The priests came to an understanding with one another, and made their preparations without saying a word. On the following Sunday, Michel Simon, having entered the pulpit, was about to begin his sermon, when the curé, with his vicars and choristers, entered the choir, and began to chant the office for the dead. It was impossible either to preach or to hear. The exasperated students rushed into the choir, threw the books about, upset the lecterns, and drove out the priests, who ran off 'in great disorder.' Simon, who remained master of the field, delivered his sermon, and, to the surprise of his hearers, ended by repeating the Lord's prayer in French, without adding the Ave Maria! Whereupon a man, sitting in one of the upper stalls (he was the king's proctor), stood up, and with a sonorous voice began: Ave Maria, gratia.... He could not complete the sentence. A universal shout interrupted him; the women, who are easily excited, caught up their little stools, crowded round the proctor, and shook them over his head. These people were catholics, disgusted with the priests, not with the disciples of the Saviour.
While the student of Noyon was devoting himself to the preaching of the Gospel, extreme danger threatened him who had been his forerunner in this work.
[57] 'Quod tibi promiseram discedens me brevi adfuturum.'—Calvinus Chemino, May 14, 1528, Berne MS.
[58] 'Ea me expectatio diutius suspensum habuit.'—Calvinus Chemino.
[59] 'Nam dum reditum ad vos meditor.'—Ibid.
[60] Calvini Opera.
[61] 'Sed cum medici spem facerent posse redire in prosperam valetudinem.'—Calvinus Chemino.
[62] 'Nihil aliud visum est quam tui desiderium.'—Ibid.
[63] 'Interim dies de die trahitur.'—Ibid.
[64] 'Certum mortis periculum.'—Calvinus Chemino.