This was no easy matter: they knew that the king, so hasty and violent, had much esteem and affection for his sister. The most prudent members of the Faculty hesitated. Their hesitation exasperated the monks, and the rage with which the more fanatical were seized extended even to the provinces. A meeting of the religious orders was held at Issoudun in Berry to discuss what ought to be done. The superior of the grey friars, an impetuous, rash, and hardly sane person, spoke louder than all the rest. 'Let us have less ceremony,' he exclaimed; 'put the Queen of Navarre in a sack and throw her into the river.'[411] This speech, which circulated over France, having been reported to the Sorbonne doctors, alarmed them, and many counselled a less violent persecution, to which a Dominican friar answered: 'Do not be afraid; we shall not be alone in attacking this heretical princess, for the grand-master is her mortal enemy.'[412] Montmorency, who next to Francis was now the most important personage in the kingdom, concealed under the cloak of religion a cruel heart and peevish disposition, and was feared by everybody, even by his friends. If he were gained over, the Queen of Navarre, attacked simultaneously by the priestly and the political party, must necessarily fall. Margaret supported these insults with admirable mildness. At this very time she was carrying on an almost daily correspondence with Montmorency, and subscribed all her letters: '_Your good aunt and friend_.' Full of confidence in this perfidious man, she called on him to defend her. 'Dear nephew,' she wrote, 'I beg you to believe that, as I am just now away from the king, it is necessary for you to help me in this matter. _I rely upon you_; and in this trust, which I am sure can never fail me, confides your good aunt and friend, Margaret.' The queen made some allusion to the violent language of the monks, but with great good-humour. 'I have desired the bearer,' she said, 'to speak to you about _certain nonsense_ that a Jacobin monk has uttered in the faculty of theology.' This was all: she did not make use of one bitter word.[413] Montmorency, that imperious courtier who before long persecuted the protestants without mercy, began to think himself strong enough to ruin Margaret, and we shall soon see what was the result of his perfidious insinuations. The Sorbonne deliberated as to what was to be done. According to the decrees of Sixtus IV. and Alexander VI., no books, treatises, or writings whatsoever[414] could be printed without an express authorisation; but the Queen of Navarre had printed her book without any such permission. The society, without pretending to know the author, declared the _Mirror of the Sinful Soul_ prohibited, and put it in the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_. [Sidenote: THE PRIESTS' COMEDY.]