s, from the communion of the church, and consigned
to eternal damnation with Satan and his angels." The commissioners were
further authorized _to grant permission to any one of the faithful who
chose so to do to invade, occupy, and acquire for himself the lands,
castles, and goods of the heretics, seizing their persons and leading
them away into life-long slavery_. From the sentence of the
commissioners all appeal, even to the "Apostolic See" itself, was
expressly cut off.[266]

[Sidenote: Its powers enlarged by the papal bull.]

Rome had made one of its most brilliant strokes. While adopting as his
own the commissioners appointed by parliament, Clement had enlarged
their already exorbitant prerogatives, and consummated their
independence of secular interference. A new and more efficient
inquisition was thus introduced into France, with its secret
investigation and unlimited power of inflicting punishment. The
Parliament of Paris had, however, committed itself too fully to think of
demurring. Accordingly, it proceeded (June 10th) to enter on its records
both the regent's letter and the bull of the Pope, to which the letter
enjoined obedience.[267]

We have in a previous chapter seen some of the first fruits of the
establishment of the inquisitorial commission, in the proceedings
instituted against Lefevre d'Etaples, Gerard Roussel, and others who
took part in the attempted reformation of the diocese of Meaux. But,
chief among those whom it was sought to destroy, through the agency of
the new and well-furbished weapon against heretics, was a nobleman of
Artois, whose repeated and remarkable escapes from the hand of the
executioner, viewed in connection with the tragic fate that at last
overtook him, invest his story with a romantic interest.

[Sidenote: Character of Louis de Berquin.]

[Sidenote: He becomes a warm partisan of the Reformation.]

Louis de Berquin was a man of high rank, whom friends and enemies alike
admired for his uncommon acuteness of mind and his great attainments in
letters and science. A contemporary Parisian, whose diary has supplied
us more than one of those graphic traits that assist much in bringing
before our eyes the living forms of the great actors in the world's past
history, seems to have been strongly impressed by the commanding
appearance and elegance of dress of De Berquin, at this time in the very
prime of life.[268] But the great Erasmus, his correspondent, stood in
far greater a