They climbed the hill. They went down by the little stair near the porch, which leads into the crypt of that strange place, and where the stones go back to the temple of the pagan days. Faber vested and began the Mass. When he came to the Communion, the six laymen rose and knelt at the altar rails. Then, one by one in order each, before receiving the Host, took in a loud voice the vow of their companionship, and Faber himself, the last, pronounced those words. The Ablutions were received. The post-Communions read, the last Gospel recited. The Society of Jesus was founded. * * * * * The winter was not over in Blois--the winter of 1560. The old king, who had so sternly maintained the national religion, was dead; a boy of fifteen reigned--frail, incompetent, diseased--the son of that Medicean woman whom an enemy has called “the worm from the tomb of Italy.” The child was married to a child-wife, the daughter of the King of Scotland, Mary Stuart. It was she, in part, already masterful, that had called to that Court her mother’s brothers, the sons of Lorraine, the Guises; grandsons of that same man who had entered his capital of Nancy on the death of Charles the Bold. And they were hated. They were not of the national nobility; they had enriched themselves scandalously. If they were to be the protectors of the Church, it was but another weakness for the Church. One of their group, a child of fourteen, had been made Archbishop of Rheims, and loaded with the wealth of such great names as Cluny--St. Bernard’s glorious house; as Marmoutier--St. Martin’s immemorial foundation. Scandal! Scandal! Against these men, against the new, feeble, immature king, rose muttering throughout the commonwealth all forms of opposition, linked under the bond (here loose, there strict) of the Reform, of the Gospellers, of them that would be rid of their fathers, and who were clamped to the iron of Calvin. He, far off in Geneva, commanded. Already, some few months since, the Reformers had organized everywhere. They had held their first synod, making them one thing throughout the territory of France, and, by hundreds, the armed gentry were rallying, though secretly, to that standard. Men from all countries leaked in to take service in the coming war as mercenaries. Many from the Germanies, many from Switzerland. They were sworn in secrecy by the German freebooters’ oath: “To follow the dumb captain.” And of the native people crowds were ready, when the signal should be given, to join the nobles who were moving. By little groups, and as single men, they came filtering through towards the Loire. What could the Guises bring against that? There were no armies in those days, save such guards as the king could pay, or such gentry as would still obey his summons.