He composed many works, of which the greater part have a polemical character. His most considerable works are Commentaries upon the New Testament, collections of sermons, the translation into French verse of a part of the Psalms, and the History of the Reformed Churches of France up to the year 1562.
Bèze went to preach at Nérac and Béarn in 1560, on the invitation of the king of Navarre. He had scarcely returned to Geneva, before he was summoned to the conference of Poissy, being esteemed, next to Calvin, as the most capable of upholding the cause of the Reformation in that assembly. “He was,” says his biographer, “of ordinary height, he had a handsome face, an agreeable bearing.... God had given him an understanding above the vulgar, an exquisite judgment, a marvellous memory, a rare eloquence, and an affability so engaging that he won the hearts of all who saw him.”
From the moment of his arrival at Poissy, he preached publicly at the court, before an attentive and select assembly. This was on the 24th of August, 1561. Eleven years later, to the very day, Charles IX. and Catherine de Medicis caused the tocsin of the [massacre of] Saint Bartholomew to knell. The inconstancy of human things! O profound mysteries of the future!
The same evening, meeting the Cardinal de Lorraine in the apartments of the king of Navarre, they held a conversation upon the articles of doctrine, and especially upon the Communion. The cardinal appeared to hold little to the dogma of transubstantiation, provided that the real presence could be in someway maintained, and after having listened to Bèze to the end, said to him: “I am glad to have seen and heard you, and I beseech you, in God’s name, to confer with me, that I may hear your reasons, and you mine, and you will find that I am not so black as I am represented.”
Thereupon Madame de Crussol, who was free-spoken, cried: “You are a good man to-day, but what will you be to-morrow? Bring ink and paper, and make the cardinal sign what he has said and confessed; for he will soon say the reverse.” She had guessed right. The rumour went, the day after, that at the very first blow the cardinal had closed the mouth of the professor of Geneva. The constable expressed his joy to the queen at dinner. “I was there,” coldly replied Catherine de Medicis, “and I can assure you that you are not rightly informed.”
The pastors presented requests, in which they demanded that the bishops should not be their judges, since they were hostile parties; that the conference should be presided over by the king and the great persons of the state; that all the differences should be decided solely by the Word of God, and that secretaries, equal in number on either side, should draw up minutes of the proceedings, which should not be held to be authentic until they were approved and signed. This was putting the finger upon the knot of the question; but the bishops would have broken up twenty conferences rather than consent to such arrangements. The queen-mother knew this well; she gave an indefinite answer, or she invited the pastors to content themselves with her simple word, that the prelates should not be the judges of the discussion; but she refused to promise anything in writing.
On the eve of the conference, twelve doctors of the Sorbonne arrived at Saint Germain, with a sorrowful air, and entreated Catherine not to let the heretics speak, or at least only to grant them this favour with closed doors. “The (conference) will bring no edification,” they said; “and the king is so young, that he may be infected by this doctrine.” “I have engaged myself for good reasons,” answered the queen, “and cannot go back; but be quiet, all will go well!”
II.
The conference of Poissy opened on the 9th of September, 1561. This was the great spectacle of the moment for Christianity. The pope trembled lest he should lose the finest of his provinces, and had sent in haste the cardinal of Ferrara with the general of the Jesuits, to hinder its taking place. The king of Spain, partly from policy, partly from fanaticism, feared the reconciliation of the two religions in France. The (Roman) Catholic and the Protestant states awaited with equal impatience the issue of the debate.
On the appointed day, they met in the refectory of the nuns of Poissy. The king Charles IX., a child of eleven years, seated himself on his throne, having on his right and left the princes and princesses of his family, the chevaliers of the order, and the officers and ladies of the court. On the two lateral sides of the oblong apartment, were the cardinals de Tournon, de Lorraine, de Châtillon, de Bourbon, de Guise, and d’Armagnac; below them a crowd of bishops and doctors. The deputies of the Reformed Churches had not yet been introduced. This [was the] first mark of inequality.