Note 405 — CCCVI.—To Monsieur de Falais.[403]

The history of M. de Falais, after his rupture with Calvin, is enveloped in much obscurity. He left Geneva in order to settle at Berne, lost his wife in 1557, and contracted a second marriage. We know neither the date nor the place of his death. Is it true, as Bayle affirms, that this seigneur, chagrined by the spectacle of the divisions which he had witnessed at Geneva, at last returned to the Catholic church? We are rather inclined to believe, from the testimonies of Calvin and Beza, indirectly confirmed by the silence of the Brabançon historians, that, though differing on some points of Calvinistic theology, the great-grand-son of Philip of Burgundy did not abjure the tenets for which he had sacrificed his fortune and his country. See Bayle, Dict., Art. Philip of Burgundy, remark G; Calvin, Comment. on the 1st Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, dedication to the Marquis of Vico, 24th January 1556; and the preface of Beza to the Commentary on Joshua.