well as Sully was excluded. At once he made overtures of friendship to
Sully, and went about proclaiming to the world that all Huguenots were to
be removed from participation in affairs of state. His vows of vengeance
were for a moment hushed by the unanimous resolution of the council that,
as first marshal of France, having his principality on the frontier, and
being of the Reformed religion, he was the fittest of all to command the
expedition. Surely it might be said that the winds and tides were not
more changeful than the politics of the Queen's government. The Dutch
ambassador was secretly requested by Villeroy to negotiate with Bouillon
and offer him the command of the Julich expedition. The Duke affected to
make difficulties, although burning to obtain the post, but at last
consented. All was settled. Aerssens communicated at once with Villeroy,
and notice of Bouillon's acceptance was given to the Queen, when, behold,
the very next day Marshal de la Chatre was appointed to the command
expressly because he was a Catholic. Of course the Duke of Bouillon,
furious with Soissons and Epernon and the rest of the government, was
more enraged than ever against the Queen. His only hope was now in Conde,
but Conde at the outset, on arriving at the Louvre, offered his heart to
the Queen as a sheet of white paper. Epernon and Soissons received him
with delight, and exchanged vows of an eternal friendship of several
weeks' duration. And thus all the princes of the blood, all the cousins
of Henry of Navarre, except the imbecile Conti, were ranged on the side
of Spain, Rome, Mary de' Medici, and Concino Concini, while the son of
the Balafre, the Duke of Mayenne, and all their adherents were making
common cause with the Huguenots. What better example had been seen
before, even in that country of pantomimic changes, of the effrontery
with which Religion was made the strumpet of Political Ambition?

All that day and the next Paris was rife with rumours that there was to
be a general massacre of the Huguenots to seal the new-born friendship of
a Conde with a Medici. France was to renounce all her old alliances and
publicly to enter into treaties offensive and defensive with Spain. A
league like that of Bayonne made by the former Medicean Queen-Regent of
France was now, at Villeroy's instigation, to be signed by Mary de'
Medici. Meantime, Marshal de la Chatre, an honest soldier and fervent
Papist, seventy-three years of age, ignorant o