Catherine avoided giving any answer; but her favorite son, Henry, Duke of Anjou, who was as yet only sixteen, repudiated this idea with so much haughtiness that Conde felt called upon to ask some explanations; there was no longer any question of war with Spain or of an army to be got together.

"What, pray, will you do," he asked, "with the Swiss you are raising ?" The answer was, "We shall find good employment for them." It is the failing of a hypocritical and lying policy, however able, that, if it do not succeed promptly, a moment arrives when it becomes transparent and lets in daylight.

Even Conde could not delude himself any longer; the preparations were for war against the Reformers.

He quitted the court to take his stand again with his own party.

Coligny, D'Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, La Noue, and all the accredited leaders amongst the Protestants, whom his behavior, too full of confidence or of complaisance towards the court, had shocked or disquieted, went and joined him.