hat the
nobleman to whom so honorable a trust had been committed enjoyed the
confidence of his master to an equal extent with the Duke of Alva, his
colleague, imprudently broached the subject of the suppression of
heresy. The prince wisely encouraged the misapprehension, in order to
avoid incurring the contempt in which he would have been held had the
discovery been made that Philip had not taken him into his confidence.
Henry, waxing earnest on the theme, revealed the intention of Philip and
Alva to establish in the Netherlands "a worse than Spanish Inquisition."
Thus much the prince himself published to the world.[685] The learned
President De Thou adds that Philip's subsequent design was to join his
arms to those of France, to make a joint attack upon the "new
sectaries."[686] This is not altogether impossible. But the plan was
general and vague. Its execution was still in the distant future. Its
details were probably but little elaborated. If, outside of the
dominions of the two monarchs, any points of attack were proposed with
distinctness, they were the free city of Strasbourg, the Canton of Berne
with its dependency, the _Pays de Vaud_--but, above all, _Geneva_.

[Sidenote: Danger menacing the city of Geneva.]

That small republic, insignificant in size, but powerful through the
influence of its teachers and the books with which its presses teemed,
was the eyesore of Roman Catholic France. It was the home of French
refugees for religion's sake; and the strictest laws could not check the
stream of money that flowed thither for their support. It was the
nursery of the reformed doctrines; and the death penalty was ineffectual
to cut off intercourse, or to dam up the flood of Calvinistic books
which it poured over the kingdom.

Calvin himself and his friends momentarily expected the blow to fall
upon their devoted heads.[687] But the same hand that so often in the
eventful history of Geneva interposed in its behalf, by a signal
occurrence warded off the stroke.

[Sidenote: A joint expedition against Geneva proposed by Henry,]

[Sidenote: but declined by the Duke of Alva.]

The apprehensions of the Genevese were well founded. In June, 1559, and
but a few days before the date of Calvin's letter, Philip the Second
made the offer to the French king, through the Duke of Alva, then in
Paris, to aid him in exterminating the Protestants of France. Henry
declined for the moment to avail himself of the assistance, which