[651] Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réformées, i. 78.
[652] Cf. the anonymous letter to Henry the Second, inserted in La Place, Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et république (éd. Panthéon Littéraire), p. 5; and in Crespin (see Galerie chrétienne, ii. 246).
[653] Guise's glory was, according to parliament, in registering (Feb. 15th) the king's gift to him of the "maison des marchands" at Calais, "d'avoir expugné une place et conquis un pays que depuis deux cens ans homme n'avoit non seulement entrepris de faict, mais ne compris en l'esprit." Reg. of Parliament, apud Mémoires de Guise, p. 422.
[654] De Thou, ii. 549-552; Prescott, Philip the Second, i. 255-257.
[655] Hist. ecclés. i. 87, 88.
[656] In Normandy the burdens imposed by the war indirectly favored the growth of Protestantism. "The troubles of religion were great in this kingdom during the year 1558," writes a quaint local antiquarian. "The common people was pretty easily seduced. Moreover, the 'imposts' and 'subsidies' were so excessive that, in many villages, no assessments of 'tailles' were laid; the 'tithes' (on ecclesiastical property) were so high that the curates and vicars fled away, through fear of being imprisoned, and divine service ceased to be said in a large number of parishes adjoining this city of Caen: as in the villages of Plumetot, Periers, Sequeville, Puto, Soliers, and many others. Seeing which, some preachers who had come out of Geneva took possession of the temples and churches." Les Recherches et Antiquitez de la ville de Caen, par Charles de Bourgueville, sieur du lieu, etc. Caen, 1588. Pt. ii. 162.
[657] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., i. 89.
[658] The letter, dated March 19th, is reproduced in the Galerie chrét., abridgment of Crespin, ii. 266-269. Melanchthon wrote, in the name of the theologians assembled at Worms, an earnest appeal to the same monarch, on the 1st of Dec, 1557. Opera Mel. (Bretschneider), ix. 383-385.
[659] Hist. ecclés., i. 89. Galerie chrétienne, ii. 270.
[660] See Dulaure's plan of Paris under Francis I. Hist. de Paris, Atlas.