The appeal fell upon deaf ears. Philip coldly replied that it was useless for France to expect the advice or assistance of Spain so long as her government tolerated heresy in any degree whatsoever; that those at the court who were Huguenots, like the admiral and the prince of Condé, should be sent away forthwith, and all others should be coerced; that from the point of view of religion it was blasphemy to permit the Huguenots to have any places of worship, and from the political point of view it was suicide to tolerate them, for “there could never be new things in religion without loss of obedience to the temporal power,” in proof of which the King pointed out that in certain of the provinces of France the people were refusing to pay tithes and taxes, at the same time triumphantly asserting that he was better informed of things happening in France than in Spain; that as to the Council of Trent, the Germans would have nothing to do with it and Spain had no need of it, while France was torn by heretical controversy, so that it might well be said that the council sat for the benefit of France alone.[432] One of the points upon which Philip II dwelt with earnestness in the interviews he granted the two ambassadors of France was the vicious education under which Charles IX’s brother Henry, duke of Orleans, was being brought up. He emphatically condemned the Huguenot environment of the young prince. It did not seem a coincidence therefore, when a plot was discovered in November to seize the duke of Orleans—afterward Henry III—who was to have been made _capo di parti_ by the Catholics. It was even said the conspirators aimed also to remove the king and queen of Navarre, Condé, and the admiral, by poison. The duke of Nemours was charged with being the principal author of it, and was to have carried the young duke off to Lorraine or Savoy.[433] This supposition was given greater probability when the whole company of the Guises suddenly left the court and departed for Lorraine. But Catherine was not yet intimidated, though she prudently dropped the investigation which she had set on foot when she discovered clues that led to the Escurial and the Vatican.[434] In spite of the omens, she still adhered to a middle course. The government resolved to send twenty-five bishops and two archbishops to Trent, although they went “very unwillingly.”[435] At the same time permission was granted to the ministers of the Reformed churches to preach in private houses or in gardens environed with houses (the erection of churches being prohibited), if it was done without tumult.[436] At court the ministers of the Reformed churches preached one day, when the queen of Navarre, the prince of Condé, and the admiral would be present. The next day either some Cordelier, Jesuit, Jacobin, Minim, or other of the cloistered sects, preached, on which occasion, the King, the queen mother, the king of Navarre, the cardinal of Ferrara, accompanied