1.  The war of 1562, on the skirts of which Philip of Spain interfered on one side, and Queen Elizabeth with the Calvinistic German Princes on the other, showed at once that the Huguenots were by far the weaker party.  The English troops at Havre enabled them at first to command the lower Seine up to Rouen; but the other party, after a long siege which cost poor Antoine of Navarre his life, took that place, and relieved Paris of anxiety.  The Huguenots had also spread far and wide over the south and west, occupying Orleans; the bridge of Orleans was their point of junction between Poitou and Germany.  While the strength of the Catholics lay to the east, in Picardy, and at Paris, the Huguenot power was mostly concentrated in the south and west of France.  Conde, who commanded at Orleans, supported by German allies, made an attempt on Paris, but finding the capital too strong for him, turned to the west, intending to join the English troops from Havre.  Montmorency, however, caught him at Dreux; and in the battle that ensued, the Marshal of France, Saint-Andre, perished; Conde was captured by the Catholics, Montmorency by the Huguenots.  Coligny, the admiral, drew off his defeated troops with great skill, and fell back to beyond the Loire; the Duc de Guise remained as sole head of the Catholics.  Pushing on his advantage, the Duke immediately laid siege to Orleans, and there he fell by the hand of a Huguenot assassin.  Both parties had suffered so much that the Queen-mother thought she might interpose with terms of peace; the Edict of Amboise (March, 1563) closed the war, allowing the Calvinists freedom of worship in the towns they held, and some other scanty privileges.  A three years’ quiet followed, though all men suspected their neighbours, and the high Catholic party tried hard to make Catherine sacrifice L’Hopital and take sharp measures with the Huguenots.  They on their side were restless and suspicious, and it was felt that another war could not be far off.  Intrigues were incessant, all men thinking to make their profit out of the weakness of France.  The struggle between Calvinists and Catholics in the Netherlands roused much feeling, though Catherine refused to favour either party.  She collected an army of her own; it was rumoured that she intended to take the Huguenots by surprise and annihilate them.  In autumn, 1567, their patience gave way, and they raised the standard of revolt, in harmony with the heroic Netherlanders.  Conde and the Chatillons beleaguered Paris from the north, and fought the battle of St. Denis, in which the old Constable, Anne de Montmorency, was killed.  The Huguenots, however, were defeated and forced to withdraw, Conde marching eastward to join the German troops now coming up to his aid.  No more serious fighting followed; the Peace of Longjumeau (March, 1568), closed the second war, leaving matters much as they were.  The aristocratic resistance against the Catholic sovereigns, against what is often called the “Catholic Reaction,” had proved itself hollow; in Germany and the Netherlands, as well as in France, the Protestant cause seemed to fail; it was not until the religious question became mixed up with questions as to political rights and freedom, as in the Low Countries, that a new spirit of hope began to spring up.