READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER XXVI.

CIVIL WARS IN FRANCE

WE now resume the history of France, which in a former chapter has been brought down to the treaty of Nemours in 1585. That alliance between Henry III and the League struck the King of Navarre and his adherents with consternation. But the approach of danger served only to elicit the great qualities of Henry of Navarre. He succeeded in convincing Marshal Damville, now by the death of his elder brother become Duke of Montmorenci, of the necessity of opposing the League; and that nobleman, who was called the "King of Languedoc", from his great power in that province, of which he was Governor, again united himself with the Huguenots. Condé was likewise prepared to act with vigour, though but too many of the Huguenot leaders, like those of the League, had an eye only to their own interests in the dismemberment of France and the prospect of establishing themselves as independent Princes. The King of Navarre also sought assistance from England and Germany. He received this year from Queen Elizabeth large sums of money, besides repeated offers of an asylum in England, in case he should find himself overmatched; and the German Calvinist Princes promised to assist him with an army. In a Declaration of the 10th of June, 1585, Henry denied the charge of heresy, denounced the use of the names Papist and Huguenot, which he hoped would be exchanged for those of Spaniard and Frenchman; and concluded with an offer to put an end to the civil war by a single combat with the Duke of Guise, or of two to two, or of any larger number that might be agreed on. On the 10th of August another Declaration was published in the names of the King of Navarre, the Prince of Condé and Montmorenci, in which the Guises were denounced as the authors of all the misfortunes of France, and a war of extermination was declared against the League. On the other hand, preparations were made by the King and the League. The plan of the campaign was regulated by Guise, who himself assumed the command of an army which was to operate in Lorraine, and protect the eastern frontier of the Kingdom against the Germans; his brother, the Duke of Mayenne, was to proceed into the south against the King of Navarre; while Henry III was to preside over an army of reserve stationed in the centre of the Kingdom on the banks of the Loire. Thus began the eighth religious war, which, from the names of the three leaders, viz., the Kings of France and Navarre and Henry Duke of Guise, has sometimes been called the WAR OF THE THREE HENRIES. Pope Sixtus V was not like his predecessor, Gregory XIII, a warm supporter of the League. The more extended views of Sixtus embraced the whole European system. He was jealous of the schemes of Philip II, and foresaw that if that King succeeded in his designs upon France, Rome itself would only become more subject to his power. He could not, indeed, help fulminating against the King of Navarre and Prince of Condé a bull of excommunication, already prepared by Gregory XIII, which deprived them of the succession to the French Crown; but he refused to help the League either with men or money; nor did the promised contributions of Philip II, who was then engaged in preparing the Armada, arrive very regularly. P

In the wars of the League, which are of little importance to the general history of Europe, Henry of Navarre, by his activity and energy, at first outstripped his opponents, and occupied either by himself or his captains the provinces of Guienne, Dauphine, Saintonge, and Poitou. Condé, with an injudicious ardour, passed the Loire to seize Angers; where his army, though not defeated, melted away before the superior forces of the enemy. Late in the season the Duke of Mayenne entered Guienne at the head of 15,000 men; while the King of Navarre had not more than 4,000 to oppose to him, the rest being scattered in different garrisons. Nevertheless, Henry made an obstinate defence. The season was unpropitious; Mayenne's army was thinned by an epidemic, and he himself laid up with sickness, so that little was effected. The campaign of 1586 offers nothing of importance. Henry III, who dreaded the success of the League even more than that of the Huguenots, did all he could to protract the war and render it indecisive. Instead of attending to the affairs of his Kingdom or to the progress of the campaign, he frittered away his means at Lyons spending large sums in spite of the public distress, and wasting his time in the most childish amusements, in playing with lap-dogs, apes, and parrots. With the view of arresting the progress of the League, he entered into negotiations with the Huguenots; and in December, 1586, his mother, Catharine, had an interview with the King of Navarre at the Castle of St. Bris, near Cognac. Here Catharine was unsuccessful, and he dismissed her after the interview in which he loaded her with the bitterest reproaches.

In spite of their promises, the German Calvinists at first showed but little zeal to assist their brother Protestants in France, till Beza came and excited them by his sermons. By July, 1587, a large Germany army had assembled on the French frontier, which John Casimir intrusted to the command of Count Dohna, a brave soldier but indifferent general. So dilatory was this force in its movements, that it was three months in marching to Châtillon-sur-Seine. The Germans subsequently advanced as far as La Charité on the Loire; but finding the passage opposed by the King's army, they abandoned the idea of forming a junction with the Huguenots, for which it would have been necessary to traverse the mountainous districts of the interior; and they directed their march towards the plains of Beauce. During these operations the King of Navarre gained a splendid victory over the Duke of Joyeuse and one of the Royal armies at COUTRAS, a small place in Guienne, near the river Ille, which falls into the Lower Dordogne (October 20th). The victory was achieved solely by Henry's superior military skill, as his forces were much less numerous than those of his opponents. Joyeuse himself had been seized by two Huguenot soldiers, when a third shot him through the head. The Calvinist ministers were astonished at the calmness and moderation of Henry amid the exuberant joy of all around; more acute observers attributed it to that indifference, almost amounting to apathy, which formed part of his character. Instead of pursuing his victory, he hastened into Béarn, to lay the colours which he had taken at the feet of his mistress, Corisande. Soon afterwards Guise, assisted by the treachery of the commandant, surprised the Germans in Auneau, and killed a great many of them. They then began a retreat, which was harassed by Guise as well as by the infuriated peasantry, who, in revenge for the disorders committed by the German soldiery, murdered all they could lay hands on. Guise pursued them over the frontier, and laid waste the neutral German country of Mompelgard. The affair of Auneau increased the renown and influence of Guise, while the King was denounced as having placed himself at the head of his army only to negotiate with heretics.

In January, 1588, Guise assembled the heads of the League at Nanci to deliberate on their future course. It was resolved to seize, with the help of Spain, the territories of the Duke of Bouillon, one of the leaders of the army of invasion, who, after the retreat, had died at Geneva of vexation and fatigue; and to compel his sister, Charlotte de la Marck, the only heir to his dominions, to marry one of the sons of the Duke of Lorraine. The most violent resolutions were adopted. The King was to be required to join the League more publicly; to remove from his councils and dismiss from their offices all persons who should be named as obnoxious to that faction; to publish the Council of Trent; to establish the Holy Inquisition; to place in the hands of certain leaders towns to be named which they might fortify and garrison. All heretics were to be taxed in the fourth or third part of their incomes, while Catholics were to pay only a tenth part. All Huguenot prisoners were to be put to death, unless they immediately recanted, paid down the value of their estates, and agreed to serve three years without pay. Henry III dared not openly to refuse the demands of the League, and resorted to his usual temporizing policy. The chiefs of the League repaired from Nanci to Soissons to await the King's answer, as well as to be nearer to Paris, which they were forbidden to enter. Meanwhile the Council of Sixteen, as well as Guise's sister, the Dowager Duchess of Montpensier, were organizing the most dangerous conspiracies against Henry. The Duchess laid a plan to seize the King in the Faubourg St. Antoine, on his return from Vincennes, and to carry him off to Soissons; but Henry heard of it, and came surrounded with a squadron of cavalry.

Day of the Barricades

In spite of the prohibition of the King, Guise, at the invitation of the Sixteen, resolved to come to Paris, which he entered by the Porte St. Martin, May 9th. He was on horse­back, with his face muffled up in his cloak; but a young gentleman of his suite playfully removed it, as well as Guise's hat, and the Parisians, when they recognized their beloved leader, crowded round him, with shouts of Vive Guise! Handsome, of majestic presence, all contemporary authorities agree that there was in his manner an inexpressible charm, which won for him the hearts of the populace. Guise alighted at the hotel of the Queen-Mother, who had joined in the invitation to him; and in the afternoon they proceeded together to visit the King, who was at that moment debating the question of Guise's assassination, and received him with marks of the greatest anger. At the next interview Guise took care to come well attended, and the most furious recriminations ensued. It was evident that the matter must end in a trial of strength. The King was shut up and fortified in the Louvre, Guise in his hotel; the former defended by the military, the latter by the mob. Paris seemed converted into two hostile camps. On the 12th of May the King caused 4,000 Swiss and the regiment of French guards, who were cantoned in the neighbourhood, to enter Paris. The introduction of the troops enraged the populace, who were still further infuriated by the indiscreet threats of Crillon, mestre-de-camp, or colonel, of the French guards; barricades were thrown up in all the streets; each house was converted into a fortress, and even the women provided themselves with weapons. Hence the day obtained the name of the Day of the Barricades. The insurrection gained strength through the indecision of the King, who was afraid to order the troops to act; and this want of vigour demoralized the troops themselves, who, when the people at length assumed the offensive, for the most part surrendered without a blow.

If in the early part of the day Henry III had been to slow in acting, Guise, on his part, missed the decisive success which lay within his grasp, had he determined on seizing the King's person. He seemed to forget the maxim cited by th Duke of Parma when he heard of the affair, that he who draws his sword upon his Prince should throw away the scabbard. His demands, however, were those of a conqueror, and when Catharine went to treat with him, he required to be appointed Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom; that the King of Navarre, and the Bourbons who adhered to him, should be declared incapable of succeeding to the Crown; and that the King should dismiss his favourites, and even his Gascon body-guard of forty-five. While Guise was engaged in this interview with Catharine, Henry III left the Louvre on foot, and proceeding to the Nesle gate, crossed the Seine in a skiff. The soldiers of the League fired after him, but he succeeded in escaping, accompanied by about thirty persons. On the heights of Chaillot he turned to bestow his malediction on Paris, upbraiding it for its disloyalty and ingratitude; for he was the first King of France for centuries who had made that city his habitual residence. He swore that he would not return except through a breach in the walls; but he was destined never to revisit it. He directed his course to Chartres, where he was honourably received by the bishop; and he was soon after followed by the Swiss troops and by his regiment of guards. Guise, now master of Paris, converted it into a sort of fanatical Republic of which he was the Dictator. He caused new magistrates to be elected, and new captains more devoted to himself to be appointed to the civic bands; he compelled the Parliament to obedience; seized the Bastille and arsenal, and occupied the towns around Paris, in order to prevent it from being surprised. All offices were bestowed upon his creatures, who ruled supreme in the capital till 1594.

Edict of Union

Amid the universal defection, Lyons and Tours offered the King an asylum, but he preferred to go to Rouen, although most of the inhabitants were partisans of the League. Here he amused himself with plays, water parties, and other entertainments, while his mother negotiated with the rebels. The terms demanded by the League were embodied in an edict, published July 21st, 1588, called the EDICT OF UNION. In some secret articles Henry III pledged himself to a war of extermination against the heretics, and engaged his subjects as well as himself to swear that they would never obey any heretic Prince. He promised to accept the decrees of Trent; he granted a complete amnesty for all that had passed; prolonged for six years the term appointed for the restitution of the cautionary towns held by the chiefs of the League, and assigned to them three additional places, Orleans, Bourges, and Montreuil-sur-Mer. Guise was to be generalissimo, but he was too cautious to insert any article to that effect in the treaty. The King was also obliged to consent to an assembly of the States-General at Blois, by means of which Guise designed to legalize his usurpations and to hold Henry in tutelage. The King, however, refused to return to Paris, although the invitation of the Parliament and other public bodies was seconded by his mother. The terror of Philip's threatened invasion of England had contributed not a little to induce Henry to sign the Edict of Union.

The King opened the meeting of the States-General at Blois in October, with an eloquent speech, composed for him, it is said, by Du Perron, in which he denounced the unmeasured ambition of some of his subjects. These passages, however, Guise and his party forced him to suppress in the printed copy. The haughtiness of Guise's manners added venom to the wounds which he inflicted on the King's pride. Alarming reports of the ambitious plans of Guise—that he meant to obtain from the States the Constable's sword, to carry the King to Paris, and keep him there in subjection— determined Henry to deliver himself by murdering him. It was no easy enterprise. As Grand-Master, Guise held the keys of the Castle of Blois; he was always accompanied by a numerous suite, and the guard within the castle could not be increased without his knowledge. The King spoke of the matter to Crillon, the colonel of his French guard, who declined to connect himself with it, alleging that he was a soldier and no hangman. But Henry found an instrument in Loignac, first gentleman of his chamber. When Loignac proposed the enterprise to the Taillagambi, or King's Gascon body-guard, of which he was captain, they joyfully undertook it, regarding Guise as their enemy from his endeavours to procure their dismissal. The King gave out that he intended to pass Christmas in retirement at Notre Dame de Clery, and to expedite business before his departure a council was summoned to assemble very early in the morning of the 23rd of December. Guise had received some warnings, but his contempt for the King's cowardice lulled him into a false security, and both he and the Cardinal his brother attended. When the council was assembled, Guise received a message that the King wished to see him in his bed-chamber. In order to reach this apartment, it was necessary to pass through an ante-chamber where Loignac and nine of the most determined of the Taillagambi were posted, while the rest had been stationed in the lobbies and staircases to render escape impossible. Guise had passed through the ante­chamber, and was in the act of lifting the tapestry to enter the King's apartment, when he was poignarded by Montseri, one of the guard; three or four others then seized him, and prevented him from drawing his sword. With a desperate effort, Guise, who was a powerful man, succeeded in throwing them off, and advanced towards Loignac, at the other end of the room. The noise of the scuffle alarmed the Council, and Pierre d'Espinac, Archbishop of Lyons, hastened to the door of the apartment, which he could not open, but he heard Guise exclaim, "Oh, gentlemen! What treachery!" and after some blows, a heavy fall and the cry, "Oh, God! mercy!". Loignac had struck Guise with the scabbard of his sword, and the Duke, after receiving several other wounds, fell covered with his blood. The King, who had hid himself in an inner cabinet, as soon as he was sure that Guise was despatched, came out with drawn sword, exclaiming, "There are no longer two of us! I am King at last!", and, while he uttered these words, he gave the still panting body a kick. Sixteen years before Guise himself had so kicked the body of the expiring Admiral! Thus by a retributive justice the authors of the St. Bartholomew were falling by each other's hands.

Death of Catharine de' Medici, 1589.

The Dowager-Duchess of Nemours, mother of the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal his brother, his nearest kinsfolk and principal adherents, including the Cardinal of Bourbon, were seized and imprisoned. The fate of the Cardinal of Guise occasioned some debate. It was no light matter for a superstitious King to put to death a Prince of the Church; the assassins of the Duke declined the sacrilegious office; some soldiers of the guard, were, however found to undertake it, and on the morrow the Cardinal met with the same fate as his brother. In an apartment directly under that in which Henry of Guise was murdered, Catharine de' Medici lay stretched on her death-bed. The noise had alarmed her, and when she learnt the cause of it from the lips of the King himself she betrayed an anxiety which probably hastened her end. She expired January 5th, 1589, having nearly attained the age of seventy. At once credulous and sceptical, Catharine belonged to a numerous class who in that age placed more confidence in the powers of witchcraft than in the precepts of morality and religion. She was a firm believer in astrology, and thought herself endowed with second sight. She had, nevertheless, that native taste for art, and especially architecture, which distinguishes the Italians, but her influence in France can be regarded only as an unmitigated evil.

By the murder of his arch-enemy, Henry III fancied that he had accomplished all his objects. Instead of preparing to meet the storm which his act was sure to raise, he soon fell into his accustomed listlessness; and he even released some of the more refractory members of the States whom he had imprisoned, especially Brissac and Bois-Dauphin, the generals of the barricades. The States themselves he dismissed in the middle of January. Meanwhile the Parisians, after recovering from the first shock occasioned by the news of Guise's murder, displayed the most violent hostility. On Christmas Day they assembled at the Hotel de Ville, elected the Duke of Aumale Governor of Paris, and levied an army to relieve Orleans, to which the King had laid siege on the Duke of Guise refusing to surrender it. They were encouraged by Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, who left the Court without taking leave, and repaired to Paris as the centre of papistry and jesuitism. Thither also came Mayenne, Guise's brother, whom the King had in vain attempted to conciliate; a heavy man, both in mind and body, but the best of the Guises. Slow, yet haughty, and excitable when his pride was touched, he had poignarded with his own hand a son of the Chancellor Birago for having presumed to obtain from his daughter a promise of marriage. The pulpits of Paris resounded against the King and the whole race of Valois. The King's name was struck out of the public prayers, and those of the Christian Princes in arms for the Lord and for the public safety were substituted for it. Absurd and fanatical processions were formed, in one of which all the children of Paris repaired to the abbey of Ste. Genevieve with torches, which, on reaching the porch, they turned down and extinguished, exclaiming, "So perish the House of Valois!" These processions, which sometimes occasioned the grossest immorality, the clergy themselves were at length obliged to forbid. The doctors of the Sorbonne pronounced the people released from their allegiance to Henry III, and authorized them to take up arms against him. Achille de Harlai and Augustin de Thou, Presidents of the Parliament of Paris, having harangued that body against the demagogues, the Council of Sixteen caused the whole of the members to be arrested during one of their sittings, and to be conducted, clad in their robes, to the Bastille, amid the hootings of the populace. The ultra-Catholic members, however, who had accompanied their colleagues out of an esprit de corps, were afterwards dismissed; and this rump, as it may be called, assembling under the conduct of President Brisson, decreed whatever the Sixteen dictated.

The latter body named a new board, called the Council-General of the Union, consisting of forty members, by whom the Duke of Mayenne was appointed Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. On the other hand, Henry III assembled round him at Tours such members of the different chambers of the Parliament of Paris as remained faithful to him, and declared null and void all the acts of the pseudo-Parliament and other courts of judicature at Paris. The formation of the Council of the Union and the appointment of Mayenne as Lieutenant-General gave a great impulse to the League. The people were seized with republican ideas, not only in the cities but also in the rural districts; and they imagined that by joining the Union they should be able to live after the manner of the Swiss, and be exempt from all taxes except the imposts payable to their immediate lords.

Meanwhile Henry of Navarre, now sole leader of the Huguenots—for his cousin, the Prince of Condé, had died, not without suspicion of poison, in the spring of 1588—had been named protector of the Evangelical Church by a general synod of the Protestants held at La Rochelle towards the close of that year. After the death of Guise, the King of Navarre surprised Niort, and occupied successively St. Maixent, Maillezais, Thouars, Loudun, Argenton, and Chatelleraut. From the last-named town he issued, on the 4th of March, an excellent manifesto, calling on the three Estates of the Realm to deliberate and save the Kingdom by counsels of moderation. Henry III, who now possessed only a few towns upon the Loire, though important in a military point of view from their position, namely, Beaugenci, Blois, Amboise, Tours, and Saumur, was lost in anxiety and hesitation about the consequences of his crime, and was thinking at the same time of negotiating with the League and with the King of Navarre. But the Duke of Mayenne, with whom he treated through the Legate Morosini, having repulsed his advances, he effected, through the mediation of his natural sister, the Dowager-Duchess of Montmorenci, a twelvemonth's truce with the King of Navarre (April 3rd). Still, however, Henry III did not abandon all hope of an alliance with Mayenne, and kept the truce secret a fortnight; till the advance of Mayenne upon Tours, and the news from Rome that the Pope refused to absolve the King from the murder of the Cardinal of Guise, drove him into the arms of the Huguenots.

Sixtus V could have overlooked the assassination of the Duke of Guise as an act of political necessity; but he was compelled, though no partisan of the Guises, to visit with his indignation the murder of a Prince of the Church. He reproached Morosini with negotiating for the King instead of immediately excommunicating him, and cited Henry III to appear personally at Rome and answer for his crime. On the 30th April, 1589, the two Henries cemented their new alliance by an interview at Plessis-les-Tours; and Henry III agreed to place Saumur in the hands of his brother-in-law to serve as a tête-de-pont on the Loire. Before their forces could be united, Mayenne assaulted Tours, and got possession of the suburb of St. Symphorien; which, however, he was compelled to abandon on the approach of the King of Navarre.

Although the League had gained some advantages at Senlis and other places, the two Kings resolved to march with their united forces upon Paris, and lay siege to that capital. At St. Cloud, where they arrived towards the end of July, they were joined by numerous volunteers, as well as by some Swiss and German troops, so that their army numbered between 30,000 and 40,000 men. Paris was struck with alarm: the fanaticism of the populace rose to the highest pitch; the priests and Jesuits openly declared that only the murder of one or both Kings could save religion. Henry III having been excommunicated by the Pope, the zealous Catholics regarded him as an outcast; the Papal Monitorium, published in France towards the end of June, contained a prophecy that he would perish like Saul. In this state of the public mind, Jacques Clement, a Dominican friar, twenty-two years of age, half simpleton, half fanatic, fired by the sermons which he heard, and by the not undeserved reproaches which were everywhere uttered against the King, as well as encouraged by the exhortations of his prior, of the Duke of Aumale, and especially (so it is said) of the Duchess of Montpensier, resolved to gain Paradise by the assassination of Henry III. He sought the Royal camp, and on pretence of bringing letters from President de Harlai, and the Count of Brienne, obtained a private audience of the King. Henry stretching out his hand to receive the letters, Clement stabbed him with a knife which he had hidden under his frock. The King pulled out the weapon, exclaiming, "The wicked monk has killed me!" and inflicted with it a wound on the assassin's head, who was immediately despatched by the surrounding guards.

The King's wound was not at first thought mortal; but unfavourable symptoms soon appeared, and he died early the following morning (August 2nd, 1589), at the age of nearl thirty-eight. With him was extinguished the house of Valois, which had occupied the throne of France more than two centuries and a half. As he lay at the point of death, Henry III transferred the command of his forces to the King of Navarre; and exhorted the Catholic nobles who surrounded his bed to submit to that Prince as their lawful Sovereign; trusting that he would not long delay his return to the orthodox faith. The Catholic royalists demanded an immediate pledge to that effect; but Henry IV—for the King of Navarre now assumed that title as King of France— replied that none but a man who had no belief at all could so suddenly change; adding, however, that he had always expressed his readiness to be instructed, and that he should be willing to conform to the decisions of a General Council. It was already plain that he awaited only a convenient pretext for changing his religion. Marshal Biron, the best soldier and most able politician among the Catholic royalists, having obtained from Henry the promise of the County of Perigord, was very instrumental in inducing his party to come to terms with him. On the 4th of August the Bourbon King signed a declaration, by which he promised to maintain the Roman Catholic and apostolic religion; to submit to the instruction of a General or National Council to be called within six months; to allow the exercise of no other religion but the Roman Catholic, except in those towns and places where another was already established; to bestow, with the preceding exception, all offices that might become vacant only on Catholics; to maintain the present officers of the Crown in their dignities and charges, and to use every endeavour to punish the murder of the late King. At the bottom of this declaration the royalist leaders signed an engagement recognizing Henry of Navarre as King of France. There were, however, many defections from Henry's standard among the royalist nobles, several of whom hastened into the provinces to try what they could secure in the general anarchy which they expected to ensue; while there were also some desertions among the Huguenots, partly from disappointment at obtaining nothing, and partly from disgust at the King's promise to let himself be instructed.

Among the League there was a great variety of opinions as to who should succeed the murdered Sovereign; though a large majority was in favour of the Cardinal of Bourbon, still a prisoner at Tours, who had been already recognized by the States-General as heir to the throne. The Duke of Mayenne was too prudent to attempt to seize the prize, though exhorted to do so by his sister, the Duchess of Montpensier. At Rome and Madrid the recognition of a heretic Sovereign was of course out of the question. Mendoza, the Spanish envoy, joined Mayenne in declaring for the Cardinal of Bourbon; and the resolution was approved by the Council of the Union, as well as by Philip II. It was not, however, till November that the Cardinal was proclaimed by the Parliament of Paris, under the title of Charles X. In that capital the news of Henry III's death had been received with the wildest demonstrations of joy. The praises of Jacques Clement were sounded in the pulpits and sung in the streets; he was invoked as a saint and martyr, and images of him were erected not only in private houses but even in churches.

The immediate prospect of seeing an heretical King on the throne of France somewhat modified the views of Pope Sixtus V with regard to the League. He sanctioned the regicide in full Consistory; profanely comparing Jacques Clement with Judith and Eleazer; and as Morosini had shown himself too lukewarm and compliant, towards the end of the year another Legate, Gaetano, was sent into France, and intrusted with a sum of money to be laid out for the benefit of the League. Gaetano was instructed to insist on the introduction of the Inquisition and the abolishment of the privileges of the Gallican Church; but he threw himself more into the cause of the democratic portion of the League, and of the King of Spain, than the Pontiff wished or his instructions authorized. Sixtus had not shaken off his suspicions of Philip. He was inclined to the cause of the Catholic Bourbons; nay, he did not exclude the possibility of the conversion of Henry IV himself, whom he thought it would be very difficult to conquer.

In spite of tlie denunciations of Rome, a considerable number of French Catholics, who did not approve the Jesuit views about the rights of kings, had, as we have seen, re-mained faithful to Henry III and now transferred their allegiance to Henry IV. This party placed civil rights before ecclesiastical pretensions, preferred toleration and humanity to bigotry and persecution, and the national unity of France to the dominion of foreigners. The majority, however, was against the claims of Henry IV. Everything depended on the personal character of the new King. The Catholics of his party suspected him because he was not yet converted, while the Huguenots distrusted him from his holding out a prospect of his conversion. Thus threatened with a fall between two parties, Henry, in spite of his faults, saved himself, where, perhaps, a more perfect character would have failed. His countrymen saw in him the reflection of their own virtues as well as of their own defects; they admired him because he was thoroughly French, and were irresistibly carried away by the charm of his gaiety, good-humour, and brilliant courage. Never was there a more perfect model of the Gascon soldier. Small, but strongly and compactly built, with prominent features, vivacious eyes, a beard already mixed with grey, his coat worn by the cuirass and hardly covered by a little red mantle, his white plume always seen in the post of honour and danger, he presented in his whole appearance and deport­ment the most striking contrast to the elegant but effeminate Henry whom he succeeded. Of preceding Kings he perhaps bore most resemblance to Francis I; but was infinitely his superior both in heart and intellect.

By the defections already mentioned the Royal army had Elizabeth been reduced by half; it was impossible to continue the siege of Paris, and Henry, dividing his forces into three corps, sent one under Marshal d'Aumont, to occupy Champagne, another under the Duke of Longueville into Picardy to make head against a threatened invasion of the Spaniards in the Low Countries, whilst he himself at the head of the third, and largest, of about 10,000 men, marched into Normandy, and encamped within a league of Rouen to wait the expected English succours. The Duke of Mavenue, after an interview with the Duke of Parma in the Netherlands, from whom he obtained a few reinforcements, proceeded into Normandy to attack Henry. He was, however, so slow in his movements that he did not arrive till the middle of September, and meanwhile the King, who was assisted by Marshal Biron, had taken up a naturally strong position at Arques, near Dieppe, which he rendered almost impregnable by intrenchments. Dieppe itself, most important as affording him a harbour in the English Channel, had been placed in his hands by the commandant. Mayenne, whose forces were two or three times more numerous than Henry's, ventured to assail the intrenched camp at Arques, but was repulsed with great loss after a bloody battle which lasted all day (September 21st). Mayenne, however, remained before Dieppe till the beginning of October, when learning that D'Aumont and Longueville were advancing, and that Henry had been joined by upwards of 5,000 English and Scots, the general of the League thought it prudent to retreat into Picardy, to await reinforcements from the Netherlands. At the same time Queen Elizabeth sent a sum of c£22,000 in gold to Henry IV, who protested that he had never before beheld so much money.

Philip II's designs on France

Strengthened by these reinforcements, as well as by others which he received from the French nobility, Henry resolved to march upon Paris, and appeared before that capital November 1st. The southern suburbs were taken by assault, and upwards of 1,000 Parisians either slain or captured. Henry, however, could not penetrate into the city, and on the appearance of Mayenne he was compelled to retreat to Tours. Here he received from the Signoria of Venice, through their ambassador Mocenigo, letters congratulating him on his accession. In the year 1582 a revolution had taken place in the government of Venice, and the younger members of the Senate had succeeded in breaking up the monopoly of power held by a few aged patricians, who had always been devoted to Spain and the Church. The Venetians in general regarded the independence of France as essential to the balance of European power. Their recognition of Henry was suggested by the famous Fra Paolo Sarpi, the historian of the Council of Trent, the soul of the anti-Papal and anti-Spanish party at Venice; and it was the more gratifying to Henry as the first pilblic recognition of his title by any foreign Power. The Turkish Sultan Amurath III also offered him assistance, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Mantua gave him secret assurances of friendship. Henry carried on the war during the winter, gaining many towns and even whole districts and provinces. Stupefied by his success, the councils of the League were agitated by grave debates. Mayenne, who wanted to reign under the name of the captive Cardinal-King, wished, indeed, for the support of Spain, though in money, not in men. But Philip II had no idea of being the mere banker of the League; he thought the time had come when he should gather the fruits of all his sacrifices; he had formed an extravagant plan of procuring the abolition of the Salic law in favour of his eldest daughter by Elizabeth of France, the infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia; and meanwhile, during the captivity of the shadow-King Charles X, he wanted to be declared Protector of France. Engrossed by this chimerical scheme he sacrificed the substance for the shadow, and against the advice of his best counsellors, and to the great chagrin of the Duke of Parma, diverted towards France those resources which might have secured the subjugation of the Netherlands. The views of Philip were chiefly supported by the lower French clergy, the monks and preaching friars, many of whom he retained in his pay. These gained for him the greater part of the Sixteen, and consequently the mob; thus forming a strange alliance between a democratic faction and a Prince who was the very incarnation of despotism! Mayenne, however, was supported by the principal nobility of the League in resisting Philip's design of a protectorate; and he weakened that Sovereign's influence in France by procuring the suppression of the Council of the Union.

Battle of Yvri, 1590

In the spring of 1590 Mayenne, who had recruited his armyduring the winter and gained some small successes, determined to attack Henry, who had taken up a position near Dreux. The armies met on the plain of IVRY (March 14th). Before the engagement, Henry, bareheaded and with upturned eyes, after the fashion of the Huguenots, offered up a short prayer in front of his army; then putting on his helmet, which was adorned with a magnificent white plume, he said: "Comrades, God is for us! Behold his enemies and ours! At them! I am your King. Should you miss your colours, rally round my white plume; you will find it in the path of glory and honour!"

Henry had arranged his plan of battle with all the coolness and tact of a consummate general. He charged into the thickest of the fight, and for a quarter of an hour nobody knew what was become of him. Emboldened by his words and example, his troops fought with irresistible fury. Nearly half Mayenne's cavalry was cut to pieces, his infantry killed, taken, or dispersed, five guns and upwards of one hundred standards captured. The general of the League escaped almost alone to Mantes; in the neighbourhood of which place, in the castle of his confidential friend and follower Rosni, afterwards the celebrated Duke of Sully, Henry passed the night. Mayenne hastened to Paris, which he found in a state of the greatest alarm. The army of the League was annihilated, and many of its chiefs counselled immediate negotiations. But the Sorbonne, and still more the Legate Gaetano, animated the Parisians to resist to the death. It was peculiarly a war of the clergy, and they showed themselves on this occasion literally the Church militant. A regiment was formed of 1,300 priests and monks, chiefly of the four mendicant orders, who defiled before the Legate, bearing crucifixes for standards, and singing hymns accompanied with salvos of musquetry.

Henry IV lost the fruits of his victory by delay, Many causes have been assigned for this fatal procrastination; the real one was, probably, a new amour. Henry had conceived a passion for the lady of La Roche-Guyon, a place in the neighbourhood of Mantes, and for a time Corisande was forgotten. It was not till the 7th of May that he appeared before Paris. La Noue made a desperate assault on the Faubourgs St. Martin and St. Denis, but was repulsed. Just at this time (May 9) the Cardinal of Bourbon died at the Castle of Fonte- nay-le-Comte, at the age of sixty-seven. The League, however, substituted no other King, and money bearing the superscription of Charles X continued to be struck by that faction so late as 1595.

Henry, who wished to take Paris by capitulation rather than by assault, converted the siege into a blockade, and, as he was in possession of most of the neighbouring towns, as well as of the course of the Seine and Marne, he completely deprived the city of its supplies. The famine became almost unbearable; worse even than at the siege of Paris by the Germans in our own days. It is said that mothers fed upon their own children; that the bones of exhumed corpses were ground to powder and used for bread. Even the wealthier classes could only support life with the greatest possible difficulty: yet the priests and monks urged the fanatical populace to the most desperate resistance; and Henry, disappointed in his hope of a speedy surrender, delivered, on the night of July 24th, simultaneous assaults on the ten suburbs, which were all captured. The Parisians being now shut up, within their walls, the famine became still more intolerable, and shouts arose of "Bread or Peace!" The humanity of Henry, however, caused him to let many persons pass the lines; his captains also sold passports, at which he was obliged to connive, as he could give them no pay. Paris seemed to lie within his grasp, yet he could not make up his mind to order an assault. He dreaded the odium that he should incur by storming his capital, as well as the probable demoralization of his army after the capture; nor could he persuade himself that the Duke of Parma would quit the Netherlands to come to its relief.

Philip II, however, was infatuated with his present designs on France. Farnese was orderedto relieve Paris, and on August 1st, the inhabitants received a message to that effect, but with the addition that the Spanish army could not arrive for a fortnight—another fortnight of starvation! The term of their relief, however, was destined to be postponed twice that period. The Duke of Parma advanced with the greatest caution and deliberation. He brought with him a large park of artillery and a vast store of ammunition and provisions in heavy waggons; and these served as a protection to his camp, which he regularly pitched and fortified every night. It was the 23rd August before he joined Mayenne, who was at Meaux with some 10,000 men; and their united army of about 23,000 men was rather superior to that of the King, who was consequently compelled to abandon the blockade of Paris; and on the night of the 29th August he withdrew his troops from the suburbs. Henry endeavoured to provoke an engagement with the Duke of Parma, who had taken up a strong position near Lagny, and having thus command of the Seine, despatched provisions to Paris. But though the two armies remained five days in presence, Farnese was too wary to abandon his advantage; and Henry, completely out-generalled, after a final unsuccessful attempt on the southern quarter of Paris in the night of September 9th, was compelled to withdraw. Early in November, after a visit to Paris, the Duke of Parma returned into the Netherlands, followed by Henry with 3,000 horse, who harassed the Spanish army till it had crossed the frontier. It was during this expedition that Henry became acquainted with the celebrated Gabrielle d'Estrees, then about nineteen years of age.

Death of Pope Sixtus V.

Pope Sixtus V died just before the blockade of Paris was raised (August 27th). Such are the extraordinary revolutions of human opinion, that Henry IV, whom he had solemnly excommunicated, was perhaps almost the only person who lamented his death. In spite of the Spanish Court, Sixtus had given a favourable reception to M. de Luxembourg, whom the Catholic royalists had despatched to Rome; and the Pontiff was so touched by Luxembourg's description of Henry's good qualities that he expressed regret at having excommunicated him. In March, 1590, the Spanish envoy went to the Pope's apartments, and kneeling down before him, begged permission to execute the commands of his master. He then formally protested against the Pontiff's conduct, and threatened unless he declared the King of Navarre incapable of succeeding to the French Crown, that his Catholic Majesty would throw off his allegiance to the Holy See. These threats seem to have shaken Sixtus, who dismissed M. de Luxembourg under pretence of a pilgrimage to Loreto. In July negotiations were begun for a new treaty between the Pope and Spain; yet at this very time there was a Huguenot agent at Rome; and in this state of irresolution, at variance with Philip II, hated by the League, and suspected by the Jesuits and the Inquisition, Sixtus V expired. The Romans overthrew the statues they had voted to him, and decreed that none should be again erected to any living Pope.

Gregory   Urban VII (Cardinal Castagna), who succeeded to the tiara, lived only twelve days after his election. The Conclave then chose Cardinal Sfondrati (December 5th, 1590), who assumed the title of Gregory XIV. He was a devout monk, a born subject of Philip II, and devoted to the Spanish cause; and he therefore immediately declared himself in favour of the League, and wrote to the Council of Sixteen, promising them help in men and money. He renewed the excommunication of Henry IV; a step which perplexed many of Henry's Catholic followers, and led to the formation of what was called the "Third Party"; which remained faithful to him only in the trust that he would return to the Romish Church, while the rest of the Catholic royalists pressed for his immediate recantation. This party eventually took up the cause of the Cardinal of Vendôme, who, after the death of his uncle, the pretender Charles X, had assumed the title of Cardinal of Bourbon. Gregory remitted to the Parisians 15,000 scudi monthly, and intrusted to his nephew, Ercole Sfondrati, Duke of Montemarciano, the command of an army which was to assemble at Milan for the invasion of France. That Kingdom seemed fast sinking into anarchy. The Governors of provinces acted like sovereign Princes; ambitious men everywhere sprung up who wished to render themselves independent of the King. Of these the most important was the Duke of Mercoeur, Governor of Brittany, who sought to possess himself of that duchy in right of his wife, Mary of Luxembourg, daughter of the Duke of Penthièvre; and Philip II supported him with some troops. Meanwhile, the main object of Henry IV was to obtain possession of the capital; and with that view he designed to keep up the war around Paris until it should be reduced. In January, 1591, he made an attempt to surprise the Faubourg St. Honoré, but the plan was frustrated. This affair afforded the Spanish ambassador and the Council of Sixteen a pretext for insisting on the reception of a Spanish garrison into Paris; Mayenne reluctantly consented, and, on the 12th of February, 4,000 Spaniards and Neapolitans entered the French capital.

In answer to Gregory XIV's bulls of excommunication, which were published in France by the Legate Landriano towards the end of May, 1591, Henry appealed to the Royalist Parliament of Paris, now divided into two branches, one of which sat at Châlon and the other at Tours. These bodies ordered the bulls to be burnt by the hangman, declared all ecclesiastics who recognized them guilty of treason, cited the Legate to appear before them, and, on his failing to do so, issued an order for his apprehension. Henry, before an assembly of the clergy at Rheims, had made a fresh promise to receive instruction; while Gregory's attacks on the Gallican Church had secured the King some additional adherents among the clergy and jurists. Meanwhile the Viscount of Turenne had been despatched into Germany, where he succeeded in raising an army of about 10,000 foot and 5,000 horse. In September, on the news of the approach of this force, Henry, who in the earlier part of the year had taken Chartres and Noyon, and had also received reinforcements of between 4,000 and 5,000 English under the Earl of Essex, proceeded with his cavalry to meet the Germans, while he distributed his infantry in the fortresses of Picardy. On the other hand, Mayenne had been joined at Verdun by the Papal army under Montemarciano, consisting of 3,000 Italians, 6,000 Swiss, and 2,000 Spaniards from Sicily. The treasure accumulated by Sixtus V had enabled Gregory to set on foot this army. But the counsels of the League were divided. The young Duke Charles of Guise, who had been kept a prisoner since the murder of his father, succeeded in escaping from the Castle of Tours, and a party had gathered round him with which his uncle Mayenne was at open enmity. Mayenne had also quarrelled with the Sixteen, which body had thrown themselves completely into the arms of Rome and the King of Spain. They had obtained, as we have seen, a Spanish garrison in Paris; they demanded the re-establishment of the Council of the Union; they took up the claims of the young Duke of Guise, whom they wished to see married to the Spanish Infanta; nay, the majority of them, as appeared from an intercepted letter, would have accepted Philip himself for their Sovereign, and this sentiment was shared by the University of Paris. It appears from a document discovered among the archives of Simancas, that this party was ready to allow the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition; Philip was no longer to be King of Spain, but the "Great King"—in short, to accomplish at last his scheme of universal monarchy. A committee consisting of the more violent members of the Sixteen condemned and hanged the President Brisson, who belonged to that moderate, or trimming, party called the "Politicians". But this and other acts of violence produced a reaction. Mayenne gained the upper hand, hanged four of the Sixteen, forbade the re-mainder, under pain of death, to hold clandestine meetings, and thus suppressed for a time that turbulent Council.

Farnese relieves Rouen

Queen Elizabeth had made it a condition of granting her succour that they should be first employed against the League in the north-western provinces of France, and Henry accordingly laid siege to Rouen, one of the strongholds of that faction. Its relief could not be attempted without the help of the Duke of Parma, which Mayenne contrived to obtain without committing himself to any engagement respecting the designs of Philip. Farnese, suffering from ill-health and vexed to be called away from the affairs of the Netherlands, was commanded to sacrifice everything to the interests of the League. It was not, however, till January, 1592, that he appeared in France; and meanwhile Rouen, hard pressed by Henry, who had received considerable reinforcements from England, besides 3,000 Dutch troops, was suffering all the extremities of famine. On the approach of the Spanish army, Henry, who had pushed forward with 1,000 horse to make a reconnaissance, was wounded in a skirmish. On approaching Rouen, the Duke of Parma proposed an immediate attack on the besieging army; but Mayenne, who did not wish him to gain a decisive victory, diverted him from this scheme, and the Catholic army, for want of provisions, was obliged to re­tire to the north of the Somme. When it again returned, however, about the middle of April, Henry, whose forces were much diminished, was compelled to retreat, and the Duke of Parma entered Rouen in triumph (April 20th). There was then a remarkable struggle for the possession of Caudebec, a sort of arsenal of the Huguenots, before which place Farnese was wounded in the arm with a bullet. Caudebec was taken; but while the Duke of Parma was laid up with his wound, as well as Mayenne from a less honourable cause, Henry IV succeeded in shutting up the Catholic army in the peninsula in which Caudebec lies, surrounded on three sides by the Seine, which here resembles an arm of the sea. Farnese, however, displayed his usual fertility of resource. He caused a number of boats, rafts, and pontoons to be constructed at Rouen, which were floated down with the tide; and on the 12th of May, with the aid of a slight fog, he transported all his army, with their artillery and baggage, to the opposite shore, without losing a man. Then, marching up the left bank of the Seine, he crossed that river again at St. Cloud, and returned into the Netherlands. Nothing can convey a stronger impression of the cautious tactics of this great captain than his having thus on two occasions marched so many hundred miles, and relieved two capital cities, without having fought a single pitched battle. Henry was almost reduced to despair. After all his efforts he found himself in no better position than after his victory at Ivry, two years before. Yet, on the whole, the war in the provinces had been in his favour. In the south-east, especially, where Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, had attempted an invasion, Lesdiguières defeated him, and, with the help of the Duke of Epernon, chased him over the Alps almost to the gates of Turin.

Accession of Pope Clement VIII

The retreat of the Duke of Parma, and his subsequent illness and death, were more advantageous to Henry IV than any victory could have been. On the other hand, the ill reception Henry's agents met with at Rome, owing to the contradictory promises which he had made to both sides, gave an impulse to the "Third Party", which supported the pretensions of the Cardinal of Bourbon. A new Pontiff now occupied the Chair of Peter. Gregory XIV died in October, 1591, and his successor, Innocent IX, Cardinal Fachinetti, an old man of seventy-three, lived only two months. The inconvenience of this frequent mortality determined the Conclave to elect a younger man; and their choice fell upon Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini, who had been named, though in the second place, by the Court of Spain, which would have preferred the election of Cardinal San Severino. Aldobrandini, who was chosen January 20th, 1592, assumed the name of Clement VIII. He was still in the vigour of life, having been born at Fano, in 1536. He was the youngest of five sons of Salvestro Aldobrandini, of a considerable family at Florence, which had opposed the Medici, and had been driven into exile on the return of that house in 1531. Patronized by Cardinal Alexander Farnese, Ippolito obtained an auditorship in the Roman Rota, and was created a Cardinal by Sixtus V, who employed him as Nuncio in Poland. Clement VIII was of active and business-like habits. The interests of the Church, the administration of the Roman States, the general politics of Europe, all claimed a share of his attention; while, at the same time, he strictly attended to his spiritual duties. He strictly observed all the fasts of the Church, and sought no other relaxation than the discussion of abstruse theological questions; by which conduct he obtained an extraordinary reputation for piety. Clement VIII had found the Court of Rome committed to a Spanish policy; but he was not himself very warmly devoted to the interests of Spain; and Henry's envoy, Cardinal Gondi, when he arrived at Florence, received a message that he could not be acknowledged at Rome, though hopes were held out of a private reception. In November, 1592, the Legate of Clement VIII renewed against Henry IV the censures of the Church; but since Mayenne's proceedings against the Sixteen, the reaction against the League and in favour of the "Third Party", or " Politicians", had continued to increase, the exhortations of the fanatical clergy began to be neglected, and the prejudices against Henry IV declined more and more every day.

There were at this time seven or eight pretenders to the French Crown: Philip II, both for himself and for his French daughter, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia; the Duke of Mayenne; the young Duke Charles of Guise; and the Marquis Pont-a-Mousson, who, if the pretensions of the House of Lorraine were to be admitted, had undoubtedly a better claim than any of the family, both as belonging to the elder branch, and as the son of the second daughter of Henry II and Catharine de' Medici. Other claimants were the Duke of Savoy, the Duke of Nemours, and the Catholic Bourbons. Philip determined to bring the question to an issue in the States-General, which Mayenne had summoned to meet at Paris in January, 1593, whither Philip sent the Duke of Feria as his ambassador. After an interview with Feria, Mayenne, finding that he could not obtain the French throne for himself at the price of ceding Provence and Picardy to Spain, promised to support the claim of the Infanta, on condition of being maintained in the lieutenant-generalship, and of obtaining Burgundy as an hereditary government, besides that of Picardy for life, and enormous pecuniary advantages. Meanwhile Henry IV had resolved to frustrate the plots of his adversaries by an abjuration. He refused to acknowledge the States assembled by Mayenne, declared all their acts null, and the members guilty of high treason; but announced at the same time that he was ready to receive "instruction"; while the Catholic princes, prelates, and lords of his party, though they rejected the summons of Guise to attend the assembly, proposed a conference at some neutral place in the neighbourhood of Paris. Such a proceeding was, of course, warmly opposed by the Spanish party, and by Sega, the Papal Legate, who was in the pay of Spain; but, in spite of their opposition, the States-General of the League delegated twelve commissioners to treat with those of Henry IV at Suresne, a village not far from Paris.

The debates were conducted by renaud de Beaune, Archbishop of Bourges, on the part of the King, and Pierre d'Espinac, Archbishop of Lyons, a man of bad character but great talent, on that of the League. On the 15th of May, Henry, who was at Mantes with his council, made a communication to this meeting, requiring that a certain number of bishops and theologians should be sent to him within two months, for his instruction, and announcing his intention to assemble at Mantes the notables of the Kingdom and the deputies of sovereign courts to take counsel as well for the interests of religion as of the state. As the prelates and doctors invited to instruct him were Roman Catholics, without the admixture of a single Huguenot, it was evident that he had resolved to embrace the Romish faith, and that his "instruction" was a mere matter of form. Gabrielle d'Estrees, who was enthusiastic for the Mass", is said to have contributed not a little to bring Henry to this decision.

To frustrate these negotiations, the Duke of Feria offeredthe League the services of 14,000 Spanish troops for a year, and 1,200,000 crowns for the pay of French troops, and half these succours for the following year, provided the Infanta were declared Queen of France; and he afterwards increased this offer to 20,000 men for two years. Mayenne laid these propositions before the States; and Inigo Mendoza, a Spanish doctor whom Feria had brought with him, addressed them in a long Latin oration, in which he endeavoured to prove that females were not excluded from succession to the French throne. The deputies listened to his harangue with frigid silence; and, to the offers of the ambassador, they replied only by a question: "Did his Catholic Majesty intend to marry the Infanta to a French Prince?" Had Philip II at once determined in favour of the young Duke of Guise, he would in all probability have carried the States with him; the League would perhaps have proved victorious, and at all events the struggle would have been much prolonged. But Philip had been misinformed respecting the state of public opinion in France. He thought that he could marry his daughter to whomsoever he pleased, and he named as her consort the Archduke Ernest of Austria, her cousin. This proposition was fatal to the Spanish interests. The States would not listen to it; the majority voted for a truce with the royalists; but they confided to Mayenne the preparation of an answer to the Spanish proposals. The policy of Mayenne was of the most selfish description. He saw with regret the reactionary movement against the League, with whose downfall his own power would end; at the same time he did not desire its complete triumph by means of Spain, which, even though it might establish his own nephew on the throne of France, would be equally fatal to his personal claims. He therefore contrived an answer, which, while it was unacceptable to Philip, should also tend to prolong the war, by involving a gross breach of the rights of Henry IV. His reply, approved by the States, was : That the election of a foreign Prince was contrary to the laws and usages of France; but that if his Catholic Majesty would consent to the election of a French Prince, to whom his daughter should afterwards be married, an end might be put to the troubles of France. Feria, waiving the nomination of the Archduke Ernest, met this unpalatable proposal with the following ultimatum (June 21st) : That the Infanta, and a French Prince, to be named within two months by Philip II as her husband, should be declared proprietors of the French Crown. Even to this proposition the States would probably have agreed, if the Spaniards would have consented that the King and Queen should be named at the instant of their marriage; but Feria insisted on the immediate appointment of the Infanta, and that the name of her husband should be left in blank. Spain could scarcely have exacted harder conditions from a conquered country. They caused universal dissatisfaction. Feria was hissed in the streets; the States-General withdrew their former concessions; the Parliament of Paris declared all treaties for the establishment of a foreign Prince or Princess upon the throne null and contrary to Salic law; nor did the States impugn their decision. The general discontent was increased by Henry IV having laid siege to Dreux, the principal entrepôt of provisions coming to Paris from the south.

Feria at length consented that the Infanta should marry the Duke of Guise; but Mayenne, though compelled to profess a high sense of the honour done his house, used every endeavour to avoid its acceptance.

Abjuration of Henry IV

On the 12th July the King appeared at St. Denis to be instructed. Lincestre, who had been one of the most fanatical preachers of the League in Paris, appeared among the clergy: a decisive symptom of the alteration in public opinion. Sega, the Legate, was furious, and Mayenne and other chiefs of the League, who did not wish to break with Spain, swore an oath between his hands that they would make no peace with "the King of Navarre", whatever Catholic acts he might do. Henry went through the ceremony of his conversion with levity and indifference, sometimes posing the bishops with texts from Scripture, sometimes rallying them on points which would not bear a very strict scrutiny. He was wont to remark that, perhaps, the difference between the two religions was so great only through the animosity of those who preached them, and that he would one day endeavour to accommodate everything. He had already been twice a Catholic and twice a Protestant, and he can, therefore, hardly be said to have made any sacrifice of conscience or principle on this occasion; but he felt the separation from the Huguenot party and his ancient comrades, who had supported him with their blood and substance, and, according to their own expression, "had carried him on their shoulders from the banks of the Loire".

James II has been ridiculed as a bigot in having lost three Kingdoms for a Mass, and Henry IV has been reviled as an apostate for having gained one by the same means. The bigotry of James, however, led him to assert his creed by levying war against the majority of his subjects, while those of Henry derived from his apostasy the blessings of peace and union. On the 25th of July, 1593, he made a solemn abjuration of Protestantism, in the Abbey of St. Denis before the Archbishop of Bourges, who absolved him, and gave him the benediction; and Henry afterwards attended High Mass in the presence of his Court.

Philip and the League endeavoured to prevent the acceptance of Henry's abjuration by the Pope. The Legate had previously denounced Henry as a relapsed heretic, declared null and void all that the French prelates might do, and stigmatized Henry's conversion as a pretence to gain the Crown. The King sent to Rome a solemn embassy, at the head of which was the Duke of Nevers, in order to procure the Pontiff's confirmation of the absolution granted by the Archbishop of Bourges; but Clement, who was afraid of the King of Spain, and who was also desirous to have the complete control not only of the King's absolution but also if possible of the establishment of his temporal power, refused at first to receive Henry's ambassador, except as Louis Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, and in January the Duke quitted Rome in disgust. A truce of three months had been agreed upon, during which many nobles and several important towns made their submission to the King. Many towns, however, still held out for the League, and among them Paris as well as Rheims, by ancient usage the metropolitan city appropriated to the coronation of the Kings of France. Henry IV deemed that ceremony indispensable to sanctify his cause in the eyes of the people, and he therefore caused it to be performed at Chartres by the bishop of that place, Nicolas de Thou, February 27th, 1594. But he could hardly look upon himself as King of France so long as Paris remained in the hands of a faction which disputed his right, and he therefore strained every nerve to get possession of that capital. The Spanish garrison in it had been reinforced; Mayenne had revived the Sixteen, and by means of Spanish gold, a measure of corn and a small weekly payment were given to some 4,000 of the lowest populace.

Henry knew that the more respectable citizens hated the Spaniards, and would be glad to see them driven out; but, as he wished to get possession of the city without bloodshed, he determined to attempt it by corrupting the commandant. This was Charles de Cossé, Count of Brissac, a man who had imbibed republican ideas from the study of the ancient writers, and who had formed the chimerical project of establishing in Paris a sort of Roman Republic; but being soon convinced of its impossibility, had rushed to the contrary extreme, and exchanged his high-flown notions for views of self-interest. Henry promised Brissac, as the price of his admission into Paris, the sum of 200,000 crowns and an annual pension of 20,000, together with the governments of Corbeil and Mantes, and a marshal's baton. To the Parisians was offered an amnesty from which only criminals were to be excepted; the confirmation of all their privileges; and the prohibition of the Protestant worship within a radius of ten leagues. L'Huillier, the Prévôt des Marchands, who had met Brissac's first proposal of surrender with a biting sarcasm, was gained with the office of President of the Chambre des Comptes, and other civic officials with other bribes. The Parisians stipulated for the safe retreat of the Papal Legate, and the Spanish ambassador and garrison. When these arrangements were completed, the colonels and officers of the city bands were assembled at L'Huillier's house and instructed what they were to do. Before daybreak on the morning of the 22nd March, 1594, Brissac opened the gates of Paris to Henry's troops, who took possession of the city without resistance, except at one of the Spanish guard-houses, where a few soldiers were killed. When all appeared quiet, Henry himself entered, and was astonished at being greeted with joyous cheers by the people from whom he had experienced so stubborn a resistance. He gave manifold proofs of forbearance and good temper, fulfilled all the conditions of his agreement, and allowed the Spaniards to withdraw unmolested; who, 400 strong, quitted Paris on the same day that he entered it, followed by the Duke of Feria and the other accredited Spanish ministers. Even the Sorbonne and the more moderate clergy at length made a tardy submission (April 22nd); though the Jesuits and fanatical monks continued to thunder against the King, because he was not yet reconciled with the Pope. The submission of the Sorbonne may be regarded as the coup de grâce of the League.

Further successes of Henry

Mayenne quitted Paris for Soissons March 6th, whence he proceeded to Laon. Towards the end of May the King in person laid siege to Laon, at whose approach Mayenne set off for Brussels to hasten the succours promised to him by the Archduke Ernest, Governor of the Netherlands. The Spanish ambassador tried to persuade the Archduke to arrest Mayenne, whom he distrusted; but Tassis advised Ernest against a step which would at once have flung the remnant of the League into the arms of the King of France. Mayenne learnt the designs of the Spaniards from an intercepted letter which Henry forwarded to him, and he never forgave them. Nevertheless, being assisted by some troops under Count Mansfeld, he attempted, but without success, to raise the siege of Laon. That town surrendered to the royalists, August 22nd, and its example was soon followed by Château-Thierry, Amiens, and Noyon. The success of the King induced the Duke of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise to make their peace with him. The submission of Guise placed Champagne at the King's disposal, of which province the Duke was governor. In lieu of it Henry invested him with the government of Provence, an appointment which conferred almost sovereign rights; and bestowed other marks of favour both on him and his brothers.

Notwithstanding his humanity and good temper, the King neglected not a wholesome severity, and banished from Paris upwards of a hundred of the more fanatical democrats. The Satyre Ménippée, a political squib, in which the League and its chiefs were ridiculed with a humour approaching that of Rabelais, had not a little contributed to turn the tide of public opinion in his favour. Henry regarded the Jesuits as his most dangerous enemies; and after he had established himself at Paris, Jacques d'Amboise, whom he had newly appointed rector of the University, prosecuted them before the Parliament as abettors of treason. Afraid, however, of offending the Pope, with whom he was not yet reconciled, the King would probably have abstained from pushing matters to the last extremity against them, but for the fanatical act of one of their pupils. On the 27th of November, 1594, while Henry was in the hotel of his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrees, a young man named Jean Chatel attempted to stab him in the breast, but the King, fortunately stooping at the time, received the blow on his mouth. The assassin, who confessed that he had attended the college of the Jesuits, was put to death with the most dreadful tortures. So great was the public indignation at this attempt that the people could hardly be withheld from storming the Jesuit College. All the members of that Society were arrested, and their papers examined. One of them, named Jean Gruignard, with whom was found a treatise approving the murder of Henry III, and maintaining that his successor might deserve a like fate, was condemned to the gallows; and the remainder of the Society were banished the realm, January 8th, 1595, as corruptors of youth and disturbers of the public peace.

In a few years, however, they were recalled; nor, in fact, was the edict of banishment anything more than a dead letter in the greater part of the French Kingdom. The irritation caused by this event seems to have precipitated Henry IV into a step which he had been some time meditating: a declaration of war against his old and most bitter enemy Philip II, in which, among other things, he charged that Sovereign with suborning assassins to take his life. The King of Spain, whom the want of money had prevented from giving the League much help during the two preceding years, was stung into fury by this challenge; and he immediately ordered Don Fernando de Velasco, Constable of Castile, to join Mayenne in Franche-Comté with 10,000 men. Velasco, however, was no great captain, and little of importance was done. The only action worth mentioning is an affair of cavalry at Fontaine-Française (June 6th, 1595), in which Henry displayed his usual bravery, or rather rashness, but came off victorious. He then overran nearly all Franche-Comté without meeting with any impediment from Velasco, but retired at the instance of the Swiss, who entreated him to respect the neutrality of that province.

Meanwhile Henry had made advances to Mayenne, who was disgusted with Velasco and the Spaniards, and on the 25th September Mayenne, in the name of the League, signed with the King a truce of three months, with a view to regulate the conditions of future submission.

An event had already occurred which placed Henry in a much more favourable position with his Roman Catholic subjects : he had succeeded in effecting his reconciliation with the Pope. Not only had Henry become much more humble and submissive in his supplications, but Clement VIII also, on his side, had been convinced by his counsellors that it was necessary to his interests as an Italian Prince to restore the equilibrium between France and Spain. He dreaded also the separation of the Gallican Church from Rome; and some one admonished him to beware lest Clement VIII should lose France as Clement VII had lost England.

Du Perron and D'Ossat, both of whom were afterwards made Cardinals, were admitted by the Pope as the King's ambassadors, and after some negotiation a reconciliation was effected. Henry agreed to restore the Roman Catholic religion in Béarn; to accept the decrees of Trent so far as compatible with the laws of France; strictly to observe the Concordat, and to educate the heir presumptive (the young Prince of Condé) in the Romish faith. Clement spoke with the Cardinals separately, and declared that two-thirds of them were in favour of the French King's absolution.

On the 17th of September, 1595, DuPerron and D'Ossat appeared before the Pope, who, surrounded by his Cardinals and Court, sat on a high throne erected under the portico of St. Peter's. The petition of the King was then read: his ambassadors promised that he should do all that was required of him, and renounce everything contrary to the holy Catholic religion; then, kneeling down before the Pope, they received some light strokes of the rod, whilst the choir sang the Miserere. This scene concluded, the Pontiff read some prayers, and putting on the triple crown, pronounced the King's absolution, having first revoked that granted by the Archbishop of Bourges. The ceremony was concluded by the singing of the Te Deum in the basilica.

In January, 1596, Henry signed with Mayenne, at the Castle of Folembray, the treaty which put an end to the League. The reverses which the arms of Henry had sustained in the north, and more especially the influence of the fair Gabrielle, whom Mayenne had gained by promising to forward the interests of her children, procured for the chief of the League more favourable terms than he was entitled to expect. Soissons, Châlons, and Seurre were assigned to him for six years as places of security; an amnesty was granted to all other partisans of the League who should within six weeks take advantage of the present edict; the adherents of Mayenne were to retain their offices and honours, the King took upon himself that Prince's debts, and recognized as valid all his public acts and financial accounts. The murderers of Henry III were alone excepted from the general amnesty, but the King acknowledged that on that head no charge rested upon the princes and princesses of the League.

War in Brittany and Savoy

The chief nobles who still held out against Henry IV were the Duke Epernon in Provence and the Duke of Mercoeur in Brittany. Epernon concluded a treaty with Philip II, who lent him some assistance; but the tyranny of that noble had rendered him highly unpopular in Provence. On the entrance of the Duke of Guise, Henry's Governor, the people crowded to his standard; as he approached Marseilles the inhabitants rose, drove out the Spanish garrison, and opened their gates to Guise and his troops. This was the most important victory gained by the King since the reduction of Paris, and he owed it to a former enemy. Epernon made his peace with Henry, and received Perigord and the Limousin in addition to his former governments of Angouleme and Saintonge. The Duke of Mercoeur rose in Brittany in 1597, after the taking of Amiens by the Spaniards, and Charles Emmanuel of Savoy projected an invasion of Dauphiné. Both were supported by Philip II, in order to distract the forces of Hemy IV and prevent him from retaking Amiens; but Lesdiguières anticipated Charles Emmanuel by carrying the war into Savoy and taking Maurienne; whilst Mercoeur, who had been deprived by storms of the succour expected from a Spanish fleet, saw his troops beaten at Dinan by those of the King. The frontier towns of Brittany submitted on Henry's approach, and Mercoeur, finding resistance hopeless, had recourse to Gabrielle. Enticed by the proposal of a marriage between the only daughter of Mercoeur, the heiress of his vast possessions, and her little son Caesar, her offspring by the King, Gabrielle procured favourable terms for the Duke, which were ratified in a treaty signed by Henry and the Duchess of Mercoeur at Angers, March 20th, 1598.

It was after the reduction of Brittany that Henry signed at Nantes the celebrated edict which closed the religious struggle in France. The treaties which the King had been obliged to make with the various chiefs of the League had been very adverse to the Huguenots. The reformed worship had been prohibited in many towns, nay, in whole districts, and especially in Provence, where its celebration had been forbidden on pain of death by the Parliament of Aix in all places within its jurisdiction. At the same time the Huguenots were excluded from all offices of trust and power, and the chambres mi-parties, or courts composed of Catholics and Protestants, were everywhere suppressed, except at Paris and in Languedoc. These oppressions had led the Huguenots to restore their ancient federated organization; they complained loudly of the King's ingratitude, mailing no allowance for the difficulties of his position; and they held frequent general assemblies, in which the more ardent of them counselled resorting to violent measures in order to obtain their rights.

In the course of 1597 Henry deputed four commissioners, among whom was De Thou, the celebrated historian, then President of the Parliament of Paris, to treat with them; but it was perhaps the success of the King's arms against the Spaniards which principally induced the Huguenots to listen to terms.

In December, 1597, Henry gave a written promise to leave them, for a term of eight years, in possession of all the places which they occupied; to pay the Protestant garrisons maintained in them; and to bestow employment indifferently on all his subjects without regard to their religious tenets.

In April, 1598, he published the EDICT OF NANTES, which secured to the Huguenots liberty of conscience and free exercise of their religion in all places where it had been established during the two preceding years, as well as those named in the edict of 1577; also in one city or town in every bailiwick or district of a seneschal, without infringing the treaties made with the Catholics. On the other hand, Catholic worship was to be restored in all places where it had been interrupted. Protestants were to be admitted to all colleges, schools, and hospitals; were to be at liberty to found schools and colleges of their own, as well as to publish their religious books in all places where their worship was allowed; and they were to be admissible to all offices and employments without submitting to any oath or ceremony contrary to their conscience. Disinheritance on the score of religion was not to be valid, and parents might by will provide for the education of their children. Many regulations were made respecting legal suits in which Protestants were parties. On the other hand they were required to pay tithes, to respect the holidays of the Church and the prohibited degrees of affinity in marriage; to renounce all negotiations and alliances with foreigners; to dissolve their provincial councils; and to raise no subsidies except for the maintenance of their ministers and worship and with the consent of the King.

Such were the chief provisions of this celebrated edict, which modified the exclusive power of the Roman Catholic Church, and apparently founded a new era in France—that of toleration.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ESTABLISHMENT OF PEACE IN THE EAST AND WEST