The criticism most commonly applied to M. Merle d’Aubigné is that he has displayed a bias in favor of the men of the Reformation, and especially in favor of Calvin. That the author of the _History of the Reformation_ feels for Calvin a certain tenderness, and that he is inclined to excuse, to a certain extent, his errors and even his faults, may be admitted. But it is no less indisputable that this tendency has never led him to palliate or to conceal those errors or faults. He pronounces a judgment: and this is sometimes a justification or an excuse. But he has in the first place narrated; and this narration has been perfectly accurate. The kindly feeling, or, as some say, the partiality of the writer, may have deprived his estimate of the severity which others would have thought needful; but it has not falsified his view. His glance has remained keen and clear, and historical truth comes forth from the author’s narratives with complete impartiality. These narratives themselves furnish the reader with the means of arriving at a different conclusion from that which the author has himself drawn. May we not add that M. Merle d’Aubigné’s love for his hero, admitting the indisputable sincerity of the historian, far from being a ground of suspicion, imparts a special value to his judgments? For nearly sixty years M. Merle lived in close intimacy with Calvin. He carefully investigated his least writings, seized upon and assimilated all his thoughts, and entered, as it were, into personal intercourse with the great reformer. Calvin committed some faults. Who disputes this? But he did not commit these faults with deliberate intention. He must have yielded to motives which he thought good, and, were it only in the blindness of passion, must have justified his actions to his own conscience. In the main, it is this self-justification on Calvin’s part which M. Merle d’Aubigné has succeeded better than any one else in making known to us. He has depicted for us a living Calvin; he has revealed to us his inmost thought; and when, in the work which I am editing, I meet with an approving judgment in which I can not join without some reservation, I imagine nevertheless that if Calvin, rising from the tomb, could himself give me his reasons, he would give me no others than those which I find set forth in these pages. If this view is correct, and it seems to me difficult to doubt it, has not the author solved one of the hardest problems of history—to present the true physiognomy of characters, and to show them as they were; under the outward aspect of facts to discover and depict the minds of men? Moreover, the greater number of these general criticisms are matters of taste, of tendency, of views and of temperament. There are others which would be important if they were well-founded. Such are those which bear upon the accuracy of the work, almost upon the veracity of the author. Fortunately it is easy to overthrow them by a rapid examination.