Note 76 — XXI.—To Louis du Tillet.[76]
Reading edition
The first letter of Calvin to du Tillet (Letter xvii. p. 60) did not remain unanswered:—"If my retreat in this country has caused you great annoyance, as I have understood by your letter of the last of January, I myself have not thought the less of it, considering the interruption of our accustomed converse and familiarity ... could not produce in you so much disquietude. But what could I have done, if, having been there two years or thereby, my conscience could never be at peace on this account, that without a clear call I had retired from a charge which I ought not to have relinquished without the command of God, whereby I have been put into a state of languor, such as you have seen, and by reason of the great unceasing depression of mind which has taken possession of my spirit, I have for this some time past been useless for everything?"—Paris MSS. This letter, written from Paris, (10th March,) did not reach Calvin at all; it was during a sojourn to Strasbourg that the Reformer, driven from Geneva, (23d April 1538,) had retired to Basle, and imparted to his old friend the events which condemned him to a new exile.