[879] La Planche, 338-343.
[880] Ibid., 315; De Thou, ii. 787, 788.
[881] The long address delivered to the two brothers at Nérac, and reproduced verbatim by La Planche (318-338), is a very complete summary of the views of the Huguenots at this juncture.
[882] Letter of Cardinal Lorraine to the Bishop of Limoges, French ambassador to Philip the Second, July 28, 1560. The council "we hold to be the sole and only remedy for our ills," is the minister's language. Although the state of affairs was better than it had been, yet "so many persons were imbued with these opinions, that it was not possible to find out on whom reliance could be placed." Négociations sous François II., 442-444.
[883] Ibid., ubi supra; La Planche, 349; De Thou, ii. 782.
[884] La Planche, ubi supra. An assembly of notables was, as the term imports, a body consisting, not of representatives of the three orders, regularly summoned under the forms observed in the holding of the States General, but of the most prominent men of the kingdom, arbitrarily selected and invited by the crown to act as its advisers on some extraordinary emergency. "Telles assemblées," says Agrippa d'Aubigné, "ont esté appelées petits estats." Hist. univ., i. 96.
[885] "This house is both beautiful and larger than any I had before seen in France or England. I may resemble the state thereof to the honour of Hampton Court, which as it passeth Fontainebleau with the great hall and chambers, so is it inferior in outward beauty and uniformity," etc. The Journey of the Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555, Hardwick, State Papers, i. 67.
[886] Charles Maximilian, now a boy of ten, was the successor of Francis, known as Charles the Ninth. Edward Alexander, Duke of Alençon, had his name changed in 1565 to Henry, and became Duke of Anjou. He was at this time not quite nine years of age. He was subsequently king, under the title of Henry the Third. Hercules became Francis of Alençon in 1565, and was the only one of the brothers that never ascended the throne. He was now a little over six years old.
[887] La Place, 53; La Planche, 350, 351; De Thou, ii. 706; Mém. de Castelnau, 1. ii., c. 8; Davila, 29. Minor discrepancies between these accounts need not be noted.
[888] "As if," says Calvin to Bullinger, "finding himself at his wits' end, he had called in a consultation of state doctors." (Bonnet, iv. 135.)