d and mould, re-melt and model you,
Sire, you are nothing--nothing else than wax."

It is impossible to regard as sincere the signs of grief and the
ostentation of mourning which Catherine showed on the death of Henri II.
The fact that the king was attached by an unalterable passion to Diane
de Poitiers naturally made Catherine play the part of a neglected wife
who adores her husband; but, like all women who act by their head, she
persisted in this dissimulation and never ceased to speak tenderly of
Henri II. In like manner Diane, as we know, wore mourning all her life
for her husband the Senechal de Breze. Her colors were black and white,
and the king was wearing them at the tournament when he was killed.
Catherine, no doubt in imitation of her rival, wore mourning for Henri
II. for the rest of her life. She showed a consummate perfidy toward
Diane de Poitiers, to which historians have not given due attention. At
the king's death the Duchesse de Valentinois was completely disgraced
and shamefully abandoned by the Connetable, a man who was always below
his reputation. Diane offered her estate and chateau of Chenonceaux to
the queen. Catherine then said, in presence of witnesses:--

"I can never forget that she made the happiness of my dear Henri. I am
ashamed to accept her gift; I wish to give her a domain in place of it,
and I shall offer her that of Chaumont-sur-Loire."

Accordingly, the deed of exchange was signed at Blois in 1559. Diane,
whose sons-in-law were the Duc d'Aumale and the Duc de Bouillon (then a
sovereign prince), kept her wealth, and died in 1566 aged sixty-six.
She was therefore nineteen years older than Henri II. These dates, taken
from her epitaph which was copied from her tomb by the historian who
concerned himself so much about her at the close of the last century,
clear up quite a number of historical difficulties. Some historians have
declared she was forty, others that she was sixteen at the time of
her father's condemnation in 1523; in point of fact she was then
twenty-four. After reading everything for and against her conduct
towards Francois I. we are unable to affirm or to deny anything. This is
one of the passages of history that will ever remain obscure. We may
see by what happens in our own day how history is falsified at the very
moment when events happen.

Catherine, who had founded great hopes on the age of her rival, tried
more than once to overthrow her. It was a dumb, underhan