[445] M. de Falais had intended at first to retire to Geneva. He had afterwards decided to fix his residence at Strasbourg, where he indeed established himself the following year.
[446] The sacramentary truce which was brought about in 1538, with so much labour, between Lutheranism and the Reformed, was afterwards broken, notwithstanding the efforts of Bucer, of Melanchthon, and Calvin. Full of ill-humour against the memory of Zuingli, Luther allowed no opportunity of invective to pass, in his writings, against the doctrines of the Swiss Reformer and the Church of Zurich, which he likened to the heresies of Munzer and the Anabaptists. Desirous of maintaining peace among the Churches, the ministers of Zurich at first abstained from all reply, in the hope of soothing him by their silence, and avoiding direct collision with the vehement spirit of Luther. But Luther having on many occasions renewed his attacks, they considered it their duty to answer him in an indirect way by publishing the works of Zuingli, with an apology for his doctrine prefixed.—See Hospinian, Historiæ Sacramentariæ, Genève, 1681, tom. ii. pp. 318, 322. Ann. 1544.
[447] See pp. 187, 228, 270, 273, 283, 308. Suspended by Letters-patent of the King, and by the humanity of the President Chassanée, the execution of the sentence of the Parliament of Aix was furiously demanded by the new President of that Court, Jean Menier, Baron d'Oppède, supported at Court by the Cardinal de Tournon.
[448] William du Bellay, in his quality of lieutenant of the King at Turin, charged with the duty of making a report to Francis I., renders a very striking homage to the piety and purity of the Vaudois.—De Thou, Hist., lib. vi. They obtained the same testimony from the pious Bishop Sadolet, who took them under his protection, and pleaded in vain their cause at the Court of Rome.—De Thou, ibidem.—Hist. des Martyrs, lib. iii. p. 140. A doctor of the Sorbonne, having put some questions to some of the children in one of their villages, upon the Catechisin, was so struck by their answers, that he acknowledged, says Beza, "never to have derived so much benefit in all the disputations he had been engaged in, as he had learned from these little children."—Hist. Eccl., tom. i. p. 42.
[449] Cabrières, Merindol, et Lourmarin, in the present Department of Vaucluse.
[450] In a recent publication, entitled, "Short Confession concerning the Supper," (Kurzes Bekenntniss vom Abendmahl,) Luther, renewing his invectives against the adversaries of the Sacrament, had insulted the memory of Zuingli, and had not even respected that of the learned and pious Œcolampadius.—Hospinian, Hist. Sacrament., tom. ii. pp. 326-331. Grievously annoyed by these violences, Melanchthon would have fled into retirement to get rid of the sad spectacle of the disorders which rent in pieces the Reformed Churches. He wrote to Bucer, the 28th August 1544, "I have written to you about our Pericles, who has again begun to thunder most vehemently on the subject of the Lord's Supper, and has written a fierce attack, in which you and I are beaten black and blue. I am a quiet peaceable bird, nor would be unwilling if I may depart out of this prison-house, if our disturber shall constrain me."—Ph. Melanchthonis Opera, edit. of Breitschneider, tom. v. p. 464.
[451] See the two preceding letters. Roused by the Lutheran intolerance, kept up by a hot controversy, the quarrel about the sacraments disturbed the Reformed Churches, and furnished weapons to their adversaries. While Calvin deplored these excesses, addressing himself by turns to Bullinger, to Melanchthon, to Luther himself, he made vain efforts to bring about an accommodation between the parties.
[452] Claude de Senarelens, of a noble Savoyard family, which had settled in the Pays de Vaud, after having embraced the Reformation.
[453] This is the Traité de fuir les Superstitions. Geneva, 1544. Inserted in the Recueil des Opuscules, p. 758.
[454] Excuse aux Faux Nicodemites. Genève, 1544. Recueil des Opuscules, p. 789.