the treaty of Vaucelles, although the troops of Spain had already assumed a hostile attitude in the south of Italy.  The Cardinal was for immediately proceeding to Paris, there to excite the sympathy of the French monarch for the situation of himself and his uncle.  An immediate rupture between France and Spain, a re-kindling of the war flames from one end of Europe to the other, were necessary to save the credit and the interests of the Caraffas.  Cardinal de Tournon, not desirous of so sudden a termination to the pacific relations between his, country and Spain, succeeded in detaining him a little longer in Rome.—­He remained, but not in idleness.  The restless intriguer had already formed close relations with the most important personage in France, Diana of Poitiers.—­This venerable courtesan, to the enjoyment of whose charms Henry had succeeded, with the other regal possessions, on the death of his father, was won by the flatteries of the wily Caraffa, and by the assiduities of the Guise family.  The best and most sagacious statesmen, the Constable, and the Admiral, were in favor of peace, for they knew the condition of the kingdom.  The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal Lorraine were for a rupture, for they hoped to increase their family influence by war.  Coligny had signed the treaty of Vaucelles, and wished to maintain it, but the influence of the Catholic party was in the ascendant.  The result was to embroil the Catholic King against the Pope and against themselves.  The queen was as favorably inclined as the mistress to listen to Caraffa, for Catherine de Medici was desirous that her cousin, Marshal Strozzi, should have honorable and profitable employment in some fresh Italian campaigns.

In the mean time an accident favored the designs of the papal court.  An open quarrel with Spain resulted from an insignificant circumstance.  The Spanish ambassador at Rome was in the habit of leaving the city very often, at an early hour in the morning, upon shooting excursions, and had long enjoyed the privilege of ordering the gates to be opened for him at his pleasure.  By accident or design, he was refused permission upon one occasion to pass through the gate as usual.  Unwilling to lose his day’s sport, and enraged at what he considered an indignity, his excellency, by the aid of his attendants, attacked and beat the guard, mastered them, made his way out of the city, and pursued his morning’s amusement.  The Pope was furious, Caraffa artfully inflamed his anger.  The envoy was refused an audience, which he desired, for the sake of offering explanations, and the train being thus laid, it was thought that the right moment had arrived for applying the firebrand.  The Cardinal went to Paris post haste.  In his audience of the King, he represented that his Holiness had placed implicit reliance upon his secret treaty with his majesty, that the recently concluded truce with Spain left the pontiff at the mercy of the Spaniard, that the Duke of Alva had already drawn the sword,