ioned to its real importance. The fate of the
French Huguenots was quivering in the balance. The papal party was known
to be bitterly opposed to the war against Spain, and to be merely awaiting
an opportunity to strike a deadly blow at the heretics whom the royal
edict still protected. Catharine was undecided; but, with her, indecision
was the ordinary prelude to the sudden adoption of some one of many
conflicting projects, which had been long brooded over, but between which
the choice was, in the end, the result rather of accident, caprice, or
temporary impressions, than of calm deliberation.

[Sidenote: It determines Catharine to take the Spanish side.]

[Sidenote: Loss of the golden opportunity.]

This reverse at Mons, limited in its extent as it was, would be likely, so
the Huguenot leaders of France foresaw--and they were not mistaken--to
determine Catharine to take the Spanish side. With the queen mother in
favor of Spain and intolerance, experience had taught them that there was
little to expect from her weak son's intentions, however good they might
be. The only ground of hope for Orange and the Netherlands, and the only
prospect for security and religious toleration at home, lay in the success
of the Flemish project at Paris; and of this but a single chance seemed to
remain--in Elizabeth's finally espousing their cause with some good degree
of resolution. "Such of the religion," wrote Walsingham to Lord Burleigh,
inclosing the particulars of the disaster of Genlis, "as before slept in
security, begin now to awake and to see their danger, and do therefore
conclude that, unless this enterprise in the Low Countries have good
success, their cause groweth desperate."[908] To the Earl of Leicester
Walsingham was still more explicit in his warnings: "The gentlemen of the
religion, since the late overthrow of Genlis, weighing what dependeth upon
the Prince of Orange's overthrow, have made demonstration to the king,
that, his enterprise lacking good success, it shall not then lie in his
power to maintain his edict. They therefore desire him to weigh whether it
were better to have foreign war with advantage, or inward war to the ruin
of himself and his estate.[909] The king being not here, his answer is not
yet received. They hope to receive some such resolution as the danger of
the cause requireth. In the meantime, the marshal (Montmorency) desired
me to move your lordship to deal with her Majesty to know whether she,