Montigny, who, as a Montmorency, was nearly allied to the Constable and Admiral of France, and was in epistolary correspondence with those relatives, was held up as a Huguenot; of course, therefore, in Philip's eye, the most monstrous of malefactors.
Although no man could strew pious reflections and holy texts more liberally, yet there was always an afterthought even in his most edifying letters.

A corner of the mask is occasionally lifted and the deadly face of slow but abiding vengeance is revealed.

"I know very well," he wrote, soon after his fall, to Viglius, "that vengeance is the Lord's-God is my witness that I pardon all the past." In the same letter, nevertheless, he added, "My theology, however, does not teach me, that by enduring, one is to enable one's enemies to commit even greater wrongs.

If the royal justice is not soon put into play, I shall be obliged to right myself.
This thing is going on too long-patience exhausted changes to fury.

'Tis necessary that every man should assist himself as he can, and when I choose to throw the game into confusion I shall do it perhaps more notably than the others." A few weeks afterwards, writing to the same correspondent, he observed, "We shall have to turn again, and rejoice together.