usion of
the solemn expiatory pageant. For months strangers sojourning in Paris
shuddered at the horrible sights almost daily meeting their eyes.[356]
The lingering hope that a prince naturally clement and averse to
needless bloodshed, would at length tire of countenancing these
continuous scenes of atrocity, seemed gradually to fade away. Great
numbers of the most intelligent and scholarly consulted their safety in
flight; the friendly court of Renee of France, Duchess of Ferrara,
affording, for a time, asylum to Clement Marot, the poet, and to many
others. Meantime the suspected "Lutherans" that could not be found were
summoned by the town-crier to appear before the proper courts for trial.
A list of many such has escaped destruction of time.[357] Fortunately,
most of them had gotten beyond the reach of the officers of the law, and
the sentence could, at most, effect only the confiscation of their
property.

[Sidenote: Royal declaration of Coucy, July 16, 1535.]

As summer advanced, however, the rigor of the persecution was perceived
to be somewhat abating. Finally, on the sixteenth of July, the king so
far yielded to the urgency of open or secret friends of progress among
the courtiers, as to issue a "Declaration" to facilitate the return of
the fugitives. "Forasmuch," said Francis, "as the heresies, which, to
our great displeasure, had greatly multiplied in our kingdom, have
ceased, as well by the Divine clemency and goodness, as by the diligence
we have used in the exemplary punishment of many of their
adherents--who, nevertheless, were not in their last hours abandoned by
the hand of our Lord, but, turning to Him, have repented, and made
public confession of their errors, and died like good Christians and
Catholics--no further prosecution of persons suspected of heresy shall
be made, but they will be discharged from imprisonment, and their goods
restored. For the same reason, all fugitives who return and _abjure
their errors_ within six months will receive pardon. But
_Sacramentarians_[358] and the relapsed are excluded from this offer.
Furthermore, all men are forbidden, under pain of the gallows, and of
being held rebels and disturbers of the public peace, to read, teach,
translate or print, whether publicly or in private, any doctrine
contrary to the Christian faith."[359] The concession, it must be
confessed, was not a very liberal one; for the exiles could return only
on condition of recanting. Yet the new