This was the moment chosen by Catherine de Medici to assert herself. Hitherto, there had been no room for her between the two parties, each of which aspired to absolute control of the King. The queen mother had no mind to see herself reduced to a simple guardian of the persons of her children, utterly dependent upon the action of the council, without political authority nor “control of a single denier,”[246] and perceived that she might now fish to advantage in the troubled waters; to change the figure, she determined to play each party against the other[247] in the hope of herself being able to hold the balance of power between them. This explains her double-dealing after the conspiracy of Amboise, when she represented to Coligny that she wished to be instructed in the Huguenot teachings in order, if possible, that she might be able to discover the “true source and origin of the troubles,” and conferred with Chaudien, the Protestant pastor in Paris, and Duplessis, the Huguenot minister at Tours, at the same time also inquiring into the political claims of the Huguenots, having the cardinal of Lorraine concealed, like Polonius, behind the arras;[248] why, too, she used fair words at the conference at Fontainebleau and simultaneously saw Francis II write to Philip II asking for Spanish aid in the event of civil war. The Venetian ambassador said truly that the famous Roman temporizer, Fabius Cunctator, would have recognized his daughter in this astute woman of Etruria.[249] For fear of being sent back to Italy or of staying in France without influence, she aimed to play the two parties against one another. She did not hesitate to hazard the crown in order to keep the government in her hands, although, as the Venetian ambassador said, “to wish to maintain peace by division is to wish to make white out of black.”[250]