[Footnote 281: If Francis was sanguine of success in suppressing the Reformation in his kingdom, there were others who went farther still. Barthélemi de Chassanée this very year (1527) chronicles the destruction of "Lutheranism" in France as _an accomplished fact_! The passage is not unworthy of notice. After explaining the significance of the _fleurs-de-lis_ on the royal escutcheon by the wonderful efficacy of the lily as the antidote of the serpent's poison, and remarking that the kings of France had thrice extracted the mortal virus from the bite of Mohammed, "serpentis venenosi," the writer adds: "Et, his temporibus, videmus nostram fidem et religionem Christianam _sanatam esse a morsu pestiferi serpentis Lutheri_, qui infinitas hæreses in fide Christiana seminavit, _quæ fuerunt extirpatæ a Rege nostro Francisco Christianissimo_, qui non cessat insudare, ut Clemens summus Pontifex a sua Sede ejectus restituatur, quem Carolus Borbonius dux exercitus Caroli Austriaci electi in Imperatorem, in urbe obsederat _hoc anno Domini_ 1527 die 6 Maii." Catalogus Gloriæ Mundi, fol. 143.] [Footnote 282: Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1160.] [Footnote 283: The reader may, if his patience will hold out, wade through the prolix decrees of the Council of Sens as published by Cardinal Duprat in 1529, and printed in Labbei Concilia (Venice, 1732), xix. 1149-1202. It is worthy of remark that the confiscation of the property of condemned heretics, if laymen, to the state, is ordered, "_tanquam reorum læsæ majestatis_." Fol. 1159.] [Footnote 284: Labbei Concilia, xix. fol. 1139.] [Footnote 285: The words of the decree are sufficiently distinct: "Illam plurimum gravem et onerosam ecclesiis, laicis vero contemtibilem, sacerdotum multitudinem, qui solent plerumque _illiterati, moribus inculti, servilibus operibus addicti, imberbes, inopes, fictitiis titulis_ ad sacros ordines obrepere, non sine magno status clericalis opprobrio." Ibid., xix. fol. 1128. The decrees of the councils of Bourges and Lyons are given in Labbei Concilia, xix. 1041-1048, and 1095 etc.] [Footnote 286: The image was affixed to the house of the Sieur de Beaumont, at the corner of the Rue des Hosiers and the Rue des Juifs. Félibien, Hist. de Paris, iv. 676.] [Footnote 287: The strong language of the author of the "Cronique du Roi Françoys I^er" (edited by G. Guiffrey, Paris, 1860) may serve as an index of the popular feeling: "La nuict du dimenche, dernier jour de may, ... _par quelque ung pire que ung chien mauldict de Dieu_, fut rompue et couppée la teste à une ymaige de la vierge Marie ... qui fut _une grosse horreur à la crestienté_." Page 66.]