less sincere than Gregory's.
This was Philip of Spain. Catharine had not delayed writing to her royal
son-in-law. In her endeavor to make capital out of the massacre she
betrayed great satisfaction at her supposed masterly stroke of policy. Her
letter--a misspelled scrawl--furnishes a fresh illustration of the fact
that singular shrewdness in planning and executing criminal projects is
not incompatible with a trust, amounting almost to fatuity, in the
unsuspecting credulity of others. Catharine actually imagined that she
could, by her counterfeit piety, impose upon one who knew her character so
well as Philip of Spain. Therefore she was lavish of the use of the name
of the Deity to cover her own villainy. "Monsieur my son," she wrote, "I
entertain no doubt that you will appreciate, as we do, the happiness God
has conferred upon us in giving the king, my son, the means of ridding
himself of his subjects, rebels against God and himself, and [rejoice]
that it has pleased Him graciously to preserve him and us all from the
cruelty of their hands. For this we are assured that you will praise God
with us, as well on our account as for the advantage that will accrue to
all Christendom, and to the service, and honor, and glory of God. This, we
hope, will soon be made known, and the fruit thereof be perceived.[1164]
By this event we afford the testimony of our good and upright intentions,
which have never tended but to His honor. And I rejoice still more that
this occasion will confirm and augment the friendship between your Majesty
and the king your brother--which is the thing I desire most of all in this
world."[1165]

[Sidenote: The delight of Philip the Second.]

Philip had good reason to be glad. To all human appearance it had depended
only upon the word of Charles to secure, at once and forever, the
independence from the Spanish tyranny of the provinces on the lower
Rhine, which, under William of Orange, were battling for religious and
civil freedom. True, Genlis and his small forces had been captured or
destroyed; but what were they in comparison with the men whom the French
king could have marshalled under the command of Coligny, La Noue, and
other experienced leaders? And now Charles, at a single stroke, had cut
off all prospect of obtaining the sovereignty of the Netherlands or of any
part, had assassinated his own generals in their beds, had butchered in
cold blood those who would gladly have marched as soldiers to ac