thority of
Melchior Adam's Life of Capito, that Lefevre and Roussel were sent by
Margaret of Angouleme on a secret mission to Strasbourg. Erasmus, in a
letter of March, 1526, and Sleidan (lib. v. ad fin.) know nothing of
this, and speak of the trip as merely a flight.]

[Footnote 200: Haag, _ubi supra_, vi. 507, note.]

[Footnote 201: Haag, La France protestante, art. Lefevre; Gaillard,
Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 411. The boy, at this time Duke of
Angouleme, did not assume the name of _Charles_ until after his eldest
brother's death. The Swiss cantons, acting as his sponsors, had given
him the somewhat uncommon Christian name _Abednego_ (Abdenago)!
Herminjard, ii. 17, 195.]

[Footnote 202: The Duke of Orleans may have had sincere predilections
for Protestantism. At least, it is barely possible that the very
remarkable instructions given to his secretary, Antoine Mallet, when on
the 8th of September, 1543, Charles sent him to the Elector of Saxony
and the Landgrave of Hesse, were something besides mere diplomatic
intrigue to secure for his father's projects the support of these
Protestant princes. See, however, a fuller discussion of this incident
farther on, Chapter VI.]

[Footnote 203: Margaret to Anne de Montmorency, Genin, Lettres de
Marguerite d'Angouleme, i. 279, and Herminjard, ii. 250.]

[Footnote 204: "Come un cavallo ch' ha un apostema stringendoli il naso
non sente il cauterio."]

[Footnote 205: "Una retrattationcella." The letter of the Nuncio to
Sanga, secretary of Clement VII., Brussels, December 30, 1531, appeared
in H. Laemmer, Monumenta Vaticana (ex Tabulariis Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae
Secretis), Friburgi Brisgoviae, 1861. I have called attention to its
importance in the Bulletin de la Societe de l'hist. du prot. franc.,
xiv. (1865), 345. M. Herminjard has given a French translation, ii.
386.]

[Footnote 206: This incident has been rejected as apocryphal by Bayle,
and, after him, by Tabaraud (in the Biographie universelle), as well as
more recently by Haag (France protestante). It has rested until now on
the unsupported testimony of Hubert Thomas, secretary of the Elector
Palatine, Frederick II., whom he accompanied on a visit to Charles V. in
Spain. On his return the Elector fell sick at Paris, where he received
frequent visits from the King and Queen of Navarre. It was on one of
these occasions that Margaret related to him this story, in the hearing
of the secretary. (It is reproduced in J