thick, untrimmed beards, their velvet cloaks reaching to the knees, their caps adorned with feathers or foliage, their broad embroidered collars, their banner proudly borne aloft, surrounded by its defenders who, with outstretched arms and drawn swords, formed its bodyguard, the name of Luther the while resounding in all directions--this spectacle, the antique costumes, the usages of a by-gone age, all contributed to transport the traveller in imagination into the midst of the scenes of three centuries ago. The young Genevese, however, soon withdrew from these noisy scenes, from the political and social harangues, the excitement and the tumult. Longing for quiet, he traversed with a guide the deserted rooms of the castle. 'This then,' he murmured, 'this is the place where, after the stormy scenes of the Diet of Worms, Luther was able to say, "At last I am at rest." Here was passed the captivity of the knight George. This is the table at which he used to sit; that the window from which he looked out upon the landscape around. Here it was that he gave himself up to profound meditation, mingled with regret that he had consented to withdraw from the battle-field, and with a distressing fear lest the Pope should take advantage of his absence to crush the infant Church. In this room he used to read the Bible in Hebrew and in Greek; here he translated the Psalms and the New Testament, and here his fervent prayers rose to heaven.'[1] The great movement of the sixteenth century thus presented itself to the young man's imagination in its intimate details, which are far more thrilling than its external aspects. He formed the resolution to write its history; and a few weeks later (November 23, 1817) he sketched in the following terms the plan which he proposed to follow:-- 'I should like to write a history of the Reformation. I should wish this history to be a work of learning, and to set forth facts at present unknown. It should be profound, and should distinctly assign the causes and the results of this great movement; it should be interesting, and should make known the authors of the transformation by means of their letters, their works, and their words; and it should introduce the reader into the bosom of their families and into their closets. Finally I should wish that this history should be thoroughly Christian, and calculated to give an impulse to true religion. I would show by the evidence of facts that the aim of the Reformation was not so much to destroy as to build up--not so much to overthrow that which was in excess, superstition, as to impart that which had ceased to exist, the new life, and holiness, the essence of Christianity, and to revive or rather to create faith. I shall begin to collect materials, and I will dedicate my history to the Protestant churches of France.'[2]