Henry M. Baird · 287 of 379

CHAPTER XI · Marshal Montmorency remonstrates.

On one occasion the constable was himself induced to attend the service in the castle at which Bishop Montluc preached; but he came out highly displeased at the doctrines he had heard, and more convinced than ever that there was a secret compact between Catharine de' Medici and the King of Navarre to change the religion of the country. The next day a number of high nobles, in part ancient enemies—Montmorency, Guise, Montpensier, St. André—met in the obscure chapel of the "basse-court," where a Dominican monk held forth to the common retainers of the royal court. The constable's eldest son, the upright but sluggish Marshal de Montmorency, himself having a secret leaning for the reformed doctrines, was alarmed by this threatening demonstration, and immediately sought, in a private interview with his father, to deter him from entering the arena as the ally of his former antagonists and the opponent of his own nephews, Coligny and D'Andelot. Better, he urged, to be umpire than participant in so ungrateful a contest. The Châtillons, of whom Anne had said that, if they were as good Christians in deed as they were in profession, they would exercise forgiveness toward the Guises, themselves came to see their offended uncle, and protested that they wished the cardinal and his brothers no evil, but desired merely to remove their ability to do them further damage. Neither his son nor his nephews made any impression on the obstinate disposition of the constable. He had caught at the bait by which skilful anglers allured him. He fancied himself the chosen champion of the church of his fathers, now assaulted by redoubtable enemies. What a glorious prospect lay before him if he succeeded! What a halo would surround his name, if the splendor of the military achievements of his youth should be thrown into the shade by the superior glory of having, in his old age, rescued the most Christian nation of the world from the inroads of heresy! To every argument he could only be brought to repeat the trite sophism, "that a change of religion could not be effected without a revolution in the state," and that, though he had no fear of being compelled to restore the gifts he had received from the late monarchs, he would not suffer their actions to be questioned or their honor impeached.