But for once the ascendency of the queen mother over the King was of good effect. Charles IX was urged to mete out the same penalty to his brother, the marshals Cossé and Montmorency, and Henry of Navarre. If it had not been for powerful intervention this might have been the case.[1645] Imagine the astonishment of the world that expressed surprise when Philip II imprisoned his son if such an act had been done! In the ferocious mood now become habitual with the King, such a thing is conceivably possible. But Catherine de Medici spared Henry of Navarre now, as in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, because the Bourbons were needful as a checkmate to the Guises. Such conduct, too, might have driven England and the German Protestant princes into active support of the Huguenots—a consideration which had made Catherine hesitate before August 24, 1572. A living dog was better than a dead lion.[1646] “The King told that he should bear in mind that while the duke and Navarre were alive, he could do what he pleased, but if they were dead there would be no remedy.”[1647] The real motive and animus of the whole cruel affair—the destruction of the Montmorencys by the Guises—was not long in forthcoming. Hitherto the duke had been allowed guarded freedom, even to go hunting. But within a few days after the death of La Mole and Coconnas came word of the capture of Damville, Montmorency’s brother, in Languedoc. Immediately the duke of Montmorency and the marshal Cossé were shut up in the Bastille. The ancient and bitter grudge of the Guises against the Montmorency-Châtillon house, half of which had been paid in the murder of the admiral, narrowly missed being sated at this hour. In the blood-thirsty mood in which the King was, the purple of kingship probably would not have protected the duke. But at heart Charles IX and his mother were craven cowards, and the latter, at least, was not wholly lost to prudence. Fortunately for the duke of Montmorency and for France, the word of Damville’s capture was a false report. He had intercepted the instructions sent to Joyeuse and the governor of Narbonne for his apprehension and taken his precautions. Damville was too great a lion to rouse the anger of, while he was at large, and nothing but treachery could overthrow him, for he was in possession of Beziers, Montpellier, Pasenas, Beaucaire, Boignelles, and Pont St. Esprit, and as leader of the united Politiques and Huguenots of the south, in control of Languedoc, Dauphiné, and Provence.[1648]