Such were the paltry evasions of cowardly souls, to excuse themselves for the neglect of admitted duty. We cannot wonder at the burning words of condemnation which this pusillanimity called forth from the pen of brave Pierre Toussain. "I have spoken to Lefèvre and Roussel," he wrote some months later, "but certainly Lefèvre has not a particle of courage. May God confirm and strengthen him! Let them be as wise as they please, let them wait, procrastinate, and dissemble; the Gospel will never be preached without the _cross_! When I see these things, when I see the mind of the king, the mind of the duchess [Margaret of Angoulême] as favorable as possible to the advancement of the Gospel of Christ, and those who ought to forward this matter, according to the grace given them, obstructing their design, I cannot refrain from tears. They say, indeed: 'It is not yet time, the hour has not come!' And yet we have here no day or hour. _What would not you do had you the Emperor and Ferdinand favoring your attempts?_ Entreat God, therefore, in behalf of France, that she may at length be worthy of His word."[180]
The remainder of the task imposed on the weak Bishop of Meaux and his new allies, the monks of St. Francis, proved a more difficult undertaking. The shepherds had been dispersed, but the flock refused to forsake the fold. From the nourishing food they had discovered in the Word of God, they could not be induced to return to the husks offered to them in meaningless ceremonies, celebrated in an unknown tongue by men of impure lives. The Gospels in French remained more attractive than the legendary, even after the bishop had abandoned the championship of the incipient reformation. Briçonnet's own expressed wish was granted: if he had "changed his speech and teaching," the common people, at least, had not changed with him.
[Sidenote: The wool-carder, Jean Leclerc, tears down a papal bull.]
Among the first fruits of the Reformation in Meaux was a wool-carder, Jean Leclerc, into whose hands had fallen one of Lefèvre's French Testaments. He was a man of strong convictions and invincible resolution. A bull, issued by Clement the Seventh in connection with the approaching jubilee, had been posted on the doors of the cathedral (December, 1524). It offered indulgence, and enjoined prayers, fasting, and partaking of the Communion, in order to obtain from heaven the restoration of peace between princes of Christendom. Leclerc secretly tore the bull down, substituting for it a placard in which the Roman pontiff figured as veritable Antichrist. Diligent search was at once instituted for the perpetrator of this offence, and for the author of the subsequent mutilation of the prayers to the Virgin hung up in various parts of the same edifice. A truculent order was also issued in the bishop's name, threatening all persons that might conceal their knowledge of the culprits with public excommunication, every Sunday and feast-day, "with ringing of bells and with candles lighted and then extinguished and thrown upon the earth, _in token of eternal malediction_."[181] Leclerc was discovered, and taken to Paris for trial. The barbarous sentence of parliament was, that he be whipped in Paris by the common executioner on three successive days, then transferred to Meaux to receive the like punishment, and finally branded on the forehead with a red-hot iron, before being banished forever from the kingdom.[182]