ing.

Francois de Luxembourg, due de Pincey, was in Rome at that moment,
deputed by such catholic nobles of France as were friendly to Henry of
Navarre. Sixtus might perhaps be influenced as to the degree of respect
to be accorded to the envoy's representations by the events of the
campaign about to open. Meantime the legate Gaetano, young, rich,
eloquent, unscrupulous, distinguished alike for the splendour of his
house and the brilliancy of his intellect, had arrived in Paris.

Followed by a great train of adherents he had gone down to the House of
Parliament, and was about to seat himself under the dais reserved for the
king, when Brisson, first President of Parliament, plucked him back by
the arm, and caused him to take a seat immediately below his own.

Deeply was the bold president to expiate this defence of king and law
against the Holy League. For the moment however the legate contented
himself with a long harangue, setting forth the power of Rome, while
Brisson replied by an oration magnifying the grandeur of France.

Soon afterwards the cardinal addressed himself to the counteraction of
Henry's projects of conversion. For, well did the subtle priest
understand that in purging himself of heresy, the Bearnese was about to
cut the ground from beneath his enemies' feet. In a letter to the
archbishops and bishops of France, he argued the matter at length.
Especially he denied the necessity or the legality of an assembly of all
the prelates of France, such as Henry desired to afford him the requisite
"instruction" as to the respective merits of the Roman and the reformed
Church. Certainly, he urged, the Prince of Bearne could hardly require
instruction as to the tenets of either, seeing that at different times he
had faithfully professed both.

But while benches of bishops and doctors of the Sorbonne were burnishing
all the arms in ecclesiastical and legal arsenals for the approaching
fray, the sound of louder if not more potent artillery began to be heard
in the vicinity of Paris. The candid Henry, while seeking ghostly
instruction with eagerness from his papistical patrons, was equally
persevering in applying for the assistance of heretic musketeers and
riders from his protestant friends in England, Holland, Germany, and
Switzerland.

Queen Elizabeth and the States-General vied with each other in generosity
to the great champion of protestantism, who was combating the holy league
so valiantly, and rarely has