by his own heroic nephew. The military control of
the Catholic party was completely in the hand of the Guises; the
Chancellor de l'Hopital had abandoned the court after a last and futile
effort to reconcile contending factions, which no human power could
unite; the Huguenots had possessed themselves of Rochelle and of other
strong places, and, under the guidance of adroit statesmen and
accomplished generals, were pressing the Most Christian monarch hard in
the very heart of his kingdom.

As early as the middle of October, while still in Antwerp, Alva had
received several secret agents of the French monarch, then closely
beleaguered in his capital. Cardinal Lorraine offered to place several
strong places of France in the hands of the Spaniard, and Alva had
written to Philip that he was disposed to accept the offer, and to render
the service. The places thus held would be a guarantee for his expenses,
he said, while in case King Charles and his brother should die, "their
possession would enable Philip to assert his own claim to the French
crown in right of his wife, the Salic law being merely a pleasantry."

The Queen Dowager, adopting now a very different tone from that which
characterized her conversation at the Bayonne interview, wrote to Alva,
that, if for want of 2000 Spanish musketeers, which she requested him to
furnish, she should be obliged to succumb, she chose to disculpate
herself in advance before God and Christian princes for the peace which
she should be obliged to make. The Duke wrote to her in reply, that it
was much better to have a kingdom ruined in preserving it for God and the
king by war, than to have it kept entire without war, to the profit of
the devil and of his followers. He was also reported on another occasion
to have reminded her of the Spanish proverb--that the head of one salmon
is worth those of a hundred frogs. The hint, if it were really given, was
certainly destined to be acted upon.

The Duke not only furnished Catherine with advice, but with the
musketeers which she had solicited. Two thousand foot and fifteen hundred
horse, under the Count of Aremberg, attended by a choice band of the
Catholic nobility of the Netherlands, had joined the royal camp at Paris
before the end of the year, to take their part in the brief hostilities
by which the second treacherous peace was to be preceded.

Meantime, Alva was not unmindful of the business which had served as a
pretext in the arrest of