Protestantism in France From Death of Francis I to Edict of Nantes - James Aitken Wylie

But in the room of the Guises there stood up
one not less the enemy of the Gospel, and whose
rule was not less prolific of woes to France.
Catherine de Medici was now supreme in the
government; her day had at last arrived. If her
measures were less precipitate, and her violence
less open, her craft was deeper than that of the
Guises, and her stroke, if longer delayed, was the
more deadly when it fell. Her son, Charles IX, who
now occupied the throne, was a lad of only nine
and a half years; and, as might have been expected
in the case of such a mother and such a son,
Charles wore the crown, but Catherine governed
the kingdom. The sudden demise of Francis had
opened the prison doors to Conde. Snatching him
from a scaffold, if, restored him to liberty. As a
prince of the blood, the Regency of France, during
the minority of Charles, by right belonged to him;
but Catherine boldly put him aside, and made
herself be installed in that high office. In this act
she gave a taste of the rigor with which she meant
to rule. Still she did not proceed in too great haste.
Her caution, which was great, served as a bridle to
128