Catherine de Medici’s plan to govern through the constable Montmorency and the admiral,[363] leaving Antoine of Navarre only nominal authority, received an abrupt shock when the Triumvirate was established. Her policy partook of both doubt and fear, and vacillated more than ever.[364] But more formidable than the project to organize insurrection at home, thus promoted by the Triumvirate, was the foreign policy it adopted. The Triumvirate formally appealed to Philip II for aid.[365] The response was not slow in forthcoming, though the royal word was prudently couched in vague terms.[366] To make matters worse, Antoine of Navarre inclined more than ever toward the faith of Rome in the hope of conciliating Philip II of Spain.[367] To a man less vain and gullible than Antoine of Bourbon such a proposition, upon its very face, as the restoration of Navarre, would have appeared to have been preposterous. Aside from the blow to its prestige which any loss of territory entails upon a nation, it is only necessary to look at the position of Spanish Navarre to perceive that Spain could better afford to lose a war abroad than to part with this key to the passes of the western Pyrenees. There is no need to relate at length the story of Antoine’s alternate hopes and fears, of his great expectations, and of the empty promises made him.[368] The office Antoine held, not the man, made him important to France and Spain. For this reason, he was alternately wheedled and cajoled, mocked and threatened, for more than a year; and all the time the pitiable weakling shifted and vacillated in his policy.[369] It is amazing to see how successfully Antoine was led along by the dexterous suggestions of Chantonnay, and the evasive answers of Philip II. It was a delicate game to play, for there was continual fear lest he would discover that he was being made the dupe of Spain, and prevail upon the queen mother and the prince of Condé to join him in avenging his wrongs, a not impossible development, as Granvella observed, “considering that prudence does not always preside over the actions of men.”[370]