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Gaspard de Coligny (marquis de Chatillon) ...
Gaspard de Coligny - marquis de Chatillon Author:Walter Besant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI. FRANCIS II. THE last twelve years of Coligny's life are the last three acts of a tragedy in which the stage is crowded with figures, every one ... more »of which merits a special study. But the central figure is that of the Admiral. Let us briefly study the situation at the accession of Francis the Second. The country was impoverished by war. The treasury was empty. The roads were crowded with disbanded soldiers, fain to pillage from sheer necessity, and eager for some new war. At Court there were three parties. The first of these was the Lorraine family, headed by the Duke of Guise, uncle of the King. With them was the whole power of the Church in France. They were backed, as well, by the Pope and the King of Spain. By means of their niece, Mary Queen of Scotland as well as of France, they did what they pleased with the frail and sickly boy of sixteen. The second party was headed by Montmorency and the Chatillons. With them were nearly the whole of the French nobility, especially the lesser nobles. Many of these had embraced the new Religion. All of them were jealous of the influence of the Lorraine foreigners. The nominal leaders of this party were the Bourbon princes. Lastly, there was the Queen-mother. The judgment of the world upon this woman has been hard indeed. No other name of woman in the history of the world is more loathed and execrated than that of Catherine. Nor would I seek to remove the monument of hatred which makes her tomb conspicuous. But one is compelled to pity her. From the time when she lived, neglected by her husband, to the day when she died, just before the last of her sons completed by a violent death the history of her brood, no rest, or ease, or cessation from anxieties ever came to her. Trouble was heaped on trouble, and each, ...« less