Rivet was extremely severe in his doctrines, and sometimes violent in his polemics; but he preserved a constant moderation in his private life. “Adverse events, whether public or otherwise,” says the author of his _Last Hours_, never surprised him, or disturbed his serenity. He was accustomed to say: “_Everything is possible; I wonder at nothing_.” Thus he never burst into laughter; for he looked upon all mundane things as mutable and transitory. Edme Aubertin (1595-1652) had particularly studied the Fathers. He published a book in 1633, upon the _Eucharist of the Ancient Church_, in which he sought to prove that the doctrine of the Real Presence was unknown during the first six centuries of the Christian era. This work was denounced to the privy council; but it was more easy to condemn than to refute it. “That great and incomparable work _L’Eucharistie_” says the son of Jean Daillé, “has outlived all the attacks of the other communion, no one of whom has ventured into open war with it, or, so to speak, dared to meet it _tête-à-tête_” (face to face). In his last moments, the door of his apartment was forced by the curate of Saint Sulpice, escorted by a commissary of police and the mob. Edme Aubertin awakened by the tumult, and gathering his presence of mind, declared with a firm voice that he died in the Reformed faith. Benjamin Basnage (1580-1652) was commissioned, both by the political assemblies and the national synods, with missions as important as they were delicate. The court, which feared his credit, would have prevented him from taking his place at the national synod of Charenton in 1630. He has written, besides several controversial treatises, an approved work upon the _Visible and Invisible State of the Church_. We shall have to speak in the following book of his illustrious grandson, Jacques Basnage. David Blondel (1591-1655) was more conversant with ecclesiastical history than any other man of his time. Prodigies are related of his memory: he had read everything, and had forgotten nothing. Having become blind, he dictated two volumes in folio upon difficult points of chronology and antiquity. The national synods conferred the title of honorary professor upon him, without attaching him to any academy, and all the provinces subscribed an annual pension for his maintenance at Paris. Blondel combatted the pretension of the Roman See to the primacy, the false Decretals, and the Sybilline oracles. His good faith equalled his erudition; he was blamed by some of the older Huguenots for having contradicted the legend of Pope Joan, to which they clung with great prejudice.