Henry M. Baird · 349 of 379

CHAPTER XII · Catharine's financial success.

From a political point of view, the assembly of the prelates at Poissy had not been unprofitable to the government. Alarmed by the radical projects of the wholesale confiscation of ecclesiastical property which had found no little favor with the other orders at Pontoise, equally alarmed by the possibility of being compelled to enter into a full and fair discussion with the champions of the Protestant doctrines, the wealthy dignitaries of the Gallican Church brought themselves, not without a severe struggle, to purchase exemption from these perils by a pecuniary concession which delighted the perplexed financiers of France. They pledged themselves to pay, by semi-annual instalments, the entire sum needed for the redemption of the royal domain which had been alienated to satisfy the public creditors. But in return they demanded important equivalents. The first item was that the severe "Edict of July" should be made perpetual and irrevocable. This request Catharine and the council denied. To declare that odious law, which it had never been possible to carry into execution in several provinces of France, a part of the fundamental constitution, would be a gratuitous insult to the Huguenots, and would precipitate the country instantly into the abyss upon the verge of which it was already hanging.