In 1533 or 1534 Des Périers visited Lyon, then the most enlightened town of France, and a refuge for many liberal scholars who might elsewhere have had to suffer for their opinions.
He gave some assistance to Robert Olivetan and Lefèvre d'Etaples in the preparation of the vernacular version of the Old Testament, and to Etienne Dolet in the Commentarii linguae latinae.
This free inquiry became scepticism in Bonaventure's Cymbalum Mundi ... (1537) and the queen of Navarre thought it prudent to disavow the author, though she continued to help him privately until 1541.
[1] Des Périers prudently left Paris, and after some time settled at Lyon where he lived in poverty, until he reportedly (though this is dubious) committing suicide in 1544 by falling on his sword.
The book leaves something to be desired on the score of morality, but the stories never lack point and are models of simple, direct narration in the vigorous and picturesque French of the 16th century.