Is this a story invented in the idle talk of a cloister? I think not. Some of the details, particularly the language of the canon, render it probable. It was also by the promise of a 'good appointment' that Francis de Sales endeavoured to win over Theodore Beza. Simony is a sin so _innocent_ that three priests, a canon, an abbot, and a doctor of the Sorbonne, combine to relate this peccadillo. If the language of the canon is in conformity with his character, Calvin's answer, 'I will go through with it to the last,' is also in his manner. Although we may have some trouble to picture the young reformer disguised as a peasant, with his wallet and hoe, we thought it our duty to relate an incident transmitted to us by his enemies. The circumstance is really not singular. Calvin was then beginning an exodus which has gone on unceasingly for nearly three centuries. The disciples of the Gospel in France, summoned to abjure Christ, have fled from their executioners by thousands, and under various disguises. And if the gravity of history permitted the author to revert to the stories that charmed his childhood, he could tell how many a time, seated at the feet of his grandmother and listening with attentive ear, he has heard her describe how her mother, a little girl at the time of the Revocation in 1685, escaped from France, concealed in a basket which her father, a pious huguenot, disguised as a peasant, carried carefully on his back. Calvin, having escaped his enemies, hurried away from the capital, from his cherished studies and his brethren, and wandered up and down, avoiding the places where he might be recognised. He thought over all that had happened, and his meditative mind drew wholesome lessons from it. He learnt from his own experience by what token to recognise the true Church of Christ. 'We should lose our labour,' he said in later days, thinking perhaps of this circumstance, 'if we wished to separate Christ from his cross; it is a natural thing for the world to hate Christ, even in his members. There will always be wicked men to prick us like thorns. If they do not draw the sword, they spit out their venom, and either gnash their teeth or excite some great disturbance.' The sword was already 'drawn' against him: acting, therefore, with prudence, he followed the least frequented roads, sleeping in the cottages or the mansions of his friends. It is asserted that being known by the Sieur de Hasseville, whose château was situated beyond Versailles, he remained there some time in hiding.[517]