Only permit me to lock up these papers." "From Rome ?" asked the regent eagerly.
"That is easily discerned," replied the Emperor.

"New and amazingly favourable promises.

Nothing is required of me except the trifling obligation to allow the Protestants nothing in religious affairs which the Pope or the Council do not approve.

If I agree to accept the promises, every one will think that I have the advantage, and yet, if the contract is made, it is tearing from the sky the political polestar of many a lustrum, and burying one of my clearest, ripest, most sacred hopes." Here the startled Queen interrupted him: "That would surely, inevitably be the evil fruit which would grow from such a treaty.

It would deliver to the Pope, with fettered hands, this very Council which your Majesty so confidently expected would remove or diminish, in orderly methods, the abuses which are urging so many Christians to abandon the Catholic Church.