Mem. de Guise, 450.]

[Footnote 749: The wealth and power of the Montmorency family were
proverbial; their palaces were among the most magnificent in France. Of
one of them the English ambassadors wrote, four years earlier, a long
description for the benefit of Queen Mary, beginning: "We saw another
house which the said constable had but lately built, called Ecouen,
which was praised for the fairest house in France." The Journey of the
Queen's Ambassadors to Rome, Anno 1555 (Hardwick, State Papers, i. 63).]

[Footnote 750: See the _Livre des marchands_, Paris, 1565, ascribed to
Louis Regnier de la Planche, the reputed author of the most authentic
history of this reign (Ed. Pantheon litt., 429, 453, _et passim_).]

[Footnote 751: De la Planche, 207.]

[Footnote 752: De la Planche, p. 208.]

[Footnote 753: Ibid., p. 205, 206; De Thou, ii. 683, whose account, as
in so many other instances during this reign, is almost exclusively
based upon the invaluable history of Regnier de la Planche.]

[Footnote 754: La Planche, p. 208; Tumulte d'Amboise, _ubi supra_;
Languet, Epist. secretae, ii. p. 2.]

[Footnote 755: La Planche, p. 212; La Place, 26; De Thou, ii. 684.]

[Footnote 756: "Rex Navarrorum animum in corpore virili gerit
muliebrem." J. C. Portanus, Oct. 30, 1559, Languet, Epist. secretae, ii.
4.]

[Footnote 757: The Bishop of Mende was to become a member of the privy
council; D'Escars to be made a knight of the order of St. Michael, and
to command fifty men-at-arms. La Planche, 213.]

[Footnote 758: The Guises did not fail, however, to take precautions
against a surprise. If Throkmorton was well informed, the duke had
"caused two thousand corselets to be laid up in the house of Burbone
(Bourbon), nere to the court, to serve in case of innovacion; if that
any such matter shuld happen upon the arrivall of the King of Navarre."
Desp. of Aug. 8, 1559, Forbes, State Papers, i. 194.]

[Footnote 759: La Planche, _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 760: Idem, 213, 214.]

[Footnote 761: Throkmorton to the queen, Aug. 15, 1559, Forbes, i. 202.]

[Footnote 762: "Qu'il n'est point petit compagnon en France."]

[Footnote 763: Instruction of Montluc to La Tour, already cited, Mem. de
Guise, 450.]

[Footnote 764: Antoine did, indeed, continue his protestations of his
firm intention "not to fail to do the best he could to advance God's
true religion and cause." He made secret appointments with the English
ambassador, at one time