410/1552 New rigors were undertaken in April 1538. Marot retracted his errors, and Rabelais, while not fundamentally changing his doctrine, greatly softened, in the second edition of his _Pantagruel_, [Sidenote: 1542] the abusive ridicule he had poured on the Sorbonne. But by this time a new era was inaugurated. The deaths of Erasmus and Lefevre in 1536 gave the _coup de grace_ to the party of the Christian {198} Renaissance, and the publication of Calvin's _Institutes_ in the same year finally gave the French Protestants a much needed leader and standard. Margaret had died several years before, but Rabelais was called her poet because he had claimed her protection and to her wrote a poem in 1545. |