We must now return to the country of Margaret of Navarre, and see how this princess began to realise her great project of having the pure Gospel preached in the bosom and under the forms of the Roman Catholic Church. [Footnote 265: 'The people was marvellously affrayed less you would have joined armies.'—Hawkins to Henry VIII., Nov. 21, 1532. _State Papers_, vii. p. 388.] [Footnote 266: 'Hys Holynes taketh it greatly for ill.'—Ibid. p. 381.] [Footnote 267: Brantôme, _Mémoires_, p. 235.] [Footnote 268: Du Bellay, _Mémoires_, p. 174. _Relation des Ambassadeurs Vénitiens_, i. p. 52.] [Footnote 269: Hammer, iii. p. 118. Schoertlin, _Lebens Beschreibung_. Ranke, _Deutsche Geschichte_, iii. p. 425.] [Footnote 270: 'Entschlossen seine Gerechtigkeiten in Deutschland nicht zu verlassen.'—Ranke, _Deutsche Geschichte_, iii. pp. 448-451. This narrative is based upon Gabelkofer, extracted by Sattler and Pfister.] [Footnote 271: This document will be found in Sattler, ii. p. 229. See also Ranke, _Deutsche Geschichte_, iii. p. 450.] CHAPTER XXIII. THE GOSPEL PREACHED AT THE LOUVRE AND IN THE METROPOLITAN CHURCHES. (LENT 1533.) The alliance with England, and the hope of being able, sooner or later, to triumph over Charles V., filled the King of France with joy; and accordingly the carnival of the year 1533 was kept magnificently at Paris. The court was absorbed in entertainments, balls, and banquets. The young lords and ladies thought of nothing but dancing and intriguing, at which soberer minds were scandalised. 'It is quite a Bacchanalia,' said the evangelicals.[272] As soon as the carnival was ended, Francis started for Picardy; leaving the King and Queen of Navarre at Paris. Margaret now breathed more freely. She had been compelled, willingly or unwillingly, to take part in all the court fêtes; and she now determined to make up for it by organising a great evangelical preaching instead of the 'bacchanalia' at which she had sometimes been present. Was not Francis holding out his hand to the King of England and to the protestants of Germany? The opportunity should be seized of preaching the new doctrine boldly. The Queen of Navarre sent for Roussel and communicated her intention to him. She will open the great churches of the capital, and from their pulpits the inhabitants of Paris shall hear the mighty summons. The poor almoner, in whom courage was not the most prominent virtue, was alarmed at first. In the handsome saloons of Margaret he might indulge in his pious and rather mystical aspirations; but to enter the pulpits of Paris ... the very thought dismayed him, and he begged the queen to find some other person. Roussel did not deny that it was right to preach the Gospel publicly, but declared himself to be incompetent for the work. 'The minister of the Gospel,' he said, 'ought to possess an invincible faith.[273] The enemy against which he fights is the kingdom of hell with all its powers.[274]...