The (Roman) Catholic nobles were deceived by this, and offered Mornay twenty thousand crowns on condition that he should not again awaken the king’s scruples. “The conscience of my master is no more to be sold,” said he to them, “than my own!” A beautiful reply, but unhappily only true on one side. Despairing of being able to seduce Mornay, the politicians prayed Henry IV. to remove him from his person. But coming upon them unexpectedly at one of their meetings, “It is hard, gentlemen,” said he, “to prevent a master from speaking to a faithful servant. The proposals which I make to him are of such a nature that I can state them to him aloud, before you all. I propose to him that he should serve God with a good conscience, that he should have Him constantly before his eyes in every action, that he should appease the schism which is in the state, by a sacred reformation of the Church; that he should be an example to all Christians and to all posterity. Are these things to be said in secret? Would you wish that I should counsel him to attend mass? You do him wrong to imagine that he would profit by doing so. With what conscience can I advise him, if I do not first go there myself? and what religion is that which we may throw off like our shirts?” Astonished by so much courage and virtue, Marshal d’Aumont cried, “You are more estimable than we are, Monsieur Duplessis; and if I said, two days since, that it was necessary to shoot you through the head, I say to-day, on the contrary, that you merit a statue.” It will be surprising that the judicious Mornay, who had so closely and for so long a time observed the king, should have entertained so good an opinion of his firmness. But he had the sublime ingenuousness of men of great faith; and moreover, Henry IV. displayed in this matter—it is with regret that we say so of the most popular of the French kings—the most consummate duplicity. He went so far as to invite the Reformed of France to fast, and pray that God would bless the pretended conferences, which were about to be opened; and he said to the pastors assembled at Saumur, “If you learn that I have committed some excess, you may believe that there is some foundation in the report, for I am a man subject to great infirmities; but if they should tell you that I have been seduced from my religion, do not believe it; I would die first.” Three months afterwards he abjured at Saint Denis. On the 22nd July, 1593, the archbishop of Bourges and other dignitaries of the (Roman) Catholic clergy, repaired to the king. It had been arranged that they alone should speak. We meet with a curious proof of this from a letter in which the bishop of Chartres was informed, that “he might come in full confidence, without troubling himself about theology.” For greater safety, Mornay had been sent away.