he great reformer to whose
works he owed his own spiritual enlightenment. Full of zeal for the
propagation of the doctrines he had embraced, Lambert, not long after
(1524), established himself at Metz as a favorable point from which
France might be influenced. But the commotion excited by his
opponents--perhaps, also, his own lack of prudence--compelled him within
a fortnight to flee to Strasbourg.[242] Here, more secure, but scarcely
more judicious, he busied himself with sending over the French borders
numbers of tracts composed or translated by himself, and addressing to
Francis and the chief persons of his court appeals which, doubtless,
rarely if ever reached their eyes.[243] In another field of labor, to
which the Landgrave of Hesse called him, Francois Lambert performed
services far more important than any he was permitted to render his
native land. As the first French monk to throw aside his habit--above
all, as the first to renounce celibacy and defend in a published
treatise the step he had taken (1523), no French reformer, even among
those of far greater abilities and wider influence, was regarded by the
adherents of the Roman Catholic Church with so intense a dislike.[244]

The firm hold which the Reformation was gaining on the population of
several places of great importance, close upon the eastern frontiers of
the kingdom, was a portent of evil in the eyes of the Sorbonne; for
Metz, St. Hippolyte, and Montbeliard, all destined to be absorbed in the
growing territories of France, were already bound to it by close ties of
commercial intercourse.

[Sidenote: Jean Chatellain, of Metz.]

In Metz the powerful appeals of an Augustinian monk, Jean Chatellain,
had powerfully moved the masses. He was as eloquent as he was learned,
as commanding in appearance as fearless in the expression of his
belief.[245] The attempt to molest him would have proved a very
dangerous one for the clergy of Metz to make; for the enthusiasm of the
laity in his support knew no bounds, and the churchmen prudently avoided
giving it an occasion for manifestation. But, no sooner had Chatellain
been induced on some pretext to leave the safe protection of the walls,
than a friar of his own order and monastery betrayed him to the
bishop.[246] He was hurriedly taken to Nommeny, and thence to Vic for
trial and execution. In vain did the Inquisitor of the Faith strive to
shake his constancy. His judges were forced to liken their incorrigible
p