the peace he hastened to her, but was too late to find her
alive. In a touching letter, written to her husband after all hope of
seeing him again in this world had fled, a letter the substance of which
is preserved by one of his biographers (Vie de Coligny, Cologne, 1686, p.
342), she lamented the loss of a privilege that would have alleviated the
sufferings of her last hours, but consoled herself with the thought of the
object for which he was absent. She conjured him, by the love he bore her
and to her children, to fight to the last extremity for God and religion;
warning him, lest through his habitual respect for the king--a respect
which had before made him reluctant to take up arms--he should forget the
obligations he owed to God as his first Master. She begged him to rear the
children she left him in the pure religion, that they might one day be
capable of taking his place; and, for their sakes, implored him not to
hazard his life unnecessarily. She bade him beware of the house of Guise.
"I do not know," she added, "whether I ought to say the same thing of the
queen mother, as we are forbidden to judge evil of our neighbor; but she
has given so many marks of her ambition that a little distrust is
excusable." The earlier biographer of Coligny (Gasparis Colinii Vita,
1575, p. 63, etc.) gives an affecting picture of the deep sorrow and pious
resignation of the admiral.

[550] Somewhat hyperbolically, the biographer of the admiral (Vie de
Coligny, p. 346) says that the concourse at Chatillon and Noyers was so
great that the Louvre was a desert in comparison! When ten gentlemen left
by one gate, twenty entered by another. The churches raised a purse of
100,000 crowns, one-half of which was to go to him, and the other half to
the Prince of Conde; but, though nearly ruined by the enormous expenses of
his hospitality, he declined to receive his portion.

[551] Noyers and Tanlay are ten or twelve miles from each other, in the
modern department of the Yonne.

[552] Jean de Serres, _ubi supra_. Cf. De Thou, iv. 142; Bulletin de la
Soc. de l'hist. du prot. fr. (1854), iii. 239. This valuable periodical is
mistaken in stating, vii. (1858) 120, that "D'Andelot s'etait retire dans
ses terres de Bretagne a la conclusion de la paix." He did not leave
Tanlay until after writing the letter referred to below, and shortly
before Coligny's arrival: "partant de chez lui, pour se rendre chez son
frere Andelot, il trouva qu'il etoit all