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

honors had flourished since their arrival in it. We
assign the last place here to the King of Navarre,
though as a prince of the blood he ought to have
had the first place after the crown, but for his utter
insignificance, which made him be fully more
contemned even by the Papists than by the
Protestants.
The Popish party were numerically the majority
of the nation, but in respect of intelligence and
virtue they were by much the smaller portion of it.
There was, of course, a moiety of the nobility, of
professional men, and of the middle orders still
attached to the Roman worship, and more or less
zealous in its behalf; but the great strength of the
Triumvirate lay in another quarter. The Sorbonne,
the secular priests, and the cloistered orders
continued unwavering in their attachment to the
Pope. And behind was a yet greater force--without
which, the zeal of Triumvirate, of cure, and of friar
would have effected but little--the rabble, namely,
of Paris and many of the great cities. This was a
very multifarious host, more formidable in
numbers than in power, if names are to be weighed
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