Louis de Gonzaga was another of this Italian band. One historian calls him “a worthy prince,” but his worth was due more to his timidity than to his honesty.[464] These were the principal confidants of the queen-mother, and their only aim was to preserve what they had got. The chief of the Guises was Henry of Lorraine, surnamed “le Balafré.” He was not so good a soldier as his father, but was a tall, handsome man, with keen eye, light beard and curly hair; liberal to profusion, easy in speech, well read in Tacitus, and perfect in all bodily and military exercises. But his good qualities were marred by an insatiable thirst for glory and a desire for authority. When Henry III. asked how it was that Duke Henry enchanted every body, the reply was: “He does good to all and speaks ill of none.” He had succeeded to most of the great charges of his father, as grand master, high chamberlain, and governor of Champagne. The peace of St. Germains was acceptable to the larger portion of the Huguenot party, many of whom had not visited their homes since the first outbreak of the wars, and their affairs had become so disordered that ruin appeared almost inevitable. The noise of the trumpet and the drum had drowned the quieter voice of religion, the Protestant churches were decaying, discipline was relaxed, and doctrine becoming unsound. A general synod was required to put these matters straight, and this, the seventh, was by the king’s permission held at Rochelle in April, 1571, under the presidency of Theodore Beza. The Queen of Navarre and the young princes of Bearn and Condé were present at the opening ceremony along with the admiral and Count Louis of Nassau. The great work of this synod was to revise the confession of 1559, and issue an authoritative text, of which three copies on parchment were made. One of these standards was to be kept at Rochelle, another at Geneva, and a third at Pau in Bearn. The first and last disappeared during the civil wars. Very different were the occupations of the court, which an historian, whom I have often consulted with advantage, describes as being “more licentious than that of Francis I., without the varnish of gallantry which conceals the excesses of passion.”[465] Catherine was fond of ease: her voluptuous Italian nature delighted in balls and masquerades, in _fêtes_ and banquets. She could now once more indulge her taste for the arts, and during this period we find her busy with her new palace of the Tuileries, laying out gardens, talking with Bernard Palissy, now a man of note; or with Jean Bullant, whose reputation has been dwarfed by the greater renown of his predecessor Philip de l’Orme. Wherever she went, a gay troop of beautiful women accompanied her. Their charms were employed to convert the queen’s foes into friends, and to learn the secrets of her enemies. “Le bal marcha toujours,” growls that rough old warrior Montluc.