Note 292 — Chapter III

Castelnau, Book III, chap. ii. In this connection the following observation is of interest: “A disputation has lately been at Rome among the cardinals, and the Pope has had the hearing of what is the cause that France is thus rebelled from them. The Romans would conclude that the dissolute living of the French cardinals, bishops and clergy, was the cause; but the French party and the bishop, who is ambassador there, say that nothing has wrought so much in France as of late the practice in Rome of divers of the nobility of France where they have seen such dissolute living of the clergymen as returning into France they have persuaded the rest that the clergy of Rome is of no religion.”—C. S. P. For., No. 822, December 28, 1560.