The Sorbonnists, having heard of these conventicles, declared 'that they disliked _these lectures_ still more than the sermons.' In fact, if the preaching in the churches had been a loud appeal, the Divine Word in these small meetings spoke nearer to men's hearts, enlightening them and making them fast in Jesus Christ; and accordingly the conversions increased in number. The lieutenant-criminal once more took the field: he posted his agents at the corners of the more suspected streets, with orders to watch the Lutherans and ferret them out. These spies discovered that on certain days and hours many suspicious-looking persons, most of them poor, were in the habit of frequenting certain houses. Morin and his officers set to work immediately: they made the round of these conventicles, seizing the pastors and dispersing the flocks. 'We are deprived of everything,' said the worshippers; 'we remain without teaching and exhortation. Alas! poor sheep without shepherds, shall we not go astray and be lost?' Then with a sudden impulse they exclaimed: 'Since our guides are taken away from us here, let us seek them elsewhere!' Many French evangelicals fled into foreign countries. While the poor reformed[554] who remained in Paris were thus forsaken and sorrowful, the Sorbonne loudly demanded the return of Beda and the other exiles. The theologians canvassed the most influential members of the parliament, and besieged Cardinal Duprat. The king and the pope had just met solemnly at Marseilles; one of the Medici had just entered the family of the Valois; a royal letter, despatched from Lyons, ordered proceedings to be taken against the heretics: could they leave the champions of the papacy in disgrace? The demand was granted, and the impetuous Beda returned in triumph to the capital with his friends. That wicked little fairy Catherine had, unconsciously, and by her mere presence, restored him to liberty. [Sidenote: FRESH EFFORTS OF THE SORBONNE.] The wrath and fanaticism of Beda, excited by exile, knew no bounds. The repression of obscure _preachers_ did not satisfy him; he determined to renew the attack he had formerly made upon the learned. 'I accuse the king's readers in the university of Paris,' he said to the parliament. These were the celebrated professors Danès, Paul Paradis, Guidacieri, and Vatable, learned philologists, esteemed by Francis and honoured over all literary Europe. 'Their interpretations of the text of Scripture,' continued Beda, 'throw discredit on the Vulgate, and propagate the errors of Luther. I demand that they be forbidden to comment on the Holy Scriptures.'[555]