[435] The Minister Louis de Geniston.
[436] Marcourt, senior minister of the Church of Geneva.
[437] This was the Reply to the Sorbonne Articles. See the note, p. 408.
[438] Calvin had already lost a son in the month of August 1542. See note 3, p. 344. He had afterwards another child by Idelette de Bure, which does not appear to have long survived.
[439] The imperial assembly of Spire dissolved in the month of May 1544. Charles the Fifth had then obtained considerable subsidies from the Protestant princes in return for the important concessions which he had made to them in the great concern of religion.—Hist. Charles V., lib. vii.
[440] The French had gained a brilliant victory at Cérisoles, 14th April 1544, over the Marquis of Guasta, the Imperial General.
[441] Gifted with a remarkable genius for politics, which had been formed in the school of Zuingle, and called more than once, on this account, to enlighten by his experience the councils of the republic of Basle, Oswald Myconius maintained a correspondence with Calvin, which had not merely the interests of the Church in view, but those of the whole of Europe, kept at that time in suspense by the last act of the struggle between Francis I. and Charles V.
[442] The Protestant princes of Germany, the steady allies of France against the House of Austria, abandoned their usual policy on this occasion, and joined the Emperor against Francis I. They alleged as their motive for this change, the impious alliance of that monarch with the Turks, whose arms threatened equally France and Italy, and they wrote to the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, inviting them to follow their example, by refusing their assistance to Francis I.—See Sleidan, lib. xv. pp. 441-446.
[443] M. de Falais afterwards left Brabant and went to Cologne with his family, as we see by his request addressed to Charles the Fifth: "I went indeed first of all to reside in your city of Cologne, where I abode so inoffensively and beyond the reach of blame from any one, that no person could justly complain of me."... Immediately on his arrival at Cologne, he had requested Calvin to send him a minister. The war which then wasted the Netherlands, and rendered communication difficult, had not allowed the Reformer at once to meet his wishes.
[444] Bucer had gone to the Diet which was held in that town in 1544. The Emperor, pressed by two enemies at the same time, Soliman and Francis I., made important concessions on that occasion to the Protestant side.