<P> The individual who has been traditionally credited as the chief inspiration, if not the direct author of the placards, was the French Protestant leader Guillaume Farel, but it seems that Antoine de Marcourt, a pastor of Neuchâtel from Picardy, was the real author: Antoine Froment averred that "these placards were made at Neuchâtel in Switzerland by a certain Antoine Marcourd". Writing anonymously the following month, Marcourt took credit for the placards in the address to benevolent Readers of his anonymous "Most useful and salutary little treatise of the holy Eucharist", published at Neuchâtel, 16 November 1534, in which he avers "I have been moved by true affection to compose and edit in writing some true Articles on the unbearable abuses of the Mass . Which Articles I wish to be published and posted throughout the public places of the land ..." </P> <P> Processions were announced in all the parishes of Paris for the following Sunday . In Paris, the King himself stood under the canopy where the Most Holy Eucharist was usually carried - the political statement was clear . </P> <P> Also, a reward of a hundred écus was advertised for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrator or perpetrators, who were to be burned at the stake . Protestant sympathizers were soon identified and sent to the Châtelet . The first condemnations were pronounced 10 November; the first of those burned at the stake, 13 November, was a cripple named Barthélemi Milon . </P> <P> The polemic against the Catholic Church was considered a severe insult to Catholics; and the King now publicly affirmed his Catholic faith . The immediate public outcry necessitated the flight of several prominent Protestant leaders, including John Calvin, and of scholars and poets like Clément Marot . </P>

The affair of the placards (1534) rejected catholic teaching on which of the following sacraments