"
"/Maladetta Maria/!" muttered Catherine between her teeth.
"The Lorrains are, even now, endeavoring to turn the burghers against
you," remarked Birago.
V
THE COURT
The hope of gaining the crown was not the result of a premeditated
plan in the minds of the restless Guises. Nothing warranted such a
hope or such a plan. Circumstances alone inspired their audacity. The
two cardinals and the two Balafres were four ambitious minds, superior
in talents to all the other politicians who surrounded them. This
family was never really brought low except by Henri IV.; a factionist
himself, trained in the great school of which Catherine and the Guises
were masters,--by whose lessons he had profited but too well.
At this moment the two brothers, the duke and cardinal, were the
arbiters of the greatest revolution attempted in Europe since that of
Henry VIII. in England, which was the direct consequence of the
invention of printing. Adversaries to the Reformation, they meant to
stifle it, power being in their hands. But their opponent, Calvin,
though less famous than Luther, was far the stronger of the two.
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