but, having been Anjou's lieutenant, and almost the author of his
victories, would oppose a war that threatened to obscure his laurels.
Vieilleville was wedded to his cups. Cosse was avaricious, and would sell
all his friends for ten crowns. Montmorency alone was good and
trustworthy, but so given to the pleasures of the chase that he would be
sure to be absent at the very moment his help was indispensable.[892] It
is not strange, under these circumstances, that Charles should have turned
with sincere respect, and almost with a kind of affection, to that stern
old Huguenot warrior, upright, honorable, pious, a master of the art of
war, never more to be dreaded than after the reverses which he accepted as
lessons from a Father's hands.

As for Coligny himself, his task was not one of his own seeking. But he
pitied from his heart the boy-king--still more boyish in character than in
years--as he pitied and loved France. Above all, he was unwilling to omit
anything that might be vitally important for the progress of the Gospel in
his native land and abroad. His eyes were not blind to his danger. When,
at the king's request, he came to Paris, he received letters of
remonstrance for his imprudence, from all parts of France. He was reminded
that other monarchs before Charles had broken their pledges. Huss had been
burned at Constance notwithstanding the emperor's safe conduct, and the
maxim that no faith need be kept with heretics had obtained a mournful
currency.[893] To these warnings Admiral Coligny replied at one moment
with some annoyance, indignant that his young sovereign should be so
suspected; at another, with more calmness, magnanimously dismissing all
solicitude for himself in comparison with the great ends he had in view.
When he was urged to consider that other Huguenots, less hated by the
papists than he was, had been treacherously assassinated--as was the
general opinion then--Andelot, Cardinal Chatillon, and lately the Queen of
Navarre--his reply was still the same: "I am well aware that it is against
me principally that the enmity is directed. And yet how great a misfortune
will it be for France, if, for the sake of my individual preservation, she
must be kept in perpetual alarm and be plunged on every occasion into new
troubles! Or, what benefit will it be to me to live thus in continual
distrust of the king? If my prince wishes to slay me, he can accomplish
his will in any part of the realm. As a royal office