mother of three kings of France, and to play a conspicuous and baleful part in a most eventful period of French history.

At the accession of Francis II., the Queen Mother naturally felt that the hour for the gratification of her ambition had arrived. But she was disappointed. She found that the king and his government were completely under the sway of the family of Guise, in the person of Duke Francis, and of his brother Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine-the knight and the priest, the lion and the fox united. Claude of Lorraine, their father, was an opulent and influential noble, who had distinguished himself in the wars against Charles V. His son Francis, who was now forty years of age, had acquired brilliant fame by his defence of Metz against the Emperor, whom he forced to raise the seige after a loss of 30,000 men, and also by the recent capture of Calais from the English. The Cardinal had been the confessor and trusted counsellor of Henry II. The power of the family had been increased by matrimonial connections. Their brother had married a daughter of Diana of Poitiers. Their niece, Mary Stuart, the daughter of James V. of Scotland, had, in the preceding year, when she was sixteen years old, married Francis II., who was about a year younger than herself. Her beauty, her tact, accomplishments, and energy, were cast on the side of the Guise influence. With her aid, her uncles found no difficulty in managing the boyking. Catherine was obliged to stand back, and yield up the station that she had long coveted. The Constable Montmorenci, who, with his numérous relatives, had shared power with the Guises in the last reign, was civilly dismissed from his post. The Guises, in whose hands everything was practically left, set themselves up as the champions of the Roman Catholic cause, and the enemies of the Protestant heresy. But their path was not to be a smooth one. The princes of the house of Bourbon-descendants of a younger son of Louis IX., St. Louis of France-considered that they were robbed of their legitimate post at the side of the throne. Anthony of Vendome, the eldest, was the husband of that noble Protestant woman, Jeanne D'Albret, the daughter of Margaret, the sister of Francis I., and through his marriage wore the title of King of Navarre. He proved a vacillating and selfish adherent of the

Protestant party, which he at length was bribed to desert. His younger brother, Louis of Condé, who had married a niece of the Constable, and a devoted Protestant, was a gallant soldier, but rash in counsel. With the Bourbons stood the Chatillons, the sons of Louisa of Montmorenci, the Constable's sister; of whom the most eminent was the Admiral, Gaspard de Coligny, one of the greatest men of that or of any age. He was of middle height, with his head slightly bent forward as if in deep thought. His spacious forehead reminds one of the portraits of William the Silent, to whom in character he had many points of resemblance. He spoke little, and slowly. In battle, his grave countenance lighted up, and he was observed to chew the toothpick, which, to the disgust of a class of courtiers, he habitually carried in his mouth. Frequently defeated, he reaped hardly less renown from defeats than from victories. He rose from them with unabated vigor. His constancy never wavered in the darkest hour. He embraced the Calvinistic faith; and whether in the court, the camp, or among his dependents on his own estate, his conduct was strictly governed by the principles of religion. His reserve and gravity, in contrast with the vivacious temper of his countrymen, commanded that respect which these qualities, even when not united with remarkable powers of intellect, usually inspire in them, as we see in the case of Napoleon III.

Here, then, in the middle of the sixteenth century, in France, were all the materials of civil war. It was inevitable that the Calvinists, harassed beyond endurance, should league themselves with the disaffected nobles who offered them the only chance of salvation from their persecutors, and whose religious sympathies were on their side. Thus the Huguenots became a political party. The nation was divided into two bodies, with their passions inflamed. A tempest was at hand, and there was only a boy at the helm.

The conspiracy of Amboise, which occurred in 1560, was an abortive scheme, of which a Protestant gentleman named La Renaudie was the chief author, for driving the Guises. from power. Condé was privy to it; Calvin disapproved The next year the

of it; Coligny took no part in it. Estates assembled at Orleans, and a trap was laid by the

Catholic leaders for the destruction of all Protestants who should refuse to abjure their religion. Condé had been arrested and put under guard, when, just as the fatal blow was ready to fall, the young King died. Charles IX., his brother, was only ten years old, and it was no longer practicable to shut out his mother from the office of guardian over him, and from a virtual regency. From this time she comes to the front, and becomes a power in the State. Mary Stuart returned to Scotland, and on another theatre entered upon that tragic career which ended on the scaffold at Fotheringay. The Queen Mother was now free from her dangerous rival. Through her whole career, tortuous and inconsistent as it often seemed, Catherine de Medici was actuated by a single motive-the purpose to maintain the authority of her sons and her own ascendancy over them. To check and cast down whichever party threatened to acquire a dangerous predominance, and to supplant her, was her incessant aim. Caring little or nothing for religious doctrines, she hated the restraints of religion, and hence could regard Calvinism only with aversion. But how indifferent she was to the controversy between the rival Churches is indicated by her jocose remark, when the mistaken report reached her that the Protestants had gained the victory at Dreux: "Then we shall say our prayers in French." She believed in astrology, and that was about the limit of her faith. To rule her children, and to rule France through them, was the one end which she always kept in view.

The civil wars began in 1562 with the massacre of Vassy, where the troopers of Guise povoked a conflict with an unarmed congregation of Protestant worshippers, many of whom they slaughtered. Ten years intervened between this event and the massacre of St. Bartholomew; years of intestine conflict, when France bled at every pore. Neither party was strong enough to subjugate the other. The patience of the Protestants had been worn out by forty years of sanguinary persecution. The battle on both sides was waged with bitter animosity. The country was ravaged from side to side. The Catholics found it impossible to crush their antagonists, who revived from every disaster, and extorted, in successive treaties, a measure of liberty for their worship. Among the events

which it is necessary for our purpose to mention is the assassination of the Duke of Guise by a Huguenot nobleman in 1563, while the Duke was laying siege to Orleans, then in the hands of the Protestants. This act met with no countenance from the Protestant leaders. It was condemned by Calvin. It was said that the assassain when stretched on the rack, avowed that the deed was done with the connivance of Coligny. But he was subjected to no fair examination, and there was no reason to doubt the assertion of the Admiral that he had no agency in it. He admitted that for six months, since he had learned that Guise was plotting his own destruction and that of his brothers, he had made no exertions to save that nobleman's life. Innocent though Coligny was of all participation in this deed, it planted seeds of implacable hostility in the minds of Guise's family, the fruits of which eventually appeared. Another event, which it specially concerns us to notice, was the insurrection of the Huguenots which they set on foot several years later, in anticipation of a projected attack upon them, and which resulted in their extorting from Charles IX., in 1568, the Peace of Longjumeau. The King was exasperated at being obliged to treat with his subjects in arms. This humiliating event was skilfully used afterwards to goad him on to a measure to which he was not spontaneously inclined.

At this time the foundations of the Catholic League were laid. The extreme Catholics began to band themselves together, instigated by the spirit of the Catholic Reaction which, through its mouthpiece, the Pope, and its secular head, Philip II., breathed out fire and slaughter against all heretics. Between this bigoted faction, which became more and more furious as time went on, and the Huguenots, were the Moderates the Politiques, as they were called-Catholics who deplored the continuance of civil war, deprecated the undue ascendency of Spain, and were in favor of an accommodation with the Protestants. The treachery of Catherine de Medici broke the treaty of Longjumeau; but her plan to entrap and destroy the Huguenot leaders failed. Their defeat at Jarnac, where Condé perished, and at Moncontour, with the military triumph of her favorite son, the Duke of Anjou, did not bring to her content. The defeated forces of the Protestants, under

the masterly lead of Coligny, found a refuge within the walls. of Rochelle, where the Queen of Navarre established her Court, and whence Coligny, with his cavalry, and with the young princes, Henry of Navarre and Henry of Condé at his side, was soon able to sally forth and take the offensive. The Queen Mother was now eager for peace. The atmosphere of intrigue and diplomacy was always more pleasing to her than the clash of arms. The King's treasury was exhausted. He did not relish the military successes of Anjou. The Huguenots sprang up from their defeats with indomitable courage. Moreover, Catherine, the King, the whole party of Moderates, saw that the continuance of the strife could only redound to the profit of Philip, who lent aid, or withheld it, with sole reference to his own ambitious projects. If the war was to go on between the King and his Protestant subjects, the latter would get help from England and Germany, and the government, forced to fall back upon the support of Spain, would come into practical subservience to Philip. To this the Queen Mother was not at all inclined. At the Conference of Bayonne in 1565, both she and Charles IX. had disappointed Alva by refusing to enter into his plan for a common crusade against the heretical subjects of France and Spain. Thus, in 1570, the Peace of St. Germains was concluded. The Huguenots, who could not longer be expected to trust the King's word, were put in possession of four fortified towns for the space of two years. They were to be given up to Henry of Navarre, Henry of Condé, and twenty Huguenot gentlemen. The Lorraine faction, the Guises and their followers, acquiesced in the treaty.

Observe, now, the political situation. The policy of the Court was turned in the anti-Spanish direction. The power of Philip was becoming too formidable. The Duke of Alva had begun his bloody career in the Netherlands in 1567 with the execution of Egmont and Horn, and numerous other judicial murders. Now, his tyranny was at its height. Philip had planned a marriage between his half-brother, Don John of Austria, and Mary Stuart, which would give him, as he hoped, control over Scotland and England both. He was already supreme in Italy. His wish was to marry his sister to Charles IX., and to unite with him in an anti-Protestant coalition.