DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0226
184
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
sternness. Stepped is, perhaps, too leisurely a word.
Margaret had been keeping him for some time in hiding
at Nantes and at Angouleme, and now he fled to her,
disguised as a vineyard-labourer. He found a troop of
penniless Protestant Scholars—as incongruous as himself—in
her palace. Chief among the new names were two of whom
there will be more to learn hereafter: the restless, revolution-
ary poet, Bonaventure des Periers; and the free-thinking
philosopher and pamphleteer, Etienne Dolet, both of them
constantly in mischief. And there was the sweet old Maitre
des Requetes, Margaret’s future biographer, Charles de Sainte-
Marthe—broad of mind, but too gentle of spirit to be danger-
ous—and the peaceful librarian, Lefebre, whom Calvin set to
work to censure for his “cowardly” want of initiative.
A court was certainly not Calvin’s element; he was a born
controversialist, urged alike by an unflinching courage and an
unresting brain. Although he was little over twenty, his
character and creed were already set. He was a born despot,
and countenanced no method of belief but his own. Of
Margaret’s tolerance, which he praised when directed towards
the Calvinists, he severely disapproved when it was given to
others. Her readiness to help all the persecuted, whether
Romans or Genevans, seemed a weakness to him; eclecticism
offended him like a crime, and all the race of broad-thinkers
—“libertins” he called them—were outcasts in his eyes.
After he had left Bearn,1 he shot forth a terrible pamphlet,
“ Ex Libertinis ”, in which he bitterly reproached the Queen
of Navarre for harbouring two fugitives belonging to no
1 1545.
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
sternness. Stepped is, perhaps, too leisurely a word.
Margaret had been keeping him for some time in hiding
at Nantes and at Angouleme, and now he fled to her,
disguised as a vineyard-labourer. He found a troop of
penniless Protestant Scholars—as incongruous as himself—in
her palace. Chief among the new names were two of whom
there will be more to learn hereafter: the restless, revolution-
ary poet, Bonaventure des Periers; and the free-thinking
philosopher and pamphleteer, Etienne Dolet, both of them
constantly in mischief. And there was the sweet old Maitre
des Requetes, Margaret’s future biographer, Charles de Sainte-
Marthe—broad of mind, but too gentle of spirit to be danger-
ous—and the peaceful librarian, Lefebre, whom Calvin set to
work to censure for his “cowardly” want of initiative.
A court was certainly not Calvin’s element; he was a born
controversialist, urged alike by an unflinching courage and an
unresting brain. Although he was little over twenty, his
character and creed were already set. He was a born despot,
and countenanced no method of belief but his own. Of
Margaret’s tolerance, which he praised when directed towards
the Calvinists, he severely disapproved when it was given to
others. Her readiness to help all the persecuted, whether
Romans or Genevans, seemed a weakness to him; eclecticism
offended him like a crime, and all the race of broad-thinkers
—“libertins” he called them—were outcasts in his eyes.
After he had left Bearn,1 he shot forth a terrible pamphlet,
“ Ex Libertinis ”, in which he bitterly reproached the Queen
of Navarre for harbouring two fugitives belonging to no
1 1545.