The protests against the institution of the _Chambre Ardente_, the refusal of the _Parlement_ of Paris to register the edict establishing the Inquisition in France, and the hesitancy to put in execution extraordinary powers bestowed on French Cardinals for the punishing of heretics by the Bull of Pope Paul IV. (Feb. 26th, 1557), may all be ascribed to the jealousy with which the Courts, ecclesiastical and civil, viewed any interference with their privileged jurisdiction. But the Edict of Chateaubriand (1551), with its articles declaring the unwillingness or negligence shown by public officials in finding out and punishing heretics, making provisions against this, and ordaining that none but persons of well-known orthodoxy were to be appointed magistrates (Arts. 23, 28, 24), confessed that there were many even among those in office who disliked the policy of persecution. Contemporary official documents confirm this unwillingness. We hear of municipal magistrates intervening to protect their Protestant fellow-citizens from punishment in the ecclesiastical courts; of town's police conniving at the escape of heretics; of a procurator at law who was suspended from office for a year for such connivance;[202] and of civil courts who could not be persuaded to pass sentences except merely nominal ones. The growing discontent at the severe treatment of the persecuted Protestants made itself manifest, even within the _Parlement_ of Paris, so long notorious for its persecuting zeal. This became evident when the criminal court of the _Parlement_ (la Tournelle, 1559) commuted a sentence of death passed on three Protestants into one of banishment. The violent Romanists protested against this, and demanded a meeting of the whole _Parlement_ to fix its mode of judicial action. At this meeting some of the members--Antoine Fumée, du Faur, Viole, and Antoine du Bourg (the son of a Chancellor in the days of Francis I.)--spoke strongly on behalf of the Protestants. They pleaded that a space of six months after trial should be given to the accused to reconsider their position, and that, if they resolve to stand fast in the faith, they should be allowed to withdraw from the kingdom. Their boldness encouraged others. The Cardinal Lorraine and the Constable Montmorency dreaded the consequences of prolonged discussion, and communicated their fears to the King. Henry, accompanied by the Cardinals of Lorraine and of Guise, the Constable, and Francis, Duke de Guise, entered the hall where _Parlement_ sat, and ordered the discussion to be continued in his presence. The minority were not intimidated. Du Faur and Viole demanded a total cessation of the persecution pending the summoning of a Council. Du Bourg went further. He contrasted the pure lives and earnest piety of the persecuted with the scandals which disgraced the Roman Church and the Court. "It is no light matter," he said, "to condemn to the stake