§ 109. THE LEADERS OF THE LIBERTINES. 507
On the 27th of June, 1547, Gruet's threatening- libel was published.^ Calvin was reported to have been killed. lie received letters from Burgogne and Lyons that the Children of Geneva had offered five hundred crowns for his head.^
On his return from Paris, Perrin Avas capitally indicted on a charge of treason, and of intending to quarter two hundred French cavalry, under his own command, at Geneva. Mis excuse was that he had accepted tlie command of these troops with the reservation of the approval of the government of Geneva. Bonivard, the old soldier of liberty and prisoner of Chillon, took pai't against Perrin. The ambassadors of Bern endeavored to divert the storm from the head of Perrin to the French ambassador INIaigret the Magnifique. Perrin was expelled from the Council, and the office of captaingeneral was suppressed, but he was released from prison, together with his wife and father-in-law, Nov. 29, 1547.^
The Libertines summoned all their forces for a reaction. They called a meeting of the Council of Two Hundred, where they expected most support. A violent scene took place on Dec. 16, 1547, in the Senate house, when Calvin, unarmed and at the risk of his life, appeared in the midst of the armed crowd and called upon them, if they designed to shed blood, to begin with him. He succeeded, by his courage and eloquence, in calming the wild storm and preventing a disgraceful carnage. It Avas a sublime victory of reason over passion, of moral over physical force.^
^ See above, p. 502.
2 Calvin to Farel, Aug. 21, 1547 {Opera, XII. 580; Bonnet, II . 123 and note); Reg. of the Consistory, Sept. 1, 1547.
^ Reg. du Conseil : " Perrin est reldche' vu sa long detention et crie viercl." Annul. 417. Francois Favre had been previously deprived of the rights of citizenship (Oct. 5) on the charge of exciting an emeute against the French refugees, and calling Calvin " le grand dlable." Ibid. 413 sq.
■* Dec. 16 (not Sept. 16) is the date given in the Reg. of the Venerable Company, quoted in Annul. 418. Beza briefly alludes to the scene; Calvin gives an account of it in a letter to Viret, dated Dec. 17, 1547, a day after the occurrence (in Opera, XII. 632 sq.). This letter is misdated, Dec. 14, by Bonnet (II. 134, apparently a typographical error), and Sept. 17 by
508 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
The ablest of the detractors of Calvin cannot help paying here an involuntary tribute to him and to the truth of history. This is his dramatic account.
" The Council of the Two Hundred was assembled. Never had any session been more tumultuous ; the parties, weary of speaking, began to appeal to arms. The people heard the appeal. Calvin appears, unattended; he is received at the lower part of the hall with cries of death. He folds his arms, and looks the agitators fixedly in the face. Not one of them dares strike him. Then, advancing through the midst of the groups, with his breast uncovered : ' If you want blood,' says he, ' there are still a few drops here ; strike, then ! ' Not an arm is raised. Calvin then slowly ascends the stairway to the Council of the Two Hundred. The hall was on the point of being drenched with blood ; swords were flashing. On beholding the Reformer, the weapons were lowered, and a few words sufficed to calm the agitation. Calvin, taking the arm of one of the councillors, again descends the stairs, and cries out to the people that he wishes to address them. He does speak, and with such energy and feeling, that tears flow from their eyes. They embrace each other, and the crowd retires in silence. The patriots had lost the day. From that moment, it was easy to foretell that victory would remain with the Eeformer. The Libertines, who had shown themselves so bold when it was a question of destroying some front of a Catholic edifice, overturning some saint's niche, or throwing down an old wooden cross weakened by age, trembled like women before this man, who, in fact, on this occasion, exhibited something of the Homeric heroism." ^
Notwithstanding this triumph, Calvin did not trust his enemies, and expressed in letters to Farel and Viret even the
Henry (II. 434) and Dyer (p. 219). The last error crept into the Latin editions, against the manuscripts, wliich give Dec. 17. The letter is defective at the beginning and was first published by Beza. Galiffe overlooked it. See the notes of the Strassburg editors, XII. 633. 1 Audin, Life of Calvin, p. 394.