In the middle of June, 1565, the court reached the city of Bayonne, near the Spanish frontier, where the famous meeting took place at which it was generally supposed the extirpation of Protestantism was arranged. As early as April, 1561, Catherine had suggested a similar meeting, when she was agitated by the fear of a marriage between the widowed Mary Stuart and Don Carlos. She pretended a great desire to discuss with Philip II. the religious condition of France and the affairs of the King of Navarre, hoping by such an interview to thwart the Scottish matrimonial project.[357] The ostensible cause of the meeting four years later was the queen’s desire to see her daughter, who had just recovered from a severe illness. Political motives were not forgotten, and among other matters to be considered between the sovereigns of France and Spain--for Catherine hoped that Philip would accompany his wife--was undoubtedly the repression of heresy. There exists among the state papers at Simancas what is called by diplomatists an “identical note” of the subjects to be discussed at Bayonne. In it we read that the two powers engaged not to tolerate the Reformed worship in their respective states, that the canons of the Council of Trent should be enforced, that all nonconformists should be incapacitated for any public office, civil or military, and that heretics should quit the realm within a month, permission being accorded them to sell their property. Although Catherine gave her assent to these declarations, so far as the discussion of them was concerned, we have indisputable evidence that she did not intend to adopt them in the same sense as Philip of Spain, for at this very time she was corresponding with the Bishop of Rennes, the French embassador to the imperial court, on the propriety of making concessions to the Huguenots. A long and tedious negotiation ensued between the two courts of France and Spain--a fencing-match of deceit--which ended in an arrangement that Isabella should go to meet her mother and brothers alone, attended by the Duke of Alva as embassador extraordinary. Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, had not yet attained that evil eminence which has linked his name with all that is blood-thirsty. He was now in his fifty-seventh year, and the most successful general in Europe. He had fleshed his maiden sword at the battle of Fontarabia, when he was only sixteen; had served under the emperor Charles V. in Germany; saved the Spanish infantry from destruction at the siege of Metz; and, as viceroy of Naples, foiled all the efforts of the Duke of Guise to recover the throne of that country for France. He had accompanied Philip II. to England during that monarch’s brief matrimonial expedition, and afterward waged a fruitless war in Italy against Francis of Guise and the pope. As a statesman he possessed great capacity, although at Bayonne he entirely failed in the chief object of his mission.[358]