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CHAPTER XI · The petition informally granted.

The Protestant ministers, assembled at St. Germain about ten days before Beza's arrival, had, with wise forethought, presented to the king a petition embracing four points of prime importance. They guarded against an unfair treatment of the cause they had come to maintain, by demanding that their opponents, the prelates, should not be permitted to constitute themselves their judges, that the king and his council should preside in the conferences, and that the controversy should be decided by reference to the Word of God. Moreover, lest the incidents of the discussion should be perverted, and each party should so much the more confidently arrogate to itself the credit of victory as the claim was more difficult of refutation, they insisted on the propriety of appointing, by common consent of the two parties, clerks whose duty it would be to take down in writing an accurate account of the entire proceedings. To so reasonable a petition the court felt compelled to return a gracious reply. The requests could not, however, be definitely granted, the ministers were told, without first consulting the prelates, and gaining, if possible, their consent. This was no easy matter. Many of the doctors of Poissy, and even some members of the council, maintained that with condemned heretics, such as the Huguenots had long been, it was wrong to hold any sort of discussion. Day after day passed, but the attainment of the object for which the ministers had come seemed no nearer than when they left their distant homes. They were not yet permitted to appear before the king and vindicate the confession of faith which they had, several months before, declared themselves prepared to maintain. Meantime it was notorious that their enemies were ceaselessly plotting to arrange every detail of the conference—if, indeed, it must be held—in a manner so unfavorable to the reformers, that they might rather appear to be culprits brought up for trial and sentence, before a court composed of Romish prelates, than as the advocates of a purer faith. At length, weary of the protracted delay, the Protestant ministers presented themselves before Catharine de' Medici, on the eighth of September, and demanded the impartial hearing to which they were entitled; and they plainly announced their intention to depart at once, unless they should receive satisfactory assurances that they would be shielded from the malice of their enemies. It was well for the Protestants that they exhibited such decision. Catharine, who always deferred a definite decision on important matters until the last moment—a habit not unfrequently leading to the hurried adoption of the means least calculated to effect her selfish ends—was constrained to yield a portion of their demands. In the presence of the Protestants an informal decree was passed, with the consent of Navarre, Condé, Coligny, and the chancellor—those members of the council who happened to be in the audience chamber—that the bishops should not be made judges; that to one of the secretaries of state should be assigned the duty of writing out the minutes of the conference, but that the Protestants should retain the right of appending such notes as they might deem proper. The king would be present at the discussions, together with the princes of the blood. But Catharine peremptorily declined to grant a formal decree according these points. This, she said, would only be to furnish the opposite party with a plausible pretext for refusing to enter into the colloquy. Meanwhile she urged them to maintain a modest demeanor, and to seek only the glory of God, which she professed to believe that they had greatly at heart.