Apart from--we do not mean to say above-these two great parties, which were arrayed in the might and appeared as the representatives of the national ideas and feelings, the queen-mother, Catherine de’ Medici, was quietly laboring to form another, more independent of the public, and more docile to herself, and, above all, faithful to the crown and to the interests of the kingly house and its servants; a party strictly Catholic, but regarding as a necessity the task of humoring the Reformers and granting them such concessions as might prevent explosions fraught with peril to the state; a third party (tiers part), as we should say nowadays, politic and prudent, somewhat lavish of promises without being sure of the power to keep them, not much embarrassed at having to change attitude and language according to the shifting phases of the moment, and anxious above everything to maintain public peace and to put off questions which it could not solve pacifically. In the sixteenth century, as at every other time, worthy folks of moderate views and nervous temperaments, ambitious persons combining greed with suppleness, old servants of the crown, and officials full of scruples and far from bold in the practical part of government, were the essential elements of this party. The Constable de Montmorency sometimes issued forth from Chantilly to go and aid the queen-mother, in whom he had no confidence, but whom he preferred to the Guises. A former councillor of the Parliament, for a long while chancellor under Francis I. and Henry II., and again summoned, under Francis II., by Catherine de’ Medici to the same post, Francis Olivier, was an honorable executant of the party’s indecisive but moderate policy. He died on the 15th of March, 1560; and Catherine, in concert with the Cardinal of Lorraine, had the chancellorship thus vacated conferred upon Michael de l’Hospital, a magistrate already celebrated, and destined to become still more so. As soon as he entered upon this great office he made himself remarkable by the marvellous ability he showed in restraining within bounds “the Lorraines themselves, whose servant he was,” says the Protestant chronicler Regnier de la Planche; “to those who had the public weal at heart he gave hope that all would at last turn out well, provided that he were let alone; and, to tell the truth, it would be impossible to adequately describe the prudence he displayed; for, assuredly, although if he had taken a shorter road towards manfully opposing the mischief he would have deserved more praise, and God would perhaps have blessed his constancy, yet, so far as one can judge, he alone, by his moderate behavior, was the instrument made use of by God for keeping back many an impetuous flood under which every Frenchman would have been submerged. External appearances, however, seemed to the contrary. In short, when any one represented to him some trouble that was coming, he always had