and misery, which again were desolating the fairest regions of
Christendom.

At the time when the French court had resolved to concede to the wishes
of the Caraffa family, Admiral Coligny, who had been appointed governor
of Picardy, had received orders to make a foray upon the frontier of
Flanders. Before the formal annunciation of hostilities, it was thought
desirable to reap all the advantage possible from the perfidy which had
been resolved upon.

It happened that a certain banker of Lucca, an ancient gambler and
debauchee, whom evil courses had reduced from affluence to penury, had
taken up his abode upon a hill overlooking the city of Douay. Here he
had built himself a hermit's cell. Clad in sackcloth, with a rosary at
his waist, he was accustomed to beg his bread from door to door. His
garb was all, however, which he possessed of sanctity, and he had passed
his time in contemplating the weak points in the defences of the city
with much more minuteness than those in his own heart. Upon the breaking
out of hostilities in Italy, the instincts of his old profession had
suggested to him that a good speculation might be made in Flanders, by
turning to account as a spy the observations which he had made in his
character of a hermit. He sought an interview with Coligny, and laid his
propositions before him. The noble Admiral hesitated, for his sentiments
were more elevated than those of many of his contemporaries. He had,
moreover, himself negotiated and signed the truce with Spain, and he
shrank from violating it with his own hand, before a declaration of war.
Still he was aware that a French army was on its way to attack the
Spaniards in Italy; he was under instructions to take the earliest
advantage which his position upon the frontier might offer him; he knew
that both theory and practice authorized a general, in that age, to break