Protestantism in France From Death of Francis I to Edict of Nantes - James Aitken Wylie

Church, dry up her revenues, and paralyse her
political arm. Nothing must be left undone that
could avert a calamity so overwhelming. The Pope,
Philip II of Spain, and the Triumvirate at Paris took
counsel as to the plan to be pursued, and began
from this hour to prosecute each his part, in the
great task of rolling back the tide of a triumphant
Huguenotism. They must do so at all costs, or
surrender the battle. The Pope wrote to Catherine
de Medici, exhorting her as a daughter of Italy to
rekindle her dying zeal--not so near extinction as
the Pope feared--and defend the faith of her
country and her house. The wily Catherine replied,
thanking her spiritual father, but saying that the
Huguenots were, meanwhile, too powerful to
permit her to follow his advice, and to break
openly with Coligny. The King of Navarre, the first
prince of the blood, was next tampered with. The
Romanists knew his weak point, which was all
inordinate ambition to be what nature--by denying
him the requisite talents--had ordained he should
not be, a king in his own right, and not a titular
sovereign merely. They offered him a kingdom
whose geographical position was a movable one,
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