Bourges did not fall back into darkness after Calvin's departure. A venerable doctor, named Michel Simon, perhaps that _Michel_ whom we have already mentioned, displayed a holy boldness notwithstanding his age. One day a Pelagian cordelier (as all the doctors of that order are) had effrontery enough to maintain that man can be saved by his natural strength alone. Simon confronted him, and succeeded in getting it laid down that in the public disputations every proposition must be established by the text of Scripture. This gave a new impulse to theological studies. The priests came to an understanding with one another, and made their preparations without saying a word. On the following Sunday, Michel Simon, having entered the pulpit, was about to begin his sermon, when the curé, with his vicars and choristers, entered the choir, and began to chant the office for the dead. It was impossible either to preach or to hear. The exasperated students rushed into the choir, threw the books about, upset the lecterns, and drove out the priests, who ran off 'in great disorder.' Simon, who remained master of the field, delivered his sermon, and, to the surprise of his hearers, ended by repeating the Lord's prayer _in French_, without adding the _Ave Maria_! Whereupon a man, sitting in one of the upper stalls (he was the king's proctor), stood up, and with a sonorous voice began: _Ave Maria, gratia_.... He could not complete the sentence. A universal shout interrupted him; the women, who are easily excited, caught up their little stools, crowded round the proctor, and shook them over his head. These people were catholics, disgusted with the priests, not with the disciples of the Saviour. While the student of Noyon was devoting himself to the preaching of the Gospel, extreme danger threatened him who had been his forerunner in this work. [Footnote 57: 'Quod tibi promiseram discedens me brevi adfuturum.'— Calvinus Chemino, May 14, 1528, Berne MS.] [Footnote 58: 'Ea me expectatio diutius suspensum habuit.'—Calvinus Chemino.] [Footnote 59: 'Nam dum reditum ad vos meditor.'—Ibid.] [Footnote 60: Calvini _Opera_.] [Footnote 61: 'Sed cum medici spem facerent posse redire in prosperam valetudinem.'—Calvinus Chemino.] [Footnote 62: 'Nihil aliud visum est quam tui desiderium.'—Ibid.] [Footnote 63: 'Interim dies de die trahitur.'—Ibid.] [Footnote 64: 'Certum mortis periculum.'—Calvinus Chemino.] [Footnote 65: 'In litteris missitandis plus satis officiosum, ne dicam importunum.'—Ibid.] [Footnote 66: 'Utcunque res ceciderit, ad vos revisam.'—Ibid.] [Footnote 67: 'Factum est ut ad te pervenirem anno Domini 1528, nonis Decembris.'—Letter of Theodore Beza to Wolmar, Preface to the _Confessio Fidei Christianæ_.] [Footnote 68: 'Anno Domini 1519 die 24 junii, placuit Deo O. M. ut mundi lucem aspicerem.'—Letter of Theodore Beza to Wolmar, Preface to the _Confessio Fidei Christianæ_.] [Footnote 69: 'Ut me quamvis adhuc a nutricis uberibus pendentem.'— Ibid.]