape to return no more.*
The student kept himself concealed at the college du Fortet, which
was already surrounded by a body of archers, headed by John Morin.
Calvin was warned of their approach. "He escaped through a window,
concealed himself in the suburb St, Victor, at the house of a vine-
dresser, changed his clothes, assumed the long gown of the vine-
dresser, and placing a wallet of white linen and a rake on his shoulders,
he took the road to Noyon."t "A canon of that city, who was on his
way to Paris, met the cure of Pont-1-Eveque, and recognized him. —
"Where are you going, master John," he demanded, "in this fine dis-
gui.se ?" "Where God shall please," answered Calvin, who then began
10 explain the motive and reasons of his disguise, "And would you
not do belter to return to Noyon, and to God ?" asked the canon, look-
ing at him sadly. Calvin was a moment silent ; then taking the priest's
hand : — "Thank you," said he, "but it is too late."
J3uring this colloquy, the lieutenant was searching Calvin's papers,
and secured those which might have compromised the friends of the
fugitive.
Calvin found a refuge with the queen of Navarre, who was fortunate
enough to reconcile her protegee with the court and the University. The
person, whom she employed to effect this, was an adroit man, who had
succeeded in deceiving the government. Francis I. based his glory
upon the patronage and encouragement which he accorded to learning,
and Calvin, as a man of letters, merited consideration. The King
needed some forgiveness for serious political faults, and, with reason, he
believed that the humanists would redeem his character before the peo-
ple. He was at once the protector and the slave of the literati.
At that period, the little court of Nerac was the asylum of writers,
who, like Desperriers, there prepared their Cymhalvm Mundi ; of
gallant ladies, who composed love-tales, of which they were often the
heroines themselves; of poets, Avho extemporized odes after Beza's
model ; of clerics, and other gentry of the church, who entertained
packs of hunting dogs, and courtezans ; of Italian play-actors, who, in
the queen's theatre, presented comedies taken from the New Testament,
in which Jesus was made to utter horrible things against monks and
nuns ; or of princes, who, like the queen's husband, scarcely knew
how to read, and yet discoursed, like doctors, about doctrine and dis-
cipline.J
It was against Roussel, (he confessor of Margaret, that Calvin, at a
later date, com.poscd his "Admrsiis JSkodcirrUas." At Nerac, he found
* Revcra Copus si:spcctse ca-pit esse fidci, ct quia pater ejus iGuiliolmus, regis
mcdicus, pp.ruui .sfinc snpcrc crcdcbatur, ct quia .cuin hfEVcticis fumiliariter
convcrsari compc rtusost. Undo post(juam rcticitum est cum fiigissc, Jolianiics
Morinus balivus Calvinum qui tunc in collcgio Fort(^tico moraI)ctur, nli(^sque
ejus fajniliarcs inquisivit ad prchf ndcudum, scd illi similiter liiga sibi codpu-
luerunt. Hist. Univ. Paiisicn. nuctoro Bulaeo t. vi. p. 239. in lol. Paris. 1673.
t Dcsmay. — Drelincourt, p. 157. Papiiius Mcsso. B(za . . . . quo do mi
non roporto. cited by Paul Henry, p. 56. t. I.
± Florimond de Rerr.ond, p. 889.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 51
ie Fevre d'Etaples, who had fled from the wrath of the Sorbonne, and
w-ho '"regarded the young man with a benignant eye, predicting that he
was to become the author of the restoration o[ the church in France."*
Le Fevre recalls to our mind that priest, about whom Mathesius tells
us, who said to Luther, when sick, — My child, you will not die ; God
has great designs in your regard. f As to the rest, James le Fevre d'-
Etaples was a sufficiently charitable and honest man, who often repeat-
ed these two verses, which have been engraved on his tomb, at Nerac ;
Corpus humo, mentemque Deo, bona cuncta relinquo,
Pauperibus: Faber heec dum moreretur ait.
He died a Catholic, and very probably without ever having prophesied
in the terms mentioned by Beza.
It does not appear that Margaret enjoined the law of silence upon
her guest of Noyon, for we find him disseminating his errors in Sain-
tonge, where many labourers flocked to hear him, and abandoned Ca-
tholicism to embrace the reformation. It was while on one of his
excursions, that the missionary encountered Louis du Tillet, clerk of
the parliament of Paris, and secretary of du Tillet, bishop of Meaux.
Louis possessed a beautiful dwelling, at Claix, a sort of Thebais, retired
and pleasant, where Calvin commenced his most serious work, The
Christian Institutes. J The time he could spare from this literary
occupation, he devoted to preaching in the neighbouring cities, and
especially at Angouleme. A vine, beneath which he loved to recline
and muse, may still be seen ; it was for a long time called CaMn's
vine.§ He was still living on the last bounties of a church which he
had renounced, and which he called, '-'a step-mother, and a prostitute;"
and on the presents of a queen gallant, whose morals and piety he
lauded, continuing to assist at the Catholic service, and composing
Latin orations, which were delivered out of the assembly of the synod,
at the temple of St. Peter. j|
He left the court of Margaret, and reappeared at Orleans.
The reformation in France, as in Germany, wherever it showed itself,
produced on all sides, disorder and trouble. In place of a uniform
symbol, it brought contradictory confessions, which gave rise to inter-
minable disputes. In Germany, the Lutheran word caused a thousand
sects to spring up, each of which wished to establish a christian repub-
lic en the ruins of Catholicism. Carlstadt, Schwenkfield, (Ecolampa-
dius, Zwingle, Munzer, Bockold, begotten by Luther, had denied their
father, and taught heterogeneous dogmas, of which every one passed for
the production of the Holy Ghost. Luther, who no longer concealed
himself beneath a monk's robe, but borrowed the ducal sword, drove
*Beza, Vie de Calvin,
t Als er krank lag, weissagte ihm ein alter Priester, er werde nicht sterben,
sondern noeh ein groszer Mannwerden. Mathesius, p. 2.
X Bayle's Dictionary, article, Calvin.
\ Das Leben Johann Calvin's von P. Henry, t. 1. p. 50.
I Florimond de Eeraond.
52 I-IFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
before him all these rebel angels, and, at the gate of Wittenberg, sta-
tioned an executioner to prohibit their entrance : driven back into the
provinces, the dissenters appealed to open force. Germany was, then,
inundated with the blood of her noble intelligences, who had been born for
her glory : Munzer died on the scaffold, and the Anabaptists marched
to punishment, denying and cursing the Saxon, who did violence to
their faith. Every thing was perishing : painting, sculpture, poesy,
letters. The reformation imitated Nero, and sang its triumphs amid
ruins and blood.
In France it was destined soon to excite similar tempests. It had
already troubled the church. It no longer, as before, sheltered itself
beneath the shades of night, to propagate its doctrines. It erected by
the side of the Catholic pulpit, another pulpit, from which its dogmas
were defended by its disciples ; it had its partizans at court, among the
clergy, in the universities and in the parliaments. Calvin's book de
Clemenlia, gained him a large number of proselytes : his disciples had
an austere air, downcast eyes, pale faces, emaciated cheeks, — all the
signs of labour and sufferings. They mingled little Avith the world,
avoided female conversation, the court, and shows ; the Bible was their
book of predilection ; they spoke, like the Saviour, in apologues.
They were termed christians of the primitive church. To resemble
these, they only needed that which constitutes the very essence of Chris-
tianity, viz : faith, hope and charity. To be convinced that their sym-
bol was as diversified as their faces, it was only necessary to hear them
speak ; some taught the sleep of the soul, after this life, till the day of
the last judgment ; others, the necessity of a second baptism. Among
them, there were Lutherans, who believed in the real presence, and
Zwinglians who rejected it; apostles of free will, and defenders of fa-
talism ; Melancthonians, who admitted an ecclesiastical hierarchy ;
Carlostadians, who maintained that every christian is a priest ; realists,
chained to the letter ; idealists, who bent the letter to the thought;
rationalists, who rejected every mystery ; mystics, who lost themselves
in the clouds ; and anti-trinitarians, who, like Servetus, admitted but
two persons in God. These doctors all carried with them the same
book, — the Bible.
Servetus, or Servedus, a Spanish physician, had left his own country^
and established himself, in 15.31, at Hagenau, Avhere he had published
different treatises against the Trinity. He had disputed at Bale with
(Ecolampadius, sometime before this renegade from the Lutheran faith
''was strangled by the devil," if we are to believe the account given by
Doctor Martin Luther. Servetus boasted that he triumphed over the
theologian. Having left Bale, in 1532, and crossed the Rhine, he
came to hurl a solemn defiance at Calvin ; the gauntlet Avas taken up
by the cure of Pont-1-Eveque, the place of combat indicated, the day
for the tournament named, but at the appointed hour, "the heart of this
unhappy wretch failed," says Beza, "who having agreed to dispute, did
not dare appear." Calvin, on his part, — in his refutation of the errors
of Servetus, published, in 1554, — boasts of having in vain offered the
LIFE OF JOHN CALVI>'. 63
-Spanish physician remedies suitable to cure his malady.* Servetua
pretends that his adversary was laying snares for him, which he had the
good fortune to avoid. At a later period he forgot his part, and came
10 throw himself into the ambuscade of his enemy. f
The parliaments redoubled their severity : Calvin was narrowly
watched, his liberty might be compromised, and even his life put in
peril. He resolved to abandon France, either from fear or spite, — if
we are to credit an ecclesiastical historian, — not being able to forgive
Francis I. for the preference manifested by tliis prince towards a rela-
tion of the constable, "of moderate circumstances," who was promoted
to a benefice, for which the author of the Commentaries on Seneca had
condescended to make solicitation. The testimony of the historian is
weighty. Soulier knows neither hatred, passion, nor anger ; he seeks
after the truth, and he believes that he has found it in the recital which
we are about to peruse : X
"We, the undersigned, Louis Charreton, counsellor of the king,
dean of the presidents of the parliaments of Paris, son of the late
messire Andrew Charreton, who was first Baron of Champagne, and
counsellor to the high chamber of the parliament of Paris; Madam
Antoinette Charreton, widow of Noel Renouard, former master in the
chamber of the courts of Paris, and daughter of the late Hugh Charre-
ton, Lord of Montauzon ; and John Charreton, sieur of la Terriere ;
all three cousins, and the grandchildren of Hugh Charreton ; certify
that we have frequently heard from our fathers, that the aforesaid sieur
Hugh Charreton, had several times told them, that, under the reign of
Francis L, while the court w^as at Fontaine-bleau, Calvin, who had
a benefice at Noyon, came there and took lodgings in the hotel where
the aforesaid sieur de Charreton was lodging, who, understanding that
Calvin was a man of letters and of great erudition, and being very fond
of the society of learned men, informed him that he would be delighted
to have some interviews with him ; to this Calvin the more willingly
consented, under the belief that the aforesaid sieur de Charreton might
be able to assist him in the affair which had brought him to Fontaine^
bleau ; that after several interview's, the aforesaid sieur de Charreton
demanded from Calvin the object of his journey; to which Calvin an-
swered, that he had come to solicit a priory from the king, for which
there was but one rival, who was a relative of the constable. The sieur
de Charreton asked him, if he thought this nothing ? He replied, that
he was aware of the high consideration enjoyed by the constable, but
he also knew that the king, in disposing of benefices, was wont ta
choose tke most proper persons, and that the relative of the constable-
* Admonui Servetum me jam ante unnos soxdccim non sine preesenti vit»
(liscrimine, obtulisse meam operam ad eum sanandum-, nee per me stetisso
quominus resipiscenti manum pii omnes porrigerent.-r-^Joh. Calvini refutatio
errorum Serveti. Amst. Oper. Calv. t. viii. p. 51K This refutation bears
the date of 1554. It was in 1538 that Calvin had defied Servetus to a discus-
sion. The scene here transpires in 1533: therefore the date indicated by-
Calvin is false.
t See the chapter entitled, Michael Servetus.
:{: Soulier, Histoire du Calyinisme, Paris,^ 1686. in 4to. p, 6-8..
6*
54
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
was of very poor capacity ; to which the aforesaid sieur de Charret©T»
rejoined, that this was no obstacle, since no great capacity was needed
to hold a simple benefice ; whereupon, Calvin exclaimed, and cried
out, that if such wrong was done him, he would find means to make
them speak of him for five hundred years ; and the aforesaid sieur do
Charreton having urged him strongly to tell him how he wo'iid do this,
Calvin conducted him to his room, and showed him the commencement
of his Institutes; and after having read a portion of them, Calvin
demanded his opinion ; he answered, that it was poison well put up in
sugar, and advised him not to continue a work which was only a- false
interpretation of the scriptures, and of every thing which the holy fa-
thers had written ; and as he perceived that Calvin remained firm in
his wicked purpose, he gave notice thereof to the constable, who de-
clared that Calvin was a fool, and should soon 'be brought to his senses.
But two days after, the benefice having been bestowed on the relative-
of the constable, Calvin departed, and began to propagate his secl,^
which, being very convenient, was embraced by many persons, some
through libertinism, others from weakness of mind. That some time'
after, the constable was going to his government of Languedoc,
and passed through Lyons, where the aforesaid sieur de Charreton paid
him a visit, and was asked if he did not belong to the sect of Calvin,
with whom he had lodged : he answered, that he would be very sorry to
embrace a religion, the father and founder of which he had seen born.
In testimony whereof, we have given our signatures, at Paris, this 20th
of September, 1682. Signed; Charreton, President; A. Charreton,
Widow Renouard; and Charreton de la Terriere. "
After having published "his Psychopannychia," in 1534, at Orleans,
Calvin left that city. He felt a desire to visit Bale, at that time the
Athens of Switzerland, a city of renown, so long the abode of Erasmus;
famous for its literati, its celebrated printers, and its theologians amorous
of novelties ; where Fjroben had published his fine edition of the works
of St. Jerome, where Holbein had painted his picture of Christ ready
for the sepulchre, where Capito taught Hebrew, and (Ecolampadius
commented on the Psalms.
He set out from Orleans in company with his friend, du Tillet. Near
Metz, their domestic robbed them, and fled with their sacks and valises,
and they were forced to seek Strasbourg on foot, nearly destitute of
clothing, and with but ten crowns in their pockets. Calvin spent some
time in Strasbourg, studying the different transformations which the re-
formed gospel had undergone, during the brief space of fifteen years.
He entered into intimate relations with some of the most celebrated
representatives of Protestantism. Any one else, who had arrived there
free from prejudices against Catholicism, would have found salutary in-
struction in the ceaseless agitations of that city, which knew not where
to poise itself in order to find repose, and which, since 1521, had be-
come Lutheran, Anabaptist, Zwinglian, and, at that very moment, was
dreaming of a new transfiguration, to be accomplished by the aid of
Bucer, one of its new guests.
At Bale, Calvin found Simon Grynaeus and Erasmus. Calvin could
not neglect this opportunity of visiting the Batavian philologist, whoser
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
55
fame was European : after a short interview, they separated. Bucer,
who had assisted at the meeting, was solicitous to know the opinion of
the caustic old man : — "JVlaster," said he, "what think you of the new
comer ?" Erasmus smiled, without answering. Bucer insisted : "I
behold," said the author of the Colloquies, "a great pest, which is
springing up in the church, against the church."*
On the next day, du Tillet, clerk of the parliament of Paris, arrived
at Bale, and by dint of tears and entreaties, brought with him his bro-
ther Louis, who repented, made his abjuration, and was shortly after
elected archdeacon : a dignity, disputed with him by Renaudie, who
was to be used by the reformation for the execution of the plot of Am-
boise.f
The Psychopannychia,J the first controversial work of Calvin, is a
pamphlet directed against the sect of Anabaptists, whom the bloody
day of Frankenliausen had conquered, but not subdued. The spirit of
Munzer lived again in his disciples, who were parading their mystic
reveries through Holland, Flanders, and France. Luther had essayed
his powers against Munzer, imagining that by his fiery language, his
pindaric wrath, his flames and thunders, he would soon overwhelm the
chief of the miners, as he had defeated, it is said, those theological dwarfs,
who were unable to stand before him. From the summit of the moun-
tain, he had appeared to Munzer in the midst of lightnings, but those light-
nings did not alarm his adversary, who Avas bold enough to face him
with unquailing eye. Munzer also possessed a fiery tongue, which he
used with admirable skill, to inflame and arouse the peasants : this
time, victory remained with the man of the sledge-hammer. And Lu-
ther, who wished to terminate the affair at any cost, was reduced, as is
well known, to avail himself of the sword of one of his electors. The
wrecks, which escaped from the funeral obsequies of Thuringia, took
refuge in a new land. France received, and listened to the prophets
of Anabaptism.
These Anabaptists maintained seducing doctrines. They dreamed
of a sort of Jerusalem, very different from the Jewish Jerusalem : a
Jerusalem quite spiritual, without swords, soldiers, or civil magistracy :
the true city of the elect. Their speech was infected with Pelagian-
ism and Arianism ; on several points of dogma they agreed with Catho-
lics : on predestination, for example, and on the merit of works.
Some of them taught the sleep of the soul till the day of judgment.
* Video matjnam ppstem oriri in ecclesia contra ecclesiann.
Con. Heim. Barkhusen, in liis historical notice of Calvin, (Historischc Nach-
ncht von Joh. Calvino. Berlin, 1721, in 4to. p. 24,) raises doubts concerning"
the saying of Erasmus, and other circumstances of the interview, narrated by
Florimond de Remond.
fFlorimond deRemond, p. 889.
I This work is entitled: A treatise, in which it is proved that souls live and
•watch after leaving their bodies : against the error oi' certain ignorant persons,
who imagine that they sleep till tlie day of judgment. — Preface of John Cal-
•vin, addressed to one of his friends of Orleans, 1343, in Latin.— Psychopanny-
chia quo refellitur eorum error qui animas post mortem ad ultimum judicium
dormire putant. Paris. 1334.
66 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIK.
It was against these "sleepers" that Calvin determined to measure
himself.
The commentary on Seneca, is a philological work, a book of the
revival, a rhetorical decJamation, in which Calvin is evidently aspir-
ing to a place among the humanists, and making his couri, in sufficient-
ly fine Latin, lo all the Ciceronians of the age: this was bringing himself
forward with skill and tact. The Latin language was the idiom of the
church, of the convents, colleges, universities, and parliaments. The
Psychopannychia is a religious pamphlet, and now Calvin must expect a
rival in the first pamphleteer of Germany, Luther hinjself It is certain
that Calvin was acquainted with the writings of the Saxon monk, against
Eck, Tetzel, Prierias, Latomus and the Sorbonnists. He must be prais-
ed for not having dreamed of entering the lists against a spirit of such a
temper as his rival. Had he desired, after Luther's manner, lo deal in
caricature, he would certainly have failed. Sallies, play upon words,
and conceits, did not suit a mind like his, whose fort was finesse. By
nature sober, he could not, like the Saxon monk, fertilize his brain in
enormous pots of beer; moreover, beer was not as yet in use beyond the
Rhine. Nor had he at his service those German smoking houses, where,
of an evening, among the companions of gay science, his wearied mind
might have levived its energies. In France, the monks did not resort to
taverns. Calvin was, therefore, every thing he was destined to become :.
an adroit, biting disputant, ready at retort, but without warmth or enthu-
siasm. He loves to bear testimony in his own behalf, that *' he did not
indulge his wrath, except modestly; that he always made it a rule to set
aside outrageous or biting expressions; that he almost always mod-
erated his style, which was better adapted to instruct, than to drive
forcibly, in such sort, however, that it may ever attract those who would
not be led."* One must see that, with such humor and style, Calvin
might have died forgotten, in some little benefice of Suabia, and that
he was never formed for raisins; storms, but only for using them.
At this epoch the grand agitator of society, was first, society itself,
and then, Luther, that great pamphleteer, " whose books are quite full
of demons,"! who drove humanity into the paths of a revolution, for
which all the elements had been prepared years before. Luther had
sown the wind, Calvin came to reap the whirlwind. Not that the
latter does not sometimes rise even to wrath, but it is a wrath which
savours of labour, and which he pursues as a rhymster would a rebel-
lious epithet. Besides he is good enough to repent for it, as if this wrath
burned the face over which it glowed. "I have presented some things,"
he murmurs, "a little sharpl}^ even roughly said, which, peradventure,
may offend the delicate ears of some. But, as I am aware there are
some good persons who have conceived such affection for this dream of
the sleep of souls, I would not have them olTended with me." Where
Calvin is concerned, we must not allow our admiration to be too easily
awaked ; we must note, that he is speaking of an Anabaptist, that i?,
* Epistle of John Calvin to his readers, of Bale, 1536.
tLutheri scripta plena sunt dasmouii?,— Theol. Tigurihi in Confess. Germ.-,
Tiguriui, 1544.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 67
of a soul which has thrown off the ''papism." But let a Catholic ap-
pear,— a prie.st unknown to fame, who, as editor, shall have reprinted a
new edition of the work of Henry VIII., "Assertio Septem Sacramen-
toruni," — for instance, Gabriel de Sacconay, precentor of Lyons; and
you shall then behold Calvin, under the form of a diihyrambic, or con-
gratulatory epistle, without the least regard for delicate ears, throw into
the face of the Catholic filthy expressions, which one would say were
gathered in some Genevan brothel.*
Calvin has himself given a correct estimate of the value of his
Psychopannychia, and of his treatise against the Anabaptists, which one
of his historians desires to have reprinted in our time, purged of all its
bitterness of style. f He was right in saying : "I have reproved the
foolish curiosity of those who were debatirig these questions, which, in
fact, are but vexations of mind,"
One day, this question, about the sleep of souls. — one that in the an-
cient church had long since been examined, by Melito — was presented
to Luther, who disposed of it in a few words : — "These," said he, "are
picked nutshells. "t
In an epistle to his readers, serving for preface to a new edition of
the Psychopannychia, published at BrIc, in 1-536, Calvin resumes
courage. He no longer dreads lieutenant Morin, and insuhs the papa-
cy. If we believe him, France is marching in two fold darkness : he
calumniates the intelligence and the faith of his country. Let us exa-
mine if it be true, that God has withdrawn his Spirit and his Christ from
the fellow-countrymen of Calvin.
* Congratulation 6 venerable prestre etc. op. de Calvin. 1566.
See the chapter entitled : Clergy of Lyons.
t Es konnte dies klcine Werk im Aoszuge m einerUebersetzungf heut wohl
seinen Nutzen habeii, wenn man einige Harten, manch polemishes Wort
Wegliesze .... Paul Henry.
^ Some of these reveries about the sleep of souls hnve been reproduced in a
work entitled : Two hundred queries, moderately propounded, ^;c. London, 1684,
in 12mo.
See,Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Mai, 1684. p. 289, in 18, Am-
sterdam, 1686.
CHAPTER TI.
FRANCIS I .
When Calvin appeared the Reformation had already been commenced in
France. — Influence of Francis I. on Letters. — The Bishops, — Poncher, —
Pelissier, — Du Bellay. — The Literati, — Bude, — Vatable, — Danes, — Postel. —
The College of the three Languages. — Marot. — The Sorbonne. — The Poet
protected by the Prince. — Literary movement.
In the year 1802, the Institute of France proposed the following
question for discussion : What was the influence of Luther's reforma-
tion upon the political condition of the different European States, and
upon the progress of knowledge ? Charles Villers, a writer whose
talents we do not question, obtained the prize.* He sang the reforma-
tion much better than he judged it, for he made of it another muse, dif-
fusing life and colour over every thing she touched. This work was
printed. The philosophical world admired the essay of Mr. Villers,
out of hatred for the ancient faith, which the government was then at-
tempting to re-establish. It was, at that period, decided, that the refor-
mation was an idea of progress for which Providence should be blessed,
and that, had it not been for Luther, Europe would have continued to
grope her way in darkness. Some few courageous souls protested
against the book of the laureate, but they were not heard : the moment
had not yet arrived, when impartial, enlightened reason would do justice
to this manifesto against our national faith.
Still, at this day, there are weighty names, who, not impregnated
with the prejudices of the Protestant school, continue to give honor to
Germany for the intellectual impulse, which began to manifest itself
in Saxony on Luther's appearance. They are unwilling to under-
stand that this impulse, proceeding from Italy, and particularly from the
Rome of Julius IL, traversed the Alps, and, at the foot of the moun-
tains, separated into two streams, of which one flowed into Germany,
and the other into France. Had it not been for Luther, a social, reli-
* Essai sur I'influence dela reformation de Luther, par Charles Villers, 1 vol.
8vo. M. de Laverne has disputed the conclusions of this work crowned by the
Institute, in "liis letter to Mr. Charles Villers," in 8vo. Paris, 1804.— There is
an admirable refutation of the book of Villers, by Robelot, ancient canon of
the cathedral of Dijon, under this title — De I'influence de la reformation de
Luther sur la croyance religiouse et politique, et sur le progres des Lumieres;
in 8vo. Lyons, 1832. The German question is treated in the book of Mr.
Jacob Marx: Die Ursachen der schnellen Verbreitung der Reformation zu-
nachst in Deutschland. in 12mo. Mayence, 1834.
Ltre OP JOHN CALVIK. ^
gious, and intellectual reformation would have been accomplished,
without injury to faith. It had already been commenced in Germany,
when he arose to preach against indulgences ; and in France, when
Calvin's voice began first to be heard. We think, that without closing
the eyes against truth, no one can deny that the papacy was the instru-
ment which God used for the revival of letters; from Italy came the
spark destined for the illumination of the world. Luther, Melancthon,
Erasmus, Reuchlin, all marched by this light, and often profited by its
rays, and so far from having been created, it was often obscured or per-
verted by them.
Calvin, just like Luther, has said : — that he was sent by God to free
the world from the meshes of "Papism," to make reason shine, and to
moralize society. At this day, the eye of the stranger entering Geneva,
is arrested by this magnificent motto : Post Tenebras Lux^ enclosed in
the talons of an eagle : — the vain boast of a lapidary, which provokes
a smile from the Catholic traveler.
It is said that Cagliostro possessed the faculty of summoning the dead
from their graves : the historian must have this power also. We shall
therefore call before us some of those shades who gave glory to the age
of Francis I.: we shall inquire into the condition of the human mind,
when Calvin appeared. Before the tribunal of the reader, these glories
of the past shall be summoned, by a man who sleeps with them in the
tomb; for already has this been done, in his funeral oration for Fran-
cis 1., by Galland, one of the professors of the Royal College, who
"never opens his mouth without dropping honey from his lips."
Qui quotles avi.das reflcit sermonibus aurcs,
Motis blanda putes spargere mella labris.
Francis I. was a pupil of the college of Navarre, beloved by his fel-
low-disciples, esteemed by his rivals, and who, at the early age of four-
teen, received from one of them, as the pledge of scholastic fraternity,
the dedication of a Hebrew grammar, the first rudimental work in that
language known in France. The author, Francis Tissot, was a profes-
sor of the University. Thus, before he had yet attained the age of
majority, before his head was circled by any crown, but such as were
placed there by his masters, the muses pay their court to him. Castig-
lione, the author of that golden book, *'Il Cor/egiano," must have it
read to the Duke de Valois; he departs from the capital, carrying with
him the corrections indicated by the prince : admirable annotations,
which he exhibits to all his friends, and regards as one of his titles to
glory.
The Duke de Valois becomes king : but fear not that he will forget
the lessons of his masters. You shall see upon whom the favours of
the monarch descend.
Poncher, bishop of Paris, resisted the accumulated wrath of Louis
XII., and alone had the courage to oppose the league of Cambray.
Erasmus considers him an angel descended from heaven, to revive the
cultivation of letters.
To Poncher, he gives an archbishopric, with a mission to allure
60 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
to France the most renowned of the humanists. The king is not made
to wait : behold Justiniani, bishop of Nebio, comes to teach Greek,
Hebrew, and Arabic, at Paris.
Petit, the confessor of Louis XII., is a priest, who does not know
his own parents, and has all the poor of Paris for his children.* Petit
is promoted to tiie bishoprics of Troyes and Senlis.
William Pelissier, bishop of .Maguelonne, whose erudition is pro-
verbial, was devoted to antiquity, with an ardour which allows the soul,
possessed by it, neither sleep nor repose.
He sent Pelissier on an embassy to Venice, a city then the re-
sort of Greek fugitives, and whence he returned loaded with all kinds
of manuscripts, in Greek, Hebrew and Syriac, the future ornaments of
the royal library.
The names of the prelates are not yet exhausted.
To James Colin he gave the post of Royal Almoner and reader.
This is the same Colin who extemporises in Latin and French, and
whose praise has been chanted by Marot ;
*'Aussi I'abbe de St. Ambroys, Colin,
Qui a tant beu au ruisseau cristallin
Que Ton ne salt s'il est poete ne
Plus qu'orateur a bien dire ordonne.
Colin appreciated Amyot, whose fortune he was solicitous to secure.
The king also rewarded by brilliant embassies John du Bellay
Langeai; at Rome the confidential friends of du Bellay were Bembo,
Vida, Sadolet, A.scolti, and the other glories of the court of Leo X.,
who listened to him in ravishment.
The bishoric of Meaux, with a pension to be paid out of the
private coffers of the prince, was the reward of Rene du Bellay, who
liberally devotes his revenues to the relief of the poor, and to the pur-
chase of a cabinet of physics, the first possessed by the province.
Now, let Calvin declaim against the ignorance of the higher clergy
of France ! We know some of the prelates who occupied the princi-
pal sees of the episcopacy. Can any one believe that these priests
were obscure individuals, as he calls them ? Could they not, as well
as John of Noyon, boast of celestial endowments?
And in contemplating these violet and purple robes, we are not to
imagine that Francis I. sought for light only in the sanctuary : we
should be mistaken. At this epoch, the French episcopacy felt the ne-
cessity of placing itself at the head of the movement, which propelled
the minds of men into new paths. The court of Leo X. gives the ex-
ample of a passion for letters : the Pope is poet, musician, linguist ;
and our bishops, if they cannot sing under the inspiration of the muses,
with laudable ambition, will study the human sciences, learn the an-
cient idioms, — Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, — languages no longer spoken.
They will erect colleges, as did Cardinal de Tournon ; instruct youth,
as did Rene du Bellay ; surround themselves with men of letters, as did
Briconnet of Meaux ; resuscitate from the tomb the antique Roman
* Eustathe de Knobelsdorf.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 6l
Stones, as did the archbishop of Vienna ; and they will know how to
counsel and enlighten the prince, who has invested them with the
purple.
But there is a modest votary of learning, called by Lascaris,* "the
Athenian of France," who, far from court, conceals himself in an ob-
scure retreat, to pay hi^ suit to the muses. Erasmus knows his name,
but will breathe it to no one, not from jealousy, but because he regards
liim as a prodigy of erudition, philology, and skill in the languages and
sciences, and he wislies alone to profit by the hidden treasure. Unfor-
tunately for the Batavian philosopher, one day, at one of those repasts,
where Francis L gathered around him all the glories of his age, and at
times disputed with them on various topics, f the name of this poor
provincial, — lost among his books, and ignorant of any thing of the ex-
ternal world, except the road to the chapel where he so devoutly pray-
ed,— was suddenly mentioned ;
It was William Bude, or Budeeus.
The young student, summoned to Paris by the king, is forced to
abandon his retreat, but not his books, for these he brings with him,
upon a large car, in which, to be always near them, he sleeps at night,
and takes his meals by day. Behold him at length at court, after a
long journey, during which, Horace, Homer^ Virgil, and Demosthenes,
were his companions and fellow-travelers. On the very day of his
arrival, he was named master of petitions, chief judge of mercantile
causes, and guardian of the royal library. f
Now, while making his way to the capital, Bude indulged in delight-
ful reveries. If he knew by heart his subterranean Rome, he was also,
from the writings of travelers, well acquainted with the modern Rome
of Leo X., inhabited, in default of deities, by Michael Angelo, Raphael,
Bembo, and Sannazar. He had been informed that the Medici had
erected a splendid building, or rather palace, for the college of the
young Greeks, and he said to himself: — "If I see the king, I will say
to him : Sire, it is by the study of the ancient languages that we shall
revive letters ; build a college, — as Leo X. has done, as also has been
done at Louvain, by Jerome Busleidein, a simple canon, — where the He-
brew, Greek and Latin shall be taught. Then, when the building
shall be completed, invite thither Erasmus, for whom all nations are
contending; to whom Ingolstadt offers the general direction of studies ;
Louvain, its principal professorship; Spain, a bishopric; Rome, the
purple ; the Elector of Saxony, his University. You must, by all
means, secure Erasmus ; I solicit this in the name of the three Wil-
liams,— of William Petit, your bishop ; of William Cop, your chief
physician ; and of William Bude, your scholar." Erasmus was, for a
moment, tempted to yield to the entreaties of the king, not in order to
* Atticorum facundiam adaequavit.
t Galliard, Hist, de Fraacois ler, t. vii., p. 250.
t Nulla illi unquam ccsna, nullum prandium, nulla static aut arabulatio sine
colloquiis et disputationibus literariis peracta est, ut quicunque mensam ejus
frequentarent .... doctissimi et diligentissimi philosophi, scholani frequen-
tare arbitrarentur. Pet. Gal. orat. funeb.
6
62 LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN.
enjoy the dignities which were profTered him, but that he might at Paris
refresh himself with Burgundy wine, which, it was thought, might pro-
bably aid to re-establish his enfeebled health.*
Unfortunately, Francis I. had a rival: — Charles V., who defeated him
on the listed field of the literati, as he had done at Padua. Erasmus
was lost to us.
But nevertheless, the college of the three languages is resolved on.
it shall be a royal edifice, rising from the grounds of the Hotel de Nesle.
There shall be beautiful rooms for the professors, and vast halls for the
students. The sum of fifty thousand crowns is assigned for the support
of the institution. t A chapel shall be founded, after the designs of an
architect, to be obtained from Leo X., and which shall be served by
four canons and four chaplains. The accounts shall be kept, and pay-
ments made, by Audebert Catin ; Nicholas de Neuville-Villeroy, sec-
retary of finance, and John Grollier, treasurer of France, shall deter-
mine the cost; Peter des Hotels will supervise the expenses.:]:
Death surprised Francis I., at the moment the college was about to
be erected.
But the professors were already nominated and endowed : — two for.
HebreAV, two for Greek;— whose lessons were to be gratuitous. This
college is called the Royal College ; the professors received annually four
hundred and fifty francs each, and a good abbey, which afterwards was
withdrawn from their successors, "I know not,'"' says Remus, in a bpok
dedicated to Catherine de Medicis, "by what spunger."§
But, can any one divine who it is that shall nominate to the new pro-
fessorships ? Not the king, who, however, is a good judge, but public
opinion ; which, as is justly said by the historian of this monarch, has
made its choice beforehand.
For Hebrev/ professor, they had to direct their eyes to an Italian ; a
Venetian, and convert to Catholicism, Paul Paradis, || an Israelite, who
knew the Talmud by heart. 'Paul Paradis died in 1555, lamented by
Paris, and ushered into the other world amid the hymns of Olympus :
Splendor
Musarum charituraque, qui perisll
Tota flentc Lutetia, ast olyinpo
Applaudente.?
* De Burigni, vie d'Erasmo, p. 405, etc. t. 1. Epist. Erasmi, epist. 646".
That prodigy of erudition, Bude, was a zealous Catholic. As Calvin, ob-
serves David Clement, had published his Institutes of tlie Christian religion, in
1535, and dedicntcd the work to Francis I., so Bude dedicated to the same king
his treatise, de Transitu Helhnismi ad Christiani&mum^ to induce liim to sup-
port the rights of the religion established in France, and oppose the novelties
which threatened its destruction. Cibliotheque curicuse. t. v. p. 382, note in
4to. Hanovre, 1754.
t Belleforct, Hist. liv. vi. ch. GS. — Louis Vrevin, code des privilegies, p. 630.
% Hist, de la ville de Paris, 1. 11, p. 140. Preuves, t. 11. p. 578. — Galland.
♦ Galliard, Hist, de Francois ler.
II Galliard, Hist, de Francois ler. IT Leger du Chesne.
LIFE OF JOHN CALVIN. 6B
The bishop of Apt, John Nicholai, presents us another professor of
Hebrew, Guidacerio, who was loaded with favours by Leo X., and who,
at Paris, as he relates himself, found a brighter destiny than the Medici
and all the popes could have procured him at Rome. .
But let us bow our heads in reverence ! here is a name which
eclipses all the rest : Vatable, a poor village cure of Brametz, in Va-
lois, who, at the period of the emigration of the Greeks, arrested upon
the highway a fugitive Hellenist, divided with him his bread and his
parishioners, and in exchange obtained an initiation into the Greek and
Hebrew languages. To his lectures he attracted even the Israelites,
who returned marveling at his science, and regretting that God had not
given the young professor the grace to be born a Jew.
Vatable, upon whose religious opinions there was an attempt to cast
suspicion, was a good Catholic, who, from predilection, became attach-
ed to Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius, then a pupil, was wont sometimes
to prevent his companions from assisting at the recitations, by taking
them to the church to pray. Govea wanted an example. There wa^
question of subjecting the too pious student to the aula: now, the aula was
some strokes of a rope upon the back of the criminal, administered by
the principal and the master. Vatable pleaded the cause of Ignatius,
and Govea allowed himself to relent.*
Vatable found a rival in Peter Danes, professor of Greek ;t and a fortu-
nate rival, for the poet says, "If Bude was acquainted with the Greeks,
Danes also knew all others."
Magnus Budseus, major Danesius; ilk
Argivos norat, isle etiam reliquos.
''A great orator, according to his disciple Genebrard, a great philoso-
pher, a great mathematician, skilled in medicine and theology,'' and so
disdainful of human glory, that he published, under his servant's name,,
an edition of Pliny, held in high esteem by the learned. Never was a
literary life more completely occupied. His biographer says, "that he
laboured only four hours on the day of his marriage. "{ You will find
him at the royal college, commenting a Greek historian or poet ; at
Venice, decyphering manuscripts; in the shop of Trincavel, revising
the proof-sheets of the questions d'Aphrodisie, which this printer has
dedicated to him ; at Paris, reading to Francis I., the commencement
of his learned treatise, i/ie Ambassador; at the Council of Trent; at
* Mos estParisiis in scholasticos improbos ac seditiosos ad sanciendum aca-
demiis disciplinam ad hunc fere modum animadvertere : Dissimulato consilio
ud condictam diem in aulam collegii primarius, maglstrique nudatum certo
plagarum numero singuli afficiunt: id supplicium de ipsius nomine aulavulgo
uppellatur. Bulaeus, Hist. Univer. Paris, t. vi. p. 945.
Ignatius, on another occasion, was reprimanded as a lieretic, because the
manuscript of his