cried the good Bishop, hoping, not without reason, to arouse the fears of his audience; for it was only twenty years since the fall of Rochelle, and the revival of the power of the Huguenots, which it had required the strong hand of Richelieu to repress, was an ever-present terror to the French Catholics. But Du Perron was not content with such arguments. He was able to make a statement which he hoped would tell much in favour of the cause he was advocating. He declared that the King of England had promised in writing to his wife that if he were restored by Catholic help he would repeal every law against the Catholics on the statute book,[324] and the Bishop added that he was at liberty to make this statement, as its purport was already known to the Puritans through the interception of the King's letter. That Charles made this promise there is no reason to doubt; that had cause arisen he would have broken it, as he broke others, is in the highest degree probable.[325] Perhaps the French bishops knew the man with whom they had to deal, perhaps they were instructed by Mazarin, whom they were too well trained not to consult. Be this as it may, the results of the eloquence of the Bishop of Angoulême were disappointing, even though he enforced his arguments by descriptions of the piteous condition of Henrietta and of her children, "the grandsons, the nephews, and the cousins of three of our Kings." The clergy of France did not feel able to offer to the Queen of England more than a few thousand crowns, "a somme fitter to buy hangings for a chamber than prosecute a war,"[326] as a newswriter of the day said. But disappointed as the Queen was, she quickly turned to other hopes and schemes. Ever since the Irish rebellion of 1641 Puritan scandal had linked Henrietta's name with that of the rebels. The accusation as it stood was ridiculous, but the Confederate Catholics,[327] as the Irish in arms called themselves, certainly hoped something from the Catholic Queen, and in 1642 they presented to her a petition, in which they begged her "Hester-like intercession to our most gracious Prince." They heard with sympathy of her arrival in Paris, and again dispatched a letter to congratulate her on that event. She, on her side, regarded the Confederate Catholics as rebels in arms against their lawful King; but she had a certain sympathy with them as the victims of Puritan intolerance, and she thought, like her husband, that it might be possible to turn their arms against worse enemies. With this end in view she carried on negotiations with a certain Colonel FitzWilliams, whom she found in Paris, and for the same purpose she cultivated the acquaintance of the agent of the Confederate Catholics in that city, Father O'Hartegan, the Jesuit.