420 THE KEF0K:MATI0N IN^ FREXCH SWITZERLAND.
and daughter) for their tender sympathy Avith him in this bereavement, stating that Idelette would write hei"self also but for her grief. " The Lord," he says, " has dealt us a severe blow in taking from us om- infant son ; but it is oui- Father who knows what is best for his children." ^ He found compensation for his want of offspring in the multitude of his spiritual children. " God has given me a little son. and taken liim away : but I have myriads of childi-en in the whole Christian world." "^
Of Calvin's deep S}-mpathy with his friends in domestic affliction we have a most striking testimony in a private letter which was never intended for publication. It is the best proof of his extraordinary fidelity as a pastor. Wliile he was in attendance at Ratisbon, the pestilence carried away, among other friends, Louis de Richebourg, who together with his older brother, Chaiies, lived in his house at Strassburg as a student and pensionnaire, under the tutoi-sliip of Claude F^ray, Calvin's dearly beloved assistant. On hearing the sad intelligence, early in April, 1541, he wrote to his father — a gentleman from Xormandy, probably the lord of the ^-illage de Richebourg between Rouen and Beauvais. but otherwise unknown to us — a long letter of condolence and comfort, from which we sfive the foUowinsr extixictsr^ —
1 Aug. 19, lbi-2, at the close. Operxi, XI. 4:30.
- " Dr'iierat mihi Detis ^liliolum, abstuUt ; hoc quoqtie recenset [Balduin or Baudouin, a jurisconsult] inter probra liberis me carere. Atqui mihi jiiiorum sunt myriades in toto orhe Christiana." (^Besponsio ad Balduini Convitia, Geneva, 15(31.) Roman writers speak of the sterility of his marriage as a reproach and judgment. Audin corrects them, but adds ^^ch. XIX.) that Calvin "shed no tears " over the loss of his son, and that " God did not permit him to become a father a second time ! " Bonnet asserts (I.e. 643) that Calvin had two other children, a daughter and a son, who died likewise in infancy, and refers to a letter of Calvin to Viret of 1-S44 ; but this is a mistake, for Calvin, long after the death of his wife, speaks only of one infant son ( n/iWi/s). and CoUadon, in his biography, says (Opera, XXI. 61) that Idelette de Bure had one son from him (tUe eut unjilsdehii).
^ The letter w.hs written in French and translated into Latin by Beza in his edititm of C<ilciHi Epistoltr, Geneva?, 1575, p. 2S0 (under the wrong date of
§ 92. Calvin's marriage and homk likk. 4"21
" K.vTisnox (Month of April), loll.
" AYlicn I first received the intelligence of the death of Clande and of your son Louis, I was so utterly overpowered {tout csiieniu it roii/us en won csjirit) that for many days I was fit for notliing but to weep; nnd althougli I was somehow upheld before the Lord by those aids wherewith He sustains our souls in affliction, yet among men 1 was almost a nonentity ; so far at least as regards my discharge of duty, I appeared to myself quite as unfit for it as if I had been half dead (i/»i homme dcmi-mort). On the one hand, I was sadly grieved that a most excellent and faithful friend [Claude Feray] had been snatched away from me — a friend with whom I was so familiar, that none could be more closely united than we were; on the other liand, there arose another cause of grief, when I saw the young man, your son, taken away in the very flower of his age, a youth of most excellent promise, whom I loved as a son, because, on his part, he showed that respectful alTection toward me as he would to another father.
" To this grievous sorrow was still added the heavy and distressing anxiety we experienced about those wliom the Lord liad spared to us. I heard that the whole household were scattered here and there. The danger of Malherbe ' caused me very great misery, as well as the cause of it, and warned me also as to the rest. I considered that it could not be otherwise but tiiat my wife must be very much disma3'ed. Your Charles,- I assure you, was continually recurring to my thoughts; for in proportion as he was endowed with that goodness of disposition which had always appeared in him towards his brother as well as his preceptor, it never occurred to me to doubt but that lie would be steeped in sorrow and soaked in tears. One single consideration somewhat relieved me, that he had my brother along with him, who, I hoped, would prove no small comfort in this calamity- ; even that, however, I could not reckon upon, when at the same time I recollected that both were in jeopardy, and neither of them were 3"et beyond the reach of danger. Thus, until the letter arrived which informed me that Malherbe was out of danger, and that Charles and my brother, together with my wife and the others, were safe," I would have been all but utterly cast down, unless, as I liave already mentioned, my heart was refreshed in prayer and private meditations, which are suggested bj^ His Word. . . .
" The son whom the Lord had lent you for a season, He has taken away. There is no ground, therefore, for those silly and wicked complaints of foolish men : O blind death ! O hard fate ! 0 implacable daughters of Destiny !
1540). See O/xth, XI. 188 sqq. ; Ilerminjard, VII. G()-7;5 ; Bonnet-Constable, I. 222-229. I have used Constable's translation after comparing it with the French original. The concluding part, however, is only extant in Beza's Latin version.
1 Probably the youngest of Feray's pupils, a native of Normandy. Herminjard, VII. 55, note G.
2 The older son of M. de Richebourg.
8 " Cfiarles et mon frere, avec ma fetnvie et les auti-es se portoyent bien." This explains why Calvin did not hurry back to Strassburg earlier than he did.