judges consider me a riddle. Do you think that I was actuated by
feelings of hatred; that I breathed nothing but vengeance and fury?' She
smiled. 'I was calm and cold as Reason herself. I condemned the Huguenots
without pity, it is true, but without anger. If I had been Queen of
England, I would have done the same to the Catholics if they had been
seditious. Our country required at that time one God, one faith, one
master. Luckily for me, I have described my policy in a word. When Birague
announced to me the defeat at Dreux--well, I said, we must go to the
Conventicle.--Hate the Huguenots, indeed! I honoured them greatly, and I
did not know them. How could I hate those who had never been my friends?'

"'But, madame, instead of that horrible butchery, why did you not try to
give the Calvinists the wise indulgences which made the reign of the
Fourth Henry so peaceable and so glorious?'

"She smiled again, and the wrinkles in her face and brow gave an
expression of the bitterest irony to her pale features.

"'Henry committed two faults,' she said. He ought neither to have abjured,
nor to have left France Catholic after having become so himself. He alone
was in a position to change the destinies of France. There should have
been either no Crosier or no Conventicle. He should never have left in the
government two hostile principles, with nothing to balance them. It is
impossible that Sully can have looked without envy on the immense
possessions of the church. But,' she paused, and seemed to consider for a
moment--'is it the niece of a pope you are surprised to see a Catholic?
After all,' she said, 'I could have been a Calvinist with all my heart.
Does any one believe that religion had any thing to do with that movement,
that revolution, the greatest the world has ever seen, which has been
retarded by trifling causes, but which nothing can hinder from coming to
pass, since I failed to crush it? A revolution,' she added, fixing her eye
on me, 'which is even now in motion, and which you--yes, you--you who now
listen to me--can finish.'

"I shuddered.

"'What! has no one perceived that the old interests and the new have taken
Rome and Luther for their watchwords? What! Louis the Ninth, in order to
avoid a struggle of the same kind, carried away with him five times the
number of victims I condemned, and left their bones on the shores of
Africa, and is considered a saint; while I--but the reason is soon
given--I failed!'

"