e was not yet complete.
Submitting to the open contempt in which he was held, he not only took
part in the solemn ceremony of the new king's anointing at Rheims,[766]
where his inferiors were preferred to him, but attended the meetings of
the royal council, where he was little wanted. At one of these sessions
a fresh indignity was put upon him. Alarmed by the rising murmurs
against the illegal rule of the Guises, Catharine had taken the first of
a series of disgraceful steps, by invoking the intervention of a foreign
prince in the affairs of France. She implored her royal son-in-law of
Spain to lend her his support against the King of Navarre and other
princes, who were desirous of "reducing her to the condition of a
chambermaid," and of disturbing an otherwise peaceful country. Philip
replied by an offer of his own assistance and of forty thousand men whom
he professed to hold in readiness for a campaign against the rebels that
meditated the overthrow of the French monarchy. The letter of his
Catholic Majesty was purposely read in full council, in the hearing of
Navarre. But, instead of arousing his indignation, it only excited new
fears for the safety of his wife's dominions, and made him more
submissively kiss the rod of iron with which the Guises ruled him.[767]
Soon afterward he returned to Bearn, whence he made, before the close of
the year, two ineffectual attempts to move the inflexible determination
of Philip. In October he sent to the court of Spain Pierre, the Bastard
of Navarre, who obtained the promise of an equivalent for Navarre, but
was unable to secure any decided answer to his request for the island of
Sardinia. But when, in December, Antoine despatched a second messenger,
at the suggestion of the Duke of Albuquerque, to solicit permission for
himself and Queen Jeanne to visit the King of Spain and "kiss his
[Philip's] hand," with the view of obtaining such "an indemnity for his
kingdom as some secret injunction of the emperor [Charles the Fifth],
toward the end of his days, or his own conscience" might have suggested,
the unfortunate prince discovered in how base and humiliating a manner
he had been duped. It was not worth his while--such was the rude
reply--for Antoine to expose his wife and himself to the fatigue of so
long a journey, since no other answer could be given him than that which
had been given to his predecessors, and to himself on the occasion of
the late treaty of peace.[768] Was it with