y sacred representation should be placed on the
exterior walls of a house _within ten feet of the ground_![289]

[Sidenote: Berquin's third arrest.]

[Sidenote: He disregards the cautions of Erasmus.]

The repeated assurances whereby Francis had conciliated the clergy, and
secured their contributions to the exchequer, embarrassed him in the
exercise of leniency toward Louis de Berquin, now for the third time
arraigned for heresy. Moreover, the audacity and violence of the
iconoclasts, characteristics assumed by him to be indicative of a
disposition to overturn all government, probably took away any
inclination he would otherwise have had to interfere in the intrepid
nobleman's behalf. De Berquin had no sooner been released from his
former imprisonment than he set himself to prepare for new conflicts
with his bigoted antagonists. He even resolved to assume the offensive.
In vain did Erasmus entreat him to be prudent, suggest the propriety of
his temporarily going abroad, and propose that he should apply for some
diplomatic commission as a plausible excuse for absenting himself. Beda,
he told him, was a monster with many heads, each breathing out poison,
while in the "Faculty" he had to do with an _immortal_ antagonist. The
monks would secure his ruin were his cause more righteous than that of
Jesus Christ. Finally, the tremulous scholar begged him, if no
consideration of personal safety moved him, at least not to involve so
ardent a lover of peace as Erasmus in a conflict for which he had no
taste. But his reasoning had no weight with a man of high resolve and
inflexible principle, who could see no honorable course but openly
meeting and overthrowing error. "Do you ask," wrote Erasmus to a
correspondent interested in learning De Berquin's fate, "what I
accomplished? By every means I employed to deter him I only added to his
courage."[290] If we may believe Erasmus's strong expressions--for his
own writings have very nearly disappeared--De Berquin assailed the monks
with a freedom almost equal to that employed by the Old Comedy in
holding up to merited derision the foibles of Athenian generals and
statesmen. He even extracted twelve blasphemous propositions from Beda's
utterances, and obtained a letter from the king enjoining the Sorbonne
either to pass sentence of condemnation on their syndic's assertions, or
to prove their truth from the Holy Scriptures.[291] The Dutch
philosopher, aghast at his friend's incredible te