the nobility and the higher classes, and had taken particularly deep root in the South,—the region of the old Albigensian heresy.
The Catholic and the Huguenot Leaders.—The leaders of the Catholic party were the notorious Catherine de Medici, and the powerful chiefs of the family of the Guises. Catherine, the queen-mother of the last three Valois-Orleans sovereigns, was an intriguing, treacherous Italian. Nominally she was a Catholic; but only nominally, for it seems certain that she was almost destitute of religious convictions of any kind. What she sought was power, and this she was ready to secure by any means. When it suited her purpose, she favored the Huguenots; and when it suited her purpose better, she incited the Catholics to make war upon them. Perhaps no other woman ever made so much trouble in the world. She made France wretched through the three successive reigns of her sons, and brought her house to a shameful and miserable end.
At the head of the family of the Guises stood Francis, Duke of Guise, a famous commander, who had gained great credit and popularity among his countrymen by many military exploits, especially by his capture of Calais from the English in the recent Spanish wars (see p. 553). By his side stood a younger brother Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine. Both of these men were ardent Catholics. Mary Stuart, the queen of the young king Francis II., was their niece, and through her they ruled the boy-king. The Pope and the king of Spain were friends and allies of the Guises.
The chiefs of the Huguenots were the Bourbon princes, Anthony, king of Navarre, and Louis, Prince of Conde", who, next after the brothers of Francis II., were heirs to the French throne; and Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France. Anthony was not a man of deep convictions. He at first sided with the Protestants, probably because it was only through forming an alliance with them that he could carry on his opposition to the Guises. He afterwards went over to the side of the Catholics. A man of very different character was Admiral Coligny. Early in life he had embraced the doctrines of the reformers, and he remained to the last
