nduced by the Pope's
intercessions, would confer upon him. Convinced that the destruction of
all hope of recovering Navarre from the Spanish king would instantly
cause Antoine to throw himself without disguise into the arms of the
Calvinists, and would thus secure the speedy triumph of the Reformation
throughout all France,[1210] they even persuaded Chantonnay to abate
somewhat of his insolence, and to ascribe his master's delay in
satisfying Antoine's requests to Philip's belief that his suppliant was
confident of being able to frighten the Spaniards into
restitution.[1211] They represented to Antoine himself that his only
chance of success lay in devotion to the Catholic faith. Joining arms
with "those flagitious men" the Huguenots, he would arouse the hostility
of almost all Christendom. The Pope, the priests, even the greater part
of France, would be his enemies. In a conflict with them he could place
little reliance upon troops unaccustomed to war and drawn from every
quarter--none at all upon the English, who were ancient enemies, or upon
the Germans, who fought for pay. Better would it be for him to secure
but half his demands by peace, than to lose all by trying the fortunes
of war.[1212]

How thoroughly the legate and nuncio, with the assistance of their
faithful allies, the Spanish ambassador and the Guises, Montmorency and
St. Andre, were successful in seducing the unstable King of Navarre from
his allegiance to the Protestant faith, this, and the disastrous results
of his defection, will be developed in a subsequent part of our history.

[Sidenote: Contradictory counsels.]

[Sidenote: The triumvirate retire in disgust.]

The edict of the eighteenth of October, for the restitution of the
churches of which the Huguenots had taken possession, was by no means an
exponent of the true dispositions of the court. It was rather a measure
of political expediency, reluctantly adopted, to attain the double end
of securing the pecuniary grant of which the government stood in
pressing need, and of preventing Philip from executing the threats of
invasion which Alva had but too plainly made in his interview with the
French envoy extraordinary, Montberon d'Auzances, and the ambassador,
Sebastien de l'Aubespine[1213]--threats which nothing would have been
more likely to convert into stern realities than the concession of the
churches for which the Protestants clamored. It was a measure
determined upon by a royal council i