The monarch who, in violation of his plighted word and against the interests of his nation and the world, had entered precipitately into a causeless war, now lost his life in fictitious combat at the celebration of peace.
On the tenth of July, Henry the Second died of the wound inflicted by Montgomery in the tournament held eleven days before.

Of this weak and worthless prince, all that even his flatterers could favorably urge was his great fondness for war, as if a sanguinary propensity, even when unaccompanied by a spark of military talent, were of itself a virtue.
Yet, with his death the kingdom fell even into more pernicious hands, and the fate of Christendom grew darker than ever.

The dynasty of Diane de Poitiers was succeeded by that of Catharine de Medici; the courtesan gave place to the dowager; and France during the long and miserable period in which she lay bleeding in the grasp of the Italian she-wolf and her litter of cowardly and sanguinary princes--might even lament the days of Henry and his Diana.

Charles the Ninth, Henry the Third, Francis of Alencon, last of the Valois race--how large a portion of the fearful debt which has not yet been discharged by half a century of revolution and massacre was of their accumulation.
The Duchess of Valentinois had quarrelled latterly with the house of Guise, and was disposed to favor Montmorency.

The King, who was but a tool in her hands, might possibly have been induced, had he lived, to regard Coligny and his friends with less aversion.