[190] 'Nonnullos bonos viros.'—_Opusc. lat. Psychopan. Lectoribus._ [191] Johannes von Müller. [192] For Calvin's influence on the French language see my _History of the Reformation_, vol. iii, bk. xii. ch. xv. [193] 'Quædam paulo acrius atque etiam asperius dicta quæ aures quorundam delicatulas radere fortasse possent.'—_Calvinus Libertino._ [194] Calvin, _Psaumes_, 128. [195] 'Relicta patria, Germaniam concessi, ut in obscuro aliquo angulo abditus, quiete denegata fruerer.'—_Præf. in Psalm._ [196] Varillas, _Hist. des Rév. rel._ ii. p. 490. [197] Beza, _Vita Calvini_. CHAPTER IX. THE PLACARDS. (OCTOBER 1534.) Calvin had hardly left Paris when the clouds gathered over the little church of the metropolis. 'There was no year,' says a chronicler of the sixteenth century, speaking of 1534, 'when such great marvels happened in divers countries; but of all these marvels none is more worthy to be remembered than that which caused it to be named _the year of the placards_.'[198] The christians of Paris met together frequently in one another's houses. 'The Lord,' said they, 'commands His disciples to go forth and scatter the doctrine of salvation into all corners of the world.' The hive was swarming, as it had recently done at Poitiers. Le Comte, whom we have mentioned, quitted his friends, and after many dangers reached Morat, to assist Farel in his evangelical work.[199] Another Lutheran, whose journey was to be productive of disastrous results, followed the same road not long after. [Sidenote: TEMPORISERS AND SCRIPTURISTS.] There were, as we have seen, two distinct parties among the evangelical christians of France: the _temporisers_ and the _scripturists_. They sometimes came in contact, and each of them resolutely defended their own views. The _temporisers_ looked to Margaret, to the king her brother, and to alliances with Henry VIII. and the Protestants of Germany. Knowing that Francis I. detested the monks, they hoped, with the help of the Du Bellays, to give France a moderate reform, and desired to do nothing that might offend him. They waited. As for the _scripturists_, that is to say, the evangelicals of the school of Calvin, diplomacy made them feel uneasy; the king's protection annoyed them, and the idea of recognising the bishops and the pope alarmed them. They saw all kinds of superstition following in the train of the hierarchy, and they were determined to resist stoutly everything that might bring back the _idols_ to the temple of God. [Sidenote: FERET SENT TO CONSULT FAREL.]