Note 131 — Chapter XIII · (continued 2)

Jean de Serres, ii. 118-150; Mém. de Condé, iii. 395-416; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 32-46; De Thou, iii. 154-157. It is incredible that, as De Thou suggests, this answer should have been penned by Montluc, Bishop of Valence. On the other hand, it bears every mark of having proceeded from the pen of that learned, eloquent, and sprightly writer, Theodore Beza. As a literary production it fully deserves the warm encomium passed upon it by Professor Baum: "It is a masterpiece in respect both to the arrangement and to the treatment of the matter; and, with its truly Demosthenian strength, may, with confidence, be placed by the side of the most eloquent passages to which the French language can point." Baum, Theodor Beza, ii. 642.