n, 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 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