Catherine de Médicis . s old. The other most con-spicuous leaders of the previous war were dead, none ofGuises brothers were able to take his place and his sonwas too young. In Monluc, Catherine had a competentsoldier for managing the war in a province or two, but hisfaults of character would have made it impossible to puthim in supreme command. Tavannes was an excellentgeneral but he said of himself that he had neither theposition nor the patience to enable him to impose peaceupon the jealous and warring nobles of the royal party,each of whom was anxious to get as much honor as possible.* Th
Catherine de Médicis . s old. The other most con-spicuous leaders of the previous war were dead, none ofGuises brothers were able to take his place and his sonwas too young. In Monluc, Catherine had a competentsoldier for managing the war in a province or two, but hisfaults of character would have made it impossible to puthim in supreme command. Tavannes was an excellentgeneral but he said of himself that he had neither theposition nor the patience to enable him to impose peaceupon the jealous and warring nobles of the royal party,each of whom was anxious to get as much honor as possible.* The King, although seventeen years of age, was a merechild completely under the sway of his mother. How littleshe or anybody else, could rely on his judgment in this greatcrisis, is plainly shown by the fact that he and his next oldestbrother signed, at this very time, an agreement with analchemist who claimed that he was just about to discover B. N. It. 1726 f. 167, Ven. Amb. = A. N. K. 1506 f. 99; B. N. It. 1726 f. THE HUGUENOTS RENEW THE CIVHi WAR 359 the secret of the transmutation of metals into gold andsilver. The alchemist promised to give the first proof thathe was on the road to this discovery in six months, thesecond proof four months later, and in two years the com-plete formula. In exchange the King and his brother prom-ised the alchemist a hundred thousand livres of rent and ahundred thousand livres in gold, half to be paid after thefirst proof and half after the second. Six thousand goldcrowns were to be paid him in advance and twelve hundredgold crowns a month were to be furnished during the experi-ments. A document of this kind would not have been soastonishing several generations back, but alchemy was nowdiscredited in the minds of all men of intelligence. Fiftyyears before, Erasmus had denounced its pretensions in hisPraise of Folly, which was read by all persons of educa-tion in Europe. An example of the attitude taken towardalchemy by educated men in th
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