Reformationis ante Reformationem_, which was
formerly projected by continental writers.

Luther did not consign the pope's decretals to the flames till
1520--this was the first open act of reformation and insurrection, for
hitherto he had submitted to the court of Rome. Yet in 1490, thirty
years preceding this great event, I find a priest burnt for having
snatched the host in derision from the hands of another celebrating
mass. Twelve years afterwards, 1502, a student repeated the same deed,
trampling on it; and in 1523, the resolute death of Anne de Bourg, a
counsellor in the parliament of Paris, to use the expression of Sauval,
"corrupted the world." It is evident that the Huguenots were fast on the
increase. From that period I find continued accounts which prove that
the Huguenots of France, like the Puritans of England, were most
resolute iconoclasts. They struck off the heads of Virgins and little
Jesuses, or blunted their daggers by chipping the wooden saints, which
were then fixed at the corners of streets. Every morning discovered the
scandalous treatment they had undergone in the night. Then their images
were painted on the walls, but these were heretically scratched and
disfigured: and, since the saints could not defend themselves, a royal
edict was published in their favour, commanding that all holy paintings
in the streets should not be allowed short of ten feet from the ground!
They entered churches at night, tearing up or breaking down the
_prians_, the _benitoires_, the crucifixes, the colossal _ecce-homos_,
which they did not always succeed in dislodging for want of time or
tools. Amidst these battles with wooden adversaries, we may smile at
the frequent solemn processions instituted to ward off the vengeance of
the parish saint; the wooden was expiated by a silver image, secured by
iron bars and attended by the king and the nobility, carrying the new
saint, with prayers that he would protect himself from the heretics!

In an early period of the Reformation, an instance occurs of the art of
concealing what we wish only the few should comprehend, at the same time
that we are addressing the public. Curious collectors are acquainted
with "The Olivetan Bible;" this was the first translation published by
the protestants, and there seems no doubt that Calvin was the chief, if
not the only translator; but at that moment not choosing to become
responsible for this new version, he made use of the name of an obscu