J. H. Merle D'Aubigné - History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Vol. 1-8)

J. H. Merle d'Aubigne

Translator: William L. R. Cates

e-artnow, 2022

Contact: info@e-artnow.org

EAN 4066338120748

Volume I

Volume II

Volume III

Volume IV

Volume V

Volume VI

Volume VII

Volume VIII

Table of Contents

PREFACE.

BOOK I. GENEVA AND THE FIRST HUGUENOTS.

CHAPTER I. THE REFORMATION AND MODERN LIBERTY.

CHAPTER II. FIRST USURPATIONS AND FIRST STRUGGLES.

CHAPTER III. A BISHOP SENT BY THE POPE TO ROB GENEVA OF ITS INDEPENDENCE. (APRIL TO OCTOBER 1513.)

CHAPTER IV. OPPOSITION TO THE DESIGNS OF THE DUKE, THE POPE, AND THE BISHOP. (1513-1515.)

CHAPTER V. BERTHELIER AND THE YOUTH OF GENEVA AROUSED BY THE BISHOP’S VIOLENCE. (1515-1517.)

CHAPTER VI. THE OPPOSING PARTIES PREPARE FOR BATTLE. (1516-1517.)

CHAPTER VII. ASSEMBLY, AGITATION, AND COMEDY OF THE PATRIOTS. (1516-1517.)

CHAPTER VIII. PÉCOLAT TORTURED AND BERTHELIER ACCUSED. (1517.)

CHAPTER IX. BERTHELIER CALLS THE SWISS TO THE AID OF GENEVA; HUGUENOTS AND MAMELUKES; THE BISHOP’S VIOLENCE.

CHAPTER X. FRESH TORTURES, PÉCOLAT’S DESPAIR AND STRIKING DELIVERANCE.

CHAPTER XI. BERTHELIER TRIED AT GENEVA; BLANCHET AND NAVIS SEIZED AT TURIN; BONIVARD SCANDALISED AT ROME. (1518.)

CHAPTER XII. BLANCHET AND NAVIS EXECUTED. THEIR LIMBS SUSPENDED TO THE WALNUT-TREE NEAR THE BRIDGE OF ARVE. (October 1518.)

CHAPTER XIII. THE HUGUENOTS PROPOSE AN ALLIANCE WITH THE SWISS, AND THE MAMELUKES AMUSE THEMSELVES AT TURIN. (October to December 1518.)

CHAPTER XIV. THE HUGUENOTS DEMAND AN ALLIANCE WITH FRIBURG: THE MAMELUKES OPPOSE IT. BERTHELIER IS ACQUITTED. (December 1518 to January 1519.)

CHAPTER XV. THE PEOPLE IN GENERAL COUNCIL VOTE FOR THE ALLIANCE. THE DUKE INTRIGUES AGAINST IT. (February and March 1519.)

CHAPTER XVI. THE CANONS JOIN THE DUKE, AND THE PEOPLE RISE AGAINST THEM. (March 1519.)

CHAPTER XVII. THE DUKE AT THE HEAD OF HIS ARMY SURROUNDS GENEVA. (March and April 1519.)

CHAPTER XVIII. THE ARMY OF SAVOY IN GENEVA. (April and May 1519.)

CHAPTER XIX. ARREST OF BONIVARD AND BERTHELIER. (April to September 1519.)

CHAPTER XX. PHILIBERT BERTHELIER THE MARTYR OF LIBERTY. TERROR AND OPPRESSION IN GENEVA. (August and September 1519.)

CHAPTER XXI. STRUGGLES OF LIBERTY. LUTHER. DEATH OF THE BISHOP. HIS SUCCESSOR. (1520-1523.)

CHAPTER XXII. CHARLES DESIRES TO SEDUCE THE GENEVANS. THE MYSTERIES OF THE CANONS AND OF THE HUGUENOTS. (August 1523.)

CHAPTER XXIII. AIMÉ LÉVRIER, A MARTYR TO LIBERTY AND RIGHT AT THE CASTLE OF BONNE. (March 1524.)

CHAPTER XXIV. INDIGNATION AGAINST THE MAMELUKES; THE DUKE APPROACHES WITH AN ARMY; FLIGHT OF THE PATRIOTS. (1524-1525.)

CHAPTER XXV. THE FUGITIVES AT FRIBURG AND BERNE. THE DUKE AND THE COUNCIL OF HALBERDS AT GENEVA. (September to December 1525.)

CHAPTER XXVI. THE PEOPLE AND THE BISHOP DEFEND THE CAUSE OF THE FUGITIVES. (December 1525 To February 1526.)

CHAPTER XXVII. GENEVA AND THE SWISS ALLIED. THE BISHOP, THE DUCALS, AND THE CANONS ESCAPE. JOY OF THE PEOPLE. (February To August 1526.)

BOOK II. FRANCE. FAVOURABLE TIMES.

CHAPTER I. A MAN OF THE PEOPLE AND A QUEEN. (1525-1526.)

CHAPTER II. MARGARET SAVES THE EVANGELICALS AND THE KING. (1525-1526.)

CHAPTER III. WILL THE REFORMATION CROSS THE RHINE? (1525-1526.)

CHAPTER IV. DEATH OF THE MARTYRS: RETURN OF THE KING. (1526.)

CHAPTER V. DELIVERY OF THE CAPTIVES AND RETURN OF THE EXILES. (1526.)

CHAPTER VI. WHO WILL BE THE REFORMER OF FRANCE? (1526.)

CHAPTER VII. CALVIN’S EARLY STUDIES AND EARLY STRUGGLES. 1523-1527.)

CHAPTER VIII. CALVIN’S CONVERSION AND CHANGE OF CALLING. (1527.)

CHAPTER IX. BERQUIN DECLARES WAR AGAINST POPERY. (1527.)

CHAPTER X. EFFORTS OF DUPRAT TO BRING ABOUT A PERSECUTION: RESISTANCE OF FRANCIS I. (1527-1528.)

CHAPTER XI. REJOICINGS AT FONTAINEBLEAU AND THE VIRGIN OF THE RUE DES ROSIERS. (1528.)

CHAPTER XII. PRISONERS AND MARTYRS AT PARIS AND IN THE PROVINCES. (1528.)

‘Les choses de petite durée out coutume de devenir fanées, quand elles out passé leur temps.

‘Au règne de Christ, il n’y a que le nouvel homme qui soit florissant, qui ait de la vigueur, et dont il faille faire cas.’

Calvin.

Table of Contents

At the conclusion of the preface to the first volume of the History of the Reformation , the author wrote, ‘This work will consist of four volumes, or at the most five, which will appear successively.’ These five volumes have appeared. In them are described the heroic times of Luther, and the effects produced in Germany and other countries by the characteristic doctrine of that reformer—justification by faith. They present a picture of that great epoch which contained in the germ the revival of christianity in the last three centuries. The author has thus completed the task he had assigned himself; but there still remained another.

The times of Luther were followed by those of Calvin. He, like his great predecessor, undertook to search the Scriptures, and in them he found the same truth and the same life; but a different character distinguishes his work.

The renovation of the individual, of the Church, and of the human race, is his theme. If the Holy Ghost kindles the lamp of truth in man, it is (according to Calvin) ‘to the end that the entire man should be transformed.’—‘In the kingdom of Christ,’ he says, ‘it is only the new man that flourishes and has any vigour, and whom we ought to take into account.’

This renovation is, at the same time, an enfranchisement; and we might assign, as a motto to the reformation accomplished by Calvin, as well as to apostolical christianity itself, these words of Jesus Christ: The truth shall make you free. 1

When the gods of the nations fell, when the Father which is in heaven manifested Himself to the world in the Gospel, adopting as His children those who received into their hearts the glad tidings of reconciliation with God, all these men became brethren, and this fraternity created liberty. From that time a mighty transformation went on gradually, in individuals, in families, and in society itself. Slavery disappeared, without wars or revolutions.

Unhappily, the sun which had for some time gladdened the eyes of the people, became obscured; the liberty of the children of God was lost; new human ordinances appeared to bind men’s consciences and chill their hearts. The Reformation of the sixteenth century restored to the human race what the middle ages had stolen from them; it delivered them from the traditions, laws, and despotism of the papacy; it put an end to the minority and tutelage in which Rome claimed to keep mankind for ever; and by calling upon man to establish his faith not on the word of a priest, but on the infallible Word of God, and by announcing to everyone free access to the Father through the new and saving way—Christ Jesus, it proclaimed and brought about the hour of christian manhood.

An explanation is, however, necessary. There are philosophers in our days who regard Christ as simply the apostle of political liberty. These men should learn that, if they desire liberty outwardly, they must first possess it inwardly. To hope to enjoy the first without the second is to run after a chimera.

The greatest and most dangerous of despotisms is that beneath which the depraved inclination of human nature, the deadly influence of the world, namely, sin, miserably subjects the human conscience. There are, no doubt, many countries, especially among those which the sun of christianity has not yet illumined, that are without civil liberty, and that groan under the arbitrary rule of powerful masters. But, in order to become free outwardly, men must first succeed in being free inwardly. In the human heart there is a vast country to be delivered from slavery—abysses which man cannot cross alone, heights he cannot climb unaided, fortresses he cannot take, armies he cannot put to flight. In order to conquer in this moral battle, man must unite with One stronger than himself—with the Son of God.