pital, and many another, read
its import at a glance. But, instead of breaking down their opposition,
the papal bull only forearmed them. They saw that Queen Jeanne's cause was
their cause--the cause of any of the Valois who, whether upon the ground
of heresy or upon any other pretext, might become obnoxious to the See of
Rome. The royal council of state, therefore, promptly took the matter in
hand, in connection with the recent trial of the French prelates, and
replied to the papal missive by a spirited protest, which D'Oisel, the
French ambassador at Rome, was commissioned to present. In his monarch's
name he was to declare the procedure against the Queen of Navarre to be
not only derogatory to the respect due to the royal dignity, which that
princess could claim to an equal degree with the other monarchs of
Christendom, but injurious to the rights and honor of the king and
kingdom, and subversive of civil society. It was unjust, for it was
dictated by the enemies of France, who sought to take advantage of the
youth of the king and his embarrassments arising from civil wars, to
oppress a widow and orphans--the widow and orphan children, indeed, of a
king for whom the Pope had himself but recently been endeavoring so
zealously to secure the restoration of Navarre. The malice was apparent
from the fact that nothing similar had been undertaken by the Holy See
against any of the monarchs who had revolted from its obedience within the
last forty years. Sovereign power had been conferred upon the Pope for the
salvation of souls, not that he might despoil kings and dispose of
kingdoms according to his caprice--an undertaking his predecessors had
engaged in hitherto only to their shame and confusion. Finally, the King
of France begged Pius to recall the sentence against Queen Jeanne,
otherwise he would be compelled to employ the remedies resorted to by his
ancestors in similar cases, according to the laws of the realm.[303] Not
content with this direct appeal, Catharine wrote to her son's ambassador
in Germany to interest the emperor and the King of the Romans in an affair
that no less vitally affected them.[304] So vigorous a response seems to
have frightened the papal court, and the bull was either recalled or
dropped--at least no trace is said to be found in the Constitutions of
Pius the Fourth--and the proceedings against the bishops were indefinitely
suspended.[305]

But while Catharine felt it necessary, for the maintena