Note 425 — Chapter XIV · (continued 2)
Reading edition
Yet so much were intelligent observers deceived respecting the signs of the times, that only a little over two months before the actual outbreak of the second civil war (July 4, 1567), Judge Truchon congratulated France on the edifying spectacle of loving accord which the court furnished. "I have this very day," he writes, "seen the king holding, with his left hand, the head of my lord, the prince [of Condé], and with his right the head of my lord the Cardinal of Bourbon, and playfully trying to strike their foreheads together. The Duke d'Aumale was paying his attentions to Madame la Mareschale [de Montmorency.] ... The Cardinal of Châtillon was not far off. In short, all, without distinction, seemed to me to be so harmonious that I wish there may never be greater divisions in France. It was a fine example for many persons of lower rank," etc. Letter to M. de Gordes, MS. in Archives de Condé, Duc d'Aumale, Princes de Condé, i. 540, Pièces inédites.