About the beginning of September, 1571, Charles and his court repaired to Blois, on the banks of the Loire.[842] The avowed object of the movement was to meet Coligny and the Protestant princes. "There are many practices (intrigues) to overthrow this journey," wrote Walsingham, about the middle of the preceding month, "but the king sheweth himself to be very resolute. I am most constantly assured that the king conceiveth of no subject that he hath, better than of the admiral, and great hope there is that the king will use him in matters of greatest trust; for of himself he beginneth to see the insufficiency of others—some, for that they are more addicted to others than to himself; others, for that they are more Spanish than French, or else given more to private pleasures than public. There is none of any account within this realm, whose as well imperfections as virtues, he knoweth not. Those that do love him, do lament that he is so much given to pleasure: they hope the admiral's access unto the court will yield some redress in that case. Queen mother, seeing her son so well affected towards him, laboreth by all means to cause him to think well of her. She seemeth much to further the meeting."[843]
His honorable reception.
Nothing could surpass the honorable reception of the admiral, when, on the twelfth of September, he arrived with a small retinue at court in the city of Blois. On first coming into the royal presence, he humbly kneeled, but Charles graciously lifted him up, and embraced him, calling him his father, and protesting that he regarded this as one of the happiest days of his life, since he saw the war ended and tranquillity confirmed by Coligny's return. "You are as welcome," said he, "as any gentleman that has visited my court in twenty years." And in the same interview, he expressed his joy in words upon which subsequent events placed a sinister construction, but which nevertheless appear to have been uttered in good faith: "At last we have you with us, and you will not leave us again whenever you wish."[844] Nor was Catharine behind her son in affability. She surprised the courtiers by honoring the Huguenot leader with a kiss. And even Anjou, who chanced to be indisposed, received him in his bedchamber with a show of friendliness. More substantial tokens of favor followed. The same person, who, as the principal general of the rebels, had been attainted of treason, his castle and possessions being confiscated or destroyed by decree of the first parliament of France, and a reward of fifty thousand gold crowns being set upon his head, now received from the king's private purse the unsolicited gift of one hundred thousand livres, to make good his losses during the war. Moreover, he was presented with the revenues of his lately deceased brother, the Cardinal Odet de Châtillon, for the space of one year, and was intrusted with the lucrative office of guardian of the house of Laval during the minority of its heir. Indeed, throughout his stay at Blois, which was protracted through several weeks, Coligny was the favored confidant of Charles, who sometimes even made him preside in the royal council.[845]
Moreover, it was doubtless at Coligny's suggestion that the king at this time wrote to the Duke of Savoy interceding for those Waldenses who in the recent wars had aided the French Protestants in arms, and who since their return to the ducal dominions had experienced severe persecution on that account. "I desire," he says in this letter, "to make a request of you, a request of no ordinary character, but as earnest as you could possibly receive from me—that, just as for the love of me you have treated your subjects in this matter with unusual rigor, so you would be pleased, for my sake, and by reason of my prayer and special recommendation, to receive them into your benign grace, and reinstate them in the possessions which have for this cause been confiscated." He added that he desired not only to exhibit to his Protestant subjects his intention to execute his edict, but to extend to their allies from abroad the same love and protection.[846]
Disgust of the Guises and of Alva.
These and other marks of honorable distinction shown to the acknowledged head of the Huguenots, must have been excessively distasteful both to the Guises and to the Spaniard. The former now retired from court, and left Charles completely in the hands of the Montmorencies and the admiral.[847] Earlier in the year, the Duke of Alva had met with a signal rebuff at the hands of the French, when, in return for the aid furnished to Charles by his Catholic Majesty during the late wars, he requested him to supply him with German reiters, to allow him to levy in France troops to serve against the Prince of Orange, and to detain the fleet which was said to be preparing for the prince at La Rochelle. The first two demands were peremptorily refused, while the ships, it was replied, were intended merely to make reprisals upon the Spaniards, who had taken some Protestant vessels, drowned a part of their crew in the ocean, and delivered others into the power of the Inquisition, and could not be interfered with.[848] The Spanish ambassador had borne with the offensiveness of this answer; but the favor with which the Huguenots were now received, and the openness with which the Flemish war was discussed, rendered his further stay impossible. It is true that the interviews of Louis of Nassau with the king were held with great secrecy, and that Charles even had the effrontery to deny that he had met the brother of Orange at all.[849] It was impossible to deny that Philip's subjects were despoiled by vessels which issued with impunity from La Rochelle. But, although the ambassador declared that these grievances must be redressed, or war would ensue, he was bluntly informed by Charles that "Philip might not look to give laws to France." Catharine partook of her son's indignation, the more so as she seems at this time to have shared in the current belief that her daughter Elizabeth had been poisoned by her royal husband.[850] At last, in November, the ambassador withdrew from court, without taking leave of the king, after having, in scarcely disguised contempt,[851] given away to the monks the silver plate which Charles had presented to him.
Charles gratified.
While the new policy of conciliation and toleration thus disgusted one, at least, of those foreign powers which had spurred on the government to engage in suicidal civil contests, it was at home producing the beneficent results hoped for by its authors. Charles himself appeared to be daily more convinced of its excellence. In a letter to President Du Ferrier, the French envoy at Constantinople, written during the admiral's stay at Blois, he exposed for the sultan's benefit the reasons for the mutation in his treatment of the Huguenots, and for the cordial reception he had given Coligny at his court. "You know," he said, "that this kingdom fell into discord and division, in which it still is involved. I forgot no prescription which I thought might cure it of this ulcerous wound; at one time trying mild remedies, at others applying the most caustic, without sparing my own person, or those whom nature made most dear to me.... But, having at length discovered that only time could alleviate the ill, and that those who were at the windows were very glad to see the game played at my expense,[852] I had recourse to my original plan, which was that of mildness; and by good advice I made my Edict of Pacification, which is the seal of public faith, under whose benign influence peace and quiet have been restored." And referring to Coligny's arrival, he added: "You know that experience is dearly bought and is worth much. I must therefore tell you that the chief result which I hoped from his coming begins already to develop, inasmuch as the greater part of my subjects, who lately lived in some distrust, have by this demonstration gained such assurance of my kindness and affection, that all partisan feeling and faction are visibly beginning to fade away."[853]