might
have been expected, a brief year before, from the fugitives who made their
escape from the bloody sword of their enemies. Moreover, the terms laid
down by the Huguenots of Lower Languedoc and Nismes were conceived in the
same brave language, and their demands were virtually identical. Huguenot
troops, paid by the king, to garrison both the cities now in the hands of
the Protestants, and two cities in each of the sixteen provinces required
for additional protection; free worship irrespective of place; new
parliaments in all the provinces, with Protestant judges to administer
justice to Protestants; liberty to levy tithes for the support of reformed
churches; punishment of the instigators and perpetrators of the atrocities
of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, as robbers and disturbers of the
public peace.[1322] The Tiers Etat of Provence and Dauphiny added to the
demands of Languedoc and Guyenne an urgent petition in favor of the
reduction of the onerous imposts under which the country was
groaning.[1323]

[Sidenote: "Les fronts d'airain."]

[Sidenote: Catharine's bitter reply.]

The bearers of these demands were well able to give them forcible and
fearless enunciation--Yolet, Philippi, Chavagnac, and others of the men
known by the expressive designation of "Les fronts d'airain."[1324]
Assuredly a brow of brass was not out of place, when the Protestant
deputies, after a delay of some weeks, were reluctantly admitted to an
audience. Charles the Ninth and his court were at this time at
Villers-Cotterets, on their way to the eastern frontiers of France,
accompanying the newly elected King of Poland as he slowly and unwillingly
journeyed toward the capital of a kingdom regarded by him in the light of
a detestable place of exile. Contemporary writers inform us that Yolet and
his companions were in no degree overawed by the splendor of the scene,
and made no weak abatement in the terms they had been instructed to
propose. Charles heard them through with patient attention. He was not a
little astonished at the extent of their demands, we may be certain; but
he made no comment upon the courageous assertion of Protestant rights. Not
so with the queen mother. When the deputies had at length finished their
harangue, Catharine could no longer contain her indignation. "Why," she
exclaimed with marked bitterness of tone, "if your Conde himself were
alive and in the heart of the kingdom with twenty thousand horse and fifty