Even so, however, the theologians could not contain their indignation at the insult they had received. In the excess of their zeal they went so far as to hold up the king's sister to condemnation and derision, in one of those plays which the students of the Collége de Navarre were accustomed annually to perform, as a scholastic exercise in public oratory (on the first of October, 1533). A gentle queen was here represented as throwing aside needle and distaff, at the crafty suggestion of a tempting fury, and as receiving in lieu of those feminine implements a copy of the Gospels--when, lo! she was suddenly transformed into a cruel tyrant. It was perhaps hard to detect the exact connection between the acceptance of the holy book and so disastrous a change of character--neither the students of the Collége de Navarre nor their teachers thought it worth while to trouble themselves about such trifles--but there was no difficulty in recognizing Margaret in the principal actor of the play, or in deciphering the name of Master Gérard Roussel--Magister Gerardus--in _Megæra_, the fury with the flaming torch, that seduced her. On complaint of his sister, Francis, in some indignation, ordered the arrest of the author of the insipid drama, as well as of the youthful performers. The former could not be found, and the latter, thanks to the queen's clemency, escaped with a less rigorous punishment than the insult deserved.[315] [Sidenote: Her Miroir de l'âme pécheresse.] An equally audacious act was the insertion of a work published by Margaret, under the title of _Le miroir de l'âme pécheresse_, in a list of prohibited books. When the university, to whom the censorship of the press was entrusted, was called to account by the king, all the faculties promptly repudiated any intention to cast doubt upon the orthodoxy of his sister, and even the originator of the offensive prohibition was forced to plead ignorance of the authorship of the volume in question. The rector of the university terminated the long series of disclaimers by rendering thanks to Francis for his fatherly patience.[316] [Sidenote: Rector Cop's address to the university.] Just a month after the unlucky dramatic representation of the Collége de Navarre, the city was furnished with fresh food for scandal. On All Saints' day (the first of November, 1533), the university assembled according to custom in the church of the Mathurins, to listen to an address delivered by the rector. But Nicholas Cop's discourse was not of the usual type. Under guise of a disquisition on "Christian Philosophy," the orator preached an evangelical sermon, with the First Beatitude for his text, and propounded the view that the forgiveness of sin and eternal life are simple gifts of God's grace that cannot be earned by man's good works.[317] [Sidenote: Its extraordinary character.]