must follow that father's policy when he
mounts the throne. Spinosa, who was as great a statesman as he was
a philosopher, said--in the case of one king succeeding another by
insurrection or crime,--

"If the new king desires to secure the safety of his throne and of
his own life he must show such ardor in avenging the death of his
predecessor that no one shall feel a desire to commit the same
crime. But to avenge it _worthily_ it is not enough to shed the
blood of his subjects, he must approve the axioms of the king he
replaces, and take the same course in governing."

It was the application of this maxim which gave Florence to the Medici.
Cosmo I. caused to be assassinated at Venice, after eleven years' sway,
the Florentine Brutus, and, as we have already said, persecuted the
Strozzi. It was forgetfulness of this maxim which ruined Louis XVI.
That king was false to every principle of royal government when he
re-established the parliaments suppressed by his grandfather. Louis
XV. saw the matter clearly. The parliaments, and notably that of
Paris, counted for fully half in the troubles which necessitated the
convocation of the States-general. The fault of Louis XV. was, that in
breaking down that barrier which separated the throne from the people he
did not erect a stronger; in other words, that he did not substitute for
parliament a strong constitution of the provinces. There lay the remedy
for the evils of the monarchy; thence should have come the voting on
taxes, the regulation of them, and a slow approval of reforms that were
necessary to the system of monarchy.

The first act of Henri II. was to give his confidence to the Connetable
de Montmorency, whom his father had enjoined him to leave in disgrace.
The Connetable de Montmorency was, with Diane de Poitiers, to whom he
was closely bound, the master of the State. Catherine was therefore less
happy and less powerful after she became queen of France than while she
was dauphiness. From 1543 she had a child every year for ten years, and
was occupied with maternal cares during the period covered by the last
three years of the reign of Francois I. and nearly the whole of the
reign of Henri II. We may see in this recurring fecundity the influence
of a rival, who was able thus to rid herself of the legitimate wife,--a
barbarity of feminine policy which must have been one of Catherine's
grievances against Diane.

Thus set aside from public life, this superi