But the king was far from pardoning. Four days after this publication (29th January) he issued an edict, 'for the extirpation of the Lutheran sect which has swarmed and is still swarming in the realm, with orders to denounce its followers.'[274] At the same time he addressed a circular letter to all the parliaments, enjoining them to give 'aid and prisons' in order that the heresy should be promptly extirpated.[275] Lastly, the 'father of letters' issued an ordinance declaring the _abolition of printing_ all over France under pain of the gallows.[276] This savage edict was not carried out: it is, however, an index of the spirit by which the enemies of the Reformation were animated. [Sidenote: PROCLAMATIONS AND PUNISHMENTS.] Francis I., after having thus made some excursions into the sphere of Charles V.—the _proclamations_, returned into his own—the _punishments_. Du Bellay interceded for the German protestants, and the king sent them back to their own country; but, feeling his hands free as regarded his own subjects, he sent fresh victims to the stake. On the 16th February, Calvin's friend, the rich and pious trader, La Forge, about sixty years of age, was dragged in a tumbril to the cemetery of St. John. 'He is a rich man,' said some compassionate spectators; 'a good man that has given away much in alms.' It did not matter: they burnt him alive. Three days later a goldsmith and a painter were mercifully (for Francis wished to see the arts flourish) stripped and flogged, deprived of their goods, and banished. Many Lutheran women were banished also. On the 26th February, a young Italian, named Loys de Medicis, perished in the flames at the end of St. Michael's bridge; and his wife 'died in her bed of grief at such infamy.' Shortly afterwards it was the turn of a scholar, a native of Grenoble, who had posted up some of the placards in the night. On the 13th March, it was that of the chorister of the royal chapel who in his rash zeal had fastened the protest to his Majesty's door; he was burnt near the Louvre. On the 5th May, a _procureur_ and a tailor were dragged on a hurdle to the porch of Notre Dame, whence they were taken in a tumbril to the pig-market 'and there hanged in chains,' which were not consumed so soon as ropes. The same day, a shoemaker of Tournay, banished from that city because he belonged to the sect of Luther, died in a similar way, 'without repenting.'