As to the execution of their judgment, the Parliament obeyed the king's injunction, maintaining, however, the principle as well as the legality of Berquin's sentence, and declaring that they awaited the king's orders to execute it.

"According to the teaching of the two Testaments," they said, "God ever rageth, in His just wrath, against the nations who fail to enforce respect for the laws prescribed by Himself.

It is important, moreover, to hasten the event in order as soon as possible to satisfy, independently of God, the people who murmur and whose impatience is becoming verily troublesome." Francis I.did not reply.

He would not have dared, even in thought, to attack the question of principle as to the chastisement of heresy, and he was afraid of weakening his own Authority too much if he humiliated his Parliament too much; it was sufficient for him that he might consider Berquin's life to be safe.
Kings are protectors who are easily satisfied when their protection, to be worth anything, might entail upon them the necessity of an energetic struggle and of self-compromise.

"Trust not in princes nor their children," said Lord Strafford, after the Psalmist [_Nolite confidere principibus et filiis eorum, quia non est sales in illis,_ Ps.