con, whose intention it was to establish Calvinism as the religion
of France. Calvin, as we have already said, had obtained, a few days
before his death, the reward he had so deeply coveted,--the Reformation
was now called Calvinism in his honor.

If Le Laboureur and other sensible writers had not already proved that
La Mole and Coconnas,--arrested fifty nights after the day on which our
present history begins, and beheaded the following April,--even, we
say, if it had not been made historically clear that these men were the
victims of the queen-mother's policy, the part which Cosmo Ruggiero took
in this affair would go far to show that she secretly directed their
enterprise. Ruggiero, against whom the king had suspicions, and for whom
he cherished a hatred the motives of which we are about to explain, was
included in the prosecution. He admitted having given to La Mole a wax
figure representing the king, which was pierced through the heart by two
needles. This method of casting spells constituted a crime, which, in
those days, was punished by death. It presents one of the most startling
and infernal images of hatred that humanity could invent; it pictures
admirably the magnetic and terrible working in the occult world of a
constant malevolent desire surrounding the person doomed to death; the
effects of which on the person are exhibited by the figure of wax. The
law in those days thought, and thought justly, that a desire to which an
actual form was given should be regarded as a crime of _lese majeste_.
Charles IX. demanded the death of Ruggiero; Catherine, more powerful
than her son, obtained from the Parliament, through the young
counsellor, Lecamus, a commutation of the sentence, and Cosmo was sent
to the galleys. The following year, on the death of the king, he was
pardoned by a decree of Henri III., who restored his pension, and
received him at court.

But, to return now to the moment of which we are writing, Catherine had,
by this time, struck so many blows on the heart of her son that he was
eagerly desirous of casting off her yoke. During the absence of Marie
Touchet, Charles IX., deprived of his usual occupation, had taken to
observing everything about him. He cleverly set traps for the persons in
whom he trusted most, in order to test their fidelity. He spied on
his mother's actions, concealing from her all knowledge of his own,
employing for this deception the evil qualities she had fostered in him.
Consume