[428] "Sed ne frustra laborare viderentur, de Albani consilio, 'Satius esse unicum salmonis caput, quam mille ranarum capita habere,' ineunt rationes de intercipiendis optimatum iis, qui Religionem sequerentur, Condaeo, Amiralio, Andelotio, Rupefocaldio aliisque primoribus viris. Ratio videbatur praesentissima, ut a rege accerserentur, tanquam consulendi de iis rebus quae ad regnum constituendum facerent," etc. Jean de Serres, iii. 125. It will be remembered that this volume was published the year before the St. Bartholomew's massacre. The persons enumerated, with the exception of those that died before 1572, were the victims of the massacre. [429] "Ita Edicti nomen usurpabatur, dum Edictum revera pessundaretur." Jean de Serres, iii. 60. CHAPTER XV. THE SECOND CIVIL WAR AND THE SHORT PEACE. [Sidenote: Coligny's pacific counsels.] [Sidenote: Rumors of plots to destroy the Huguenots.] [Sidenote: D'Andelots warlike counsels prevail.] [Sidenote: Cardinal Lorraine to be seized and King Charles liberated.] A treacherous peace or an open war was now apparently the only alternative offered to the Huguenots. In reality, however, they believed themselves to be denied even the unwelcome choice between the two. The threatening preparations made for the purpose of crushing them were indications of coming war, if, indeed, they were not properly to be regarded, according to the view of the great Athenian orator in a somewhat similar case, as the first stage in the war itself. The times called for prompt decision. Within a few weeks three conferences were held at Valery and at Chatillon. Ten or twelve of the most prominent Huguenot nobles assembled to discuss with the Prince of Conde and Coligny the exigencies of the hour. Twice was the impetuosity of the greater number restrained by the calm persuasion of the admiral. Convinced that the sword is a fearful remedy for political diseases--a remedy that should never be applied except in the most desperate emergency--Coligny urged his friends to be patient, and to show to the world that they were rather forced into war by the malice of their enemies than drawn of their own free choice. But at the third meeting of the chiefs, before the close of the month, they were too much excited by the startling reports reaching them from all sides, to be controlled even by Coligny's prudent advice. A great friend of "the religion" at court had sent to the prince and the admiral an account of a secret meeting of the royal council, at which the imprisonment of the former and the execution of the latter was agreed upon. The Swiss were to be distributed in equal detachments at Paris, Orleans, and Poitiers, and the plan already indicated--the repeal of the Edict of Toleration and the proclamation of another edict of opposite tenor--was at once to be carried into effect. "Are we to wait," asked the more impetuous, "until we be bound hand and foot and dragged to dishonorable death on Parisian scaffolds? Have we