2.  The Reformation.—­The enmity of these two parties was much increased by the reaction against the prevalent doctrines and the corruptions of the clergy.  This reaction had begun in the reign of Francis I., when the Bible had been translated into French by two students at the University of Paris, and the king’s sister, Margaret, Queen of Navarre, had encouraged the Reformers.  Francis had leagued with the German Protestants because they were foes to the Emperor, while he persecuted the like opinions at home to satisfy the Pope.  John Calvin, a native of Picardy, the foremost French reformer, was invited to the free city of Geneva, and there was made chief pastor, while the scheme of theology called his “Institutes” became the text-book of the Reformed in France, Scotland, and Holland.  His doctrine was harsh and stern, aiming at the utmost simplicity of worship, and denouncing the existing practices so fiercely, that the people, who held themselves to have been wilfully led astray by their clergy, committed such violence in the churches that the Catholics loudly called for punishment on them.  The shameful lives of many of the clergy and the wickedness of the Court had caused a strong reaction against them, and great numbers of both nobles and burghers became Calvinists.  They termed themselves Sacramentarians or Reformers, but their nickname was Huguenots; probably from the Swiss, “Eidgenossen” or oath comrades.  Henry II., like his father, protected German Lutherans and persecuted French Calvinists; but the lawyers of the Parliament of Paris interposed, declaring that men ought not to be burnt for heresy until a council of the Church should have condemned their opinions, and it was in the midst of this dispute that Henry was slain.

3.  The Conspiracy of Amboise.—­The Guise family were strong Catholics; the Bourbons were the heads of the Huguenot party, chiefly from policy; but Admiral Coligny and his brother, the Sieur D’Andelot, were sincere and earnest Reformers.  A third party, headed by the old Constable De Montmorency, was Catholic in faith, but not unwilling to join with the Huguenots in pulling down the Guises, and asserting the power of the nobility.  A conspiracy for seizing the person of the king and destroying the Guises at the castle of Amboise was detected in time to make it fruitless.  The two Bourbon princes kept in the background, though Conde was universally known to have been the true head and mover in it, and he was actually brought to trial.  The discovery only strengthened the hands of Guise.

4.  Regency of Catherine de’ Medici.—­Even then, however, Francis II. was dying, and his brother, Charles IX., who succeeded him in 1560, was but ten years old.  The regency passed to his mother, the Florentine Catherine, a wily, cat-like woman, who had always hitherto been kept in the background, and whose chief desire was to keep things quiet by playing off one party against the other.  She at