[388] Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 14.
[389] Mémoires de Martin du Bellay (Edition Petitot), xviii. 271-273. See also Mignet, Établissement de la réforme religieuse à Genève, Mém. historiques, ii. 308, etc. Also, Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, v. 395, etc.
[390] In dedicating to Wolmar his commentary on II. Corinthians, Calvin deplored the loss sustained in the interruption of his Greek studies under his old teacher, "manum enim, quæ tua est humanitas, porrigere non recusasses ad totum stadii decursum, nisi me, ab ipsis prope carceribus, mors patris revocasset." Upon the basis of the words here italicized, Merle d'Aubigné builds up a story of outcries and intrigues of priests (against Calvin) who "did all in their power to get him put into prison"! Ref. in Time of Calvin, ii. 28. M. Herminjard observes hereupon that one need not be very thoroughly versed in Latin or in Roman antiquities to understand Calvin's allusion; and every classical scholar will sympathize with M. Herminjard when he expresses, in view of the historian's blunder, "un étonnement proportionné à la célébrité de l'auteur." Corresp. des réformateurs, ii. 333.
[391] See the very sensible remarks of Herminjard, ubi supra, iii. 202.
[392] A. Crottet, Histoire des églises réf. de Pons, Gémozac, et Mortagne en Saintonge (Bordeaux, 1841), 10-11, and Merle d'Aubigné, Hist. of the Ref. in the Time of Calvin (Am. ed.), iii. 53, tell the story without any misgivings, and the latter with characteristic embellishment. But it rests on the unsupported and slender authority of Florimond de Ræmond, lib. vii. c. 14, from whose account I cannot even find that the scene was laid in the caverns.
[393] Stähelin (Johannes Calvin, Leben und ausgewählte Schriften, i. 33) well remarks that what makes this address very suspicious is the circumstance that a quite similar passage occurs in Calvin's letter to Sadolet, leading us to the conclusion that we have here only a "reminiscence" of this much later document.
[394] He resigned his chapel of La Gésine and his curacy of Pont l'Evêque, May 4, 1534. Herminjard, iii. 201.
[395] This, and not the persecution at that time raging in France, is the reason assigned by Calvin himself in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, where he tells us that, the very year of his conversion, seeing "que tous ceux qui avoyent quelque désir de la pure doctrine se rangeoyent à lui pour apprendre," he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawing from men. "Et de faict," he adds, "je veins en Allemagne, de propos délibéré, afin que là je peusse vivre à requoy en quelque coin incognu." Corresp. des réformateurs, iii. 242, 243. See the same in the Latin ed., Calvini opera (Amsterdam, 1667), iii. c. 2. This preface is dated Geneva, July 23, 1557.
[396] Whether before or after the appearance of the "Placards," is uncertain. On Calvin's early life, see Beza's Life, already referred to; the Histoire ecclésiastique; various letters in J. Bonnet's Letters of Calvin, and Herminjard, Corresp. des réformateurs; Haag, France protestante; the reformer's life by Paul Henry, D.D., and especially the scholarly work of Dr. E. Stähelin (2 vols., Elberfeld, 1860-1863).
[397] The mooted question whether Calvin wrote the Institutes originally in Latin or in French—in other words, whether there was a French edition before the first Latin edition of 1536—has been set at rest by M. Jules Bonnet, who, in a contribution to the Bulletin de l'histoire du protestantisme français, vi. (1858) 137-142, establishes the priority of the Latin. The chief points in the proof are: 1st, the absence of even a single copy of the supposed French edition of 1535; 2d, Calvin's statement to Francis Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, "I am kept continually occupied upon the French version of my little book;" 3d, his decisive words in the preface to the edition of 1551: "Et premièrement l'ay mis en latin à ce qu'il pust servir à toutes gens d'estude, de quelque nation qu'ils fussent; puis après désirant de communiquer ce qui en pouvoit venir de fruict à nostre nation françoise, l'ay aussy translaté en nostre langue." See also chap. iii. of Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, Introd. to Institution de la religion chrétienne (Calv. Opera, t. iii.).