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bugbear-an obsession at the time to all, even the unimportant ones. The Italians were considered special adepts in toxicology-supposed perhaps to possess the secret of the Borgias-though suspicion was was not confined to them. Almost everyone was subject to, or object of, suspicion, in varying degree. Meals were supplied in locked cabinets from some trusted hand. From this arose the Droit de Cadenas, an honour which was abolished under Louis XIV.

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That Henry possessed a certain respect for his lawful wife, notwithstanding his guilty liaisons, admits of little doubt. His negotiations called him to Germany in 1552, and it was necessary to leave a regent in France during his absence. There were numerous aspirants for the honour, but this bold bad man' exhibited a dash of independence by appointing the Queen and snubbing the minions. Guise was crestfallen, and the Duchess of Valentinois, whose audacity was without limit, vegetated in humility. It was Catherine's first small triumph, her first taste of power after nearly twenty years of patience under the yoke. Henry, on the whole, was a milder type of reprobate than his father; his deviation from rectitude entailed fewer sufferers, of whom his wife was the chief one; but his standard of morality was low even for this immoral age. Diana was not the only object of his illicit attentions. Miss Fleming, an Englishwoman, to mention one of the others, was mother of his illegitimate son who became Grand Prieur de France.

Though given occasion for moral lapse, and beset with temptation to retaliate on her faithless husband, the Queen's chastity was scarcely ever impugned, even in this hostile atmosphere. Her relations to the young Vidame de Chartres of the House of Bourbon gave rise to certain insinuations by the more daring of her enemies.

All seems infected that th' infected spy

As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

In the light of clear judgment these accusations melt into nothingness. The Vidame's rejection of Diana's wealthy daughter, with whom a marriage was proposed for him, aroused Catherine's admiration and sympathy, but the friendship was unquestionably a pure one. 'We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.' This scion of Bourbon was the secret envoy who carried Catherine's message to Conde, proposing an alliance with the Huguenots when the power of Guise seemed too

dangerous. She was forced to sign the detected Vidame's committal for conspiracy to the Bastille, where he died a few months after incarceration. It seems a treacherous proceeding to condemn a faithful servitor for an act to which she herself incited him; but her refusal to do so would have meant the triumph of Guise, in whom she saw the greatest enemy of the crown, and the crown she meant to save for her sons, à tout prix. For Guise, it appears, the struggle of the Reformation had one clear personal issuethe seizure of the throne. His concern for this is demonstrated in many ways. When the court was at Blois he found means to lodge in the Chateau, although he had a special residence in the town. Even brief absence in the immediate vicinity might have been deleterious to his plans.

Catherine was mother of three kings of France, in whose rule her part is to be further considered; but in dealing with her husband's reign and his demise it is fitting to give her a little attention. Her infinite variety baffled the critics. Here set before the open mind, if so be they meet the eye of an unbiassed reader, are a few pithy references to her character by some well-known critics from divergent standpoints. The average mind, basing its estimate on these references alone, taken one with another, is pretty certain to remain still open. They are all given to extremity, but their extremes do not meet.

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De Thou, writing after her death, said: "Ce n'est pas une reine, c'est la royauté qui vient de mourir '; Correr: ‘C'est elle qui a conservé dans la cour ce reste de majesté royale qui s'y trouve encore'; Balzac : Tout s'explique a la gloire de cette femme extraordinaire, qui n'eut aucune des faiblesses de son sexe'; Larousse: Sans scrupule et sans veritable hauteur de vues'; Tenhove: Si, comme les poetes l'ont dit, l'ancienne Hecube, avant de mettre Paris au monde, était troublée par des songes effrayans, quels noirs fantômes devaient agiter les nuits de Magdeleine de la Tour, enciente de Catherine de Medicis?'

As a representative specimen of British writing on the subject, we may quote from Chambers' Encyclopedia, as follows: 'She disliked the Protestants chiefly because their principles were opposed to the absolute despotism which she desired to maintain.' Also: 'It was very generally believed that she was privy to the machinations which led to his death.' The death referred to was that of her son, the Duke of Alencon.

Critics are impelled to extremity in high places, their bias or prejudice being sometimes explicable and sometimes not. To observations which ourselves we make,

We grow more partial for th' observer's sake.

Fallacy is common to all biography, and the cold light of reason must be made to illuminate facts rather than presumptions to minimize it. Circumstance leads easily to assumption, assumption leads easily to accretion, with conclusion crystallizing out in the cracked beaker of coincidence. In tracing effect to cause, if events evoke interest which is not solely an impassioned desire for truth, we have a nidus for the nurturing of error. Contemporary observers could not well steer clear of concern in sixteenthcentury events; and subsequent writers who deal with them exhibit scotched analysis when the probing for truth jars upon susceptible sense organs. A writer may find a long series of facts which fit together with nicety and precision in the construction of character, but, near the completion of the edifice, he unearths one of different type, which, if placed in its natural form with the others, would spoil the appearance of the structure. Conscience in such a situation orders demolition, partial or complete, of the work; but elasticity is an attribute of conscience; the heterogeneous element is often eschewed, or it is so trimmed and modified as to appear in the whole without asymmetry. But truth is truth to the end of reckoning.' To ignore the fact is more usual amongst romance writers, whom we cannot regard as negligible in the framing of opinion; while accredited historians- all the learned and authentic fellows'-adopt the moulding or paring process, to rob it of its significance.

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A romance of the time of Henry III of France, from the pen of a neurotic, recently came under the notice of the present writer. Plagiarism was more than suspected: it smelt strongly of Stanley Weyman's A Gentleman of France, of which it had all the faults and none of the virtues. In it Catherine de Medicis appeared a ridiculous, clumsy intriguante in a contrast with Henry IV, 'the little turn-coat of Navarre,' who was girt with a halo of glory and credited with all the greatest attributes of head and heart. Hurriedly purchased for sevenpence to beguile the tedium of a railway journey it occasioned as much regret as a more serious monetary loss.

A true estimate of this queen's character cannot be arrived at, and to get an approximately true one analysis

of action must be carefully attuned to circumstances. There was great scope for wrong-doing, and wrong-doing, as it is understood, was admittedly part of her programme. Nor shall we excuse it altogether on the ground of expedi ency. Not merely the sight of means to do ill-deeds but the apparent necessity for them often made ill-deeds done. The necessity was sometimes more apparent than the means. Acts that seem reprehensible crimes have to be carefully examined in a setting of contemporary habit. Human life and human suffering were thought less of in the sixteenth century than they are to-day. Protection by the State was of a different order. Murder and torture, official and unofficial, were part of the day's work. They bred hard natures, whose code in the game of self-defence or self-advancement embraced strong measures and swift reprisals. Accusers and traducers were themselves sinners, but could not resist throwing stones. They

Compound for sins they are inclined to

By damning those they have no mind to.

Most of the stone-throwers in Catherine's case were religious or political opponents. She stood, with never a change of front from first to last, for the Catholic religion Her political flirtations with Calvinists had no more significance than those of the Popes with the Lutherans. Catholicism seemed a necessary appendage of the crown, it is true-for her, Reformation meant Revolution-une foi, une loi, un roi. In this stand she approved of the discreditable methods adopted by the exponents of that religion. She accepted the rack, the test of prayer before images, the slaughter and incendiarism as essentials in its defence. Why were they considered essential? Hear Calvin early in his campaign: 'Si l'on instruit sans intimider c'est un appel au desordre et au relachement.' Catholic worship was a capital crime in Geneva. The cries of Servetus at the stake were music in Calvin's ears; but the effect was different on his opponents, who decided to wash out this individual death by the blood of thousands. How many German deaths would satisfy the British to-day for the single death of Captain Fryatt? How have the Allies taken the barbarous and revolting adoption by the Germans of poisonous gas? Why, by employing a more virulent and toxic form themselves!

Apart from religious fanaticism there were always the clear issues, monarchy and overthrow. The former may be considered from the abstract or concrete (Valois) point

of view; the latter as of the revolutionary or purely Guise form. Power was for the time invested in Valois and was legitimate as was that of Louis XVI in the eighteenth century. Abuse of power has not the same aspect for the abuser and the victim of it. Power defends itself-by augmented abuse, if necessary-against all subverting agency. In the struggle, where 'fair is foul and foul is fair,' one side or other is uppermost, and history invariably shows abuse on that side, whichever it be. The extreme case of the Jacobins will illustrate the point politically. Robespierre-the most virulent unit of a party which approved his actions-abused power. Calvin and Knox, from the side of reform, and the requisition from the opposite side, demonstrated the evils begotten of power with a religious aspect. The Calvinist shibboleths of tolerance and freedom make a sorry jest-of the Kultur form-when viewed in the light of the monastic discipline inflicted on all homelife in Geneva by the 'system.'

The writer was in Geneva some years ago at the celebrations of the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of its University. A Calvin in effigy, of enormous proportions, stood on a raft on the lake, illuminated by search-light. It was an awesome spectacle, but many appreciated the fact that it was in effigy twentiethcentury freedom to follow one's bent in the home compared favourably with the 'issues' at 'stake' for such liberty in the sixteenth.

Catherine was a a woman of many parts, a versatile politician, with many faults, and at least some virtues.

Virtuous and vicious every man must be-
Few in the extreme, but all in the degree.

She held strong views as to her rights, and in defence of them she adopted the methods in vogue. A judicious combination of the fortiter in re and the suaviter in modo enabled her to circumvent all her political enemies, though she failed against the great enemy of her domestic happiness. Had she been endowed with a little more freedom of action in the years preceding the religious crisis she might have demonstrated the sweet uses of diplomacy and averted part of the catastrophe; but the mine was charged with the fuse alight in '59, and it was sauve qui peut. She was an enigma, as yet unsolved, one that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she's dead.'

D. T. BARRY.

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