A fourth victim of the persecution was soon saved. The young prebendary of Metz, the amiable Pierre Toussaint, was still in the frightful den into which the abbot of St. Antoine had thrust him. His host at Basle had not sent the books which the treacherous priest had constrained him to write for; no doubt the worthy citizen, knowing in whose hands his friend was lying, had foreseen the danger to which their receipt would expose him. Several evangelical christians of France, Switzerland, and Lorraine, particularly the merchant Vaugris, had successively interceded in his favour, but to no purpose. Finding all their exertions useless, they applied at last to Margaret, who warmly pleaded the cause of the young evangelist before the king. In July 1526, the order for his release arrived. The officers charged with this pleasing task descended to the gloomy dungeon selected by the abbot of St. Antoine, and rescued the lamb from the fangs of that wild beast. Toussaint, thin, weak, pale as a faded flower, came out slowly from his fearful den. His weakened eyes could hardly support the light of day, and he knew not where to go. At first he went to some old acquaintances; but they were all afraid of harbouring a heretic escaped from the scaffold. The young prebendary did not possess Berquin’s energy; he was one of those sensitive and delicate natures that need a support, and he found himself in the world, in the free air, almost as much alone as in his dungeon. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘God our heavenly Father, who has fixed bounds to the wrath of man which it cannot pass, has delivered me in a wonderful manner from the hands of the tyrants; but, alas! what will become of me? The world is mad and spurns the rising Gospel of Jesus Christ.’[499] A few timid but well-meaning friends said to him: ‘The Duchess of Alençon alone can protect you; there is no asylum for you but at her court. Make application to a princess who welcomes with so much generosity all the friends of learning and of the Gospel, and profit by your residence to investigate closely the wind that blows in those elevated regions.’ Toussaint did what they told him; he began his journey, and, despite his natural timidity, arrived at Paris, where we shall meet with him again.