Happily for Francis, however, whose ambition it had hitherto been to figure as a modern Mæcenas, even a subservient parliament declined the customary registration. The king, too, coming to his senses after the lapse of six weeks, so far yielded to the remonstrances of his more sensible courtiers as to recall his rash edict, or, rather, suspend its operation until he could give the matter more careful consideration. Meanwhile he undertook to institute a censorship. The king was to select twelve persons of quality and pecuniary responsibility, from a list of twice that number of names submitted by parliament; and this commission was to receive the exclusive right to print--and that, in the city of Paris alone--such books as might be approved by the proper authorities and be found necessary to the public weal. Until the appointment of the twelve censors the press was to remain idle! Nor was the suspension of the prohibitory ordinance to continue a day longer than the term required by the monarch to decide whether he preferred to modify its provisions or leave them unchanged. "Albeit on the thirteenth day of January, 1534,"[341] wrote this much lauded patron of letters, "by other letters-patent of ours, and for the causes and reasons therein contained, _we prohibited and forbade any one from thenceforth printing, or causing to be printed, any books in our kingdom, on pain of the halter_: nevertheless, we have willed and ordained that the execution and accomplishment of our said letters, prohibitions and injunctions, be and continue suspended and surcease until we shall otherwise provide."[342] [Sidenote: Vigorous proceedings of parliament.] Meantime, parliament had not been slack in obeying the command to search diligently for the authors and publishers of the placards. Many reputed "Lutherans" had been arrested, some of whom, it was given out, pretended to reveal the existence of a plot of the reformers to fall upon the good Christians of the metropolis while assembled in their churches for divine worship, and assassinate them in the midst of their devotions! The credulous populace made no difficulty in accepting the tale. Paris shuddered at the thought of its narrow escape, and some hundreds of thousands of men and women reverently crossed themselves and thanked heaven they had not fallen a prey to the blood-thirsty designs of a handful of peaceable and unarmed adherents of the "new doctrines!" As for Francis himself, a grave historian tells us that his apprehensions were inflamed by the very mention of the word "conspiracy."[343] [Sidenote: Abundance of victims.]