"I would rather have a peaceful victory, won by time and reason," said de Beze.
"Time!" exclaimed Calvin, dashing his chair to the ground, "reason!
Are you mad? Can reason achieve conquests? You know nothing of men, you who deal with them, idiot! The thing that injures my doctrine, you triple fool! is the reason that is in it. By the lightning of Saul, by the sword of Vengeance, thou pumpkin-head, do you not see the vigor given to my Reform by the massacre at Amboise? Ideas never grow till they are watered with blood. The slaying of the Duc de Guise will lead to a horrible persecution, and I pray for it with all my might. Our reverses are preferable to success. The Reformation has an object to gain in being attacked; do you hear me, dolt? It cannot hurt us to be defeated, whereas Catholicism is at an end if we should win but a single battle. Ha! what are my lieutenants?--rags, wet rags instead of men! white-haired cravens! baptized apes! O God, grant me ten years more of life! If I die too soon the cause of true religion is lost in the hands of such boobies! You are as great a fool as Antoine de Navarre! Out of my sight! Leave me; I want a better negotiator than you! You are an ass, a popinjay, a poet! Go and make your elegies and your acrostics, you trifler! Hence!"The pains of his body were absolutely overcome by the fire of his anger; even the gout subsided under this horrible excitement of his mind. Calvin's face flushed purple, like the sky before a storm. His vast brow shone. His eyes flamed. He was no longer himself. He gave way utterly to the species of epileptic motion, full of passion, which was common with him. But in the very midst of it he was struck by the attitude of the two witnesses; then, as he caught the words of Chaudieu saying to de Beze, "The Burning Bush!" he sat down, was silent, and covered his face with his two hands, the knotted veins of which were throbbing in spite of their coarse texture.
Some minutes later, still shaken by this storm raised within him by the continence of his life, he said in a voice of emotion:--"My sins, which are many, cost me less trouble to subdue, than my impatience. Oh, savage beast! shall I never vanquish you?" he cried, beating his breast.
"My dear master," said de Beze, in a tender voice, taking Calvin's hand and kissing it, "Jupiter thunders, but he knows how to smile."Calvin looked at his disciple with a softened eye and said:--"Understand me, my friends."
"I understand that the pastors of peoples bear great burdens," replied Theodore. "You have a world upon your shoulders.""I have three martyrs," said Chaudieu, whom the master's outburst had rendered thoughtful, "on whom we can rely. Stuart, who killed Minard, is at liberty--""You are mistaken," said Calvin, gently, smiling after the manner of great men who bring fair weather into their faces as though they were ashamed of the previous storm. "I know human nature; a man may kill one president, but not two.""Is it absolutely necessary?" asked de Beze.
"Again!" exclaimed Calvin, his nostrils swelling. "Come, leave me, you will drive me to fury. Take my decision to the queen. You, Chaudieu, go your way, and hold your flock together in Paris. God guide you!
Dinah, light my friends to the door."
"Will you not permit me to embrace you?" said Theodore, much moved.
"Who knows what may happen to us on the morrow? We may be seized in spite of our safe-conduct.""And yet you want to spare them!" cried Calvin, embracing de Beze.
Then he took Chaudieu's hand and said: "Above all, no Huguenots, no Reformers, but /Calvinists/! Use no term but Calvinism. Alas! this is not ambition, for I am dying,--but it is necessary to destroy the whole of Luther, even to the name of Lutheran and Lutheranism.""Ah! man divine," cried Chaudieu, "you well deserve such honors.""Maintain the uniformity of the doctrine; let no one henceforth change or remark it. We are lost if new sects issue from our bosom."We will here anticipate the events on which this Study is based, and close the history of Theodore de Beze, who went to Paris with Chaudieu. It is to be remarked that Poltrot, who fired at the Duc de Guise fifteen months later, confessed under torture that he had been urged to the crime by Theodore de Beze; though he retracted that avowal during subsequent tortures; so that Bossuet, after weighing all historical considerations, felt obliged to acquit Beze of instigating the crime. Since Bossuet's time, however, an apparently futile dissertation, apropos of a celebrated song, has led a compiler of the eighteenth century to prove that the verses on the death of the Duc de Guise, sung by the Huguenots from one end of France to the other, was the work of Theodore de Beze; and it is also proved that the famous song on the burial of Marlborough was a plagiarism on it.[*]
One of the most remarkable instances of the transmission of songs is that of Marlborough. Written in the first instance by a Huguenot on the death of the Duc de Guise in 1563, it was preserved in the French army, and appears to have been sung with variations, suppressions, and additions at the death of all generals of importance. When the intestine wars were over the song followed the soldiers into civil life. It was never forgotten (though the habit of singing it may have lessened), and in 1781, sixty years after the death of Marlborough, the wet-nurse of the Dauphin was heard to sing it as she suckled her nursling. When and why the name of the Duke of Marlborough was substituted for that of the Duc de Guise has never been ascertained. See "Chansons Populaires," par Charles Nisard: Paris, Dentu, 1867.--Tr.
