they bore him, they had immediately started
out in search. And they begged him not to distress himself on account of
their absence; for they assured him that _they would all soon return to
see him, and would bring with them not only these, but all the rest of
those that had conspired to take his life_.[855]

[Sidenote: How to be accounted for.]

No feature of the rise of the Reformation in France is more remarkable
than the sudden impulse which it received during the last year or two of
Henry the Second's life, and especially within the brief limits of the
reign of his eldest son. The seed had been sown assiduously for nearly
forty years; but the fruit of so much labor had been comparatively
slight and unsatisfactory. Much of the return proved to be of a literary
and philosophical, rather than of a religious character, and tended to
intellectual development instead of the purification of religions belief
and practice. Much of the seed was choked by relentless persecution.
Bishops and preachers, the gay poet, and the time-serving courtier, fell
away with alarming facility, when the blight of the royal displeasure
fell upon those who professed a desire to abolish the superstitious
observances of the established church.

[Sidenote: A sudden harvest.]

But now, within a few brief months, the harvest seemed, as by a miracle,
to be approaching simultaneously over the whole surface of the extended
field. The grains of truth long since lodged in an arid soil, and
apparently destitute of all vitality, had suddenly developed all the
energy of life. France to the reformers, whose longing eyes were at
length permitted to see this day, was "white unto the harvest," and only
the reapers were needed to put forth the sickle and gather the wheat
into the garner. There was not a corner of the kingdom where the number
of incipient Protestant churches was not considerable. Provence alone
contained sixty, whose delegates this year met in a synod at the
blood-stained village of Merindol. In large tracts of country the
Huguenots had become so numerous that they were no longer able or
disposed to conceal their religious sentiments, nor content to celebrate
their rites in private or nocturnal assemblies. This was particularly
the case in Normandy, in Languedoc, and on the banks of the Rhone.

[Sidenote: The progress of letters]

[Sidenote: and of intelligence.]

It may be worth while to pause here, and inquire into some of the causes
of