A conference was summoned to look into them, and six commissioners, three Catholic and three Protestant, were appointed to give judgment; De Thou and Pithou amongst the former, Dufresne la Canaye and Casaubon amongst the latter.

Erudition was worthily represented there, and there was every probability of justice.

The conference met on the 4th of May, 1600, at Fontainebleau, in presence of the king and many great lords, magistrates, ecclesiastics, and distinguished spectators.
[Illustration: The Castle of Fontainbleau----124] Mornay began by owning that "out of four thousand quotations made by him it was unlikely that some would not be found wherein he might have erred, as he was human, but he was quite sure that it was never in bad faith." He then said that, being pressed for time, he had not yet been able to collate more than nineteen out of the sixty quotations specially attacked.

Of these nineteen nine only were examined at this first conference, and nearly all were found to be incorrect.

Next day, Mornay was taken "with a violent seizure and repeated attacks of vomiting, which M.de la Riviere, the king's premier physician, came and deposed to." The conference was broken off, and not resumed afterwards.