This influence, thus suddenly acquired, is in itself a great mystery. Why Charles should thus take to his confidence a man who had so recently and so repeatedly organized armed treason, who had ravaged and desolated half his kingdom, who had laid in ruins nearly half the churches and religious establishments of France, has never been satisfactorily explained.
That Charles was a mere hypocrite, and that his conduct was part of a concerted plot, does not seem at all warranted by any evidence that deserves consideration. That he could really have conceived so sudden an attachment, confidence, and respect for the admiral can be explained only as one of the sudden freaks of a man whose mind was eccentric to the very verge of insanity. But Coligny really ruled in the councils of France; the Guises were, in a manner, banished from court. Catharine and Anjou saw their influence daily decrease. Coligny insisted on war with Spain, and plainly told Charles that he must fight Spain or his own subjects--use the Huguenots to aid Holland against Philip II., or behold civil war again ravaging France.
Catharine strongly opposed this warlike spirit, and sought means to regain her lost power.
The arrogant attitude of Coligny was fast uniting all whom jealousy or personal interest had divided. As often happens, it needed but a spark to kindle a vast conflagration.
One of the great historical questions has been as to the premeditation of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The Huguenot pamphleteers of the day, followed by the overrated De Thou, Voltaire and his school, and the less temperate Catholic writers, maintain that the plot was long before concerted. { 12} White, by his chain of authorities, shows that it was at first aimed at Coligny only, and that the general massacre was not premeditated.
Anjou expressly states that, finding the influence of the admiral dangerous to himself and his mother, they determined to get rid of him, and to concert means with the Duchess of Nemours, "whom alone we ventured to admit into the plot, because of the mortal hatred she bore to the admiral," in her mind the real murderer of her husband, the Duke of Guise.
This statement of Anjou is supported by the testimony of Michieli (Baschet, _Diplomatie Venetienne_, p. 541) and of the nuncio Salviati.
