How far Catherine was sincere in her letter to Cardinal Ferrara is hardly a question for those who hold her to have been always more influenced by policy than by principle. She was sincere, when it served her purpose to be so. Long before the Triumvirate--that precursor of the League--took a definite form, she had seen the necessity of uniting with the Huguenots, in order to counterbalance the Lorraine party. It was this that made her write to the pope; that made her pretend to entertain Calvinistic ideas; in short, that made her deceive both parties. Without entirely adopting the views of Davila (at the end of his 2d book), we agree in his conclusion, that “she deceived not only simple people, but the craftiest and most skillful also.” Whatever may have been Catherine’s motives, the pope would not yield an inch; he wrote to encourage the Catholic party to resistance. Meanwhile Chancellor de l’Hôpital was addressing the Calvinists of Geneva, praising in the king’s name--in reality according to the queen-mother’s instructions--the purity of their motives and the rectitude of their principles, and exhorting them to restrain “the malice of certain preachers and dogmatizers who abuse the name and purity of the religion which they profess, by sowing in the minds of the king’s subjects a damnable disobedience, not only by their libels and slanders, but by their sermons.”[239] It was under such circumstances and in accordance with the promise made in the Edict of July, that the celebrated colloquy of Poissy was held, in September, 1561. On both sides great preparations had been made for the grand discussion; and in order to counterbalance the eloquence and skill of the Catholic party, Calvin, Beza, Peter Martyr,[240] and other ministers were invited, under safe conduct, from Switzerland. Calvin did not answer to the appeal, but the Protestants had no cause to regret his absence, for Theodore Beza was altogether a fitter person for such an occasion. Beza was a man of noble birth and a ripe scholar; he had seen much of courts, and in the fashionable society of Paris had acquired a remarkable grace of manner. He was converted by a serious illness: “As soon as I could leave my bed,” he told his friend and tutor, Melchior Wolmar, “I broke all my chains and went into voluntary exile with my wife to follow Christ.” At Geneva, he was nominated professor of theology, and ordained to the ministry; and became so strongly attached to Calvin that he scarcely ever left him. His appearance was a recommendation, being a handsome man of middle stature and pleasing address. On the 23d August, the day after his arrival at St. Germain’s, he preached before the court in Condé’s apartment, and was summoned at midnight to a private conference in the drawing-room of the Queen of Navarre,[241] where he was graciously received by the queen-mother, the Cardinals of Lorraine and Bourbon, and others. Catherine asked him many questions about Calvin’s health,