A gentleman, a friend of Erasmus, of letters, and especially of Scripture, who had free access to the court of the duchess, and with whom that princess loved to converse about the Gospel and the new times--Berquin had been arrested on a charge of heresy; then set at liberty in 1523 by the intercession of Margaret and the king’s orders. Leaving Paris, he had gone to his native province of Artois. A man of upright heart, generous soul, and intrepid zeal, ‘in whom you could see depicted the marks of a great mind,’ says the chronicler, he worthily represented by his character that nobility of France, and especially of Artois, so distinguished at all times by its devotedness and valour. Happy in the liberty which God had given him, Berquin had sworn to consecrate it to him, and was zealously propagating in the cottages on his estate the doctrine of salvation by _Christ alone_.[445] The ancient country of the Atrebates, wonderfully fertile as regards the fruits of the earth, was equally fertile as regards the seed from heaven. Berquin attacked the priesthood such as Rome had made it. He said: ‘You will often meet with these words in Holy Scripture: _honourable marriage_, _undefiled bed_, but of _celibacy_ you will not find a syllable.’ Another time he said: ‘I have not yet known a monastery which was not infected with hatred and dissension.’ Such language, repeated in the refectories and long galleries of the convents, filled the monks with anger against this noble friend of learning. But he did not stop there: ‘We must teach the Lord’s flock,’ he said, ‘to pray with understanding, that they may no longer be content to gabble with their lips like ducks with their bills, without comprehending what they say.’--‘He is attacking us,’ said the chaplains. Berquin did not, however, always indulge in this caustic humour; he was a pious christian, and desired to see a holy and living unity succeed the parties that divided the Roman Church. He said: ‘We ought not to hear these words among christians; I am of the Sorbonne, I am of Luther; or, I am a Grey-friar, or Dominican, or Bernardite.... Would it be too much then to say: _I am a christian_?... Jesus who came for us all ought not to be divided by us.’[446]