"The Sieur de Charreton asked him if he thought this nothing. He replied
that he was aware of the high consideration enjoyed by the Constable,
but he also knew that the King, in disposing of benefices, was wont to
choose the most proper persons, and that the relative of the Constable
was of very poor capacity. To which the aforesaid Sieur de Charreton
rejoined that this was no obstacle, since no great capacity was needed
to hold a simple benefice; whereupon Calvin exclaimed and cried out that
if such wrong was done him he would find means to make them speak of him
for five hundred years; and the aforesaid Sieur de Charreton having
urged him strongly to tell him how he would do this, Calvin conducted
him to his room and showed him the commencement of his _Institutes_; and
after having read a portion of them, Calvin demanded his opinion; he
answered _that it was poison well put in sugar_, and advised him not to
continue a work which was only a false interpretation of the Scriptures
and of everything which the holy fathers had written; and as he
perceived that Calvin remained firm in his wicked purpose, he gave
notice thereof to the Constable, who declared that Calvin was a fool and
should soon be brought to his senses. But two days after, the benefice
having been bestowed on the relative of the Constable, Calvin departed
and began to propagate his sect, which, being very convenient, was
embraced by many persons, some through libertinism, others from weakness
of mind.
"That some time after, the Constable was going to his government of
Languedoc, and passed through Lyons, where the aforesaid Sieur de
Charreton paid him a visit, and was asked if he did not belong to the
sect of Calvin, with whom he had lodged. He answered that he would be
very sorry to embrace a religion the father and founder of which he had
seen born.
"In testimony whereof we have given our signatures, at Paris, this 20th
of September, 1682.
"Signed: Charreton, President; A. Charreton, Widow Renouard; and
Charreton de la Terriere."
After having published his _Psychopannychia_, in 1534, at Orleans,
Calvin left that city. He felt a desire to visit Basel, at that time the
Athens of Switzerland, a city of renown, so long the abode of Erasmus,
famous for its _literati_, its celebrated printers, and its theologians
amorous of novelties; where Froben had published his fine edition of the
works of St. Jerome; where Holbein had painted his picture of Christ
ready for the sepulchre, where Capito taught Hebrew, and Oecolampadius
commented on the Psalms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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