“As I have given the messenger instructions to say many things to you, I write only to pray you, my child, not to feel sadness on my behalf; for I will try to demean myself so that God and the world may approve of my actions; for my chief care shall be the honor of God and the conservation of my authority; not, however, for my own benefit, but for the preservation of this realm and the good of your brothers, whom I love for the sake of him who was your common father. My dear child, commend your happiness to the keeping of the Almighty; for you have seen me as happy and prosperous as you are now yourself, when my only sorrow was the fear of not being sufficiently beloved by the king your father, who gave me more honor than I merited, but whom I so loved that, in his presence, I always felt awe. God has bereaved me of my husband; and now I weep for your brother. He has committed to my charge three little children, a kingdom distracted by divisions, within which there is not one individual in whom I can trust, or one who is not swayed by private partiality. Therefore, my dear, take warning by my fate: confide not exclusively in the love which you bear toward your husband, and which he renders back to you; nor in the pomps and luxuries of your present power: but lift up your heart to Him alone who can continue these blessings to you; and who, when it is His sovereign will, can bring you to my present condition; the which I would rather die than see you suffer, from dread lest your constancy might fail under the bitter trials which I have endured, solely through His sustaining aid and protection.” [Illustration: CATHERINE DE MEDICIS.] There can be no doubt that Catherine was fully sensible of the difficulties and dangers of her position. More than once she quoted the well-known words: “_Væ tibi, terra, cujus rex est puer!_” She toiled and intrigued and struggled for herself and for her children--not for France. The Guises threatened both, and her task was how to thwart, if not defeat, her rivals: “_Virilibus curis vitia muliebria._” She was not persistent enough. Correro calls her “timid,”[214] and her heart often failed her at a decisive moment. Her first care, however, was to tranquilize the country; or, to use her own words to the Bishop Limoges, her embassador in Spain, “to restore gently all that the wickedness of the times had damaged in France.” Nor was this an easy matter, if we may trust the Venetian reports, which tell of “an administration almost without rule or guide, justice violated and polluted, deadly hatreds, the passions and caprices of the powerful ones, the opposing interests of the princes, which varied with the opportunities; religious troubles; disobedience and tumult among the people, with revolt among the grandees.”[215]