Henry M. Baird · 310 of 379

CHAPTER XI · Beza comes to St. Germain.

That it was no personal fear which had occasioned Beza's delay was soon proved. Antoine had written on the twelfth of August; on the sixteenth, without waiting for a safe-conduct, the reformer was already on his way to St. Germain, acting upon the principle laid down by Calvin: "If it be not yet God's pleasure to open a door, it is our duty to creep in at the windows, or to penetrate through the smallest crevices, rather than allow the opportunity of effecting a happy arrangement to escape us." So expeditious, in fact, was Beza, that on the twenty-second of August he was in Paris. The next day he reached the royal court at St. Germain.