The same historian relates that Catherine de Medicis affected a style of language borrowed from the Bible. She had composed a vocabulary of expressions in use among the most rigid of the Reformed, and made use of them, sometimes as a matter of policy, and sometimes in derision. “She had learned by heart,” says he, “several phrases, which she termed Consistorial; as, _to approve of the counsel of Gamaliel_; or, _beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace_; to call the king, _the anointed of the Lord, the image of the living God_, with several sentences of the Epistle of St. Peter, in favour of dominion; she would often exclaim, _Let God judge between you and us! I call the Eternal to witness! Before God and his angels!_ This style, which the ladies called among themselves the _language of Canaan_, was studied in the evening, when the queen retired to rest, and not without merriment.”[71] Before and after the _fêtes_, conferences were held, from which resulted the explicative Treaty of Nérac, signed on the 28th of February, 1579. It added nothing essential to the Edict of Poitiers. The king of Navarre obtained only some fresh places of safety in Guienne and Languedoc, on condition that he should only retain them for six months. An intrigue of the court caused arms again to be taken up, and this ridiculous quarrel was named _the war of the amorous_; but the great body of the Reformed took no part in it. It terminated by the signing of a peace at the castle of Fleix, in Périgord, on the 26th of November, 1580, which treaty confirmed the Edict of Poitiers; the Béarnese king, however, conquered, the appanage being given as a dowry to his wife in Agenois and Quercy. Four or five years elapsed without war being declared, but they passed neither with security nor repose. Upon different occasions, the Reformed sent whole volumes of grievances and remonstrances to the court. Promises of reparation were made, but the next day the council troubled themselves no more about them. Another means was invented of weakening the Calvinist party, and it had better success than all its predecessors. This was to remove or leave out the Huguenots from public appointments. Although the Edict of Pacification accorded to them an equal right of admission to all public offices, a thousand pretexts were made use of to elude this article. It was an indirect and underhand persecution, but it was both systematic and constant.