atter, they even addressed her a letter, in which
they informed her of the great hopes they had in the preceding reign
founded upon her kind and gentle disposition, and the prayers they had
offered to God that she might prove a second Esther. They entreated her
to prevent the new reign from being defiled with innocent blood, and to
avert the anger of Heaven, which could only be appeased by putting an
end to persecution. The crafty queen, desirous of retaining an influence
that might one day be of great service, and solicitous, at any rate, of
obtaining their confidence, at first assumed an offended tone. "With
what am I menaced?" she said. "For what greater evil could God do me
than He has done, removing him whom I loved and prized the most?" But
presently becoming more gracious, she promised the noble suppliants to
cause the persecution to cease, if the Protestants would intermit their
conventicles and live quietly and without scandal.[778] A private letter
of remonstrance, written by a gentleman formerly in the service of Queen
Margaret of Navarre, is said to have had some weight in extorting this
pledge. He reminded her that her present evil advisers were the same
persons who had, in the first years of her married life, been advocates
of her repudiation; that then in her affliction she had recourse to God,
whose word she had read, choosing as her favorite psalm the 141st,
albeit not of Marot's translating.[779] Her prayers had been answered in
the birth of her children. But the cardinal had banished the psalm-book
from the palace, and introduced the immodest songs of Horace and other
lewd poets; and from that time there had come upon her a succession of
misfortunes. Finally, he begged her to drive away the usurpers of the
place that rightfully belonged to the princes of royal blood, and to
bring up her children after the example of good king Josiah.[780]

[Sidenote: A second and more urgent address.]

But the promises of Catharine were given only to be broken. Finding the
atrocious persecution still in operation, and seeing themselves hunted
in their houses, the Protestants again approached her. They denounced
the anger of God who would not leave Du Bourg unavenged. They warned her
of the danger that over-much oppression would breed revolt--not on the
part of those who had embraced the reformed doctrines as taught in the
Gospel, from whom she might expect all obedience--but from others, a
hundred-fold more numerous,