or stating the nature of
Catharine was.[736] In her, however, dissimulation was a well-known
family trait, which she possessed in common with her kinsman, Pope Leo
the Tenth, and all her house.[737] And it must be admitted that the
idiosyncrasy had had a fair chance to develop during the five-and-twenty
years she had spent in France, threatened with repudiation, contemned as
an Italian upstart, suffering the gravest insult at the hands of her
husband, but forced to dissemble, and to hide the pain his neglect gave
her from the eyes of the curious world. Nor was her position altogether
an easy one even now. It is true that her womanly revenge was gratified
by the instant dismissal of the Duchess of Valentinois, who, if she
retained the greater part of her ill-gotten wealth, owed it to the joint
influence of Lorraine and Guise, whose younger brother, the Duke of
Aumale, had married Diana's daughter.[738] But her ambitious plan, while
securing the authority of her children, to rule herself, was likely to
be frustrated by the pretensions of the two families of Montmoreney and
Guise, raised by the late monarch to inordinate power in the state, and
by the claim to the regency which Antoine of Bourbon-Vendome, King of
Navarre, might justly assert. To establish herself in opposition to all
these, her sagacity taught her was impossible. To prevail by allying
herself to the most powerful and those from whom she could extort the
best terms seemed to be the most politic course. Her choice was quickly
made. It was unfortunate for France that her prudence partook more of
the character of low cunning than of true wisdom, and that, in seeking
a temporary ascendancy, she neglected the true interests of her own
children and of the kingdom they inherited.

[Sidenote: Her alliance with the Guises.]

In order to prevent the convocation of the States and the appointment of
the King of Navarre as regent, but one course appeared to be open to
Catharine: she must throw herself into the arms of the Guises. Only thus
could she become free from the odious dictation of the constable, under
which she had groaned during her husband's reign. The Guises had had a
narrow escape, it was said; for Henry the Second, having tardily
discovered the insatiable ambition of the Lorraine family, had
definitely made up his mind to banish them from court.[739] Now availing
themselves of the great influence of their niece, Mary Stuart, over her
royal husband, the du