As had more than once already been the case, the return of peace was quickly followed by the marked diminution of the influence of the house of Guise. The Duke of Anjou cherished an instinctive hatred and jealousy of Henry of Lorraine; whilst the Cardinal had incurred the displeasure of the Queen-mother, who, as well as Charles IX., had previously been greatly angered by the presumption of the Duke of Guise in aspiring to the hand of her daughter Margaret. At one time, so furiously chafed was the King's naturally violent temper by the pretensions of the Guise party--against whom his brother Anjou lost no opportunity of irritating him--that he actually resolved on the immediate death of the young Duke of Guise, who only escaped through the timidity and indecision of Henry of Angoulême, the King's bastard brother--commissioned to make an end of him at a hunting party--and through warnings given him, it is said, by Margaret herself. The Montmorencys, cousins of the Colignys, seemed to have succeeded to the influence the Guises had lost: the Marshal and his brother d'Anville governed the Queen-mother; and so fierce was the animosity between the rival families, that Guise and Méru, brother of Marshal Montmorency, openly quarrelled in the King's Chamber, and, on leaving the palace, exchanged a challenge, whose consequences persons sent expressly by Charles IX. had great difficulty in averting. In short, during the year 1571, "no more was heard of the Cardinal of Lorraine than if he had been dead; nor was anything known about the Guises, except that they had celebrated at Joinville the birth of a son to the Duke," who had married, in the previous year, Catherine of Cleves, widow of the Prince de Portien.
The apparent favour of the Admiral de Coligny, the return to Paris of the Guises, the seeming fusion of the two great parties that had so long distracted France, were preludes to the massacre of St Bartholomew. In narrating the strange and important events that crowded the year 1572, M. de Bouillé lays bare the vile qualities of Charles IX., his cold-blooded cruelty, his odious treachery, and the powers of profound dissimulation he had inherited from his mother. One anecdote, extracted from Fornier's MS. History of the House of Guise, is extremely characteristic. The King, whilst loading Coligny with marks of confidence and favour, hinted darkly to the Guises the existence of some sinister plot, urging them to take patience, because, as he said to the Duke d'Aumale, _bientôt il verroit quelque bon jeu_. It happened one day that "the King was alone in his chamber with Henry of Lorraine, both gaily disposed; the latter had seized a headless pike, used to shut the upper shutters of the window, and was amusing Charles IX. by the extraordinary dexterity with which he wielded this weapon, when Coligny unexpectedly entered. The King felt that the abrupt interruption of their play, on his appearance, might excite the Admiral's suspicions. Suddenly, therefore, he feigned violent displeasure; accused the Duke of having insolently waved the pole close to his face, and, seizing a boar-spear that stood by his bed, pursued Guise, who, as if the better to escape, ran, it is said, into the apartments of Margaret de Valois. Charles snatched the Admiral's sword to pursue the fugitive; and Coligny, deceived by this well-acted anger, interceded to obtain the pardon of the heedless young Prince of Lorraine."