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CHAPTER X · No abatement of rigor.

The Guises, on the other hand, resolved to meet the difficulties of their situation with boldness. The opposition, so far as it was religious, must be repressed by legislation strictly enforced. Accordingly, in the month of May, 1560, an edict was published known as the Edict of Romorantin, from the place where the court was sojourning, but remarkable for nothing save the misapprehensions that have been entertained respecting its origin and object. It restored exclusive jurisdiction in matters of simple heresy to the clergy, excluding the civil courts from all participation, save to execute the sentence of the ecclesiastical judge. But it neither lightened nor aggravated the penalties affixed by previous laws. Death was still to be the fate of the convicted heretic, to whom it mattered little whether he were tried by a secular or by a spiritual tribunal, except that the forms of law were more likely to be observed by the former than by the latter. A section directed against the "assemblies" in which, under color of religion, arms were carried and the public peace threatened, declared those who took part in them to be rebels liable to the penalties of treason.