[1129] "Car d'y proceder à present par la force," writes Catharine de' Medici at this very time, "il s'y voit un si éminent peril, pour estre ce mal penetré si avant comme il est, que je n'en suis en sorte du monde conseillée par ceux qui aiment le repos de cet Estat." Letter of Sept. 14th, apud Le Laboureur, i. 734.
[1130] The testimony of Marc' Antonio Barbaro is the more interesting from the reluctance he manifests to say any good of the reformer, whom he blames for a great part of the progress of the Huguenots in France. "È d'assai bello aspetto, ma d'animo molto brutto, perciocchè, oltra l'eresie sue, è sedizioso e pieno di vizii e di scelerità, che non racconto per brevità. Ha vivo spirito, e ingegno acuto, ma non è prudente, nè ha ponto di giudizio. Mostra d'esser eloquente, perchè parla assai con belle parole e prontamente," etc. Rel. des Amb. Vén., i. 52.
[1131] "Ha operato tanto con la sua lingua, che non solamente ha persuaso infiniti, massimamente dei nobili e grandi, ma è quasi adorato da molti nel regno, i quali tengono nelle camere la figura sua." Ib., ubi supra.
[1132] So Calvin's eye saw in an instant, and he applauded Beza's boldness. "Your speech is now before us," he wrote to Beza, Sept. 24th, "in which God wonderfully directed your mind and your tongue. The testimony which stirred up the bile of the holy fathers could not but be given, unless you had been willing basely to tergiversate and to expose yourself to their taunts." "I wonder that they were thrown into agitation respecting this matter alone, since they were not less severely hit in other places. It is a stupid assertion that the conference was broken off in consequence of this ground of offence. For those who now, by rabidly laying hold of one ground, after a certain fashion subscribe to the rest of the doctrine, would have found out a hundred other grounds. This also has, therefore, turned out happily." Calvini Epistolæ, Opera, ix. 157.
[1133] To her ambassador in Germany, instructed to defend her course in convening the conference, however, she purposely exaggerated her indignation, and gave a different coloring to the facts of the case. "Mais estant enfin (de Bèze) tombé sur le fait de la Cene, il s'oublia en une comparaison si absurde et tant offensive des oreilles de l'assistance, que pen s'en fallut, que je ne luy imposasse silence, et que je ne les renvoyasse tous, sans les laisser passer plus avant." She accounts for the fact that she did not stop him, by noticing that he was evidently near the end of his speech, and by the consideration that, "as they are accustomed to take advantage of everything 'pour la confirmation et persuasion de leur doctrine,' they would rather have gained by such a command; and moreover, that those who had heard his arguments would have gone away imbued with and persuaded of his doctrine, without hearing the answer that might be made." Letter of Cath. of Sept. 14th, ubi supra. Prof. Baum well remarks that "the last words furnish the most irrefragable proof of the great and convincing impression which the speech in general had made." Theod. Beza, ii. 263, note.
[1134] It is inserted in La Place, 168, 169, and Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 328-330; De Thou, iii. (liv. 28) 69. Letter of Cath., ubi supra.
[1135] "Would that he had been dumb, or that we had been deaf!" the Cardinal of Lorraine is said to have exclaimed in the prelatic consultation. La Place and Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ubi supra; J. de Serres, i. 273.
[1136] La Place, 170; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 330, 331, where the protest is reproduced.
[1137] "Me excludere volebant adversarii, ne interessem, tanquam hominem peregrinum. Regina tamen mater per Condæum principem eo ipso articulo, cum profisciscendum erat, evocavit et adesse voluit." Letter of Martyr to the Senate of Zurich, Sept. 19, 1561, Baum, ii., App., 67.
[1138] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 332.