In effect, as soon as it was no longer feared that he would go away, what sad discoveries! what cruel misconceptions were there! He hoped to live among saints, and found only abandoned and impious men. When he expressed his regret, he was ridiculed. That he might leave the convent without breaking his vows, he got himself nominated _apostolic preacher_; but his position was not thereby improved. He was accused of neglecting the interests of the order. “When I returned wearied with my rounds,” he says, “reproaches and maledictions generally seasoned my repast.” His brethren blamed him above everything else for censuring too severely those who harboured them, although many of these were vile usurers, or haunters of evil resorts. “What are you doing!” they would say to him; “those people will get angry; they will give us no longer either board or lodging.” “That is to say,” continues Lambert, “that these slaves of their bellies are less afraid of destroying the souls of their hosts, than of losing their dinners.” In despair, he conceived the thought of becoming a Chartreux, that he might write, if he could no longer preach. But a new storm, and the most terrible of all, burst upon him. The monks discovered in his cell some treatises of Luther—“Luther in a religious house!” they vociferated with one voice: “Heresy! heresy!” and burned these writings without reading a line. “As for me,” says Lambert, “I believe that Luther’s books contain more true theology than could be found in all the books of the monks ever since monks came into the world.” He was ordered, in 1523, to carry letters to the general of the order; but suspecting some perfidy, he profited by his freedom to pass the frontiers of Germany, and went to seat himself at the foot of Luther’s pulpit. “I renounce,” says he, in concluding his recital, “all the rules of the Brethren, persuaded that the Holy Gospel should be my only rule, and that of all Christians. I retract everything I may have taught contrary to the revealed faith, and I entreat those who have heard me, to reject it as I do. I release myself from all the ordinances of the pope, and I consent to be excommunicated by him, knowing that he is himself excommunicated by the Lord.”[12] He married in the same year (1523), and was the first of the religious orders of France who broke the vow of celibacy. He returned to the frontiers, at Metz and at Strasbourg, and wished also to go to Besançon. But, having met great obstacles everywhere, he returned to Germany, was appointed professor at Marbourg, and helped to spread the reformed faith in the country of Hesse. He died there in 1530, with the reputation of a true Christian and a learned theologian.