arers to join him in the salutation of
the Virgin.[318] But even this mark of orthodox Catholicity could not
remove the taint of heresy from an address the whole drift of which was
to establish the cardinal doctrine of the theology of Luther and
Zwingle. It was a bold step. The doctors of the Sorbonne could not
suppress their indignation, and Franciscan monks denounced the rector to
the Parliament of Paris. When summoned to appear before the court to
answer the charges brought against him, Cop at first endeavored to
arouse in the university the traditional jealousy of this invasion of
scholastic privileges, claiming that these were violated by his being
cited to parliament before he had been in the first instance tried by
his peers. And, indeed, after a tumultuous meeting of the university,
called at the Mathurins a fortnight after the delivery of Cop's address
(the nineteenth of November), the Faculty of Arts came to the same
conclusion.[319] But, although the "Four Nations," and apparently the
Faculty of Medicine also, promised their support, the Faculties of
Theology and Law refused, and Cop did not venture to press his point.
Warned of his danger by a friendly tongue, when already on his way to
the _Palais de Justice_, in full official costume and accompanied by his
beadles, he consulted his safety by a precipitate flight from the city
and from the kingdom.[320]

[Sidenote: Calvin the real author.]

The incidents just narrated derive their chief interest from the
circumstance that they bring to our notice for the first time a young
man, Jean Cauvin, or Calvin, of Noyon, soon to figure among the most
important actors in the intellectual and religious history of the modern
world; for it was not many days before the authorship of the startling
theological doctrines enunciated by the rector was directly traced to
his friend and bosom companion, the future reformer of Geneva. In fact,
Calvin seems to have supplied Cop with the entire address--a production
not altogether unworthy of that clear and vigorous intellect which,
within less than two years, conceived the plan of and matured the most
orderly and perfect theological treatise of the Reformation--the
"Institution Chretienne." Between the sketch of Christian Philosophy in
the discourse written for the rector, and the Christian Institutes,
there is, nevertheless, a contrast too striking to be overlooked. And if
the salutation to the Virgin, in the exordium, was actua