[Illustration:  Catherine de’ Medici (in her young days)——­255]

Queen Catherine was alone at Paris.  Of her own motion “she went to the Parliament (according to the Memoires de la Chatre it was to the Hotel de Ville that she went and made her address) in full state, accompanied by the cardinals, princes, and princesses; and there, in the most impressive language, she set forth the urgent state of affairs at the moment.  She pointed out that, in spite of the enormous expenses into which the Most Christian king had found himself drawn in his late wars, he had shown the greatest care not to burden the towns.  In the continuous and extreme pressure of requirements her Majesty did not think that any further charge could be made on the people of the country places, who in ordinary times always bear the greatest burden.  With so much sentiment and eloquence that she touched the heart of everybody, the queen then explained to the Parliament that the king had need of three hundred thousand livres, twenty-five thousand to be paid every two months; and she added that she would retire from the place of session, so as not to interfere with liberty of discussion; and she, accordingly, retired to an adjoining room.  A resolution to comply with the wishes of her Majesty was voted, and the queen, having resumed her place, received a promise to that effect.  A hundred notables of the city offered to give at once three thousand francs apiece.  The queen thanked them in the sweetest form of words; and thus terminated this session of Parliament with so much applause for her Majesty and such lively marks of satisfaction at her behavior that no idea can be given of them.  Throughout the whole city nothing was spoken of but the queen’s prudence and the happy manner in which she proceeded in this enterprise.”

Such is the account, not of a French courtier, but of the Venetian ambassador, Giacomo Lorenzo, writing confidentially to his government.  From that day the position of Catherine de’ Medici was changed in France, amongst the people as well as at court.  “The king went more often to see her; he added to his habits that of holding court at her apartments for about an hour every day after supper in the midst of the lords and ladies.”  It is not to be discovered anywhere in the contemporary Memoires, whether Catherine had anything to do with the resolution taken by Henry II. on returning from Compiegne; but she thenceforward assumed her place, and gave a foretaste of the part she was to play in the government of France.  Unhappily for the honor of Catherine and for the welfare of France, that part soon ceased to be judicious, dignified, and salutary, as it had been on that day of its first exhibition.