ing was secured. She could only triumph by
cunning.

A state cannot be governed by the same rule of morality as that which
should govern individual conduct; it is impossible that it should be so.
Professor Saintsbury says: "Every cool-headed student of history and
ethics will admit that it was precisely the abuse of the principle at
this time, and by the persons of whom Catherine de' Medici, if not the
most blamable, _has had the most blame put on her_, that brought the
principle itself into discredit."[1]

[1] The author, not Professor Saintsbury, is responsible for the
Italics.

Casimir Perier, the noted French statesman, wrote, "All power is a
permanent conspiracy." This is as true to-day in republican America as
it was at that time in monarchical France. And it was not religion, as
such, that led to the horrible scenes of that fatal August 24th; it was
a move in the game of politics. Protestantism spelt republicanism; to
one raised as Catherine had been, taught her life through by bitter
experience, any means available, any course adopted, was righteous if it
answered the purpose of saving the realm.

Research into this period will amply repay the explorer with enlarged
ideas of its meaning and its issues. Of the Queen-mother "naught
extenuate nor aught set down in malice." Catherine compares more than
favorably with Marie de' Medici, whom history has painted in brighter
hue. Bigotry has blasted the name of one who for her time was at least
the equal of any ruler in Europe.

HEROIC AGE OF THE NETHERLANDS

SIEGE OF LEYDEN

A.D. 1573

THOMAS HENRY DYER

Events followed one another rapidly after the rising of the
Netherlanders in 1566. The organization of the Gueux ("beggars"),
the league of noblemen pledged to resist the introduction of the
Inquisition into the Low Countries by Philip II of Spain, had shown
itself prepared for extreme action in self-defence. The name Gueux,
first used in contempt, was borne in honor by the patriots in the
ensuing war, which Philip conducted as a "war of extermination."

In 1567 the Duke of Alva, a famous veteran of the wars of Charles V
and of Philip, was sent to the Netherlands as governor, where his
cruelties soon made him notorious. He established the court known as
the Council of Blood, which first sat in