Catherine de Medici was not the ruler to govern France with a firm yet facile hand under the circumstances that existed in 1566. Irrespective of foreign influences, which we shall presently come to, the economic distress[1011] of the country, the rivalry of the great houses, and the religious acrimony prevailing made a combination of forces that needed another sort of ruler to reconcile them—a ruler such as Henry of Navarre was to be. The queen mother, while a woman of force, was so deficient in sincerity that no one could have confidence in her; so jealous of power that she would brook no other control of the King, whose sovereignty she confounded with her maternal oversight of him, making no distinction between Charles IX the ruler and Charles IX the son. Catherine time and again marred or ruined the progress she had made with the aid of one party’s support by her own envious fear of that party’s predominance. Her “bridge policy,”[1012] instead of uniting France, kept it divided. To maintain the balance of power—an immemorial Italian policy—her Italian nature resorted to duplicity and deception continually. Accordingly, suspicion prevailed at court and suspicion prevailed in the provinces, the more so in the latter because of the Huguenots’ uncertainty about what was done at Bayonne, and doubt as to Philip II’s course. Men were doubtful of their neighbors; towns were fearful of other nearby towns. “All the way of my coming hither,” reported Sir Thomas Hoby, the new English ambassador to France, “I found the strong towns marvelously jealous of strangers, insomuch that only by the sound of a bell they discovered a number of horsemen or footmen before they come; but also, after they are entered they have an eye to them.”[1013] When the court finally moved to Paris, the great nobles came thither with such numerous trains[1014] that the queen sent four companies of the King’s guard ahead of his coming, and ordered the marshal Montmorency to require the retirement from the city of all those who were not of the ordinary household of each nobleman and gentleman. In vain the marshal, anxious to protect his party against the Guisards, resisted the order and complained that the queen was interfering with his authority. The King ordered Lansac and De la Garde to accomplish what Montmorency was unwilling to do.