lia scripserunt ... graviter fuisset reprehensus, quod a
Catholica Romanensi Ecclesia descivisset: hisque literis eum ita
perterritum fuisse, ut sententiam repente mutaverit." Others believed
him guilty of premeditated treachery: "Post meum tamen reditum accepi
Villagagnonem cum Card. Lotharingo consilium jam inivisse, antequam e
Gallia excederet, de vera Religione simulanda, ut facilius auctoritate
Colignii maris praefecti abuterentur," etc. Hist. navig. in Brasiliam,
62, 63.]

[Footnote 606: The Protestants were bearers of a Bellerophontic letter,
addressed to the magistrates of whatever French port they might enter,
intended to compass their destruction as heretics and rebels. They made
the harbor of Hennebon, in Brittany, whose Protestant officers disclosed
the secret plan and welcomed the half-famished fugitives. Lery, 304-330;
Hist. eccles., i. 102; La Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la rel. et
republ., 25.]

[Footnote 607: De Thou, ii. 381-384; Hist. eccles., 100-102; Lery, 339
_et passim_; La Place, _ubi supra_. "Clarissimi, erudissimique viri D.
Nicolai Villagagnonis, equitis Rhodii, adversus novitium Calvini ...
dogma de sacramento Eucharistiae, opuscula tria, Coloniae, 1563." In the
preface of the first of these treatises, Villegagnon denies the reports
of his fickleness and cruelty as slanders of the returning Protestants,
and defends his conduct in throwing the three _monks_ into the sea. In a
dedication to Constable Montmorency (dated 1560) he clears himself from
the charge of atheism brought against him because he expelled the
ministers "on discovering the vanity of their religion." There are
subjoined Richier's articles, etc.]

[Footnote 608: Hist. eccles., i. 61.]

[Footnote 609: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 61-63.]

[Footnote 610: Hist. eccles. des egl. ref., i. 63-71.]

[Footnote 611: "In Gallia pergunt ecclesiae zelo plane mirabili.
_Parisienses_ novum ministrum petunt, quern brevi, ut spero, missuri
sumus." Beza to Bullinger, Jan. 1, 1556 (Baum, i. 450).]

[Footnote 612: Beza to Bullinger, Feb. 12, 1556 (Ib., i. 453). The
curate of Meriot deplores the progress of the Reformation during this
year. "L'heresie prenoit secretement pied en France.... Mais ah! le
malheur advint tel que la plus part des grands juges de la court de
parlement, comme presidens et conseillers, furent et estoient intoxiquez
et empoisonnez de ladite heresie lutherienne et calvinienne, et qui pis
est de la moytie, se