_Institutes_ in the same year finally gave the
French Protestants a much needed leader and standard.

[1] _Harvard Theological Review_, 1919, p. 209. Margaret had died
several years before, but Rabelais was called her poet because he had
claimed her protection and to her wrote a poem in 1545. _Oeuvres de
Rabelais_, ed. A. Lefranc, 1912, i, pp. xxiii, cxxxix. _Cf_. also
Calvin's letter to the Queen of Navarre, April 28, 1545. _Opera_, xii,
pp. 65 f.

SECTION 2. THE CALVINIST PARTY. 1536-1559

[Sidenote: Truce of Nice, 1538]

The truce of Nice providing for a cessation of hostilities between
France and the Hapsburgs for ten years, was greeted with much joy in
France. Bonfires celebrated it in Paris, and in every way the people
made known their longing for peace. Little the king cared for the
wishes of his loyal subjects when his own dignity, real or imagined,
was at stake. The war with Charles, that cursed Europe like an
intermittent fever, broke out again in 1542. Again France was the
aggressor and again she was worsted. The emperor invaded Champagne in
person, arriving, in 1544, at a point within fifty miles of Paris. As
there was no army able to oppose him it looked as if he would march as
a conqueror to the capital of his enemy. But he sacrificed the
advantage he had over France to a desire far nearer his heart, that of
crushing his rebellious Protestant subjects. Already planning war with
the League of Schmalkalden he wished only to secure his own safety from
attack by his great rival. [Sidenote: Treaty of Crepy, 1544] The
treaty made at Crepy was moderate in its terms and left things largely
as they were.

[Sidenote: Henry II, 1547-59]

On March 31, 1547, Francis I died and was succeeded by his son, Henry
II, a man of large, strong frame, passionately fond of all forms of
exercise, especially of hunting and jousting. He had neither his
father's versatility nor his fickleness nor his artistic interests.
His policy was influenced by the aim of reversing his father's wishes
and of disgracing his father's favorites.

[Sidenote: 1533]

While his elder brother was still alive, Henry had married Catharine
de' Medici, a daughter of Lorenzo {199} II de' Medici of Florence. The
girl of fourteen in a foreign country was uncomfortable, especially as
it was felt, after her husband became Dauphin, that her rank was not
equal to his. The failure to have any children during the first ten
years of m