enterprise, at least not in detail. She would mar our design.” “As you please, Sire; nevertheless I hold her majesty for so good a mother, that even if she were told all, she would offer no obstacle; on the contrary, she might naturally aid our design; while I apprehend many difficulties in hiding the matter.” “You are quite wrong,” rejoined the king; “leave the matter to me. My mother is the greatest mischief-maker on the face of the earth.” If this anecdote were authenticated, it would show that the king and the admiral were actually plotting against the government; for, whatever may have been Coligny’s position as private adviser to his sovereign, he was not a minister, although in the council, and held no responsible position. But it is scarcely credible that Catherine, with her influence and means of procuring information, could have been kept in the dark; and, besides, it is quite clear from her language to the Spanish embassador, that she knew all about the proposed war in Flanders. Nor does she appear at any time to have objected to it. If the English matrimonial alliance was the key of her policy, the war against Spain was an inevitable pendant. Union between France and England in the sixteenth century necessarily meant armed opposition to the policy of Philip II. During the winter an event occurred which has tended very much to complicate this period of history. The king had gone to Bourgueil on the Loire, about ten miles from Saumur, to receive a Protestant deputation. Their chief spokesman, Briquemaut, after complaining of the infringement of the Edict of St. Germains, more by omission than commission, imprudently added that, unless their grievances were remedied, it was to be feared that the Huguenots would take counsel of despair, and once more rush to arms. The king listened calmly and dismissed the deputation graciously; but as soon as they had retired, he burst into a violent passion, and indulged in sanguinary threats. Lignerolles, one of the “mignons” of the Duke of Anjou, drawing near, whispered in his majesty’s ear: “Be patient, Sire, a little while longer, and you will have them all in your net.” The king was startled to hear another give utterance to his own secret thoughts, and resolved to make away with a man whom he suspected of knowing the particulars of a plot which had been craftily devised to get rid of the admiral and the chief Huguenots at one blow. The authenticity of this very circumstantial story is more than doubtful. All we know for certain is, that Lignerolles was murdered, and that the assassins were imprisoned, and would have been punished, had not the great massacre intervened, when they were liberated. Five versions of the story are current, the most probable of all being Walsingham’s, namely, that Lignerolles was an instrument employed by the Guise faction to prevent the English marriage.[497] He represents the death “as no small furtherance to the