Had Catherine foreseen the effect of her intrigues upon her
son, would she have recoiled from them? What a fearful spectacle was
this! A king born vigorous, and now so feeble; a mind powerfully
tempered, shaken by distrust; a man clothed with authority, conscious
of no support; a firm mind brought to the pass of having lost all
confidence in itself! His warlike valor had changed by degrees to
ferocity; his discretion to deceit; the refined and delicate love of a
Valois was now a mere quenchless thirst for pleasure. This perverted
and misjudged great man, with all the many facets of a noble soul
worn-out,--a king without power, a generous heart without a friend,
dragged hither and thither by a thousand conflicting intrigues,
--presented the melancholy spectacle of a youth, only twenty-four
years old, disillusioned of life, distrusting everybody and everything,
now resolving to risk all, even his life, on a last effort. For some
time past he had fully understood his royal mission, his power, his
resources, and the obstacles which his mother opposed to the
pacification of the kingdom; but alas! this light now burned in a
shattered lantern.
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