CHAPTER V.

FRANCIS II. 1559-1560.

So many celebrated persons begin now to be. closely connected with the history of Protestantism in France, that a slight description of some of them is required to render it intelligible and interesting.

The reigning monarch, Francis II., was the most insignificant of these. He was about sixteen at the time of his father's death, but the laws of France ended the minority of sovereigns in their fourteenth year. This unhappy youth possessed a cold heart, an infirm body, and a weak intellect. Though only sixteen when he ascended the throne, he had been previously married to the beautiful Mary Stuart, whose lamentable death, as queen of Scots, left a dark spot on the glories of our Elizabeth's reign.

Of a totally different character from the young reigning couple, was the king's mother, the terrible Catharine de' Medici, whose name posterity will probably never tire of recording, as one which sums up all that is contrary to that of woman, She was apparently totally

devoid of feminine feeling, and utterly divested of principle. In her breast the desire for power stifled every other; to gratify this ruling passion, every private affection and public duty was unscrupulously sacrificed.

Her whole life, from the time of her husband's death, was one contest for power, which she had not abilities sufficient to grasp at once, or which the superior power of opposing factions prevented her from retaining. Craft and deceit formed the basis of her policy.

She brought up her sons, who were more or less her victims, on the maxim of that extraordinary tyrant, Louis XI.: "He who knows not how to dissimulate, knows not how to reign;" but, added to this, was the still more forcibly "impressed maxim of entire subserviency to their mother.

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She was the friend or foe of the Protestants, just as it suited her own ends at one time, writing of them, or speaking to them, in terms which might appear dictated by all the sincerity of conviction; at another, pursuing them with a hatred which reached even beyond death. "When she called any one friend," says a witty historian, "it was a proof that she thought the person a fool, or was very angry, so that a gentleman used to say to her, 'Have the goodness, Madam, to call me enemy.'" She acted herself on the weak and wicked policy expressed in the saying, "Divide and govern." She fomented the divisions of the kingdom, and tried to prevent any party from

becoming too powerful, in order that her own authority might be paramount. More secret, if not darker crimes, are imputed to her than those which met the light of day. She is supposed to have practised those arts of poisoning for which her native land-Italy-was once celebrated. Yet her appearance was as deceitful as her nature. 'Her countenance-that usual index to the soul-was soft and mild. "She was fair and beautiful, of a majestic presence, gentle and sweet in manner, and of a most excellent grace." Her daughters were renowned as women of great beauty, and her hands, which were dyed in blood, were unusually well-formed.

As it often happens to crafty and deceitful people, however, Catharine's arts usually recoiled upon herself. Her life, on the whole, must have been as miserable as sin and foiled ambition could render it. During the reign of her husband, Henry II., whose accession to the throne she is said to have procured by poisoning his elder brother, she was subjected to the greatest trial and mortification a proud wife or queen could suffer. She saw her rights and influence usurped by a rival, who yet might not, perhaps, contend effectually for the palm of beauty with her, and who, though many years older than the king, maintained, from his youth, the most powerful ascendency over his feelings. The influence of Diana of Poitiers was retained until the death of Henry. The power which Catharine could not acquire by means of her

husband, she exerted over her sons. She inspired the three princes who successively filled the throne of France with an early awe of their imperious mother. The unhappy queen of Spain said once, that she always trembled when she received a letter from her mother, lest, though so far removed, and subject to other authority, she might unconsciously have given her cause of offence. All her children were thus trained up in habits of awe, deference, and submission to her dictates.

In the instance of Francis, the eldest, his mother's influence was lessened by his love for his fascinating and most unequally-matched wife, Mary of Scots, who engrossed the only attachment he had ever been known to feel.

Two other prominent persons have been already mentioned, but will henceforth come more constantly before us. These are, the celebrated duke of Guise, and his brother, the cardinal of Lorraine.

We need not speak here of the great military genius which made the renowned duke the idol of his country; we must regret that the humanity of disposition, and gentleness of manners, which added lustre to his foreign conquests, were so much laid aside during the political fury of the civil war, in which the Protestants and their interests were blended, and in which he was the almost invincible champion of the Roman Catholic party. His attachment to his religion, so far as it went, appears to have been sincere; but his hatred

of Protestantism was probably merely that of a worldly and ambitious man, who saw a powerful party arising in the kingdom, and even invading the state, threatening the ancient institutions on which his own interests were built up, and encroaching on the wealth and power of such families as his own. His brother, the cardinal, would share such sentiments, and instigate such resentments. Do we impute to this cardinal the narrow spirit of bigotry, or, in a churchman, the unholy one of ambition? It must appear to be chiefly the latter. The sacred name of religion has, from the oldest times, been often made " a cloke of malicious

ness.

To the bigotry and oppression of this cardinal, the chief part of the miseries of France during the civil war are attributed. Yet his character has been described by a Roman Catholic, though, it must be owned, most unbigoted writer, in the following terms :"Though he was hated by the Huguenots for his religion, yet was he esteemed a great hypocrite, using religion chiefly as a means of building up his greatness. In prosperity he was very insolent and proud, but in misfortune so mild and gracious, that one of the queen's young ladies, knowing that, when he was low in the world, he sought and courted every one, would say to him when he graciously addressed her, 'Tell us what has befallen you? certainly some misfortune has happened.'" The cardinal, however, was learned and eloquent;