Being informed of this decision by the Count de Villars, the Marshal de Termes, and the other governors of the provinces, the Guises replied that the preachers should be hanged without trial, that criminal instructions should be taken against the Huguenots, who attended the preachings, and that “_the country must be swept clean of this multitude of rabble, who lived like the Genevese_.” These orders were not strictly executed, nor could they be so. The Lorraines did not recognise the difference of the times: what was possible against a few thousand obscure sectarians without credit, was no longer possible before millions of proselytes, among whom were numbered more than half the great families of the kingdom. In some places in Dauphiny, at Valence, at Montélimart, at Romans, those of the religion appropriated the (Roman) Catholic churches to their use; another imitation of the ancient Christians, who had invaded the temples of Paganism. This was also inevitable, in the places where the population had wholly changed their doctrine. The stones of the sanctuary belong to a religion only so long as it is believed in; if the people give it credence no longer, those stones become its property again, and the people reconsecrates them to its new worship. The Duke de Guise felt so much the more disappointed at the state of affairs in Dauphiny, because he was the governor of that province. The enterprises of the heretics were in his eyes so many personal affronts, and he despatched one Maugiron, who surprised the towns of Valence and Romans, gave them up to pillage, hanged the principal inhabitants, and decapitated two ministers, with this inscription suspended from their necks: “_These are the chiefs of the rebels._” These atrocities provoked reprisals. Two gentlemen of the religion, Montbrun and Mourans, made incursions into Dauphiny and Provence, at the head of armed bands, sacked the churches, maltreated the priests, who had urged the slaughter of the Reformers, and celebrated their worship sword in hand. Such a state of things could not long exist. It was neither peace nor war, neither the freedom of (the two) religions, nor the absolute domination of one alone. A remedy must be found, or the whole kingdom would be given up to complete anarchy, and the king’s council therefore resolved to convoke the assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau. The Guises consented to this measure with reluctance; but, alarmed themselves at the dangers of a situation they could no longer direct, they yielded to the influence of the politicians, or _tiers-parti_, which had begun to be formed under the direction of the Chancellor L’Hospital.