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76 Jeanne d'Albret, after the death of her husband, Antoine de Bourbon, threw off the mask, and set diligently to work Protestantizing her dominions. She put one of her pastors in the see of Oloron; her kinsman, d'Albret, Bishop of Lescar, apostatized and married. She found in many places that the people were ready for a change, especially such as had been subject to exactions from the monasteries, which owned much land and exercised extensive jurisdiction. In many, however, there was strong resistance. In 1566 she was about to absolutely interdict the exercise of the Catholic religion in Béarn, Foix, and Bigorre, when the resistance of the Estates and the threatening attitude of the people alarmed her and she withheld the edict for a time. In 1568, finding that Charles IX was about to send troops into her land to protect the oppressed Catholics, and fearing lest she should have her children taken from her, she fled to La Rochelle, the Geneva of French Calvinism.

Charles IX announced his resolution to take possession of Béarn. Bigorre was in revolt against her reforms, and a good many of the seigneurs of Béarn could not endure them. The King commissioned the terrible Monluc to pacify Bigorre, and the Baron de Terride to do the same in Béarn. The Béarnais were in difficulties. They were to a man loyal to their Viscountess, the titular Queen of Navarre, but a considerable number of them were opposed to her religious policy, and did not relish the taste of Calvinism. If they joined the forces of the King they were rebels to their sovereign. If they took up arms for her they fought for a religion that their soul abhorred. Nay, Pontacq, Morlaas, shut their gates against the royal forces, and were reduced. Lescar, Sauveterre, and Salies opened their gates to them.