ath was about to be avenged upon him.[1203]

Instead of forming an alliance with Charles, the Landgrave of Hesse and
the three Protestant electors began instantly to concert measures of
defence against what they verily believed to be a general war of
extermination, set on foot by the Pope and his followers, in pursuance of
the resolutions of the Council of Trent. "The princes of the Augsburg
Confession," wrote Landgrave William to the Electors of Saxony and
Brandenburg, "can see in this inhuman incident, as in a mirror, how the
papists are disposed toward all the professors of the pure doctrine. The
Pope and his party follow even at this day the rule which they followed
respecting John Huss in the Council of Constance. When it is their
interest so to act, they do not deem themselves bound to keep any faith
with heretics.... Last year the Pope and his followers obtained a glorious
victory over the Turk. It is of the very nature of victories that they
commonly make the victors more insolent." To Frederick the Pious, elector
palatine, the landgrave wrote a day later: "There is nothing better for us
Germans than to have nothing to do with them; for neither credit nor
confidence can be reposed in them." "I marvel greatly," he added, "that
the admiral and the other Huguenot gentlemen, although they, too, had
doubtless studied Macchiavelli's 'Il Principe'--_the Italian
bible_[1204]--should have been so trustful, and should not have been too
much upon their guard to suffer themselves to be enticed unarmed into so
suspicious a place."[1205]

[Sidenote: In Poland.]

Montluc, Bishop of Valence, had just been sent to Poland to endeavor to
secure the vacant throne for Henry of Anjou. His ultimate success and its
consequences will be seen in another place. But now the attempt seemed
desperate. The bishop, who was the most wily and experienced negotiator
the French court possessed, and was fully conscious of his rare
qualifications, was vexed almost beyond endurance at the stupidity of the
king and queen who had employed him. "By the despatch I send the king, and
by what the Dean of Die will tell you," he wrote (on the twentieth of
November) to one of the secretaries of state, "you will learn how this
unfortunate blast from France has sunk the ship which we had already
brought to the mouth of the harbor. You may imagine how well pleased the
person who was in command of it has reason to be when he sees that by
another's fault he lose