"If the new king desires to secure the safety of his throne and of
his own life he must show such ardor in avenging the death of his
predecessor that no one shall feel a desire to commit the same
crime. But to avenge it /worthily/ it is not enough to shed the
blood of his subjects, he must approve the axioms of the king he
replaces, and take the same course in governing."

It was the application of this maxim which gave Florence to the
Medici. Cosmo I. caused to be assassinated at Venice, after eleven
years' sway, the Florentine Brutus, and, as we have already said,
persecuted the Strozzi. It was forgetfulness of this maxim which
ruined Louis XVI. That king was false to every principle of royal
government when he re-established the parliaments suppressed by his
grandfather. Louis XV. saw the matter clearly. The parliaments, and
notably that of Paris, counted for fully half in the troubles which
necessitated the convocation of the States-general. The fault of Louis
XV. was, that in breaking down that barrier which separated the throne
from the people he did not erect a stronger; in other words, that he
did not substitute for parliament a strong constitution of the
provinces. There lay the remedy for the evils of the monarchy; thence
should have come the voting on taxes, the regulation of them, and a
slow approval of reforms that were necessary to the system of
monarchy.

The first act of Henri II. was to give his confidence to the
Connetable de Montmorency, whom his father had enjoined him to leave
in disgrace. The Connetable de Montmorency was, with Diane de
Poitiers, to whom he was closely bound, the master of the State.
Catherine was therefore less happy and less powerful after she became
queen of France than while she was dauphiness. From 1543 she had a