[572] Norris, in a letter to Cecil, Sept. 25, 1568, gives almost the very words of the angry contestants. State Paper Office. [573] Davila, bk. iv. 130; De Thou, iv. (liv. xliv.) 136. [574] Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, 236, 237. [575] Davila and De Thou, _ubi supra_. De Thou seems certainly to be wanting in his accustomed accuracy when he represents--iv. (liv. xliv.) 136, 137--the submission of the test-oath to the Protestants as posterior to, and consequent upon the fall of L'Hospital: "La reine delivree du Chancelier, et n'ayant plus personne qui s'opposat a ses volontes, ne songea plus qu'a brouiller les affaires, etc." I have shown that the papal bull which L'Hospital opposed was dated at Rome on the same day (August 1, 1568) on which Charles sent his orders to the president of the Parisian parliament to administer the oath to the Protestants of the capital. Yet, as early as on the 12th of May, 1568, the English ambassador, Norris, wrote to Cecil that Anjou, a cruel enemy of the Protestants, had a privy council of which Cardinal Lorraine was the "chiefest" member, and his own chancellor, who sealed everything submitted to him, "which thing he [the good olde chauncelor of the Kinges] hathe so to harte as he is retirid him to his owne house in the towne of Paris; and wheras the King's chauncelor I meane, who nether for love nor dread wolde seal enything against the statutes of the realme, or that might be prejudiciall to the same, this of Mr. d'Anjou's refusithe nothing that is proferid to him." State Paper Office, Duc d'Aumale, ii. 360. [576] Jean de Serres, iii. 191; Davila, bk. iv., p. 128. [577] See Soldan, Gesch. des Prot. in Frankreich, ii. 327, note 63. Yet Conde himself, shortly before the flight from Noyers, expressed himself in strikingly confident terms as to Tavannes's probity. In a letter to the king, complaining of the treacherous plots formed against himself, July 22, 1568, the prince says he is sure that Tavannes is not privy to these designs, "car je le cognois de trop longue main ennemy de ceulx qui ne veullent qu'entretenir les troubles. Parquoy je croy que cecy se faict a son desceu." MS. Paris Lib., _apud_ D'Aumale, ii. 356. [578] "Le cerf est aux toiles, la chasse est preparee." See Anquetil, Esprit de la ligue, i. 278. [579] "Turbarum causas imputamus adversario illi tuo ac tuae dignitatis hosti Cardinali Lotharingo et sociis, quorum nimirum pravis consiliis et arcta necessitudine et familiaritate quam cum Hispano habent, dissensiones et simultates inter tuos subjectos ab hinc sex annis continuantur, et misere foventur atque aluntur per caedes atque strages, quae ipsorum nutu quotidie ubique perpetrantur." Jean de Serres, iii. 194. "Impurusne Presbyter, tigris, tyrannus," etc., ibid., iii. 196. "Cardinalis Lotharingus, quasi sicariorum ac praedorum patronus," etc., ibid., iii., 210.