[25] This letter is addressed to Dr. Bucer, Bishop of Strasbourg. Martin Bucer, a very distinguished minister and theologian, was born at Schelestadt in 1491, and was initiated by Luther himself in the doctrines of the Reformed, which he introduced at Strasbourg, in concert with Mathias Zell and Hedion. Of a moderate and conciliating turn, he interposed continually between the Reformers of Germany and of Switzerland, and made sundry efforts to induce them to adopt a common symbol. "His learned writings and commentaries, his disputations and conferences on unforeseen occasions, his goings out and comings in for the sake of the Church's peace, will always make known his remarkable erudition, great piety and zeal, joined to an excellent disposition."—Th. Bezæ Icones, Genève, 1580. Compelled with several friends to leave Strasbourg in 1549, on the advance of the imperial army, he sought an asylum in England, and obtained a chair in the University of Cambridge. He died there in 1551, and was interred with extraordinary pomp. His body was disinterred under the reign of Mary, and publicly burnt at the stake. In the reign of Elizabeth his memory was honourably restored.
[26] Addressed—To Monsieur my brother and good friend, Monsieur Daniel, Advocate at Orleans.
[27] Letter without date of the month. Written, doubtless, in October 1533. On the testimony of Th. Beza, we know that Calvin dwelt at this period in the College of Forteret at Paris. Histoire Ecclésiastique, edit. de 1580, tom. i. p. 14; the same author, in Vita Calvini. Already he preached the Reformed doctrine with much skill and success. Implicated in the month of November following, along with his friend Nicolas Cop, the Rector of the University of Paris, he had to leave the capital in order to escape the pursuit of which he was the object, and secretly repaired to Angoulême.
[28] Margaret of Valois, sister of Francis I., Queen of Navarre, one of the most distinguished women of her age, both by the generosity of her character and the graces of her understanding. Inclined by the bent of her mind towards reform, by the devout breathings of her soul, of which we find the expression in her poetry and in her letters, she made use of her influence with her brother, the French monarch, to abate the persecution directed against the disciples of the Evangel, and her generous conduct more than once aroused the fury of the Sorbonne against her. Calvin, exiled from France, had recourse on more than one occasion to the influence of this Princess, and addressed very free exhortations to her. See, in this collection, the letter of Calvin to the Queen of Navarre, of the 28th April, 1545.
[29] Megæra. This Megère was an allusion to Gerard Roussel, preacher to the Queen of Navarre, one of the most zealous missionaries of the Reformation at Paris. (Megæra—Mag. Gerardus.) This information we have from the celebrated John Sturm, in a letter to Bucer, which shews that the introduction of Megæra was a play upon the name: "Nuper in Gymnasio Navarrico novus quidam ... ποιήτης Reginam introduxit, quæ se in disciplinam diaboli traderet, una cum sacrifico quem Megeram appellant, alludens ad nomen Magistri Gerardi."—Letter of Nov. 1533, printed in Strobel, Histoire du Gymnase de Strasbourg, p. 109.
[30] This Lauret is designated, in the letter of Sturm above cited, as a man of great erudition and of much influence, "homo potens et rex sapientum."
[31] The Mirror of a Sinful Soul: a mystical poem, wherein the Queen of Navarre acknowledges no other Mediator than Jesus Christ, and no other righteousness than his expiatory death. This book, which first appeared in print at Alençon in 1531, reprinted in 1533 at Paris, forms part of the poetical collection published under the title, "Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses, très illustre Reyne de Navarre." Lyon. 1547. 2 vols. in 8vo.
[32] Louise of Savoy, regent of France during the captivity of Francis I. at Madrid. She died in 1531. After having favoured for a time the doctrines of the Reformers, this cunning and cruel princess gave the signal for the most ruthless persecution of the preachers of the Gospel.
[33] William Parvi, Bishop of Senlis and confessor of the king. He had translated into French the Livre d' Heures of Margaret of Valois, suppressing at the same time from the book a great number of pieces addressed to the Virgin and to the saints.
[34] Without date. After an attentive examination of this letter we believe it to refer to the first months of the year 1534, while Calvin resided with his friend Louis du Tillet at Angoulême. It is known that the young Reformer, while he was obliged to retire from Paris, after the discourse of his friend Nicolas Cop, (November 1533,) found an asylum in the house of Du Tillet, and spent several months at Angoulême in solitude and retirement. It is from that town, designated under the Greek name of Doxopolis, that he wrote to his friend Francis Daniel, in praise of the kindness of his host (Louis du Tillet) and of the peaceful retreat which Providence had prepared for him.