A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume IV Part 16

Sauveur to chant a Te Deum. All the princes were there to give thanks to G.o.d. Never were king, court, and people so joyous." The Duke of Guise wrote to the Spanish amba.s.sador, "At length we have, in full a.s.sembly of the states, had our edict of union solemnly sworn and established as fundamental law of this realm, having surmounted all the difficulties and hinderances which the king was pleased to throw in the way; I found myself four or five times on the point of rupture: but I was verily a.s.sisted by so many good men."

After as well as before the opening of the states-general, the friends of the Duke of Guise were far from having, all of them, the same confidence that he had in his position and in his success. "Stupid owl of a Lorrainer!" said Sieur de Vins, commanding, on behalf of the League, in Dauphiny, on reading the duke's despatches, "has he so little sense as to believe that a king whose crown he, by dissimulating, has been wanting to take away, is not dissimulating in turn to take away his life?" "As they are so thick together," said M. de Vins' sister, when she knew that the Duke of Guise was at Blois with the king, "you will hear, at the very first opportunity, that one or the other has killed his fellow." Guise himself was no stranger to this idea. "We are not without warnings from all quarters that there is a design of attempting my life," he wrote on the 21st of September, 1588: "but I have, thank G.o.d, so provided against it, both by the gathering I have made of a good number of my friends, and in having, by presents and money, secured a portion of those whose services are relied upon for the execution of it, that, if once things begin, I shall finish more roughly than I did at Paris."

After the opening of the states-general and the success he obtained thereat, Guise appeared, if not more anxious, at any rate more attentive to the warnings he received. On the 10th of December, 1588, he wrote to Commander Moreo, confidential agent from the King of Spain to him, "You cannot imagine what alarms have been given me since your departure. I have so well provided against them that my enemies have not seen their way to attempting anything. . . . But expenses have grown upon me to such an extent that I have great need of your prompt a.s.sistance. . . .

I have now so much credit with this a.s.sembly that I have hitherto made it dance to my tune, and I hope that as to what remains to be decreed I shall be quite able to maintain the same authority." Some of his partisans advised him to go away for a while to Orleans; but he absolutely refused, repeating, with the Archbishop of Lyons, "He who leaves the game loses it." One evening, in a little circle of intimates, on the 21st of December, a question arose whether it would not be advisable to prevent the king's designs by striking at his person. The Cardinal of Guise begged his brother to go away, a.s.suring him that his own presence would suffice for the direction of affairs: but, "They are in such case, my friend," said the Balafre, "that, if I saw death coming in at the window, I would not consent to go out by the door to avoid it."

His cousin, the Duke of Elbeuf, paid him a visit at night to urge him to withdraw himself from the plot hatched against him. "If it were necessary to lose my life in order to reap the proximate fruits of the states' good resolution," said Guise, "that is what I have quite made up my mind to. Though I had a hundred lives, I would devote them all to the service of G.o.d and His church, and to the relief of the poor people for whom I feel the greatest pity;" then, touching the Duke of Elbeuf upon the shoulder, he said, "Go to bed, cousin;" and, taking away his hand and laying it upon his own heart, he added, "Here is the doublet of innocence." On the evening of the 22d of December, 1588, when Charlotte de Semblancay, Marchioness of Noirmoutiers, to whom he was tenderly attached, pressed him to depart, or at any rate not to be present at the council next day, the only answer he made her was to hum the following ditty, by Desportes, a poet of the day:--

"My little Rose, a little spell Of absence changed that heart of thine; And I, who know the change full well, Have found another place for mine.

No more such fair but fickle she Shall find me her obedient; And, flighty shepherdess, we'll see Which of the twain will first repent."

Henry III. was scarcely less disturbed, but in quite a different way, than the Duke of Guise. For a long time past he had been thinking about getting rid of the latter, just as he had thought for a long time, twenty years before, about getting rid of Admiral de Coligny; but since the date of his escape from the popular rising on the day of the Barricades, he had hoped that, thanks to the adoption of the edict of union and to the convocation of the states-general, he would escape the yoke of the Duke of Guise. He saw every day that he had been mistaken; the League, and consequently the Duke of Guise, had more power than he with the states-general; in vain had the king changed nearly all his ministers; in vain had he removed his princ.i.p.al favorite, the Duke of Epernon, from the government of Normandy to that of Provence; he did not obtain from the states-general what he demanded, that is, the money he wanted; and the states required of him administrative reforms, sound enough at bottom, but suggested by the Duke of Guise with an interested object, and calculated to shackle the kingly authority even more than could be done by Guise himself directly. At the same time that Guise was urging on the states-general in this path, he demanded to be made constable, not by the king any longer, but by the states themselves. The kingship was thus being squeezed between the haughty supremacy of the great lords, subst.i.tutes for the feudal regimen, and the first essays of that free government which is nowadays called the parliamentary regimen. Henry III. determined with fear and trembling to disembarra.s.s himself of his two rivals, of the Duke of Guise by a.s.sa.s.sination, and of the states-general by packing them off home. He did not know how intimately the two great questions of which the sixteenth century was the great cradle, the question of religious liberty and that of political liberty, were connected one with the other, and would be prosecuted jointly or successively in the natural progress of Christian civilization, or through what trials kings and people would have to pa.s.s before succeeding in any effectual solution of them.

On the 18th of December, 1588, during an entertainment given by Catherine de' Medici on the marriage of her niece, Christine de Lorraine, with Ferdinand de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Henry III. summoned to his cabinet three of his most intimate and safest confidants, Marshal d'Aumont, Nicholas d'Angennes, Lord of Rambouillet, and Sieur de Beauvais Nangis. After having laid before them all the Duke of Guise's intrigues against him and the perils of the position in which they placed him, "What ought I to do?" he said; "help me to save myself by some speedy means." They asked the king to give them twenty-four hours to answer in.

Next day, the 19th, Sieur de Maintenon, brother of Rambouillet, and Alphonso Corso d'Ornano Were added to the party; only one of them was of opinion that the Duke of Guise should at once be arrested and put upon his trial; the four others were for a shorter and a surer process, that of putting the duke to death by a sudden blow. He is evidently making war upon the king, they said; and the king has a right to defend himself.

Henry III., who had his mind made up, asked Crillon, commandant of the regiment of guards, "Think you that the Duke of Guise deserves death?"

"Yes, sir." "Very well; then I choose you to give it him." "I am ready to challenge him." "That is not what is wanted; as leader of the League, he is guilty of high treason." "Very well, sir; then let him be tried and executed." "But, Crillon, nothing is less certain than his conviction in a court of law; he must be struck down unexpectedly."

"Sir, I am a soldier, not an a.s.sa.s.sin." The king did not persist, but merely charged Crillon, who promised, to keep the proposal secret. At this very time Guise was requesting the king to give him a constable's grand provost and archers to form his guard in his quality of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The king deferred his reply.

Catherine de' Medici supported the Lorrainer prince's request. "In two or three days it shall be settled," said Henry. He had ordered twelve poniards from an armorer's in the city; on the 21st of December he told his project to Loignac, an officer of his guards, who was less scrupulous than Crillon, and undertook to strike the blow, in concert with the forty-five trusty guards. At the council on the 22d of December, the king announced his intention of pa.s.sing Christmas in retreat at Notre-Dame de Cleri, and he warned the members of the council that next day the session would take place very early in order to dispose of business before his departure. On the evening of the 22d, the Duke of Guise, on sitting down at table, found under his napkin a note to this effect: "The king means to kill you." Guise asked for a pen, wrote at the bottom of the note, "He dare not," and threw it under the table. Next day, December 23, Henry III., rising at four A. M., after a night of great agitation, admitted into his cabinet by a secret staircase the nine guards he had chosen, handed them the poniards he had ordered, placed them at the post where they were to wait for the meeting of the council, and bade Charles d'Entragues to go and request one of the royal chaplains "to say ma.s.s, that G.o.d might give the king grace to be able to carry out an enterprise which he hoped would come to an issue within an hour, and on which the safety of France depended." Then the king retired into his closet. The members of the council arrived in succession; it is said that one of the archers on duty, when he saw the Duke of Guise mounting the staircase, trod on his foot, as if to give him warning; but, if he observed it, Guise made no account of it, any more than of all the other hints he had already received. Before entering the council-chamber, he stopped at a small oratory connected with the chapel, said his prayer, and as he pa.s.sed the door of the queen-mother's apartments, signified his desire to pay his respects and have a few words with her. Catherine was indisposed, and could not receive him. Some vexation, it is said, appeared in Guise's face, but he said not a word. On entering the council-chamber he felt cold, asked to have some fire lighted, and gave orders to his secretary, Pericard, the only attendant admitted with him, to go and fetch the silver-gilt sh.e.l.l he was in the habit of carrying about him with damsons or other preserves to eat of a morning. Pericard was some time gone; Guise was in a hurry, and, "Be kind enough," he said to M. de Morfontaines, "to send word to M. de Saint-Prix [first groom of the chamber to Henry III.], that I beg him to let me have a few damsons or a little preserve of roses, or some trifle of the king's." Four Brignolles plums were brought him; and he ate one. His uneasiness continued; the eye close to his scar became moist; according to M. de Thou, he bled at the nose. He felt in his pocket for a handkerchief to use, but could not find one.

"My people," said he, "have not given me my necessaries this morning: there is great excuse for them; they were too much hurried." At his request, Saint-Prix had a handkerchief brought to him. Pericard pa.s.sed his bonbon-box to him, as the guards would not let him enter again. The duke took a few plums from it, threw the rest on the table, saying, "Gentlemen, who will have any?" and rose up hurriedly upon seeing the secretary of state Revol, who came in and said to him, "Sir, the king wants you; he is in his old cabinet."

As soon as he knew that the Duke of Guise had arrived, and whilst these little incidents were occurring in the council-chamber, Henry III. had in fact given orders to his secretary Revol to go on his behalf and summon the duke. But Nambu, usher to the council, faithful to his instructions, had refused to let anybody, even the king's secretary, enter the hall.

Revol, of a timid disposition, and impressed, it is said, with the sinister importance of his commission, returned to the cabinet with a very troubled air. The king, in his turn, was troubled, fearing lest his project had been discovered. "What is the matter, Revol?" said he; "what is it? How pale you are! You will spoil all. Rub your cheeks; rub your cheeks." "There is nothing wrong, sir: only M. de Nambu would not let me in without your Majesty's express command." Revol entered the council-chamber and discharged his commission. The Duke of Guise pulled up his cloak as if to wrap himself well in it, took his hat, gloves, and his sweetmeat-box, and went out of the room, saying, "Adieu, gentlemen,"

with a gravity free from any appearance of mistrust. He crossed the king's chamber contiguous to the council-hall, courteously saluted, as he pa.s.sed, Loignac and his comrades, whom he found drawn up, and who, returning him a frigid obeisance, followed him as if to show him respect.

On arriving at the door of the old cabinet, and just as he leaned down to raise the tapestry that covered it, Guise was struck five poniard blows in the chest, neck, and reins. "G.o.d ha' mercy!" he cried, and, though his sword was entangled in his cloak, and he was himself pinned by the arms and legs and choked by the blood that spurted from his throat, he dragged his murderers, by a supreme effort of energy, to the other end of the room, where he fell down backwards and lifeless before the bed of Henry III., who, coming to the door of his room and asking "if it was done," contemplated with mingled satisfaction and terror the inanimate body of his mighty rival, "who seemed to be merely sleeping, so little was he changed." "My G.o.d! how tall he is!" cried the king; "he looks even taller than when he was alive."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Henry III. and the Murder of Guise----437]

"They are killing my brother!" cried the Cardinal of Guise, when he heard the noise that was being made in the next room; and he rose up to run thither. The Archbishop of Lyons, Peter d'Espinac, did the same. The Duke of Aumont held them both back, saying, "Gentlemen, we must wait for the king's orders." Orders came to arrest them both, and confine them in a small room over the council-chamber. They had "eggs, bread, wine from the king's cellar, their breviaries, their night-gowns, a pallia.s.se, and a mattress," brought to them there; and they were kept under ocular supervision for four and twenty hours. The Cardinal of Guise was released the next morning, but only to be put to death like his brother.

The king spared the Archbishop of Lyons.

"I am sole king," said Henry III. to his ministers, as he entered the council-chamber; and shortly afterwards, going to see the queen-mother, who was ill of the gout, "How do you feel?" he asked. "Better," she answered. "So do I," replied the king: "I feel much better; this morning I have become King of France again; the King of Paris is dead." "You have had the Duke of Guise killed?" asked Catherine "have you reflected well? G.o.d grant that you become not king of nothing at all. I hope the cutting is right; now for the sewing." According to the majority of the historians, Catherine had neither been in the secret nor had anything to do with the preparations for the measure. Granted that she took no active part in it, and that she avoided even the appearance of having any previous knowledge of it; she was not fond of responsibility, and she liked better to negotiate between the different parties than to make her decisive choice between them; prudent tendencies grow with years, and in 1588 she was sixty-nine. It is difficult, however, to believe that, being the habitual confidant of her favorite son, she was ignorant of a design long meditated, and known to many persons many days before its execution. The event once accomplished, ill as she was, and contrary to the advice of her physicians, she had herself carried to the Cardinal of Bourbon's, who was still under arrest by the king's orders, to promise him speedy release. "Ah! madame," said the cardinal, as he saw her enter, "these are some of your tricks; you are death to us all." However it may be, thirteen days after the murder of the Duke of Guise, on the 5th of January, 1589, Catherine de' Medici herself died. Nor was her death, so far as affairs and the public were concerned, an event: her ability was of the sort which is worn out by the frequent use made of it, and which, when old age comes on, leaves no long or grateful reminiscence. Time has restored Catherine de' Medici to her proper place in history; she was quickly forgotten by her contemporaries.

She had good reason to say to her son, as her last advice, "Now for the sewing." It was not long before Henry III. perceived that to be king, it was not sufficient to have murdered his rival. He survived the Duke of Guise only seven months, and during that short period he was not really king, all by himself, for a single day; never had his kingship been so embarra.s.sed and impotent; the violent death of the Duke of Guise had exasperated much more than enfeebled the League; the feeling against his murderer was pa.s.sionate and contagious; the Catholic cause had lost its great leader; it found and accepted another in his brother the Duke of Mayenne, far inferior to his elder brother in political talent and prompt energy of character, but a brave and determined soldier, a much better man of party and action than the sceptical, undecided, and indolent Henry III. The majority of the great towns of France--Paris, Rouen, Orleans, Toulouse, Lyons, Amiens--and whole provinces declared eagerly against the royal murderer. He demanded support from the states-general, who refused it; and he was obliged to dismiss them. The Parliament of Paris, dismembered on the 16th of January, 1589, by the council of Sixteen, became the instrument of the Leaguers. The majority of the other Parliaments followed the example set by that of Paris. The Sorbonne, consulted by a pet.i.tion presented in the name of all Catholics, decided that Frenchmen were released from their oath of allegiance to Henry III., and might with a good conscience turn their arms against him. Henry made some obscure attempts to come to an arrangement with certain chiefs of the Leaguers; but they were rejected with violence. The Duke of Mayenne, having come to Paris on the 15th of February, was solemnly received at Notre-Dame, amidst shouts of "Hurrah for the Catholic princes! hurrah for the house of Lorraine!" He was declared lieutenant-general of the crown and state of France. He organized a council-general of the League, composed of forty members and charged with the duty of providing for all matters of war, the finance and the police of the realm, pending a fresh convocation of states-general. To counterbalance in some degree the popular element, Mayenne introduced into it fourteen personages of his own choice and a certain number of magistrates and bishops; the delegates of the united towns were to have seats at the council whenever they happened to be at Paris. "Never," says M. Henry Martin [_Histoire de France,_ t. i. p. 134] very truly, "could the League have supposed itself to be so near becoming a government of confederated munic.i.p.alities under the directorate of Paris."

There was clearly for Henry III. but one possible ally who had a chance of doing effectual service, and that was Henry of Navarre and the Protestants. It cost Henry III. a great deal to have recourse to that party; his conscience and his pusillanimity both revolted at it equally; in spite of his moral corruption, he was a sincere Catholic, and the prospect of excommunication troubled him deeply. Catholicism, besides, was in a large majority in France: how, then, was he to treat with its foes without embroiling himself utterly with it? Meanwhile the case was urgent. Henry was apprised by one of his confidants, Nicholas de Rambouillet, that one of the King of Navarre's confidants, Sully, who was then only Sieur de Rosny, was pa.s.sing by Blois on his way to his master; he saw him and expressed to him his "desire for a reconciliation with the King of Navarre, and to employ him on confidential service;" the difficulty was to secure to the Protestant king and his army, then engaged in the siege of Chatellerault, a pa.s.sage across the Loire. Rosny undertook Henry III.'s commission. He at the same time received another from Sieur de Brigueux, governor of the little town of Beaugency, who said to him, "I see well, sir, that the king is going the right way to ruin himself by timidity, irresolution, and bad advice, and that necessity will throw us into the hands of the League: for my part, I will never belong to it, and I would rather serve the King of Navarre. Tell him that I hold, at Beaugency, a pa.s.sage over the Loire, and that if he will be pleased to send to me you or M. de Rebours, I will admit into the town him whom he sends to me." Upon receiving these overtures, the King of Navarre thought a while, scratching his head; then he said to Rosny, "Do you think that the king has good intentions towards me, and means to treat with me in good faith?" "Yes, sir, for the present; and you need have no doubt about it, for his straits constrain him thereto, having nothing to look to in his perils but your a.s.sistance." He had some dinner brought into his own cabinet for Rosny, and then made him post off at once. On arriving in the evening at Tours, whither Henry III. had fallen back, Rosny was taken to him, about midnight, at the top of the castle; the king sent him off that very night; he consented to everything that the King of Navarre proposed; promised him a town on the Loire, and said he was ready to make with him not a downright peace just at first, but "a good long truce, which, in their two hearts, would at once be an eternal peace and a sincere reconciliation."

When Rosny got back to Chatellerault, "there was nothing but rejoicing; everybody ran to meet him; he was called 'G.o.d Rosny,' and one of his friends said to the rest, 'Do you see yon man? By G.o.d, we shall all worship him, and he alone will restore France; I said so six years ago, and Villandry was of my opinion.'"

Thus was the way paved and the beginning made, between the two kings, of an alliance demanded by their mutual interests, and still more strongly by the interests of France, ravaged and desolated, for nearly thirty years past, by religious civil wars. Henry of Navarre had profound sympathy for his country's sufferings, an ardent desire to put a stop to them, and at the same time the instinct to see clearly that the day had come when the re-establishment of harmony and common action between himself and Henry de Valois was the necessary and at the same time possible means of attaining that great result. On the 4th of March, 1589, soon after the states of Blois had been dismissed, he set before France, in an eloquent manifesto, the expression of his anxieties and his counsels: "I will speak freely," said he, "to myself first and then to others, that we may be all of us without excuse. Let us not be puffed up with pride on one side or another. As for me, although I have received more favors from G.o.d in this than in all past wars, and, whilst the two other parties (how sad that they must be so called!) are enfeebled, mine, to all appearance, has been strengthened, nevertheless I well know that, whenever I go beyond my duty, G.o.d will no longer bless me; and I shall do so whenever, without reason and in sheer lightness of heart, I attack my king and trouble the repose of his kingdom. . . . I declare, then, first of all to those who belong to the party of the king my lord, that if they do not counsel him to make use of me, and of the means which G.o.d hath given me, for to make war, not on them of Lorraine, not on Paris, Orleans, or Toulouse, but on those who shall hinder the peace and the obedience owed to this crown, they alone will be answerable for the woes which will come upon the king and the kingdom. . . . And as to those who still adhere to the name and party of the League, I, as a Frenchman, conjure them to put up with their losses as I do with mine, and to sacrifice their quarrels, vengeance, and ambition to the welfare of France, their mother, to the service of their king, to their own repose and ours. If they do otherwise, I hope that G.o.d will not abandon the king, and will put it into his heart to call around him his servants, myself the first, who wish for no other t.i.tle, and who shall have sufficient might and good right to help him wipe out their memory from the world and their party from France. . . . I wish these written words to go proclaiming for me throughout the world that I am ready to ask my lord the king for peace, for the repose of his kingdom and for my own. . . . And finally, if I find one or another so sleepy-headed or so ill-disposed that none is moved thereby, I will call G.o.d to my aid, and, true servant of my king, worthy of the honor that belongs to me as premier prince of this realm, though all the world should have conspired for its ruin, I protest, before G.o.d and before man, that, at the risk of ten thousand lives, I will essay--all alone--to prevent it."

It is pleasing to think that this patriotic step and these powerful words were not without influence over the result which was attained. The King of Navarre set to work, at the same time with Rosny, one, of the most eminent, and with Philip du Plessis-Mornay, the most sterling of his servants; and a month after the publication of his manifesto, on the 3d of April, 1589, a truce for a year was concluded between the two kings.

It set forth that the King of Navarre should serve the King of France with all his might and main; that he should have, for the movements of his troops on both banks of the Loire, the place of Saumur; that the places of which he made himself master should be handed over to Henry III., and that he might not anywhere do anything to the prejudice of the Catholic religion; that the Protestants should be no more disquieted throughout the whole of France, and that, before the expiration of the truce, King Henry III. should give them a.s.surance of peace. This negotiation was not concluded without difficulty, especially as regarded the town of Saumur; there was a general desire to cede to the King of Navarre only some place of less importance on the Loire; and when, on the 15th of April, Du Plessis-Mornay, who had been appointed governor of it, presented himself for admittance at the head of his garrison, the royalist commandant, who had to deliver the keys to him, limited himself to letting them drop at his feet. Mornay showed alacrity in picking them up.

On the 29th of April, the two kings had, each on his own behalf, made their treaty public. Henry III. sent word to the King of Navarre that he wished to see him and have some conversation with him. Many of the King of Navarre's friends dissuaded him from this interview, saying, "They are traitors; do not put yourself in their power; remember the St. Bartholomew." This counsel was repeated to him on the 30th of April, at the very moment when he was stepping aboard the boat to cross the Loire and go to pay Henry III. a visit at the castle of Plessis-les- Tours. The King of Navarre made no account of it. "G.o.d hath bidden me to cross and see him," he answered: "it is not in the power of man to keep me back, for G.o.d is guiding me and crossing with me. Of that I am certain;" and he crossed the river. "It is incredible," says L'Estoile, "what joy everybody felt at this interview; there was such a throng of people that, notwithstanding all efforts to preserve order, the two kings were a full quarter of an hour in the roadway of Plessis park holding out their hands to one another without being able to join them; people climbed trees to see them; all shouted with great vigor and exultation, Hurrah for the king! hurrah for the King of Navarre! hurrah for the kings! At last, having joined hands, they embraced very lovingly, even to tears. The King of Navarre, on retiring in the evening, said, 'I shall now die happy, since G.o.d hath given me grace to look upon the face of my king and make him an offer of my services.' I know not if those were his own words; but what is certain is, that everybody at this time, both kings and people, except fanatical Leaguers, regarded peace as a great public blessing, and were rejoiced to have a prospect of it before their eyes. The very day of the interview, the King of Navarre wrote to Du Plessis-Mornay, 'M. du Plessis, the ice is broken; not without numbers of warnings that if I went I was a dead man. I crossed the water, commending myself to G.o.d, who, by His goodness, not only preserved me, but caused extreme joy to appear on the king's countenance, and the people to cheer so that never was the like, even shouting, Hurrah for the kings! whereat I was much vexed.'"

Some days afterwards, during the night of May 8, the Duke of Mayenne made an attack upon Tours, and carried for the moment the Faubourg St.

Symphorien, which gave Henry III. such a fright that he was on the point of leaving the city and betaking himself to a distance. But the King of Navarre, warned in time, entered Tours; and at his approach the Leaguers fell back. "When the white scarfs appeared, coming to the king's rescue, the Duke of Mayenne and his troops began shouting to them, 'Back! white scarfs; back! Chatillon: we are not set against you, but against the murderers of your father!' meaning thereby that they were set against King Henry de Valois only, and not against the Huguenots. But Chatillon, amongst the rest, answered them, 'You are all of you traitors to your country: I trample under foot all vengeance and all private interests when the service of my prince and of the state is concerned; 'which he said so loudly that even his Majesty heard it, and praised him for it, and loved him for it." The two kings determined to move on Paris and besiege it; and towards the end of July their camp was pitched before the walls.

Great was the excitement throughout Europe as well as France, at the courts of Madrid and Rome as well as in the park of Plessis-les-Tours.

A very serious blow for Philip II., and a very bad omen for the future of his policy, was this alliance between Henry de Valois and Henry of Navarre, between a great portion of the Catholics of France and the Protestants. Philip II. had plumed himself upon being the patron of absolute power in religious as well as political matters, and the dominant power throughout Europe in the name of Catholicism and Spain.

In both these respects he ran great risk of being beaten by a King of France who was a Protestant or an ally of Protestants and supported by the Protestant influence of England, Holland, and Germany. In Italy itself and in Catholic Europe Philip did not find the harmony and support for which he looked. The republic of Venice was quietly but certainly well disposed towards France, and determined to live on good terms with a King of France, a friend of Protestants or even himself Protestant. And what hurt Philip II. still more was, that Pope Sixtus V. himself, though all the while upholding the unity and authority of the Roman church, was bent upon not submitting to the yoke of Spain, and upon showing a favorable disposition towards France. "France is a very n.o.ble kingdom,"

he said to the Venetian amba.s.sador Gritti; "the church has always obtained great advantages from her. We love her beyond measure, and we are pleased to find that the Signiory shares our affection." Another day he expressed to him his disapprobation of the League. "We cannot praise, indeed we must blame, the first act committed by the Duke of Guise, which was to take up arms and unite with other princes against the king; though he made religion a pretext, he had no right to take up arms against his sovereign." And again: "The union of the King of France with the heretics is no longer a matter of doubt; but, after all, Henry of Navarre is worth a great many of Henry III.; this latter will have the measure he meted to the Guises." So much equity and mental breadth on the pope's part was better suited for the republic of Venice than for the King of Spain. "We have but one desire," wrote the Doge Cicogna to Badoero, his amba.s.sador at Rome, "and that is to keep the European peace. We cannot believe that Sixtus V., that great pontiff, is untrue to his charge, which is to ward off from the Christian world the dangers that threaten it; in imitation of Him whom he represents on earth, he will show mercy, and not proceed to acts which would drive the King of France to despair."

During the great struggle with which Europe was engaged in the sixteenth century, the independence of states, religious tolerance, and political liberty thus sometimes found, besides their regular and declared champions, protectors, useful on occasion although they were timid, even amongst the habitual allies of Charles V.'s despotic and persecuting successor.

On arriving before Paris towards the end of July, 1589, the two kings besieged it with an army of forty-two thousand men, the strongest and the best they had ever had under their orders. "The affairs of Henry III.,"

says De Thou, "had changed face; fortune was p.r.o.nouncing for him."

Quartered in the house of Count de Retz, at St. Cloud, he could thence see quite at his ease his city of Paris. "Yonder," said he, "is the heart of the League; it is there that the blow must be struck. It was great pity to lay in ruins so beautiful and goodly a city. Still, I must settle accounts with the rebels who are in it, and who ignominiously drove me away." "On Tuesday, August 1, at eight A. M., he was told,"

says L'Estoile, "that a monk desired to speak with him, but that his guards made a difficulty about letting him in. 'Let him in,' said the king: 'if he is refused, it will be said that I drive monks away and will not see them.' Incontinently entered the monk, having in his sleeve a knife unsheathed. He made a profound reverence to the king, who had just got up and had nothing on but a dressing-gown about his shoulders, and presented to him despatches from Count de Brienne, saying that he had further orders to tell the king privately something of importance. Then the king ordered those who were present to retire, and began reading the letter which the monk had brought asking for a private audience afterwards; the monk, seeing the king's attention taken up with reading, drew his knife from his sleeve and drove it right into the king's small gut, below the navel, so home that he left the knife in the hole; the which the king having drawn out with great exertion struck the monk a blow with the point of it on his left eyebrow, crying, 'Ah! wicked monk!

he has killed me; kill him!' At which cry running quickly up, the guards and others, such as happened to be nearest, ma.s.sacred this a.s.sa.s.sin of a Jacobin who, as D'Aubigne says, stretched out his two arms against the wall, counterfeiting the crucifix, whilst the blows were dealt him.

Having been dragged out dead from the king's chamber, he was stripped naked to the waist, covered with his gown and exposed to the public."

Whilst Henry de Valois was thus struck down at St. Cloud, Henry of Navarre had moved with a good number of troops to the Pre-aux-Clercs; and seeing Rosny, who was darting along, pistol in hand, amongst the foremost, he called one of his gentlemen and said, "Maignan, go and tell M. de Rosny to come back; he will get taken or wounded in that rash style." "I should not care to speak so to him," answered Maignan. "I will tell him that your Majesty wants him." Meanwhile up came a gentleman at a gallop, who said three or four words in the King of Navarre's ear. "My friend," said Henry to Rosny, "the king has just been wounded with a knife in the stomach; let us go and see about it; come with me." Henry took with him five and twenty gentlemen. The king received him affectionately, exhorted him to change his religion for his salvation's sake in another world and his fortunes in this; and, addressing the people of quality who thronged his chamber, he said, "I do pray you as my friends, and as your king I order you, to recognize after my death my brother here. For my satisfaction and as your bounden duty, I pray you to swear it to him in my presence." All present took the oath. Henry III. spoke in a firm voice; and his wound was not believed to be mortal. Letters were sent in his name to the queen, to the governors of the provinces and to the princes allied to the crown, to inform them of the accident that had happened to the king, "which, please G.o.d, will turn out to be nothing." The King of Navarre asked for some details as to the a.s.sa.s.sin. James Clement was a young Dominican who, according to report, had been a soldier before he became a monk. He was always talking of waging war against Henry de Valois, and he was called "Captain Clement." He told a story about a vision he had of an angel, who had bidden him "to put to death the tyrant of France, in return for which he would have the crown of martyrdom." Royalist writers report that he had been placed in personal communication with the friends of Henry de Guise, even with his sister the d.u.c.h.ess of Montpensier, and his brother the Duke of Mayenne. When well informed of the facts, the King of Navarre returned to his quarters at Meudon, and Rosny to his lodging at the foot of the castle. Whilst Rosny was at supper, his secretary came and said to him, "Sir, the King of Navarre, peradventure the King of France, wants you. M. d'Orthoman writes to him to make haste and come to St. Cloud if he would see the king alive." The King of Navarre at once departed. Just as he arrived at St. Cloud, he heard in the street cries of "Ah! my G.o.d, we are lost!" He was told that the king was dead. Henry III., in fact, expired on the 2d of August, 1589, between two and three in the morning. The first persons Henry of Navarre encountered as he entered the Hotel de Retz were the officers of the Scottish guard, who threw themselves at his feet, saying, "Ah! sir, you are now our king and our master."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Henry of Navarre and the Scotch Guard----448]

END OF VOLUME IV.