he danger of harboring the "new
doctrines," may have been the cause.[605] Chartier was put out of the
way by being sent back to Europe, ostensibly to consult Calvin. Richier
and others were so roughly handled that they were glad to leave the
island for the continent, and subsequently to return in a leaky vessel
to their native land.[606] But the infant enterprise had received a
fatal blow. Nearly all the deceived Protestants carried home the tidings
of their misfortunes, and deterred others from following their
disastrous example. Three, remaining in Brazil, were thrown into the sea
by Villegagnon's command. A few suffered martyrdom after the fall of the
intended capital of "Antarctic France" into the hands of the Portuguese.
As to Villegagnon himself, he returned to Europe the virulent enemy of
Coligny, and turned his feeble pen to the refutation of
Protestantism.[607]

[Sidenote: The first Protestant church organized in Paris.]

But if ruin overtook an enterprise from which French statesmen had
looked for new power and wealth for their country, and the reformers had
anticipated the rapid advance of their religion in the New World, the
founding of the first Protestant church in Paris proved a more
auspicious event. More than thirty years had Protestantism been
gradually gaining ground; but, up to the year 1555, it had been wanting
in organization. The tide of persecution had surged too violently over
the evangelical Christians of the capital to permit them to think of
instituting a church, with pastors and consistory, after the model
furnished by the free city of Geneva, or of holding public worship at
stated times and places, or of regularly administering the sacraments.
"The martyrs," says a contemporary writer, "were, properly speaking, the
only preachers."[608] But now, the courage of the Parisian Protestants
rising with the increased severity of the cruel measures devised
against them, they were prepared to accept the idea of organizing
themselves as an ecclesiastical community. To this a simple incident led
the way. In the house of a nobleman named La Ferriere, a small body of
Protestants met secretly for the reading of the Scriptures and for
prayer. Their host had left his home in the province of Maine to enjoy,
in the crowded capital, greater immunity from observation than he could
enjoy in his native city, and to avoid the necessity of submitting his
expected offspring to the rite of baptism as superstitiousl