Epistola Ioannis Monlucii, episcopi Valentini regis Gallorum legati ad Poloni[a]e Ordines de Illustrissimo Andium duce in Regnum Polonicum allegendo

with lies, nor do I want to behave like those who rage against the ashes of the dead or write anything that could harm their reputation. But I shall not fear to assert and divulge things that do not need witnesses, for the sake of warding off such calumnies. I have confirmed, as I believe, that there was already a thrice-ample opportunity offered to the King for killing the Admiral, and that the slaughter could have easily been transferred to someone else. They add afterwards that the Queen of Navarre was killed by poison at the King's command. But how could they know such an abstruse and secret matter? Perhaps they were present when the King secretly ordered such a wicked crime to anyone. See, O Noble Poles, into whose hands you have fallen for the future, who, having cast aside the fear of God, dare to impute a crime to such a great Prince that is, and has always been, most alien to French customs. Everyone knows, as many as there are in Gaul, that she died of pleurisy, which was a popular disease in Paris at that time and took off very many of the noble courtiers in an unexpected death. And so that some might not suspect through a false rumor that poison had been given to the Queen of Navarre, the Admiral certainly wrote most lucid letters to all the reformed churches, testifying that there was not even a suspicion of poison. For he had been present when the physicians were treating the illness; he had also been present with the most expert