e French crown, would gladly give themselves up to Charles;
Brabant, Gelderland, and Luxemburg would be restored to the empire; and
Holland, Zealand, and the rest of the islands would fall to the share of
the queen.[838]

[Sidenote: Admiral Coligny consulted.]

[Sidenote: He marries Jacqueline d'Entremont.]

So favorably did Charles and his mother, with those counsellors to whom
the secret was intrusted, receive the count's advances, that it was
clearly advisable to bring them into communication with Admiral Coligny,
to whose conduct the enterprise, if adopted, must be confided, and for
whom the young king expressed great esteem. Indeed, so urgently was the
admiral invited, and so intimately did the success or failure of the
attempt to enlist France in the Flemish war seem to be dependent upon his
personal influence, that Gaspard de Coligny, despite the ill-concealed
solicitude of many of his more suspicious friends, consented to trust
himself in the king's hands. As for himself, the admiral had little desire
to leave the secure retreat of La Rochelle. Here he was surrounded by
friends. Here his happiness had been enhanced by two marriages which
promised to add greatly to the wealth and influence he already possessed.
Jacqueline d'Entremont, the widow of a brave officer killed in the civil
wars, had long entertained an admiration, which she made no attempt to
disguise, for the bravery and piety of the stern leader of the Huguenots.
Possessed of very extensive estates in the dominions of the Duke of Savoy,
she had also the qualities of mind and disposition which fitted her to
become the wife of so upright and magnanimous a man. The proposals of
marriage are said to have come from her relatives, nor did the lady
herself hesitate to express the wish before her death to become the Marcia
of the new Cato.[839] The nuptials were celebrated with great pomp at La
Rochelle, whither Jacqueline, after having been married by proxy,[840] was
escorted by a goodly train of Huguenot nobles. Great were the rejoicings
of the people, but not less great the anger of the Duke of Savoy, who, as
Jacqueline's feudal lord, claimed the right to dispose of her hand, and
had peremptorily forbidden her to marry the admiral. The barbarous revenge
which Emmanuel Philibert too soon found it in his power to inflict upon
the unfortunate widow of Coligny forms the subject for one of the darkest
pages of modern history.[841] Under no less auspicious circ