the reformers by the Queen of
Navarre, not only in her own city of Bourges, but in Paris itself. The
intercessions she had addressed to her brother for the victims of
priestly persecution had long since betrayed her secret leaning; and the
translation of her "Hours" into French by the Bishop of Senlis, who, by
her direction, suppressed all that most directly countenanced
superstitious beliefs, was naturally taken as strong confirmation of the
prevalent suspicion. But, when she introduced Berthault, Courault, and
her own almoner, Roussel, to the pulpits of the capital, and protected
them in their evangelical labors, the case ceased to admit of
doubt.[311] She even persuaded the king to listen to a sermon in which
Le Coq, curate of St. Eustache, argued with force against the bodily
presence of Christ in the eucharist, and maintained that the very words,
"_Sursum corda_" in the church service, pointed Him out as to be found
at the right hand of God in heaven. Indeed, the eloquent preacher had
nearly convinced his royal listener, when the Cardinals of Tournon and
Lorraine, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded in destroying the impression
he had received, and, it is said, in inducing Le Coq to make a
retraction.[312] But the opposition to the public proclamation of the
reformed doctrines was too formidable for their advocates to stem. Beda
and his colleagues in the Sorbonne left no device untried to silence the
preachers; and, although the restless syndic was in the end forced to
expiate his seditious words and writings by an _amende honorable_ in
front of the church of Notre Dame, and died in prison,[313] Roussel and
his fellow-preachers had long before been compelled to exchange their
public discourses for private exhortations, and finally to discontinue
even these and retreat from Paris.[314]

[Sidenote: Margaret attacked in the College of Navarre.]

Even so, however, the theologians could not contain their indignation at
the insult they had received. In the excess of their zeal they went so
far as to hold up the king's sister to condemnation and derision, in one
of those plays which the students of the College de Navarre were
accustomed annually to perform, as a scholastic exercise in public
oratory (on the first of October, 1533). A gentle queen was here
represented as throwing aside needle and distaff, at the crafty
suggestion of a tempting fury, and as receiving in lieu of those
feminine implements a copy of the Gospels