had as their sole
object to sow discord among the adherents of the reformed faith. If
anything had been wanting to prove this, it was made clear by the refusal
of the court to extend the benefits of the Edict of Pacification of July,
1573, to the whole of France. The limitation of the liberty of worship by
the provisions of that edict to La Rochelle, Montauban, and Nismes, was
evidently intended to render the inhabitants of the three strongest
Huguenot cities selfishly indifferent to the injustice done to their
brethren in other parts of France. In fact, this result was partially
effected in the first of the cities named. The Rochellois were at first
very reluctant to resume hostilities, and began to plead conscientious
scruples forbidding them to break the compact made with the king. Happily
their hesitation was removed by Francois de la Noue, who, returning in a
capacity entirely different from that in which he had last appeared, used
all the arts of persuasion to induce the Huguenot stronghold by the sea to
become again the rallying-point for the Protestants of the west. It was
not difficult to show the citizens, when once they would listen to reason,
that the starving of Sancerre and numberless murders of adherents of the
reformed doctrine throughout France were violations of the peace quite
sufficient to justify its formal abrogation by the injured party. The
fears dictated by apparent weakness were dispelled by pointing to the
signal success that had crowned the arms of Montbrun in Dauphiny,[1365]
while the reluctance of loyal subjects to rise in arms against their
lawful sovereign, even in order to redress great wrongs, unless authorized
by the leadership of a prince of the blood, was answered by the assurance
that they would have a head of much higher rank than any under whose
protection the Huguenots had heretofore taken the field.[1366] It was
clear that the personage thus hinted at could be no other than the king's
brother. No wonder that the Rochellois yielded to La Noue's arguments, for
almost every Roman Catholic whose hands were clean of the blood shed in
the massacre applauded the justice of the new uprising.[1367]

[Sidenote: Diplomacy tried in vain.]

The city of La Rochelle began again to repair its shattered walls, and La
Noue was unanimously appointed to the chief command of the Huguenots in
Saintonge and the adjacent regions. In the effort next made to prevent the
great Protestant leader from espo