, struggled vainly in its
misery, and was now on the verge of another series of internecine
combats--civil war seeming the only alternative to a voluptuous and
licentious peace.

"We all stood here at gaze," wrote ambassador Stafford to Walsingham,
"looking for some great matter to come of this sudden journey to Lyons;
but, as far as men can find, 'parturient montes', for there hath been
nothing but dancing and banquetting from one house to another, bravery in
apparel, glittering like the sun." He, mentioned that the Duke of
Epernon's horse, taking fright at a red cloak, had backed over a
precipice, breaking his own neck, while his master's shoulder merely was
put out of joint. At the same time the Duke of Joyeuse, coming over Mount
Cenis, on his return from Savoy, had broken his wrist. The people, he
said, would rather they had both broken their necks "than any other
joint, the King having racked the nation for their sakes, as he
hath-done." Stafford expressed much compassion for the French in the
plight in which they found themselves. "Unhappy people!" he cried, "to
have such a King, who seeketh nothing but to impoverish them to enrich a
couple, and who careth not what cometh after his death, so that he may
rove on while he liveth, and careth neither for doing his own estate good
nor his neighbour's state harm." Sir Edward added, however, in a
philosophizing vein, worthy of Corporal Nym, that, "seeing we cannot be
so happy as to have a King to concur with us to do us any good, yet we
are happy to have one that his humour serveth him not to concur with
others to do us harm; and 'tis a wisdom for us to follow these humours,
that we may keep him still in that humour, and from hearkening to others
that may egg him on to worse."

It was a dark hour for France, and rarely has a great nation been reduced
to a lower level by a feeble and abandoned government than she was at
that moment under the distaff of Henry III. Society was corrupted to its
core. "There is no more truth, no more justice, no more mercy," moaned
President L'Etoile. "To slander, to lie, to rob, to wench, to steal; all
things are permitted save to do right and to speak the truth." Impiety
the most cynical, debauchery the most unveiled, public and unpunished
homicides, private murders by what was called magic, by poison, by hired
assassins, crimes natural, unnatural, and preternatural, were the common
characteristics of the time. All posts and charges were v