Letters of John Calvin, Volume II. Calvin Jean

letters of the Cantons to the King, in favour of the Vaudois of Provence, only served to irritate that monarch. He passionately replied, – "The Vaudois have but received the just punishment of their crimes. Besides, the Swiss have no more right to busy themselves with what passes in my kingdom, than I have to make inquiry into what they do at home." – Histoire de la Confédération Suisse, vol. xi. p. 289. The failure of those proceedings redounded to the discredit of Calvin with the people, as he had been the instigator of them. His adversaries went about reiterating everywhere that he had compromised the most valued interests of the Cantons, by drawing upon them the enmity of the King of France.

      2

      Letter without date, written at the same time as the following, (September 1545.) Summoned in the name of the Emperor to leave Strasbourg and return to Brabant, M. de Fala

1

The letters of the Cantons to the King, in favour of the Vaudois of Provence, only served to irritate that monarch. He passionately replied, – "The Vaudois have but received the just punishment of their crimes. Besides, the Swiss have no more right to busy themselves with what passes in my kingdom, than I have to make inquiry into what they do at home." – Histoire de la Confédération Suisse, vol. xi. p. 289. The failure of those proceedings redounded to the discredit of Calvin with the people, as he had been the instigator of them. His adversaries went about reiterating everywhere that he had compromised the most valued interests of the Cantons, by drawing upon them the enmity of the King of France.

2

Letter without date, written at the same time as the following, (September 1545.) Summoned in the name of the Emperor to leave Strasbourg and return to Brabant, M. de Falais had not obeyed that command. This refusal, in stirring up the imperial displeasure against him, had exposed him, without defence, to the interested denunciations of his enemies. The butt of most calumnious accusations, he saw his character misunderstood, his name outraged, his property put under sequestration, while he pined away himself – a prey to sickness and discouragement.

3

This letter, without date, seems to have been written at the same epoch, and under the same circumstances as the two preceding letters.

4

Letter without date, and without conclusion, written during the attack of the plague, under which the minister Geniston succumbed, that is to say, in September 1545.

5

Gautier Farel, brother to the Reformer. He was very soon afterwards restored to liberty, contrary to all expectation.

6

The minister, Louis de Geniston, following the noble example of Pierre Blanchet, cut off by the plague in 1543, had, of his own accord, offered himself for the service of the hospital set apart for those afflicted with the plague. He fell under it, a victim of his devotedness, in September 1545. His wife and two of his children were carried off a few days afterwards by the scourge, which almost wholly depopulated several quarters of the city.

7

There exists (Imp. Lib. Recueil Hist., de France, vol. xix.) a piece entitled Lepida Farelli Vocatio. In that letter Calvin vigorously urges his friend to repair to Geneva, by calling to mind the religious violence with which he was himself detained there, by the voice of Farel, at the time of his first entrance into that city in 1536. "Do you expect that I should thunder as you were wont to do, when you wished forcibly to draw me hither?" The urgencies of Calvin were fruitless, and the Church of Neuchatel retained, for twenty years longer, the services and the indefatigable activity of Farel.

8

The plague had dispersed the regents and students of the College of Geneva, and Calvin was labouring at the re-organization of that establishment. He had already proposed to the Council, in March 1545, to call to Geneva the celebrated Maturin Cordier, as president of the regents; but this proposal ended in nothing, and Maturin Cordier remained at Lausanne.

9

Farel was then at strife with the Seigneury of Neuchatel, on the subject of the administration of ecclesiastical property.

10

Rebuked on the ground of his morals, this minister had been banished to a country parish, and having refused to submit to the entire Consistory, he had received his dismissal.

11

Minister of the Church of Geneva; deposed, a few years afterwards, on account of the irregularities of his life.

12

Alarmed at the first movements of the Council of Trent, and the perils to which the good understanding between the Pope and the Emperor might subject the Reformation, the Deputies of the League of Smalkald had reassembled at Frankfort. But their union was not so solid as the gravity of the occasion demanded. The Elector of Saxe and the Landgrave of Hesse were influenced by different political views; but they were both alike disposed to seek the alliance of the Kings of France and England, as well as of the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, that they might withstand the storm that menaced them. – Sleidan, l. xvi., and Robertson, vol. iv. B. vii. p. 234. London, 1851.

13

"Upon the intelligence that the Duke of Savoy has retaken two strongholds in Piedmont, and that he is collecting a body of troops, resolved to continue to work at the fortifications." – Registers of Council, 28th December 1545.

14

"Oath exacted of all private individuals, of fidelity to the Seigneury, and of their readiness to live and die for liberty." – Registers of Council, 7th January 1546.

15

The Seigneurs of Berne, eagerly seeking every opportunity of establishing their influence at Geneva, had offered to guard the city, and to protect it against all foreign attacks. This proposal was discarded, as tending to compromise the independence of the Republic. – Registers of Council, 11th January 1546.

16

We read, in the Registers of Council of the 29th of January of this year: – "Calvin having been ill, the Seigneury present to him ten crowns. On his recovery, he returns the money to the Council, who cause it to be expended in the purchase of a tun of wine for him, thus leaving him no alternative but to accept it."

17

Calvin had just dedicated to M. de Falais his Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. The epistle dedicatory is of the 22d January 1546. The name of M. de Falais – sad example of the fragile nature of human affections! – was effaced ten years afterwards from the preface of this Commentary, and replaced by the name of the Marquis of Vico.

18

On the back, in the hand of M. de Falais – 'Received the 6th February 1546.'

19

Printer in Strasbourg.

20

The French were then besieging the town of Boulogne, occupied by the English. The peace between the two rival monarchs of France and England, was signed the year following. – De Thou, lib. i. ii.

21

The following is the address of this letter, taken from the original in the archives of the old Archbishopric of Vienne, and first published by the Abbé d'Artigny, – A Sire Jéhan Frellon, marchand libraire demeurant à Lyon, en la rue Mercière, enseigne de l'Escu de Coulongne. The mysterious personage who is pointed at in this letter, is no other than Michael Servetus – seven years before the trial which was to attach so fatal a celebrity to his name. Settled as a physician at Vienne, in Dauphiny, he kept up a correspondence with Calvin, under the cover of John Frellon, and he had just sent the Reformer an extract of the work which was in preparation under the title of Christianismi restitutio, expressing at the same time the desire of coming to Geneva. Then it was, that Calvin wrote to Farel the letter which has been so often cited, where this passage occurs, "Servet has lately written to me, and has added to his letter a large volume of his own delirious fancies… If it may be agreeable to me, he undertakes that he would come hither. But I will not interpose my assurance of his safety, for if he shall come, provided that my authority is of any avail, I shall not suffer him to depart alive."* – Letter of the 13th February 1546. We know how