and generous character be suspicious when his royal master was treating him with so much kindness and deference! Charles had learned at last that Philip was continually intriguing and fomenting disturbances in France. He was not so blind as his mother thought him: with all her art, she could not effectually repress those generous flashes which from time to time burst out only to make us regret that a better education had not fitted Charles for his royal station. When he wrote inviting the admiral to leave Chatillon and come to Paris, the latter declined on account of the hostility of the citizens. “You have no cause to fear,” replied the king; “they will attempt nothing against my will.” At the same time he ordered Marcel, the provost of the merchants, to see that there was no “scandal” (disturbance) on account of the admiral’s arrival, or he would be answerable for it. Coligny had need of all his patience and all his loyalty. What he built up one day the queen-mother pulled down the next. Catherine told the Venetian envoy, Giovanni Michieli, that she would not go to war against Spain unless Philip compelled her: “Assure their lordships of Venice,” she added, “that not only my words but my acts shall prove the firmness of my resolutions.”[548] In a few hours, as we have seen, Catherine had recovered her empire over her son, who, though physically brave, had no moral courage, and could not bring himself to tell the admiral of his altered purposes. No one else would venture to do so, and it was therefore suggested that, in consequence of certain intelligence which the king had received, Coligny should be requested to lay his plans before a committee of the council (consisting of Montpensier, Louis of Gonzaga, Cossé, and others), who were certain to condemn them. They unanimously opposed the war, and after ineffectually trying to bend the king, he turned to the queen-mother, and said: “Madam, the king refuses to enter upon a war with Spain. God grant he may not be engaged in another which he may perhaps find it not so easy to renounce.”[549] This, which is the language of disappointed hopes, sounded very like a threat, and there may probably have been a bitterness in his tone that gave a meaning to his words he never intended they should bear. He only meant, what he had often said before, that the best mode of healing the wounds of the past wars would be to march the two parties side by side to fight a common enemy. But his enemies put the worst construction on his language, and his death was resolved on.[550] The king was very impressionable: if he were suffered to consult with the admiral again, the old ascendancy might be recovered, and would Coligny be inclined to use his new power mercifully? The blow must be struck at once, but first the union of the two families must be cemented by the marriage of Henry and Margaret.