Led soon after to the square of St. Stephen, he was degraded from the tonsure, and next of his title of licentiate. During this ceremony, which occupied three hours, he explained the Bible to the assistants. A monk interrupted him to pronounce the _sermon of the Catholic faith_, after the manner of the inquisitors. He had taken for his text these words of the apostle Paul: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils ...,” and he stopped there. “Go on, pursue the text,” said Caturce. But the other not opening his mouth, the martyr pronounced with a loud voice the rest of the passage: “Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them, which believe and know the truth.”[11] The monk was silent with shame, and the people admired the singular readiness and presence of mind of Caturce. He was made to don the dress of a buffoon, according to the custom introduced by the old persecutors of the Albigenses; and brought back to his judges, who read to him his sentence of death, when he shouted: “O palace of iniquity! O seat of injustice!” Two hundred and thirty years after, Jean Calas might have pronounced the same words, as he descended the steps of the same palace of Toulouse. However, the violence of persecution did not impede the multiplication of proselytes. They were of all ranks, and they were already so numerous in one canton of Normandy, that it was called _Little Germany_, as we read in a letter of Bucer, addressed to Luther in 1530. More than one of the religious orders threw off the gown to embrace the reformed faith. I will cite one example, which will be, to a certain extent, a type of a crowd of others. François Lambert, born at Avignon in 1487, had conceived from his childhood, a profound veneration for the Franciscans, who daily passed before his door. “I admired,” says he, “their severe costume, their sedate countenance, their downcast eyes, their devoutly-crossed arms, their grave demeanour; but I knew not that under these sheepskins, foxes and wolves were hidden.” The monks had also remarked the naïve exaltation of the young man. “Come among us,” they said to him; “the convent has an ample income: you will live in peace in your cell, and may there pursue your studies at your ease.” He was received as a novice when he was fifteen years and three months old. His period of trial soon passed. The monks took care to conceal from him their quarrels and licentiousness. “The following year I pronounced my vows,” adds Lambert, “not having the slightest idea of what I was doing.”