Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1851 edition. Excerpt: ... The Queen mother, who foresaw that this unlimited ambition and this violent hatred must have fatal effects, desired that they should act with more moderation, management, and dexterity; but she dared not, in the beginning, oppose herself to the wills, nor traverse the designs of those whose influence was the principal support of her authority. "At this time, the Bourbons, excluded from all parts of the government, banished from court, and without hopes of carrying their complaints to the foot of the throne, beginning to reflect upon the situation of their affairs and the conduct of their enemies, who, not content with their present grandeur, labored by all sorts of means to perpetuate it, resolved to remain no longer inactive spectators of their own misfortunes, but to prevent the ruin that threatened them." To this purpose a convention was called, and we shall soon see what kind of convention it was. "Anthony, King of Navarre, after having left in Bear n his son, yet an infant, under the conduct of the Queen his wife, as in an asylum, at a distance from that conflagration which they saw ready to be lighted up in France, repaired to Vendome with the Prince of Conde, already returned from his embassy. The Admiral, d'Andelot and the Cardinal of Chatillon, his brothers; Charles, Comte de la Rochefoucauld, Francis, Vidame de Chartres, Anthony, Prince of Porcien, all relations or common friends, assembled also, with several other noblemen attached for many years to the Houses of Montmorenci and Bourbon. The Constable, who, although to all appearance wholly engaged in the delights of private life, secretly set in motion all the springs of this enterprise, had sent to this assembly at Ardres his ancient and confidential secretary, with...