ad already
played many strange pranks and committed more than one folly, but he had
not as yet signally failed in any serious enterprise. His incapacity was
not patent. He had the prestige of his name, youth, good looks, and a
courage carried even to temerity. The avowed slave of Madame de
Montbazon, he had espoused her quarrel, and to gratify her had joined in
propagating those calumnious reports, but without exhibiting the
violence of Beaufort, and had remained erect, confronting and defying
the victorious Condes.

[2] Henry, son of Charles de Guise, and grandson of the _Balafre_.

Coligny had had the good sense to keep aloof during the storm, for fear
of still further compromising Madame de Longueville by exhibiting
himself openly as her champion: but a few months having elapsed, he
thought that he might at last show himself, and, as a certain
authority[3] tells us, "the imprisonment of the Duke de Beaufort having
deprived that noble of the chance of measuring swords with him, he
addressed himself to the Duke de Guise." La Rochefoucauld says, "the
Duke d'Enghien, unable to testify to the Duke de Beaufort, who was in
prison, the resentment he felt at what had passed between Madame de
Longueville and Madame de Montbazon, left Coligny at liberty to fight
with the Duke de Guise, who had mixed himself up in this affair." The
Duke d'Enghien, therefore, knew and approved of what Coligny did. In
fact, he found himself without an adversary in the affair of sufficient
rank to justify a prince of the blood in drawing his sword against him.
So far as regards Madame de Longueville, it is absurd to suppose that,
desirous of vengeance, she it was who had urged on Coligny, for
everybody ascribed to her a line of conduct characterised by great
moderation, as contrasted with that of the Princess de Conde. Far from
envenoming the quarrel, she wished to hush it up, and Madame de
Motteville thus significantly alludes to that fact: "The enmity she bore
Madame de Montbazon being proportionate to the love she bore her
husband, it did not carry her so far but that she found it more a propos
to dissimulate that outrage than otherwise."

[3] An inedited Memoir upon the Regency.

La Rochefoucauld gives some particulars which explain what follows.
Coligny, just risen out of a long illness, was still very much
enfeebled, and, moreover, not very "skilful of fence." Such was his
condition when, as the champion of Madame de Longueville,