Meanwhile, however powerful the thunder-peals of Farel might be, there were other circumstances which undoubtedly had an influence on Calvin’s decision. Other thunders were heard, besides those of which Claude Feray speaks, which deeply affected the Reformer, and which must have made it easier to exchange Strasburg for Geneva. The plague was raging in the former town, and was causing great mortality. Claude Feray was one of its first victims. Another friend of the Reformer, M. de Richebourg, had two sons at Strasburg, Charles and Louis; Louis was carried off by the epidemic three days after Feray. Antoine, Calvin’s brother, immediately took the other son, Charles, to a neighboring village. Desolation was in the house of the Reformer. His wife and his sister Maria quitted it likewise and went to join their brother Antoine. Calvin was in consternation as he received at Ratisbon, in rapid succession, these mournful tidings. ‘Day and night,’ said he, ‘my wife is incessantly in my thoughts; she is without counsel, for she is without her husband.’ The death of Louis, the sorrow of Charles, thus deprived within three days of his brother, and of his tutor Feray, whom he respected as a father, powerfully affected Calvin. But it was the sudden death of the latter, who had been his most trustworthy and most faithful friend at Strasburg, which above all filled him with grief. He thought sorrowfully of himself. ‘The more I feel the need,’ said he, ‘of such an adviser, the more I am persuaded that the Lord is chastising me for my offences.’ Prayer, however, and the Word of God refreshed his soul. He wrote to M. de Richebourg a touching letter, which he closed by entreating the Lord to keep him until he should arrive at that place to which Louis and Feray had gone before.[51] Footnote 10: Roset, _Chron. MS._, book iv. ch. xxxvii. xlii. _Registers of the Council_ for the day—Gautier. Footnote 11: Roset, _Chron. MS._, book iv. ch. xlv. Footnote 12: ‘Nec tamen id eo spectat, ut auferatur jus illud vobis a Deo collatum (ut et suis omnibus), ut examini subjiciantur pastores omnes.’ Calv. _Opp._ x. p. 352. Footnote 13: ‘Neque auctor velim esse tyrannidis ullius in Ecclesiam invehendæ.’—Calv. _Opp._ x. p. 353. Footnote 14: See _Reg._ for the days mentioned. Roset. Roget, i. p. 191. Gaberel, _Pièces justificatives_. Footnote 15: ‘Biduo tanta animi perplexitate æstuasse ut vix dimidia exparte apud me essem.’ Calvin to Farel, Oct. 21, 1540. _Opp._ xi. p. 90. Footnote 16: ‘Locum illum velut mihi fatalem reformido.’—_Ibid._ p. 91. Footnote 17: ‘Malim vitam centies exponere, quam eam deserendo prodere.’—_Ibid._ p. 92. Footnote 18: Calvin, _Lettres françaises_, i. p. 30. Footnote 19: Calvin, _Lettres françaises_, i. p. 32. _Opp._ xi. p. 94. Footnote 20: _Calvin to Farel_, Nov. 13. _Opp._ xi. p. 114. Footnote 21: Calvin, _Comment. on John_ xii. 25 (1553). Footnote 22: