Two thoughts engrossed him wholly at this time: the first concerned the good that his book might do. 'Write to me as soon as possible,' said he to his friend, 'and tell me whether my book is favourably or coldly received.[225] I hope that it will contribute to the public good.' But he was also very anxious about the sale: all his money was gone. 'I am drained dry,' he said; 'and I must tax my wits to get back from every quarter the money I have expended.' Calvin showed great activity in the publication of his first work; we can already trace in him the captain drawing out his plan of battle. He called upon several professors in the capital, and begged them to use his book in their public lectures. He sent five copies to his friends at Bourges, and asked Sucquey to deliver a course of lectures on his publication. He made the same request to Landrin with regard to the university of Orleans.[226] In short, he lost no opportunity of making his book known. Daniel had asked him for some Bibles. Probably Calvin's refusal to accept office in the Church had not surprised the advocate, and this pious man desired to circulate the book which had inspired his young friend with such courage and self-denial. But it was not easy to execute the commission. There was Lefèvre's Bible, printed in French at Antwerp in 1530; and the Latin Bible of Robert Stephens, which appeared at Paris in 1532. The latter was so eagerly bought up, that the doctors of the Sorbonne tried to prohibit the sale. It was probably this edition which Calvin tried to procure. He went from shop to shop, but the booksellers looked at him with suspicion, and said they had not the volume. Calvin renewed his inquiries in the Latin quarter, where at last he found what he sought at a bookseller's who was more independent of the Sorbonne and its proclamations than the others. 'I have executed your commission about the Bible,' he wrote to Daniel; 'and it cost me more trouble than money.'[227] Calvin profited by the opportunity to entreat his friend to deliver a course of lectures on the _Clemency_. 'If you make up your mind to do so,' he wrote, 'I will send you a hundred copies.' These copies were, no doubt, to be sold to Daniel's hearers. Such were the anxieties of the great writer of the sixteenth century at the beginning of his career. Calvin's first work (it deserves to be noted) was on _Clemency_. Did the king read the treatise?... We cannot say; at any rate, Calvin was not more fortunate with Francis I. than Seneca had been with Nero. [Sidenote: AN UNHAPPY FRONDEUR.]