HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. VOLUME THIRD. By J. H. MERLE D'aubigné, d.d., President of the Theological School of Geneva, and Vice President TRANSLATED BY H. WHITE, B.A. Trinity College Cambridge, M.A. and Ph. Dr. Heidelberg. THE TRANSLATION carefully revised by dk. d'auBIGNE, WHO HAS ALSO MADE VARIOUS ADDITIONS NOT HITHERTO PUBLISHED. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER, 58 CANAL STREET, AND PITTSBURG, 56 MARKET STREET. PREFACE TO VOLUME THIRD. A SPIRIT of examination and inquiry is in our days continually urging the literary men of France, Switzerland, Germany, and England to search after the original documents which form the basis of Modern History. I desire to add my mite to the accomplishment of the important task which our age appears to have undertaken. Hitherto I have not been content simply with reading the works of contemporary historians: I have examined eye-witnesses, letters, and original narratives; and have made use of some manuscripts, particularly that of Bullinger, which has been printed since the appearance of the Second Volume of this Work in France.* But the necessity of having recourse to unpublished documents became more urgent when I approached (as I do in the Twelfth Book) the history of the Reformation in France. On this subject we possess but few printed memoirs, in consequence of the perpetual trials in which the Reformed Church of that country has existed. In the spring of 1838 I examined, as far as was in my power, the manuscripts preserved in the public libraries of Paris, and it will be seen that a manuscript in the Royal Library, hitherto I believe unknown, throws much light on the early stages of the Refor* Bullinger's Chronik, Frauenfeld, 1838-1840. |