de la Religion_, mingles theological
erudition with his raillery against the Roman communion. Henri
Estienne applied the spirit and learning of a great humanist to
religious controversy in the second part of his _Apologie pour
Herodote_; the marvellous tales of the Greek historian may well be
true, he sarcastically maintains, when in this sixteenth century the
abuses of the Roman Church seem to pass all belief. On the other hand,
Du Perron, a cardinal in 1604, replied to the arguments and citations
of the heretics. As the century drew towards its close, violence
declined; the struggle was in a measure appeased. In earlier days
the Chancellor, Michel de l'Hospital, had hoped to establish harmony
between the rival parties; grief for the massacre of St. Bartholomew
hastened his death. The learned Duplessis-Mornay, leader and guide
of the Reformed Churches of France, a devoted servant of Henri of
Navarre, while fervent in his own beliefs, was too deeply attached
to the common faith of Christianity to be an extreme partisan. The
reconciliation of Henri IV. with the Church of Rome, which delivered
France from anarchy, was, however, a grief to some of his most loyal
supporters, and of these Duplessis-Mornay was the most eminent.

The cause of Henri against the League was served by the manuscript
circulation of a prose satire, with interspersed pieces of verse,
the work of a group of writers, moderate Catholics or converted
Protestants, who loved their country and their King, the _Satire
Menipee_.[5] When it appeared in print (1594; dated on the title-page
1593) the cause was won; the satire rose upon a wave of success, like
a gleaming crest of bitter spray. It is a parody of the Estates of
the League which had been ineffectually convoked to make choice of
a king. Two Rabelaisian charlatans, one from Spain, one from Lorraine,
offer their drugs for sale in the court of the Louvre; the virtues
of the Spanish Catholicon, a divine electuary, are manifold--it will
change the blackest criminal into a spotless lamb, it will transform
a vulgar bonnet to a cardinal's hat, and at need can accomplish a
score of other miracles. Presently the buffoon Estates file past to
their assembly; the hall in which they meet is tapestried with
grotesque scenes from history; the order of the sitting is determined,
and the harangues begin, harangues in which each speaker exposes his
own ambitions, greeds, hypocrisies, and egoism, until Monsieur
d'Aubr