human beings of various lineage and language throughout Christendom had
been cutting each other's throats for a quarter of a century.

Mayenne was not without courage in the field when he found himself there,
but it was observed of him that he spent more time at table than the
Bearnese in sleep, and that he was so fat as to require the assistance of
twelve men to put him in the saddle again whenever he fell from his
horse. Yet slow fighter as he was, he was a most nimble intriguer. As
for his private character, it was notoriously stained with every vice,
nor was there enough of natural intelligence or superior acquirement to
atone for his, crapulous; licentious, shameless life. His military
efficiency at important emergencies was impaired and his life endangered
by vile diseases. He was covetous and greedy beyond what was considered
decent even in that cynical age. He received subsidies and alms with
both hands from those who distrusted and despised him, but who could not
eject him from his advantageous position.

He wished to arrive at the throne of France. As son of Francis of Guise,
as brother of the great Balafre, he considered himself entitled to the
homage of the fishwomen and the butchers' halls. The constitution of the
country in that age making a People impossible, the subtle connection
between a high-born intriguer and the dregs of a populace, which can only
exist in societies of deep chasms and precipitous contrasts, was easily
established.

The duke's summary dealing with the sixteen tyrants of Paris in the
matter of the president's murder had, however, loosened his hold on what
was considered the democracy; but this was at the time when his schemes
were silently swinging towards the Protestant aristocracy; at the moment
when Politica was taking the place of Madam League in his secret