But if there were hearts in the valley of Aosta ready to receive the Gospel, there were others determined to resist it. At the head of its opponents were two eminent men. Among the laity was Count René de Challans, marshal of Aosta, full of enthusiasm for popery and feudalism, and bursting with contempt for the heretics and republicans of Switzerland. Distressed at witnessing the reverses suffered by his master, the duke of Savoy, he had sworn that in Aosta at least he would exterminate the Lutherans. His fellow-soldier in this crusade was Pietro Gazzini, bishop of Aosta, one of the most famous prelates of Italy. Priests and devotees extolled his virtues and his learning, but what distinguished him most was the haughty temper and domineering humor which so often characterizes the priests of Rome. Gazzini was a canon of the Lateran, the first patriarchal church of the west, and served as the channel between the duke and the pope. He was at Rome when evangelical doctrine began to spread in his diocese, and he then tried to manage that the council, which was to put an end to heresy, should be held in the states of the duke his master.[825] He even carried his ambition for his sovereign very far. 'It was becoming,' he told the pontiff, 'that the direction of the council should be given to the duke of Savoy by the emperor and the king of France.'[826] The direction of a council given to a secular prince by the pope and two other secular princes is an idea apparently not in strict harmony with the theocratic omnipotence of the pontiff, which many men boast of so loudly.

In the bishop's absence there was a person at Aosta quite worthy of supplying his place: this was the guardian of the Franciscan monastery, Antonio Savion (Antonius de Sapientibus), a well-informed, zealous man, who afterwards became general of the order, and was one of the fathers of the Council of Trent. Savion uttered a cry of alarm.

One day, when Gazzini was performing his duties in the basilica of St. John, he received letters describing the state of affairs at Aosta. The alarmed prelate did not hesitate. 'When Calvin's heresy was penetrating into his diocese,' said Besson, the Savoyard priest, 'he hastened to block up the road.'[827]

As soon as the bishop arrived, he visited every parish with indefatigable diligence; he went into the pulpits and 'kept the people in sound doctrine by his sermons.'[828] He told them that 'Satan was prowling about, like a roaring lion, to devour them; that they must therefore keep a strict watch and drive back the ferocious beast.' To these exhortations he added censures, monitions, and excommunications. All readers of Holy Scripture were to be driven from the fold of the church.

A general assembly of the Estates of the valley to regulate the affairs of the district was held on the 21st of February, 1536. Among the deputies were several friends of the Reformation: De la Crète, Vaudan, Borgnion, and others indicated in the cahier of the Estates.[829] Two subjects in particular filled the majority of the assembly with anxiety. The political and the religious situation of the city appeared equally threatened. Men's eyes were turned to Switzerland, and it was asserted that designs of political conquest were combined in the minds of the Bernese with the too manifest desire of religious conquest. At a time when the house of Savoy was exposed to the attack of France, many wanted to see the valley of Aosta take advantage of this to join the Helvetic League and rally under the standard of the Gospel. The members of the assembly were convinced that the Swiss desired 'to canton' all the country, and by that means extend their confederation on both sides of the Alps. But the other danger was still more alarming to the chiefs of the Roman party, and they earnestly represented to the Estates that the attachment of the city and valley to the holy see of Rome was threatened; and that the Bernese Lutherans, who were not content with laying hands upon the territory of Vaud, but had introduced and propagated their 'venomous sect,' wanted to do the same in Aosta.[830] The assembly resolved to maintain the Roman-catholic faith and continue loyal to his ducal highness, and it was enacted that every transgressor should be put to death.[831]

=CALVIN AT AOSTA.=

It is a matter of notoriety that Calvin passed through the city of Aosta; but did he arrive at this epoch, and was he there during part at least of the session of the Estates? This is affirmed by documents of the 17th and 18th centuries, and his presence there is not impossible; but there is, in our opinion, one circumstance adverse to its acceptance. The official documents of the period, and more especially the journals of the assembly of February and March, 1536, make no mention of Calvin's presence, and do not even allude to it. It would, however, have been worth the trouble of recording, if he were only designated, as he was a little later in the Registers of Geneva, as a Frenchman. Two important facts, in a religious point of view, occurred at Aosta in the early months of the year 1536: the Assembly of the Estates and the passage of Calvin. The first took place in February and March; the second probably a little later. Tradition makes them coincide, which is more dramatic; history sets each in its right place. But because the reformer did not (during the sitting of the Assembly) play the part assigned to him, it must not be assumed that he never passed through that city.

Calvin had his reasons for taking the Aosta and St. Bernard route. It had been in use for centuries, and he had no doubt learnt during his residence at Basle, what was universally known in Switzerland, that the Bernese had frequent relations with this country, that they had introduced the Gospel there, and that some of the inhabitants had adopted the principles of the Reformation. An ancient document gives us to understand that Calvin passed through Aosta both going and returning.[832] In our opinion that would be quite natural. The reports circulated in Switzerland about that city would induce him to take that road on his way to Italy, and we can easily conceive, as regards his return, that a fugitive would take a road already known to him, and where he was sure of meeting friends. But we do not press this, and are content to follow the traces Calvin left in the country on his return, and which are still to be found there.

=CALVIN'S FARM.=

At the foot of the St. Bernard, very near the city of Aosta, stood a house on some rising ground, where a grange may still be seen. In order to reach it you leave the St. Bernard road a short distance from the city and take a footpath, near which a little chapel now stands. The meadows around it, the abrupt peaks rising above it, the Alps hiding their snowy heads in the clouds, the view over Aosta and the valley—all combined to give a picturesque aspect to that house. If the traveller asks the inhabitants of the country what house that is, he will be told it is 'Calvin's Farm;' and they add that when the reformer was passing through Aosta, he was sheltered there by one of the most zealous of the reformed, Leonard de Vaudan. It was very natural that Calvin should prefer such a retired habitation to a house in the city.