not a Huguenot, neither
am I a blockhead; and if the Pope makes a fool of himself, I will myself
take Margot by the hand, and have her married to your son in some
Protestant meeting-house!"

This speech was soon spread from the Louvre through the city, and, while
it greatly rejoiced the Huguenots, had given the Catholics something to
think about; they asked one another, in a whisper, if the King was
really betraying them or was only playing a comedy which some fine
morning or evening might have an unexpected ending.

Charles IX.'s conduct toward Admiral de Coligny, who for five or six
years had been so bitterly opposed to the King, appeared particularly
inexplicable; after having put on his head a price of a hundred and
fifty thousand golden crowns, the King now swore by him, called him his
father, and declared openly that he should in future confide the conduct
of the war to him alone. To such a pitch was this carried that Catharine
de Medicis herself, who until then had controlled the young prince's
actions, will, and even desires, seemed to be growing really uneasy, and
not without reason; for, in a moment of confidence, Charles IX. had said
to the admiral, in reference to the war in Flanders,

"My father, there is one other thing against which we must be on our
guard--that is, that the queen, my mother, who likes to poke her nose
everywhere, as you well know, shall learn nothing of this undertaking;
we must keep it so quiet that she will not have a suspicion of it, or
being such a mischief-maker as I know she is, she would spoil all."

Now, wise and experienced as he was, Coligny had not been able to keep
such an absolute secret; and, though he had come to Paris with great
suspicions, and albeit at his departure from Chatillon a peasant woman
had thrown herself at his feet, crying, "Ah! sir, our good master, do
not go to Paris, for if you do, you will die--you and all who are with
you!"--these suspicions were gradually lulled in his heart, and so it
was with Teligny, his son-in-law, to whom the King was especially kind
and attentive, calling him his brother, as he called the admiral his
father, and addressing him with the familiar "thou," as he did his best
friends.

The Huguenots, excepting some few morose and suspicious spirits, were
therefore completely reassured. The death of the Queen of Navarre passed
as having been caused by pleurisy, and the spacious apartments of the
Louvre were filled with all those g