Berquin, for all that appears, asked for nothing but liberty to read and write.

"It is not possible," was the reply; "such liberty is never granted to those who are condemned to death." As a great favor, Berquin was offered a copy of the Letters of St.Jerome and some volumes of history; and the provost had orders not to omit that fact in his report: "The king must be fully assured that the court do all they can to please him." [Illustration: Berquin released by John de la Barre----198] But it was to no purpose.

On the 19th of November, 1526, the provost of Paris returned to the palace with a letter from the king, formally commanding him to remove Berquin and transfer him to the Louvre.

The court again protested that they would not deliver over the said Berquin to the said provost; but, they said, "seeing what the times are, the said provost will be able to find free access to the Conciergerie, for to do there what he hath a mind to." The same day, about six in the evening, John de la Barre repaired to the Conciergerie, and removed from it Louis de Berquin, whom he handed over to the captain of the guard and four archers, who took him away to the Louvre.

Two months afterwards, in January, 1527, Princess Marguerite married Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre, and about the same time, though it is difficult to discover the exact day, Louis de Berquin issued forth a free man from the Louvre, and the new queen, on taking him at once into her service, wrote to the Constable Anne de Montmorency, whom the king had charged with the duty of getting Berquin set at liberty, "I thank you for the pleasure you have done me in the matter of poor Berquin, whom I esteem as much as if he were myself; and so you may say that you have delivered me from prison, since I consider in that light the pleasure done to me." Marguerite's sympathetic joy was as natural as touching; she must have thought Berquin safe; he was free and in the service of one who was fundamentally a sovereign-prince, though living in France and in dependence upon the King of France, whose sister he had just married.
In France, Berquin was under the stigma of having been condemned to death as a heretic, and was confronted by determined enemies.