PRESIDENT OF THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF GENEVA, AND VICE-PRESIDENT
OF THE SOCIETE EVANGELIQUE.
TRANSLATED
BY H. WHITE,
B.A. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; M.A. AND PH. DR. HEIDELBERG.
THE TRANSLATION CAREFULLY REVISED BY DR. D'AUBIGNÉ, WHO HAS ALSO
MADE VARIOUS ADDITIONS NOT HITHERTO PUBLISHED.
PUBLISHED BY THE
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.
1848.
A spirit of examination and inquiry is in our days continuallyurging the literary men of France, Switzerland,Germany, and England to search after the original documentswhich form the basis of Modern History. I desire to addmy mite to the accomplishment of the important task whichour age appears to have undertaken. Hitherto I have notbeen content simply with reading the works of contemporaryhistorians: I have examined eye-witnesses, letters, andoriginal narratives; and have made use of some manuscripts,particularly that of Bullinger, which has been printed sincethe appearance of the Second Volume of this Work inFrance.[1]
But the necessity of having recourse to unpublished documentsbecame more urgent when I approached (as I do inthe Twelfth Book) the history of the Reformation in France.On this subject we possess but few printed memoirs, in consequenceof the perpetual trials in which the ReformedChurch of that country has existed. In the spring of 1838I examined, as far as was in my power, the manuscriptspreserved in the public libraries of Paris, and it will be seenthat a manuscript in the Royal Library, hitherto I believeunknown, throws much light on the early stages of the Reformation;[iv]and in the autumn of 1839 I consulted the manuscriptsin the library belonging to the consistory of the pastorsof Neufchatel, a collection exceedingly rich with regard to thisperiod, as having inherited the manuscripts of Farel's library;and through the kindness of the Chatelain of Meuron Iobtained the use of a manuscript life of Farel written byChoupard, into which most of these documents have beencopied. These materials have enabled me to reconstruct anentire phasis of the Reformation in France. In addition tothese aids, and those supplied by the Library of Geneva, Imade an appeal, in the columns of the Archives du Christianisme,to all friends of history and the Reformation whomight have any manuscripts at their disposal; and I heregratefully acknowledge the different communications thathave been made to me, in particular by M. Ladevèze, pastorat Meaux. But although religious wars and persecutionshave destroyed many precious documents, a number stillexist, no doubt, in various parts of France, which wouldbe of vast importance for the history of the Reformation;and I earnestly call upon all those who may possess or haveany knowledge of them, kindly to communicate with me onthe subject. It is felt now-a-days that these documents arecommon property; and on this account I hope my appealwill not be made in vain.
It may be thought that in writing a general History ofthe Reformation, I have entered into an unnecessary detailof its first dawnings in France. But these particulars arealmost unknown, the events that form the subject of myTwelfth Book, occupying only four pages in the HistoireEcclesiastique des Eglises réformées au Royaume de France,by Theodore Beza; and other historians have conf