and, whilst the legal government was thus falling to pieces or languishing away, Gaspard de Tavannes, a proved soldier and royalist, who, however, was not yet marshal of France, was beginning to organize, under the name of Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit, a secret society intended to renew the civil war “if it happened that occasion should offer for repressing and chastising them of the religion called Reformed.”  It was the League in its cradle.  At the same time, the king had orders given for a speedy levy of six thousand Swiss, and an army-corps was being formed on the frontiers of Champagne.  The queen-mother neglected no pains, no caresses, to hide from Conde the true moving cause at the bottom of all these measures; and as “he was,” says the historian Davila, “by nature very ready to receive all sorts of impressions,” he easily suffered himself to be lulled to sleep.  One day, however, in June, 1567, he thought it about time to claim the fulfilment of a promise that had been made him at the time of the peace of Amboise of a post which would give him the rank and authority of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, as his late brother, the King of Navarre, had been; and he asked for the sword of constable which Montmorency, in consequence of his great age, seemed disposed to resign to the king.  Catherine avoided giving any answer; but her favorite son, Henry, Duke of Anjou, who was as yet only sixteen, repudiated this idea with so much haughtiness that Conde felt called upon to ask some explanations; there was no longer any question of war with Spain or of an army to be got together.  “What, pray, will you do,” he asked, “with the Swiss you are raising?” The answer was, “We shall find good employment for them.”

It is the failing of a hypocritical and lying policy, however able, that, if it do not succeed promptly, a moment arrives when it becomes transparent and lets in daylight.  Even Conde could not delude himself any longer; the preparations were for war against the Reformers.  He quitted the court to take his stand again with his own party.  Coligny, D’Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, La Noue, and all the accredited leaders amongst the Protestants, whom his behavior, too full of confidence or of complaisance towards the court, had shocked or disquieted, went and joined him.  In September, 1567, the second religious war broke out.

It was short, and not decisive for either party.  At the outset of the campaign, success was with the Protestants; forty towns, Orleans, Montereau, Lagny, Montauban, Castres, Montpellier, Uzes, &c., opened their gates to them or fell into their hands.