the expectation of such
rewards that the first prince of the blood had pusillanimously declined
to assert the rights of his rank and family, and to espouse the cause of
the persecuted?

[Sidenote: The persecution continues.]

For persecuted the Protestants continued to be. The death of Henry did
not for an instant interrupt the work of searching for and punishing
reputed heretics. The brief term must be improved, during which the
Spaniards and other strangers who had come to witness the marriage
festivities were still present, to fulfil the promises given to the
Dukes of Alva and Savoy, and demonstrate the catholicity of the Very
Christian King.[769] Three days after the fatal termination of Henry's
wound in the tournament, the English ambassador wrote to his government:
"In the midst of all these great matters and business, they here do not
stay to make persecution and sacrifice of poor souls: for the twelfth of
this present, two men and one woman were executed for religion; and the
thirteenth of the same there was proclamation made by the sound of
trumpet, that all such as should speak either against the church or the
religion now used in France should be brought before the bishops of the
dioceses, and they to do execution upon them."[770] On the fourteenth of
July, only four days after Henry's death, new steps were taken to bring
to trial the five counsellors of parliament arrested on the day of the
famous "Mercuriale." An account of these proceedings, and in particular
of those instituted against Anne du Bourg, will presently be given.

[Sidenote: Denunciation and treachery at Paris.]

The increase of the Protestants in France during the past few months had
been great. Even in the capital the progress of the new doctrines could
not be hidden; but so carefully had the veil of secrecy been drawn over
the conventicles, that, until a short time before Henry's death, the
names and residences of the Parisian reformers had been almost entirely
unknown to the argus-eyed clergy. But the treachery of one De
Russanges--a goldsmith, who, for appropriating the charitable
contributions of the church, had been deposed from the
eldership--furnished to the enemy a complete list of the ministers,
elders, and other principal men among the Protestants.[771] The
information thus obtained was for a time left unimproved, in consequence
of the sudden removal of the king; but the zeal of the chief persecutors
had not cooled down. New a