whole Spanish power, thus relieved from the fear of French hostilities,
would be free to wreak its vengeance upon their family. It was
determined that the court of France should be held by the secret league.
Moreover, the Pope had been expressly included in the treaty of
Vaucelles, although the troops of Spain had already assumed a hostile
attitude in the south of Italy. The Cardinal was for immediately
proceeding to Paris, there to excite the sympathy of the French monarch
for the situation of himself and his uncle. An immediate rupture between
France and Spain, a re-kindling of the war flames from one end of Europe
to the other, were necessary to save the credit and the interests of the
Caraffas. Cardinal de Tournon, not desirous of so sudden a termination
to the pacific relations between his, country and Spain, succeeded in
detaining him a little longer in Rome.--He remained, but not in
idleness. The restless intriguer had already formed close relations with
the most important personage in France, Diana of Poitiers.--This
venerable courtesan, to the enjoyment of whose charms Henry had
succeeded, with the other regal possessions, on the death of his father,
was won by the flatteries of the wily Caraffa, and by the assiduities of
the Guise family. The best and most sagacious statesmen, the Constable,
and the Admiral, were in favor of peace, for they knew the condition of
the kingdom. The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal Lorraine were for a
rupture, for they hoped to increase their family influence by war.
Coligny had signed the treaty of Vaucelles, and wished to maintain it,
but the influence of the Catholic party was in the ascendant. The result
was to embroil the Catholic King against the Pope and against themselves.
The queen was as favorably inclined as the mistress to listen to Caraffa,
for Catherine de Medici was desirous that her cousin, Marshal Strozzi,
should have honorable and profitable employment in some fresh Italian
campaigns.