[418] "Porro, an propositum esset mihi famam aucupari, patuit ex brevi discessu, præsertim quum nemo illic sciverit me authorem esse." Ibid.
[419] "Me tamen non tanta sustinnit magnanimitas, quin turbulenta ejectione plus quam deceret lætatus sim." Ibid.
[420] "Præstantissimus Christi minister, M. Bucerus me iterum simili qua usus fuerat Farellus, obsecratione, ad novam stationem retraxit. Jonæ itaque exemplo, quod proposuerat, territus," etc. Ibid.
[421] "La difficulté est," he writes to M. de Falaise, April, 1546, "des fascheries et rompemens de teste qui interviennent, pour interrompre vingt fois une lettre, ou encore d'advantaige." He adds (and the details are interesting) that, although his general health is good, "je suis tormenté sans cesse d'une doleur qui ne me souffre quasi rien faire. Car oultre les sermons et lectures, il y a desjà un mois que je n'ay guères faict, tellement que j'ay presque honte de vivre arnsi inutile." Lettres françaises, i. 141, 142. Many a scholar of his day, or of ours, would consider a week of health well occupied with the preparation and delivery of two sermons and three theological lectures.
[422] "Ginevra ... che è la minera di questa sorte di metallo." Relazione di M. Suriano, 1561. Relations des Amb. Vénitiens, i. 528.
[423] This period of his life was referred to by him in his last address to the body of his colleagues: "J'ay vescu içy en combats merveilleux; j'ay esté salué par mocquerie le soir devant ma porte de 50 ou 60 coups d'arquebute. Que pensez-vous que cela pouvoit estonner un pauvre escholier, timide comme je suis, et comme je l'ay toujours esté, je le confesse?... On m'a mis les chiens à ma queue, criant hère, hère, et m'ont prins par la robbe et par les jambes." Adieux de Calvin, apud Bonnet, Lettres françaises, ii. 575.
[424] "This sacrifice," M. Gaberel forcibly observes, "has scarcely a parallel in history. Men willingly consent to make the greatest efforts, to perform the most painful acts of self-denial, with the aim of saving their country. Formerly the Genevese suffered unto death to preserve their independence. Now the same unselfish spirit is demanded of them in ordinary times that they exhibited in evil days. And, if the people accepts the 'Ordinances,' it is because it has narrowly scanned the slavery to which that moral license was leading it, which Rome authorizes in order to confiscate all other liberties. It accepts the 'Ordinances' because it has just escaped the treacherous machinations, the servitude prepared for it by men whose principle is to go just as their own heart leads them.... Strengthened by this vote, Calvin can henceforth hope to succeed in his project, and make of Geneva the Protestant metropolis, bearing as its motto, 'Holiness to the Lord.'" Histoire de l'église de Genève, i. 346, 347.
[425] Recherches de la France (ed. of 1621), p. 769. Giovanni Michiel, in 1561, told the Doge of Venice: "Nè potria vostra Serenità creder l'intelligenza e le pratiche grandi che ha nel regno il principal ministro di Genevra che chiamano il Calvino, Francese e Picardo di nazione, uomo di estraordinaria autorità, per la vita, per la dottrina, e per i scritti appresso tutti quelli di questa sette." Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 415.
[426] Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 13-17; Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol. 65, etc.
[427] Histoire ecclésiastique, i. 15.