Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/138

I 2 8 Revieivs of Books of Calvin's familiars. The chapters on his relatives, on his friends and especially on his secretaries, Nicholas des Gallars, Jean Bude, Charles de Jonvilliers, Raguenier, etc., are precious, being based on information more complete than any note of previous biographers. Concerning the reformer himself. Professor Doumergue has honored me with a special chapter answering my last criticism in this Review. We disagree on a question of chronology and of measure as to the part to be attributed to heart-impulses in Calvin's conduct. My learned colleague is bent on making that part a leading one in his hero's public life and even his theology. To the numerous quotations he had gathered from the correspondence of his youth he now adds some new ones from letters of the Genevan epoch to and from his friends and insists upon the devoted feelings he inspired in them up to his last days. I never doubted that Calvin remained sympathetic to his friends, even in those troubled times to which I had to refer. I spoke of historians, who are by duty neither friends nor foes, and who have to judge on facts as well as on formulae. But I do not wish to impose to-day on my American readers the continuation of a controversy which nevertheless will have to be pursued later, when the monumental work of Professor Doumergue receives its last crowning volume, which will bear the announced, promis- ing title: " Struggle and Triumph. For the present I ought to be contented with quoting the following extracts from the excellent chapter: " Calvin at home" (p. 548), which proves beyond dispute how much the author has progressed in his knowledge of Calvinian psychology by studying him, with the help of luminous medical advice, on the spot : " Nous constatons cette chose simple, naturelle, necessaire, a savoir que Calvin a eu le caractere exige par sa situation exceptionnelle. Certes, pas plus ici qu'ailleurs, nous ne contestons les defauts de Calvin, ni ce cote, cette face de son caractere, qui est I'austerite, la severite. Meme nous reconnaissons qu'il etait nerveux, irritable, tres irritable, et que cette irritabilite naturelle etait sans cesse augmentee par I'enervement de la maladie, et par I'enervement plus agaqant encore d'une opposition souvent mechante. Nous ne contestons pas davantage qu'un homme de cette energie, de cette volonte, de cette clarte de con- ception, de cette confiance en la verite, telle qu'il la concevait, n'ait eu un penchant tres naturel a exercer la domination dont il etait capable, qui lui etait offerte par les circonstances, et qui etait indispensable au succes de sa mission et de son oeuvre. Mais toutes ces restrictions faites, il n'en reste pas inoins que ce qui est incontestable dans le carac- tere de Calvin, c'est la seduction, I'attrait." Ch.rles Borgeaud.