was impossible to interdict them."

Charles the Ninth encloses the copy of a letter he had received from
London, in part agreeing with an account the ambassador had sent to the
king, of an English expedition nearly ready to sail for La Rochelle, to
assist his rebellious subjects. He is still further alarmed, that
Elizabeth foments the _wartegeux_, and assists underhand the
discontented. He urges the ambassador to hasten to the queen, to impart
these complaints in the most friendly way, as he knows the ambassador
can well do, and as, no doubt, Walsingham will have already prepared her
to receive. Charles entreats Elizabeth to prove her good faith by deeds
and not by words; to act openly on a point which admits of no
dissimulation. The best proof of her friendship will be the marriage;
and the ambassador, after opening this business to her chief ministers,
who the king thinks are desirous of this projected marriage, is then
"to acquaint the queen with what has passed between her ambassadors and
myself."

Such is the first letter on English affairs which Charles the Ninth
despatched to his ambassador, after an awful silence of six months,
during which time La Motte Fenelon was not admitted into the presence of
Elizabeth. The apology for the massacre of St. Bartholomew comes from
the king himself, and contains several remarkable expressions, which are
at least divested of that style of bigotry and exultation we might have
expected: on the contrary, this sanguinary and inconsiderate young
monarch, as he is represented, writes in a subdued and sorrowing tone,
lamenting his hard necessity, regretting he could not have recourse to
the laws, and appealing to others for his efforts to check the fury of
the people, which he himself had let loose. Catharine de Medicis, who
had governed him from the tender age of eleven years, when he ascended
the throne, might unquestionably have persuaded him that a conspiracy
was on the point of explosion. Charles the Ninth died young, and his
character is unfavourably viewed by the historians. In the voluminous
correspondence which I have examined, could we judge by state letters of
the character of him who subscribes them, we must form a very different
notion; they are so prolix, and so earnest, that one might conceive they
were dictated by the young monarch himself!

FOOTNOTES:

[177] All the numerous letters which I have seen of Charles the
Ninth, now in the possession of Mr. Mur