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399-402), the sole favor his friends could obtain for him.
But extreme severity on the part of the powers that be is effectual only when it falls upon a country or upon parties that are effete with age, or already vanquished and worn out by long struggles; when, on the contrary, it is brought to bear upon parties in the flush of youth, eager to proclaim and propagate themselves, so far from intimidating them, it animates them, and thrusts them into the arena into which they were of themselves quite eager to enter.

As soon as the rule of the Catholic, in the persons and by the actions of the Guises, became sovereign and aggressive, the threatened Reformers put themselves into the attitude of defence.

They too had got for themselves great leaders, some valiant and ardent, others prudent or even timid, but forced to declare themselves when the common cause was greatly imperilled.

The house of Bourbon, issuing from St.Louis, had for its representatives in the sixteenth century Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre and husband of Jeanne d'Albret, and his brother Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde.