But a second act of ill-timed rashness accomplished a result even more disastrous for Protestantism than the kindling of the fanatical zeal of the people; for it inflamed the anger of the king, and made him, what all the persuasions of the Roman court had hitherto failed to make him, a determined enemy and persecutor of the "new doctrines." A copy of the placard was secretly affixed by night to the very door of the royal bedchamber in the castle of Amboise,[338] where Francis and his court were at the time sojourning. If the contents of the tract offended the religious principles carefully inculcated upon the king by his spiritual instructors, the audacity of the person who, disregarding bars, bolts and guards, had presumed to invade the privacy of the royal abode and obtrude his unwelcome message, could not but be regarded in the light of a direct personal insult. Francis had not been in the habit of troubling himself about the private opinions of the learned on vexed points of theology; nor had he been inclined to permit his more fanatical subjects to harass any of those eminent scholars whose literary attainments added lustre to his brilliant court. Yet his claim to the right of enforcing uniformity of belief--and that uniformity a complete _conformity_ to his own creed--had rather been held in abeyance than relinquished. Louis de Berquin had, at his cost, discovered that the royal protection could not be expected even by a personal favorite and a scholar of large acquisitions, when, not content with holding doctrines deemed heretical, he strove to promulgate them. The interposition of Margaret of Angoulême had proved unavailing in his behalf. The heretics who had now ventured to nail an exposé of their dogmas on his bedchamber door could scarcely anticipate greater clemency. [Sidenote: Political considerations.] To personal motives were added political considerations. Indulgence to the perpetrators of an act so insulting to the Roman Catholic religion might drive the pontiff, whose friendship was an essential requisite of success in Francis's ambitious projects, to become the fast friend of the emperor, his rival. Pope Clement the Seventh had been succeeded by Paul the Third. The alliance cemented by the marriage of the Duke of Orleans to Catharine de' Medici had been dissolved by the death of the bride's uncle. The favor of the new Pope must be conciliated. Under such circumstances, what were the sufferings of a few poor reformers, when weighed in the balance against the triple crown of his Holiness? [Sidenote: Fruitless intercession of Margaret.]