itself; her intriguing genius and pernicious policy were still latent or unobserved. Pliant in her manners, and mistress of her passions, she yielded, without affecting opposition, to the power of her rival, whose regard she conciliated.

An event now approached which enabled her to throw aside the mask, and to assert the native force of her mind. A tournament was proclaimed in the French court, on the double occasion of the return of peace, and the marriage of Elizabeth of France, the daughter of Catherine (who since the birth of Francis had borne several children), with Philip II. of Spain. Henry, on this ocсаsion, having distinguished his skill and gallantry, was desirous of breaking a lance with the count de Montgomery, captain of his life-guards, and celebrated for his military prowess. Catherine, as if from a presage of the event, besought her husband not to enter the lists; but, resisting her intreaties, he declared his resolution to break one more lance in her honour. Montgomery accepted with reluctance the challenge of the king, from which he sought in vain to be excused. Henry commanded his obedience, and, with a fatal temerity, even fought with his visor raised. The lance of the count having, in the rudeness of the shock, broke against the helmet of the king, the stump entered his right eye, and threw him to the ground. He survived the accident eleven days, but never recovered his speech or his senses. Being conveyed, by the order of the queen, to the palace of Tournelles, every assistance was procured for him but in vain: an incurable abscess formed in the brain, of which he expired, in the forty-first year of his age.

The court, on this catastrophe, was filled with consternation, and divided by intrigues: the contending factions, held in awe by the vigour and activity of Henry, now declared their various pretensions. Diana de Poitiers, while the monarch yet breathed, had received an order from the queen to retire to her own house, and not to presume to enter the chamber of the dying king. Does he yet exist ?" replied Diana: 'Know, that so long as he shall retain the least appearance of life, I fear not my enemies, however powerful, nor will shew any deference to their menaces or commands. Carry this answer to the queen.'

Catherine, so long obscured, now came forward, and rose into importance: as mother to the young king, her favour was eagerly courted, while her capacity and her talents fitted her for the most arduous offices. Endowed with a thousand great qualities, she wanted only virtue to direct them to useful and honourable purposes. Her love of pleasure, of letters, of magnificence, were her inferior passions, over which ambition predominated: possessing a calm and intrepid temper, no circumstances, however sudden, however trying, threw her off her guard: she knew how to bend to circumstances, or to accommodate every thing to her purposes. Consummate in dissembling, her manners were seductive, and her conversation insinuating. Sprung from the blood of Cosmo de Medicis, and emulous of the reputation acquired by Francis I. she affected to protect learning, and cultivate the fine arts, amidst the horrors of civil war; even in the most exhausted state of the finances, she was the munificent patroness of men of letters. Expensive and lavish in the entertainments and spectacles which she exhibited to the court, she covered under the mask of pleasure the most atrocious designs; planned a massacre in the midst of a festival, while she caressed the victims of a sanguinary policy. Cruel from ambition rather than from temper, profuse from taste, and rapacious from necessity, she united in her character qualities the most apparently discordant. The majesty of her person, the dignity of her aspect, and the elegance of her dress, added lustre to her beauty, which re

mained unimpaired to an advanced period of life. Her hands and arms were remarkable for their beauty; her shape, faultless in her youth, became afterwards injured by corpulency; her head also was disproportionably large, nor could she walk any distance without being subject to dizziness : this disorder was probably occasioned by a severe blow on the head, which she had received in hunting, and which subjected her to the operation of the trepan: she also once broke her leg in the same exercise, of which she was peculiarly fond, and which she continued till her sixtieth year. She piqued herself on her skill and boldness in managing a horse.

When Henry lay expiring, the mind of Catherine, though apparently overwhelmed with grief, was intent on the conduct it would be proper for her to pursue. She dreaded the power of the Guises: Montmorenci the constable, who had united himself with her rival, was yet more obnoxious to her. He had dared to suggest suspicions injurious to her honour, by hinting, that of all the children of Henry, one only, a natural daughter, bore any resemblance to him: he had beside uniformly persecuted the Florentines who followed Catherine into France, or who had sought promotion in the court.

These mortifications were submitted to by the queen during the life of her husband, but, when released from the necessity of dissimulation, they were remembered by her and resented. Thus was Catherine induced to lend an ear to the princes of Lorrain, who, as a cement of their union, promised to sacrifice to her the mistress of her husband. Diana, abandoned by the crowd of parasites and courtiers, sunk, in her turn, into neglect and humiliation. Some magnanimity must be allowed on this occasion to Catherine, who, tempted to a bloody and exemplary vengeance on her rival, rejected with firmness the barbarous expedients suggested to her by her courtiers, and, contenting herself with a political victory, repressed, from respect to the memory of her husband, all personal recrimination. Diana was suffered to retain the splendid proofs of affection lavished on her by her lover, and to retire to the palace of Anet, where she passed the remainder of her life. She expressed her sense of this clemency by presenting to the queen the superb palace of Chaumont-sur-Loire, situated in the midst of the lands which had been assigned as a dowry to Catherine, who, in return, gave to the duchess the castle of Chenonceaux in Touraine.

Catherine, the instant her husband had breath