Four days later, December 17, the officers of the Inquisition entered the printing-office and presented a document signed by Le Tellier, summoning Regnault and all whom it concerned to appear and make answer touching the printing of the Bible. He was at the same time enjoined to suspend the work, and forbidden to take away what was already printed. Are we to suppose that the Inquisition did not trouble itself about the royal letters of Francis I., or that the prince had changed his mind? Either of these suppositions might be entertained. In consequence of the dispatch of the packet to London, there were but a few sheets to be seized, and these were condemned to be burnt in the Place Maubert. But the officer was even more greedy of gain than fanatical; and gold being offered him by the Englishmen for recovery of their property, almost all the sheets were restored to them. His compliance is perhaps partly to be explained by the consideration that this was not a common case. The proprietors of the sheets seized were the Lord Cromwell, first secretary of state, and the king of England. The matter did not rest here; the bold Cromwell was not to be baffled. Agents sent by him to Paris got possession of the presses, the types, and even the _printers_, and took the whole away with them to London. In two months from the time of their arrival the printing was completed. On the last page appeared the statement: _The whole Bible finished in 1539_; and the grateful editors added, _A domino factum est istud_.[283] The violent proceeding of the Inquisition turned to a great gain for England. Many French printers and a large stock of type had been imported; and henceforward many and more beautiful editions of the Bible were printed in England. 'The wicked diggeth a pit and falleth into it.' [Sidenote: ATTEMPTED COMPROMISE.]