Such were the leading features in that remarkable paper.
The manly and open opposition of the nobles was stigmatized as a cabal by the offended priest.

He repeatedly whispered in the royal ear that their league was a treasonable conspiracy, which the Attorney-General ought to prosecute; that the seigniors meant to subvert entirely the authority of the Sovereign; that they meant to put their King under tutelage, to compel him to obey all their commands, to choose another prince of the blood for their chief, to establish a republic by the aid of foreign troops.

If such insinuations, distilled thus secretly into the ear of Philip, who, like his predecessor, Dionysius, took pleasure in listening daily to charges against his subjects and to the groans of his prisoners, were not likely to engender a dangerous gangrene in the royal mind, it would be difficult to indicate any course which would produce such a result.

Yet the Cardinal maintained that he had never done the gentlemen ill service, but that "they were angry with him for wishing to sustain the authority of the master." In almost every letter he expressed vague generalities of excuse, or even approbation, while he chronicled each daily fact which occurred to their discredit.

The facts he particularly implored the King to keep to himself, the vague laudation he as urgently requested him to repeat to those interested.