Going then to Toulouse, he gained the confidence of the Archbishop there, who gave him charge of a convent of nuns.

In this post he developed more systematically his notions of the religious life, described as a compound of Quietism and Antinomianism, after the fashion of sects already known in France and Germany, but with sexual extravangances which, when divulged, raised an indignant storm.

In November 1649, he had to abscond from Toulouse; and, after various wanderings, in which he called himself "Jean de Jesus Christ" and obtained popularity as a prophet, he came to Montauban, and there publicly abjured Roman Catholicism in October 1650.

Elected minister of the Protestant church of that town in 1652, he lived there for some years in great esteem among the Protestants, but in deadly feud with the Roman Catholics.

The schism was such that at last the magistrates had to banish him from the town as a disturber of the peace.