ered thirty-five hundred, but also in the
castles of simple noblemen who enjoyed no high-justiciary rights,
provided that the number of those present did not exceed thirty. Two
towns or two boroughs, instead of one, had the same religious rights in
each bailiwick or seneschalty of the kingdom. The state was charged with
the duty of providing for the salaries of the Protestant ministers and
rectors in their colleges or schools, and an annual sum of one hundred
and sixty-five thousand livres of those times (four hundred and
ninety-five thousand francs of the present day) was allowed for that
purpose. Donations and legacies to be so applied were authorized. The
children of Protestants were admitted into the universities, colleges,
schools, and hospitals, without distinction between them and Catholics.
There was great difficulty in securing for them, in all the Parliaments
of the kingdom, impartial justice; and a special chamber, called the
edict-chamber, was instituted for the trial of all causes in which they
were interested. Catholic judges could not sit in this chamber unless
with their consent and on their presentation. In the Parliaments of
Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Grenoble, the edict-chamber was composed of two
presidents, one a Catholic and the other a Reformer, and of twelve
councillors, of whom six were Reformers. The Parliaments had hitherto
refused to admit Reformers into their midst; in the end the Parliament
of Paris admitted six, one into the edict-chamber and five into the
appeal-chamber (enquetes). The edict of Nantes retained, at first for
eight years and then for four more, in the hands of the Protestants the
towns which war or treaties had put in their possession, and which
numbered, it is said, two hundred. The king was bound to bear the
burden of keeping up their fortifications and paying their garrisons;
and Henry IV. devoted to that object five hundred and forty thousand
livres of those times, or about two million francs of our day. When the
edict thus regulating the position and rights of Protestants was
published, it was no longer on their part, but on that of the Catholics,
that lively protests were raised. Many Catholics violently opposed the
execution of the new law; they got up processions at Tours to excite the
populace against the edict, and at Le Mans to induce the Parliament of
Normandy to reject it. The Parliament of Paris put in the way of its
registration retardations which seeme