name of Lucidor, giving him an encouraging account of Elizabeth’s attitude, and urging him to fulfil his former intention of escaping to England. He says: “She would not use the short word you desire, but her heart seemed to speak to me through her eyes--'Tell him to come and to despair of nothing; if I marry any prince in the world it will be he.’”[83] He urges Alençon that it will be useless to attempt to bring about the match by ordinary diplomacy, and above all by the intervention of Madame la Serpente, as he calls Catharine de Medici, the deepest distrust prevailing of the ruling powers in France since St. Bartholomew. The only way, he says, will be for Don Lucidor to strike out a line independent of his relatives, to break with the Catholics, draw to his side the Huguenots, and the German and Swiss Protestants, come over and marry Madame L’isle (Elizabeth) and become a great sovereign. Maisonfleur, in a postscript which he showed to Burleigh, laid down full instructions for Alençon’s escape and urged him to bring Navarre and Condé with him, but only a few attendants, amongst whom should be La Mole, to whom he also wrote begging him to urge his master to escape. A few days before this letter was written Castelnau de la Mauvissière arrived in London with great ostentation, as a special ambassador from the King of France. He was a _persona grata_ with Elizabeth, and his task on this occasion was to smooth down the distrust and asperity caused by the St. Bartholomew and thus to induce her to refrain from actively helping the Huguenots in France. Stern Rochelle, Protestant to the backbone, was still held firmly against the Catholics, Guienne, Languedoc and Gascony, where the reformers were strongest, had now recovered the panic of St. Bartholomew and were arming for the fray; Portsmouth, Plymouth, and the eastern ports of England were swarming with shipping, being fitted out for Rochelle and the Netherlands; privateers in the interest of Orange held command of the North Sea, and emissaries were going backwards and forwards between England and Germany to plan concerted action for the defence of Protestantism the world over. Henry of Navarre, Condé, and Alençon were looked upon by the Catholics in France with daily growing suspicion, whilst Montgomeri and the Vidame de Chartres, at the Court of Elizabeth, were unceasing in their vigilance to pledge the young princes ever deeper to the cause of England and the Protestants. Castelnau’s task was therefore not an easy one, and was only partially successful. Elizabeth consented to stand sponsor to Charles IX.’s infant daughter, and the personal relations between the sovereigns became somewhat less strained, but not for a moment did Elizabeth’s ministers slacken in their aid to beleaguered Rochelle and the stubborn Dutchmen in the North. Anjou was at the head of the Catholic army before Rochelle and his brother Alençon, much against his will, was forced to accompany him. Over and