hand of man has set up." "Then," angrily retorted one De Roma,
a Dominican monk, "Then I, and others like me, will join in preaching a
crusade; and should the king tolerate the proclamation of the Gospel, we
shall drive him from his kingdom by means of his own subjects!"[150]

The Dominican friar stood forth at that moment the embodiment of the
monastic spirit speaking defiance to the nascent reform. The church of
the state, with its rich abbeys and priories, its glorious old
cathedrals, and boundless possessions of lands and houses, was not to be
resigned without a struggle so terrific as to shake the foundations of
the throne itself. The germ of the Guises and the League, with Jacques
Clement and Ravaillac, was already formed, and possessed a prodigious
latent vitality.

[Sidenote: Briconnet's activity.]

Bishop Briconnet was himself active in promoting the evangelical work,
preaching against the most flagrant abuses, and commending to the
confidence of his flock the more eloquent preachers whom he had
introduced. The incredible rumor even gained currency that the
hot-headed prelate went through his diocese casting down the images and
sparing no object of idolatrous worship in the churches.[151] But,
however improbable it may be that Briconnet ever engaged in any such
iconoclastic demonstrations, it is a strong Roman Catholic partisan who
has preserved the record of this significant warning given by the
prelate to his flock, and elicited either by the consciousness of his
own moral feebleness, or by a certain vague premonition of danger: "Even
should I, your bishop, change my speech and teaching, beware that you
change not with me!"[152]

[Sidenote: Lefevre translates the New Testament.]

Under Briconnet's protection Jacques Lefevre assumed a task less
restricted in its influence than preaching, in which he probably took a
less active part than his coadjutors. The Bible was a closed book to the
common people in France. The learned might familiarize themselves with
its contents by a perusal of the Latin Vulgate; but readers acquainted
with their mother tongue alone were reduced to the necessity of using a
rude version wherein text and gloss were mingled in inextricable
confusion, and the Scriptures were made to countenance the most absurd
abuses.[153] The best furnished libraries rarely contained more than a
few detached books of the Bible, and these intended for ornament rather
than use.[154] Lefevre resolved, t