The sixteenth century is the greatest in Christian times; it is the epoch where (so to speak) everything ends and everything begins; nothing is paltry, not even dissipation; nothing small, not even a little city lying unobserved at the foot of the Alps. In that renovating age, so full of antagonist forces and energetic struggles, the religious movements did not proceed from a single centre; they emanated from opposite poles, and are mentioned in the well-known line-- Je ne décide pas entre Genève et Rome.[7] The Catholic focus was in Italy--in the metropolis of the ancient world; the evangelical focus in Germany was transferred from Wittemberg to the middle of European nations--to the smallest of cities--to that whose history I have to relate. When history treats of certain epochs, as for instance the reign of Charles V., there may be a certain disadvantage in the vastness of the stage on which the action passes; we may complain that the principal actor, however colossal, is necessarily dwarfed. This inconvenience will not be found in the narrative I have undertaken. If the empire of Charles V. was the largest theatre in modern history, Geneva was the smallest. In the one case we have a vast empire, in the other a microscopical republic. But the smallness of the theatre serves to bring out more prominently the greatness of the actions: only superficial minds turn with contempt from a sublime drama because the stage is narrow and the representation devoid of pomp. To study great things in small is one of the most useful exercises. What I have in view--and this is my apology--is not to describe a petty city of the Alps, for that would not be worth the labour; but to study in that city a history which is in the main a reflection of the history of Europe,--of its sufferings, its struggles, its aspirations, its political liberties, and its religious transformations. I will confess that my attachment to the land of my birth may have led me to examine our annals rather too closely, and narrate them at too great length. This attachment to my country which has cheered me in my task, may possibly expose me to reproach; but I hope it will rather be my justification. ‘This book,’ said Tacitus, at the beginning of one of his immortal works, ‘was dictated by affection: that must be its praise, or at least its excuse.’[8] Shall we be forbidden to shelter ourselves humbly behind the lofty stature of the prince of history?