At this timt", the University was the principal seat of European learning and Roman Catholic orthodoxy.

"Among the people of Picardy and Dauphiny, the first principles of the great work appeared before they were manifest in any other country. This is the fact if we regard dates; and therefore the earliest honors of the Reformation belong to France, a circumstance which lias been generally overlooked. Still Luther, in zeal, knowledge and success, was the master spirit of the

• See Trinity Church Charter.

384 HISTORY OF THE

age, and in its fullest sense he deserves the epithet of the first reformer.

" Among the first doctors of theology in Paris, who zealously embraced the ever blessed Reformation, was Lefevre, who while engaged in a task of collecting the legends of saints and martyrs, felt a ray of divine light from on high suddenly flash into his mind, and abandoning his work, cast away such foolish things and embraced the holy scriptures. The new impulse grew rapidly in his heart, and he soon communicated its divine truth to his classes in the University. Of this individual, Beza remarked : 'It was he who boldly began the revival of the holy religion of Jesus Christ. Thus a new era opened in France, and the Reformation soon made rapid progress. One of its first witnesses in the court of royalty was the celebrated Princess, Margaret of Yalois, Duchess of Alen^on, and sister to the reigning monarch, Francis the First. '"^ She is said to have dignified her profession by a pure religious and blameless life amidst the dissolute and literary household of her royal brother, &c.