ll happier was he if
permitted to be seen by his prince, and, what was more important, to be
heard, and finally accepted and approved by him. To these great
advantages a part of Charles's very humble and obedient subjects, much
to their regret, had long been strangers. It were sufficient ground for
gratitude to God to the end of their days that now at length they were
granted an audience before the king and so noble and illustrious a
company. But, when the same day that admitted them into the royal
presence also invited, or rather kindly and gently constrained them
with common voice to confess the name of their God, and declare the
obedience they owed Him, their minds were so incompetent to conceive,
their tongues so inadequate to utter the promptings of their hearts,
that they preferred to confess their impotence by modest silence rather
than to disparage so great a benefit by the defect of their words. Yet
one of the points they had so long desired was still unfulfilled, and
that the most important, namely the acceptance of their service as
agreeable. Would to God that so happy a termination might by their
coming be put, not so much to their past sufferings--of which the memory
was well-nigh extinguished by this joyful day--as to the troubles that
had afflicted the kingdom in consequence of religious dissensions, and
to the attending ruin of so great a number of the king's poor subjects.

[Sidenote: The Huguenots victims of calumny.]

[Sidenote: Their creed.]

[Sidenote: Points of agreement.]

[Sidenote: His declaration as to the body of Christ.]

What, then, had hitherto prevented the Huguenots from obtaining a boon
so long and ardently desired? It was the belief entertained by some that
they were, through ambition or restless love of innovation, the enemies
of all concord, and the impression in the minds of others that their
arrogance demanded impossible conditions of peace. The prejudice arising
from this and other sources to which he avoided an allusion, lest he
might seem to be reopening old wounds, was so strong, that the reformed
would have good reason to give way to despair, were they not sustained
by a good conscience, by their assurance of the gentleness and equity of
Charles and the illustrious princes of the blood, and by a charitable
presumption that the prelates with whom they had come to confer were
disposed to exert themselves with them in the common endeavor rather to
make the truth clear than to