From that time until his death in 1564
Calvin was the center of a movement which, starting from these small
Zwinglian beginnings among the Swiss mountains, speedily spread over
more countries and affected more people than did Lutheranism. In
Calvinism, Catholicism was to find her most implacable foe.
John Calvin, who, next to Martin Luther, was the most conspicuous
Protestant leader of the sixteenth century, was a Frenchman. Born of
middle-class parentage at Noyon in the province of Picardy in 1509, he
was intended from an early age for an ecclesiastical career. A pension
from the Catholic Church enabled him to study at Paris, where he
displayed an aptitude for theology and literature. When he was nineteen
years of age, however, his father advised him to abandon the idea of
entering the priesthood in favor of becoming a lawyer--so young Calvin
spent several years studying law.
[Sidenote: Calvin in France]
It was in 1529 that Calvin is said to have experienced a sudden
"conversion." Although as yet there had been no organized revolt in
France against the Catholic Church, that country, like many others, was
teeming with religious critics.
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