e that, as she
scrawled in her own peculiar French, "le Roy mon fils nave jeames
lantyere aubeysance," [1] and she was determined "que personne ne pent
nous brouller en lamitie en la quele je desire que set deus Royaumes
demeurent pendant mauye." [2] Through her goggle eyes she saw clearly
where lay the path that she must follow. "I am resolved," she wrote,
"to seek by all possible means to preserve the authority of the king my
son in all things, and at the same time to keep the people in peace,
unity and concord, without giving them occasion to stir or to change
anything." Fundamentally, this was the same policy as that of Henry
IV. That she failed where he succeeded is not due entirely to the
difference in ability. In 1560 neither party was prepared to yield or
to tolerate the other without a trial of strength, whereas a generation
later many members of both parties were sick of war.

[Sidenote: December 13, 1560]

Just as Francis was dying, the States General met at Orleans. This
body was divided into three houses, or estates, that of the clergy,
that of the nobles, and that of the commons. The latter was so
democratically chosen that even the peasants voted. Whether they had
voted in 1484 is not known, but it is certain that they did so in 1560,
and that it was in the interests of the crown to let them vote is shown
by the increase in {213} the number of royal officers among the
deputies of the third estate. The peasants still regarded the king as
their natural protector against the oppression of the nobles.

The Estates were opened by Catharine's minister, Michael de L'Hopital.
Fully sympathizing with her policy of conciliation, he addressed the
Estates as follows: [Sidenote: February 24, 1561] "Let us abandon those
diabolic words, names of parties, factions and seditions:--Lutherans,
Huguenots, Papists; let us not change the name of Christians."
Accordingly, an edict was passed granting an amnesty to the Huguenots,
nominally for the purpose of allowing them to return to the Catholic
church, but practically interpreted without reference to this proviso.

But the government found it easier to pass edicts than to restrain the
zealots of both parties. The Protestants continued to smash images;
the Catholics to mob the Protestants. Paris became, in the words of
Beza, "the city most bloody and murderous among all in the world."
Under the combined effects of legal toleration and mob persecution the
Hugueno