The scene of our history is about to change. ‘A man of mark’ whom we have already quoted, said, when speaking of Geneva: ‘On this platform appear actors who do not speak so loud as great kings and emperors on the spacious theatre of their states; but what matters how the speaker is dressed, if he says what he ought?’[415] We are leaving for a time this modest platform. We shall no longer have to speak of a little nation whose greatest heroes are obscure citizens. We are entering a mighty empire where we shall be in the company of kings and queens, of great personages and famous courtiers. Yet the dissimilarity between the two theatres is not so wide as one might expect. In that vast country of France, where historians usually describe nothing but the great stream formed by the numerous combinations of policy, a few springs are seen welling forth, at first unnoticed, but they swell by degrees, and their waters will one day have more influence on the destiny of the world than the floods of that mighty river. One of these springs appeared at Etaples, close upon the shores of the Channel; another at Gap in Dauphiny; and others in other places. But the most important, that which was to unite them all and spread a new life even to the most distant countries, welled up at Noyon, an ancient and once illustrious town of Picardy. It was France who gave Lefèvre and Farel--France, too, gave Calvin. That French people, who (as some say) cared for nothing but war and diplomacy; that home of a philosophy often sceptical and sometimes incredulous and mocking; that nation which proclaimed and still proclaims itself the eldest daughter of Rome, gave to the world the Reformation of Calvin and of Geneva--the great Reformation, that which is the strength of the most influential nations, and which reaches even to the ends of the world. France has no nobler title of renown: we do not forget it. Perhaps she will not always disdain it, and after having enriched others she will enrich herself. It will be a great epoch for her future development, when her dearest children drink at those living fountains that burst from her bosom in the sixteenth century, or rather at that eternal fountain of the Word of God, whose waters are for the healing of nations. BOOK II. FRANCE. FAVOURABLE TIMES. CHAPTER I. A MAN OF THE PEOPLE AND A QUEEN. (1525-1526.) The Reformation was concerned both with God and man: its aim was to restore the paths by which God and man unite, by which the Creator enters again into the creature. This path, opened by Jesus Christ with power, had been blocked up in ages of superstition. The Reformation cleared the road, and reopened the door.