A few days after the close of the Synod the King attended a meeting of the whole Parliament of Paris. It was an unusual proceeding on his part, but the occasion was a special one, namely the adjourned consideration of the whole religious question, which had been recently discussed in a Mercuriale, or Wednesday sitting, held at the end of April. Many speakers opposed the repressive policy of the government, the boldest being Anne du Bourg, nephew of the former Chancellor, Antoine du Bourg, who advocated the suspension of all persecution of "those who were called heretics." Henry was highly incensed at the plain speaking of the counsellors, and had du Bourg and three others arrested. He vowed that he would see du Bourg burned with his own eyes. But on the last day of June, at the jousts in the Tournelles held in honour of the approaching marriage between Philip of Spain and Elizabeth of France, Henry was mortally wounded above the right eye by the broken lance of his antagonist, Gabriel de Montgomery, the captain of his Scottish guard. He died on July 10, 1559.
The accession to the throne of a sickly boy, Francis II, threw all the power into the hands of his wife's uncles, the Guises. The Queen-Mother made common cause with them, and the Constable and Diane de Poitiers were driven from the Court. "The Cardinal," wrote the Florentine ambassador, "is Pope and King." There was a widespread feeling of discontent. Though the King, being fifteen, had attained his legal majority, it was urged that his weak understanding made a Council of Government necessary, and that this Council ought to consist, according to custom, of the Princes of the Blood. The Guises were unpopular as foreigners, and the Cardinal of Lorraine was hated on his own account. Even the measures which he took for the much-needed improvement of the finances-the public debt amounted to over forty million livres and there was an annual deficit-added to his unpopularity. An active element of discontent was furnished by the younger sons of the nobility, whose only trade was war, and who were pressing in vain for their arrears of pay. To the Protestants the Cardinal's rule was a natural source of apprehension. He was known to be a thoroughgoing opponent of heresy and an advocate of the severest measures of repression. At first the Reformers had hopes in Catharine, but these were soon disappointed. She had no power apart from the Cardinal. Severe persecutions were set on foot, and Paris began to have the air of a captured city. In September Calvin was consulted as to whether persecution might be resisted by force. His answer was unfavourable, but, whatever effect it may have had on his co-religionists as a body, the political agitation continued. The execution of Anne du Bourg (December 23, 1559), his speech on the scaffold, his resolute bearing, made a profound impression, not only on Protestants but on Catholics. "His one speech," wrote Florimond de Hœmond, who was an eyewitness
