I was interested at last.
For a moment let me digress.

The few of my age will remember, and the many younger will have been told, that at this time the Italian queen-mother was the ruling power in France.

It was Catharine de' Medici's first object to maintain her influence over Charles the Ninth--her son; who, ricketty, weak, and passionate, was already doomed to an early grave.

Her second, to support the royal power by balancing the extreme Catholics against the Huguenots.

For the latter purpose she would coquet first with one party, then with the other.