'If there be any who, under colour of the gospel, stir up tumults; if there be any who wish to conceal their carnal licence by asserting the liberty and grace of God: there are laws and punishments ordained to purge these offences. But let not God's gospel be blasphemed by the evil-doings of the wicked.'
Calvin thus brings his letter to a conclusion: 'Sire,' he said, 'I have set before you the iniquity of our calumniators. I have desired to soften your heart, to the end that you would give our cause a hearing. I hope we shall be able to regain your favour, if you should be pleased to read without anger this confession which is our defence before your Majesty. But if malevolent persons stop your ears; if the accused have not an opportunity of defending themselves; if impetuous furies, unrestrained by your order, still exercise their cruelty by imprisonments and by scourging, by tortures, mutilation, and the stake ... verily, as sheep given up to slaughter, we shall be reduced to the last extremity. Yet even then we shall possess our souls in patience, and shall wait for the strong hand of the Lord. Doubtless, it will be stretched forth in due season. It will appear armed to deliver the poor from their afflictions, and to punish the despisers who are now making merry so boldly.
'May the Lord, the King of Kings, establish your throne in righteousness and your seat in equity.'
Such was the noble and touching defence which a young man of twenty-six addressed to the king of France. He heard from afar the mournful cries of the victims; and his soul being stirred with compassion and indignation, he appeared as a suppliant before the voluptuous prince who was putting them to death.
After finishing an address of such rare eloquence, Calvin wrote the date—Basle, 1st August, 1535, and then hastened to get the manuscript printed.[363]
=PRINTING OF THE INSTITUTES.=
There was a house at Basle, on the heights of St. Pierre, known by the sign of the Black Bear, where there was a printing office belonging to Thomas Plater, the Valaisan. Calvin often went there. Plater, who had come to Basle with Myconius, as we have seen, was at first a student, then a professor, and finally 'the large sums gained by the printers,'[364] had given him the desire to become a printer also. When Calvin was looking for a publisher for his Institutes, the learned Grynæus recommended Plater to him. The latter had the honour of printing that work, and from that time Calvin kept up an occasional intercourse with this singular man. When, some years later, Felix Plater, the son of Thomas, who was going to study medicine at Montpelier, passed through Geneva, Calvin, to whom he brought a letter from his father, called him my Felix, and received him with much cordiality. 'I heard him preach on Sunday morning,' said the young man in his memoirs; 'and there was a great crowd of people.'[365]
It was, as we have said, in August 1535, that Calvin handed Thomas Plater his epistle to Francis I. to be printed. He had written it in French, and the French edition bears the date of the 1st of August; but he immediately translated it into Latin and printed this version on the 23rd of the same month, which is the date of the Latin edition.[366] It is probable that the epistle to Francis I. was printed in both languages, and that the French text was sent to the king, and the Latin to the German doctors, in September 1535.
Did Francis ever receive the letter? Did he listen to this admirable apology? It is certain that his heart was not softened. It is even possible that the pleasures and policy of the monarch made him contemptuously throw aside this appeal from one of the poorest of his subjects. However, nothing prevents us from believing that the king did read it, for the style alone was worthy of a monarch's notice. Calvin's friends, and even Calvin himself, hoped much from it. 'If the king would but read that excellent letter,' said one of them, 'a mortal wound (or we are greatly mistaken) would be inflicted on that harlot of Babylon.'[367] But was an ambitious, false-speaking, and libertine king competent to understand the noble thoughts of the reformer?
=CALVIN STARTS FOR ITALY.=