as well as at court. "The king went more often to see
her; he added to his habits that of holding court at her apartments for
about an hour every day after supper in the midst of the lords and
ladies." It is not to be discovered anywhere in the contemporary
Memoires, whether Catherine had anything to do with the resolution taken
by Henry II. on returning from Compiegne; but she thenceforward assumed
her place, and gave a foretaste of the part she was to play in the
government of France. Unhappily for the honor of Catherine and for the
welfare of France, that part soon ceased to be judicious, dignified, and
salutary, as it had been on that day of its first exhibition.

On entering Paris again the king at once sent orders to the Duke of Guise
to return in haste from Italy with all the troops he could bring. Every
eye and every hope were fixed upon the able and heroic defender of Metz,
who had forced Charles V. to retreat before him. A general appeal was at
the same time addressed to "all soldiers, gentlemen and others, who had
borne or were capable of bearing arms, to muster at Laon under the Duke
of Nevers, in order to be employed for the service of the king and for
the tuition [protection] of their country, their families, and their
property." Guise arrived on the 20th of October, 1557, at
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where the court happened to be just then: every
mark of favor was lavished upon him; all the resources of the state were
put at his disposal; there was even some talk of appointing him viceroy;
but Henry II. confined himself to proclaiming him, on the very day of
his arrival, lieutenant-general of the armies throughout the whole
extent of the monarchy, both within and without the realm. His brother,
the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was as ambitious and almost as able as he,
had the chief direction in civil, financial, and diplomatic affairs;
never, since the great mayors-of-the-palace under the Merovingian kings,
had similar power been in the hands of a subject. Like a man born to
command, Guise saw that, in so complicated a situation, a brilliant
stroke must be accomplished and a great peril be met by a great success.
"He racked his brains for all sorts of devices for enabling him to do
some remarkable deed which might humble the pride of that haughty
Spanish nation and revive the courage of his own men; and he took it
that those things which the enemy considered as the most secure would be
the least carefu