ect of
enlightening Henri de Valois respecting the doubt he had entertained
with regard to Sylla--Francois de Joyeuse, young and worldly-minded,
handsome and witty, was one of the most remarkable men of the period.
Ambitious by nature, but circumspect by calculation and position,
Francois de Joyeuse could assume as his device, "Nothing is too much,"
and justify his device.

The only one, perhaps, of all those who belonged to the court--and
Francois de Joyeuse was attached to the court in a very especial
manner--he had been able to create for himself two means of support out
of the religious and lay thrones to which he in some measure
approximated as a French gentleman, and as a prince of the church;
Sixtus protected him against Henri III., Henri III. protected him
against Sixtus. He was an Italian at Paris, a Parisian at Rome,
magnificent and able everywhere.

The sword alone of Joyeuse, the high admiral, gave the latter more
weight in the balance; but it might be noticed from certain smiles of
the cardinal, that if those temporal arms failed him, which the hand of
his brother, refined and admired as he was, wielded so successfully, he
himself knew not only how to use, but also how to abuse, the spiritual
weapons which had been intrusted to him by the sovereign head of the
Church.

The Cardinal Francois de Joyeuse had very rapidly become a wealthy man,
wealthy in the first place from his own patrimony, and then from his
different benefices. At that period the Church was richly endowed--very
richly endowed even, and when its treasures were exhausted, it knew the
sources, which at the present day are exhausted, where and whence to
renew them.

Francois de Joyeuse, therefore, lived in the most magnificent manner.
Leaving to his brother all the pageantry and glitter of a military
household, he crowded his salons with priests, bishops and archbishops;
he gratified his own individual peculiar fancies. On his attaining the
dignity of cardinal, as he was a prince of the church, and consequently
superior to his brother, he had added to his household pages according
to the Italian fashion, and guards according to that which prevailed at
the French court. But these guards and pages were used by him as a still
greater means of enjoying liberty of action. He frequently ranged his
guards and pages round a huge litter, through the curtains of which his
secretary passed his gloved hand, while he himself on horseback, his
sword by