It is difficult, on account of the contradictory testimony of contemporaries, to calculate exactly the respective forces of the two communions. Theodore de Bèze says, that if the Reformed had determined either at Paris or in the provinces to employ all their means of action, they could have maintained the contest with a prospect of success. The Cardinal de Sainte Croix, a sort of titled spy entertained by Rome in France from 1561 to 1565, reports in his letters that even the members of the council were uncertain as to the numerical force of the parties, and concluded his last letter by saying that the kingdom was half Huguenot. Admiral Coligny, on the invitation of the queen-mother, presented her with a list of more than two thousand five hundred churches, which demanded liberty of religion, and placed the persons and the wealth of the Reformed at the disposal of the king. He referred to flocks united in congregations, and administered to by regular pastors. To arrive at an exact estimate, it would be necessary to add the great mass of new believers, who had not yet been able to organize themselves according to the rules of discipline. A letter which, it is said, was written by the Chancellor l’Hospital, some days before the conference of Poissy, and sent to the pope Pius IV. from the king, contained the following curious indications: “The fourth part of this kingdom is separated from the communion of the Church; and this fourth part is composed of gentlemen, of the principal citizens, and of those of the lower classes, who have seen the world, and are accustomed to bear arms, so that the separated lack not for strength. Neither are they deficient in counsel, for they have with them more than three-fourths of the men of letters. They have no want of money to carry on their affairs, having on their side a great proportion of the large and good houses, both of the nobility and of the Third Estate.” In raising the number of the Reformed, in this document, to a fourth of the population, it is probable that the discontented and undecided were included, in order to render the pontiff more tractable as to projects of accommodation. But those historians, who pretend that the Calvinists formed at this time but a tenth of the population, must fall into a far more serious error, if we reflect that this minority sustained long and bloody wars against the (Roman) Catholics in every part of the kingdom, and always compelled them to consent to peace. The tenth part of the kingdom could not have held out so long against the other nine.