to an autopsy, physical or moral, of Montpensier's interior, was left
somewhat in the dark, notwithstanding these ejaculations. His first
conversation with the youthful King, however, soon dispelled his hopes.
He found immediately, in his own words, that Charles the Ninth "had been
doctored." To take up arms, for religious reasons, against his own
subjects, the monarch declared to be ruinous and improper. It was
obvious to Alva that the royal pupil had learned his lesson for that
occasion. It was a pity for humanity that the wisdom thus hypocritically
taught him could not have sunk into his heart. The Duke did his best to
bring forward the plans and wishes of his royal master, but without
success. The Queen Regent proposed a league of the two Kings and the
Emperor against the Turk, and wished to arrange various matrimonial
alliances between the sons and daughters of the three houses. Alva
expressed the opinion that the alliances were already close enough,
while, on the contrary, a secret league against the Protestants would
make all three families the safer. Catherine, however, was not to be
turned from her position. She refused even to admit that the Chancellor
de l'Hospital was a Huguenot, to which the Duke replied that she was the
only person in her kingdom who held that opinion. She expressed an
intention of convoking an assembly of doctors, and Alva ridiculed in his
letters to Philip the affectation of such a proceeding. In short, she
made it sufficiently evident that the hour for the united action of the
French and Spanish sovereigns against their subjects had not struck,
so that the famous Bayonne conference was terminated without a result.
It seemed not the less certain, however, in the general opinion of
mankind, that all the particulars of a regular plot had been definitely
arranged upon this occasion, for the extermination of the Protestants,
and the error has been propagated by historians of great celebrity of
all parties, down to our own days. The secret letters of Alva, however,
leave no doubt as to the facts.