He is my hope,
My resting-place,
My strength, my being, and my trust,
For he hath saved me by his grace.
Father and mother I have none;
Brother and sister—all are gone,
Save God, in whom I trust alone,
Who rules the earth from his high throne.[96]
=SORBONNE PLOTS AGAINST BERQUIN.=
Whilst Margaret was seeking consolation in God, there came a support which she had not expected. Erasmus was growing uneasy; the letters which he received were full of alarming news; he saw that Francis I., on whom he had so much relied, was stumbling and ready to fall. This would give the victory to the Sorbonne. Having a presentiment that the ultramontanists were daring revolutionists, prepared to sacrifice not only literature and the Gospel, but royalty itself, he laid aside his usual prudence, and resolved to tear the veil from the king's eyes, which concealed the perverted designs of the Roman party, and to show him conspirators in those who called themselves the supporters of the throne. 'These men,' he wrote, 'under the cloak of the interests of the faith, creep into all sorts of dark ways. Their only thought is of bringing the august heads of monarchs under their yoke and of suspending their power. Wait a little. If a prince resists them, they call him a favourer of heresy, and say that it is the duty of the Church (that is to say, of a few apocryphal monks and false doctors) to dethrone him. What! shall they be permitted to scatter their poisons everywhere, and we be forbidden to apply the antidote?'[97]