those who were
already under arms (the Prince de Conde and the leaders of the
Protestant party), imploring them to have pity for a mother and
her children.

Such as it was, this was the sole cause of the Civil War.

For this reason she would never go, with the others, to Orleans,
nor allow them to have the King and her children, as she could
have done; and she felt glad, and with reason, that amongst the
uproar and rumour of strife, she and the King, her son, and her
other children were in safety.

Moreover she begged and obtained the promise from others, that
when she should summon them to lay down their arms that they
would do so, but this they would not do when the time came,
notwithstanding the appeals she made to them, and the trouble
she took, and the great heat she endured at Talsy, trying to
induce them to listen to terms of peace which she could have
made favourable and lasting for France had they only listened
to her. And this conflagration, and others which we have seen
lighted from this first brand, would have been stamped out forever
in France had they but believed in her. I know the zeal she showed,
and I know what I myself have heard her say, with tears in her
eyes.

This is why they cannot tax her with the first spark of the Civil
War, nor yet with the second, which was that day's work at Meaux,
for at that time she was thinking only of the hunt, and of giving
pleasure to the King at her beautiful house at Monceaux.

The warning came that M. le Prince and those of the Religion
were under arms and in the field to surprise and seize the King
under pretext of presenting a request.

God knows who was the cause of this new disturbance, and had
it not been for the six thousand Swiss troops, newly raised, no
one knows what might not have happened.

This levy of Swiss troops was the pretext for them to take up
arms, and of saying and spreading broadcast that it was done
to force them into war.

But it was they themselves who requested this levy of troops
from the King and Queen, as I know from being then at Court, on
account of the march of the Duke of Alva and his army, fearing
that, under pretext of marching on Flanders, he might descend upon
the frontiers of France, and besides urging that it was always
the custom to strengthen the frontiers whenever a neighbouring
state was arming.

No one can be uniformed of how urgently they pressed this upon
the King and Queen, both by letters and by embas