Volume I Part 44 (1/2)

[Footnote 732: ”O que si ce bon roy eusse vescu,” says Montluc, ”ou si ceste paix ne se fust faite, qu'il eust bien rembarre les Lutheriens en Allemagne.” Memoires, Pet.i.tot ed., ii. 483.]

[Footnote 733: Davila, Civil Wars of France, p. 6. Hist. du tumulte d'Amboise, Recueil des choses memorables, _in initio_; Mem. de Conde, i.

320.]

[Footnote 734: Yet Catharine herself, in a letter written in 1563 to her son Charles IX., just after he had declared himself to be of age, admits the full truth of her opponents' a.s.sertion, that Francis II. was a minor!--”que l'on cognoisse les desordres qui out este jusques icy _par la minorite du Roy vostre frere_, qui empeschoit que l'on ne pouvoit faire ce que l'on desiroit.” Avis donnez par Catherine de Medicis a Charles IX., pour la police de sa cour, etc., printed in Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, v. 245-254.]

[Footnote 735: ”Di natura benignissima, e cerca di gratificare ciascuno, e ma.s.sime gl' Italiani quanto piu gli e possibile, ed e tanto amato, non solamente da tutta la corte, ma da tutto il regno che e cosa incredibile.” Rel. del clar^mo Giovanni Soranzo, 1558, Relaz. Ven., ii. 429, 430.]

[Footnote 736: ”La Royne mere, ambitieuse et craintive.” Mem. de Tavannes, ii. 256.]

[Footnote 737: Relaz. di Giovanni Michiel (1561), Tommaseo, i. 426.]

[Footnote 738: La Planche, 204, 205: ”The d.u.c.h.esse of Valentinoys and d.u.c.h.es of Buillon are commaunded, that neither they nor any of theirs shall resort to the courte.... The yong Frenche Quene hath sent to the d.u.c.h.es of Valentinoys, to make accompt of the French King's cabenet and of all his jewels.” Throkmorton to Queen, July 13, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 158, 159.]

[Footnote 739: Regnier de la Planche, p. 203: ”Lequel (Henry) ... avoit entierement resolu, apres avoir acheve ces mariages, et renvoye les estrangers, de les decha.s.ser arriere de soy, comme une peste de son royaume.” So Hist. eccles., liv. iii. I can scarcely agree with De Thou (ii., 681, liv. xxiii.) in supposing Catharine deceived in the character of the Guises: ”Comme elle ne connoissoit pas encore le caractere de ces Princes, elle crut qu'ils se soumettroient en tout a ses volontes,” etc.

This statement does injustice to the perspicacity of Catharine, who for so many years had been quietly, but none the less carefully, studying these courtiers and all others that figured on the stage of French politics. La Planche, with his usual ac.u.men, makes much of the advantage which this circ.u.mstance conferred upon her (_ubi supra_): ”La royne mere, italienne, florentine, et de la race des Medicis, et qui plus est, ayant depuis vingt-deux ans [rather, for twenty-five years] eu tout loisir de considerer les humeurs et facons de toutes ces gens, regardoit ce jeu, et sceut si bien empoigner l'occasion, qu'elle gaigna finalement la partie.”]

[Footnote 740: For a full and not uninteresting account of the obsequies, see the pamphlet already referred to: ”Le Trespas et l'Ordre des obseques,” etc. Paris, 1559. Reprinted in Cimber et Danjou, iii.

307, etc.]

[Footnote 741: Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous Francois II., 206. ”The French King,” wrote Throkmorton to his royal mistress, ”alredy hathe geven him (the constable) to understande, that the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise shal manage his hole affairs.” Throkmorton to the Queen, July 18, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 166.]

[Footnote 742: ”Ut re vera sit conestabilis.” Beza to Bullinger, Sept.

12, 1559, _apud_ Baum, ii. App. 1. The _t.i.tle_ of constable was for life. Of the tenure of the office, the memoirs of Vieilleville make Henry II. say: ”Vous scavez que les estats de connestable, mareschaux et chancelliers de France sont totalement _collez et cousus_ a la teste de ceulx qui en sont honnorez, que l'on ne peut arracher l'un sans l'autre.” Mem., i. 207.]

[Footnote 743: Huguenot and papist agreed in this, if they could agree in nothing else. ”Guisiani fratres,” said Beza, ”ita inter se regnum sunt part.i.ti ut regi nihil praeter inane nomen sit relictum.” Beza, _ubi supra_. Cardinal Santa Croce used almost the same expression: ”Eo devenerat ut regi solum nomen reliquisse, alia omnia sibi sumsisse videretur.” Commentarii, v. 1440.]

[Footnote 744: The poor fellow's wit was recompensed with a public flogging. The incident is told in the recently published Journal d'un cure ligueur (Jehan de la Fosse), 37. It need scarcely be said that the _Crescent_ referred to Diana of Poitiers.]

[Footnote 745: ”Nam c.u.m ... regem de more salutatum venisset ...

Lotharingii suasu ne respicere hominem voluit.” Santa Croce, Comment., v. 1439.]

[Footnote 746: La Planche, 206.]

[Footnote 747: In a remark which he was accused of once making to Henry II., ”that he was surprised that the king had no child resembling him, save his illegitimate, but acknowledged daughter, Diana, married to the constable's son!” La Planche, 204, 207; De Thou, ii. 685.]

[Footnote 748: Blaise de Montluc, a trusty agent, kept Guise well posted respecting the King of Navarre's words and disposition. ”Encores que M.

le Connestable luy ayt escript plusieurs lettres, neantmoins il m'a toujours dict qu'il ne se fieroit jamais de luy, ayant bien cogneu que ce semblant d'amitie qu'il luy portoit n'estoit que pour l'attirer de son coste, affin de ruiner ses cousins,” etc. Instruction donnee par le seign. de Montluc a M. de la Tour, 22 juillet, 1559, Mem. de Conde, i.

307; Mem. de Guise, 450.]

[Footnote 749: The wealth and power of the Montmorency family were proverbial; their palaces were among the most magnificent in France. Of one of them the English amba.s.sadors wrote, four years earlier, a long description for the benefit of Queen Mary, beginning: ”We saw another house which the said constable had but lately built, called ecouen, which was praised for the fairest house in France.” The Journey of the Queen's Amba.s.sadors to Rome, Anno 1555 (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 63).]

[Footnote 750: See the _Livre des marchands_, Paris, 1565, ascribed to Louis Regnier de la Planche, the reputed author of the most authentic history of this reign (Ed. Pantheon litt., 429, 453, _et pa.s.sim_).]

[Footnote 751: De la Planche, 207.]

[Footnote 752: De la Planche, p. 208.]

[Footnote 753: Ibid., p. 205, 206; De Thou, ii. 683, whose account, as in so many other instances during this reign, is almost exclusively based upon the invaluable history of Regnier de la Planche.]