[61] Antoine Arnaud was the elder son of Antoine Arnaud, captain of the light horse, and subsequently attorney and advocate-general of Catherine de Medicis. The younger Arnaud embraced the legal profession, and became an advocate of the Parliament of Paris, where he distinguished himself by his probity and eloquence. Henri IV rewarded his merit by the brevet of councillor of state, and Marie de Medicis appointed him advocate-general. When offered the dignity of secretary of state, he resolutely refused to accept it, representing to the Regent that he could more effectually serve her as advocate-general to the King than in the secretaryship. His able and erudite speech in the celebrated Jesuit cause tried at Paris in 1594, in the presence of Henri IV and the Duke of Savoy, and his work entitled _The Plain and True Discourse against the Recall of the Order to France_, are well known. At the conclusion of the trial named above the University offered him a handsome present; which, however, he declined, declaring that he required no recompense, and had given his services gratuitously; whereupon that learned body passed a solemn act pledging itself to eternal gratitude alike towards him and his posterity; an obligation which it would, however, appear to have forgotten in 1656, in the case of his son. His great talents and high character procured for him an alliance with the first president, who bestowed upon him the hand of his daughter Catherine, by whom he became the father of twenty children. Although adverse to the League, Arnaud was a member of the Romish Church. [62] Pierre Cotton, subsequently so famous as the confessor of Henri IV, was born at Néronde, in the department of the Loire, in 1564, and was received into the Order of the Jesuits in 1585 at Arona, in the Milanese, whence he was sent to Milan to study philosophy. Thence he was removed to Rome, where he remained twelve months engaged in the same pursuit; and finally he proceeded to Lyons, where he completed his education, and began to preach. During a sojourn at Grenoble he was presented to the Duc de Lesdiguières, in whom he inspired so much confidence that it was to his good offices that he was indebted for his selection as confessor to the King. The Duke having represented him as a sound and eloquent preacher, he was instructed to proceed to Paris, where his sermons having realized the report of his patron, Henri IV at once adopted him as his director. After the death of that monarch, he was for some time the confessor of Louis XIII. In 1617 he abandoned the Court, and travelled through the southern provinces as a missionary-apostle. He was the author of several controversial and religious works, and died in 1626. [63] Sully, _Mém_. vol. viii. pp. 36, 37. [64] Sully, _Mém_. vol. viii. p. 37. [65] Mézeray, vol. xi. p. 10. [66] Sully, _Mém_. vol. viii. p. 81 _note_.