were dark suspicions attached to the strange and sudden death of a
mother to whom he had been devoted; and he felt doubly repugnant to
receive a wife from the very hands which were secretly accused of having
abridged his passage to the sovereignty of Navarre. Like Marguerite
herself, moreover, he was not heart-whole; and thus he clung to the
freedom of an unmarried life, and would fain have declined the honour
which was pressed upon him; but the wily Catherine, who instantly
perceived his embarrassment, bade him carefully consider the position in
which he stood, and the fearful responsibility which attached to his
decision. Charles IX, in bestowing upon him the hand of his sister, gave
to the Protestants the most decided and unequivocal proof of his
sincerity. It was evident, she said, that despite the edict which
assured protection to the Huguenot party, they still misdoubted the
good-faith of the monarch; but when he had also overlooked, or rather
disregarded, the difference of faith so thoroughly as to give a Princess
of France in marriage to one of their princes, they would no longer have
a pretext for discontent, and the immediate pacification of the kingdom
must be the necessary consequence of such a concession. The ultimate
issue of so unequal a conflict could not, as she asserted, be for one
moment doubtful; but the struggle might be a bloody one, and he would do
well to remember that the blood thus spilt would be upon his own head.

Henry then sought, as his mother had previously done, to create a
difficulty by alleging that the difference of faith between himself and
the Princess must tend to affect the validity of their marriage; but the
wily Italian met this objection by reminding him that Charles IX had
publicly declared that "rather than that the alliance should not take
place, he would permit his sister to dispense with all the rites and
ceremonies of both religions."