The news of what was passing in Paris reached the little town in Picardy where Calvin was born. It would be invaluable to possess the letters which he wrote to his father during this time of struggle, and even those of Olivétan; but we have neither. John’s relations with Olivétan were known at Noyon; there was no longer any doubt about the heretical opinions of the young curé of St. Martin of Motteville.... What trouble for his family, and especially for the episcopal notary! To renounce the hope of one day seeing his son vicar-general, bishop, and perhaps cardinal, was distressing to the ambitious father. Yet he decided promptly, and as it was all-important for him that Calvin should be something, he gave another direction to his immoderate thirst for honours. He said to himself that by making his son study the law, he would perhaps be helping him to shake off these new ideas; and that, in any case, the pursuit of the law was quite as sure a road, and even surer, to wealth and high station.[620] Duprat, at first a plain lawyer, and afterwards president of the parliament, is now (he thought) high chancellor of France, and the first personage in the realm after the king. Gerard, whose mind was fertile in schemes of success for himself and for others, continued to build his castles in the air in honour of his son; only he changed his sphere, and instead of placing them in the domain of the Church, he erected them in the domain of the State. Thus, while the son had a new faith and a new life, the father had a new plan. Theodore Beza has pointed out this coincidence. After speaking of Calvin’s vocation to the ecclesiastical profession, he adds that a double change, which took place at that time in the minds of both father and son, led to the setting aside of this resolution in favour of another.[621] The coincidence struck Calvin himself, and it was he no doubt who pointed it out to his friend at Geneva. It was not therefore the resolution of Gerard Cauvin that decided his son’s calling, as some have supposed. At the first glance the two decisions seem independent of each other; but it appears probable to me that it was the change in the son which led to that of the father, and not the change in the father which led to that of the son. The young man submitted with joy to the order he received. Gerard, by taking his son from his theological studies, wished to withdraw him from heresy; but he was mistaken. Had not Luther first studied the law at Erfurth? Did not Calvin by this same study prepare himself better for the career of a reformer, than by the priesthood?