The League.
1585-1589
Formation of the league.
About this time there was formed the celebrated league which occupies so conspicuous a position in the history of the sixteenth century. Henry III., though conscious that his throne was trembling beneath him, and courting now the Catholics and again the Protestants, was still amusing himself, day after day, with the most contemptible and trivial vices. The extinction of the house of Valois was evidently and speedily approaching. Henry of Navarre, calm, sagacious, and energetic, was rallying around him all the Protestant influences of Europe, to sustain, in that event, his undeniable claim to the throne. The Duke of Guise, impetuous and fearless, hoped, in successful usurpation, to grasp the rich prize by rallying around his banner all the fanatic energies of Catholic Europe.
Politics in the pulpit.
Henry III. was alike despised by Catholics and Protestants. His brother Francis, though far more impulsive, had but few traits of character to command respect. He could summon but a feeble band for his support. Henry of Guise was the available candidate for the Catholics. All the priestly influences of France were earnestly combined to advance his claims. They declared that Henry of Navarre had forfeited every shadow of right to the succession by being a heretic. The genealogy of the illustrious house of Guise was blazoned forth, and its descent traced from Charlemagne. It was asserted, and argued in the pulpit and in the camp, that even the house of Valois had usurped the crown which by right belonged to the house of Guise.
The League.
Under these circumstances, the most formidable secret society was organized the world has ever known. It assumed the name of The League. Its object was to exterminate Protestantism, and to place the Duke of Guise upon the throne. The following are, in brief, its covenant and oath:
THE LEAGUE.
Object of the League.
In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, this League of Catholic princes, lords, and gentlemen shall be instituted to maintain the holy Catholic, apostolical, and Roman Church, abjuring all errors to the contrary. Should opposition to this league arise in any quarter, the associates shall employ all their goods and means, and even their own persons unto death, to punish and hunt down those opposing. Should any of the Leaguers, their associates or friends, be molested, the members of the League shall be bound to employ their bodies, goods, and means to inflict vengeance upon those thus offending. Should any Leaguer, after having taken the oath, withdraw from the association under any pretext whatever, the refractory member shall be injured, in body and goods, in every manner which can be devised, as enemies of God, rebels, and disturbers of the public peace. The Leaguers shall swear implicit obedience to their chief, and shall aid by counsel and service in preserving the League, and in the ruin of all who oppose it. All Catholic towns and villages shall be summoned secretly, by their several governors, to enter into this League, and to furnish arms and men for its execution.
OATH.
The oath.
I swear by God the Creator, touching the Evangelists, and upon the pain of eternal damnation, that I have entered into this holy Catholic League loyally and sincerely, either to command, to obey, or to serve. I promise, upon my life and honor, to remain in this League to the last drop of my blood, without opposing or retiring upon any pretext whatever.
Influence of the League.
Its extension.
Such was the character of secret societies in the sixteenth century. A more atrocious confederacy than this the human mind could hardly have conceived. It was, however, peculiarly calculated to captivate the multitude in those days of darkness and blood. Though at first formed and extended secretly, it spread like wildfire through all the cities and provinces of France. Princes, lords, gentlemen, artisans, and peasants rushed into its impious inclosures. The benighted populace, enthralled by the superstitions of the Church, were eager to manifest their zeal for God by wreaking the most awful vengeance upon heretics. He who, for any cause, declined entering the League, found himself exposed to every possible annoyance. His house and his barns blazed in midnight conflagrations; his cattle were mutilated and slain; his wife and children were insulted and stoned in the streets. By day and by night, asleep and awake, at home and abroad, at all times and every where, he was annoyed by every conceivable form of injury and violence.
Vast power of the League.
Soon the League became so powerful that no farther secrecy was needful. It stalked abroad in open day, insulting its foes and vaunting its invincibility. The gigantic plan it unblushingly avowed was to exterminate Protestantism by fire and the sword from France; then to drown it in blood in Holland; then to turn to England and purify that kingdom from the taint of heresy; then to march upon Germany; and thus to advance from kingdom to kingdom, in their holy crusade, until Protestantism should be every where ingulfed in blood and flame, and the whole of Europe should be again brought back to the despotism of Rome.
Alarm of the Protestants.
The Duke of Guise was the soul of this mammoth conspiracy, though Philip II., the bigoted King of Spain, was its recorded commander-in-chief. The Protestants were justly alarmed by the enormous energy of the new power thus suddenly evoked against them. The Pope, though at first hostile, soon, with his cardinals, espoused the cause of the League, and consecrated to its support all the weapons which could be wielded by the Vatican. From France, the demoniac organization spread through all the kingdoms of Europe. Hundreds of thousands were arrayed beneath its crimson banner. Even Henry III. in the Louvre, surrounded by his parasites and his concubines, trembled as he saw the shadow of this fearful apparition darkening his court.
Adroit measures of Henry III.
He immediately perceived that he must mount the car or be crushed by it. Adroitly he leaped into the seat of the charioteer and seized the reins. The demands of the League he adopted as his own, and urged them with energy. He issued a proclamation commending the League to his subjects, and announcing that he, to set them an example, had signed its covenant and its oath. The Duke of Guise and his followers were quite bewildered by this unexpected step.
Embarrassment of the Leaguers.
The League had demanded the assembling of the States-General, a body somewhat resembling the Congress of the United States. The king immediately summoned them to meet. They declared war against the Protestants. The king adopted the declaration as his own decree, and called loudly for supplies to prosecute the war with vigor. He outleagued the most violent of the Leaguers in denunciations of the Protestants, in declaring that but one religion should be tolerated in France, and in clamoring for arms and munitions of war, that heresy might be utterly extirpated. The Leaguers thus found, to their great perplexity, the weapon which they had forged wrested from their hands and wielded against them. They had organized to drive the imbecile Henry III. from the throne. He had seized upon that organization, and was using it to establish himself more firmly there.
Excommunication of Henry IV.
The situation of Henry of Navarre was now extremely critical. Pope Sextus V., besides giving the League his Papal blessing, had fulminated against the King of Navarre the awful thunders of excommunication.
The bull of excommunication was exceedingly coarse and vulgar in its denunciatory terms, calling the King of Navarre "this bastard and detestable progeny of Bourbons."
Henry replied to this assault in accents intrepid and resolute, which caused Catholic Europe to stand aghast.
Bold retort.
"Henry," said this bold document, "by the grace of God King of Navarre, sovereign prince of Bearn, first peer and prince of France, resists the declaration and excommunication of Sextus V., self-styled Pope of Rome, asserts it to be false, and maintains that Mr. Sextus, the self-styled Pope, has falsely and maliciously lied; that he himself is heretic, which he will prove in any full and free council lawfully assembled; to which if he does not consent and submit, as he is bound by the canons, he, the King of Navarre, holds and pronounces him to be anti-Christ and heretic, and in that quality declares against him perpetual and irreconcilable war."
This energetic protest was placarded in most of the towns of France, and by some fearless followers of the prince was even attached to the walls of the Vatican. The Pope, though at first much irritated, had the magnanimity to express his admiration of the spirit manifested by Henry.
"There are but two princes in Europe," said he, "to whom I could venture to communicate the grand schemes revolving in my mind, Henry of Navarre and Elizabeth of England; but, unfortunately, they are both heretics."
Edict of Nemours.
Henry III., having no moral principles to guide him in any thing, and having no generous affections of any kind, in carrying out his plan of wielding the energies of the League without any scruples of conscience, issued the infamous Edict of Nemours in 1585, which commanded every Protestant minister to leave the kingdom within one month, and every member of the Reformed faith either to abjure his religion and accept the Catholic faith, or to depart from France within six months. The penalty for disobedience in either of these cases was death and the confiscation of property. This edict was executed with great rigor, and many were burned at the stake.
Anguish of Henry of Navarre.
Henry of Navarre was amazed, and, for a time, overwhelmed in receiving the news of this atrocious decree. He clearly foresaw that it must arouse France and all Europe to war, and that a new Iliad of woes was to commence. Leaning his chin upon his hand, he was for a long time lost in profound reverie as he pondered the awful theme. It is said that his anguish was so intense, that when he removed his hand his beard and mustache on that side were turned entirely gray.
But Henry rose with the emergence, and met the crisis with a degree of energy and magnanimity which elicited, in those barbarous times, the admiration even of his enemies. The Protestants heroically grasped their arms and rallied together for mutual protection. War, with all its horrors, was immediately resumed.
Death of Francis.
Redoubled energies.
Toleration.
Affairs were in this condition when Francis, the Duke of Anjou, was taken sick and suddenly died. This removed another obstruction from the field, and tended to hasten the crisis. Henry III. was feeble, exhausted, and childless. Worn out by shameless dissipation, it was evident to all that he must soon sink into his grave. Who was to be his successor? This was the question, above all others, which agitated France and Europe. Henry of Navarre was, beyond all question, legitimately entitled to the throne; but he was, in the estimation of France, a heretic. The League consequently, in view of the impending peril of having a Protestant king, redoubled its energies to exclude him, and to enthrone their bigoted partisan, Henry of Guise. It was a terrific struggle. The Protestants saw suspended upon its issue their property, their religious liberty, their lives, their earthly all. The Catholics were stimulated by all the energies of fanaticism in defense of the Church. All Catholic Europe espoused the one side, all Protestant Europe the other. One single word was enough to arrest all these woes. That word was Toleration.
The challenge.
When Henry III. published his famous Edict of Nemours, commanding the conversion, the expulsion, or the death of the Protestants, Henry of Navarre issued another edict replying to the calumnies of the League, and explaining his actions and his motives. Then adopting a step characteristic of the chivalry of the times, he dispatched a challenge to the Duke of Guise, defying him to single combat, or, if he objected to that, to a combat of two with two, ten with ten, or a hundred with a hundred.
"In this challenge," said Henry, "I call Heaven to witness that I am not influenced by any spirit of bravado, but only by the desire of deciding a quarrel which will otherwise cost the lives of thousands."
To this appeal the duke made no reply. It was by no means for his interest to meet on equal terms those whom he could easily outnumber two or three to one.
Efforts to raise an army.
The Leaguers baffled.
Though the situation of Henry of Navarre seemed now almost desperate, he maintained his courage and his hope unshaken. His estates were unhesitatingly sold to raise funds. His friends parted with their jewels for gold to obtain the means to carry on the war. But, with his utmost efforts, he could raise an army of but four or five thousand men to resist two armies of twenty thousand each, headed by the Duke of Guise and by his brother, the Duke of Mayenne. Fortunately for Henry, there was but little military capacity in the League, and, notwithstanding their vast superiority in numbers, they were continually circumvented in all their plans by the energy and the valor of the Protestants.
The hostile meeting.
The King of France was secretly rejoiced at the discomfiture of the Leaguers, yet, expressing dissatisfaction with the Duke of Guise, he intrusted the command of the armies to one of his petted favorites, Joyeuse, a rash and fearless youth, who was as prompt to revel in the carnage of the battle-field as in the voluptuousness of the palace. The king knew not whether to choose victory or defeat for his favorite. Victory would increase the influence and the renown of one strongly attached to him, and would thus enable him more successfully to resist the encroachments of the Duke of Guise. Defeat would weaken the overbearing power of the Leaguers, and enable Henry III. more securely to retain his position by the balance of the two rival parties. Joyeuse, ardent and inexperienced, and despising the feeble band he was to encounter, was eager to display his prowess. He pressed eagerly to assail the King of Navarre. The two armies met upon a battle-field a few leagues from Bordeaux. The army of Joyeuse was chiefly of gay and effeminate courtiers and young nobles, who had too much pride to lack courage, but who possessed but little physical vigor, and who were quite unused to the hardships and to the vicissitudes of war.
Appearance of the two armies.
On the morning of the 20th of October, 1589, as the sun rose over the hills of Perigord, the two armies were facing each other upon the plains of Coutras. The Leaguers were decked with unusual splendor, and presented a glittering array, with gorgeous banners and waving plumes, and uniforms of satin and velvet embroidered by the hands of the ladies of the court. They numbered twelve thousand men. Henry of Navarre, with admirable military skill, had posted his six thousand hardy peasants, dressed in tattered skins, to meet the onset.
And now occurred one of the most extraordinary scenes which history has recorded. It was a source of constant grief to the devout Protestant leaders that Henry of Navarre, notwithstanding his many noble traits of character, was not a man of pure morality. Just before the battle, Du Plessis, a Christian and a hero, approached the King of Navarre and said,
The charge.
"Sire, it is known to all that you have sinned against God, and injured a respectable citizen of Rochelle by the seduction of his daughter. We can not hope that God will bless our arms in this approaching battle while such a sin remains unrepented of and unrepaired."
Penitence of Henry of Navarre.
The king dismounted from his horse, and, uncovering his head, avowed in the presence of the whole army his sincere grief for what he had done; he called all to witness that he thus publicly implored forgiveness of God, and of the family he had injured, and he pledged his word that he would do every thing in his power to repair the wrong.
Extraordinary scene.
The troops were then called to prayers by the ministers. Every man in the ranks fell upon his knees, while one of the clergy implored God to forgive the sin of their chieftain, and to grant them protection and victory.
The strange movement was seen from the Catholic camp. "By death," exclaimed Joyeuse, "the poltroons are frightened. Look! they kneel, imploring our mercy."
"Do not deceive yourself," replied an old captain. "When the Huguenots get into that position, they are ready for hard fighting."
The brilliant battalions of the enemy now began to deploy. Some one spoke of the splendor of their arms. Henry smiled and replied, "We shall have the better aim when the fight begins." Another ventured to intimate that the ministers had rebuked him with needless severity. He replied, "We can not be too humble before God, nor too brave before men." Then turning to his followers, with tears in his eyes, he addressed to them a short and noble speech. He deplored the calamities of war, and solemnly declared that he had drawn arms only in self-defense. "Let them," said he, "perish who are the authors of this war. May the blood shed this day rest upon them alone."
To his two prominent generals, the Prince of Condé and the Count de Soissons, he remarked, with a smile, "To you I shall say nothing but that you are of the house of Bourbon, and, please God, I will show you this day that I am your elder."
The battle of Coutras.
The battle almost immediately ensued. Like all fierce fights, it was for a time but a delirious scene of horror, confusion, and carnage. But the Protestants, with sinewy arms, hewed down their effeminate foes, and with infantry and cavalry swept to and fro resistlessly over the plain. The white plume of Henry of Navarre was ever seen waving in the tumultuous throng wherever the battle was waged the fiercest.
There was a singular blending of the facetious with the horrible in this sanguinary scene. Before the battle, the Protestant preachers, in earnest sermons, had compared Henry with David at the head of the Lord's chosen people. In the midst of the bloody fray, when the field was covered with the dying and the dead, Henry grappled one of the standard-bearers of the enemy. At the moment, humorously reminded of the flattering comparison of the preachers, he shouted, with waggery which even the excitement of the battle could not repress,
"Surrender, you uncircumcised Philistine."
The victory.
In the course of one hour three thousand of the Leaguers were weltering in blood upon the plain, Joyeuse himself, their leader, being among the dead. The defeat of the Catholics was so entire that not more than one fourth of their number escaped from the field of Coutras.
Exultation of the troops.
The victors were immediately assembled upon the bloody field, and, after prayers and thanksgiving, they sung, with exultant lips,
"The Lord appears my helper now,
Nor is my faith afraid
What all the sons of earth can do,
Since Heaven affords its aid."
Magnanimity of Henry of Navarre.
Henry was very magnanimous in the hour of victory. When some one asked what terms he should now demand, after so great a discomfiture of his foes, he replied, "The same as before the battle."
Conduct of Marguerite.
In reading the records of these times, one is surprised to see how mirth, festivity, and magnificence are blended with blood, misery, and despair. War was desolating France with woes which to thousands of families must have made existence a curse, and yet amid these scenes we catch many glimpses of merriment and gayety. At one time we see Henry III. weeping and groaning upon his bed in utter wretchedness, and again he appears before us reveling with his dissolute companions in the wildest carousals. While Henry of Navarre was struggling with his foes upon the field of battle, Marguerite, his wife, was dancing and flirting with congenial paramours amid all the guilty pleasures of the court. Henry wrote repeatedly for her to come and join him, but she vastly preferred the voluptuousness of the capital to the gloom and the hardships of the Protestant camp. She never loved her husband, and while she wished that he might triumph, and thus confer upon her the illustrious rank of the Queen of France, she still rejoiced in his absence, as it allowed her that perfect freedom which she desired. When she saw indications of approaching peace, she was so apprehensive that she might thus be placed under constraint by the presence of her husband, that she did what she could to perpetuate civil war.
Court of Henry of Navarre.
Censure by the clergy.
It will be remembered that several of the fortified cities of France were in the hands of the Protestants. Henry of Navarre held his comparatively humble court in the town of Agen, where he was very much beloved and respected by the inhabitants. Though far from irreproachable in his morals, the purity of his court was infinitely superior to that of Henry III. and his mother Catharine. Henry of Navarre was, however, surrounded by a body of gay and light-hearted young noblemen, whose mirth-loving propensities and whose often indecorous festivities he could not control. One evening, at a general ball, these young gentlemen extinguished the lights, and in the darkness a scene of much scandal ensued. Henry was severely censured by the Protestant clergy, and by many others of his friends, for not holding the members of his court in more perfect control. His popularity suffered so severely from this occurrence, that it even became necessary for Henry to withdraw his court from the town.
The flying squadron.
Catharine and Marguerite, accompanied by a retinue of the most voluptuously-beautiful girls of France, set out to visit the court of Henry of Navarre, which had been transferred to Neruc. Henry, hearing of their approach, placed himself at the head of five hundred gentlemen, and hastened to meet his mother-in-law and his wife, with their characteristic and congenial train. These were the instrumentalities with which Catharine and Marguerite hoped to bend the will of Henry and his friends to suit their purposes. Catharine had great confidence in the potency of the influence which these pliant maidens could wield, and they were all instructed in the part which they were to act. She was accustomed to call these allies her flying squadron.
Intrigue and gallantry.
There then ensued a long series of negotiations, intermingled with mirth, gallantry, and intrigue, but the result of which was a treaty highly conducive to the interests of the Protestants. Various places were designated where their religion should be freely tolerated, and in which they were to be allowed to build conventicles. They were also permitted to raise money for the support of their ministers, and fourteen cities were surrendered to their government. Several incidents occurred during these negotiations very characteristic of the corrupt manners of the times.
Influences used by Catharine.
Marguerite devoted herself most energetically to the promotion of the success of Henry's plans. Catharine found herself, notwithstanding all her artifice, and all the peculiar seductions of her female associates, completely foiled by the sagacity and the firmness of Henry. She had brought with her Monsieur de Pibrac, a man very celebrated for his glowing eloquence and for his powers of persuasion. The oratory of Pibrac, combined with the blandishments of the ladies, were those co-operative influences which the queen imagined none would be able to resist. Marguerite, however, instructed in the school of Catharine, succeeded in obtaining entire control over the mind of Pibrac himself, and he became a perfect tool in her hands. Catharine, thus foiled, was compelled to grant far more favorable terms to the Protestants than she had contemplated.
La Reole.
Treachery of Ussac.
La Reole was one of the towns of security surrendered to the Protestants. There was, however, so little of good faith in that day, that, notwithstanding the pledge of honor, possession of the place could only be retained by vigilance. The government of the town had been conferred upon a veteran Protestant general by the name of Ussac. His days, from early youth, had been passed on fields of battle. He was now far advanced in years, in feeble health, and dreadfully disfigured by wounds received in the face. One of the most fascinating of the ladies of the queen-mother lavished such endearments upon the old man, already in his dotage, that he lost his principles and all self-control, and made himself very ridiculous by assuming the airs of a young lover. Henry had the imprudence to join in the mockery with which the court regarded his tenderness. This was an indignity which an old man could never forget. Instigated by his beautiful seducer, he became entirely unmindful of those principles of honor which had embellished his life, and in revenge invited a Roman Catholic general to come and take possession of the town.
News of the loss of La Reole.
The recapture.
Henry was informed of this act of treachery while dancing at a very brilliant entertainment given in his palace. He quietly whispered to Turenne, Sully, and a few others of his most intimate friends, requesting them to escape from the room, gather around them such armed men as they could, and join him at a rendezvous in the country. They all stole unperceived from the mirthful party, concealed their swords beneath their cloaks, traveled all night, and arrived, just as the day began to dawn, before the gates of the city. They found the place, as they had expected, entirely unprepared for such a sudden attack, and, rushing in, regained it without difficulty. The Catholic soldiers retreated to the castle, where they held out a few days, and many of them perished in the assault by which it was soon taken.
Such was the character of the nominal peace which now existed. A partisan warfare was still continued throughout France. Catharine and her maids did every thing in their power to excite dissensions between the Protestant leaders. In this they succeeded so well that the Prince of Condé became so exasperated against Turenne as to challenge him to single combat.
Precarious peace.
Such a peace as we have above described could not, of course, be lasting. Both parties were soon again gathering all their forces for war. There is a tedious monotony in the recital of the horrors of battle. Cities bombarded, and sacked, and burned; shells exploding in the cradle of infancy and in the chambers of mothers and maidens; mutilated bodies trampled beneath the hoofs of horses; the cry of the maddened onset, the shrieks of the wounded, and the groans of the dying; the despair of the widow and the orphan; smouldering ruins of once happy homes; the fruits of the husbandman's toils trodden into the mire; starvation, misery, and death—these are ever the fruits of war.
Attempt to assassinate Henry.
During the short interval of peace, many attempts had been made to assassinate Henry of Navarre by the partisans of the Duke of Guise. Henry was, one fine morning, setting out with a few friends for a ride of pleasure. Just as the party were leaving the court-yard, he was informed that an assassin, very powerfully mounted, was prepared to meet him on the way and to take his life. Henry apparently paid no heed to the warning, but rode along conversing gayly with his friends. They soon met, in a retired part of the way, a stranger, armed according to the custom of the times, and mounted upon a very magnificent steed, which had been prepared for him to facilitate his escape after the accomplishment of the fell deed. Henry immediately rode up to the assassin, addressed him in terms of great familiarity and cordiality, and, professing to admire the beautiful charger upon which he was mounted, requested him to dismount, that he might try the splendid animal. The man, bewildered, obeyed the wishes of the king, when Henry leaped into the saddle, and, seizing the two loaded pistols at the saddle-bow, looked the man sternly in the eye, and said,
"I am told that you seek to kill me. You are now in my power, and I could easily put you to death; but I will not harm you."
The assassin humiliated.
He then discharged the two pistols in the air, and permitted the humiliated man to mount his horse and ride away unharmed.
Chapter IX.
The Assassination of the Duke
of Guise and of Henry III.
1589
Imbecility of the king.
The war, again resumed, was fiercely prosecuted. Henry III. remained most of the time in the gilded saloons of the Louvre, irritable and wretched, and yet incapable of any continued efficient exertion. Many of the zealous Leaguers, indignant at the pusillanimity he displayed, urged the Duke of Guise to dethrone Henry III. by violence, and openly to declare himself King of France. They assured him that the nation would sustain him by their arms. But the duke was not prepared to enter upon so bold a measure, as he hoped that the death of the king would soon present to him a far more favorable opportunity for the assumption of the throne. Henry III. was in constant fear that the duke, whose popularity in France was almost boundless, might supplant him, and he therefore forbade him to approach the metropolis.
Haughtiness of the Duke of Guise.
The duke goes to Paris.
Notwithstanding this prohibition, the haughty duke, accompanied by a small party of his intrepid followers, as if to pay court to his sovereign, boldly entered the city. The populace of the capital, ever ripe for excitement and insurrection, greeted him with boundless enthusiasm. Thousands thronged the broad streets through which he passed with a small but brilliant retinue. Ladies crowded the windows, waving scarfs, cheering him with smiles, and showering flowers at his feet. The cry resounded along the streets, penetrating even the apartments of the Louvre, and falling appallingly upon the ear of the king:
"Welcome—welcome, great duke. Now you are come, we are safe."
Henry III. was amazed and terrified by this insolence of his defiant subject. In bewilderment, he asked those about him what he should do.
"Give me the word," said a colonel of his guard, "and I will plunge my sword through his body."
"Smite the shepherd," added one of the king's spiritual counselors, "and the sheep will disperse."
But Henry feared to exasperate the populace of Paris by the assassination of a noble so powerful and so popular. In the midst of this consultation, the Duke of Guise, accompanied by the queen-mother Catharine, whom he had first called upon, entered the Louvre, and, passing through the numerous body-guard of the king, whom he saluted with much affability, presented himself before the feeble monarch. The king looked sternly upon him, and, without any word of greeting, exclaimed angrily,
"Did I not forbid you to enter Paris?"
"Sire," the duke replied, firmly, but with affected humility, "I came to demand justice, and to reply to the accusations of my enemies."
Interview with the king.
The interview was short and unrelenting. The king, exasperated almost beyond endurance, very evidently hesitated whether to give the signal for the immediate execution of his dreaded foe. There were those at his side, with arms in their hands, who were eager instantly to obey his bidding. The Duke of Guise perceived the imminence of his danger, and, feigning sudden indisposition, immediately retired. In his own almost regal mansion he gathered around him his followers and his friends, and thus placed himself in a position where even the arm of the sovereign could not venture to touch him.
Two rival courts.
There were now in Paris, as it were, two rival courts, emulating each other in splendor and power. The one was that of the king at the Louvre, the other was that of the duke in his palace. It was rumored that the duke was organizing a conspiracy to arrest the king and hold him a captive. Henry III., to strengthen his body-guard, called a strong force of Swiss mercenaries into the city. The retainers of the duke, acting under the secret instigation of their chieftain, roused the populace of Paris to resist the Swiss. Barricades were immediately constructed by filling barrels with stones and earth; chains were stretched across the streets from house to house; and organized bands, armed with pikes and muskets, threatened even the gates of the Louvre.
The Swiss guard defeated.
Tumult in the city.
A conflict soon ensued, and the Swiss guard were defeated by the mob at every point. The Duke of Guise, though he secretly guided all these movements, remained in his palace, affecting to have no share in the occurrences. Night came. Confusion and tumult rioted in the city. The insurgent populace, intoxicated and maddened, swarmed around the walls of the palace, and the king was besieged. The spiritless and terrified monarch, disguising himself in humble garb, crept to his stables, mounted a fleet horse, and fled from the city. Riding at full speed, he sought refuge in Chartres, a walled town forty miles southeast of Paris.
The flight of the king before an insurgent populace was a great victory to the duke. He was thus left in possession of the metropolis without any apparent act of rebellion on his own part, and it became manifestly his duty to do all in his power to preserve order in the capital thus surrendered to anarchy. The duke had ever been the idol of the populace, but now nearly the whole population of Paris, and especially the influential citizens, looked to him as their only protector.
Dignity of Achille de Harlai.
Some, however, with great heroism, still adhered to the cause of the king. The Duke of Guise sent for Achille de Harlai, President of the Council, and endeavored to win him over to his cause, that he might thus sanction his usurpation by legal forms; but De Harlai, fixing his eyes steadfastly upon the duke, fearlessly said,
"'Tis indeed pitiable when the valet expels his master. As for me, my soul belongs to my Maker, and my fidelity belongs to the king. My body alone is in the hands of the wicked. You talk of assembling the Parliament. When the majesty of the prince is violated, the magistrate is without authority." The intrepid president was seized and imprisoned.
Measures adopted by the duke.
The followers of Henry III. soon gathered around him at Chartres, and he fortified himself strongly there. The Duke of Guise, though still protesting great loyalty, immediately assumed at Paris the authority of a sovereign. He assembled around him strong military forces, professedly to protect the capital from disturbance. For a month or two negotiations were conducted between the two parties for a compromise, each fearing the other too much to appeal to the decisions of the sword. At last Henry III. agreed to appoint the Duke of Guise lieutenant general of France and high constable of the kingdom. He also, while pledging himself anew to wage a war of extermination against the Protestants, promised to bind the people of France, by an oath, to exclude from the succession to the throne all persons suspected even of Protestantism. This would effectually cut off the hopes of Henry of Navarre, and secure the crown to the Duke of Guise upon the death of the king.
Endeavors to obtain an assassin.
Both of the antagonists now pretended to a sincere reconciliation, and Henry, having received Guise at Chartres with open arms, returned to Paris, meditating how he might secure the death of his dreaded and powerful rival. Imprisonment was not to be thought of, for no fortress in France could long hold one so idolized by the populace. The king applied in person to one of his friends, a brave and honest soldier by the name of Crillon, to assassinate the duke.
"I am not an executioner," the soldier proudly replied, "and the function does not become my rank. But I will challenge the duke to open combat, and will cheerfully sacrifice my life that I may take his."
The king at Blois.
This plan not meeting with the views of the king, he applied to one of the commanders of his guard named Lorgnac. This man had no scruples, and with alacrity undertook to perform the deed. Henry, having retired to the castle of Blois, about one hundred miles south of Paris, arranged all the details, while he was daily, with the most consummate hypocrisy, receiving his victim with courteous words and smiles. The king summoned a council to attend him in his cabinet at Blois on the 23d of December. It was appointed at an early hour, and the Duke of Guise attended without his usual retinue. He had been repeatedly warned to guard against the treachery of Henry, but his reply was,
ASSASSINATION OF HENRY, DUKE OF GUISE.
"I do not know that man on earth who, hand to hand with me, would not have his full share of fear. Besides, I am always so well attended that it would not be easy to find me off my guard."
Assassination of the Duke of Guise.
The duke arrived at the door of the cabinet after passing through long files of the king's body-guard. Just as he was raising the tapestry which veiled the entrance, Lorgnac sprang upon him and plunged a dagger into his throat. Others immediately joined in the assault, and the duke dropped, pierced with innumerable wounds, dead upon the floor.
Henry, hearing the noise and knowing well what it signified, very coolly stepped from his cabinet into the ante-chamber, and, looking calmly upon the bloody corpse, said,
"Do you think he is dead, Lorgnac?"
"Yes, sire," Lorgnac replied, "he looks like it."
"Good God, how tall he is!" said the king. "He seems taller dead than when he was living." Then giving the gory body a kick, he exclaimed, "Venomous beast, thou shalt cast forth no more venom."
In the same manner the duke had treated the remains of the noble Admiral Coligni, a solemn comment upon the declaration, "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again."
Interview between the king and Catharine.
Cardinal Guise, the brother of the duke, was immediately arrested by order of the king, and sent to prison, where he was assassinated. Henry III. soon after repaired to the bedside of Catharine his mother, who was lying sick in one of the chambers of the castle. Nothing can show more clearly the character of the times and of the personages than the following laconic dialogue which ensued:
"How do you do, mother, this morning?" inquired the king.
"I am better than I have been," she replied.
"So am I," Henry rejoined, gayly, "for I have made myself this morning King of France by putting to death the King of Paris."
"Take care," this hardened woman exclaimed, "that you do not soon find yourself king of nothing. Diligence and resolution are now absolutely necessary for you."
She then turned upon her pillow without the slightest apparent emotion. In twelve days from this time, this wretched queen, deformed by every vice, without one single redeeming virtue, breathed her last, seventy years of age. She was despised by the Catholics, and hated by the Protestants.
Indignation of the League.
Anathemas against the king.
These acts of violence and crime roused the League to the most intense energy. The murder of the Duke of Guise, and especially the murder of his brother, a cardinal in the Church, were acts of impiety which no atonement could expiate. Though Henry was a Catholic, and all his agents in these atrocious murders were Catholics, the death of the Duke of Guise increased vastly the probability that Protestant influences might become dominant at court. The Pope issued a bull of excommunication against all who should advocate the cause of Henry III. The Sorbonne published a decree declaring that the king had forfeited all right to the obedience of his subjects, and justifying them in taking up arms against him. The clergy, from the pulpit, refused communion, absolution, and burial in holy ground to every one who yielded obedience to "the perfidious apostate and tyrant; Henry of Valois."
The king seeks aid from the Protestants.
The League immediately chose the Duke of Mayenne, a surviving brother of the Duke of Guise, as its head. The Pope issued his anathemas against Henry III., and Spain sent her armies to unite with the League. Henry now found it necessary to court the assistance of the Protestants. He dreaded to take this step, for he was superstitious in the extreme, and he could not endure the thought of any alliance with heretics. He had still quite a formidable force which adhered to him, for many of the highest nobles were disgusted with the arrogance of the Guises, and were well aware that the enthronement of the house of Guise would secure their own banishment from court.
The triumph of the League would be total discomfiture to the Protestants. No freedom of worship or of conscience whatever would be allowed them. It was therefore for the interest of the Protestants to sustain the more moderate party hostile to the League. It was estimated that about one sixth of the inhabitants of France were at that time Protestants.
Wretched, war-scathed France was now distracted by three parties. First, there were the Protestants, contending only in self-defense against persecution, and yet earnestly praying that, upon the death of the king, Henry of Navarre, the legitimate successor, might ascend the throne. Next came those Catholics who were friendly to the claims of Henry from their respect for the ancient law of succession. Then came, combined in the League, the bigoted partisans of the Church, resolved to exterminate from Europe, with fire and sword, the detested heresy of Protestantism.
Henry III. was now at the castle of Blois. Paris was hostile to him. The Duke of Mayenne, younger brother of the Duke of Guise, at the head of five thousand soldiers of the League, marched to the metropolis, where he was received by the Parisians with unbounded joy. He was urged by the populace and the Parliament in Paris to proclaim himself king. But he was not yet prepared for so decisive a step.
Desolations of war.
No tongue can tell the misery which now pervaded ill-fated France. Some cities were Protestant, some were Catholic; division, and war, and blood were every where. Armed bands swept to and fro, and conflagration and slaughter deluged the kingdom.
Compact with Henry of Navarre.
The king immediately sent to Henry of Navarre, promising to confer many political privileges upon the Protestants, and to maintain Henry's right to the throne, if he would aid him in the conflict against the League. The terms of reconciliation were soon effected. Henry of Navarre, then leaving his army to advance by rapid marches, rode forward with his retinue to meet his brother-in-law, Henry of Valois. He found him at one of the ancient palaces of France, Plessis les Tours. The two monarchs had been friends in childhood, but they had not met for many years. The King of Navarre was urged by his friends not to trust himself in the power of Henry III. "For," said they, "the King of France desires nothing so much as to obtain reconciliation with the Pope, and no offering can be so acceptable to the Pope as the death of a heretic prince."
Henry hesitated a moment when he arrived upon an eminence which commanded a distant view of the palace. Then exclaiming, "God guides me, and He will go with me," he plunged his spurs into his horse's side, and galloped forward.
Interview at Plessis les Tours.
The two monarchs met, each surrounded with a gorgeous retinue, in one of the magnificent avenues which conducted to the castle. Forgetting the animosities of years, and remembering only the friendships of childhood, they cast themselves cordially into each other's arms. The multitude around rent the air with their acclamations.
The manifesto.
Henry of Navarre now addressed a manifesto to all the inhabitants of France in behalf of their woe-stricken country. "I conjure you all," said he, "Catholics as well as Protestants, to have pity on the state and on yourselves. We have all done and suffered evil enough. We have been four years intoxicate, insensate, and furious. Is not this sufficient? Has not God smitten us all enough to allay our fury, and to make us wise at last?"
Renewed war.
But passion was too much aroused to allow such appeals to be heeded. Battle after battle, with ever-varying success, ensued between the combined forces of the king and Henry of Navarre on one side, and of the League, aided by many of the princes of Catholic Europe, on the other. The storms of winter swept over the freezing armies and the smouldering towns, and the wail of the victims of horrid war blended with the moanings of the gale. Spring came, but it brought no joy to desolate, distracted, wretched France. Summer came, and the bright sun looked down upon barren fields, and upon a bleeding, starving, fighting nation. Henry of Navarre, in command of the royal forces, at the head of thirty thousand troops, was besieging Paris, which was held by the Duke of Mayenne, and boldly and skillfully was conducting his approaches to a successful termination. The cause of the League began to wane. Henry III. had taken possession of the castle of St. Cloud, and from its elevated windows looked out with joy upon the bold assaults and the advancing works.
THE ASSASSINATION OF HENRY III.
Duchess of Montpensier.
The flag of truce.
Assassination of Henry III.
The leaders of the League now resolved to resort again to the old weapon of assassination. Henry III. was to be killed. But no man could kill him unless he was also willing to sacrifice his own life. The Duchess of Montpensier, sister of the Duke of Guise, for the accomplishment of this purpose, won the love, by caressings and endearments, of Jaques Clement, an ardent, enthusiastic monk of wild and romantic imaginings, and of the most intense fanaticism. The beautiful duchess surrendered herself without any reserve whatever to the paramour she had enticed to her arms, that she might obtain the entire supremacy over his mind. Clement concealed a dagger in his bosom, and then went out from the gates of the city accompanied by two soldiers and with a flag of truce, ostensibly to take a message to the king. He refused to communicate his message to any one but the monarch himself. Henry III., supposing it to be a communication of importance, perhaps a proposition to surrender, ordered him to be admitted immediately to his cabinet. Two persons only were present with the king. The monk entered, and, kneeling, drew a letter from the sleeve of his gown, presented it to the king, and instantly drawing a large knife from its concealment, plunged it into the entrails of his victim. The king uttered a piercing cry, caught the knife from his body and struck at the head of his murderer, wounding him above the eye. The two gentlemen who were present instantly thrust their swords through the body of the assassin, and he fell dead.
Arrival of Henry of Navarre.
The king, groaning with anguish, was undressed and borne to his bed. The tidings spread rapidly, and soon reached the ears of the King of Navarre, who was a few miles distant at Meudon. He galloped to St. Cloud, and knelt with gushing tears at the couch of the dying monarch. Henry III. embraced him with apparently the most tender affection. In broken accents, interrupted with groans of anguish, he said,
"If my wound proves mortal, I leave my crown to you as my legitimate successor. If my will can have any effect, the crown will remain as firmly upon your brow as it was upon that of Charlemagne."
Dying scene.
He then assembled his principal officers around him, and enjoined them to unite for the preservation of the monarchy, and to sustain the claims of the King of Navarre as the indisputable heir to the throne of France.
A day of great anxiety passed slowly away, and as the shades of evening settled down over the palace, it became manifest to all that the wound was mortal. The wounded monarch writhed upon his bed in fearful agony. At midnight, Henry of Navarre, who was busily engaged superintending some of the works of the siege, was sent for, as the King of France was dying. Accompanied by a retinue of thirty gentlemen, he proceeded at full speed to the gates of the castle where the monarch was struggling in the grasp of the King of Terrors.
It is difficult to imagine the emotions which must have agitated the soul of Henry of Navarre during this dark and gloomy ride. The day had not yet dawned when he arrived at the gates of the castle. The first tidings he received were, The king is dead. It was the 2d of August, 1589.
Henry IV. assumes the crown.
Difficulties of the new reign.
Henry of Navarre was now Henry IV., King of France. But never did monarch ascend the throne under circumstances of greater perplexity and peril. Never was a more distracted kingdom placed in the hands of a new monarch. Henry was now thirty-four years of age. The whole kingdom was convulsed by warring factions. For years France had been desolated by all the most virulent elements of religious and political animosity. All hearts were demoralized by familiarity with the dagger of the assassin and the carnage of the battle-field. Almost universal depravity had banished all respect for morality and law. The whole fabric of society was utterly disorganized.
Under these circumstances, Henry developed that energy and sagacity which have given him a high position among the most renowned of earthly monarchs. He immediately assembled around him that portion of the royal army in whose fidelity he could confide. Without the delay of an hour, he commenced dictating letters to all the monarchies of Europe, announcing his accession to the throne, and soliciting their aid to confirm him in his legitimate rights.
Danger of assassination.
As the new sovereign entered the chamber of the deceased king, he found the corpse surrounded by many of the Catholic nobility of France. They were ostentatiously solemnizing the obsequies of the departed monarch. He heard many low mutterings from these zealous partisans of Rome, that they would rather die a thousand deaths than allow a Protestant king to ascend the throne. Angry eyes glared upon him from the tumultuous and mutinous crowd, and, had not Henry retired to consult for his own safety, he also might have fallen the victim of assassination. In the intense excitement of these hours, the leading Catholics held a meeting, and appointed a committee to wait upon Henry, and inform him that he must immediately abjure Protestantism and adopt the Catholic faith, or forfeit their support to the crown.
"Would you have me," Henry replied, "profess conversion with the dagger at my throat? And could you, in the day of battle, follow one with confidence who had thus proved that he was an apostate and without a God? I can only promise carefully to examine the subject that I may be guided to the truth."
Religious principles of Henry IV.
Henry was a Protestant from the force of circumstances rather than from conviction. He was not a theologian either in mind or heart, and he regarded the Catholics and Protestants merely as two political parties, the one or the other of which he would join, according as, in his view, it might promote his personal interests and the welfare of France. In his childhood he was a Catholic. In boyhood, under the tuition of his mother, Protestant influences were thrown around him, and he was nominally a Protestant. He saved his life at St. Bartholomew by avowing the Catholic faith. When he escaped from the Catholic court and returned to his mother's Protestant court in Navarre, he espoused with new vigor the cause of his Protestant friends. These changes were of course more or less mortifying, and they certainly indicated a total want of religious conviction. He now promised carefully to look at the arguments on both sides of the question, and to choose deliberately that which should seem to him right. This arrangement, however, did not suit the more zealous of the Catholics, and, in great numbers, they abandoned his camp and passed over to the League.
News of the death of Henry III.
The news of the death of Henry III. was received with unbounded exultation in the besieged city. The Duchess of Montpensier threw her arms around the neck of the messenger who brought her the welcome tidings, exclaiming,
"Ah! my friend, is it true? Is the monster really dead? What a gratification! I am only grieved to think that he did not know that it was I who directed the blow."
She rode out immediately, that she might have the pleasure herself of communicating the intelligence. She drove through the streets, shouting from her carriage, "Good news! good news! the tyrant is dead." The joy of the priests rose to the highest pitch of fanatical fervor. The assassin was even canonized. The Pope himself condescended to pronounce a eulogium upon the "martyr," and a statue was erected to his memory, with the inscription, "St. Jaques Clement, pray for us."
The League now proclaimed as king the old Cardinal of Bourbon, under the title of Charles X., and nearly all of Catholic Europe rallied around this pretender to the crown. No one denied the validity of the title, according to the principles of legitimacy, of Henry IV. His rights, however, the Catholics deemed forfeited by his Protestant tendencies. Though Henry immediately issued a decree promising every surety and support to the Catholic religion as the established religion of France, still, as he did not also promise to devote all his energies to the extirpation of the heresy of Protestantism, the great majority of the Catholics were dissatisfied.
Abandoned by the Catholics.
Epernon, one of the most conspicuous of the Catholic leaders, at the head of many thousand Catholic soldiers, waited upon the king immediately after the death of Henry III., and informed him that they could not maintain a Protestant on the throne. With flying banners and resounding bugles they then marched from the camp and joined the League. So extensive was this disaffection, that in one day Henry found himself deserted by all his army except six thousand, most of whom were Protestants. Nearly thirty thousand men had abandoned him, some to retire to their homes, and others to join the enemy.
The retreat.
The army of the League within the capital was now twenty thousand strong. They prepared for a rush upon the scattered and broken ranks of Henry IV. Firmly, fearlessly, and with well matured plans, he ordered a prompt retreat. Catholic Europe aroused itself in behalf of the League. Henry appealed to Protestant Europe to come to his aid. Elizabeth of England responded promptly to his appeal, and promised to send a fleet and troops to the harbor of Dieppe, about one hundred miles northwest of Paris, upon the shores of the English Channel. Firmly, and with concentrated ranks, the little army of Protestants crossed the Seine. Twenty thousand Leaguers eagerly pursued them, watching in vain for a chance to strike a deadly blow. Henry ate not, slept not, rested not. Night and day, day and night, he was every where present, guiding, encouraging, protecting this valiant band. Planting a rear guard upon the western banks of the Seine, the chafing foe was held in check until the Royalist army had retired beyond the Oise. Upon the farther banks of this stream Henry again reared his defenses, thwarting every endeavor of his enemies, exasperated by such unexpected discomfiture.
As Henry slowly retreated toward the sea, all the Protestants of the region through which he passed, and many of the moderate Catholics who were in favor of the royal cause and hostile to the house of Guise, flocked to his standard. He soon found himself, with seven thousand very determined men, strongly posted behind the ramparts of Dieppe.
The stand at Dieppe.
But the Duke of Mayenne had also received large accessions. The spears and banners of his proud host, now numbering thirty-five thousand, gleamed from all the hills and valleys which surrounded the fortified city. For nearly a month there was almost an incessant conflict. Every morning, with anxious eyes, the Royalists scanned the watery horizon, hoping to see the fleet of England coming to their aid. Cheered by hope, they successfully beat back their assailants. The toils of the king were immense. With exalted military genius he guided every movement, at the same time sharing the toil of the humblest soldier. "It is a marvel," he wrote, "how I live with the labor I undergo. God have pity upon me, and show me mercy."
Henry urged to fly to England.
Some of Henry's friends, appalled by the strength of the army pursuing them, urged him to embark and seek refuge in England.
"Here we are," Henry replied, "in France, and here let us be buried. If we fly now, all our hopes will vanish with the wind which bears us."
Anecdote.
In a skirmish, one day, one of the Catholic chieftains, the Count de Bélin, was taken captive. He was led to the head-quarters of the king. Henry greeted him with perfect cordiality, and, noticing the astonishment of the count in seeing but a few scattered soldiers where he had expected to see a numerous army, he said, playfully, yet with a confident air,
"You do not perceive all that I have with me, M. de Bélin, for you do not reckon God and the right on my side."
The indomitable energy of Henry, accompanied by a countenance ever serene and cheerful under circumstances apparently so desperate, inspired the soldiers with the same intrepidity which glowed in the bosom of their chief.
Arrival of the fleet from England.
But at last the valiant little band, so bravely repelling overwhelming numbers, saw, to their inexpressible joy, the distant ocean whitened with the sails of the approaching English fleet. Shouts of exultation rolled along their exhausted lines, carrying dismay into the camp of the Leaguers. A favorable wind pressed the fleet rapidly forward, and in a few hours, with streaming banners, and exultant music, and resounding salutes, echoed and re-echoed from English ships and French batteries, the fleet of Elizabeth, loaded to its utmost capacity with money, military supplies, and men, cast anchor in the little harbor of Dieppe.
Bigotry of the Catholics.
Nearly six thousand men, Scotch and English, were speedily disembarked. The Duke of Mayenne, though his army was still double that of Henry IV., did not dare to await the onset of his foes thus recruited. Hastily breaking up his encampment, he retreated to Paris. Henry IV., in gratitude to God for the succor which he had thus received from the Protestant Queen of England, directed that thanksgivings should be offered in his own quarters according to the religious rites of the Protestant Church. This so exasperated the Catholics, even in his own camp, that a mutiny was excited, and several of the Protestant soldiers were wounded in the fray. So extreme was the fanaticism at this time that, several Protestants, after a sanguinary fight, having been buried on the battle-field promiscuously in a pit with some Catholics who had fallen by their side, the priests, even of Henry's army, ordered the Protestant bodies to be dug up and thrown out as food for dogs.
Desolation of France.
While these scenes were transpiring in the vicinity of Dieppe, almost every part of France was scathed and cursed by hateful war. Every province, city, village, had its partisans for the League or for the king. Beautiful France was as a volcano in the world of woe, in whose seething crater flames, and blood, and slaughter, the yell of conflict and the shriek of agony, blended in horrors which no imagination can compass. There was an end to every earthly joy. Cities were bombarded, fields of grain trampled in the mire, villages burned. Famine rioted over its ghastly victims. Hospitals were filled with miserable multitudes, mutilated and with festering wounds, longing for death. Not a ray of light pierced the gloom of this dark, black night of crime and woe. And yet, undeniably, the responsibility before God must rest with the League. Henry IV. was the lawful king of France. The Catholics had risen in arms to resist his rights, because they feared that he would grant liberty of faith and worship to the Protestants.
Ignoble conduct of the League.
The League adopted the most dishonorable and criminal means to alienate from Henry the affections of the people. They forged letters, in which the king atrociously expressed joy at the murder of Henry III., and declared his determination by dissimulation and fraud to root out Catholicism entirely from France. No efforts of artifice were wanting to render the monarch odious to the Catholic populace. Though the Duke of Mayenne occasionally referred to the old Cardinal of Bourbon as the king whom he acknowledged, he, with the characteristic haughtiness of the family of Guise, assumed himself the air and the language of a sovereign. It was very evident that he intended to place himself upon the throne.
Paris besieged.
Assault of Etampes.
Henry IV., with the money furnished by Elizabeth, was now able to pay his soldiers their arrears. His army steadily increased, and he soon marched with twenty-three thousand troops and fourteen pieces of artillery to lay siege to Paris. His army had unbounded confidence in his military skill. With enthusiastic acclamations they pursued the retreating insurgents. Henry was now on the offensive, and his troops were posted for the siege of Paris, having driven the foe within its walls. After one sanguinary assault, the king became convinced that he had not with him sufficient force to carry the city. The Duke of Mayenne stood firmly behind the intrenchments of the capital, with an army much strengthened by re-enforcements of Spanish and Italian troops. Henry accordingly raised the siege, and marched rapidly to Etampes, some forty miles south of Paris, where a large part of his foes had established themselves. He suddenly attacked the town and carried it by assault. The unhappy inhabitants of this city had, in the course of four months, experienced the horrors of three assaults. The city, in that short period, had been taken and retaken three times.
Letter from Lorraine.
While at Etampes, Henry received a letter from the beautiful but disconsolate Louisa of Lorraine, the widow of Henry III., imploring him to avenge the murder of her husband. The letter was so affecting that, when it was read in the king's council, it moved all the members to tears.
Military reprisals.
Many of the citizens of Paris, weary of the miseries of civil war, were now disposed to rally around their lawful monarch as the only mode of averting the horrible calamities which overwhelmed France. The Duke of Mayenne rigorously arrested all who were suspected of such designs, and four of the most prominent of the citizens were condemned to death. Henry immediately sent a message to the duke, that if the sentence were carried into effect, he would retaliate by putting to death some of the Catholic nobles whom he had in his power. Mayenne defiantly executed two Royalists. Henry immediately suspended upon a gibbet two unfortunate Leaguers who were his captives. This decisive reprisal accomplished its purpose, and compelled Mayenne to be more merciful.
Activity of Henry.
With great energy, Henry now advanced to Tours, about one hundred and twenty miles south of Paris, on the banks of the Loire, taking every town by the way, and sweeping all opposition before him. He seldom slept more than three hours at a time, and seized his meals where he could.
"It takes Mayenne," said Henry, proudly, "more time to put on his boots than it does me to win a battle."
"Henry," remarked Pope Sextus V., sadly, "will surely, in the end, gain the day, for he spends less hours in bed than Mayenne spends at the table."
Dissension among the Leaguers.
Though the armies of the League were still superior to the Royalist army, victory every where followed the banner of the king. Every day there was more and more of union and harmony in his ranks, and more and more of discord in the armies of the League. There were various aspirants for the throne in case Henry IV. could be driven from the kingdom, and all these aspirants had their partisans. The more reasonable portion of the Catholic party soon saw that there could be no end to civil war unless the rights of Henry IV. were maintained. Each day consequently witnessed accessions of powerful nobles to his side. The great mass of the people also, notwithstanding their hatred of Protestantism and devotion to the Catholic Church, found it difficult to break away from their homage to the ancient law of succession.
It was now manifest to all, that if Henry would but proclaim himself a Catholic, the war would almost instantly terminate, and the people, with almost entire unanimity, would rally around him. Henry IV. was a lawful monarch endeavoring to put down insurrection. Mayenne was a rebel contending against his king. The Pope was so unwilling to see a Protestant sovereign enthroned in France, that he issued a bull of excommunication against all who should advocate the cause of Henry IV. Many of the Royalist Catholics, however, instead of yielding to these thunders of the Vatican, sent a humble apology to the Pope for their adherence to the king, and still sustained his cause.
Triumphant progress of Henry.
Henry now moved on with the strides of a conqueror, and city after city fell into his hands. Wherever he entered a city, the ever vacillating multitude welcomed him with acclamations. Regardless of the storms of winter, Henry dragged his heavy artillery through the mire and over the frozen ruts, and before the close of the year 1589 his banner waved over fifteen fortified cities and over very many minor towns. The forces of the League were entirely swept from three of the provinces of France.
Still Paris was in the hands of the Duke of Mayenne, and a large part of the kingdom was yet held in subjection by the forces of the League.
Wonderful escape.
At one time, in the face of a fierce cannonade, Henry mounted the tower of a church at Meulun to ascertain the position of the enemy. As he was ascending, cannon ball passed between his legs. In returning, the stairs were found so shot away that he was compelled to let himself down by a rope. All the winter long, the storm of battle raged in every part of France, and among all the millions of the ill-fated realm, there could not then, perhaps, have been found one single prosperous and happy home.