It was Mary of Guise that spurred on Mauvissière to act as energetically as he did for Queen Mary. We may assume then that Bruno, when Oxford rejected him, entered the French Embassy as an unofficial secretary. The words he employed at the Venetian inquiry quite harmonise with this supposition: "In his house I stayed as his gentleman, nothing more," not as friend or guest, but as "_his_ gentleman."[51] That he went constantly to Court with the Ambassador, and was introduced to Queen Elizabeth, would be natural in the case of a secretary--it would be curious in the case of a mere guest, or of any servant lower than a secretary. Finally, in the _Infinito_[52] the grateful remark that Mauvissière entertained Bruno within his family, "not as one who was of service to him (Mauvissière), but as one whom he could serve on the many occasions in which aid was required by the Nolan," obviously suggests that services _were_ rendered by Bruno to the Ambassador. A man who was prepared to make a living by teaching children as readily as by lecturing to students, by setting books in print as readily as by writing them, was not likely to be an expensive secretary, and it must have been pleasant to Bruno to escape from the turmoil of scholastic strife and its bitter antagonisms to the quiet haven of the Embassy. His host was a well-meaning, kindly, but unfortunate man, unequal to the great issues that were being decided around him. Although it was a Catholic family, and mass was frequently said in the house, Bruno's religious freedom was respected. He attended neither mass nor any of the preachings, on account of his excommunication. If one may judge from Bruno's enthusiasm, the wife and daughter of Mauvissière must have been charming companions, the one "endowed with no mean beauty of form, both veiling and clothing the spirit within, and also with the threefold blessing of a discreet judgment, a pleasing modesty, and a kind courtesy, holding in an indissoluble tie the mind of her consort, and captivating all who come to know her"; the other, "who has scarcely seen six summers, and from her speech you could not tell whether she be of Italy, of France, or of England; from her musical play, whether she is of corporeal or incorporeal substance; from the ripe sweetness of her manners, whether she is descended from heaven or risen from earth."[53] For Mauvissière himself, to whom the three most important of the Italian dialogues are dedicated, no words that Bruno can invent are too high praise. In the dedication of the _Causa_, after comparing his persevering zeal and delicate diplomatic powers to the dropping of water upon hard stone, and his steadfast support of Bruno in face of detractions of the ignorant and the mercenary, of sophists, hypocrites, barbarians, and plebeians, to the strength of the rock against seething waves, the philosopher adds, "I, whom the foolish hate, the ignoble despise, whom the wise love, the learned admire, the great honour--I, for the