Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/603

Rh Romish clergy might be employed in paying the national debts, and in the support of the reformed ministers. Catherine was easily persuaded, being more anxious to preserve her rank, and to liquidate the public debt, than to maintain the established religion. Moderate measures were pursued, and the butchers, even in the time of Lent, were allowed to keep their shops open. Though Catherine did not dare attend the sermons of the Huguenots, yet she allowed the bishop of Valence, who had imbibed their principles, to hold daily conferences with them on controverted points in the king's anti-chamber, at which she was always present, accompanied by the ladies of the court. Though she at the same time contracted a contrary engagement with the cardinal of Lorrain, it appears probable she did not mean to fulfil it, as she retained Theodore Beza, the famous reformer, and his companions, near her person, suffering them to preach in the precincts of the Palais St. Germain.

The most dreadful disorders were continually occasioned by the mutual opposition of the parties. At a meeting of the deputies from the different parliaments, the queen declared it was the intention, both of herself and son, to live and die in the catholic religion; yet edicts were still published to favour the reformed, which much engaged the others. Catherine, alarmed at hearing that a catholic league was forming, to repress the progress of heresy, of which the king of Spain was chief, sent an ambassador to Philip, to inform him that the edicts in favor of the Huguenots displeased her much; and that only the critical situation of the kingdom had induced her to sanction them with her assent. Philip, in his answer, strenuously exhorted her to purge the kingdom of those contagious disorders by fire and sword, offering her all the assistance she might want for that purpose.