[179] C. S. P. For., No. 386, August 3, 1560. Throckmorton was told that “all in this country (Picardy) seem marvellously bent to the new religion.”—Ibid., No. 405, August 7, 1560.
[180] Ibid., No. 416, August 13, 1560.
[181] Ibid., Ven., No. 188, July 30, 1560.
[182] Ibid., For., No. 416, August 13, 1560.
[183] Ibid., No. 494, September 7, 1560.
[184] A pamphlet, issued in the nature of a petition and addressed to the king of Navarre and the princes of the blood, abounded in invective against them.—Castelnau, Book II, chap, vii; C. S. P. For., No. 168, June 7, 1560.
[185] C. S. P. Ven., No. 188, July 30, 1560.
[186] A vidame is a baron holding of a bishop. The vidame of Chartres was cousin-german of Maligny, suspected in the Amboise conspiracy. The vidame not having any children, Maligny and his brother were his sole heirs. The comte de Bastard has written a biography of him, Vie de Jean de Ferrières, vidame de Chartres, Auxerre, 1885.
[187] C. S. P. Ven., No. 193, August 30, 1560.
The prince of Condé, during this summer, had repaired to Guyenne to see his brother, the king of Navarre, at Bordeaux where he protested against the Catholic policy of Antoine (La Planche, 276; La Place, 35). The brothers met on June 25 (Rochambeau, Lettres d’Antoine de Bourbon et de Jeanne d’Albret, 202). In his journey he inveighed against the usurpation of the Guises, and found a hearing from the noblesse and gentlemen of the south, who urged him and his brother to assume the place to which their rank entitled them. The Guises were kept informed of this journey of the prince by the marshal St. André, who, under pretense of visiting his brothers, kept watch of Condé (La Planche, 314, 315; La Place, 53). The discovery of the plot was owing to the suspicious vigilance of the duke of Guise, who marked a Basque gentleman who appeared in Paris as a stranger bent on important business, and surmised that he had been sent by the king of Navarre. It was noticed that he had conferred with the vidame of Chartres, and so, “as he was returning ... to ... Navarre, the duke of Guise had him and his valises, with (his) letters and writings, seized at Etampes. In the valise many letters were found, said to have been addressed both to the king of Navarre and to his brother, the prince of Condé. Among them were letters of the constable and his son, Montmorency, though they were merely letters of ceremony; but those of importance were what the vidame wrote to the prince, part in cipher and part without.”—C. S. P. Ven., No. 193, Aug. 30, 1560. Cf. La Planche, 355-58; De Thou, III, 357; Négociations relatives au règne de François II, 367; De Crue, 277, 278. The vidame of Chartres was arrested on August 29, 1560, by the provost-marshal and the lieutenant-criminal, at his lodgings in Paris, and carried through the streets upon a mule, “with a great rout of armed men to the Bastille.”—C. S. P. For., No. 483, September 3, 1560. Castelnau, Book II, chap, vii, says that the letters promised to assist the prince of Condé against all persons whatsoever except the King and the royal family. The Venetian ambassador says that there was enough in them “clearly to indicate that for many months there had been an intrigue.”—Ibid., Ven., No. 193, August 30, 1560. On the other hand, Throckmorton asserts that “the substance of the letter sent by the vidame to the king of Navarre is said to be so wisely written that it is thought that nothing can be laid to his charge.”—Ibid., For., No. 502, September 8, 1560. He was examined by the archbishop of Vienne and the president De Thou. Upon his arrest the vidame said “he was glad of it, for now the King would know of his innocence.”—Ibid., No. 502; La Place, 70.