d Delmas, 61.) As usual, the whole affair was
condemned by the ministers.

Although La Rochelle had steadily refused, during the earlier
part of the first religious war, to declare for the Prince of
Conde, and had maintained a kind of neutrality, the court was
in constant fear lest the weight of its sympathies should yet
draw it in that direction. It was therefore a matter of great
joy when, in October, 1562, the Duke of Montpensier succeeded,
by a ruse meriting the designation of treachery, in throwing
himself into La Rochelle with a large body of troops. With his
arrival the banished Roman Catholic mass returned, and the
Protestant ministers were warned to leave at once. (Arcere, i.
339.)

For two months after the restoration of peace, the Huguenots
of La Rochelle, embracing almost the entire population, held
their religious services, in accordance with the terms of the
Edict of Pacification, in the suburbs of the city. But, on the
9th of May, 1563, Charles the Ninth was prevailed to give
directions that one or two places should be assigned to the
Huguenots within the city. This gracious permission was
ratified with greater solemnity in letters patent of July
14th, in which the king declared the motive to be the
representations made to him of "the inconveniences and eminent
dangers that might arise in our said city of La Rochelle, if
the preaching and exercise of the pretended reformed religion
should continue to be held outside of the said city, being, as
it is, a frontier city in the direction of the English,
ancient enemies of the inhabitants of that city, where it
would be easy for them, by this means, to execute some evil
enterprise." (Commission of Charles IX., to M. de Jarnac. This
valuable MS., with other MSS., carried to Dublin at the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by M. Elie Bouhereau, and
placed in the Marsh Library, has recently been restored to La
Rochelle, in accordance with M. Bouhereau's written
directions. Delmas, 369.)

Two years later, Charles and his court, returning from their
long progress through France, came to La Rochelle, and spent
three days there (Sept., 1565). A noteworthy incident occurred
at his entry. The jealous citizens had not forgotten an
immemorial custom which was not without sign