A friend sent me this very interesting link and said, "Protestant histories seem to gloss over Calvin's despotic tendencies. Of course, the same can be said about Catholic histories of the papacy. The clearest thing I've read on Calvin so far is an article from the Catholic Encyclopedia."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03195b.htm
A sample:
In November, 1552, the Council [of Geneva] declared that Calvin's "Institutes" were a "holy doctrine which no man might speak against." Thus the State issued dogmatic decrees, the force of which had been anticipated earlier, as when Jacques Gouet was imprisoned on charges of impiety in June, 1547, and after severe torture was beheaded in July. Some of the accusations brought against the unhappy young man were frivolous, others doubtful. What share, if any, Calvin took in this judgment is not easy to ascertain. The execution of however must be laid at his door; it has given greater offence by far than the banishment of Castellio or the penalties inflicted on Bolsec -- moderate men opposed to extreme views in discipline and doctrine, who fell under suspicion as reactionary. The Reformer did not shrink from his self-appointed task. Within five years fifty-eight sentences of death and seventy-six of exile, besides numerous committals of the most eminent citizens to prison, took place in Geneva.