The last injunction was not altogether unnecessary. Even among the judges of parliament there were fair-minded persons not inclined to condemn accused men or books on mere report. The ambassador of Henry the Eighth having, in 1538, denounced an English translation of the Holy Scriptures that was in press at Paris, the chancellor commissioned President Caillaud to investigate the case. The latter, finding that the printer's excuse was the scarcity of paper in England, quietly set about a comparison of the suspected version with accessible French translations. He said nothing to doctors of theology or royal prosecuting officers. "It seemed to me," he reported, "quite unnecessary to give the matter such notoriety. Moreover, I mistrusted that, without further investigation, without even looking into it, they would have condemned the English translation for the sole reason that it is in that tongue. For I have seen them sustain that the Holy Scriptures ought not to be translated into the French language or any other vernacular tongue. Nevertheless, the Bible in French was printed in this city so long ago as in 1529, and again this present year, and is for sale by the most wealthy printers. For my part I have seen no prohibition either by the church or by the secular authority, although I once heard some decretal alleged in condemnation." Unfortunately such judges as Louis Caillaud were rare--men that would take the pains to obtain the services of a person acquainted with the English language to translate aloud a Bible suspected of heretical teachings, while themselves testing its accuracy by scanning versions made from the Vulgate and the Hebrew original![433] [Sidenote: Royal letters from Lyons, Aug. 30, 1542.] Two years more had scarcely passed before fresh legislation against the Protestants demonstrated the impotence of all measures thus far resorted to. The interval had certainly been improved by their enemies, for the stake had its victims to boast of.[434] And yet the new religious body had its ministers and its secret conventicles, with an ever increasing number of adherents. Accordingly, on the thirtieth of August, 1542, Francis, then at Lyons, addressed new letters patent to the various parliaments, enjoining new vigilance and activity. Previous edicts had not borne all the fruit expected from them; for there was still a bad seed of error and damnable doctrines--so wrote the king--growing and multiplying from day to day. So exemplary a punishment must, therefore, be inflicted, as might forever terrify offenders.[435] The king even threatened delinquent prelates with seizure of their temporalities, in case they failed to exercise due diligence in so important a matter.[436] [Sidenote: Audacity of the "Lutherans" of Bordeaux.] [Sidenote: Francis I. and the Sacramentarians.]