The Treaty of St. Germains was a serious blow to Spanish influence in France. We have seen that peace had not only been concluded in opposition to the remonstrances of Philip II., but that monarch had experienced several slights from his brother-in-law which even so cold-blooded a man must have felt deeply. In proportion, too, as the loyalty and worth of Coligny became known, the distance between the two courts grew wider. The “Politicians” took advantage of this change, and becoming daily more convinced of the necessity of war with Spain, tried to strengthen France by foreign alliances. Their choice was not very great. Rome would never aid a power that went to war with Spain to support heresy in Flanders. The Emperor of Germany would remain neutral, for by reserving his forces he would be able to interfere effectually between the combatants, when exhausted or tired of war. The Catholic States of Northern Italy would take part with Spain and threaten France on the Alpine frontier; and Switzerland would sell her sword to either party. There only remained England and the Protestant States of Germany, with whose help France might safely venture to attack the power of Spain. That monarchy was held to be the greatest in the world: it was not indeed so great as it appeared to be, for it was rapidly declining, but the halo of its former glory still shone round it.

The negotiations with Germany were so mismanaged that they came to nothing. Those with England had assumed, as we have seen, the form of proposals for a matrimonial alliance between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. Catherine, who believed in an old prophecy that all her sons should be kings, was very earnest in the matter.[520] The Huguenots, who are wrongly supposed to have originated the plan, also felt anxious, and the correspondence of the English agents at the court of France is full of their hopes and fears. They saw that such a union of the two crowns would strengthen them, and help to preserve the fruits of their past struggles; while they dreaded a failure, which would discredit the Moderate party and bring back the Guises, and perhaps plunge them again into all the miseries of civil strife from which they had so recently escaped. The negotiations extended over many months. It is doubtful whether Elizabeth was at any time sincere; but it is certain that as one objection after another was removed, and as she appeared to be more inclined to the match, Anjou grew cooler, professed a great horror of heresy, and urged that his conscience would not allow him to share the crown of the Queen of England. Still, as he did not absolutely refuse the match, the English ministers were frightened lest Elizabeth should anticipate him, and ruin every thing by declaring her preference for a celibate life. A refusal from her would ruin the Huguenot hopes. Elizabeth would probably have spoken out, had not the various intrigues of which Mary Stuart was the prime mover kept her silent and cautious. She would dally with France so long as there was any danger from Spain. But Anjou, who was never in want of evil advisers, listened to the seductions of the Spanish court, and, allured by a large bribe from the pope,[521] refused—twice refused—to wed a mature maiden of thirty-eight. The queen-mother was confounded, and with reason; for the suspicions of Spain had been aroused, and France unaided could not hope, in its state of exhaustion, to withstand a well-directed attack. There was danger, too, on the other side, for Elizabeth was touchy and susceptible; and though she might have been insincere throughout, her feminine vanity might be so wounded that she would not hesitate to avenge it by taking part with Spain. The Moderate party were in despair; but fortunately the negotiations were in the hands of prudent men. Walsingham in France and La Mothe-Fénelon in England felt all the importance of the crisis, and after some difficulty succeeded in arranging a defensive treaty between the two countries (29th March, 1572). Though manifestly directed against Spain, it was expressed in general terms, so as not to wound the susceptibilities of the French Catholics.[522] Each promised to aid the other with 6000 infantry and six ships of war. The English statesmen were perhaps more anxious about this treaty than their French colleagues; for Mary Stuart, now a prisoner in England, was actively engaged in a complication of intrigues with Spain,[523] the success of any of which would have endangered the cause of Protestantism. Montmorency, “a lover of England as much as any man in France,” was sent over to receive the ratification, and—if he saw fit opportunity—to make a formal proposal of the Duke of Alençon to Queen Elizabeth.[524] The marshal—or rather the Moderate party of which he was leader—felt convinced that some foreign support was more necessary than ever to keep the Catholic reactionists in check, and to neutralize the efforts of Spain to rekindle the civil wars now so happily ended. Spain was uneasy and wavering. St. Goar writes from Madrid (22d June, 1572): “I believe that Philip would fain avoid a rupture;” and again (1st July): “The king assures me he would willingly preserve peace, but that he has great cause to fear an attack from France.” Charles also told St. Goar, in a letter dated 25th June, that “if he were only sure they would undertake nothing against him, he would not mix himself up with foreign transactions.”[525]

As soon as the important matters of the Navarre marriage and the English treaty were concluded, Charles left Touraine (May 5th), and proceeded by way of Fontainebleau to Paris, and thence to St. Maur. The admiral attended him more as a friend than as one of the great officers of state. The Guises had left the court almost in despair. If any credit can be given to an intercepted dispatch of the 28th January from the Countess of Northumberland, the duke had paid a long secret visit to Alva.[526] This was denied by Catherine, but may have been true, nevertheless. Although this visit may have had more to do with the affairs of Mary Stuart, we may be sure that the state of France and the Anjou marriage were not forgotten. It is not clear when the Guises fell into disgrace, but their position at court in the spring of 1572 is accurately discussed in a letter from Alva to Philip II., who had written advising him to keep up friendly relations with the duke and the cardinal. The general replied that he had always seen the importance of doing so: “But at this time there are two things to be considered, namely, that none of the family have any share in the management of public business, except the Cardinal of Lorraine; and he, when in favor, is insolent and forgets every body, and when in disgrace, is good for nothing.” Then, as if to brand the treason of the churchman, and show the unfriendly nature of the relations between the courts of Paris and Madrid, Alva continues: “He has warned me, through Fray Garcia de Ribeira, to be on my guard, as he foresees trouble in France, and believes that the fleet assembling at Rochelle is intended to operate against the Low Countries.”[527] When the Duke of Guise and Coligny were at Paris in May, the former was forbidden to undertake any thing against the Chatillons, to which he replied, that if the admiral had any thing to complain of, he was ready to meet him at any time in single combat.[528] The king, finding the duke (whom he called “un mauvais garçon”) so implacable, required of him a complete and formal denial of every project of outrage against Coligny, which he gave, though with reluctance (12th May, 1572). There is another story that the king did not press Duke Henry to be reconciled, having already had proof of his impracticable character; but to Aumale, his brother, who seemed more tractable, he said: “Have a little patience, and you will soon see a pretty game.”[529] Were the story true, it would not necessarily imply the existence of a plot to get rid of the Huguenots.

The deliberations about the Flemish war now became more frequent than ever. The time was opportune for the projected invasion. In Flanders the first part of the year had been distinguished by a series of triumphs. “With one fierce bound of enthusiasm,” says the eloquent historian of the Dutch Republic, “the nation shook off its chain.” Alva was ill, and anxiously awaiting his successor. The hour was approaching when Charles IX. would feel it safe as well as politic to throw off all disguise. “When you have captured two of the frontier cities, the king will once more take council about the war,” said Tavannes to Count Louis; and before the end of May, Mons and Valenciennes were in his hands. With the connivance of the government, Louis had got together a number of Huguenot gentlemen, including Genlis and La Noue, besides some 1500 soldiers, and with these he surprised Mons. He was soon after strongly reinforced by nearly 5000 French troops. Alva had no doubt whence the blow came, and threatening to repay Catherine in her own coin, immediately prepared to recover the town. Unless he were reinforced, Count Louis had no hope of resisting with success, and accordingly Genlis was dispatched to France to procure more troops. The admiral strongly advised Charles to back up the count with a large force; but the king was still unwilling to declare himself openly, though he had committed himself almost beyond recall. “You would be astounded,” writes Albornez to Secretary Cayas, “could you see a letter in my hands written by the King of France to Prince Louis.” It was dated the 27th April, 1572, and in it Charles expressed his determination to do all in his power “to extricate the Low Countries from the oppression under which they groaned.”[530]

In this juncture the Huguenot champion, who was “daily at court and very well used by the king and his brothers,”[531] laid before his royal master a memoir drawn up by the celebrated Duplessis-Mornay, in which he argued that a foreign war was necessary to preserve internal peace. “The Frenchman,” he says, “who has once had a taste of war will often, from mere gaieté de cœur, or from want of some other enemy, fight his own countryman and friend. The Spaniard,” he continued, “is weak from the dispersion of his forces, and you have England on your side, who formerly used to take part in every quarrel against us. You will acquire a province superior to any in France by the fertility of its soil, the beauty of its cities, and the wealth of its inhabitants. The Germans will fear you, your own people will be enriched by commerce, and you, Sire, will reap immortal honor from the conquest.”[532] The motives are not very noble, but they were admirably adapted to Charles’s temper: a higher morality would have fallen dead upon his ear. Still he hesitated to declare himself, leaning toward Coligny at one moment, and toward the Catholic party at the next. Meanwhile Genlis had succeeded in collecting a number of volunteers, and was making his way toward Mons, with about 4000 men,[533] when he was met and defeated by a Spanish force under Don Frederick of Toledo (19th July, 1572). Twelve hundred of the French were left upon the field, and a much larger number were butchered by the peasantry as they were seeking to escape. Tavannes, a trustworthy authority on such a point, says that Don Frederick had been treacherously informed of the road Genlis would take with his troops.

The news of this terrible overthrow caused an extraordinary agitation at court. Some fancied in their panic that the Spaniard was already at the gates of Paris; while the outspoken admiral declared that the catastrophe lay at the doors of those who had dissuaded the king from declaring himself. The government everywhere ostentatiously protested—at Rome, Vienna, Brussels, and Madrid—that they desired peace, and were not privy to the attack on Mons or the advance of Genlis; indeed Mondoucet congratulated Alva on his success over the invaders, while St. Goar assured Philip that his master saw with regret his vassals joining the rebels in the Low Countries. Neither Alva nor Philip believed this, but were determined to give no cause for a rupture of friendly relations.[534] And hence it was that when the Spanish army captured some sixty Frenchmen who tried to enter Mons, Alva only hanged a part, taking the others to Ruppelmonde to be drowned secretly in the river.

Walsingham’s correspondence reflects minutely the state of feeling among the Huguenots at this moment. “Such of the religion as before slept in security,” he writes to Burghley on the 26th July, “begin now to awake and to see their danger, and do therefore conclude, that unless this enterprise in the Low Countries have good success, their cause groweth desperate. They have therefore of late sent to the king, who is absent from home, to show him that if the Prince of Orange quail, it shall not lie in him [Charles] to maintain him in his protection by virtue of his edict; they desire him, therefore, out of hand, to resolve upon something that may be of assistance, offering themselves to employ therein their lives, lands, and goods.” Writing the same day to the Earl of Leicester, the embassador says: “Those of the religion have made demonstration to the king that his [Orange’s] enterprise lacking good success, it shall not then lie in his power to maintain his edict;” apparently meaning, that if the Flemish rebels were subdued, Spain would again be so formidable that it would be dangerous to tolerate the Huguenots in defiance of Philip II. Walsingham then adds that the Reformed party “desire him to weigh well, whether it were better to have foreign war with advantage, or inward war to the ruin of himself and his estate.” This was one of those unfortunate passages which Catherine afterward employed with so much effect to terrify Charles into the August massacre. The meaning of the words is plain enough, but an unscrupulous advocate would easily convert them into a threat of rebellion against the king’s authority.

As soon as the French had recovered from the first shock caused by the news of Genlis’s defeat, they began to vapor and talk of revenge; and their hostile feelings were still farther exasperated by the report of certain contemptuous expressions ascribed to Alva. Every thing betokened an approaching rupture between France and Spain, and ere long the rumors of war became so loud that the Venetian Senate hastily dispatched an embassador with authority to mediate between the angry governments.[535] Michieli writes in July to his superiors of volunteer expeditions of horse and foot setting off daily: “For four or five days war was regarded in Paris as declared; it was openly talked of.”[536]

On the 23d July, Petrucci, the Tuscan embassador, writes to his ducal master, that the royal council have been in deliberation about the ransom of the prisoners, but “does not know how the king [Charles] can grant this, without giving the greatest suspicion to the Catholic king; and yet he shows great interest in the matter.”[537]

Elizabeth had done her part in the anti-Spanish movement by sending troops to Flushing. Sir T. Smith wrote to inform Walsingham that Sir Humphrey Gilbert had been “sent over with his band of Englishmen and some Frenchmen, who have taken Sluys and besieged the castle.”[538]

Just at this juncture the queen-mother happened to be in Lorraine tending her sick daughter, and the news of the martial outburst brought her back in haste to Paris. She was too wise to oppose her son’s warlike humor openly, but she so far shook his resolution as to have the whole subject brought before the council. She was adverse to the war on many grounds, but principally because she felt assured that if Coligny carried on a successful campaign, his influence with the king would quite supersede her own. She did not know how far the king and the admiral had gone already. The latter, who was always with Charles, even to a late hour, wrote on the 11th August to Prince William of Orange, that there could be no doubt as to the king’s earnestness (Walsingham says: “But for the king, all had quailed long before”), and that he hoped in a few days to come to his help with 12,000 arquebusiers and 3000 cavalry. Yet only one day before this, Walsingham wrote home: “Commonly it is given out that the king will no more meddle, ... yet I am assured that underhand he is content there shall [be] somewhat done, for that he seeth the peril that will befall unto him, if the Prince of Orange quail.” The English embassador’s means of information were so complete, that he actually knew more of what was going on in the cabinet than the admiral did.

The extreme Catholic party had rallied and were trying every thing in their power to destroy the Huguenot ascendancy at court, and Charles’s resolution fluctuated from day to day. That he might enjoy a little quiet, he suddenly started for Montpipeau, a pleasant hunting-lodge, intending to remain there until the eve of his sister’s marriage. Meanwhile bad news reached the French court; Catherine discovered that Queen Elizabeth was playing her false, and while pretending zeal for an alliance against Spain, was actually treating with that power. De Foix and Fénelon both wrote from private information that she had been advised to recall her troops from Flanders and not quarrel with Spain. “Whereupon,” writes Walsingham, on the 10th August, “the queen-mother fell into such fear that the enterprise must necessarily fail without the aid of England.”[539] The report was untrue, and was probably a mere invention of some of the traitors in the English council.[540] But it frightened Catherine, and she determined to make one more attempt to recover her ascendancy over the king. She hurried to Montpipeau with such impetuous haste that two of her horses fell dead on the road. With tears in her eyes, she accused Charles of ingratitude to a mother “who had sacrificed herself for his welfare and incurred every risk for his advantage.” “You hide yourself from me,” she continued, “and take counsel with my enemies. You are about to plunge your kingdom into a war with Spain, and yet England, in whose alliance you trusted, is false to you. Alone you can not resist so powerful an enemy. You will only make France a prey to the Huguenots, who desire the subversion of the kingdom for their own benefit. If you will no longer be guided by my advice, suffer me to return to my native country, that I may not witness such disgrace.” “This artful harangue,” says Tavannes, “frightened the king, who, wondering to see his secret counsels revealed, confessed them all, begged his mother’s pardon, and promised obedience.” Tavannes, whose authority for circumstances of which he was not an eye-witness is rather doubtful, alludes to the common rumor that M. de Sauve, the king’s secretary, had revealed these “secret counsels” to his wife, Charlotte de Beaune, by whom they were told to her lover the Duke of Anjou, who, in his turn, communicated them to his mother. Whatever secrets may have been divulged, certainly this of the projected Flemish war was not one; for if it was unknown to Catherine, she must have been the only person in the court ignorant of it.[541] She was undoubtedly alarmed at the apparently isolated position of France; and we shall see that, finding all other methods fail of averting war, she did not shrink from murder. No doubt her “affetto di signorreggiare” had much to do with her bloody resolution; but she may also have believed Coligny to be a dangerous adviser, and in an unscrupulous age there was little difficulty in getting rid of such a man.

The exact date of the interview at Montpipeau is not known, but it probably took place during the first week in August, for Walsingham evidently refers to it in his letter of the 10th of that month: “Touching Flanders matters, such of the council here as incline to Spain have put the queen-mother in such a fear, that she with tears had dissuaded the king for the time, who otherwise was very resolute.... The admiral in this brunt, whose mind is invincible and foreseeth what is like to ensue, doth not now give over, but layeth before the king his peril if the Prince of Orange quail.” And again: “The king is grown cold, who before was very forward, and nothing prevailed so much as the tears of his mother.... How perplexed the admiral is, who foreseeth the mischief that is likely to follow, your lordship [Leicester] may easily guess. He never showed greater magnanimity, nor never was better followed nor more honored of those of the religion, than he now is, which doth not a little appall the enemies. He layeth before the king and council the peril and danger of his estate; and though he can not obtain what he would, yet doth he obtain something from him.”[542] This was the admiral’s death-warrant. Charles listened to him rather than to his mother. “What do you learn in your long conversations with the admiral?” asked Catherine one day. “I learn,” he replied, “that I have no greater enemy than my mother.” She saw her power slipping from her, and her son Anjou, her beloved, her favorite son, in danger; for she knew how violent Charles could be when he was once aroused. And all depended upon the life of one man! And when in those days did any body, especially an Italian man or woman, allow a single life to stand between them and their desire? Coligny must be got rid of; then the queen-mother would recover her influence; then there would be an end of this perplexing Flemish business; and with Henry of Navarre, the head of the Huguenot party, married to her daughter, there would be no cause to fear a revival of internal disturbances.

But these political negotiations and discussions were not permitted to delay the preparations for the marriage that was to unite Catholics and Reformers into one homogeneous people.

On the 6th of May Joan left Blois, and arrived in Paris eight or nine days after, such being the rate at which royalty traveled a distance that now does not require as many hours. She took up her abode in a house belonging to Jean Guillart, Bishop of Chartres, one of the prelates who had been excommunicated in 1563 for his liberal opinions. The removal to Paris was fatal to her: within a month she sickened and died (9th June, 1572),[543] not without suspicion of poison administered by means of a pair of gloves sent to her by René, the queen-mother’s perfumer. There is not the slightest ground for the suspicion: the season was unhealthy. “People are dying here very fast,” wrote the dowager Princess of Condé, “for which reason I do not send for my children.”[544] What wonder, then, that the Queen of Navarre, who was ill at ease, should pine and sicken in the hot ill-cleansed streets of Paris.[545] De Thou says she died of an abscess brought on by excessive fatigue. Although suffering acutely, she bore the pain without a word of impatience or complaint. When she saw her women weeping round her bed: “Do not cry,” she said; “God is calling me to that better life, which I have always longed for.” Her great anxiety was about her children—her son Henry and her daughter the amiable Catherine: “I trust that God will be a father and protector to them, as he has been to me in my sorest trials. To his providence I commit them, feeling sure he will provide for them.” With these words she died, at the age of forty-four, leaving a name still mentioned with fond respect among the mountains of Bearn. There were some who openly exulted in her death, calling it “a judgment from heaven upon Jezebel the Huguenot queen.” But hers was a character which, though deficient in some of the milder features of a woman’s nature, could despise such uncharitable judgment. Voltaire describes her as

and one of her contemporaries, adopting the words of Quintus Curtius, speaks of her as possessing nil muliebre nisi sexum (nothing in common with her sex except the name of woman). After her conversion, she devoted all her energies to the propagation of the Reformed faith, even (it is said) to the extent of preaching, though the strongest evidence that she ever ascended the pulpit is a doubtful contemporaneous caricature. Queen Elizabeth was as much attached to her as her vain and selfish nature permitted. Henry, fully alive to the importance of keeping up this friendship, wrote to announce his mother’s death, and to request a continuance of her friendship: “Entertaining the same desire which the late queen, my mother, always manifested toward you, I most humbly entreat you will impart to me that friendship and kindness which you always showed her, and the effects of which we have known in so many instances that I shall always feel myself your debtor, which I will testify in every thing you may be pleased to command me to obey and do service, whenever I have the power.”[546]

The queen’s death increased the distrust with which many of the Huguenot party looked upon the demonstrations and favors of the court. From every quarter the admiral continued to receive cautions and warnings of treachery; but firm in his own integrity and good faith, he put them all aside.[547] Many of his friends urged him to be on his guard. The people of La Rochelle sent him more than one address on the rumors that were abroad and on the suspicious aspect of affairs; but he told them there was no occasion to fear (7th August). Another time he made answer: “A man would never be at ease, if he interpreted every action to his own disadvantage. It would be better to die a hundred times than live in constant apprehension. I am tired of such alarms, and have lived long enough.” To others who advised him to leave Paris, he said: “By so doing I must show either fear or distrust. My honor would be injured by the one, the king by the other. I should be again obliged to have recourse to a civil war; and I would rather die a thousand deaths than see again the miseries I have seen, and suffer the distress I have already suffered.” Another time he said: “I can not leave without plunging the country into fresh wars. I would rather be dragged through the gutters than resort to such extremity.” An intercepted letter from Cardinal Pelvé to the Cardinal of Lorraine, who had just departed for Rome, was brought to him. He read in it: “There are great hopes of success in the enterprise; the admiral suspects nothing; the war with Flanders is a mere trick; the King of Spain knows all about it.” The letter was manifestly a forgery—a device to prevent the marriage, and the admiral treated it with contempt. Many of the warnings he received were like prophetic dreams—remembered only when the event confirms their forecastings. How could a man of such a noble and generous character be suspicious when his royal master was treating him with so much kindness and deference! Charles had learned at last that Philip was continually intriguing and fomenting disturbances in France. He was not so blind as his mother thought him: with all her art, she could not effectually repress those generous flashes which from time to time burst out only to make us regret that a better education had not fitted Charles for his royal station. When he wrote inviting the admiral to leave Chatillon and come to Paris, the latter declined on account of the hostility of the citizens. “You have no cause to fear,” replied the king; “they will attempt nothing against my will.” At the same time he ordered Marcel, the provost of the merchants, to see that there was no “scandal” (disturbance) on account of the admiral’s arrival, or he would be answerable for it.

Coligny had need of all his patience and all his loyalty. What he built up one day the queen-mother pulled down the next. Catherine told the Venetian envoy, Giovanni Michieli, that she would not go to war against Spain unless Philip compelled her: “Assure their lordships of Venice,” she added, “that not only my words but my acts shall prove the firmness of my resolutions.”[548] In a few hours, as we have seen, Catherine had recovered her empire over her son, who, though physically brave, had no moral courage, and could not bring himself to tell the admiral of his altered purposes. No one else would venture to do so, and it was therefore suggested that, in consequence of certain intelligence which the king had received, Coligny should be requested to lay his plans before a committee of the council (consisting of Montpensier, Louis of Gonzaga, Cossé, and others), who were certain to condemn them. They unanimously opposed the war, and after ineffectually trying to bend the king, he turned to the queen-mother, and said: “Madam, the king refuses to enter upon a war with Spain. God grant he may not be engaged in another which he may perhaps find it not so easy to renounce.”[549] This, which is the language of disappointed hopes, sounded very like a threat, and there may probably have been a bitterness in his tone that gave a meaning to his words he never intended they should bear. He only meant, what he had often said before, that the best mode of healing the wounds of the past wars would be to march the two parties side by side to fight a common enemy. But his enemies put the worst construction on his language, and his death was resolved on.[550] The king was very impressionable: if he were suffered to consult with the admiral again, the old ascendancy might be recovered, and would Coligny be inclined to use his new power mercifully? The blow must be struck at once, but first the union of the two families must be cemented by the marriage of Henry and Margaret.

On the 8th of July, Henry, now King of Navarre, entered Paris, attended by the Prince of Condé, the Cardinal of Bourbon, the admiral, and 800 of the most gallant gentlemen in France, all dressed in mourning garments, very different from the gay costumes worn by the Catholic gentlemen, who went out to meet him. At the gate of St. Jacques he was received by the Duke of Anjou and a magnificent train of nobles and officers attached to the court. The corporation of the city attended in their scarlet robes. Condé and his brother the marquis rode between the Duke of Guise and the Chevalier d’Angoulême; Henry between the king’s two brothers, Anjou and Alençon. The united trains, amounting to 1500 horsemen, proceeded in ominous silence through the crowded streets to the Louvre. No voice was raised to greet the Huguenot princes, though many a murmur showed the feeling of the populace, who from time to time raised the cry of “Guise” or “Anjou.” But the ladies at the windows were more demonstrative, as Henry of Navarre with his handsome features and winning smile bowed to the saddle-bow, or occasionally pointed to some group more attractive than usual, which caught his eye in balcony or window. In after years, he used to look back to this as the happiest day of his life.

For a moment the mocking humor of the Parisian populace was overawed. But when the escort began to separate and to move in smaller bodies through the streets to gain their lodgings, the mob recovered their audacity: “Come and see the accursed Huguenots, these outcasts of heaven!” As the Protestants wandered through the city, they greatly offended the superstitious prejudices of the citizens by neglecting to raise their hats as they passed the crosses or the images at the corners. “Deniers of God!” muttered the bigoted priests, as they scowled on the men who passed them with a look of scorn and pity. The Huguenots have been accurately designated as “quasi aliens,”—men alien in language, costume, and religion. For years the sound of psalm-singing had not offended Parisian ears, and now the hated words of Marot were heard once more in their streets. What wonder if there were frequent quarrels, if blood was shed, and if it was found necessary to keep the Huguenots pretty much by themselves. “Both parties,” says Haton, “were armed and equipped as if about to enter upon a campaign.” The Protestants were walking over a volcano, and there were bigots and fanatics among them who seemed to court rather than avoid an explosion.

The wedding-day had been originally fixed for the 10th June, but difficulties about the dispensation, and then the illness and death of Joan of Navarre, had caused the ceremony to be delayed. Pius V. had (as we have seen) constantly opposed the marriage, and refused to grant the dispensation required when the parties were of different religions, and also so nearly related. But the new pope, Gregory XIII., appears to have been more compliant, or the letter stating that the bull of dispensation was on the road must have been a forgery.[551] There were many reasons why the marriage should be put off no longer. As the young queen’s health was delicate, and she was soon to become a mother, it was advisable to get her away as early as possible from the noise and malaria of the capital.[552] It was therefore arranged that the wedding should take place on the 18th August. The betrothal was solemnized the day before at the Louvre, whence, after a supper and ball, the bride was conducted by the king and queen, the queen-mother, the Duchess of Lorraine, and other lords and ladies, to the palace of the Bishop of Paris, where, according to the ceremonial observed in such cases, she passed the night. On Monday the King of Navarre went to fetch her: he was accompanied by Anjou and Alençon and a host of other lords of both religions. Charles, Henry, and Condé were dressed alike to show their close affection. “Every body hates me but my brother of Navarre,” the king once said; “and he loves me, and I love him.” Their dress was of pale yellow satin, embroidered with silver, and adorned with pearls and precious stones. The other lords were richly dressed according to their fancy, and contemporaries speak with wonder of the costly ornaments they wore. Michieli, the Venetian embassador, says: “You would not believe there was any distress in the kingdom. The king’s toque, charger, and garments cost from five to six hundred thousand crowns. Anjou, among other jewels in his toque, had a set of thirty-two pearls bought for the occasion at the cost of 23,000 gold crowns of the sun. More than one hundred and twenty ladies dazzled the eyes with the brilliancy of their sumptuous silks, brocades, and velvets, thickly interwoven with gold or silver.” Margaret very complacently describes her own large blue mantle with its train four ells long. According to the custom observed on the marriage of a king’s daughter, the nuptial ceremony was to be performed in a pavilion constructed on the open space fronting the cathedral of Notre Dame. It was a beautiful summer day; cannons roared, the bells rang out cheerily from every steeple, and every roof, window, or spot of ground whence a view of the procession could be caught was densely crowded. But the spectators were not so joyous as they usually are when any great parade of state is to be exhibited. The marriage was not popular, and ominous murmurs against the heretics were heard from time to time. A raised covered platform led from the bishop’s palace to the pavilion, and along it marched bishops and archbishops leading the way in copes of cloth of gold. Then came the cardinals resplendent in scarlet, knights of St. Michael with their orders, followed by all the great officers of state, whose places and the interval between them were regulated by the strictest etiquette. Among these was Henry, Duke of Guise, then twenty-two years old, one of the handsomest men of the day. Countless fingers were pointed to him, and his reception, compared with that afterward given to the king, reminds us of that so inimitably described by our great dramatic poet:

When “the well grac’d actor left the stage,” men’s eyes would have “idly bent” upon the rest of the procession, but that it consisted of the fairest dames and damsels of the court, chief of whom was the bride herself, whose beauty deserved all the raptures that poets have lavished upon it. Ronsard calls her “the fair grace Pasithea,” and compares her hands to the “fingers of young Aurora, rose-dyed and steeped in dew.” At church her dazzling beauty disturbed the devotions of the worshipers. She had just completed her twentieth year: her complexion was clear, her hair black, her eyes full of fire, though at times remarkable for a dreamy languor, which gave her a voluptuous and tender look, as if to indicate a heart that was framed for love. All her movements were full of grace and majesty. She was unrivaled in the dance, and played on the lute and sang with exquisite taste. But there was a frightful reverse to this charming picture: she was untruthful, vain, extravagant, and hoped by her devotion to the forms of religion to atone for the errors of her daily life. In justice, however, to Margaret, let it be said that this last defect was not peculiar to herself or to the sixteenth century; nor dare we affirm that such compromises between God and the world were more common then than they are now.

Margaret’s dress on her wedding-day was long the talk of court gossips. In such matters her taste was peculiar and exquisite. Brilliants flamed like stars among her hair; her stomacher was sprinkled with pearls, so as to resemble a silvery coat of mail; her dress was of cloth of gold, and rare lace of the same precious metal fringed her handkerchief and gloves.

After the marriage ceremony had been performed in the pavilion,[553] Henry led his bride into the Church of Notre Dame to hear mass, and then withdrew with Condé, the admiral, and other lords, who passed the interval walking up and down the cathedral close. The historian De Thou, then a youth at college, was among the spectators of the ceremony. After the bridal train had left the church, he leaped over the barriers, and found himself close to the admiral, who was showing Damville the banners captured at Jarnac and Moncontour, which hung as trophies from the wall. “I heard him say,” continues De Thou: “Ere long these will be down, and others more agreeable to the eyes put up in their place.”

Henry conducted his wife to the bishop’s palace, where a magnificent dinner had been prepared for them; but there was no dancing: not that bishops had any objection to such amusements, but because there was no time, for a magnificent supper awaited all the wedding-party at the Louvre. The next three days were passed in festivities, balls and banquets, masques and tourneys, in which both Huguenots and Catholics took part. Old enmities seemed forgotten.[554] In all these amusements Henry of Navarre distinguished himself. He had a kind word for every body, was ready with jest and humor, charmed the ladies by his gallantry, which, though rather unpolished (for he had seen more of camps than of courts) was the more pleasing from its novelty. Charles grew fonder of him than ever, while his dislike for Anjou increased proportionately.

On the evening of Wednesday, the 20th August, a splendid masque was represented, in which some historians imagine that the coming tragedy was actually prefigured. In the great hall of the Hotel Bourbon, which adjoined the Louvre, the eternal struggle between good and evil was depicted in a very curious way. On the right was Paradise, defended by three armed knights (the king and his two brothers): on the left was Hell, and between them flowed the Styx, on which Charon plied his ferry-boat. Behind Paradise lay the Elysian fields and Heaven resplendent with glittering stars. A body of knights, armed cap-à-pie, and distinguished by various scarves and favors, attempted to make their way into Paradise, but they were all defeated and dragged into Hell, to the great exultation of the devil and his imps, who closed the doors upon them. And now Heaven opened, and there descended from it Mercury and Cupid. After a song to the three victorious knights, Mercury (who was Étienne le Roi, the first singer of the day) re-entered his car, which was borne by a cock that kept crowing lustily, and was taken back to Heaven. A ballet followed, then a tilting-match—the combatants, it is to be presumed, were on foot. The amusements were terminated by firing trains of gunpowder laid round a fountain in the centre of the hall. It is absurd to attach any importance to these allegorical representations, which were the fashion of the day, and were probably prepared by the court poet as a mere matter of business, and who certainly would not have been let into the secret—if there were any. But after the massacre the Catholics used to boast that the king had driven the Huguenots into hell. The next day, Thursday, other shows were exhibited, to the great disgust of the admiral, who wanted to leave Paris, which he could not do until he had transacted some very important business with the king, and Charles was so taken up with the wedding festivities, and entered into them so heartily, that he scarcely gave himself time for sleep, much less for business. “Give me three or four days more of relaxation,” he said, “and after that I promise you, on my royal word, that you shall be satisfied.” Still the admiral wanted to get away, and would probably have left, but for a deputation from the Huguenot churches, who prayed him to remain until their affairs were satisfactorily arranged. The admiral longed to be at home. On the wedding-day of the King of Navarre, he wrote to his wife the last letter she was ever to receive from him.