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 central provinces, were in favour of rigid repression; another, formed by the western provinces and the towns of Rouen and Toulouse, demanded toleration; while the third group, composed of the Eastern provinces with Normandy and Languedoc, urged that both parties should be ordered to keep the peace and that only preachers and pastors should be punished. All three Estates alike demanded the abolition of the Concordat. On January 28 a royal Edict was issued ordering Parliament to stop all prosecutions for religion and to release all prisoners. On the 31st the Estates were prorogued till May 1 for the purpose of considering the financial question. The meeting of the clergy fixed for January 20 was dropped, in view of the General Council which the Pope had ordered to reassemble at Trent on Easter-Day. Meanwhile the answer of the government to the demands of the Estates was being embodied in a, statute known as the Ordinance of Orleans which, though dated January 31, 1561, was not completed till the following August. The Concordat was abolished, and the election of the Bishops was transferred to a mixed body of laymen and ecclesiastics who were to submit three names to the King. Residence was imposed on all holders of benefices.

The Edict of January 28 and the general attitude of the government gave a considerable impulse to the Protestant movement. On March 2 their second national synod was held at Poitiers. At Fontainebleau during Lent Protestant ministers preached openly in the apartments of Coligny and of Condé; fasting was ostentatiously neglected; and the Queen-Mother and the King listened to sermons from Bishop Montluc in one of the state rooms of the palace. The mere fact of a Bishop preaching marked him as a Lutheran in the eyes of old-fashioned Catholics. The Constable, who went to hear Montluc once, came away in high dudgeon. His orthodoxy took alarm at this general encouragement of heretical doctrine and practice; and at a supper party at his house on Easter-Day (April 6) he formed with the Duc de Guise and St André a union which was afterwards known as the Triumvirate. As the result of success the Protestants became insolent and defiant. At Agen and Montauban they seized unused Catholic places of worship. In many towns the mob rose against them and the disturbances ended in bloodshed. At Beauvais, where the Cardinal de Châtillon was Bishop, there was a dangerous riot on Easter Monday, in consequence of which an Edict was issued on April 19 forbidding all provocation to disturbance. It remained a dead letter. At the end of the month a Paris mob having attacked the house of a Protestant nobleman was fired on by the defenders. The assailants fled, leaving several dead, and more wounded. On May 2 there were fresh disturbances. It was not till the middle of the month that the condition of the capital began to grow quieter. On May 28 the clergy of Paris presented a remonstrance on the conduct of the Protestants; and on June 11 the Protestants presented a petition asking for churches to be assigned to them or for permission to build them.