Arrived in France in the month of September, 1574, Henry III. was joined by his mother at Bourgoin, and made with her a triumphal entry into Lyons. The Duke d’Alençon and the king of Navarre, who were free in appearance, but in reality captives, followed them. It was there that the course of conduct to be pursued towards the Calvinists and the politicians was discussed. Several members of the council,—Pibrac, Bellegarde, Christophe de Thou, Paul de Foix,—inclined to the side of moderation and compromise; but Catherine and her Italian confidants, Retz, Nevers, and Birague, held opposite views, and their opinion biassed that of Henry III. This prince, who was but twenty-three years of age, had shown some marks of courage before the treaty of 1570. He did not want for ability in business, nor for dignity and grace when he appeared in public. Unhappily, he had been corrupted by the voluptuousness of the court. He passed long hours in bedecking himself like a woman, and dishonoured the dignity of his manhood, and the majesty of a king, by riotous debauchery. The creatures by whom he was surrounded, led him into a contemptible and shameful indolence, and the baseness of his vices was only equalled by the extravagance of his superstition. On his return to France, he joined the brotherhood of the Flagellants or _Frères-Battus_ of Avignon; and in a solemn procession, he led the white, Catherine the black, and Cardinal d’Armagnac the blue order of these _Frères-Battus_. They went through the city with naked feet, uncovered heads, with chaplets of death-bones at their girdles, and making blood spirt from their shoulders with cords. Some historians have been desirous of discovering political reasons under these ignoble masquerades. What is the use of going so far to seek for what is so near? Between the excess of depravity and the extreme of bigotry, there is a singular and close relationship. In the month of December, the Cardinal de Lorraine caught a fever, from the effects of which he died. The queen-mother, whom history accuses of having been on too intimate terms with him, could not assume on this occasion her habitual dissimulation. On seating herself at table the same evening, as they handed her a glass, she began to tremble so much that it had almost fallen from her hands, and she exclaimed, “Jesus! it is the cardinal that I see.” During the night, for more than a month, she would not remain alone, being incessantly followed by this melancholy apparition, and saying to her women, “Drive away that cardinal; do you not see that he beckons me with his finger?” What was it that had passed between her and this priest that a woman like Catherine de Medicis should have been so terrified at his death?