kely to
render it more lasting, if the bridegroom could be induced to copy the
conciliatory and politic example of his father-in-law. Not long after
Charles received at Villers-Cotterets an embassy sent by the three
Protestant electors of Germany and the other powerful princes of the same
faith. They congratulated him upon the suppression of civil disorder in
France, and entreated him to maintain freedom of worship in his dominions
such as existed in Germany and even in the dominions of the Grand Turk;
lending an ear to none who might attempt to persuade him that tranquillity
could not subsist in a kingdom where there was more than one religion.
Charles made a gracious answer, and the German ambassadors retired,
leaving the friends of the Huguenots to entertain still better hopes for
the recent treaty.[803]

[Sidenote: Catharine warned by the Huguenots.]

[Sidenote: Infringement on the edict at Orange.]

It cannot be denied, however, that the Huguenots could see much that was
disquieting and calculated to prevent them from laying aside their
suspicions. There were symptoms of the old constitutional timidity on the
part of Catharine de' Medici. She showed signs of so far yielding to the
inveterate enemies of the Huguenots as to abstain from insisting upon the
concession of public religious worship where it had been accorded by the
Edict of St. Germain. No wonder that the Huguenots, on their side, warned
her, with friendly sincerity and frankness, that, should she refuse to
entertain their just demands, _the present peace would be only a brief
truce, the prelude to a relentless civil war_. "We will all die," was
their language, "rather than forsake our God and our religion, which we
can no more sustain without public exercise than could a body live without
food and drink."[804] Not only did the courts throw every obstacle in the
way of the formal recognition of the law establishing the rights of the
Huguenots, but the outbreaks of popular hatred against the adherents of
the purer faith were alarming evidence that the chronic sore had only been
healed over the surface, and that none of the elements of future disorder
and bloodshed were wanting. Thus, in the little city and principality of
Orange, the Roman Catholic populace, taking advantage of the supineness of
the governor and of the consuls, introduced within the walls, under cover
of a three days' religious festival, a large number of ruffians from the
adjoining Comt