Henry M. Baird · 178 of 379

CHAPTER IX · She gives them encouragement.

In this emergency the Protestants had recourse to the queen mother. Afraid to trust herself entirely to the Guises, the crafty Italian had, from the very commencement of the reign, sought to leave open a retreat in case a change should become necessary. And, in truth, jealousy of the cardinal and his brother, who seemed disposed to keep all the power in their own hands, while giving Catharine only a semblance of authority, was combined in her mind with hatred of Mary of Scots, their niece, whose influence was as powerful with her son and as adverse to herself as that of Diana of Poitiers had been with her husband. Scarcely had the reformers perceived, by the zeal with which Du Bourg's trial was pressed, that the death of Henry had not bettered their condition, when they implored the Prince of Condé, his mother-in-law, Madame de Roye, and Admiral Coligny, to intercede in their behalf with Catharine. At the suggestion of the latter, they even addressed her a letter, in which they informed her of the great hopes they had in the preceding reign founded upon her kind and gentle disposition, and the prayers they had offered to God that she might prove a second Esther. They entreated her to prevent the new reign from being defiled with innocent blood, and to avert the anger of Heaven, which could only be appeased by putting an end to persecution. The crafty queen, desirous of retaining an influence that might one day be of great service, and solicitous, at any rate, of obtaining their confidence, at first assumed an offended tone. "With what am I menaced?" she said. "For what greater evil could God do me than He has done, removing him whom I loved and prized the most?" But presently becoming more gracious, she promised the noble suppliants to cause the persecution to cease, if the Protestants would intermit their conventicles and live quietly and without scandal. A private letter of remonstrance, written by a gentleman formerly in the service of Queen Margaret of Navarre, is said to have had some weight in extorting this pledge. He reminded her that her present evil advisers were the same persons who had, in the first years of her married life, been advocates of her repudiation; that then in her affliction she had recourse to God, whose word she had read, choosing as her favorite psalm the 141st, albeit not of Marot's translating. Her prayers had been answered in the birth of her children. But the cardinal had banished the psalm-book from the palace, and introduced the immodest songs of Horace and other lewd poets; and from that time there had come upon her a succession of misfortunes. Finally, he begged her to drive away the usurpers of the place that rightfully belonged to the princes of royal blood, and to bring up her children after the example of good king Josiah.