and one of her contemporaries, adopting the words of Quintus Curtius, speaks of her as possessing _nil muliebre nisi sexum_ (nothing in common with her sex except the name of woman). After her conversion, she devoted all her energies to the propagation of the Reformed faith, even (it is said) to the extent of preaching, though the strongest evidence that she ever ascended the pulpit is a doubtful contemporaneous caricature. Queen Elizabeth was as much attached to her as her vain and selfish nature permitted. Henry, fully alive to the importance of keeping up this friendship, wrote to announce his mother’s death, and to request a continuance of her friendship: “Entertaining the same desire which the late queen, my mother, always manifested toward you, I most humbly entreat you will impart to me that friendship and kindness which you always showed her, and the effects of which we have known in so many instances that I shall always feel myself your debtor, which I will testify in every thing you may be pleased to command me to obey and do service, whenever I have the power.”[546] The queen’s death increased the distrust with which many of the Huguenot party looked upon the demonstrations and favors of the court. From every quarter the admiral continued to receive cautions and warnings of treachery; but firm in his own integrity and good faith, he put them all aside.[547] Many of his friends urged him to be on his guard. The people of La Rochelle sent him more than one address on the rumors that were abroad and on the suspicious aspect of affairs; but he told them there was no occasion to fear (7th August). Another time he made answer: “A man would never be at ease, if he interpreted every action to his own disadvantage. It would be better to die a hundred times than live in constant apprehension. I am tired of such alarms, and have lived long enough.” To others who advised him to leave Paris, he said: “By so doing I must show either fear or distrust. My honor would be injured by the one, the king by the other. I should be again obliged to have recourse to a civil war; and I would rather die a thousand deaths than see again the miseries I have seen, and suffer the distress I have already suffered.” Another time he said: “I can not leave without plunging the country into fresh wars. I would rather be dragged through the gutters than resort to such extremity.” An intercepted letter from Cardinal Pelvé to the Cardinal of Lorraine, who had just departed for Rome, was brought to him. He read in it: “There are great hopes of success in the enterprise; the admiral suspects nothing; the war with Flanders is a mere trick; the King of Spain knows all about it.” The letter was manifestly a forgery--a device to prevent the marriage, and the admiral treated it with contempt. Many of the warnings he received were like prophetic dreams--remembered only when the event confirms their forecastings. How could a man of such a noble