Note 76 — Chapter XIII

Yet, if we may credit the unambiguous testimony of Jean de Tavannes, Catharine did not cease to endeavor to favor the Huguenots. He assures us that, a few months later, during the summer, his father, Gaspard de Tavannes, intercepted at Châlons a messenger whom Catharine had despatched to her daughter the Duchess of Savoy ("qui agréoit ces nouvelles opinions") ostensibly as a lute-player. Among his effects the prying governor of Burgundy found letters signed by the queen mother, containing some rather surprising suggestions. "La Royne luy escrivoit qu'elle estoit resolue de favoriser les Huguenots, d'où elle espéroit son salut contre le gouvernement du triumvirat ... qu'elle soupçonnoit vouloir oster la couronne à ses enfans; et prioit madame de Savoye d'aider lesdits Huguenots de Lyon, Dauphiné et Provence, et qu'elle persuadast son mary d'empescher les Suisses et levée d'Italie des Catholiques." Mém. de Tavannes (Petitot ed.), ii. 341, 342. Tavannes did not dare to detain the messenger, nor to take away his letters; and if, as his son asserts, the enmity of Catharine, which the discovery of her secret gained for him, delayed his acquisition of the marshal's baton for ten years, he certainly had some reason to remember and regret his ill-timed curiosity.