Just at this juncture the queen-mother happened to be in Lorraine tending her sick daughter, and the news of the martial outburst brought her back in haste to Paris. She was too wise to oppose her son’s warlike humor openly, but she so far shook his resolution as to have the whole subject brought before the council. She was adverse to the war on many grounds, but principally because she felt assured that if Coligny carried on a successful campaign, his influence with the king would quite supersede her own. She did not know how far the king and the admiral had gone already. The latter, who was always with Charles, even to a late hour, wrote on the 11th August to Prince William of Orange, that there could be no doubt as to the king’s earnestness (Walsingham says: “But for the king, all had quailed long before”), and that he hoped in a few days to come to his help with 12,000 arquebusiers and 3000 cavalry. Yet only one day before this, Walsingham wrote home: “Commonly it is given out that the king will no more meddle, ... yet I am assured that underhand he is content there shall [be] somewhat done, for that he seeth the peril that will befall unto him, if the Prince of Orange quail.” The English embassador’s means of information were so complete, that he actually knew more of what was going on in the cabinet than the admiral did. The extreme Catholic party had rallied and were trying every thing in their power to destroy the Huguenot ascendancy at court, and Charles’s resolution fluctuated from day to day. That he might enjoy a little quiet, he suddenly started for Montpipeau, a pleasant hunting-lodge, intending to remain there until the eve of his sister’s marriage. Meanwhile bad news reached the French court; Catherine discovered that Queen Elizabeth was playing her false, and while pretending zeal for an alliance against Spain, was actually treating with that power. De Foix and Fénelon both wrote from private information that she had been advised to recall her troops from Flanders and not quarrel with Spain. “Whereupon,” writes Walsingham, on the 10th August, “the queen-mother fell into such fear that the enterprise must necessarily fail without the aid of England.”[539] The report was untrue, and was probably a mere invention of some of the traitors in the English council.[540] But it frightened Catherine, and she determined to make one more attempt to recover her ascendancy over the king. She hurried to Montpipeau with such impetuous haste that two of her horses fell dead on the road. With tears in her eyes, she accused Charles of ingratitude to a mother “who had sacrificed herself for his welfare and incurred every risk for his advantage.” “You hide yourself from me,” she continued, “and take counsel with my enemies. You are about to plunge your kingdom into a war with Spain, and yet England, in whose alliance you trusted, is false to you. Alone you can not resist so powerful an enemy. You will