rs by the court, had
despatched one Artus Desire with a letter to Philip the Second, in
which they supplicated his intervention in behalf of the Catholic
religion, now threatened with ruin. Happily the enterprise was nipped in
the bud, and, on the arrest of Artus at Orleans, on his way to Spain,
the nefarious conspiracy was fully divulged. The priestly agent, after
craven prayers for his life, was immured for a time in a cloister.[1014]
Well might the Romish party fear. The curiosity to hear the preaching of
the Word of God by men of piety and learning, the desire to hear those
grand psalms of Marot solemnly chanted by the chorus of thousands of
human voices, had infected every class of society. The records of the
chapters of cathedrals, during this period of universal spiritual
agitation, are little else, we are told, than a list of cases of
ecclesiastical discipline instituted against chaplains, canons, and even
higher dignitaries, for having attended the Huguenot services. At Rouen,
the chief singer of Notre Dame acknowledged before the united chapter
that he had often been present at the "assemblies"--nay, more--"that he
had never heard anything there which was not good."[1015]

[Sidenote: Constable Montmorency's disgust.]

In the court at Fontainebleau the contagion daily spread. Beza, it is
true, gave expression to the warning that "not to be a Papist and to be
a Christian were different things."[1016] But of external marks of an
altered condition of things there was no lack. Little account was taken
of the arrival of Lent. Meat was openly sold and eaten.[1017] Huguenot
preachers conducted their services publicly in the apartments of the
Prince of Conde and of Admiral Coligny, first outside of the castle, and
then within its precincts. Catharine herself, partaking of the general
zeal, declared her intention to hear the Bishop of Valence preach before
the young king and the court, in the saloon of the castle. Such was the
news that irritated and alarmed the aged, but still vigorous Anne of
Montmorency. By birth, by tradition, by long association, the constable
was a devoted Roman Catholic. If any motive were wanting to determine
him to cling to the ancient regime, it was afforded by the proposition
made in the late Particular Estates of Paris that the favorites of the
last two monarchs should be required to disgorge the enormous gifts that
had helped to impoverish the nation. This project, for which he held the
Hu