or
Catharine and her son, at the present moment.

[Sidenote: She removes the king to Melun.]

[Sidenote: and thence to Fontainebleau.]

[Sidenote: Her painful indecision.]

At length, Catharine de' Medici, apprehensive of the growing power of the
triumvirate, and dreading lest the king, falling into its hands, should
become a mere puppet, her own influence being completely thrown into the
shade, removed the court from Monceaux to Melun, a city on the upper
Seine, about twenty-five miles south-east of Paris.[51] She hoped
apparently that, by placing herself nearer the strongly Huguenot banks of
the Loire, she would be able at will to throw herself into the arms of
either party, and, in making her own terms, secure future independence.
But she was not left undisturbed. At Melun she received a deputation from
Paris, consisting of the "prevost des marchands" and three "echevins,"
who came to entreat her, in the name of the Roman Catholic people of the
capital, to return and dissipate by the king's arrival the dangers that
were imminent on account of Conde's presence, and to give the people the
power to defend themselves by restoring to them their arms. Still
hesitating, still experiencing her old difficulty of forming any plans for
the distant future, and every moment balancing in her mind what she should
do the next, she nevertheless pushed on ten miles farther southward, to
the royal palace of Fontainebleau, and found herself not far from half the
way to Orleans. But change of place brought the vacillating queen mother
no nearer to a decision. Soubise, the last of the avowed Protestants to
leave her, still dreamed he might succeed in persuading her. Day after
day, in company with Chancellor L'Hospital, the Huguenot leader spent two
or three hours alone with her in earnest argument. "Sometimes," says a
recently discovered contemporary account, "they believed that they had
gained everything, and that she was ready to set off for Conde's camp;
then, all of a sudden, so violent a fright seized her, that she lost all
heart." At last the time came when the triumvirs were expected to appear
at Fontainebleau on the morrow, to secure the prize of the king's person.
Soubise and the indefatigable chancellor made a last attempt. Five or six
times in one day they returned to the charge, although L'Hospital
mournfully observed that he had abandoned hope. He knew Catharine well:
she could not be brought to a final resolution.[52] It