only make France a prey to the Huguenots, who desire the subversion of the kingdom for their own benefit. If you will no longer be guided by my advice, suffer me to return to my native country, that I may not witness such disgrace.” “This artful harangue,” says Tavannes, “frightened the king, who, wondering to see his secret counsels revealed, confessed them all, begged his mother’s pardon, and promised obedience.” Tavannes, whose authority for circumstances of which he was not an eye-witness is rather doubtful, alludes to the common rumor that M. de Sauve, the king’s secretary, had revealed these “secret counsels” to his wife, Charlotte de Beaune, by whom they were told to her lover the Duke of Anjou, who, in his turn, communicated them to his mother. Whatever secrets may have been divulged, certainly this of the projected Flemish war was not one; for if it was unknown to Catherine, she must have been the only person in the court ignorant of it.[541] She was undoubtedly alarmed at the apparently isolated position of France; and we shall see that, finding all other methods fail of averting war, she did not shrink from murder. No doubt her “affetto di signorreggiare” had much to do with her bloody resolution; but she may also have believed Coligny to be a dangerous adviser, and in an unscrupulous age there was little difficulty in getting rid of such a man. The exact date of the interview at Montpipeau is not known, but it probably took place during the first week in August, for Walsingham evidently refers to it in his letter of the 10th of that month: “Touching Flanders matters, such of the council here as incline to Spain have put the queen-mother in such a fear, that she _with tears_ had dissuaded the king for the time, who otherwise was very resolute.... The admiral in this brunt, whose mind is invincible and foreseeth what is like to ensue, doth not now give over, but layeth before the king his peril if the Prince of Orange quail.” And again: “The king is _grown cold_, who before was _very forward_, and nothing prevailed so much as _the tears of his mother_.... How perplexed the admiral is, who foreseeth the mischief that is likely to follow, your lordship [Leicester] may easily guess. He never showed greater magnanimity, nor never was better followed nor more honored of those of the religion, than he now is, _which doth not a little appall_ the enemies. He layeth before the king and council the peril and danger of his estate; and though he can not obtain what he would, yet doth he obtain something from him.”[542] This was the admiral’s death-warrant. Charles listened to him rather than to his mother. “What do you learn in your long conversations with the admiral?” asked Catherine one day. “I learn,” he replied, “that I have no greater enemy than my mother.” She saw her power slipping from her, and her son Anjou, her beloved, her favorite son, in danger; for she knew how violent Charles could be when he was once aroused. And