[Footnote 402: See the pompous ceremonial on this occasion and the epithalamium of Clément Marot, in Cronique du Roy François I^er (G. Guiffrey, 1860), 68-73.] [Footnote 403: Dames illustres, _ubi supra_.] [Footnote 404: "Que voulez-vous? Ce sont des pauvres François de ma maison; et _lesquels si Dieu m'eust donné barbe au menton_ et que je fusse homme, _seroient maintenant tous mes sujets_. Voire me seroient-ils tels, _si cette meschante Loy Salicque ne me tenoit trop de rigueur_." Ibid., _ubi supra_. A readable account of the life of this remarkable woman is given in "Some Memorials of Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara" (2d edit., London, 1859), a volume enriched, to some extent, with letters drawn from the Paris National Library, and from less accessible collections in Great Britain.] [Footnote 405: Possibly including the wonderfully precocious child, Olympia Morata. See M. Jules Bonnet's monograph, Vie d'Olympia Morata, épisode de la Renaissance et de la Réforme en Italie. Stähelin has well traced Calvin's religious influence upon Renée and the important family of Soubise. Joh. Calvin, i. 94-110. The extant letters of Calvin to Renée are full of manly and Christian frankness, and affectionate loyalty. Lettres françaises, i. 428, etc.] [Footnote 406: Stähelin is skeptical about, and Prof. Billiet and M. Douen reject altogether the story of Calvin's labors at Aosta. Thus much M. Bonnet believes to be established by concurrent MS. and traditional authority: That, early in the year 1536, Calvin had succeeded in gaining over to the reformed doctrines a number of influential men in this Alpine valley, of the families of La Creste, La Visière, Vaudan, Borgnion, etc.; that he and his converts were accused of plotting to induce the district to embrace Protestantism, and imitate the example of its Swiss neighbors, by constituting itself a canton, free of the Duke of Savoy; that the estates, on the 28th of February, 1536, declared their intention (with a unanimity procured, perhaps, by the expulsion of the opposite party) to live and die in the obedience of the Duke of Savoy and of mother Holy Church; that Calvin and his principal adherents escaped with difficultly into Switzerland; and that expiatory processions were instituted at Aosta, in token of gratitude for deliverance from heresy, in which the bishop and the most prominent noblemen, as well as the common people, "walked with bare feet and in sackcloth and ashes, notwithstanding the rigor of the season." Tradition still points out the "_farm-house_ of Calvin," his "_bridge_," and the _window_ by which he is said to have escaped. The event is commemorated by a monument of the market-place, bearing an inscription that testifies to its having been erected in 1541, and renewed in 1741 and 1841. See the interesting Aostan documents contributed by M. Bonnet to the Bulletin de l'hist. du protest. français, ix. (1860) 160-168, and his letter to Prof. Rilliet, ibid., xiii. (1864) 183-192.]