Excerpt from History of the Reformation, Vol. 3: In the Sixteenth Century

Literary men in France, Switzerland, Germany, and England, urged on by a spirit of examination and Research, are constantly enquiring after the original documents on which modem history is founded. I wish to contribute my mite to the accomplishment of the important task which our age appears to have undertaken. Hitherto I have not deemed it enough to peruse contemporary historians. I have interrogated eye-witnesses, private letters, and original narratives, and made use of some manuscripts, particularly that of Bullinger, which has since been printed. (Frauenfield, 1838-1840.)

The necessity of having recourse to unpublished documents became more m-gent on approaching, as I do in the twelfth book, the Reformation of France, with regard to which, in consequence of the continual turmoil in which the reformed church of that country has lived, we have only a few printed memoirs. In the spring of 1838, I endeavoured, as far as was in my power, to examine the manuscripts of the public libraries of Paris, it will be seen that a manuscript of the Royal Library, hitherto I believe unknown, throws great light on the first stages of the Reformation. In the autumn of 1839, I consulted the manuscripts in the library of the consistory of pastors of Neufchâtel, a collection which is very rich in regard to this period, from a bequest of the manuscripts of Farel's library, and through the kindness of the proprietor of Meuron, I obtained the use of the manuscript life of Farel by Choupard, into which the greater part of these documents have been transcribed. These manuscripts have enabled me to remodel one entire section of the Reformation in France.

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