o run to help in extinguishing a public
conflagration.[432]

[Sidenote: Exceptional fairness of President Caillaud.]

The last injunction was not altogether unnecessary. Even among the
judges of parliament there were fair-minded persons not inclined to
condemn accused men or books on mere report. The ambassador of Henry the
Eighth having, in 1538, denounced an English translation of the Holy
Scriptures that was in press at Paris, the chancellor commissioned
President Caillaud to investigate the case. The latter, finding that the
printer's excuse was the scarcity of paper in England, quietly set about
a comparison of the suspected version with accessible French
translations. He said nothing to doctors of theology or royal
prosecuting officers. "It seemed to me," he reported, "quite unnecessary
to give the matter such notoriety. Moreover, I mistrusted that, without
further investigation, without even looking into it, they would have
condemned the English translation for the sole reason that it is in that
tongue. For I have seen them sustain that the Holy Scriptures ought not
to be translated into the French language or any other vernacular
tongue. Nevertheless, the Bible in French was printed in this city so
long ago as in 1529, and again this present year, and is for sale by the
most wealthy printers. For my part I have seen no prohibition either by
the church or by the secular authority, although I once heard some
decretal alleged in condemnation." Unfortunately such judges as Louis
Caillaud were rare--men that would take the pains to obtain the services
of a person acquainted with the English language to translate aloud a
Bible suspected of heretical teachings, while themselves testing its
accuracy by scanning versions made from the Vulgate and the Hebrew
original![433]

[Sidenote: Royal letters from Lyons, Aug. 30, 1542.]

Two years more had scarcely passed before fresh legislation against the
Protestants demonstrated the impotence of all measures thus far resorted
to. The interval had certainly been improved by their enemies, for the
stake had its victims to boast of.[434] And yet the new religious body
had its ministers and its secret conventicles, with an ever increasing
number of adherents. Accordingly, on the thirtieth of August, 1542,
Francis, then at Lyons, addressed new letters patent to the various
parliaments, enjoining new vigilance and activity. Previous edicts had
not borne all the fruit expected from