upposed him
to be a partisan of the Guises, that a great blow would be
struck at the Huguenots when the proper time arrived; and La
Huguerye may have been confident that he was telling the
truth, when, about Martinmas (November 11th), 1570, he stated
to De Briquemault, that "the king, seeing that he could not
attain his object by way of arms without greatly
weakening--nay, endangering his kingdom, had resolved upon
taking another road, by which, in a single day, he would
cleanse his whole state." He may have been assured, on what he
deemed good authority, that the Pope was in the plot, and
would keep the King of Spain from doing anything that might
interfere with the execution, and have inferred that, the
peace being a treacherous one, the only hope of the Huguenots
lay in skilfully enlisting Charles in its maintenance,
contrary to his original purpose. So he was confirmed in his
belief by the contents of the despatches of the Spanish
ambassador at the French court, treacherously submitted to the
Huguenots by an unfaithful agent of the envoy. But the former
statements were, at most, little better than rumors, to which
the circumstances of the hour gave color. The air was full of
dark hints; but, apparently, they had no more solid foundation
than the fact that, in an age abounding in perfidious schemes,
the Protestants had already placed themselves partially in the
power of their great enemies, and were likely soon to be more
completely in their hands. The information received by La
Huguerye was a very different thing from an authoritative
avowal of a concealed purpose made by Catharine or by Charles
himself. On the other hand, the assurances in the Spanish
despatches were just of the same general nature as others with
which the French government endeavored to quiet Philip, Alva,
and the Roman pontiff himself.

The only other peculiarity of La Huguerye to which I shall
allude is his studied misrepresentation of the character of
Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. Contrary to the uniform
portraiture given by contemporaries of both religious parties,
she here appears as "an inconsiderate woman (femme legere),
with little forethought," "known to be jealous of the
authority of the admiral," "whom she thwarted by her authority
as mu