Note 368 — CCXCIII.—To Bullinger.[368]

Despite Calvin's disagreements with the magistrates of Berne and the Helvetic Churches, he did not hesitate to undertake a journey to them in the month of March 1552, which the seriousness of the circumstances demanded, in order to plead the cause, among the Cantons, of the French Protestants, who were then in a most deplorable condition. "This year," says Ruchat, "the King of France carried his persecution of the Reformers, even to the death, so to speak: and those faithful subjects, who wished only to be allowed to serve God in liberty of conscience, were subjected to the violence of his officers, who acted like so many unchained furies. The flames were kindled, the wheel and the gallows were erected at all the tribunals. The Protestant States of the empire, and the four Reformed Cantons, wore active in their intercessions with the King, by means of special ambassadors, in behalf of these poor persecuted ones; but all their prayers were useless." (Hist. de la Réf., tom. v. p. 479.) The King, on advising the Cantons to abstain from any further approaches to him, declared that he wished to be allowed to remain his own master, and to act as he pleased, and for them to refrain in future, lest those cities continued this business at their own peril; ... that they were at liberty to govern their own cities as they thought proper; that, for his own part, he wished, without let or hindrance, to do the same in his own kingdom, because he intended by all means to purge it of those seditious men.—(Bullinger to Calvin, tom. ix. p. 68.) This last epithet was a calumny. Yet he continued, nevertheless, to persecute the faithful of France as seditious and as rebels, because they desired to serve and to worship God according to his word.