Note 1021 — Chapter XI

La Place, Commentaires, 123, De Thou, iii. (liv. xxvii.) 45. How deep the disappointment felt by the Protestants at the constable's course must have been, can be gathered from the sanguine picture of the prospects of the French Reformation drawn by Languet a couple of months earlier. Arguing from the comparative mildness of Montmorency in the persecutions under Henry II., from the fact that he had allowed no one of his five sons to enter the ecclesiastical state, which offered rare opportunities of advancement, and from the influence which his sons and his three nephews—all favorably inclined to, if not open adherents of the new doctrines—would exert over the old man, he not unnaturally came to this conclusion: "I am, therefore, of opinion that, if the Guises still retain any power, the constable will join Navarre for the purpose of overwhelming them, and will make no opposition to Navarre if he sets on foot a moderate reformation of doctrine." Epist. secr., ii., p. 102.