Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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[Bolsec elsewhere asserts that Claudine Denosse was married when
Beza seduced her], larron, trompeur, homicide de so propre
géniture, traître, vanteur, cause et instigateur d’infinis meurtres,
guerres, invasions, brûlemens de villes, palais et maisons, de
saccagemens de temples, et infinies autres ruines et malheurs (ed.
1835, p. 188).
Much use has been made of the allusions to Beza in HENRY M.
BAIRD’S Rise of the Huguenots (New York, 1879), and Huguenots
and Henry of Navarre (1886), also of the article on “Bèze,
Theodore de,” in Haag, La France Protestante, mentioned above.
See also Principal CUNNINGHAM: The Reformers, Edinburgh, 1862;
“Calvin and Beza,” pp. 345–413 (theological and controversial).
§ 167. LIFE OF BEZA TO HIS CONVERSION.
The history of the Swiss Reformation would not be complete without an
account of Calvin’s faithful friend and successor, Theodore Beza, who
carried on his work in Geneva and France to the beginning of the
seventeenth century.
In the ancient duchy of Burgundy is the village of Vezelay. It was once the
scene of a great gathering, for to it in 1146 came Louis VII. and his
vassals, to whom Bernard preached the duty of rescuing the Holy
Sepulchre from the infidels so convincingly, that the king and his knights
then and there took the oath to become crusaders. Four and forty years
later (1190), in the same place, Philip Augustus of France and Richard the
Lionheart of England, under similar pleadings, made the same vow.
The village clusters around the castle in which, in 1519, lived the rich
Pierre de Besze, f1275 the bailiff of the county, a descendant of one of the
proudest families of the duchy. His wife was Marie Bourdelot, beloved and
renowned for her intelligence and her charities. They had already two sons
and four daughters, when on the 24th of June in that year, 1519, another
son was born who was destined to render the name illustrious to the end of
time. This son was christened Theodore. Thus the future reformer was of
gentle birth — a fact which was recognized when in after years he pleaded
for the Protestant faith before kings, and princes, and members of the
nobility and of the fashionable world.