Note 1510 — Chapter XV

C. S. P. For., No. 1,921, August 12, 1571. Languet makes Charles IX’s reply less emphatic than this. Languet, Epist. secr., I, 177, August 15, 1571. I am inclined to believe that Walsingham colored the anecdote. Languet shows the hesitations and vacillations of Charles IX, pp. 132, 136, 140. The Spanish ambassador’s grounds of fear for Flanders were the more substantial because the garrisons that had occupied St. Jean-d’Angély, Niort, Saintes, and Angoulême during the late war were newly stationed in the border fortresses of Picardy. To Alava’s alarmed inquiry Charles IX blandly replied that “the reason why these troops were sent to the frontiers was to give them employment, because if the King had disbanded them all at once the soldiery might have mutinied for lack of pay” (C. S. P. Ven., No. 499, February 19, 1571; No. 575, August 1, 1571).