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

to dissemble, and to go on a little while longer
disciplining herself in those arts in which nature
had fitted her to excel, and in which long practice
would at last make her an expert, and then would
she grasp the government of France.
The question which the Queen-mother now put,
"What shall be my policy?" was to be determined
by the consideration of who were her rivals, and
what the tactics to which they were committed. Her
rivals, we have just said, were the Guises, the
heads of the Roman Catholic party. This threw
Catherine somewhat on the other side. She was
nearly as much the bigot as the Cardinal of
Lorraine himself, but if she loved the Pope, still
more did she love power, and in order to grasp it
she stooped to caress what she mortally hated, and
reigned to protect what she secretly wished to root
out. Thus did God divide the counsels and the arms
of these two Powerful enemies of his Church. Had
the Guises stood alone, the Reformation would
have been crushed in France; or had Catherine de
Medici stood alone, a like fate would have befallen
it; but Providence brought both upon the scene
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