was, if it be not more.... Of the
younger sort of those that are at the court already, these seem to be
the chief favorites: _Andelot_, younger brother to Chatillon, and his
brother, the _Cardinal of Chatillon_; the Duke of Guise's sons, in a
manner all, but especially these: _Monsieur d'Aumale_ [Francis, later
Duke of Guise], the _Bishop of Rheims_ [Cardinal Charles of Lorraine],
and the _Bishop of Troyes_, who, as I hear say, are all three of the
council. Monsieur d'Aumale is in very great favour ... but in greatest
estimation and favour of all, as it appeareth hitherto, either of them
of the older sort or of the younger sort, seemeth to be the said Bishop
of Rheims, who had the chief ordering of the king's house, he being
Dolphin; whom I could wish to be of as good judgment in matters of
religion as I take the Cardinal du Bellay to be, but I hear he is not
so, but _very earnest in upholding the Romish blindness_.... Of the
dames, Madame la Grande Senechale seemeth to be highly esteemed."[524]

To gain a clear view of the various influences--at one time neutralizing
each other, and thus tending to the protection of the reformed
doctrines and their professors, but much more frequently acting in
concert, and tending to the suppression of those doctrines--it is
necessary that we examine in some detail the position of Diana, of the
Constable, and of the Guises.

[Sidenote: Diana of Poitiers.]

[Sidenote: The king's infatuation.]

Diana of Poitiers, daughter of Monsieur de St. Vallier, and widow of De
Breze, Grand Seneschal of Normandy, had in her youth been celebrated for
her beauty, by which she had first captivated Francis the First, and
afterward made Henry forget the claims of his Florentine bride upon his
affections. But she was now a matron of forty-seven years of age, and
the public wondered as they saw the undiminished devotion of the new
monarch to a woman nearly a score of years older than himself. It is
true that the courtier's pen of Brantome ascribes to her all the
freshness of youth even at the close of the reign of Henry the Second.
His eulogium, however, is scarcely more worthy of credit than Homer's
praise of the undiminished personal beauty of Helen, when, twenty years
subsequently to the departure of the expedition to Troy, the Ithacan
prince found her reigning again at Sparta. But of the influence which
Diana possessed over Henry there could be no doubt. By the vulgar it was
attributed to the use