ious city of
Paris--a feat which was successfully performed under Marshal Montmorency's
supervision, by the city provost, accompanied by so strong a detachment of
archers and arquebusiers, as effectually to prevent popular
disturbance.[391] Already there were restless spirits that saw in another
civil war fresh opportunity for the advancement of their selfish
interests. Months ago Villegagnon, the betrayer of the Brazilian colony of
Coligny, had written to Cardinal Granvelle, telling him that he had
resigned his dignities and offices in the French court, and had informed
Catharine de' Medici, "that until Charles was the declared enemy of the
enemies of God and of His church, he would never again bear arms in his
service."[392] The vice-admiral, of whom modesty was never a conspicuous
virtue, went so far as to draw a flattering portrait of himself as a
second Hannibal, vowing eternal enmity to the Huguenots.[393] And Nicole
de St. Remy, whose only claim to honorable mention was found in her
oft-paraded boast that, as a mistress of Henry the Second, she had borne
him a son, and who held in France the congenial post of a Spanish spy,
suggested the marriage of the Cardinal of Bourbon in view of the possible
contingency of the death of all Catharine's sons.[394] The centre of all
intrigue, the storehouse from which every part of France was supplied with
material capable of once more enkindling the flames of a destructive civil
war, was the house of the Spanish resident envoy, Frances de Alava,
successor of the crafty Chantonnay, the brother of Granvelle. It was he
that was in constant communication with all the Roman Catholic malcontents
in France.[395] Catharine endeavored to check this influence, but to no
purpose. The fanatical party were bound by a stronger tie of allegiance to
Philip, the Catholic king, than to her, or to the Very Christian King her
son. Catharine had particularly enjoined upon the Cardinal of Lorraine to
have no communication with Granvelle or with Chantonnay, but the prelate's
relations with both were never interrupted for a moment.[396]

[Sidenote: Siege of Malta, and French civilities to the Sultan.]

The fact was that, so far from true was it that a cordial understanding
existed between the courts of France and Spain, such as the mythical
league for the extirpation of heresy presupposes, the distrust and
hostility were barely veiled under the ordinary conventionalities of
diplomatic courtesy. While