Montmedy, and one or two other frontier towns, while she recovered Ham and St. Quentin; the House of Savoy was reinstated by Philip, as a reward to Philibert for his services, and formed a solid barrier for a time between France and Italy; cross-marriages between Spain, France, and Savoy were arranged;—­and finally, the treaty contained secret articles by which the Guises for France and Granvella for the Netherlands agreed to crush heresy with a strong hand.  As a sequel to this peace, Henri II. held a great tournament at Paris, at which he was accidentally slain by a Scottish knight in the lists.

The Guises now shot up into abounded power.  On the Guise side the Cardinal de Lorraine was the cleverest man, the true head, while Francois, the Duke, was the arm; he showed leanings towards the Lutherans.  On the other side, the head was the dull and obstinate Anne de Montmorency, the Constable, an unwavering Catholic, supported by the three Coligny brothers, who all were or became Huguenots.  The Queen-mother Catherine fluctuated uneasily between the parties, and though Catholic herself, or rather not a Protestant, did not hesitate to befriend the Huguenots, if the political arena seemed to need their gallant swords.  Their noblest leader was Coligny, the admiral; their recognised head was Antoine, King of Navarre, a man as foolish as fearless.  He was heir presumptive to the throne after the Valois boys, and claimed to have charge of the young King.  Though the Guises had the lead at first, the Huguenots seemed, from their strong aristocratic connections, to have the fairer prospects before them.

Thirty years of desolate civil strife are before us, and we must set it all down briefly and drily.  The prelude to the troubles was played by the Huguenots, who in 1560, guided by La Renaudie, a Perigord gentleman, formed a plot to carry off the young King; for Francois II. had already treated them with considerable severity, and had dismissed from his councils both the princes of the blood royal and the Constable de Montmorency.  The plot failed miserably and La Renaudie lost his life; it only secured more firmly the authority of the Guises.  As a counterpoise to their influence, the Queen-mother now conferred the vacant chancellorship on one of the wisest men France has ever seen, her Lord Bacon, Michel de L’Hopital, a man of the utmost prudence and moderation, who, had the times been better, might have won constitutional liberties for his country, and appeased her civil strife.  As it was, he saved her from the Inquisition; his hand drew the edicts which aimed at enforcing toleration on France; he guided the assembly of notables which gathered at Fontainebleau, and induced them to attempt a compromise which moderate Catholics and Calvinists might accept, and which might lessen the power of the Guises.  This assembly was followed by a meeting of the States General at Orleans, at which the Prince de Conde and the King of Navarre were seized by the Guises on a charge of having had to do with La Renaudie’s plot.  It would have gone hard with them had not the sickly King at this very time fallen ill and died (1560).