no longer any one to whom he can have recourse, for to give you to understand his innocence; and whereas, Monseigneur, I know the esteem in which you hold him and the desire he hath always had to do you service, I do not fear to entreat you, by letter instead of speech, to be pleased to have pity on him.  And if it please you to show signs of taking his matter to heart, I hope that the truth, which he will make to appear, will convict the forgers of heretics of being slanderers and disobedient towards you rather than zealots for the faith.”

In his complaisance and indifference Francis I. attended to his sister’s wishes, and appeared to support Berquin in his appeal for a fresh and definite investigation of his case.  On the other hand, Parliament, to whom the matter was referred, showed a disposition to take into account the king’s good will towards Berquin, lately convicted, but now become in his turn plaintiff and accuser.  “We have no wish to dispute your power,” said the president, Charles de Guillard, to the king at a bed of justice held on the 24th of July, 1527:  “it would be a species of sacrilege, and we know well that you are above the laws, and that neither laws nor ordinances can constrain you.  Your most humble and most obedient court is comforted and rejoiced at your presence and advent, just as the apostles were when they saw their God after the resurrection.  We are assured that your will is to be the peculiar protector and defender of religion, and not to permit or suffer in your kingdom any errors, heresies, or false doctrines.”

The matter thus reopened pursued its course slowly; twelve judges were appointed to give a definite decision; and the king himself nominated six, amongst whom he placed Berquin’s friend, William Bude.  Various incidents unconnected with religious disputes supervened.  The Queen of Navarre was brought to bed at Pau, on the 7th of January, 1528, of a daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, the future mother of Henry IV.  The marriage of Princess Renee of France, daughter of Louis XII., with Duke Hercules of Ferrara, was concluded, and the preparations for its celebration were going on at Fontainebleau, when, on Monday, June 1, 1528, the day after the Feast of Pentecost, “some heretics came by night,” says the Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, “to an image of Notre-Dame de Pierre, which is at a corner of the street behind the church of Petit St. Antoine; to the which image they gave several blows with their weapons, and cut off her head and that of her little child, Our Lord.  But it was never known who the image-breakers were.

[Illustration:  Heretic Iconoclasts——­201]