[398] Opera Calvini (Amst., 1667), t. ix.
[399] "La dédicace à François Ier, qui est peut-étre une des plus belles choses que possède notre langue." Paul L. Jacob, bibliophile (Lacroix), "Avertissement" prefixed to Œuvres françaises de Calvin. The Institutes he designates "ce chef-d'œuvre de science théologique, de philosophie religieuse et de style." "Here," says Henri van Laun, "was a force and concision of language never before heard in France.... The influence of Calvin's writings upon the style of his successors, and upon the literary development of his country, cannot easily be over-estimated. With him French prose may be said to have attained its manhood; the best of his contemporaries, and of those who had preceded him, did but use as a staff or as a toy that which he employed as a burning sword." History of French Literature (New York, 1876), i. 338, 339.
[400] Yet it is more probable, as Stähelin suggests (Joh. Calvin, ii. 93), that the classical associations of Italy drew him to the peninsula, which was at that time the home of art, than that his fame, having already penetrated to Ferrara, procured him a direct invitation from Renée to visit her.
[401] Showing, according to Brantôme, "en son visage et en sa parole qu'elle estoit bien fille du Roy et de France." Dames illustres, Renée de France.
[402] See the pompous ceremonial on this occasion and the epithalamium of Clément Marot, in Cronique du Roy François Ier (G. Guiffrey, 1860), 68-73.
[403] Dames illustres, ubi supra.
[404] "Que voulez-vous? Ce sont des pauvres François de ma maison; et lesquels si Dieu m'eust donné barbe au menton et que je fusse homme, seroient maintenant tous mes sujets. Voire me seroient-ils tels, si cette meschante Loy Salicque ne me tenoit trop de rigueur." Ibid., ubi supra. A readable account of the life of this remarkable woman is given in "Some Memorials of Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara" (2d edit., London, 1859), a volume enriched, to some extent, with letters drawn from the Paris National Library, and from less accessible collections in Great Britain.
[405] Possibly including the wonderfully precocious child, Olympia Morata. See M. Jules Bonnet's monograph, Vie d'Olympia Morata, épisode de la Renaissance et de la Réforme en Italie. Stähelin has well traced Calvin's religious influence upon Renée and the important family of Soubise. Joh. Calvin, i. 94-110. The extant letters of Calvin to Renée are full of manly and Christian frankness, and affectionate loyalty. Lettres françaises, i. 428, etc.
[406] Stähelin is skeptical about, and Prof. Billiet and M. Douen reject altogether the story of Calvin's labors at Aosta. Thus much M. Bonnet believes to be established by concurrent MS. and traditional authority: That, early in the year 1536, Calvin had succeeded in gaining over to the reformed doctrines a number of influential men in this Alpine valley, of the families of La Creste, La Visière, Vaudan, Borgnion, etc.; that he and his converts were accused of plotting to induce the district to embrace Protestantism, and imitate the example of its Swiss neighbors, by constituting itself a canton, free of the Duke of Savoy; that the estates, on the 28th of February, 1536, declared their intention (with a unanimity procured, perhaps, by the expulsion of the opposite party) to live and die in the obedience of the Duke of Savoy and of mother Holy Church; that Calvin and his principal adherents escaped with difficultly into Switzerland; and that expiatory processions were instituted at Aosta, in token of gratitude for deliverance from heresy, in which the bishop and the most prominent noblemen, as well as the common people, "walked with bare feet and in sackcloth and ashes, notwithstanding the rigor of the season." Tradition still points out the "farm-house of Calvin," his "bridge," and the window by which he is said to have escaped. The event is commemorated by a monument of the market-place, bearing an inscription that testifies to its having been erected in 1541, and renewed in 1741 and 1841. See the interesting Aostan documents contributed by M. Bonnet to the Bulletin de l'hist. du protest. français, ix. (1860) 160-168, and his letter to Prof. Rilliet, ibid., xiii. (1864) 183-192.
[407] This is Calvin's distinct statement: "quum rectum iter Argentoratum tendenti bella clausissent, hac (Geneva) celeriter transire statueram, ut non longior quam unius noctis moræ in urbe mihi foret." Calvin, Preface to Psalms.