over again he planned to escape to Montgomeri’s fleet outside, and prayed his mother to place him in command of the King’s ships. But the Catholics well knew they dared not trust him, and he was never allowed out of sight. Month after month Anjou cast his men fruitlessly against the impregnable walls of Rochelle; well supplied with stores from England by Montgomeri’s fleet, the townspeople bade defiance to the Catholics, and the reformers through the rest of France were rendered the more confident thereby. It was clear to Catharine and her son that Protestantism had not been extinguished in the blood of St. Bartholomew, and they began to think it time to make terms with an enemy they saw they could not crush. On the 7th of March, 1573, therefore, La Mothe Fénélon saw Elizabeth and assured her that “his King would most faithfully continue in the league and confederation which he had sworn to her, and would strictly uphold it without departing therefrom for any reason in the world.” He begged her to lay aside her distrust of him, and then again broached the subject of her marriage with Alençon. The King and Queen-mother, he said, would never trouble her with the matter again if she would only let them know her pleasure now. They reminded her that she had said that she would be obliged to marry for the sake of her subjects, and that the only question at issue was that of religion. Although Alençon was a purely Catholic prince, and she would be the first person to reject him as unworthy if he changed his religion out of the mere ambition to marry her, yet he would be content to perform his religious exercises behind closed doors, guarded by one of her own ushers.[84] The Queen thought these approaches afforded her a good opportunity for striking a bargain in favour of Protestantism, and said she would proceed no further in the matter of the marriage unless fair terms were given to the Huguenots and peace made at Rochelle. There was nothing Catharine desired more. Anjou was heartily sick of his unsuccessful siege. The heroic Rochellais ostentatiously feasted out of their meagre store, and danced round the maypole on May-day, under his very eyes. Montogomeri’s swift smacks threaded their way safely through the King’s blockading fleet outside, and it was seen that the starving, plague-stricken, and disheartened besiegers were in far worse case than the heroic besieged. The elective crown of Poland, moreover, was already within Anjou’s grasp, and both he and his mother were only too glad to end a bad business by granting to the Protestants some of the terms they demanded. The draft treaty was signed by Anjou on the 25th of June and ratified a fortnight later by the King. A general amnesty was granted, full religious liberty was accorded in the towns of Rochelle, Montauban, and Nismes, and private household worship elsewhere in France. Anjou was then elected to the throne of Poland, which he changed for that of France a year later (May 24, 1574) and