st, of necessity, be
either spiritual or temporal. If spiritual, they would be opposed to the
rights of God; if temporal, to the rights of the king. Better to reign
over a ruined land, which yet remains true to its God and its king, than
over one left unharmed for the benefit of the Devil and his followers
the heretics."[1032] In this declaration, breathing the full spirit of
religious and political absolutism, may be found the true key to the
policy of Alva and of his master.

Philip heartily approved of the views taken by his general.[1033] As the
great champion of Catholicism, he looked with the deepest interest on
the religious struggle going forward in the neighboring kingdom, which
exercised so direct an influence on the revolutionary movements in the
Netherlands. He strongly encouraged the queen-mother to yield nothing to
the heretics. "With his own person," he declared, "and with all that he
possessed, he was ready to serve the French crown in its contests with
the rebels."[1034] Philip's zeal in the cause was so well understood in
France, that some of the Catholic leaders did not scruple to look to
him, rather than to their own government, as the true head of their
party.[1035]

Catherine de Medicis did not discover the same uncompromising spirit,
and had before this disgusted her royal son-in-law by the politic views
which mingled with her religion. On the present occasion she did not
profit by the brilliant offer made to her by Alva to come in person at
the head of his army. She may have thought so formidable a presence
might endanger the independence of the government. Roman Catholic as she
was at heart, she preferred, with true Italian policy, balancing the
rival factions against each other, to exterminating either of them
altogether. The duke saw that Catherine was not disposed to strike at
the root of the evil, and that the advantages to be secured by success
would be only temporary. He contented himself, therefore, with
despatching a smaller force, chiefly of Flemish troops, under Aremberg.
Before the count reached Paris, the battle of St. Denis had been fought.
Montmorenci fell; but the royal party was victorious. Catherine made a
treaty with the discomfited Huguenots, as favorable to them as if they,
not she, had won the fight. Alva, disgusted with the issue, ordered the
speedy return of Aremberg, whose presence, moreover, was needed, on a
more active theatre of operations.

During all this while Ma