t of France, in which country they were subsequently merged.
But, if suffered to be victorious at these important points, it might
readily cross the borders and spread with irresistible force to the
contiguous parts of Francis's dominions. Nearer home, the reformatory
movement at Meaux, though abandoned by the bishop who had fostered its
first development, was not wholly suppressed. In Lyons and Grenoble,
Friar Aime Maigret had preached such evangelical sermons--in French to
the people and in Latin to the Parliament of Dauphiny--that he had been
sent to Paris to be examined by the Sorbonne. The primate and his
council had seen with solicitude that from the ashes of Waldo and the
Poor Men of Lyons "very many new shoots were springing up,"[254] and
called for some signal act of severity to repress the growing evil.

[Sidenote: Pierre Caroli lectures on the Psalms.]

In Paris itself the Sorbonne found reason for alarm. The sympathy of
Margaret of Angouleme with the friends of progress was recognized. It
had already availed for the deliverance of Louis de Berquin, whose
remarkable history will find a place in the next chapter. Nor did the
redoubted syndic of the theological faculty, Beda, or Bedier, reign
without a rival in the academic halls. Pierre Caroli, one of the doctors
invited by Briconnet to Meaux, a clever wrangler, and never better
pleased than when involved in controversy, albeit a man of shallow
religious convictions and signal instability, wearied out by his
counter-plots the illustrious heresy-hunter. When forbidden to preach,
Caroli opened a course of lectures upon the Psalms in the College de
Cambray. Having then been interdicted from continuing his prelections,
he made the modest request to be permitted to finish the exposition of
the 22d Psalm, which he had begun. This being refused, the disputatious
doctor posted the following notice on the doors of the college: "Pierre
Caroli, wishing to conform to the orders of the sacred faculty, ceases
to teach. He will resume his lectures (when it shall please God) where
he left off, at the verse, 'They pierced my hands and my feet.'"[255]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre.]

I have reserved for this place a few remarks respecting the
_Heptameron_ of Margaret of Angouleme, which seem required by the
disputed character or this singular work. I have spoken at length
of the virtues