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 and the Seudre. In the following year (1556) were added Blois and Montoire in the Orléanais; Bourges, Issoudun, and Aubigny in Berry; and Tours; while the Church of Meaux was refounded in the same year. The Churches of Orleans and Rouen date from 1557, and as many as twenty were established in 1558, including Dieppe, Troyes, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Toulouse, and Rennes. This important work was due largely to the instigation of Calvin, and was carried out under his supervision. During the eleven years from 1555 to 1566 no less than 120 pastors were sent from Geneva to France. Geneva was in fact now regarded as the capital of French Protestantism; French refugees had gone there in increasing numbers, and had contributed to Calvin's definite triumph over his opponents in the very year, 1555, in which the French Churches began to be organised.

Meanwhile the French government was devising a more powerful engine for the suppression of Protestantism. At the instance of the Cardinal of Lorraine Edicts were drawn up establishing an Inquisition after the Spanish pattern. They were submitted to the Parliament of Paris early in the year 1555, but the Parliament refused to register them, and when Pierre Séguier, one of the presidents à mortier, appeared before the King to justify its action (October 22, 1555) he spoke with such convincing eloquence that the matter was dropped for a time. But in 1557 Henry, finding the existing machinery for the suppression of heresy still insufficient, obtained a papal brief authorising the proposed step. To this was joined a diploma appointing the Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and Châtillon as Inquisitors-General (April 25, 1557). As, however, the Parliament refused to recognise it, the brief remained inoperative, and the King had to content himself with a new Edict against heresy which was issued from Compiègne on July 24.

Before it was registered (January 15, 1558) a fresh persecution broke out. The defeat of St Quentin (August 10) had thrown Paris into a paroxysm of unreasoning terror, which was repeated on the news of the surrender of the town (August 27). On the evening of September 4 a congregation of three or four hundred Protestants, which had assembled for worship in a large house in the Rue St Jacques, was attacked by a furious mob. The majority of the men, many of whom were armed, forced their way out, but the rest remained in the building till the aVrival of a magistrate and an armed force, when they were carried off to prison. As a result of the investigations which followed, seven persons, including a young married lady of rank, were burned. There were also some high-born ladies among those prisoners who were eventually released. The fact is significant. During the last few years Protestantism, which at first affected mainly the artisan class, had begun to spread among the higher ranks of society, and it now received some notable accessions. François d'Andelot, the youngest of the Châtillon brothers, became a Protestant during his imprisonment at Melun (1551-6), and