Marguerite’s sympathetic joy was as natural as touching; she must have thought Berquin safe; he was free and in the service of one who was fundamentally a sovereign-prince, though living in France and in dependence upon the King of France, whose sister he had just married.  In France, Berquin was under the stigma of having been condemned to death as a heretic, and was confronted by determined enemies.  In so perilous a position his safety depended upon his courting oblivion.  But instead of that, and consulting only the dictates of his generous and blind confidence in the goodness of his cause, he resolved to assume the offensive and to cry for justice against his enemies.  “Beneath the cloak of religion,” he wrote to Erasmus, “the priests conceal the vilest passions, the most corrupt morals, and the most scandalous infidelity.  It is necessary to rend the veil which covers them, and boldly bring an accusation of impiety against the Sorbonne, Rome, and all their flunkies.”  Erasmus, justly alarmed, used all his influence to deter him:  but “the more confidence he showed,” says he, “the more I feared for him.  I wrote to him frequently, begging him to get quit of the case by some expedient, or even to withdraw himself on the pretext of a royal ambassadorship obtained by the influence of his friends.  I told him that the theologians would probably, as time went on, let his affair drop, but that they would never admit themselves to be guilty of impiety.  I told him to always bear in mind what a hydra was that Beda, and at how many mouths he belched forth venom.  I told him to reflect well that he was about to commit himself with a foe that was immortal, for a faculty never dies, and to rest assured that after having brought three monks to bay, he would have to defend himself against numerous legions, not only opulent and powerful, but, besides, very dishonest and very experienced in the practice of every kind of cheatery, who would never rest until they had effected his ruin, were his cause as just as Christ’s.  I told him not to trust too much to the king’s protection, the favor of princes being unstable and their affections easily alienated by the artifices of informers. . . .  And if all this could not move him, I told him not to involve me in his business, for, with his permission, I was not at all inclined to get into any tangle with legions of monks and a whole faculty of theology.  But I did not succeed in convincing him; whilst I argued in so many ways to deter him from his design, I did nothing but excite his courage.”

Not only did Berquin turn a deaf ear to the wise counsels of Erasmus, but his protectress, Marguerite, being moved by his courage, and herself also as imprudent as she was generous, persuaded herself that he was in the right, and supported him in his undertaking.  She wrote to the king her brother, “Poor Berquin, who, through your goodness, holds that God has twice preserved his life, throws himself upon you, having