en left an orphan at an early age, she was sent to a convent to
be educated, but left there at fourteen to become the wife of the
Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. of France. Her royal father-in-law
was the celebrated Francis I., the life-long rival of Henry VIII.
of England, on the one hand, and the Emperor Charles V., on the
other. During his reign Catherine remained in obscurity, and
was even threatened with divorce, as for ten years she remained
childless. On hearing that Francis was considering this decree for
state reasons, she planned her first bold stroke. With Italian
finesse she made her way to the King at a favourable moment, threw
herself at his feet, and expressed her willingness to submit to
the royal will. "Do with me as you choose, sire," she said; "let
me remain the dutiful wife of your son; or if it may please you to
choose another, let me serve as one of her humblest attendants."
Her speech won the heart of Francis, she was reinstated in favour,
and finally had the happiness of bringing him grandchildren ere
he died. This was one reason for the great veneration in which
Catherine always held his memory, and to which Brantome alludes.

Indeed, the dominant trait with her throughout her long life was
loyalty to her family and their interests,--a loyalty fine in the
abstract, but which was to lead her along many doubtful and devious
ways. It caused her to match prince against prince, party against
party, religion against religion, until the culminating horror
of St. Bartholomew's Massacre was reached,--chargeable directly
to her, despite the strenuous denials of Brantome. Henry IV.,
the royal son-in-law who suffered so much at her hands, was
broad-minded enough to palliate her offences on the ground of
this family loyalty. Claude Grouard quotes him as saying to a
Florentine ambassador in regard to Catherine: "I ask you what
a poor woman could do, left by the death of her husband, with
five little children on her arms, and two families in France
who were thinking to grasp the crown,--ours and the Guiges. Was
she not compelled to play strange parts to deceive first one and
then the other, in order to guard, as she has done, her sons
who have successively reigned through the wise conduct of that
shrewd woman? I am only surprised that she never did worse.

Sainte-Beuve in his "Causeries du Lundi" gives us additional
glimpses of this Queen, basing his views upon those of Mezeray,
author of the older "History o