ow,
for the first time, was openly avowed by men of the first rank in the
kingdom. Its opponents were filled with dismay upon beholding Antoine de
Bourbon, King of Navarre, his brother Louis, Prince of Conde, and
Francois d'Andelot, brother of Admiral Coligny, at the head of the
hitherto despised "Lutherans." Antoine de Bourbon-Vendome was, next to
the reigning monarch and his children, the first prince of the blood.
Since his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret--in consequence of which he
became titular King of Navarre--he had resided for much of the time in
the city of Pan, where his more illustrious son, Henry the Fourth, was
born. Here he had attended the preaching of Protestant ministers. On his
return to court, not long after the capture of Calais, he took the
decided step of frequenting the gatherings of the Parisian Protestants.
Subsequently he rescued a prominent minister--Antoine de Chandieu--from
the Chatelet, in which he was imprisoned, by going in person and
claiming him as a member of his household.[657] Well would it have been
for France had the Navarrese king always displayed the same courage.
Conde and D'Andelot were scarcely less valuable accessions to the ranks
of the Protestants.

[Sidenote: Embassy from the Protestant Electors of Germany.]

Other causes contributed to delay the full execution of the plan of the
Inquisition. A united embassy from the three Protestant Electors of
Germany--the Count Palatine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Marquis of
Brandenburg--and from the Dukes of Deux Ponts and Wurtemberg, bearing a
powerful appeal to Henry in behalf of his persecuted subjects, arrived
in Paris.[658] Such noble and influential petitioners could not be
dismissed--especially at a time when their assistance was
indispensable--without a gracious reply;[659] and, in order that the
German princes might not have occasion to accuse Henry of too flagrant
bad faith, the persecution was allowed for a short time to abate.

[Sidenote: Psalm-singing on the Pre aux Clercs.]

An incident of an apparently trivial character, which happened at Paris
not long after, proved very clearly that the severities inflicted on
some of those connected with the meeting in the Rue St. Jacques had
utterly failed of accomplishing their object. On the southern side of
the Seine, opposite the Louvre, there stretched, just outside of the
city walls, a large open space--the public grounds of the university,
known as the _Pre aux Clercs_.[6