At the beginning of the second volume of his massive Histoire générale du Protestantisme Émile Léonard describes the disappearance of Luther as a coup d'arrêt for Lutheranism, contrasting it in this way with the effects of Calvin's death upon Calvinism. There is a real aptness in this comparison. For Lutheranism was, and to a great extent remains, the religion of a personality, of an often stormy and erratic genius, but one capable of influencing and inspiring his followers to an almost unique degree. That Luther's influence has survived his death is apparent from the endless stream of books upon his thought produced by Lutherans in Europe and America and could never be doubted by anyone who has heard a committed Lutheran decide a problem with the reverential words, Luther sagt… Nevertheless, Léonard is not mistaken in seeing Luther's death as a calamity for the confession he had founded, in contrast to the comparatively calm way in which Calvinism reacted to the death of the Genevan reformer in 1564, less than a year after the ending of the Council of Trent. For Calvin created a system; he lived in his works and in the clearly defined church polity he had established in Geneva, which formed a pattern for all Calvinist churches. Luther was not a man of system; one might almost say that he abhorred systems and organisation as much as did St Francis of Assisi.