for no successor to work out our salvation.' No one but the monks thought, in the sixteenth century, of being scandalised by these tales. There was then a freedom of language which is impossible in our times; and everybody felt that if the queen faithfully painted the disorders of the monks and other classes of society, she was equally faithful in describing the strict morality of her own principles and the living purity of her faith. It was her daughter, the austere Jeanne d'Albret, who published the first correct edition of these _Novels_; and certainly she would not have done so, if such a publication had been likely to injure her mother's memory.[408] But times have changed; the book, harmless then, is so no longer; in our days the tales will be read and the sermons passed over: the youth of our generation would only derive harm from them. We acquit the author as regards her intentions, but we condemn her work. And (apologising to the friends of letters who will accuse us of barbarism) if we had to decide on the fate of this book, we would willingly see it experience a fate similar to that which is spoken of in the Bible, where we are told that _many Corinthians brought their books together and burned them_.[409] [Sidenote: THE MIRROR SEIZED BY THE SORBONNE.] Let us return to the _Mirror_, in which the pious soul of Margaret is reflected. The Faculty decided that the first thing to be done was to search every bookseller's shop in the city and seize all the copies found there.[410] Here Beda disappeared: he no longer played the principal part. It is probable that the proceedings against him had already begun; but this persecution, by removing its leader, helped to increase the anger of the Romish party, and consequently the efforts of the Sorbonne to ruin the Queen of Navarre. As Beda was absent, the priest Le Clerq was ordered to make the search. Accompanied by the university beadles, he went to every bookseller's shop, seized the _Mirror of the Sinful Soul_, wherever the tradesman had not put it out of sight, and returned to the Sorbonne laden with his spoils. After this the Faculty deliberated upon the measures to be taken against the author.