At the very commencement of the war the Protestants had sent a deputation to the German princes to solicit their support in a struggle in which the adherents of the Augsburg Confession were no less vitally interested than the reformed. But Bochetel, Bishop of Rennes, the envoy of Charles the Ninth, had so skilfully misrepresented the true character of the contest, that the Landgrave of Hesse, and the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, persuaded that political motives, rather than zeal for religion, were the occasion of the revolt, had refused to assist the Huguenots, while permitting William of Saxony and the Marquis of Baden to levy troops for the king. To the Elector Palatine, Frederick the Third, surnamed "the Pious," who from a Lutheran had become a Calvinist, a special ambassador was despatched in the person of M. de Lansac. This gentleman, by more than usually reckless misstatements, sought to persuade the elector to abandon the enterprise of assistance which he had intended to intrust to his second son, John Casimir. But his falsehoods were refuted by the straightforward expose of the prince's agents,[466] and Lansac was only so far successful that the elector consented to delay the departure of the troops until he had sent a messenger to France to acquaint himself with the true state of the case. It needed no more than this to determine him; for the minister whom the elector had intrusted with the commission, after visiting successively the court of the king and the camp of the prince of Conde, returned with certain proofs that the representations of Bochetel and of Lansac were altogether false.[467] Consequently the army which John Casimir had gathered was speedily despatched to furnish Conde the support the Huguenots so much needed.