Note 399 — Chapter VI

"La dédicace à François Ier, qui est peut-étre une des plus belles choses que possède notre langue." Paul L. Jacob, bibliophile (Lacroix), "Avertissement" prefixed to Œuvres françaises de Calvin. The Institutes he designates "ce chef-d'œuvre de science théologique, de philosophie religieuse et de style." "Here," says Henri van Laun, "was a force and concision of language never before heard in France.... The influence of Calvin's writings upon the style of his successors, and upon the literary development of his country, cannot easily be over-estimated. With him French prose may be said to have attained its manhood; the best of his contemporaries, and of those who had preceded him, did but use as a staff or as a toy that which he employed as a burning sword." History of French Literature (New York, 1876), i. 338, 339.