History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin. Vol. 2 (of 8)

BY J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNÉ, D.D.

AUTHOR OF THE
‘HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY’ ETC.

‘Les choses de petite durée ont coutume de devenir fanées, quand elles out passé leur temps.

‘Au règne de Christ, il n’y a que le
nouvel homme qui soit florissant, qui ait de la vigueur, et dont il
faille faire cas.’

VOL. II.

GENEVA and FRANCE.

LONDON:
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN.
1863.

Calvin, whom his father’s wishes and his own convictions urged to abandon the priestly career, for which he was preparing, had left Paris in the autumn of 1527, in order to go to Orleans and study jurisprudence under Pierre de l’Etoile, who was teaching there with great credit. ‘Reuchlin, Aleander, and even Erasmus, have professed in this city,’ said his pupils; ‘but the Star (Etoile) eclipses all these suns.’ He was regarded as the prince of French jurists.

When Calvin arrived in that ancient city to which the Emperor Aurelian had given his name, he kept himself apart, being naturally timid, and repelled by the noisy vivacity of the students. Yet his loving disposition sighed after a friend; and such he found in a young scholar, Nicholas Duchemin, who was preparing himself for a professorship in the faculty of letters. Calvin fixed on him an observing eye, and found him modest, temperate, not at all susceptible, adopting no opinion without examination, of equitable judgment, extreme prudence, and great mildness, but also a little slow in his movements. Duchemin’s character formed a striking contrast with the vivacity, ardour, severity, activity, and, we will add, the susceptibility of Calvin. Yet he felt himself attracted towards the gentle nature of the young professor, and the very difference of their temperaments shed an inexpressible charm over all their intercourse. As Duchemin had but moderate means, he received students in his house, as many of the citizens did. Calvin begged to be admitted also, and thus became one of the members of his household. He soon loved Duchemin with all the energy of a heart of twenty, and rejoiced at finding in him a Mommor, an Olivétan, and even more. He wanted to share everything with Nicholas, to converse with him perpetually; and they had hardly parted, when he began to long to be with him again. ‘Dear Duchemin!’ he said to him, ‘my friend, you are dearer to me than life.’ Ardent as was this friendship, it was not blind. Calvin, true to his character, discovered the weak point of his friend, who was deficient, he thought, in energy; and he reproved him for it. ‘Take care,’ he said, ‘lest your great modesty should degenerate into indolence.’

=THE STUDENTS AT ORLEANS.=

The scholar of Noyon, consoled by this noble friendship, began to examine more closely the university population around him. He was surprised to see crowds of students filling the streets, caring nothing for learning, so far as he could tell. At one time he would meet a young lord, in tight hose, with a richly embroidered doublet, small Spanish cloak, velvet cap, and showy dagger. This young gentleman, followed by his servant, would take the wall, toss his head haughtily, cast impertinent looks on each side of him, and want every one to give way to him. Farther on came a noisy band composed of the sons of wealthy tradesmen, who appeared to have no more taste for study than the sons of the nobility, and who went singing and ‘larking’ to one of the numerous tennis-courts, of which there were not less than forty in the city. Ten nations, afterwards reduced to four, composed the university. The German nation combined with ‘the living and charming beauty of the body’ that of a mind polished by continual study. Its library was called ‘the abode of the Muses.’

Calvin made a singular figure in the midst of the world around him. His small person and sallow face formed a strong contrast with the ruddy features and imposing stature of Luther’s fellow-countrymen. One thing, however, delighted him: ‘The university,’ he said, ‘is quite a republican oasis in the midst of enslaved France.’ The democratic spirit was felt even by the young aristocrats who were at the head of each nation, and the only undisputed authority in Orleans was that of Pierre de l’Etoile.

=ÉTOILE ON HERETICS.=

This ‘morning-star’ (as the registers of the Picard nation call him) had risen above the fogs and was shining like the sun in the schools. The great doctor combined an eminently judicial mind with an affectionate heart; he was inflexible as a judge, and tender as a mother. His manner of teaching possessed an inexpressible charm. As member of the council of 1528, he had advocated the repression of heresy; but he had no sooner met Calvin at Orleans than, attracted by the beauty of his genius and the charms of his character, he loved him tenderly. Although opposed to the young man’s religious opinions, he was proud of having him as his pupil, and was his friend to the last: thus giving a touching example in the sixteenth century of that noble christian equity which loves men while disapproving of their opinions.

Calvin, sitting on one of the benches in the school, listened attentively to the great doctor, and imbibed certain principles whose justice no one at that time in all christendom thought of disputing. ‘The prosperity of nations,’ said Pierre de l’Etoile, ‘depends upon obedience to the laws. If they punish outrages against the rights of man, much more ought they to punish outrages against the rights of God. What! shall the law protect a man in his body and goods, and not in his soul and his most precious and eternal inheritance?... A thief shall not be able to rob us of our purses, but a heretic may deprive us of heaven!’ Jurists and students, nobles and people, were all convinced that the law ought equally to guarantee temporal and spiritual goods. ‘Those insensate and furious men,’ said the code which Pierre de l’Etoile was expounding to his pupils, ‘who proclaim heretical and infamous opinions, and reject the apostolic and evangelical doctrine of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in one only Godhead and one holy Trinity, ought first to be delivered up to divine vengeance, and afterwards visited with corporal punishment. Is not that a public offence?’ added the code; ‘and although committed against the religion of God, is it not to the prejudice of all mankind?’

Pierre de l’Etoile’s youthful hearers received from these words those deep impressions which, being made while the character is forming, are calculated to last through life. The mind of man required time to throw off these legal prejudices, which had been the universal law of the understanding for more than a thousand years. Could it be expected that a young disciple, rising up against the most venerable teachers, should draw a distinction between the temporal and the spiritual sphere, between the old and the new economy, and insist that, inasmuch as grace had been proclaimed by virtue of the great sacrifice offered to eternal justice, it was repugnant to the Gospel of Christ for man to avenge the law of God by severe punishments? No: during the sixteenth, and even the seventeenth century, almost all enlightened minds remained, in this respect, sunk in lamentable error.

Keep reading