nity and meek character of the Duke of Anjou; for the news of St.
Bartholomew's massacre had travelled faster than the post; and Choisnin
complains that he was now treated as an impudent liar, and the French
prince as a monster. In vain he assured them that the whole was an
exaggerated account, a mere insurrection of the people, or the effects
of a few private enmities, praying the indignant Poles to suspend their
decision till the bishop came: "Attendez le Boiteux!" cried he, in
agony.

Meanwhile, at Paris, the choice of a proper person for this embassy had
been difficult to settle. It was a business of intrigue more than of
form, and required an orator to make speeches and addresses in a sort of
popular assembly; for though the people, indeed, had no concern in the
diet, yet the greater and the lesser nobles and gentlemen, all electors,
were reckoned at one hundred thousand. It was supposed that a lawyer who
could negotiate in good Latin, and one, as the French proverb runs, who
could _aller et parler_, would more effectually puzzle their heads, and
satisfy their consciences to vote for his client. Catharine at last
fixed on Montluc himself, from the superstitious prejudice, which,
however, in this case accorded with philosophical experience, that
"Montluc had ever been _lucky_ in his negotiations."

Montluc hastened his departure from Paris; and it appears that our
political bishop had, by his skilful penetration into the French
cabinet, foreseen the horrible catastrophe which occurred very shortly
after he had left it; for he had warned the Count de Rochefoucault to
absent himself; but this lord, like so many others, had no suspicions of
the perfidious projects of Catharine and her cabinet. Montluc, however,
had not long been on his journey ere the news reached him, and it
occasioned innumerable obstacles in his progress, which even his
sagacity had not calculated on. At Strasburgh he had appointed to meet
some able coadjutors, among whom was the famous Joseph Scaliger; but
they were so terrified by _Les Matinees Parisiennes_, that Scaliger flew
to Geneva, and would not budge out of that safe corner: and the others
ran home, not imagining that Montluc would venture to pass through
Germany, where the protestant indignation had made the roads too hot for
a catholic bishop. But Montluc had set his cast on the die. He had
already passed through several hair-breadth escapes from the stratagems
of the Guise faction, who