Cy-gist qui quitta Jésus-Christ
Pour un royaume par escript,[27]
Et sa femme très vertueuse
Pour une puante morveuse.”
So ran a Huguenot epitaph on the ill-fated Antoine. But her connexion with the King of Navarre did not prevent la belle Rouet from making an advantageous marriage with Robert de Gombault, Sieur d’Arcis-sur-l’Aube, maître d’hôtel to Charles IX., whom she presented with two daughters.
The events of the civil war had profoundly altered Catherine’s views in regard to the two parties which divided the kingdom. At the opening of hostilities, she had believed that the Huguenots possessed the better chance of success, and, though constrained to lend her name to the Catholic leaders, she was careful not to allow herself to be identified too closely with their objects. But, as time went on, it became evident that, although the Huguenots were undoubtedly formidable, they were very inferior in numbers, and that the mass of the people were faithful to the Old Religion. She was compelled, therefore, to recognize that she had been mistaken, and that it would be very inadvisable for her to alienate the Catholic party. On the other hand, it would be easy to seize the direction of that party, for the King of Navarre and François de Guise were dead, the sons of Guise mere boys, the Cardinal de Bourbon absolutely incapable, the Montmorencies divided among themselves, and the Cardinal de Lorraine, deprived of the support of his brother, as humble as he had once been arrogant. She, therefore, decided to place herself and her son at the head of the Catholics and to re-establish unity in the kingdom by the ruin of Protestantism. But she had no intention of resorting to force; “she wished to undermine the ramparts of Calvinism, not to carry them by assault;”[28] to take back little by little, by restrictive interpretations of the Edict of Amboise, the concessions granted the Reformers; to disarm and dissolve their religious and military associations; and to dishearten them by withholding the protection of the Law and assuring impunity to the violence of the Catholics. But, aware that her task would be immensely facilitated if she could begin by depriving them of their protectors in high places, she was determined to leave no means untried to seduce or discredit the Huguenot chiefs, and particularly Condé—the first Prince of the Blood, the link between the noble and democratic sections of the party, the man whom she half-suspected of aspiring to the throne.
From the time of the Peace of Amboise, it was easy for Catherine to perceive that Condé, who had just consented to such important modifications of the “Edict of January,” was unlikely henceforth to show himself a very zealous champion of Protestantism, and that a considerable section of the Huguenots was disposed to question the seriousness of his conversion and the sincerity of his devotion to their cause. She knew, too, that if, on the one hand, Condé aspired, as a Prince of the Blood, to play a prominent part in affairs of State, and was ambitious to secure the title of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, he would be, as a man, eager to compensate himself for the ennui of his recent captivity by a round of pleasure and dissipation.
At first, Catherine’s attitude towards Condé was everything that he could possibly desire; she overwhelmed him with attentions; consulted him constantly on public affairs, and showed for his opinion a deference which delighted him. But all this was merely intended to put him off his guard and foster the pleasing illusions which he had entertained since the conference on the Île-aux-Bœufs. For, so far from having any intention of sharing the direction of affairs with the prince, she had determined to detach him from his alliances with the foreign Protestants, compromise him with his own party, and reduce him to political impotence. And, to accomplish this she proposed to deal with him as she had dealt with his unfortunate brother, the King of Navarre, by encouraging his taste for those sensual pleasures which the most dissolute Court in Europe offered so many opportunities of gratifying.
To dominate Condé, Catherine had in reserve an auxiliary not less redoubtable than la belle Rouet. It was Isabelle de Limeuil, one of the two maids-of-honour whom she had brought to the Île-aux-Bœufs, and who had already made a very favourable impression upon the inflammable prince.