the scholastic theology. Instead of this
they were to preach Christ simply with the aim of touching the heart,
not of dazzling the mind.

Like-minded men gathering around Lefevre formed a new school of
thought. It was a movement of revival within the church; its leaders,
wishing to keep all the old forms and beliefs, endeavored to infuse
into them a new spirit. To some extent they were in conscious reaction
against the intellectualism of Erasmus {189} and the Renaissance. On
the other hand they were far from wishing to follow Luther, when he
appeared, in his schism.

Among the most famous of these mystical reformers were William
Briconnet, Bishop of Meaux, and his disciple, Margaret d'Angouleme,
sister of Francis I. Though a highly talented woman Margaret was weak
and suggestible. She adored her dissolute brother and was always, on
account of her marriages, first with Charles, duke of Alencon,
[Sidenote: 1509] and then with Henry d'Albret, king of Navarre,
[Sidenote: 1527] put in the position of a suppliant for his support.
She carried on an assiduous correspondence with Briconnet as her
spiritual director, being attracted first by him and then by Luther,
chiefly, as it seems, through the wish to sample the novelty of their
doctrines. She wrote _The Mirror of the Sinful Soul_ in the best style
of penitent piety. [Sidenote: 1531] Its central idea is the love of
God and of the "debonnaire" Jesus. She knew Latin and Italian, studied
Greek and Hebrew, and read the Bible regularly, exhorting her friends
to do the same. She coquetted with the Lutherans, some of whom she
protected in France and with others of whom in Germany she
corresponded. She was strongly suspected of being a Lutheran, though a
secret one. Capito dedicated to her a commentary on Hosea; Calvin had
strong hopes of winning her to an open profession, but was
disappointed. Her house, said he, which might have become the family
of Jesus Christ, harbored instead servants of the devil. Throughout
life she kept the accustomed Catholic rites, and wrote with much
respect to Pope Paul III. But fundamentally her religious idealism was
outside of any confession.

This mystically pious woman wrote, in later life, the _Heptameron_, a
book of stories published posthumously. Modelled on the _Decameron_,
it consists {190} almost entirely of licentious stories, told without
reprobation and with gusto. If the mouth speaketh from the fullness of
the heart