The Parliament of Paris began to exhibit signs of hesitation before the growing host of the Calvinists. It had split into three parties: the ultra-Catholics, headed by the chief president, Gilles Lemaître, who were bent upon persisting in the old system of persecution; the men of middle course, already styled Politicians, among whom figured Christophe de Harlay, Seguier, and De Thou, the father of the historian, who sought to approximate the two religions by mutual concessions; lastly, the secret Reformers, whose chiefs were Anne Dubourg and Louis Dubourg, who from day to day declared themselves more openly. These divisions produced between the two chambers a diversity of jurisprudence, the great chamber continuing to pursue the heretics with severity, and the Tournelle seeking means to acquit them. These symptoms of indulgence alarmed the clergy. “If the secular arm fails in its duty,” said the Cardinal de Lorraine to the king, “all the malcontents will throw themselves into this detestable sect; they will destroy the ecclesiastical power, and afterwards it will be the turn of the regal power.” Henry II. listened to him with greater readiness, because he had just concluded with the king of Spain the shameful peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, when the two monarchs engaged by a secret article, to exterminate heresy; and as a pledge of this treaty, his daughter Elizabeth was to espouse Philip II. It was therefore arranged that the king should go in person to the Parliament, in order to put an end at once to the divisions by an act of authority. It was also, as the cardinal further observed, the most agreeable exhibition to offer to the Spanish ambassadors, who had arrived in Paris to fetch away the betrothed princess, to burn before the people half a dozen Lutheran counsellors. “We must,” to use his expression, “give this junket to these grandees of Spain.” Henry II. proceeded to hold a bed of justice, on the 10th of August, 1559, and invited the counsellors to give him frankly their advice upon the means of appeasing the religious differences. The chief president, Gilles Lemaître, lauded the zeal of Philip Augustus, who had in one day caused six hundred of the Albigenses to be burned. The men of middle course confined themselves to vague generalities. The secret Calvinists, Anne Dubourg in particular, demanded religious reforms by means of a national council. “Every day,” said he, “we see committed crimes that go unpunished, while new torments are invented against men who have committed no crime. It is not a matter of little importance to condemn those who, in the midst of the flames, invoke the name of Jesus Christ.”