d vied with
each other in the exchange of courtly greetings and polished
flatteries. Catharine and Charles IX. lavished, with the utmost
profusion, their commendations and attentions upon the young Prince of
Navarre, and left no arts of dissimulation unessayed which might
disarm the fears and win the confidence of their victims.

The queen mother, with caressing fondness, declared that Henry must be
her son. She would confer upon him Marguerite, her youngest daughter.
This princess had now become a young lady, beautiful in the extreme,
and highly accomplished in all those graces which can kindle the fires
and feed the flames of passion; but she was also as devoid of
principle as any male libertine who contaminated by his presence a
court whose very atmosphere was corruption. Many persons of royal
blood had most earnestly sought the hand of this princess, for an
alliance with the royal family of France was an honor which the
proudest sovereigns might covet. Such a connection, in its political
aspects, was every thing Henry could desire. It would vastly augment
the consideration and the power of the young prince, and would bring
him a long step nearer to the throne of France. The Protestants were
all intensely interested in this match, as it would invest one,
destined soon to become their most prominent leader, with new ability
to defend their rights and to advocate their cause. It is a singular
illustration of the hopeless corruption of the times, that the
notorious profligacy of Marguerite seems to have been considered, even
by Henry himself, as no obstacle to the union.

A royal marriage is ordinarily but a matter of state policy. Upon the
cold and icy eminence of kingly life the flowers of sympathy and
affection rarely bloom. Henry, without hesitation, acquiesced in the
expediency of this nuptial alliance. He regarded it as manifestly a
very politic partnership, and did not concern himself in the least
about the agreeable or disagreeable qualities of his contemplated
spouse. He had no idea of making her his companion, much less his
friend. She was to be merely his _wife_.

Jeanne d'Albret, however, a woman of sincere piety, and in whose bosom
all noble thoughts were nurtured, cherished many misgivings. Her
Protestant principles caused her to shrink from the espousals of her
son with a Roman Catholic. Her religious scruples, and the spotless
purity of her character, aroused the most lively emotions of
repugnance in