We cannot forbear to beseech you not only to use your endeavours in the cause of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the advancement of the Gospel and for the security and repose of the poor faithful, but also to show in your whole life that you have profited by the doctrines of salvation, and to let your example be such as to edify the good and to close the mouths of all slanderers. For in proportion as you are conspicuous from afar in so exalted a position, ought you to be on your guard lest they should find any fault in you. You cannot doubt, Monseigneur, that we love your honour as we desire your salvation; and we should be traitors were we to conceal from you the rumours that are in circulation concerning you. We do not suppose that there is any direct offence to God; but when it is reported to us that you make love to ladies, your authority and reputation are seriously prejudiced. Good people will be scandalized thereby; the evil-disposed will make it a subject of mockery. It involves a distraction which hinders and retards you from attending to your duty. There must even be some mundane vanity in it; and it becomes you, above all else, to take heed lest the light which God has placed in you be quenched or grow dim. We trust, Monseigneur, that this warning will be taken in good part, when you reflect how much it is for your service. From Geneva, this thirteenth day of September 1563. Your very humble brethren, JEAN CALVIN THÉODORE DE BESZE Condé received this letter at the Château of Muret, in Picardy, whither he had just arrived on a visit to his wife and family, accompanied by his brother-in-law, the Comte de la Rochefoucauld,[45] and his nephew, the Prince de Porcien. It would not appear to have been altogether without effect, for, on 2 October, Condé’s mother-in-law, the Comtesse de Roye, wrote to the Duke of Würtemberg: “The prince, my son-in-law, intends to devote himself more and more to everything which can further the reign of Jesus Christ.”[46] In the course of that same month, a domestic calamity came to add weight to the counsels of Calvin and Bèze. Two of his younger children, Madeleine, aged three, and Louis, a child of eighteen months, fell ill and died within a few days of one another, to the inexpressible grief of the Princesse de Condé, who was one of the most devoted of mothers.