Such was the Edict of Amboise--a half-way measure, very different from that which was desired on either side. The English ambassador declared he could find no one, whether Protestant or papist, that liked the "accord," or thought it would last three weeks. And he added, by way of warning to Coligny and Conde: "What you, who are the heads and rulers, do, I cannot tell; but every man thinketh that it is but a traine and a deceipt to sever the one of you from another, and all of you from this stronghold [Orleans], and then thei will talke with you after another sorte."[257] He urged the Huguenots to learn a lesson from the fate of Bourges, Rouen, and other cities which had admitted the "papists," and to consider that these fine articles came from the queen mother, the Cardinals of Bourbon, Ferrara, and Guise, and others like them, who desired to take the Protestants like fish in a net. And he gave D'Andelot the significant hint--very significant it was, in view of what afterwards befell his brother Gaspard--that the report spread by the enemy respecting Poltrot's confession was only a preparation that, _in case any of the Huguenot noblemen should be assassinated, it might be said that the deed had been done in just revenge by the Guises_, who would not hesitate to sacrifice them either by force or by treason.[258] [Sidenote: Coligny's disappointment.] Of the other party, Catharine de' Medici alone was jubilant over the edict. On the contrary, the Roman Catholic people of Paris regarded it as an approval of every sort of impiety and wicked action, and the parliament would register it only after repeated commands (on the twenty-seventh of March), and then with a formal declaration of its reluctance.[259] But no one was so much disappointed as the admiral. Hastening from Normandy to Orleans, he reached that city on the twenty-third of March, only to find that the peace had been fully concluded several days before. In the council of the confederates, the next day, he spoke his mind freely. He reminded Conde that, from the very commencement of hostilities, the triumvirs had offered the restoration of the Edict of January with the exclusion of the city of Paris; and that never had affairs stood on a better footing than now,[260] when two of the three chief authors of the war were dead, and the third was a prisoner. But the poor had surpassed the rich in devotion; the cities had given the example to the nobles. In restricting the number of churches to one in a bailiwick, the prince and his counsellors had ruined more churches by a single stroke of the pen than all the forces of their enemies could have overthrown in ten years. Coligny's warm remonstrance was heard with some regret for the precipitancy with which the arrangement had been made; but it was too late. The peace was signed. Besides, Conde was confident that he would soon occupy his brother's place, when the Huguenots would obtain all their demands.