nd
afterwards at Pontoise, ratified this declaration by recognizing the
placement of "the young King Charles IX.'s guardianship in the hands of
Catherine de' Medici, his mother, together with the principal direction
of affairs, but without the title of regent." The King of Navarre was to
assist her in the capacity of lieutenant-general of the kingdom.
Twenty-five members specially designated were to form the king's privy
council. [_Histoire des Etats generaux,_ by M. Picot, t. ii. p. 73.]
And in the privacy of her motherly correspondence Catherine wrote to the
Queen of Spain, her daughter Elizabeth, wife of Philip II., "Madame, my
dear daughter, all I shall tell you is, not to be the least anxious, and
to rest assured that I shall spare no pains to so conduct myself that
God and everybody may have occasion to be satisfied with me. . . .
You have seen the time when I was as happy as you are, not dreaming of
ever having any greater trouble than that of not being loved as I should
have liked to be by the king your father. God took him from me, and is
not content with that; He has taken from me your brother, whom I loved
you well know how much, and has left me with three young children, and
in a kingdom where all is division, having therein not a single man in
whom I can trust, and who has not some particular object of his own."

The queen-mother of France, who wrote to her daughter the Queen of Spain
with such firmness of tone and such independence of spirit, was, to use
the words of the Venetian ambassador John Michieli, who had lived at her
court, "a woman of forty-three, of affable manners, great moderation,
superior intelligence, and ability in conducting all sorts of affairs,
especially affairs of state. As mother, she has the personal management
of the king; she allows no one else to sleep in his room; she is never
away from him. As regent and head of the government, she holds
everything in her hands, public offices, benefices, graces, and the seal
which bears the king's signature, and which is called the cachet
(privy-seal or signet). In the council, she allows the others to speak;
she replies to any one who needs it; she decides according to the advice
of the council, or according to what she may have made up her own mind
to. She opens the letters addressed to the king by his ambassadors and
by all the ministers. . . . She has great designs, and does not
allow them to be easily penetrated. As for her w