Note 857 — Chapter X

The high moral and intellectual qualifications of the Protestant ministers were eulogized by the Bishop of Valence, Montluc, in his speech before the king at Fontainebleau, to which I shall soon have occasion to refer again. "The doctrine, sire," he said, "which interests your subjects, was sown for thirty years; not in one, or two, or three days. It was introduced by three or four hundred ministers, diligent and practised in letters; men of great modesty, gravity, and appearance of sanctity; professing to detest every vice, and, particularly, avarice; fearless of losing their lives in confirmation of their preaching; who always had Jesus Christ upon their lips—a name so sweet that it gives an entrance into ears the most carefully closed, and easily glides into the heart of the most hardened." "Harangue de l'Evesque de Vallence," apud Recueil des choses mémorables (1565), i. 290; Mém. de Condé, i. 558; La Place, 55. The eloquent Bishop of Valence must be regarded as a better authority than those persons who, according to Castelnau, accused the Calvinist ministers of Geneva of "having more zeal and ignorance than religion." Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iii., c. 3.