The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other StoriesBalzac, Honoré de
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The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other Stories
Balzac, Honoré de
French fiction -- Translations into English
After studying the various parties and interests, she saw a choice of two
alternatives--either to enlist them on the side of the Throne, or to set
them against each other. The Connétable de Montmorency, above all else a
Catholic, whose nephew, the Prince de Condé, was the leader of the
Reformation, and whose children also had a leaning to that creed, blamed
the Queen-mother for allying herself with that party. The Guises, on their
side, worked hard to gain over Antoine de Bourbon, a Prince of no strength
of character, and attach him to their faction, and his wife, the Queen of
Navarre, informed by de Bèze, allowed this to be done. These difficulties
checked Catherine, whose newly-acquired authority needed a brief period of
tranquillity; she impatiently awaited Calvin's reply by de Bèze and
Chaudieu, sent to the great Reformer on behalf of the Prince de Condé, the
King of Navarre, Coligny, d'Andelot, and Cardinal de Châtillon.
Meanwhile, the Queen-mother was true to her promises to the Prince de
Condé. The Chancellor quashed the trial, in which Christophe was involved,
by referring the case to the Paris Parlement, and they annulled the
sentence pronounced by the Commission, declaring it incompetent to try a
Prince of the Blood. The Parlement re-opened the trial by the desire of the
Guises and the Queen-mother. La Sagne's papers had been placed in
Catherine's hands, and she had burnt them. This sacrifice was the first
pledge given, quite vainly, by the Guises to the Queen-mother. The
Parlement, not having this decisive evidence, reinstated the Prince in all
his rights, possessions, and honors.
Christophe, thus released when Orleans was in all its excitement over the
King's accession, was excluded from the case, and, as a compensation for
his sufferings, was passed as a pleader by Monsieur de Thou.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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