A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume V Part 2

Floquet, t. iii. pp. 611-617.] Henry IV. commissioned Rosny to negotiate with him; and Rosny went into Normandy, to Louviers first and then to Rouen itself. The negotiation seemed to be progressing favorably, but a distrustful whim in regard to Villars, and the lofty pretensions he put forward, made Rosny hang back for a while, and tell the whole story to the king, at the same time asking for his instructions. Henry replied,--

"My friend, you are an a.s.s to employ so much delay and import so many difficulties and manoeuvres into a business the conclusion of which is of so great importance to me for the establishment of my authority and the relief of my people. Do you no longer remember the counsels you have so many times given to me, whilst setting before me as an example that given by a certain Duke of Milan to King Louis XI., at the time of the war called that of the Common Weal? It was to split up by considerations of private interest all those who were leagued against him on general pretexts. That is what I desire to attempt now, far preferring that it should cost twice as much to treat separately with each individual as it would to arrive at the same results by means of a general treaty concluded with a single leader, who, in that way, would be enabled to keep up still an organized party within my dominions. You know plenty of folks who wanted to persuade me to that. Wherefore, do not any longer waste your time in doing either so much of the respectful towards those whom you wot of, and whom we will find other means of contenting, or of the economical by sticking at money. We will pay everything with the very things given up to us, the which, if they had to be taken by force, would cost us ten times as much. Seeing, then, that I put entire trust in you and love you as a good servant, do not hesitate any longer to make absolute and bold use of your power, which I further authorize by this letter, so far as there may be further need for it, and settle as soon as possible with M. de Villars. But secure matters so well that there may be no possibility of a slip, and send me news thereof promptly, for I shall be in constant doubt and impatience until I receive it. And then, when I am peaceably king, we will employ the excellent manoeuvres of which you have said so much to me; and you may rest a.s.sured that I will spare no travail and fear no peril in order to raise my glory and my kingdom to the height of splendor. Adieu, my friend. Senlis, this 18th day of March, 1594."

Amongst the pretensions made by Villars there was one which could not be satisfied without the consent of a man still more considerable than he, and one with whom Henry IV. was obliged to settle--Biron. Villars had received from Mayenne the t.i.tle and office of admiral of France, and he wished, at any price, to retain them on pa.s.sing over to the king's service. Now Henry IV. had already given this office to Biron, who had no idea of allowing himself to be stripped of it. It was all very fine to offer him in exchange the baton of a marshal of France, but he would not be satisfied with it. "It was necessary," says M. Floquet [_Histoire du Parlement de Normandie,_ t. iii. pp. 613-616], "for the king's sister (Princess Catherine) to intervene. At last, a promise of one hundred and twenty thousand crowns won Biron over, though against the grain." But he wanted solid securities. Attention was then turned to the Parliament of Caen, always so ready to do anything and sacrifice anything. Saldaigne d'Incarville, comptroller-general of finance, having been despatched to Caen, went straight to the palace and reported to the Parliament the proposals and conditions of Villers and Biron. "The king," said he, "not having been able to bring Rouen to reason by process of arms, and being impatient to put some end to these miseries, wishes now to try gentle processes, and treat with those whom he has not yet been able to subdue; but co-operation on the part of the sovereign bodies of the provinces is necessary." "To that which is for the good of our service is added your private interest," wrote Henry IV. to the Parliament of Caen; and his messenger D'Incarville added, "I have left matters at Rouen so arranged as to make me hope that before a fortnight is over you will be free to return thither and enter your homes once more." At the first mention of peace and the prospect of a reconciliation between the royalist Parliament of Caen and the leaguer Parliament of Rouen, the Parliament, the exchequer-chamber, and the court of taxation, agreed to a fresh sacrifice and a last effort. The four presidents of the Parliament lost no time in signing together, and each for all, an engagement to guarantee the hundred and twenty thousand crowns promised to Biron. . . . The members of the body bound themselves all together to guarantee the four presidents, in their turn, in respect of the engagement they were contracting, and a letter was addressed on the spot to Henry IV., "to thank the monarch for his good will and affection, and the honor he was doing the members of his Parliament of Normandy, by making them partic.i.p.ators in the means and overtures adopted for arriving at the reduction of the town of Rouen." [M. Floquet, _Histoire du Parlement de Normandi,_ t. iii. pp. 613-616.]

Here is the information afforded, as regards the capitulation of Villars to Henry IV., by the statement drawn up by Sully himself, of "the amount of all debts on account of all the treaties made for the reduction of districts, towns, places, and persons to obedience unto the king, in order to the pacification of the realm."

"To M. Villars, for himself, his brother, Chevalier d'Oise, the towns of Rouen and Havre and other places, as well as for compensation which had to be made to MM. de Montpensier, Marshal de Biron, Chancellor de Chiverny, and other persons included in his treaty . . . three millions four hundred and forty-seven thousand eight hundred livres."

[Poirson, _Histoire du Regne de Henry IV.,_ t. i. p. 667.]

These details have been entered into without hesitation because it is important to clearly understand by what means, by what a.s.siduous efforts, and at what price Henry IV. managed to win back pacifically many provinces of his kingdom, rally to his government many leaders of note, and finally to confer upon France that territorial and political unity which she lacked under the feudal regimen, and which, in the sixteenth century, the religious wars all but put it beyond her power to acquire.

To the two instances just cited of royalist reconciliation--Lyons and the spontaneous example set by her population, and Rouen and the dearly purchased capitulation of her governor Villars--must be added a third, of a different sort. Nicholas de Neufville, Lord of Villeroi, after having served Charles IX. and Henry III., had become, through attachment to the Catholic cause, a member of the League, and one of the Duke of Mayenne's confidants. When Henry IV. was King of France, and Catholic king, Villeroi tried to serve his cause with Mayenne, and induce Mayenne to be reconciled with him. Meeting with no success, he made up his mind to separate from the League, and go over to the king's service. He could do so without treachery or shame; even as a Leaguer and a servant of Mayenne's he had always been opposed to Spain, and devoted to a French, but, at the same time, a faithfully Catholic policy. He imported into the service of Henry IV. the same sentiments and the same bearing; he was still a zealous Catholic, and a partisan, for king and country's sake, of alliance with Catholic powers. He was a man of wits, experience, and resource, who knew Europe well and had some influence at the court of Rome. Henry IV. saw at once the advantage to be gained from him, and, in spite of the Protestants' complaints, and his sister Princess Catherine's prayers, made him, on the 25th of September, 1594, secretary of state for foreign affairs. This acquisition did not cost him so dear as that of Villars: still we read in the statement of sums paid by Henry IV. for this sort of conquest, "Furthermore, to M. de Villeroi, for himself, his son, the town of Pontoise, and other individuals, according to their treaty, four hundred and seventy-six thousand five hundred and ninety-four livres." It is quite true that this statement was drawn up by Sully, the unwavering supporter of Protestant alliances in Europe, and, as such, Villeroi's opponent in the council of Henry IV.; but the other contemporary doc.u.ments confirm Sully's a.s.sertion. Villeroi was a faithful servant to Henry, who well repaid him by stanchness in supporting him against the repeated attacks of violent Reformers. In 1594, when he became minister of foreign affairs, the following verse was in vogue at the Louvre:--

"The king could never beat the League; 'Twas Villeroi who did the thing; So well he managed his intrigue, That now the League hath got the king."

It is quite certain, however, that Henry IV. was never of the opinion expressed in that verse; for, ten years later, in 1604, Villeroi having found himself much compromised by the treachery of a chief clerk in his department, who had given up to the Spanish government some important despatches, the king, though very vexed at this mishap, "the consequences of which rankled in his heart far more than he allowed to appear openly, nevertheless continued to look most kindly on Villeroi, taking the trouble to call upon him, to console and comfort him under this annoyance, and not showing him a suspicion of mistrust because of what had happened, any more than formerly; nay, even less." [_Journal de L'Estoile,_ t. iii. pp. 85-441.] Never had prince a better or n.o.bler way of employing confidence in his proceedings with his servants, old or new, at the same time that he made clear-sighted and proper distinctions between them.

Henry IV., with his mind full of his new character as a Catholic king, perceived the necessity of getting the pope to confirm the absolution which had been given him, at the time of his conversion, by the French bishops. It was the condition of his credit amongst the numerous Catholic population who were inclined to rally to him, but required to know that he was at peace with the head of their church. He began by sending to Rome non-official agents, instructed to quietly sound the pope, amongst others Arnold d'Ossat, a learned professor in the University of Paris, who became, at a later period, the celebrated cardinal and diplomat of that name. Clement VIII. [Hippolytus Aldobrandini] was a clever man, moderate and prudent to the verge of timidity, and, one who was disinclined to take decisive steps as to difficult questions or positions until after they had been decided by events. He refused to have any communication with him whom he still called the Prince of Bearn, and only received the agents of Henry IV.

privately in his closet. But whilst he was personally severe and exacting in his behavior to then, he had a hint given them by one of his confidants not to allow themselves to be rebuffed by any obstacle, for the pope would, sooner or later, welcome back the lost child who returned to him. At this report, and by the advice of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand de' Medici, Henry IV. determined to send a solemn emba.s.sy to Rome, and to put it under the charge of a prince of Italian origin, Peter di Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers. But either through the pope's stubborn resolve or the amba.s.sador's somewhat impatient temper, devoted as he was, however, to the Holy See, the emba.s.sy had no success. The Duke of Nevers could not obtain an official reception as amba.s.sador of the King of France. It was in vain that he had five confidential audiences of the pope; in vain that he represented energetically to him all the progress Henry IV. had already made, all the chances he had of definitive success, all the perils to which the papacy exposed itself by rejecting his advances; Clement VIII. persisted in his determination. Philip II. and Mayenne still reigned in his ideas, and he dismissed the Duke of Nevers on the 13th of January, 1594, declaring once more that he refused to the Navarrese absolution at the inner bar of conscience, absolution at the outer bar, and confirmation in his kingship.

Henry IV. did not put himself out, did not give himself the pleasure of testifying to Rome his discontent; he saw that he had not as yet sufficiently succeeded--sufficiently vanquished his enemies, or won to himself his kingdom with sufficient completeness and definitiveness--to make the pope feel bound to recognize and sanction his triumph. He set himself once more to work to grow still greater in France, and force the gates of Rome without its being possible to reproach him with violence or ill temper.

He had been absolved and crowned at St. Denis by the bishops of France; he had not been anointed at Rheims, according to the religious traditions of the French monarchy. At Rheims he could not be; for it was still in the power of the League. Researches were made, to discover whether the ceremony of anointment might take place elsewhere; numerous instances were found, and in the case of famous kings: Pepin the Short had been anointed first of all at Mayence, Charlemagne and Louis the Debonnair at Rome, Charles the Bald at Mayence, several emperors at Aix-la-Chapelle and at Cologne. The question of the holy phial (ampoule) was also discussed; and it was proved that on several occasions other oils, held to be of miraculous origin, had been employed instead. These difficulties thus removed, the anointment of Henry IV. took place at Chartres on the 27th of February, 1594; the Bishop of Chartres, Nicholas de Thou, officiated, and drew up a detailed account of all the ceremonies and all the rejoicings; thirteen medals, each weighing fifteen gold crowns, were struck, according to custom; they bore the king's image, and for legend, _Invia virtuti nulla est via_ (To manly worth no road is inaccessible). Henry IV., on his knees before the grand altar, took the usual oath, the form of which was presented to him by Chancellor de Chiverny. With the exception of local accessories, which were acknowledged to be impossible and unnecessary, there was nothing wanting to this religious hallowing of his kingship.

But one other thing, more important than the anointment at Chartres, was wanting. He did not possess the capital of his kingdom the League were still masters of Paris. Uneasy masters of their situation; but not so uneasy, however, as they ought to have been. The great leaders of the party, the Duke of Mayenne, his mother the d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours, his sister the d.u.c.h.ess of Montpensier, and the Duke of Feria, Spanish amba.s.sador, were within its walls, a prey to alarm and discouragement. "At breakfast," said the d.u.c.h.ess of Montpensier, "they regale us with the surrender of a hamlet, at dinner of a town, at supper of a whole province." The d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours, who desired peace, exerted herself to convince her son of all their danger. "Set your affairs in order," she said;--if you do not begin to make your arrangements with the king before leaving Paris, you will lose this capital. I know that projects are already afoot for giving it up, and that those who can do it, and in whom you have most confidence, are accomplices and even authors of the plot."

Mayenne himself did not hide from his confidants the gravity of the mischief and his own disquietude. "Not a day," he wrote on the 4th of February, 1594, to the Marquis of Montpezat, "but brings some trouble because of the people's yearning for repose, and of the weakness which is apparent on our side. I stem and stop this forment with as much courage as I can; but the present mischief is overwhelming; the King of Navarre will in a few days have an army of twenty thousand men, French as well as foreigners. What will become of us, if we have not wherewithal not only to oppose him, but to make him lose the campaign? I can tell you of a verity that, save for my presence, Paris would have already been lost because of the great factions there are in it, which I take all the pains in the world to disperse and break up, and also because of the small aid, or rather the gainsaying, I meet with from the ministers of the King of Spain." Mayenne tried to restore amongst the Leaguers both zeal and discipline; he convoked on the 2d of March, a meeting of all that remained of the faction of the Sixteen; he calculated upon the presence of some twelve hundred; scarcely three hundred came; he had an harangue delivered to them by the Rev. John Boucher, charged them to be faithful to the old spirit of the League, promised them that he would himself be faithful even to death, and exhorted them to be obedient in everything to Brissac, whom he had just appointed governor of the city, and to the provost of tradesmen. On announcing to them his imminent departure for Soissons, to meet some auxiliary troops which were to be sent to him by the King of Spain, "I leave to you," he said, "what is dearest to me in the world--my wife, my children, my mother, and my sister." But when he did set out, four days afterwards, on the 6th of March, 1594, he took away his wife and his children; his mother had already warned him that Brissac was communicating secretly, by means of his cousin, Sieur de Rochepot, with the royalists, and that the provost of tradesmen, L'Huillier, and three of the four sheriffs were agreed to bring the city back to obedience to the king. When the Sixteen and their adherents saw Mayenne departing with his wife and children, great were their alarm and wrath. A large band, with the inc.u.mbent of St. Cosmo (Hamilton) at their head, rushed about the streets in arms, saying, "Look to your city; the policists are brewing a terrible business for it." Others, more violent, cried, "To arms! Down upon the policists! Begin! Let us make an end of it!" The policists, that is, the burgesses inclined to peace, repaired on their side to the provost of tradesmen to ask for his authority to a.s.semble at the Palace or the Hotel de Ville, and to provide for security in case of any public calamity. The provost tried to elude their entreaties by pleading that the Duke of Mayenne would think ill of their a.s.sembling. "Then you are not the tradesmen's but M. de Mayenne's provost?" said one of them. "I am no Spaniard," answered the provost; "no more is M. de Mayenne; I am anxious to reconcile you to the Sixteen."

"We are honest folks, not branded and defamed like the Sixteen; we will have no reconciliation with the wretches." The Parliament grew excited, and exclaimed against the insolence and the menaces of the Sixteen. "We must give place to these sedition-mongers, or put them down." A decree, published by sound of trumpet on the 14th of March, 1594, throughout the whole city, prohibited the Sixteen and their partisans from a.s.sembling on pain of death. That same day, Count de Brissac, governor of Paris, had an interview at the abbey of St. Anthony, with his brother-in-law, Francis d'Epinay, Lord of St. Luc, Henry IV.'s grand-master of the ordnance; they had disputes touching private interests, which they wished, they said, to put right; and on this pretext advocates had appeared at their interview. They spent three hours in personal conference, their minds being directed solely to the means of putting the king into possession of Paris. They separated in apparent dudgeon.

Brissac went to call upon the legate Gaetani, and begged him to excuse the error he had committed in communicating with a heretic; his interest in the private affairs in question was too great, he said, for him to neglect it. The legate excused him graciously, whilst praising him for his modest conduct, and related the incident to the Duke of Feria, the Spanish amba.s.sador. "He is a good fellow, M. de Brissac," said the amba.s.sador; "I have always found him so; you have only to employ the Jesuits to make him do all you please. He takes little notice, otherwise, of affairs; one day, when we were holding council in here, whilst we were deliberating, he was amusing himself by catching flies."

For four days the population of Paris was occupied with a solemn procession in honor of St. Genevieve, in which the Parliament and all the munic.i.p.al authorities took part. Brissac had agreed with his brother-in-law D'Epinay that he would let the king in on the 22d of March, and he had arranged, in concert with the provost of tradesmen, two sheriffs, and several district captains, the course of procedure. On the 21st of March, in the evening, some Leaguers paid him a visit, and spoke to him warmly about the rumors current on the subject in the city, calling upon him to look to it. "I have received the same notice," said Brissac, coolly; "and I have given all the necessary orders. Leave me to act, and keep you quiet, so as not to wake up those who will have to be secured. To-morrow morning you will see a fine to-do and the policists much surprised." During all the first part of the night between the 21st and 22d of March, Brissac went his rounds of the city and the guards he had posted, "with an appearance of great care and solicitude." He had some trouble to get rid of certain Spanish officers, "whom the Duke of Feria had sent him to keep him company in his rounds, with orders to throw themselves upon him and kill him at the first suspicious movement; but they saw nothing to confirm their suspicions, and at two A. M., Brissac brought them back much fatigued to the duke's, where he left them." Henry IV., having started on the 21st of March from Senlis, where he had mustered his troops, and arrived about midnight at St. Denis, immediately began his march to Paris. The night was dark and stormy; thunder rumbled; rain fell heavily; the king was a little behind time.

At three A. M.. the policists inside Paris had taken arms and repaired to the posts that had been a.s.signed to them. Brissac had placed a guard close to the quarters of the Spanish amba.s.sador, and ordered the men to fire on any who attempted to leave. He had then gone in person, with L'Huillier, the provost of tradesmen, to the New Gate, which he had caused to be unlocked and guarded. Sheriff Langlois had done the same at the gate of St. Denis. On the 22d of March, at four A. M., the king had not yet appeared before the ramparts, nor any one for him. Langlois issued from the gate, went some little distance to look out, and came in again, more and more impatient. At last, between four and five o'clock, a detachment of the royal troops, commanded by Vitry, appeared before the gate of St. Denis, which was instantly opened. Brissac's brother-in-law, St. Luc, arrived about the same time at the New Gate, with a considerable force. The king's troops entered Paris. They occupied the different districts, and met with no show of resistance but at the quay of L'Ecole, where an outpost of lanzknechts tried to stop them; but they were cut in pieces or hurled into the river. Between five and six o'clock Henry IV., at the head of the last division, crossed the drawbridge of the New Gate.

Brissac, Provost L'Huillier, the sheriffs, and several companies of burgesses advanced to meet him. The king embraced Brissac, throwing his own white scarf round his neck, and addressing him as "Marshal." "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," said Brissac, as he called upon the provost of tradesmen to present to the king the keys of the city. "Yes," said L'Huillier, "render them, not sell them." The king went forward with his train, going along Rue St. Honore to the market of the Innocents and the bridge of Notre-Dame; the crowd increased at every step. "Let them come near," said Henry; "they hunger to see a king." At every step, too, at sight of the smallest incident, the character of Henry, his natural thoughtful and lovable kindliness, shone forth. He asked if his entry had met with resistance anywhere; and he was told that about fifty lanzknechts had been killed at the quay of L'Ecole. "I would willingly give fifty thousand crowns," said he, "to be able to say that I took Paris without costing the life of one single man." As he marched along the Rue St. Honore, he saw a soldier taking some bread by force from a baker's; he rushed at him, and would have struck him with his sword. As he pa.s.sed in front of the Innocents, he saw at a window a man who was looking at him, and pointedly keeping his hat on; the man perceived that the king' observed him, and withdrew, shutting down the window. Henry said, "Let n.o.body enter this house to vex or molest any one in it." He arrived in front of Notre-Dame, followed by five or six hundred men-at-arms, who trailed their pikes "in token of a victory that was voluntary on the people's part," it was said. There was no uproar, or any hostile movement, save on the left bank of the Seine, in the University quarter, where the Sixteen attempted to a.s.semble their partisans round the gate of St. Jacques; but they were promptly dispersed by the people as well as by the royal troops. On leaving Notre-Dame, Henry repaired to the Louvre, where he installed royalty once more.

At ten o'clock he was master of the whole city; the districts of St. Martin, of the Temple, and St. Anthony alone remained still in the power of three thousand Spanish soldiers under the orders of their leaders, the Duke of Feria and Don Diego d'Ibarra. Nothing would have been easier for Henry than to have had them driven out by his own troops and the people of Paris, who wanted to finish the day's work by exterminating the foreigners; but he was too judicious and too far-sighted to embitter the general animosity by pushing his victory beyond what was necessary. He sent word to the Spaniards that they must not move from their quarters and must leave Paris during the day, at the same time promising not to bear arms any more against him, in France.

They eagerly accepted these conditions. At three o'clock in the afternoon, amba.s.sador, officers, and soldiers all evacuated Paris, and set out for the Low Countries. The king, posted at a window over the gate of St. Denis, witnessed their departure. They, as they pa.s.sed, saluted him respectfully; and he returned their salute, saying, "Go, gentlemen, and commend me to your master; but return no more."

After his conversion to Catholicism, the capture of Paris was the most decisive of the issues which made Henry IV. really King of France. The submission of Rouen followed almost immediately upon that of Paris; and the year 1594 brought Henry a series of successes, military and civil, which changed very much to his advantage the position of the kingship as well as the general condition of the kingdom. In Normandy, in Picardy, in Champagne, in Anjou, in Poitou, in Brittany, in Orleanness, in Auvergne, a mult.i.tude of important towns, Havre, Honfleur, Abbeville, Amiens, Peronue, Montdidier, Poitiers, Orleans, Rheims, Chateau-Thierry, Beauvais, Sens, Riom, Morlaix, Laval, Laon, returned to the king's authority, some after sieges and others by pacific and personal arrangement, more or less burdensome for the public treasury, but very effective in promoting the unity of the nation and of the monarchy. In the table drawn up by Sully of expenses under that head, he estimated them at thirty-two millions, one hundred and forty-two thousand, nine hundred and eighty-one livres, equivalent at the present day, says M.

Poirson, to one hundred and eighteen millions of francs. The rendition of Paris, "on account of M. de Brissac, the city itself and other individuals employed on his treaty," figures in this sum total at one million, six hundred and forty-five thousand, four hundred livres.

Territorial acquisitions were not the only political conquests of this epoch; some of the great inst.i.tutions which had been disjointed by the religious wars, for instance, the Parliaments of Paris and Normandy, recovered their unity and resumed their efficacy to the advantage of order, of the monarchy, and of national independence; their decrees against the League contributed powerfully to its downfall. Henry IV.

did his share in other ways besides warfare; he excelled in the art of winning over or embarra.s.sing his vanquished foes. After the submission of Paris, the two princesses of the house of Lorraine who had remained there, the d.u.c.h.esses of Nemours and of Montpensier, one the mother and the other the sister of the Duke of Mayenne, were preparing to go and render homage to the conqueror; Henry antic.i.p.ated them, and paid them the first visit. As he was pa.s.sing through a room where hung a portrait of Henry de Guise, he halted and saluted it very courteously. The d.u.c.h.ess of Montpensier, who had so often execrated him, did not hesitate to express her regret that "her brother Mayenne had not been there to let down for him the drawbridge of the gate by which he had entered Paris."

"Ventre-saint-gris," said the king, "he might have made me wait a long while; I should not have arrived so early." He knew that the d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours had desired peace, and when she allowed some signs of vexation to peep out at her not having been able to bring her sons and grandsons to that determination, "Madame," said he, a there is still time if they please." At the close of 1594, he imported disorganization into the household of Lorraine by offering the government of Provence to the young Duke Charles of Guise, son of the Balafre; who eagerly accepted it; and he from that moment paved the way, by the agency of President Jeannin, for his reconciliation with Mayenne, which he brought to accomplishment at the end of 1595.

The close of this happy and glorious year was at hand. On the 27th of September, between six and seven P.M., a deplorable incident occurred, for the second time, to call Henry IV.'s attention to the weak side of his position. He was just back from Picardy, and holding a court-reception at Schomberg House, at the back of the Louvre. John Chastel, a young man of nineteen, son of a cloth-merchant in the city, slipped in among the visitors, managed to approach the king, and dealt him a blow with a knife just as he was stooping to raise and embrace Francis de la Grange, Sieur de Montigny, who was kneeling before him.

The blow, aimed at the king's throat, merely slit his upper lip and broke a tooth. "I am wounded!" said the king. John Chastel, having dropped his knife, had remained on the spot, motionless and confused. Montigny, according to some, but, according to others, the Count of Soissons, who happened to be near him, laid hands upon him, saying, "Here is the a.s.sa.s.sin, either he or I." Henry IV., always p.r.o.ne to pa.s.s things over, pooh-poohed the suspicion, and was just giving orders to let the young man go, when the knife, discovered on the ground close to Chastel, became positive evidence. Chastel was questioned, searched, and then handed, over to the grand provost of the household, who had him conveyed to prison at For-l'Eveque. He first of all denied, but afterwards admitted his deed, regretting that he had missed his aim, and saying he was ready to try again for his own salvation's sake and that of religion. He declared that he had been brought up amongst the Jesuits in Rue St.

Jacques, and he gave long details as to the education he had received there and the maxims he had heard there. The rumor of his crime and of the revelations he had made spread immediately over Paris and caused pa.s.sionate excitement. The people filled the churches and rendered thanks to G.o.d for having preserved the king. The burgesses took up arms and mustered at their guard-posts. The mob bore down on the college of Jesuits in Rue St. Jacques with threats of violence. The king and the Parliament sent a force thither; Brizard, councillor in the high chamber, captain of the district, had the fathers removed, and put them in security in his own house. The inquiry was prosecuted deliberately and temperately. It brought out that John Chastel had often heard repeated at his college "that it was allowable to kill kings, even the king regnant, when they were not in the church or approved of by the pope."

The accused formally maintained this maxim, which was found written out and dilated upon under his own hand in a note-book seized at his father's. "Was it necessary, pray," said Henry IV., laughing, "that the Jesuits should be convicted by my mouth?" John Chastel was sentenced to the most cruel punishment; and he underwent it on the 20th of December, 1594, by torch-light, before the princ.i.p.al entrance of Notre-Dame, without showing any symptom of regret. His mother and his sisters were set at liberty. His father, an old Leaguer, had been cognizant of his project, and had dissuaded him from it, but without doing anything to hinder it; he was banished from the kingdom for nine years, and from Paris forever. His house was razed to the ground; and on the site was set up a pyramid with the decree of the Parliament inscribed upon it.

The proceedings did not stop there. At the beginning of this same year, and on pet.i.tion from the University of Paris, the Parliament had commenced a general prosecution of the order of Jesuits, its maxims, tendencies, and influence. Formal discussions had taken place; the prosecution and the defence had been conducted with eloquence, and a decree of the court had ordained that judgment should be deferred.

Several of the most respected functionaries, notably President Augustin de Thou, had p.r.o.nounced against this decree, considering the question so grave and so urgent that the Parliament should make it their duty to decide upon the point at issue. When sentence had to be p.r.o.nounced upon John Chastel, President de Thou took the opportunity of saying, "When I lately gave my opinion in the matter of the University and the Jesuits, I never hoped, at my age and with my infirmities, that I should live long enough to take part in the judgment we are about to pa.s.s to-day. It was that which led me, in the indignation caused me by the course at that time adopted, to lay down an opinion to which I to-day recur with much joy. G.o.d be praised for having brought about an occasion whereon we have nothing to do but felicitate ourselves for that the enterprise which our foes did meditate against the state and the life of the king hath been without success, and which proves clearly at the same time how much the then opinion of certain honest men was wiser than that of persons who, from a miserable policy, were in favor of deferment!" The court, animated by the same sentiments as President do Thou, "declared the maxims maintained in the Jesuits' name to be rash, seditious, contrary to the word of G.o.d, savoring of heresy and condemned by the holy canons; it expressly forbade them to be taught publicly or privately, on pain, in case of contraveners, of being treated as guilty of treason against G.o.d and man. It decreed, further, that the priests of the college in Rue St.

Jacques, their pupils, and, generally, all members of that society, should leave Paris and all the towns in which they had colleges three days after this decree had been made known to them, and the kingdom within a fortnight, as corrupters of youth, disturbers of the public peace, and enemies of the king and of the state. In default of obedience on their part, their property, real and personal, should be confiscated and employed for pious purposes. The court, besides, prohibited all subjects of the king from sending their children as students to any Jesuits out of the kingdom, on pain of being declared enemies of the state." This decree was issued on the 29th of December, 1594. And as if to leave no doubt about the sense and bearing of this legislation, it was immediately applied in the case of a Jesuit father, John Guignard, a native of Chartres; his papers were examined, and there were found in his handwriting many propositions and provocatives of sedition, such as, "That a great mistake had been made at the St. Bartholomew in not having opened the basilic vein, that is, in not having murdered Henry IV. and the Prince of Conde, who were of the blood royal; 2. That the crown might have been, and ought to have been, transferred to a family other than that of the Bourbons; 3. That the Bearnese, in spite of his pretended conversion, ought to consider himself only too lucky if it were considered sufficient to shave his head and shut him up in a convent to do penance there; that if the crown could not betaken from him without war, then war must be made on him; and that if the state of things did not admit of making war on him, he ought to be got rid of at any price and in any way whatsoever." For having, not published, but thought and with his own hand written out all this, and probably taught it to his pupils, Father Guignard was obliged to retract, and was afterwards hanged in the Place de Greve on the 7th of January, 1595.

The task of honest men and of right minds is greater and more difficult in our day than it was in the sixteenth century, for we have to reconcile the laws and the requirements of moral and social order with far broader principles and sentiments, as regards right and liberty, than were those of President Augustin de Thou and the worthy functionaries of his time.

It was one of Henry IV.'s conspicuous qualities that no event, auspicious or inauspicious, affected the correctness of his judgment, and that he was just as much a stranger to illusion or intoxication in the hour of good fortune as to discouragement in the hour of ill. He had sense enough to see, in any case, things as they really were, and to estimate at the proper value the strength they brought or the obstacles they formed to his government. He saw at a glance all the importance there was for him in the submission of Paris, and what change in his conduct was required by that in his position. Certain local successes of the Spaniards at some points in his kingdom, the efforts of Mayenne to resuscitate the dying League, and John Chastel's attempt at a.s.sa.s.sination did not for a moment interfere with his confidence in his progress, or cause him to hesitate as to the new bearing he had to a.s.sume. He wrote on the 17th of December, 1594, to the estates of Artois and Hainault, "I have hitherto lacked neither the courage nor the power to repel the insults offered me, and to send recoiling upon the head of the King of Spain and his subjects the evils of which he was the author. But just as were the grounds I had for declaring war against him, motives more powerful and concerning the interests of all Christendom restrained me.

At the present time, when the princ.i.p.al leaders of the factious have returned to their duty and submitted to my laws, Philip still continues his intrigues to foster troubles in the very heart of my kingdom. After maturely reflecting, I have decided that it is time for me to act.

Nevertheless, as I cannot forget the friendship my ancestors always felt for your country, I could not but see with pain that, though you have taken no share in Philip's acts of injustice, on you will fall the first blows of a war so terrible, and I thought it my duty to warn you of my purpose before I proceed to execute it. If you can prevail upon the King of Spain to withdraw the army which he is having levied on the frontier, and to give no protection for the future to rebels of my kingdom, I will not declare war against him, provided that I have certain proof of your good intentions, and that you give me reasonable securities for them before the 1st of January in the approaching year." [_Lettres missives de Henri IV,_ p. 280--De Thou, _Histoire universelle,_ t. xii. pp. 328- 342.]

These letters, conveyed to Arras by one of the king's trumpeters, received no answer. The estates of Flanders, in a.s.sembly at Brussels, somewhat more bold than those of Artois and Hainault, in vain represented to their Spanish governor their plaints and their desires for peace; for two months Henry IV. heard not a word on the subject. Philip II.

persisted in his active hostility, and continued to give the King of France no t.i.tle but that of Prince of Bearn. On the 17th of January, 1595, Henry, in performance of what he had proclaimed, formally declared war against the King of Spain, forbade his subjects to have any com merce with him or his allies, and ordered them to make war on him for the future just as he persisted in making it on France. This able and worthy resolve was not approved of by Rosny, by this time the foremost of Henry's IV.'s councillors, although he had not yet risen in the government, or, probably, in the king's private confidence, to the superior rank that he did attain by the eminence of his services and the courageous sincerity of his devotion. In his _OEconomies royales_ it is to interested influence, on the part of England and Holland, that he attributes this declaration of war against Philip II., "into which," he says, "the king allowed himself to be hurried against his own feelings."

It was a.s.suredly in accordance with his own feelings and of his own free will that Henry acted in this important decision; he had a political order of mind greater, more inventive, and more sagacious than Rosny's administrative order of mind, strong common sense and painstaking financial abilities. To spontaneously declare war against Philip after the capitulation of Paris and the conquest of three quarters of France was to proclaim that the League was at death's door, that there was no longer any civil war in France, and that her king had no more now than foreign war to occupy him. To make alliance, in view of that foreign war, with the Protestant sovereigns of England, Holland, and Germany, against the exclusive and absolutist patron of Catholicism, was on the part of a king but lately Protestant, and now become resolutely Catholic, to separate openly politics from religion, and to subserve the temporal interests of the realm of France whilst putting himself into the hands of the spiritual head of the church as regarded matters of faith. Henry IV., moreover, discovered another advantage in this line of conduct; it rendered possible and natural the important act for which he was even then preparing, and which will be spoken of directly, the edict of Nantes in favor of the Protestants, which was the charter of religious tolerance and the securities for it, pending the advent of religious liberty and its rights, that fundamental principle, at this day, of moral and social order in France. Such were Henry IV.'s grand and premonitory instincts when, on the 17th of January, 1595, he officially declared against Philip II. that war which Philip had not for a moment ceased to make on him.

The conflict thus solemnly begun between France and Spain lasted three years and three months, from the 17th of January, 1595, to the 1st of May, 1598, from Henry IV.'s declaration of war to the peace of Vervins, which preceded by only four months and thirteen days the death of Philip II. and the end of the preponderance of Spain in Europe. It is not worth while to follow step by step the course of this monotonous conflict, pregnant with facts which had their importance for contemporaries, but are not worthy of an historical resurrection. Notice will be drawn only to those incidents in which the history of France is concerned, and which give a good idea of Henry IV.'s character, the effectiveness of his government, and the rapid growth of his greatness in Europe, contrasted with his rival's slow decay.

Four months and a half after the declaration of war, and during the campaign begun in Burgundy between the French and the Spaniards, on the 5th of June, 1595, near Fontaine-Francaise, a large burgh a few leagues from Dijon, there took place an encounter which, without ending in a general battle, was an important event, and caused so much sensation that it brought about political results more important than the immediate cause of them. Henry IV. made up his mind to go and reconnoitre in person the approaches of Dijon, towards which the enemy were marching.

He advanced, with about a hundred and fifty men-at-arms and as many mounted arquebusiers, close up to the burgh of Saint-Seine; from there he sent the Marquis of Mirebeau with fifty or sixty horse to "go," says Sully, "and take stock of the enemy;" and he put himself on the track of his lieutenant, marching as a simple captain of light-horse, with the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the set of the country, so as to turn it to advantage if the armies had to encounter. But he had not gone more than a league when he saw Mirebeau returning at more than a foot-pace and in some disorder; who informed him "that he had been suddenly charged by as many as three or four hundred horse, who did not give him leisure to extend his view as he could have desired, and that he believed that the whole army of the Constable of Castille was marching in a body to come and quarter themselves in the burgh of Saint-Seine."

Marshal de Biron, who joined the king at this moment, offered to go and look at the enemy, and bring back news that could be depended upon; but scarcely had he gone a thousand paces when he descried, on the top of a little valley, some sixty horse halted there as if they were on guard; he charged them, toppled them over, and taking their ground, discovered the whole Spanish army marching in order of battle and driving before them a hundred of the king's horse, who were flying in disorder. Biron halted and showed a firm front to the enemy's approach; but he was himself hard pressed at many points, and was charged with such impetuosity that he was obliged to begin a retreat which changed before long to a sort of flight, with a few sword-cuts about the ears. Thus he arrived within sight of the king, who immediately detached a hundred horse to support Biron and stop the fugitives; but the little re-enforcement met with the same fate as those it went to support; it was overthrown and driven pell-mell right up to the king, who suddenly found himself with seven or eight hundred horse on his hands, without counting the enemy's main army, which could already be discerned in the distance. Far from being dumbfounded, the king, "borrowing," says Sully, "increase of judgment and courage from the greatness of the peril," called all his men about him, formed them into two squadrons of a hundred and fifty men each, gave one to M. de la Tremoille with orders to go and charge the Spanish cavalry on one flank, put himself at the head of the other squadron, and the two charges of the French were "so furious and so determined," says Sully, the king mingling in the thickest of the fight and setting an example to the boldest, "that the Spanish squadrons in dismay tumbled one over another, and retired half-routed to the main body of Mayenne's army; who, seeing a dash made to the king's a.s.sistance by some of his bravest officers with seven or eight hundred horse, thought all the royal army was there, and, fearing to attack those gentry of whose determination he had just made proof, he himself gave his troops the order to retreat, Henry going on in pursuit until he had forced them to recross the Sane below Gray, leaving Burgundy at his discretion."

A mere abridgment has been given of the story relating to this brilliant affair as it appears in the (_OEconomies Royales_ of Sully [t. ii.

pp. 377-387], who was present and hotly engaged in the fight. We will quote word for word, however, the account of Henry IV. himself, who sent a report four days afterwards to his sister Catherine and to the Constable Anne de Montmorency. To the latter he wrote on the 8th of June, 1595, from Dijon, "I was informed that the Constable of Castile, accompanied by the Duke of Mayenne, was crossing the River Sane with his army to come and succor the castle of this town. I took horse the day after, attended by my cousin Marshal de Biron and from seven to eight hundred horse, to go and observe his plans on the spot. Whence it happened that, intending to take the same quarters without having any certain advices about one another, we met sooner than we had hoped, and so closely that my cousin the marshal, who led the first troop, was obliged to charge those who had advanced, and I to support him. But our disadvantage was, that all our troops had not yet arrived and joined me, for I had but from two to three hundred horse, whereas the enemy had all his cavalry on the spot, making over a thousand or twelve hundred drawn up by squadrons and in order of battle. However, my said cousin did not haggle about them; and, seeing that they were worsting him, because the game was too uneven, I determined to make one in it, and joined in it to such a purpose and with such luck, thank G.o.d, together with the following I had, that we put them to the rout. But I can a.s.sure you that it was not at the first charge, for we made several; and if the rest of my forces had been with me, I should no doubt have defeated all their cavalry, and perhaps their foot who were in order of battle behind the others, having at their head the said Constable of Castile. But our forces were so unequal that I could do no more than put to flight those who would not do battle, after having cut in pieces the rest, as we had done; wherein I can tell you, my dear cousin, that my said cousin Marshal de Biron and I did some good handiwork. He was wounded in the head by a blow from a cutla.s.s in the second charge, for he and I had nothing on but our cuira.s.ses, not having had time to arm ourselves further, so surprised and hurried were we. However, my said cousin did not fail, after his wound, to return again to the charge three or four times, as I too did on my side. Finally we did so well that the field and their dead were left to us to the number of a hundred or six score, and as many prisoners of all ranks. Whereat the said Constable of Castile took such alarm that he at once recrossed the Sane; and I have been told that it was not without reproaching the Duke of Mayenne with having deceived him in not telling him of my arrival in this country."

The day before, June 7, Henry had written to his sister Catherine de Bourbon, "My dear sister, the more I go on, the more do I wonder at the grace shown me by G.o.d in the fight of last Monday, wherein I thought to have defeated but twelve hundred horse; but they must be set down at two thousand. The Constable of Castile was there in person with the Duke of Mayenne; and they both of them saw me and recognized me quite well; they sent to demand of me a whole lot of Italian and Spanish captains of theirs, the which were not prisoners. They must be amongst the dead who have been buried, for I requested next day that they should be. Many of our young n.o.blemen, seeing me with them everywhere, were full of fire in this engagement, and showed a great deal of courage; amongst whom I came across Gramont, Termes, Boissy, La Curse, and the Marquis of Mirebeau, who, as luck would have it, found themselves at it without any armor but their neck-pieces and _gaillardets_ (front and back plates), and did marvels. There were others who did not do so well, and many who did very ill. Those who were not there ought to be sorry for it, seeing that I had need of all my good friends, and I saw you very near becoming my heiress." [_Lettres missives de Henri IV.,_ t. iv. pp. 363-369; in the _Collection des Doc.u.ments inedits sur l'Histoire de France_.]

This fight, so unpremeditated, at Fontaine-Francaise, and the presence of mind, steady quicksightedness, and brilliant dash of Henry IV., led off this long war gloriously. Its details were narrated and sought after minutely; people were especially struck with the sympathetic attention that in the very midst of the strife the king bestowed upon all his companions in arms, either to give them directions or to warn them of danger. "At the hottest of the fight," says the contemporary historian Peter Matthieu, "Henry, seizing Mirebeau by the arm, said, 'Charge yonder!' which he did: and that troop began to thin off and disappear."

A moment afterwards, seeing one of the enemy's men-at-arms darting down upon the French, Henry concluded that the attack was intended for Gilbert, de la Cure, a brave and pious Catholic lord, whom he called familiarly _Monsieur le Cure,_ and shouted to him from afar, "Look out, La Curee!" which warned him and saved his life. The roughest warriors were touched by this fraternal solicitude of the king's, and clung to him with pa.s.sionate devotion.

It was at Rome, and in the case of an ecclesiastical question that Henry IV.'s steady policy, his fame for ability as well as valor, and the glorious affair of Fontaine-Francaise bore their first fruits. Mention has already been made of the formal refusal the king had met with from Pope Clement VIII. in January, 1594, when he had demanded of him, by the emba.s.sy extraordinary of the Duke of Nevers, confirmation of the absolution granted him by the French bishops after his conversation at St. Denis and his anointment at Chartres. The pope, in spite of his refusal, had indirectly given the royal agents to understand that they were not to be discouraged; and the ablest of them, Arnold d'Ossat, had remained at Rome to conduct this delicate and dark commission. When Clement VIII. saw Henry IV.'s government growing stronger and more extensive day by day, Paris returned to his power, the League beaten and the Gallican church upheld in its maxims by the French magistracy, fear of schism grew serious at Rome, and the pope had a hint given by Cardinal de Gondi to Henry that, if he were to send fresh amba.s.sadors, they might be favorably listened to. Arnold d'Ossat had acquired veritable weight at the court of Rome, and had paved the way with a great deal of art towards turning to advantage any favorable chances that might offer themselves. Villeroi, having broken with the League, had become Henry IV.'s minister of foreign affairs, and obtained some confidence at Rome in return for the good will he testified towards the papacy. By his councillor's advice, no doubt, the king made no official stir, sent no brilliant emba.s.sy; D'Ossat quietly resumed negotiations, and alone conducted them from the end of 1594 to the spring of 1595; and when a new envoy was chosen to bring them to a conclusion, it was not a great lord, but a learned ecclesiastic, Abbot James du Perron, whose ability and devotion Henry IV. had already, at the time of his conversion, experienced, and whom he had lately appointed Bishop of Evreux. Even when Du Perron had been fixed upon to go to Rome and ask for the absolution which Clement VIII. had seven or eight months before refused, he was in no hurry to repair thither, and D'Ossat's letters make it appear that he was expected there with some impatience. He arrived there on the 12th of July, 1595, and, in concert with D'Ossat, he presented to the pope the request of the king, who solicited the papal benediction, absolution from any censure, and complete reconciliation with the Roman church. Clement VIII., on the 2d of August, a.s.sembled his consistory, whither went all the cardinals, save two partisans of Spain who excused themselves on the score of health. Parleys took place as to the form of the decree which must precede the absolution. The pope would have liked very much to insert two clauses, one revoking as null and void the absolution already given to the king by the French bishops at the time of his conversion, and the other causing the absolution granted by the pope to be at the same time considered as re-establishing Henry IV. in his rights to the crown, whereof it was contended that he was deprived by the excommunication and censures of Sixtus V. and Gregory XIV., which this absolution was to remove. The two French negotiators rejected these attempts, and steadily maintained the complete independence of the king's temporal sovereignty, as well as the power of intervention of the French episcopate in his absolution. Clement VIII. was a judicious and prudent pope; and he did not persist. The absolution was solemnly p.r.o.nounced on the 17th of September, 1595, by the pope himself, from a balcony erected in St. Peter's Square, and in presence of the population. The gates of the church were thrown open and a Te Deum was sung. A grand ceremony took place immediately afterwards in the church of St. Louis of the French. Rome was illuminated for three days, and, on the 7th of November following, a pope's messenger left for Paris with the bull of absolution drawn up in the terms agreed upon.

Another reconciliation, of less solemnity, but of great importance, that between the Duke of Mayenne and Henry IV., took place a week after the absolution p.r.o.nounced by the pope. As soon as the civil war, continued by the remnants of the dying League, was no more than a disgraceful auxiliary to the foreign war between France and Spain, Mayenne was in his soul both grieved and disgusted at it. The affair of Fontaine-Francaise gave him an opportunity of bringing matters to a crisis; he next day broke with the Constable of Castile, Don Ferdinand de Velasco, who declined to follow his advice, and at once entered into secret negotiations with the king. Henry wrote from Lyons to Du Plessis-Mornay, on the 24th of August, 1595, "The Duke of Mayenne has asked me to allow him three months for the purpose of informing the enemy of his determination in order to induce them to join him in recognizing me and serving me. So doing, he has also agreed to bind himself from this present date to recognize me and serve me, whatever his friends may do."

On the 23d of September following, Henry IV., still at Lyons, sent to M.

de la Chatre:--

"I forward you the articles of a general truce which I have granted to the Duke of Mayenne at his pressing instance, and on the a.s.surance he has given me that he will get it accepted and observed by all those who are still making war within my kingdom, in his name or that of the League."

This truce was, in point of fact, concluded by a preliminary treaty signed at Chalons, and by virtue of which Mayenne ordered his lieutenants to give up to the king the citadel of Dijon. The negotiations continued, and, in January, 1596, a royal edict, signed at Folembray, near Laon, regulated, in thirty-one articles and some secret articles, the conditions of peace between the king and Mayenne. The king granted him, himself and his partisans, full and complete amnesty for the past, besides three surety-places for six years, and divers sums, which, may be for payment of his debts, and may be for his future provision, amounted to three million five hundred and eighty thousand livres at that time (twelve million eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand francs of the present day). The Parliament of Paris considered these terms exorbitant, and did not consent to enregister the edict until April 9, 1596, after three letters jussory from the king. Henry IV. n.o.bly expressed, in the preamble of the edict, the motives of policy that led to his generous arrangements; after alluding to his late reconciliation with the pope, "Our work," he said, "would have been imperfect, and peace incomplete, if our most dear and most beloved cousin, the Duke of Mayenne, chief of his party, had not followed the same road, as he resolved to do so soon as he saw that our holy father had approved of our reunion. This hath made us to perceive better than heretofore the aim of his actions, to accept and take in good part all that he hath exhibited against us of the zeal he felt for religion, and to commend the anxiety he hath displayed to preserve the kingdom in, its entirety, whereof he caused not and suffered not the dismemberment when the prosperity of his affairs seemed to give him some means of it; the which he was none the more inclined to do when he became weakened, but preferred to throw himself into our arms rather than betake himself to other remedies, which might have caused the war to last a long while yet, to the great damage of our people. This it is which hath made us desire to recognize his good intent, to love him and treat him for the future as our good relative and faithful subject."

[_Memoires de la Ligue,_ t. vi. p. 349.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Castle of Monceaux----91]

To a profound and just appreciation of men's conduct Henry IV. knew how to add a winning grace and the surprising charm of a familiar manner.

After having signed the edict of Folembray, he had gone to rest a while at Monceaux. Mayenne went to visit him there on the 31st of January, 1596. There is nothing to be added to or taken from the account given by Sully of their interview. "The king, stepping forward to meet Mayenne, embraced him thrice, a.s.suring him that he was welcome, and that he embraced him as cordially as if there had never been anything between them. M. de Mayenne put one knee on the ground, embraced the king's thigh, and a.s.sured him that he was his very humble servant and subject, saying that he considered himself greatly bounden to him, as well for having with so much, of gentleness, kindness, and special largesses restored him to his duty, as for having delivered him from Spanish arrogance and Italian crafts and wiles. Then the king, having raised him up and embraced him once more, told him that he had no doubt at all of his honor and word, for a man of worth and of good courage held nothing so dear as the observance thereof. Thereupon he took him by the hand and began to walk him about at a very great pace, showing him the alleys and telling all his plans and the beauties and conveniences of this mansion.

M. de Mayenne, who was incommoded by a sciatica, followed as best he could, but some way behind, dragging his limbs after him very heavily.

Which the king observing, and that he was mighty red, heated, and was puffing with thickness of breath, he turned to Rosny, whom he held, with the other hand, and said in his ear, 'If I walk this fat carca.s.s here about much longer, then am I avenged without much difficulty for all the evils he hath done us, for he is a dead man.' And thereupon pulling up, the king said to him, 'Tell the truth, cousin, I go a little too fast for you; and I have worked you too hard.' 'By my faith, sir,' said M. de Mayenne, slapping his hand upon his stomach, 'it is true; I swear to you that I am so tired and out of breath that I can no more. If you had continued walking me about so fast, for honor and courtesy did not permit me to say to you, "Hold! enough!" and still less to leave you, I believe that you would have killed me without a thought of it.' Then the king embraced him, clapped him on the shoulder, and said with a laughing face, open glance, and holding out his hand, 'Come, take that, cousin, for, by G.o.d, this is all the injury and displeasure you shall ever have from me; of that I give you my honor and word with all my heart, the which I never did and never will violate.' 'By G.o.d, sir,' answered M. de Mayenne, kissing the king's hand and doing what he could to put one knee upon the ground, 'I believe it and all other generous things that may be expected from the best and bravest prince of our age. And you said it, too, in so frank a spirit and with so kindly a grace that my feelings and my obligations are half as deep again. However, I swear to you over again, sir, by the living G.o.d, on my faith, my honor, and my salvation, that I will be to you, all my life long, loyal subject and faithful servant; I will never fail you nor desert you; I will have while I live no desires or designs of importance which are not suggested by your Majesty himself; nor will I ever be cognizant of them in the case of others, though they were my own children, without expressly opposing them and giving you notice of them at once.' 'There, there, cousin,' rejoined the kinm, 'I quite believe it; and that you may be able to love me and serve me long, go rest you, refresh you, and drink a draught at the castle. I have in my cellars some Arbois wine, of which I will send you two bottles, for well I know that you do not dislike it. And here is Rosny, whom I will lend you to accompany you, to do the honors of the house and to conduct you to your chamber: he is one of my oldest servants, and one of those who have been most rejoiced to see that you would love me and serve me cordially.'" [(OEconomies royales, t. iii. pp. 7-10.