talent, and bigoted without opinions.  Incapable of religious convictions himself, he had alternately aspired to be a commander of Catholic and of Huguenot zealots, and he had acquired nothing by his vacillating course, save the entire contempt of all parties and of both religions.  Scared from the aide of Navarre and Conde by the menacing attitude of the “league,” fearing to forfeit the succession to the throne, unless he made his peace with the court, he had recently resumed his place among the Catholic commanders.  Nothing was easier for him than to return shamelessly to a party which he had shamelessly deserted, save perhaps to betray it again, should his interest prompt him to do so, on the morrow.  Since the peace of 1576, it had been evident that the Protestants could not count upon his friendship, and he had soon afterwards been placed at the head of the army which was besieging the Huguenots of Issoire.  He sought to atone for having commanded the troops of the new religion by the barbarity with which he now persecuted its votaries.  When Issoire fell into his hands, the luckless city was spared none of the misery which can be inflicted by a brutal and frenzied soldiery.  Its men were butchered, its females outraged; its property plundered with a thoroughness which rivalled the Netherland practice of Alva, or Frederic Toledo, or Julian Romero.  The town was sacked and burned to ashes by furious Catholics, under the command of Francis Alencon,—­almost at the very moment when his fair sister, Margaret, was preparing the way in the Netherlands for the fresh treason—­which he already meditated to the Catholic cause.  The treaty of Bergerac, signed in the autumn of 1577, again restored a semblance of repose to France, and again afforded an opportunity for Alencon to change his politics, and what he called his religion.  Reeking with the blood of the Protestants of Issoire, he was now at leisure to renew his dalliance with the Queen of Protestant England, and to resume his correspondence with the great-chieftain of the Reformation in the Netherlands.

It is perhaps an impeachment upon the perspicacity of Orange, that he could tolerate this mischievous and worthless “son of France,” even for the grave reasons which influenced him.  Nevertheless, it must be remembered that he only intended to keep him in reserve, for the purpose of irritating the jealousy and quickening the friendship of the English Queen.  Those who see anything tortuous in such politics must beware of judging the intriguing age of Philip and Catherine de’ Medici by the higher standard of later, and possibly more candid times.  It would have been puerile for a man of William the Silent’s resources, to allow himself to be outwitted by the intrigues of all the courts and cabinets in Europe.  Moreover, it must be remembered that, if he alone could guide himself and his country through the perplexing labyrinth in which they were involved; it was because he held in his hand the clue of an honest purpose.  His position in regard to the Duke of Alencon, had now become sufficiently complicated, for the tiger that he had led in a chain had been secretly unloosed by those who meant mischief.  In the autumn of the previous year, the aristocratic and Catholic party in the states-general had opened their communications with a prince, by whom they hoped to be indemnified for their previous defeat.