Many complained of this; and seeing that their requests were received with disdain, they proposed, at a meeting convened at Saint Jean d’Angély, to choose another protector for the Church. Henry IV. was much distressed at this course; but the faithful Mornay replied to him by energetic representations: “What! is it not intended to revoke the edicts of proscription, and yet do they counsel the Reformed to be patient? Have they not been patient during fifty years? and does the service of the king require that they should be patient in things of this nature? Ought not children to be baptized? shall not marriages be consecrated? Each hour’s delay brings troubles and sufferings. If three families pray together for the prosperity of the king, if an artisan sings a psalm in his shop, or should a bookseller sell a French Bible, here are grounds for persecuting decrees. Our judges answer that such is the law. Well! let the law be changed. To such evils prompt remedies should be applied.” The king knew that it would be doubly perilous for him to persist in his denial of justice; from within, because the Reformed at length sought other protection than his own; from without, because the Protestant powers would refuse him their aid. He therefore caused an edict of toleration to be adopted at his council, in the month of July, 1591, known as that of Nantes, which reinstated the Reformed in the same position which they held in 1577; a very meagre concession, since no more was granted than had been given by Henry III. Moreover, this ordinance did not pass without difficulty, and was never well observed, especially in those matters which related to admission to public employment. We may judge from the following occurrence what was the amount of fanaticism which reigned in the camp even of Henry IV. Several Calvinists having been killed at the siege of Rouen, had been buried indiscriminately with the bodies of (Roman) Catholics, but the priests caused the bodies to be disinterred, and ordered that they should be thrown as food to the beasts of the field. Thus, men who had fought under the same banner were not permitted to sleep together in the same dust. XIX. The League, however, in proportion as it felt its strength decreasing, redoubled its violence. It had called to Paris bands of Spanish and Neapolitan soldiers and preachers, and with obscene or atrocious language, had demanded millions of heads. The prior of the Sorbonne, Jean Boucher, taught that it was necessary to take the knife in hand to kill and exterminate all; the bishop Rose argued that another bleeding like that of Saint Bartholomew was again necessary, and that by such means the disease would be cut short; the Jesuit Commolet said that the death of the politicians was life to the (Roman) Catholics; and the curé of Saint André asserted that he would march foremost to slay them.