It does not appear that Margaret enjoined the law of silence upon her guest of Noyon, for we find him disseminating his errors in Saintonge, where many laborers flocked to hear him and abandoned Catholicism to embrace the Reformation. It was while on one of his excursions that the missionary encountered Louis du Tillet, clerk of the Parliament of Paris and secretary of Du Tillet, Bishop of Meaux. Louis possessed a beautiful dwelling at Claix, a sort of Thebais, retired and pleasant, where Calvin commenced his most serious work, _Institutes of the Christian Religion_. The time he could spare from this literary occupation he devoted to preaching in the neighboring cities, and especially at Angouleme. A vine, beneath which he loved to recline and muse, may still be seen; it was for a long time called "Calvin's vine." He was still living on the last bounties of a church which he had renounced, and which he called "a stepmother and a prostitute"; and on the presents of a queen gallant, whose morals and piety he lauded, continuing to assist at the Catholic service, and composing Latin orations, which were delivered out of the assembly of the synod, at the temple of St. Peter. He left the court of Margaret and reappeared at Orleans. The Reformation in France, as in Germany, wherever it showed itself, produced, on all sides, disorder and trouble. In place of a uniform symbol, it brought contradictory confessions, which gave rise to interminable disputes. In Germany the Lutheran word caused a thousand sects to spring up--each of which wished to establish a Christian republic on the ruins of Catholicism. Carlstadt, Schwenkfield, Oecolampadius, Zwingli, Munzer, Boskold, begotten by Luther, had denied their father, and taught heterogeneous dogmas, of which every one passed for the production of the Holy Ghost. Luther, who no longer concealed himself beneath a monk's robe, but borrowed the ducal sword, drove before him all these rebel angels, and, at the gate of Wittenberg, stationed an executioner to prohibit their entrance; driven back into the provinces, the dissenters appealed to open force. Germany was then inundated with the blood of her noble intelligences, who had been born for her glory. Munzer died on the scaffold, and the Anabaptists marched to punishment, denying and cursing the Saxon who did violence to their faith. Everything was perishing--painting, sculpture, poesy, letters. The Reformation imitated Nero, and sang its triumphs amid ruins and blood.