§ 80. FROM BASEL TO FERRAKA. 345
directed to her. She was in Paris during the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew, and succeeded in saving the lives of some prominent Huguenots.^
Threatened by the Inquisition which then began its work of crushing out both the Renaissance and the Reformation, as two kindred serpents, Calvin bent his way, probably through Aosta (the birthplace of Anselm of Canterbury) and over the Great St. Bernard, to Switzerland.
An uncertain tradition connects with this journey a persecution and flight of Calvin in the valley of Aosta, which was commemorated five years later (1541) by a memorial cross with the inscription " Calviiii Fuga."" ^
1 See the correspondence in the Letters by Bonnet, and in the Strassburg- Braunschweig edition. On Renee and her relation to Calvin see Henry, I. 159, 450-454; IIL Beilage 142-153; in his smaller work, 62-69; 478-483; Stahelin, I. 94-108; Sophia W. Weitzel, Renee of France, Duchess of Ferrara, New York, 1883; and Theod. Schott, in Herzog^, XII. 693-701.
2 In the city of Aosta, near the Croix-de-Ville, stands a column eight feet high, surmounted by a cross of stone, with the following inscription :
Hanc Calvini Fuga
EREXIT
Anno MDXLI
Religionis Constantia
Reparavit
Anno MDCCXLI.
The inscription was renewed again in 1841, with the following addition (according to Merle d'Aubigne, who saw it himself, vol. V. 531) :
clvidm munificentia
Renovavit et Adornavit.
Anno MDCCCXLI.
" Religionis constantia " must refer to the Roman faith which drove Calvin and his heresy away. Dr. Merle d'Aubigne' accepts Calvin's flight on the ground of this monumental testimony as a historical fact, but the silence of Calvin, Beza, and CoUadon throws doubt on it. See J. Bonnet, Calvin au Val d' Aosta, 1861 ; A. Rilliet, Lettre a Mr. Merle d'Aubigne' sur deux points obscure de la vie de Calvin, 1864; Stahelin, I. 110; Kampschulte, I. 280 (note) ; La F-ance Prot., III. 520 ; Thomas M'Crie, The Earltj Years of Calvin, pp. 95 and 104.
FoNTANA : Documenti del archivio vaticano e dell' Estenso circa soggiorno di Calvino a Ferrara, 1885. Comba in " Rivista Christiana," 1885 ; Sandovini in " Rivista stor. italiana," 1887.
346 THE REFORIVIATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
At Basel he parted from Du Tillet and paid a last visit to his native town to make a final settlement of family affairs.^
Then he left France, with his younger brother Antoine and his sister iVIarie, forever, hoping to settle down in Basel or Strassburg and to lead there the quiet life of a scholar and author. Owing to the disturbances of war between Charles V. and Francis I., which closed the direct route through Lorraine, he had to take a circuitous journey through Geneva.
1 This visit to Noyon is mentioned by Beza in the Latin Vita, who adds that he then brought his only surviving brother Antoine, with him to Geneva (XXI. 125). Colladon (58) agrees, and informs us that Calvin left Du Tillet at Basel, who from there went to Neuchatel. In his French Life of C, Beza omits the journey to France: "A son retour d'ltalie . . . il passa a la bonne heure par ceste ville de Geneve."
CHAPTER X.
CALVIN'S FIRST SOJOURN AND LABORS IN GENEVA.
1536-1538.
From 1536, and especially from 1541, we have, besides the works and letters of Calvin and his correspondents and other contemporaries, important sources of authentic information in the following documents : —
1. Segistres du Conseil de Geneve, from 1536-1564. Tomes 29-58.
2. Registres des actes de bapteme et de marriage, preserved in the archives of
the city of Geneva.
3. Registres des actes du Consistoire de Geneve, of which Calvin was a perma-
nent member.
4. Registres de la Venerable Compagnie, or the Ministerium of Geneva.
5. The Archives of Bern, Ziirich, and Basel, of that period, especially those
of Bern, which stood in close connection with Geneva and exercised a sort of protectorate over Church and State.
From these sources the Strassburg editors of Calvin's Works have carefully compiled the Annales Calviniani, in vol. XXI. (or vol. XII. of Thesaurus Epistolicus Calvinianus) , 185-818 (published 1879). The same volume contains also the biographies of Calvin by Beza (French and Latin) and Colladon (French), the epitapliia, and a Notice litteraire, 1-178.
J. H. Albert Rilliet : Le pre'mier se'jour de Calvin a Geneve. In his and Dufour's ed. of Calvin's French Catechism. Geneva, 1878. — Henry, vol. I. chs. VIIL and IX. — Dyer, ch. III.— Stahelin, L 122 sqq.— Kampschulte, I. 278-320. — Merle d'Aubigne, Bk. XI. chs. I.-XIV.