The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1935-07-05
The Merchants Daughter By Rafael snbnt;n;

"a blindly obeyed by men who. per-
ceiving nothing of his ambitious de-
signs for his house, believed him con,
glory of God.
Catherine, taken aback by the ex-
tent to which she found that they were
so quickly established, was yet de-
ceived by the protestations of duty with
which they received her; and at first,
in her loneliness and lack of a party
Of her own, she was glad enough to
lean upon their strength.
They won her confidence by sup
porting her demands for the compar-
alive Punishment of Diane de Poitiers
and the restitution by the late Kings
rest Of the plumber in her hands. In
return Catherine had approved, whilst
she might yet have opposed it, the
Dukes assumption of the great office
OF Grand Master of the Kings House.
hold.
Disillusion followed quickly. Her
authority with her degenerate, sickly
their plant and dutiful niece. The Of
flee of Grand Master was used by the
Duke merely as a stepping stone to the
greater office of Lieutenant General of
the Kingdom, in which the King sur
rendered to him the sovereign power.
From that moment Catherine became
again, as in the late Kings lifetime,
merely the woman who had borne the
roya! children: In such contempt did
old Mary Stuart, Queen of France and
Scotland, and accounting herself also
Queen of England, dared with impunity
to allude to her mother-in-law as the
Florentine merchants daughter whose
marriage into the royal house of France
had constituted a mesalliance.
A lesser woman, yielding to her anger,
might have ruined herself by revolt
against these indignities. But Gather
inc waited, sluggish and phlegmatic of
aspect as if resigned to her negligible
role of Queen Mother.
In her secret eagerneSS to procure
a weapon against those by whom she
was opposed, she succumbed to the
temptation Of employing the powerful
Protestant party.
This vas after the wholesale execu-
march on Ambcise by La Renaudie and
his armed refprmers. The Duke of
Guise, in his ferocious anxiety to strike
terror into all opponents, had so abused
his powers as Lieutenant General that
he had not only hardened Huguenot
hostility but had also lost the adherence
Of those Catholics who were clear
sighted enough to perceive that he en-
ployed religion as an instrument for his
own worldly advancement.
This was GATHERINGS opportunity.
Selling it, she had gone stealthily to
work through some few who we're will
ing enough to act as her agents.
A rumor was already abroad to the
effect that the young King, who actual
ly was suffering from eczema, had been
attacked by leprosy. Logically out of
this, as it seemed, came a sudden
General, to the end that owing to the
i'll health and feeble mindedness of
the King a regency should be appoint
ed.
The clamor startled the Guises, rep
r%esenting as it did an attack upon a
flank on which they were vulnerable.
BY the law of France regency was per-
Blood, which, for all their boosted
descent from Charlemagne, the Guises
were not. Indeed, they were scarcely
looked upon as French, Lorraine being
a fief. of the German empire. If the
estates supported the demand, the
choice of a regent must fall upon An
tome de Bourbon, the elder of the
Bourbon princes and King OF Navarro,
who, being of the reformed religion,
the natural head Of the Huguenot
party and therefore the natural op-
ponent of the Guisards.
None suspected that the clamor had
been inspired by the Queen Mother,
but the Cardinal discovered through his
network of monkish spies that amongst
those who had first voiced it were one
or two whose relations with the Queen
Mother made her %connivance a posi-
bility, however remote.
Now the Guises well knew that how
ever negligible Catherine might be at
court, as the mother of the King, she
was by no means negligible in the eyes
of the country. Consequently if she
were openly to declare herself on the
side Of their opponents, the difficulties
created for them by the present situa-
ton would be materially increased.
Hence that interview in which they
had sought to probe her feelings and
Punishment should they discover in her
the rashness to conspire against them.
In the days that followed, there at
Amboise, she was made to feel at once
their mistrust and their power. They
did not trouble to diSsemble a vigilance
which suffered hone to approach her
save those whom they approved.
the following Spring that, at last. she
contrived to elude their spies. Whilst
Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarro,
was the nominal head of the Hugenot
party, his pusillanimous nature was
content to leave the actual leadership
to his bold soldierly brother, the Prince
of Condo, and it was to Condo Cath
crime contrived to send a message. It
was couched in very guarded terms, ex-
pressing on the surface no more than a
desire to learn the true facts of the af-
fair that had been described as the
Tumult of Amboise. But between the
lines of it an invitation was plainly
to be read