[250] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 285, 286. The story is well told in Memorials of Renée of France, 215-217. De Thou (liv. xxx.), iii. 179, has incorrectly placed this occurrence among the events of the first months of the war. During the second war Brantôme once stopped to pay his respects to Renée, and saw in the castle over 300 Huguenots that had fled there for security. In a letter of May 10, 1563, Calvin speaks of her as "the nursing mother of the poor saints driven out of their homes and knowing not whither to go," and as having made her castle what a princess looking only to this world would regard almost an insult to have it called—"God's hostelry" or "hospital" (ung hostel-Dieu). God had, as it were, called upon her by these trials to pay arrears for the timidity of her younger days. Lettres franç., ii. 514 (Amer. trans., iv. 314).
[251] Despatch to the queen, Blois, February 26, 1562/3, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 340. "Of the thre things that did let this realme to come to unity and accorde," adds Smith, "I take th' one to be taken away. How th' other two wil be now salved—th' one that the papists may relent somwhat of their pertinacie, and the Protestants have som affiaunce or trust in there doengs, and so th' one live with th' other in quiet, I do not yet se."
[252] Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iv., c. xii.; Davila, bk. iii. 88; Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 124; Letter of Catharine to Gonnor, March 3d, ibid., iv. 278; Hist. ecclés., ii. 200.
[253] Rascalon, Catharine's agent, proffered the dignity in a letter of the 13th of March, and the duke declined it on the 17th of the same month. At the same time he gave some wholesome advice respecting the observance of the Edict, etc. Hist. ecclés., ii. 165-168.
[254] "La Royne ... y a si vivement procedé, que ayant ordonné que sur la foy de l'un et de l'autre nous nous entreveorions en l'Isle aux Bouviers, joignant presque les murs de ceste ville, dimenche dernier cela fut executé." Condé to Sir Thomas Smith, Orleans, March 11, 1563, Forbes, ii. 355.
[255] Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 170, 171. Coupled with demands for the restitution of the edict without restriction or modification, the prohibition of insults, the protection of the churches, the permission to hold synods, the recognition of Protestant marriages, and that the religion be no longer styled "new," "inasmuch as it is founded on the ancient teaching of the Prophets and Apostles," we find the Huguenot ministers, true to the spirit of the age, insisting upon "the rigorous punishment of all Atheists, Libertines, Anabaptists, Servetists, and other heretics and schismatics."
[256] The text of the edict of Amboise is given by Isambert, Recueil des anc. lois franç., xiv. 135-140; J. de Serres, ii. 347-357; Hist. ecclés. des égl. réf., ii. 172-176; Agrippa d'Aubigné, i. (liv. iii.) 192-195. See Pasquier, Lettres (Œuvres choisies), ii. 260.
[257] Smith to the queen, April 1, 1563, in Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. Documents, 439.
[258] Smith to D'Andelot, March 13, 1563, State Paper Office.
[259] Journal de Bruslart, Mém. de Condé, i. 125: "de expresso Regis mandato iteratis vicibus facto." Claude Haton is scarcely more complimentary than Bruslart: "elle (la paix) estoit faicte du tout au désavantage de l'honneur de Dieu, de la religion catholicque et de l'authorité du jeune roy et repos public de son royaume." Mémoires, i. 327, 328.