History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 1

by Henry Martyn Baird

Alarm of the Guises.

Funeral obsequies of Francis II.

The altered posture of affairs was equally patent to the princes of late complete masters of the destinies of the country. In the first moments of their excessive terror, they are said to have shut themselves up in their palaces, and to have declined to leave this refuge until assured that no immediate violence was contemplated.[971] Even after the immediate danger had passed, however, they were too shrewd to pay to the remains of their nephew the tokens of respect exacted of the constable in behalf of Henry's corpse,[972] preferring to provide for their own safety and future influence by being present at the meeting of the States. The paltry convoy of Francis from Orleans to the royal vaults of St. Denis presented so unfavorable a contrast to the pompous ceremonial of his father's interment, that it was wittily said, "that the mortal enemy of the Huguenots had not been able to escape being himself buried like a Huguenot."[973] A bitter taunt aimed at the unfaithfulness and ingratitude of the Guises fell under their own eyes. A slip of paper was found pinned to the velvet funereal pall, on which were written—with allusion to that famous chamberlain of Charles the Seventh, who, seeing his master's body abandoned by the courtiers that had flocked to do obeisance to his son and successor, himself buried it with great pomp and at his own expense—the words: "Where is Messire Tanneguy du Chastel? But he was a Frenchman!"[974]

Navarre's opportunity.

His contemptible character.

Adroitness and success of Catharine.

Never had prince of the blood a finer opportunity for maintaining the right, while asserting his own just claims, than fell to the lot of Antoine of Navarre. The sceptre had passed from the grasp of a youth of uncertain majority to that of a boy who was incontestably a minor. Charles, the second son of Henry the Second, who now succeeded his older brother, was only ten years of age. It was beyond dispute that the regency belonged to Antoine as the first prince of the blood. Every sentiment of self-respect dictated that he should assume the high rank to which his birth entitled him,[975] and that, while exercising the power with which it was associated, in restraining or punishing the common enemies both of the public liberties and of the family of the Bourbons, he should protect the Huguenots, who looked up to him as their natural defender. But the King of Navarre had, unfortunately, entered into the humiliating compact with the queen mother, to which reference was made in the last chapter. From this agreement he now showed no disposition to withdraw. The utopian vision of a kingdom of Navarre, once more restored to its former dimensions, still flitted before his eyes, and he preferred the absolute sovereignty of this contracted territory to the influential but dangerous regency which his friends urged him to seize. Besides, he was sluggish, changeable, and altogether untrustworthy. "He is an exceedingly weak person"—suggetto debolissimo—said Suriano. "As to his judgment, I shall not stop to say that he wears rings on his fingers and pendants in his ears like a woman, although he has a gray beard and bears the burden of many years; and that in great matters he listens to the counsels of flatterers and vain men, of whom he has a thousand about him."[976] Liberal in promises, and exhibiting occasional sparks of courage, the fire of Antoine's resolution soon died out, and he earned the reputation of being no more formidable than the most treacherous of advocates. Sensual indulgence had sapped the very foundations of his character.[977] It is true that his friends, forgetting the disappointment engendered by his recent displays of timidity, reminded him again of the engagements into which he had entered, to interfere in defence of the oppressed, of his glorious opportunity, and of his accountability before the Divine Tribunal.[978] But their appeals accomplished little. Catharine was able to boast, in a letter to the French Ambassador at Madrid, just a fortnight after the death of Francis, that "she had great reason to be pleased" with Navarre's conduct, for "he had placed himself altogether in her hands, and had despoiled himself of all power and authority." "I dispose of him," she said, "just as I please."[979] And to her daughter, Queen Isabella of Spain, she wrote by the same courier: "He is so obedient; he has no authority save that which I permit him to exercise."[980] The apprehensions felt by Philip the Second regarding the exaltation of a heretic, in the person of his hated neighbor of Navarre, to the first place in the vicinage of the French throne, might well be quieted after such reassuring intelligence.

Financial embarrassment.

The religions situation.

Catharine's neutrality.