she was as much a sensualist in thought as her brother was in
deed. The apparent contradictions in her are only to be explained on
the theory that she was one of those impressionable natures that,
chameleon-like, always take on the hue of their environment.

But though the work of Lefevre and of Briconnet, who himself gave his
clergy an example of simple, biblical preaching, won many followers not
only in Meaux but in other cities, it would never have produced a
religious revolt like that in Germany. The Reformation was an
importation into France; "The key of heresy," as John Bouchet said in
1531, "was made of the fine iron of Germany." At first almost all the
intellectuals hailed Luther as an ally. Lefevre sent him a greeting in
1519, and in the same year Bude spoke well of him. His books were at
this time approved even by some doctors of the Sorbonne. But it took a
decade of confusion and negation to clarify the situation sufficiently
for the French to realize the exact import of the Lutheran movement,
which completely transformed the previously existing policy of Lefevre.
The chief sufferer by the growth of Lutheranism was not at first the
Catholic church but the party of Catholic reform. The schism rent the
French evangelicals before it seriously affected the church. Some of
them followed the new light and others were forced back into a
reactionary attitude.

[Sidenote: Luther's books.]

The first emissaries of Luther in France were his books. Froben
exported a volume containing nearly all he had published up to October,
1518, immediately and in large quantities to Paris. In 1520 a student
there wrote that no books were more quickly bought. At first only the
Latin ones were intelligible to the {191} French, but there is reason
to believe that very early translations into the vernacular were made,
though none of this period have survived. It was said that the books,
which kept pouring in from Frankfort and Strassburg and Basle, excited
the populace against the theologians, for the people judged them by the
newly published French New Testament. A bishop complained that the
common people were seduced by the vivacity of the heretic's style.
[Sidenote: 1523]

It did not take the Sorbonne long to define its position as one of
hostility. The university, which had been lately defending the
Gallican liberties and had issued an appeal from pope to future
council, was one of the judges selected by the disputa