and, they were referred to the Council of Trent, which the
pontiff had recently ordered to reassemble at the coming Easter. Such a
convocation--neither convened in a place of safe access, nor consisting
of the proper persons to represent Christendom, nor under free
conditions[1004]--could not be recognized by the Huguenots of France as
a competent tribunal to act in the final adjudication of their cause.
They must refuse to appear either at Trent or at the assembly of French
prelates, to be held as a preliminary to their proceeding to the
universal council, in accordance with the resolutions of the notables at
Fontainebleau.[1005]

[Sidenote: Return of the fugitives.]

Yet, as contrasted with the earlier legislation, the provisional
dispositions of the royal letter were highly encouraging. They permitted
a large number of persons incarcerated for religion's sake to issue from
prison. The exiles, it was said, returned tenfold as numerous as they
left the country. Great was the indignation of their adversaries when
all these, with numbers recruited from the ranks of the reformers in
England, Flanders, Switzerland, and even from Lucca, Florence and
Venice, began to preach with the utmost boldness. They might be accused
of gross ignorance, and of uttering a thousand stupid remarks, but one
thing could not be denied--every preacher had a crowd to hear him.[1006]

[Sidenote: Charles writes to stop ministers from Geneva.]

[Sidenote: Reply of the Genevese.]

No such toleration, however, as that now proclaimed was necessary to
induce the ministers of the reformed doctrines, who had qualified
themselves for their apostolic labors under the teaching of Calvin and
Beza, to enter France. The gibbet and the fearful "estrapade" had not
deterred them. The prelates, therefore, induced the queen mother to
attempt by other means to stem the flood of preachers that poured in
from Geneva. On the twenty-third of January, seven or eight days before
the adjournment of the States General, a letter was despatched in the
name of Charles IX. to the syndics and councils of the city of Geneva.
Its tone was earnest and decided. It had appeared--so the king was made
to say--from a very careful examination into the sources of the existing
divisions, that they were caused by the seditious teachings of preachers
mostly sent by the Genevese authorities, or by their principal
ministers, as well as by an infinite number of defamatory pamphlets,
which