“If the new king desires to secure the safety of his throne and of his own life he must show such ardor in avenging the death of his predecessor that no one shall feel a desire to commit the same crime.  But to avenge it worthily it is not enough to shed the blood of his subjects, he must approve the axioms of the king he replaces, and take the same course in governing.”

It was the application of this maxim which gave Florence to the Medici.  Cosmo I. caused to be assassinated at Venice, after eleven years’ sway, the Florentine Brutus, and, as we have already said, persecuted the Strozzi.  It was forgetfulness of this maxim which ruined Louis XVI.  That king was false to every principle of royal government when he re-established the parliaments suppressed by his grandfather.  Louis XV. saw the matter clearly.  The parliaments, and notably that of Paris, counted for fully half in the troubles which necessitated the convocation of the States-general.  The fault of Louis XV. was, that in breaking down that barrier which separated the throne from the people he did not erect a stronger; in other words, that he did not substitute for parliament a strong constitution of the provinces.  There lay the remedy for the evils of the monarchy; thence should have come the voting on taxes, the regulation of them, and a slow approval of reforms that were necessary to the system of monarchy.

The first act of Henri II. was to give his confidence to the Connetable de Montmorency, whom his father had enjoined him to leave in disgrace.  The Connetable de Montmorency was, with Diane de Poitiers, to whom he was closely bound, the master of the State.  Catherine was therefore less happy and less powerful after she became queen of France than while she was dauphiness.  From 1543 she had a child every year for ten years, and was occupied with maternal cares during the period covered by the last three years of the reign of Francois I. and nearly the whole of the reign of Henri II.  We may see in this recurring fecundity the influence of a rival, who was able thus to rid herself of the legitimate wife,—­a barbarity of feminine policy which must have been one of Catherine’s grievances against Diane.

Thus set aside from public life, this superior woman passed her time in observing the self-interests of the court people and of the various parties which were formed about her.  All the Italians who had followed her were objects of violent suspicion.  After the execution of Montecuculi the Connetable de Montmorency, Diane, and many of the keenest politicians of the court were filled with suspicion of the Medici; though Francois I. always repelled it.  Consequently, the Gondi, Strozzi, Ruggieri, Sardini, etc.,—­in short, all those who were called distinctively “the Italians,”—­were compelled to employ greater resources of mind, shrewd policy, and courage, to maintain themselves at court against the weight of disfavor which pressed upon them.