Henry M. Baird · 253 of 379

CHAPTER X · Jeanne d'Albret.

On the twentieth of July, at the urgent request of the King and Queen of Navarre, the "Venerable Company of the Pastors of Geneva" had sent the eloquent Theodore Beza to Gascony "to instruct" the royal family in the word of God. In the dress of a nobleman he had traversed France and reached Nérac in safety. Here he at once exercised a powerful influence upon the king. The fickle mind of Antoine was susceptible of no deep impressions; but it was very easily affected for the time. His queen, Jeanne d'Albret, was his very opposite in mental and moral constitution. Whereas the very first blast threw him into a fervor of enthusiastic devotion to the purer faith, the heart of the queen—a woman not made to be led, but to lead—yielded slowly to the melting influences of the Gospel. But it never lost its glow. Jeanne came very reluctantly to the determination to cast in her lot with the Reformation. She hesitated to risk the loss of her possessions, and regretted to abandon the attractions of the world. When, however, the decision was once made, the question was never reopened for fresh deliberation.