Note 703 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

The Discours de la mort du Roy Henry II. add that Henry demanded the reason of the Parliament's delay to register an edict they had received from him against the "Lutherans"—doubtless the last—establishing the inquisitorial commission of three cardinals. "Cest édict estoit sorti de l'oracle dudict cardinal de Lorreine." Baum, Theodore Beza, ii. 31, note, etc., has already called attention to the gross inaccuracies of Browning, in his description of the incidents of the Mercuriale, as well as of the king's visit to parliament. (Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 54, etc.). Among other assertions altogether unwarranted by the evidence, he states that Henry, in order to entrap the unwary, "declared himself free from every kind of angry feeling against those counsellors who had adopted the new religion, and begged them all to speak their opinions freely," etc. (p. 55). If true, this would rob Du Bourg's course of half its heroism.