Henry M. Baird · 353 of 379

CHAPTER XII · Catharine's crude notion of a conference.

The crude notions of the court respecting the character which such a conference ought to assume must be regarded as one of these causes. Catharine, while extending the most gracious invitations to foreign Protestants, was herself apparently undecided how to treat the Huguenots when they should make their appearance. Even if we grant that her explanations of the object of the projected colloquy, referred to on a preceding page, received their coloring from the fact that she was supplying her ambassador in Germany with plausible representations wherewith to appease such irritated bigots as feared that the French queen intended to propose a grave discussion of the religious question upon its own merits, yet the entire course of the conference exhibits her inability to comprehend the nature of a fair debate of the matters in dispute. The Huguenot ministers and delegates were obliged to petition that the prelates should not be permitted to act as their judges, and afterward to remind her of the promise she had given them to this effect. Even after the point had been nominally accorded, the most important questions respecting the conference were decided in the council, where five cardinals and three bishops had seats. Under these circumstances it is not astonishing that Lorraine assumed a tone of superiority which his relation to the debate by no means warranted.