vin, with whom he had lodged. He answered that he would be
very sorry to embrace a religion the father and founder of which he had
seen born.

"In testimony whereof we have given our signatures, at Paris, this 20th
of September, 1682.

"Signed: Charreton, President; A. Charreton, Widow Renouard; and
Charreton de la Terriere."

After having published his _Psychopannychia_, in 1534, at Orleans,
Calvin left that city. He felt a desire to visit Basel, at that time the
Athens of Switzerland, a city of renown, so long the abode of Erasmus,
famous for its _literati_, its celebrated printers, and its theologians
amorous of novelties; where Froben had published his fine edition of the
works of St. Jerome; where Holbein had painted his picture of Christ
ready for the sepulchre, where Capito taught Hebrew, and Oecolampadius
commented on the Psalms.

He set out from Orleans in company with his friend Du Tillet; near Metz
their domestic robbed them and fled with their sacks and valises, and
they were forced to seek Strasburg on foot, nearly destitute of
clothing, and with but ten crowns in their pockets. Calvin spent some
time in Strasburg, studying the different transformations which the
reformed gospel had undergone during the brief space of fifteen years.
He entered into intimate relations with some of the most celebrated
representatives of Protestantism. Anyone else, who had arrived there
free from prejudices against Catholicism, would have found salutary
instruction in the ceaseless agitations of that city, which knew not
where to poise itself in order to find repose, and which, since 1521,
had become Lutheran, Anabaptist, Zwinglian, and, at that very moment,
was dreaming of a new transfiguration, to be accomplished by the aid of
Bucer, one of its new guests.

At Basel, Calvin found Simon Grynaeus and Erasmus. Calvin could not
neglect this opportunity of visiting the Batavian philologist, whose
fame was European. After a short interview they separated. Bucer, who
had assisted at the meeting, was solicitous to know the opinion of the
caustic old man. "Master," said he, "what think you of the new-comer?"
Erasmus smiled, without answering. Bucer insisted. "I behold," said the
author of the _Colloquies_, "a great pest, which is springing up in the
Church, against the Church."

On the next day Du Tillet, clerk of the Parliament of Paris, arrived at
Basel and, by dint of tears and entreaties, brought with him his
brother Loui