Henry M. Baird · 107 of 379

CHAPTER VIII · Activity of the canton of Berne.

The Bernese were not discouraged by the ill-success of their intercessions. Three times in the early part of the succeeding year (1554) they begged, but with no better results, for the release of Paris Panier, a man learned in the civil law. With equal earnestness they took the part of the persecuted reformers against the violence of their enemies on many successive occasions. It was all in vain. The libertine king, who saw no merit in the purity of life of the professors of the "new doctrines," and no mark of Antichrist in the profligacy of Paul the Third or of Julius the Third, but viewed with horror the permission granted by the latter to the faithful of Paris to eat eggs, butter and cheese during Lent, maintained his more than papal orthodoxy, and stifled the promptings of a heart by nature not averse to pity.