ke and the cardinal prepared, by a bold stroke, to
become masters of the administration, and made to Catharine such liberal
offers of power that she readily acquiesced in their plans.

Of their formidable rivals, the King of Navarre was at a distance, in
the south. The constable alone was dangerously near. But an immemorial
custom furnished a convenient excuse for setting him aside. The body of
the deceased monarch must lie in state for the forty days previous to
its interment, under protection of a guard of honor selected from among
his most trusty servants. Upon Montmorency, as grand master of the
palace, devolved the chief care of his late Majesty's remains.[740]
Delighted to have their principal rival so well occupied, the cardinal
and the duke hastened from the Tournelles to secure the person of the
living monarch.

[Sidenote: The Guises make themselves masters of the king.]

When the delegates of the parliaments of France came, a few days later,
to congratulate Francis on his accession, and inquired to whom they
should henceforth address themselves, the programme was already fully
arranged. The king had been well drilled in his little speech. He had,
he said, committed the direction of the state to the hands of his two
uncles, and desired the same obedience to be shown to them as to
himself.[741]

[Sidenote: The court fool's sensible remark.]

The Cardinal of Lorraine was intrusted with the civil administration and
the finances. His brother became head of the department of war, without
the title, but with the full powers, of constable.[742] Of royalty
little was left Francis but the empty name.[743] There was sober truth
lurking beneath the saucy remark of Brisquet, the court fool, who told
Francis that in the time of his Majesty's father he used to put up at
the "_Crescent_," but at present he lodged at the "_Three Kings_!"[744]

[Sidenote: Montmorency retires to his own estates,]

Montmorency did, indeed, attempt resistance to the assumption of
absolute authority which the Guises thus appropriated rather than
received from the young monarch. But he was equally unsuccessful in
influencing Francis and the queen mother. The former, when the constable
waited upon him in the Louvre, according to one story, scarcely deigned
to look at him;[745] but, according to a more trustworthy account,
received him with a show of cordiality, and assured him that he would
maintain his sons and his nephews, the Chatillons, in