the infection--but even the bishops and many of the most distinguished prelates.... Your highness (the Doge) may be assured that, excepting the common people, who still zealously frequent the churches, all have fallen away. The nobles most especially, the men under forty almost without exception; for although many of them still go to mass, it is only from regard to appearances and through fear. When they are sure to be unobserved, they shun both mass and church.”[253] He considered it indispensable that religious freedom--at least an “_interim_,” as he called it--should be accorded to the French Protestants, if they would avoid a general war. Catherine and the least fanatical portion of her advisers saw clearly enough that a compromise was necessary. Though greatly disappointed at the result of the Poissy conference, she recognized the necessity of moderation, and had called upon the chiefs of the Huguenots to assist her by restoring the churches which their followers had seized for their religious services. She then gave them tacit permission to assemble to the number of five hundred[254] in places appointed for that purpose, forbidding them at the same time to wear arms, or to indulge in irritating language.[255] In Paris, the number who could meet together was limited to two hundred, and that in private.[256] But the question of toleration or persecution was too important to be settled in this irregular fashion, and the queen-regent summoned an assembly of Notables, composed of the ordinary members of the Privy Council, with two delegates from each parliament in the kingdom, to advise with her on what had become a matter of high state policy.