]

It need not occasion surprise that the Queen of Navarre paused, in the
midst of her expressions of intense gratification, to give utterance to
the fear that Charles might be "too toward, too virtuous, and too good
to tarry amongst them," or recalled the many similar "acts and sayings
of the late King Edward of England, who did not live long."[1217]

[Sidenote: Beza is begged to remain.]

When the first intimation of the edict for the restoration of the
churches reached Beza, his impulse was to abandon forthwith a court
where his hopes had been so cruelly disappointed, and a want of proper
confidence had been displayed by his very friends among the royal
counsellors. But his indignant remonstrances were met by the assurance
that benevolent designs for the Reformation were concealed beneath the
apparent harshness of the law, which was a necessary concession to
certain circumstances. He was entreated to be of good courage and to
remain. Catharine joined her solicitations to those of Conde, Admiral
Coligny, and other chiefs of the Protestants. Beza reluctantly
consented, and while Martyr was suffered to depart with courteous
acknowledgments of his services, the Genevese was still more honorably
retained at court.[1218] The new measure from which brilliant results
were expected was the calling of an assembly of notables, including
representatives from each of the parliaments, the princes of the blood,
and members of the council, etc., which was to meet in December, and to
suggest some decree on the subject of the religious question, of a
provisional, if not of a permanent character.[1219]

[Sidenote: Spanish plot to kidnap the Duke of Orleans.]

[Sidenote: The Huguenot churches in France.]

About the same time, upon a rumor that the Duke of Nemours, a faithful
ally of the Guises, had plotted to carry off the young Duke of Orleans,
the future Henry the Third, into Spain, with the view of affording his
brother-in-law Philip a specious pretext for interfering in Trench
affairs,[1220] Catharine de' Medici turned to the Protestants, and
inquired what forces of theirs she could rely upon in the threatened
contest with the Spanish, Papal, and German Roman Catholic troops. Her
question elicited the significant fact that there were two thousand one
hundred and fifty Huguenot churches in France, varying in size from a
mere handful of believers to a community of thousands of members,
embracing almost the entire population of a