No one was more alarmed and more agitated than Margaret. Nothing was more opposed to her nature than the style of the placards; and in reality they were not only an attack against Rome, but a protest against the conciliatory catholic system of the Queen of Navarre. Those who protested in this way bore a certain resemblance (not reckoning their Christianity) to a well-known character in literature: they condemned alike the fanatic Romanists and the spiritual Catholics— Les uns, parcequ'ils sont méchants et malfaisants, Et les autres, pour être aux méchants complaisants.[232] The queen had not the slightest suspicion of the blow that was preparing; and at the very moment when she believed the Gospel to be on the point of gaining the victory, everything seemed ended for it in France. Her brother's anger, the hard look he turned upon her, for perhaps the first time, alarmed this princess who had, it is true, a strong understanding, but also a heart easily moved and even timid. She shed floods of tears: she had no doubt that the whole affair was the result of a plot contrived between the Sorbonne and Cardinal de Tournon. 'My lord,' she said to the king, 'we are not sacramentarians. These infamous placards have been invented by men who wish to make the responsibility of their abominable manœuvre fall upon us.'[233] She resolved to do everything to save Roussel at least; the very thought that he might be burnt terrified her. Why had she not left him at Pau? Seeing the unusual coldness of the king, she commissioned the perfidious Montmorency to present her petition. 'They are occupied at this moment,' she wrote to him, 'with completing their case against Master Gérard; I hope the king will find him deserving something better than the stake.... He has never held an opinion tainted with heresy. I have known him for five years, and if I had seen anything suspicious in him, I should not have put up so long with such poison. I entreat you, fear not to speak in my behalf.'[234] Montmorency, far from being disposed to do what the queen asked, endeavoured to ruin not only Roussel, but also Margaret herself; while Cardinals Duprat and De Tournon helped him to insinuate into the king's mind that his sister had some share in the matter of the placards. The coldness, the harshness even of Francis I. towards Margaret, increased daily; heartbroken, and unable to bear up any longer, she left Paris hastily. [Sidenote: BEDA ACCUSES FRANCIS.]