They again made bitter, but useless complaints. To say the truth, from this moment there was no longer a conference; and the cardinal of Ferrara, who arrived at this juncture, confirmed the clergy in their resolutions, by saying that the pope had learned with extreme displeasure of the holding of this kind of national council. Nothing further took place than some private discussions, in the presence of persons carefully selected; and the lay deputies could not even obtain permission to attend. On the 24th of September, in the little priory-chamber of Poissy, Theodore de Bèze discussed the two contested articles with the Cardinal de Lorraine, the doctor Claude d’Espence, and a certain Claude de Saintes, a _little white monk_, half-theologian, half-clown, who treated his adversary as an Anabaptist for having said he had received the Holy Ghost. The Cardinal de Lorraine had prepared a surprise, from which he expected great results—to make the Lutheran doctors dispute against the Calvinists. From the commencement of the conference, he had written to the governor of Metz to send him some theologians of the Confession of Augsburg, learned, and above all, very obstinate, in their opinions. The theologians came; but one of them having died of the plague on arriving at Paris, they were afraid to summon the others immediately to the court. But the cardinal was unwilling to lose all the fruit of his ingenious contrivance; so drawing from his breast a paper, which he had received from the Counts Palatine, he called upon the ministers to declare, yes or no, if they would sign the three or four principal articles. They asked time to reflect. On the 26th of September they went before the queen, who had near her the chiefs of the clergy, and said they desired to know if the Cardinal de Lorraine and the other prelates, renouncing the dogma of transubstantiation, would themselves attach their signature to the extract of the Confession of Augsburg. “If it is wished that we should sign something,” continued Theodore de Bèze, “it is reasonable that the Cardinal de Lorraine should also sign what he presents to us in the name of his party.” The cardinal was excessively nettled at this proposition. “We are not equal, and far from being so,” he said. “For my part, I am not called upon to sign on the word of any master; I subscribe neither to those, who made this confession, nor to you.” “Since you will not,” answered Bèze, “sign yourselves, it is not just to call upon us to do so.” Bossuet pretends that Theodore de Bèze only escaped by a subtlety. It may be so; but his antagonist had set him the example.