ch given
to pleasure: they hope the admiral's access unto the court will yield some
redress in that case. Queen mother, seeing her son so well affected
towards him, laboreth by all means to cause him to think well of her. She
seemeth much to further the meeting."[843]

[Sidenote: His honorable reception.]

Nothing could surpass the honorable reception of the admiral, when, on the
twelfth of September, he arrived with a small retinue at court in the city
of Blois. On first coming into the royal presence, he humbly kneeled, but
Charles graciously lifted him up, and embraced him, calling him his
father, and protesting that he regarded this as one of the happiest days
of his life, since he saw the war ended and tranquillity confirmed by
Coligny's return. "You are as welcome," said he, "as any gentleman that
has visited my court in twenty years." And in the same interview, he
expressed his joy in words upon which subsequent events placed a sinister
construction, but which nevertheless appear to have been uttered in good
faith: "At last we have you with us, and you will not leave us again
whenever you wish."[844] Nor was Catharine behind her son in affability.
She surprised the courtiers by honoring the Huguenot leader with a kiss.
And even Anjou, who chanced to be indisposed, received him in his
bedchamber with a show of friendliness. More substantial tokens of favor
followed. The same person, who, as the principal general of the rebels,
had been attainted of treason, his castle and possessions being
confiscated or destroyed by decree of the first parliament of France, and
a reward of fifty thousand gold crowns being set upon his head, now
received from the king's private purse the unsolicited gift of one hundred
thousand livres, to make good his losses during the war. Moreover, he was
presented with the revenues of his lately deceased brother, the Cardinal
Odet de Chatillon, for the space of one year, and was intrusted with the
lucrative office of guardian of the house of Laval during the minority of
its heir. Indeed, throughout his stay at Blois, which was protracted
through several weeks, Coligny was the favored confidant of Charles, who
sometimes even made him preside in the royal council.[845]

Moreover, it was doubtless at Coligny's suggestion that the king at this
time wrote to the Duke of Savoy interceding for those Waldenses who in the
recent wars had aided the French Protestants in arms, and who since their
retur