[406] Mathieu Dimonet, a devout Protestant of Lyons, was arrested in that town the 9th January 1553. In his letters to the ministers of Geneva he has himself related the details of his trial:—"On Monday 9 January being in my house in presence of the king's lieutenant and the official, who, after they had searched and visited my books, found nothing, except a little book of spiritual songs set to music...." Dimonet underwent a first examination, and was then led away to the prison of the officialty. "I have undergone," says he, "great assaults and temptations ... for on the one side, they set before me tortures and death, then the shame and dishonour of myself and my relations, the sorrow of my mother, who they said was dying with grief and many other things ... which would have been very hard for me to bear, unless the Lord had strengthened me by his Holy Spirit." The prisoner courageously withstood the threats of the inquisitor Oritz, and the pressing entreaties of his family. The 15th July 1553, quite cheerfully, and praying to the Lord, he endured the torment of death.—Histoire des Martyrs, p. 247.
[407] Peter Berger of Bar-sur-Seine, burgess of Geneva, was seized at Lyons three days after the scholars of Lausanne, whom he rejoined in the dungeons and preceded to martyrdom. "Having mounted the stake, he said, 'Lord, I commit my soul to thee.' Then looking up to heaven with steadfast gaze, and crying aloud, he said, 'To-day I see heaven open;' and immediately after, this saint yielded up his spirit to God."—Histoire des Martyrs, p. 234.
[408] Christopher Fabri [or Libertet] was on the eve of his second marriage. We know nothing of his first wife. In a letter of May 1545, to Fabri, then pastor at Thonon, Calvin speaks highly of the entertainment he received from his wife, on his return from a long tour in the German Cantons: "I could never get your wife to treat us in a plain, homely way.... She was willing to take advice. She repeatedly requested that I should ask for whatever I chose, as if it were my own; she adhered to her own opinion in this, however, that she entertained us too sumptuously; for there was twice as much food always prepared as there was any occasion for. We felt just as much at home as if you had been present."—MS. of the Library of Neuchatel.
[409] In allusion to the efforts of the Libertine party, put forth with increasing violence for the overthrow of ecclesiastical discipline, and which gave rise during the same year to a decisive struggle between the Reformer and his adversaries.
[410] A village on the banks of the Arve, a few miles from Geneva.
[411] John Macard, originally from the neighbourhood of Laon in Picardy, took refuge in Geneva on account of religion. A man of resolute character, and endowed with a manly eloquence, he rendered eminent service to the Church alternately at Geneva and Paris, and the latter reckoned him among the number of its most distinguished pastors.
[412] The minister, Philip de Ecclesia, deposed on account of his disorderly life.
[413] John Cheke, preceptor of Edward VI., King of England, and distinguished alike in science and in letters, won the esteem and confidence of his royal pupil, who raised him to the rank of knighthood, and who gave him in many ways the most precious testimonies of his affection.—See Fuller's Church History, B. vii.; sixteenth cent., 19, 20. Though a man of sincere piety, Cheke was not possessed of a firmness of character equal to the variety of his knowledge and the greatness of his talents. He survived his pupil only to make a deplorable manifestation of the infirmity of his faith under fear of the scaffold and of martyrdom. Arrested in the Low Countries in 1556, by a secret order of Philip II., he was conducted to London, imprisoned in the Tower, and escaped death only by a solemn retractation. He then fell into a profound melancholy, and soon after died, exhibiting sentiments of sincere repentance, asking pardon of God and men for the sin of which he had been guilty. See Strype, Memoirs, III., i. 515, and Zurich Letters, first series, passim
[414] Declared guilty of the crime of heresy, and delivered over to the secular arm by the Judge Ordinary of Lyons, the five students made their appeal to the Parliament of Paris, while the authorities of Berne strove in vain to save "leurs escholiers." Transferred from dungeon to dungeon, during a trial which lasted for more than a year, brought back at last from Paris to Lyons, to await the sentence of their judges, the constancy of these young men never faltered for a single day. At length, the 1st March 1553, they received the communication of the decree of the Parliament of Paris, which gave them over to the stake.—Hist. des Martyrs, lib. iv., p. 230. That melancholy intelligence soon spread around, and brought mourning to Lausanne and to Geneva.
[415] This was the pious merchant, John Liner, of Saint Gall.—See the Letter of the 10th August, p. 358. He was present with the prisoners at the bar of Roanne when they received their sentence of death. He set out immediately for Berne, in order to try a last application on the part of the seigneury of that town to the King of France.—Hist. des Martyrs, pp. 230, 231. Various MSS. of the library of St. Gall.