DEPUTATIONS SENT TO FRANCE AND INTO ENGLAND — THE EDICT OF FONTAINBLEAU.
STRASBOURG, 8th October 1540.
When your letter arrived, the second post had already been dispatched to our princes, by which our friends asked for that embassy about which they had formerly treated. Next, that another also be sent to the King of England, who keeps two of the bishops f218 and many of the brethren detained in prison, because they have refused to sign his insane decrees.
You need not entertain any doubt, my dear Viret, that our Senate lays the matter thoroughly to heart. I speak not of my own anxiety and that of our friends, whose care, however, of the worthy brethren affects them more than you imagine. If you think we are only giving you good words as often as you do not see the success that you wish for, you do not make proper allowance for what we may have a right to expect, and that you ought not by any means to impute the delay to our negligence. Our Senate, also, is greatly surprised that no messenger has been sent back to them with at least an answer of some sort, and does not doubt that the present state of affairs prevents the princes from arriving at any settled determination. I have translated the Royal Edict, f219 and have taken care to keep a copy of it. We are by no means negligent, but we cannot by all our diligence uniformly accomplish what might be wished by all good men. A new hindrance has also of late arisen out of the quarrel of Count William with the Constable of France, which I wish in the long-run may come to good.
Whenever the answer is brought to us, whatever it may be, I will let you know. Oh that the answer may meet our wishes! The letters which arrive from the different provinces of France say nothing about the Edict; and certainly, while occupied in translating it, the composition gave rise to some suspicion, for it has naught of the elegance of courtly diction about it. I keep it however beside me, that it might not be made use of to the hurt
of the brethren. Upon what terms we have come to a settlement with Caroli you shall know by and by, when lecture is over. At present, also, I am writing to Farel, what he will be able to communicate also to you. As usual, I am obliged to bear the whole, brunt of their spite and malice. But as the matter is at an end, you will also endeavor that all old offenses may be done away with. Adieu, my brother.
All the brethren salute you, Capito, Bucer, Sturm, and the rest. — Yours, Calvin.
[Lat. orig. autogr. — Library of Geneva. Volume 106]
LETTER 52
TO FAREL
SICKNESS OF CALVIN — PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE TO THE DIET AT WORMS — LETTER TO THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE
ON BEHALF OF THE FAITHFUL PERSECUTED IN FRANCE.
STRASBOURG, October 1540.
When your letter was first brought to me I could scarcely lift a finger, on account of bodily weakness, and therefore reply to yours somewhat later than I ought. Since that time to the present such has been my state of doubt and hesitation, that it was impossible for me to write any thing for certain; it seemed, indeed, as if it had been so ordered on purpose that our wedlock f220 might not be over joyous, that we might not exceed all
bounds, that the Lord thus thwarted our joy by moderating it. On the 3rd of September I was seized with stuffing of the head, a malady so frequent with me that it gave me no great concern. Next day, being the Lord’s day, when I had got a little warm in the delivery of the forenoon sermon, I felt those humors which had gathered in the head begin to loosen and dissolve.
Before I could leave the place the cough attacked me, and I was very much troubled with the continual defluxion until the Tuesday. On that day, when I was preaching, as usual, and found great difficulty in speaking, owing to the nostrils being blocked up with mucus and the fauces choked with hoarseness, all of a sudden I underwent a strange sensation; the cough, to be sure, ceased, but rather unseasonably, while the head continued to be crammed with evil humors. On the Monday a circumstance occurred which had provoked my anger; for when the housekeeper, as oft she does, spoke more freely than became her, and had addressed some rude expression to my brother, he could not brook her impertinence; not, however, that he made any stir about it, but he silently left the house, and vowed solemnly that he would not return so long as she remained with me. Therefore, when she saw me so sad on account of my brothers departure, she also went elsewhere. Her son, in the meanwhile,
continued to live with me. I am wont, however, when heated by anger, or stirred up by some greater anxiety than usual, to eat to excess, and to devour my meat more eagerly than I ought, which so happened to me at that time. Whenever the stomach is oppressed overnight with too much, or with unsuitable food, I am tormented in the morning with severe
indigestion. To correct that by fasting was a ready cure, and that ,was my usual practice; but in order that the son of our housekeeper might not interpret this abstinence to be an indirect way of getting rid of him, I rather chose, at the expense of health, not to incur that offense. On Tuesday thereafter, when the cough, as I have already mentioned, had ceased, about nine o’clock, after supper, I was seized with a fainting fit. I went to bed;
then followed severe paroxysm, intense burning heat, a strange swimming of the head. When I got up on Wednesday, I felt so feeble in every limb and member, that I was at length forced to acknowledge that I was laboring under severe illness. I dined sparely. After dinner I had two fits, with frequent paroxysms afterwards, but at irregular intervals, so that it could not be ascertained what particular form of fever it was. There was such a degree of perspiration that nearly the whole mattress was moistened by it.
While I was under this sort of treatment your letter arrived. So utterly unable was I to do what you required, that it was with difficulty that I could make out the length of three paces. At length, whatever may have been the original nature of the disease, it turned into a tertian fever, which at first came on with acute shooting pains, but intermittent at every third paroxysm. There came on, to be sure, afterwards, an access of fever, more or less, but that was not so severe. When I began to recover, the time had already gone by, and my strength was not equal to the journey. This, however, by no means prevented me from deliberating with Capito and Bucer, as though I had been quite stout and well; and when the fit time arrived, and in the midst of my sickness, I never desisted from beseeching Bucer rather even to set out by himself, that we might not disappoint the hope which we had given you reason to entertain. f221 Although he was himself very much inclined to accomplish the task he had undertaken, he rather preferred that I should accompany him, nor had the letter of Grynee at all prevailed with him, in which he dissuaded him, whatever might happen, from .joining himself to us, if we should continue to differ in opinion. While I was still suffering under the weakness of which I have spoken, my wife took a fever, from which she is now beginning to get