as an example, to show mankind the amount of mischief which may be
perpetrated by a prince, ferocious without courage, ambitious without
talent, and bigoted without opinions. Incapable of religious convictions
himself, he had alternately aspired to be a commander of Catholic and of
Huguenot zealots, and he had acquired nothing by his vacillating course,
save the entire contempt of all parties and of both religions. Scared
from the aide of Navarre and Conde by the menacing attitude of the
"league," fearing to forfeit the succession to the throne, unless he made
his peace with the court, he had recently resumed his place among the
Catholic commanders. Nothing was easier for him than to return
shamelessly to a party which he had shamelessly deserted, save perhaps to
betray it again, should his interest prompt him to do so, on the morrow.
Since the peace of 1576, it had been evident that the Protestants could
not count upon his friendship, and he had soon afterwards been placed at
the head of the army which was besieging the Huguenots of Issoire. He
sought to atone for having commanded the troops of the new religion by
the barbarity with which he now persecuted its votaries. When Issoire
fell into his hands, the luckless city was spared none of the misery
which can be inflicted by a brutal and frenzied soldiery. Its men were
butchered, its females outraged; its property plundered with a
thoroughness which rivalled the Netherland practice of Alva, or Frederic
Toledo, or Julian Romero. The town was sacked and burned to ashes by
furious Catholics, under the command of Francis Alencon,--almost at the
very moment when his fair sister, Margaret, was preparing the way in the
Netherlands for the fresh treason--which he already meditated to the
Catholic cause. The treaty of Bergerac, signed in the autumn of 1577,
again restored a semblance of repose to France, and again afforded an
opportunity for Alencon to change his politics, and what he called his
religion. Reeking with the blood of the Protestants of Issoire, he was
now at leisure to renew his dalliance with the Queen of Protestant