The incident that occasioned Calvin's flight from Paris was narrated in a previous chapter. Escaping from the officers sent to apprehend him as the real author of the inaugural address of the rector, Nicholas Cop, Calvin found safety and scholastic leisure in the house of his friend Louis du Tillet, at Angoulême. If we could believe the accounts of later writers, we should imagine the young scholar dividing his time in this retreat between the preparation of his "Institutes" and systematic labors for the conversion of the inhabitants of the south-west of France. Tradition still points out the grottos in the vicinity of Poitiers, where, during a residence in that city, Calvin is said to have exclaimed, pointing to the Bible lying open before him: "Here is my mass;" and then, with uncovered head and eyes turned toward heaven, "Lord, if at the judgment-day thou shalt reprove me because I have abandoned the mass, I shall reply with justice, 'Lord, thou hast not commanded it. Here is thy law. Here are the Scriptures, the rule thou hast given me, wherein I have been unable to find any other sacrifice than that which was offered upon the altar of the cross!'"[392] [Sidenote: He resigns his benefices.] [Sidenote: He reaches Basle.] The caverns bearing Calvin's name may never have witnessed his preaching, and the address ascribed to him rests on insufficient authority;[393] but it is certain that the future reformer about this time took his first decided step in renouncing connection with the Roman Church, by resigning his benefices, the revenues of which he had enjoyed, although precluded by his youth from receiving ordination.[394] Not many months later, finding himself solicited on all sides to take an active part as a teacher of the little companies of Protestants arising in different cities of France, he resolved to leave France and court elsewhere obscurity and leisure to prosecute undisturbed his favorite studies.[395] Accordingly, we find him, after a brief visit to Paris and Orleans, reaching the city of Basle, apparently toward the close of the year 1534.[396] [Sidenote: Apologetic character given to his great work.] It was here that Calvin appears to have conceived for the first time the purpose of giving a practical aim to the great work upon the composition of which he had been some time busy. In spite of his professions of unsullied honor, Francis the First had not hesitated to disseminate, by means of his agents beyond the Rhine, the most unfounded and injurious reports respecting his Protestant subjects. It was time that these aspersions should be cleared away, and an attempt be made to touch the heart of the persecuting monarch with compassion for the unoffending objects of his blind fury. Such was the object Calvin set before himself in a preface to the first edition of the "Institutes," addressed "To the Very Christian King of France."[397] It was a document of rare importance.