to be mistress in her own house. The Guises now left the Court (October 20), and were shortly followed by the Constable and the Maréchal de Saint André. The principal management of affairs passed into the hands of Coligny and the Chancellor. Never had the Protestants been so sanguine of success. Though the Colloquy had failed to produce the result which Catharine, and perhaps a few liberal Bishops, like Montluc, had expected, from the Protestant point of view it had been singularly successful. It had enabled the Reformers to publish urbi et orbi by the mouth of one of their ablest and most eloquent representatives a clear statement of their doctrines. It is true that by the so-called Edict of Restitution, issued on October 20, as an equivalent for the sixteen millions voted by the clergy, the Protestants were ordered to restore all the churches of which they had taken possession; but almost at the same time Be/a persuaded the government to send letters to the provincial magistrates enjoining them to allow the Protestants to meet in security, and to interpret the Edict in a lenient spirit, pending a more definite settlement. Even in Catholic Paris the numbers attending the meetings reached 15, 000. The demand for ministers was greater than Geneva could satisfy. On Michaelmas-day Beza had celebrated, according to the Protestant rite, the marriage of a young Rohan with the niece of Madame d'Étampes. There were rumours that several Bishops would shortly declare themselves Protestants; there were even hopes of the King.
Meanwhile the country was in a more disturbed state than ever. On November 16 there was a massacre at Cahors; every Sunday produced a disturbance at Paris, and the Feast of St John (December 27) was signalised by one of more than ordinary violence round the Church of St Médard. Partly in consequence of these outbreaks Catharine summoned a fresh conference to meet at St Germain on January 3, 1562. On the 7th the actual business began with a remarkable speech by the Chancellor in which, far in advance of his time, he enunciated modern principles of religious toleration. The question before them, he said, was a political, not a religious one; " a man may be a citizen without being a Christian." Those who had been summoned to the conference, thirty Presidents and Councillors chosen from the eight Parliaments and twenty members of the Privy Council including the Princes of the Blood, then gave their opinions in order. The King of Navarre's speech showed that he had virtually abandoned the Protestant cause. This step, to which his position rather than his character gave importance, had for some time been skilfully manoeuvred by the Cardinal of Ferrara, who had dangled before the King various suggestions of compensation for the territory of Spanish Navarre, of which his wife's ancestor had been deprived by Ferdinand the Catholic. In the final voting the party of repression coalesced with the middle party, which thus obtained a small majority; and it was in the sense of their views that an Edict was drawn
