The doctors of the Sorbonne now lost all moderation. 'The king,' said they, 'who publicly supports the heretics, his sister and the Archbishop of Paris, who protect them, are as guilty as they.' Orders were sent through all the camp: every pulpit became a volcano. Furious declamations, superstitious sermons, scholastic discourses, violent and grotesque speeches—the supporters of Rome made use of all. 'Do you know what an heretical minister is?' asked a monk. 'He is a pig in a pulpit, decorated with cap and surplice, and preaching to a congregation ... of asses.'[297] [Sidenote: THE FIREBRAND LE PICARD.] The most active firebrand in this conflagration was Le Picard, a bachelor of divinity, professor of the college of Navarre, and subsequently dean of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. He was twenty-nine years old, of a 'stormy' temper if ever there was one, and in truth he did 'storm' in the churches and at the meetings of the priests. He went into the pulpit to oppose Courault; and the people who had gone to hear the Augustine monk, crowded also to hear his opponent. The latter gesticulated much, shouted loudly, invoked the Virgin, and attacked the king, accusing him bluntly of heresy. He was a true precursor of those who advised the massacre of St. Bartholomew; and indeed he made a proposal, not long after, worthy of the Guises and the Medici. 'Let the government pretend to be Lutheran,' he said, 'in order that the reformed may assemble openly; then we can fall upon them and clear the kingdom of them once for all.'[298] A monk, charmed with his virtues, has written his life under the title of _The Perfect Ecclesiastic_.[299] [Sidenote: SEDITION OF BEDA AND MONKS.] Yet if Le Picard was the most active champion, Beda was still general. Placed as on a hill, he overlooked the field of battle, examined where it was necessary to send help, wrote every day to the orators of his party—to Le Picard, Maillard, Ballue, Bouchigny, and others, and conjured them not to relax for an instant in their attacks. 'Stir up the people by your discourses,' he said.[300] It was a critical moment: it was in the balance whether France would remain catholic or become heretic. 'Though the monarch deserts the papacy,' he said, 'agitate, still agitate!' Then the fanatical monks went into the pulpits and aroused the people by their fiery eloquence: 'Let us not suffer this heresy, the most pestilential of all, to take root among us.... Let us pluck it up, cast it out, and annihilate it.'[301]