Margaret, believing that the triumph of the good cause was not far off, determined to move forward a little. She had struck out of her prayer-book all the prayers addressed to the Virgin and to the saints. This she laid before the king's confessor, William Petit, Bishop of Senlis, a courtier, and far from evangelical, though abounding in complaisance for the sister of his master. 'Look here!' she said; 'I have cut out all the most superstitious portions of this book.'[200]—'Admirable!' exclaimed the courtier; 'I should desire no other.' The queen took the prelate at his word: 'Translate it into French,' she said, 'and I will have it printed with your name.' The courtier-bishop did not dare withdraw; he translated the book, the queen approved of it, and it appeared under the title of _Heures de la Royne Marguerite_ ('Queen Margaret's Prayer-book'). The Faculty of Divinity was angry about it, but they restrained themselves, not so much because it was the queen's prayer-book, as because the translator was a bishop and his Majesty's confessor. [Sidenote: LECOQ'S SERMON BEFORE THE KING.] Nor did the Queen of Navarre stop here. There was at that time in Paris a curé, named Lecoq, whose preaching drew great crowds to St. Eustache. Certain ladies of the court, who affected piety, never missed one of his sermons. 'What eloquence!' said they, speaking of Lecoq, one day when there was a reception at St. Germain; 'what a striking voice! what a flow of words! what boldness of thought! what fervent piety!'—'Your fine orator,' said the king, who was listening to them, 'is no doubt a Lutheran in disguise!'—'Not at all, Sire,' said one of the ladies; 'he often declaims against Luther, and says that we must not separate from the Church.' Margaret asked her brother to judge for himself. 'I will go,' said Francis. The curé was informed that on the following Sunday the king and all his court would come to hear his sermon. The priest was charmed at the information. He was a man of talent, and had received evangelical impressions; only they were not deep, and the breath of favour might easily turn him from the right way. As this breath was just now blowing in the direction of the Gospel, he entered with all his heart into this conspiracy of the ladies, and began to prepare a discourse adapted, as he thought, to introduce the new light into the king's mind.