The new King, Francis II., was about sixteen years old when he ascended the throne. He is represented as a sickly boy, feeble in body and mind; and his wife, Mary Stuart of Scotland, a thoughtless beauty, spending her time in pleasure, was about the same age. Thus was monarchy represented in France in 1559; when a strong hand and a powerful will were required to protect the royal authority. The profligacy and extravagance of the last reign had borne their natural fruits. There was anger and discontent all over the land; the court was a hot-bed of intrigue, and the nation, broken into factions, was on the brink of civil war. Catherine de Medici, the Guises, Chatillons, Bourbons, the constable Montmorency, all worked to their own advantage these feeble children of royalty, and mingled with the religious discussions, the quarrels of their political ambition.
The two Guises, the cardinal and the general, became managers of the court. Uncles of the fair young queen, and guardians of the feeble sovereign, they had the ear of both, which gave them immense advantages over their rivals. But there was one at the foot of the throne who was a match both for the general and the cardinal. The queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, hated the Huguenots as much as the Guises-who were the heads of the Roman Catholic party-but she also hated all who would supplant her in power. Artful and vindictive, unscrupulous and ambitious, without religious faith or moral feeling, the crafty Italian dissembled that she might ruin the authority of the Guises, in order to consolidate her own. This threw Catherine for a moment on the side of the Huguenot party, which was overruled by a merciful providence to weaken the power of the Guises, divide the strength of the popish party, and save the Reformers. Affecting to hold the balance between the two parties, she was only biding her time in all changes of circumstances, by turns embracing and deserting all parties alike.
We now come to the wars of religion. Parties began to be formed from political motives, which threw the whole of France into the most ruinous, desolating, civil war, which lasted, with brief intervals, for many years-we might say, centuries. All the liberalism of France became Huguenot, which then simply meant antipapist. And thus, to their great injury and final destruction, the French Protestants became a great political party in the state. Meanwhile Francis II., after a reign of seventeen months, died; and Catherine, emerging from the obscurity in which she had restrained her ambition, claimed the custody of her next son, Charles IX., who was only nine years of age; and before the court could assemble, assumed the guardianship of the king, and in fact, if not in name, the regency of the kingdom.