tself, signed by Salmon Macrin, first valet-de-chambre to
the king. Only one passage is quotable from these epigrams, which are
entitled: IN PICTAVIAM, ANAM AULIGAM.

"A painted trap catches no game," says the poet, after telling Diane
that she painted her face and bought her teeth and hair. "You may buy
all that superficially makes a woman, but you can't buy that your lover
wants; for he wants life, and you are dead."

This collection, printed by Simon de Colines, is dedicated to a
bishop!--to Francois Bohier, the brother of the man who, to save
his credit at court and redeem his offence, offered to Diane, on the
accession of Henri II., the chateau de Chenonceaux, built by his father,
Thomas Bohier, a councillor of state under four kings: Louis XI.,
Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francois I. What were the pamphlets
published against Madame de Pompadour and against Marie-Antoinette
compared to these verses, which might have been written by Martial?
Voute must have made a bad end. The estate and chateau cost Diane
nothing more than the forgiveness enjoined by the gospel. After all,
the penalties inflicted on the press, though not decreed by juries, were
somewhat more severe than those of to-day.

The queens of France, on becoming widows, were required to remain in the
king's chamber forty days without other light than that of wax tapers;
they did not leave the room until after the burial of the king. This
inviolable custom was a great annoyance to Catherine, who feared
cabals; and, by chance, she found a means to evade it, thus: Cardinal
de Lorraine, leaving, very early in the morning, the house of the _belle
Romaine_, a celebrated courtesan of the period, who lived in the rue
Culture-Sainte-Catherine, was set upon and maltreated by a party of
libertines. "On which his holiness, being much astonished" (says Henri
Estienne), "gave out that the heretics were preparing ambushes against
him." The court at once removed from Paris to Saint-Germain, and the
queen-mother, declaring that she would not abandon the king her son,
went with him.

The accession of Francois II., the period at which Catherine confidently
believed she could get possession of the regal power, was a moment of
cruel disappointment, after the twenty-six years of misery she had lived
through at the court of France. The Guises laid hands on power with
incredible audacity. The Duc de Guise was placed in command of the army;
the Connetable was dismissed; the