On the 16th of May, 1533, the indefatigable Beda, the fiery Le Picard, and the zealous friar Mathurin, the three most intrepid supporters of the papacy in France, appeared before the parliament. An event so extraordinary filled both university and city with surprise and emotion. Devout men raised their eyes to heaven; devout women redoubled their prayers to Mary; but Beda and his two colleagues, proud of their Romish orthodoxy, appeared before the court, and compared themselves with the confessors of Christ standing before the proconsuls of Rome. No one could believe in a condemnation; was not the King of France the eldest son of the Church? But the disciples of the pope did not know the monarch who then reigned over France. If they wanted to show what a priest was like, the sovereign wanted to show what a king was like. When signing the letters-royal in which Francis had suggested the arrest to parliament, he exclaimed: 'As for Beda, on my word, he shall never return to Paris!'[320] The king's ordinance had been duly registered; the court was complete; and not a sound could be heard, when the president, turning to the three doctors, said: 'Reverend gentlemen, you are banished from Paris, and will henceforward live thirty leagues from this capital; you are at liberty, however, to select what residences you please, provided they be at a distance from each other. You will leave the city in twenty-four hours. If you break your ban, you will incur the penalty of death. You will neither preach, give lessons, nor hold any kind of meeting, and you will keep up no communication with one another, until the king has ordered otherwise.' Beda, Le Picard, Mathurin, and their friends, were all terrified. Francis had, however, reserved for the last a decision which must have abated their courage still more. As if he wished to show the triumph of evangelical ideas, he cancelled the injunction against Roussel; and Margaret's almoner was able once more to preach the Gospel in the capital. 'If you have any complaint against him,' said the king to the Sorbonne, 'you can bring him before the lawful tribunals.'[321]