oit venir de fruict a nostre nation francoise, _l'ay aussy
translate en nostre langue_." See also chap. iii. of Professors Baum,
Cunitz, and Reuss, Introd. to Institution de la religion chretienne
(Calv. Opera, t. iii.).]

[Footnote 398: Opera Calvini (Amst., 1667), t. ix.]

[Footnote 399: "La dedicace a Francois I^er, qui est peut-etre une des
plus belles choses que possede notre langue." Paul L. Jacob, bibliophile
(Lacroix), "Avertissement" prefixed to Oeuvres francaises de Calvin.
The Institutes he designates "ce chef-d'oeuvre de science theologique,
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.]

[Footnote 400: Yet it is more probable, as Staehelin suggests (Joh.
Calvin, ii. 93), that the classical associations of Italy drew him to
the peninsula, which was at that time the home of art, than that his
fame, having already penetrated to Ferrara, procured him a direct
invitation from Renee to visit her.]

[Footnote 401: Showing, according to Brantome, "en son visage et en sa
parole qu'elle estoit bien _fille du Roy et de France_." Dames
illustres, Renee de France.]

[Footnote 402: See the pompous ceremonial on this occasion and the
epithalamium of Clement Marot, in Cronique du Roy Francois I^er (G.
Guiffrey, 1860), 68-73.]

[Footnote 403: Dames illustres, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 404: "Que voulez-vous? Ce sont des pauvres Francois de ma
maison; et _lesquels si Dieu m'eust donne barbe au menton_ et que je
fusse homme, _seroient maintenant tous mes sujets_. Voire me
seroient-ils tels, _si cette meschante Loy Salicque ne me tenoit trop de
rigueur_." Ibid., _ubi supra_. A readable account of the life of this
remarkable woman is given in "Some Memorials of Renee of France, Duchess
of Ferrara" (2d edit., London, 1859), a volume enriched, to some extent,
with letters drawn from the Paris National Library, and from less
accessible collections in Great Britain.]

[Footnote 405: Possibly including the wonderfully