an.]

JNO. RUDD

Popular error has done more injury to the memory of Catherine de' Medici
than to that of any other woman famous in history. To understand
Catherine, and the part she played on the stage of French politics, her
training and the position she held must be understood. It is one thing
to look upon her on the obverse as wholly without heart, a trafficker in
human life, a ghoul who smiled with complacency on the victims of her
hate, and another to look on the reverse of the medal. The Massacre of
St. Bartholomew is pointed to as a crime--a religious crime. But is this
true? It may not have been an act in accordance with twentieth-century
morality, but bad, horrible indeed as it was, were there not extenuating
circumstances attending it--looked upon in the light of that age? To
Catherine de' Medici--perhaps justly--has been given the credit--or
infamy, if you will--of its conception and execution.

"Historians are privileged liars"--this is a truism as valid to-day as
when expressed by its brilliant creator. The throne of France was saved
by Catherine de' Medici, the royal power was maintained by her under
such difficulties as few rulers would have withstood. She is painted by
Catholic and Protestant writers alike as standing without the gates of
the Louvre, the morning after the massacre, and there gloating over the
bodies of the slain lying about the palace entrance.

Apart from her political duty, as she understood it, and which meant the
upholding of the monarchy, Catherine was a true woman; kind to her
suite, faithful to her friends. She had none of the weaknesses of her
sex; she lived chaste amid the debauchery of the most licentious court
in Europe. The losses to art caused by the destructive Calvinists she
replaced by erecting noble buildings and beautifying Paris. But she had
the sense of royalty developed to the utmost; she defended it to the
extreme. In France the opposition was always Protestant. It was her
enemy, the enemy of the crown, the arch-enemy of France. It is laid to
her charge that she coquetted with the Huguenots, whom she afterward
slew. This there is no denying; she had but her craft with which to
oppose the Guise faction, the various court cliques, and the Huguenots
themselves.

An expert at the game, she played one piece against another, skilfully
avoiding the checkmate. Pawns might be lost, bishops fall to her hand,
knights be unhorsed, but her k