850 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
That he did not escape contamination he has himself confessed, but that he sinned grossly he has as plainly denied.i In 1544 he made in the presence of two friends, Laurent de Normandie and Jean Crespin, eminent jurists, an irregular alliance with Claudine Denosse,^ a burgher's daughter, and at the time declared that when circumstances favored he would publicly marry her. His motive in making a secret marriage was his desire to hold on to his benefices. But he was really attached to the woman, and was faithful to her, as she was to him ; and there was nothing in their relationship which would have seriously compromised him with the company in which he lived. The fact that they lived together happily for forty years shows that they followed the leading of sincere affection, and not a passing fancy. In 1548 he published his famous collection of poems — Juvenilia. This gave him the rank of the first Latin poet of his da}^ and his ears were full of praises. He dedicated his book to Wolmar. It did not occur to him that anybody would ever censure him for his poems, least of all on moral grounds ; but this is precisely what happened. Prurient minds have read between his lines what he never intended to put there, and imagined offences of which he was not guilty even in thought.^ And what made the case blacker against him was his subsequent Protestantism. Because he became a leader of the Reformed Church, free-thinkers and livers and the adherents of the old faith have brought up against him the fact that in the days of his worldly and luxurious life he had used their language, and been as pagan and impure as they.
of the ladies, whom he took much pains not to displease. It cannot be denied that he was very attractive, lively, easy, subtle, playful, and polished, having cultivated his mind by reading literature, particularly poetry, wherein he himself excelled both in French and Latin, mingling with it a little philosophy and law which he had taken in at Orleans."
1 Baura, I. 60-63.
- Anciently spelled Desnosze.
3 Thus they have taken the characters mentioned in them as actual, whereas they are purely imaginary.
§ 168. I5EZA AT LAUSANNE. 851
The book had scarcely begun its career, and the praises had scarcely begun to be received, ere Beza fell seriously sick. Sobered by his gaze into the eyes of death, his conscience rebuked him for his duplicity in receiving ecclesiastical benefices as if he was a faithful son of the Church, whereas he was at heart a Protestant ; for his cowardice in cloaking his real opinions ; for his negligence in not keeping the promise he had voluntarily made to the woman he had secretly married four years before ; and for the general condition of his private and public life. The teachings of Wolmar came back to him. This world seemed very hollow; its praises and honors very cloying. The call to a higher, purer, nobler life was heard, and he obeyed ; and, although only convalescent, leaving father and fatherland, riches and honors, he fled from the city of his triumphs and his trials, and, taking Claudine Denosse with him, crossed the border into Switzerland,! and on Oct. 23, 1548, entered the city of Geneva. He was doubtless attracted thither because his intimate friend Jean Crespin, one of the witnesses of his secret alliance, was living there, likewise a fugitive for religion's sake — and there lived John Calvin.
From being the poet of the Renaissance, bright, witty, free, Beza, from the hour he joined the Reformed Church, became a leader in all its affairs and one of the chiefs of Protestantism. 2
§ 168. Beza at Lausanne and as a Delegate to the German
Princes.
Beza's earliest business after greeting Calvin was to marry in church Claudine Denosse. Then he looked around for
1 He adopted tlie alias of Tliibaud de May. So Ileppe, p. 20.
- For having left France because he was a Protestant he was condemned by the Parliament of Paris to death, and all his property confiscated to the State (May 31, 1550). By special royal mandate his property was restored to him in 1564, althou<rh he was at the time at the head of the Reformed Church of France. C/. Baum, I. 00 sq.