There was clearly for Henry III. but one possible ally who had a chance of doing effectual service, and that was Henry of Navarre and the Protestants. It cost Henry III. a great deal to have recourse to that party; his conscience and his pusillanimity both revolted at it equally; in spite of his moral corruption, he was a sincere Catholic, and the prospect of excommunication troubled him deeply. Catholicism, besides, was in a large majority in France: how, then, was he to treat with its foes without embroiling himself utterly with it? Meanwhile the case was urgent. Henry was apprised by one of his confidants, Nicholas de Rambouillet, that one of the King of Navarre’s confidants, Sully, who was then only Sieur de Rosny, was passing by Blois on his way to his master; he saw him and expressed to him his “desire for a reconciliation with the King of Navarre, and to employ him on confidential service;” the difficulty was to secure to the Protestant king and his army, then engaged in the siege of Chatellerault, a passage across the Loire. Rosny undertook Henry III.‘s commission. He at the same time received another from Sieur de Brigueux, governor of the little town of Beaugency, who said to him, “I see well, sir, that the king is going the right way to ruin himself by timidity, irresolution, and bad advice, and that necessity will throw us into the hands of the League: for my part, I will never belong to it, and I would rather serve the King of Navarre. Tell him that I hold, at Beaugency, a passage over the Loire, and that if he will be pleased to send to me you or M. de Rebours, I will admit into the town him whom he sends to me.” Upon receiving these overtures, the King of Navarre thought a while, scratching his head; then he said to Rosny, “Do you think that the king has good intentions towards me, and means to treat with me in good faith?” “Yes, sir, for the present; and you need have no doubt about it, for his straits constrain him thereto, having nothing to look to in his perils but your assistance.” He had some dinner brought into his own cabinet for Rosny, and then made him post off at once. On arriving in the evening at Tours, whither Henry III. had fallen back, Rosny was taken to him, about midnight, at the top of the castle; the king sent him off that very night; he consented to everything that the King of Navarre proposed; promised him a town on the Loire, and said he was ready to make with him not a downright peace just at first, but “a good long truce, which, in their two hearts, would at once be an eternal peace and a sincere reconciliation.”
When Rosny got back to Chatellerault, “there was nothing but rejoicing; everybody ran to meet him; he was called ‘god Rosny,’ and one of his friends said to the rest, ‘Do you see yon man? By God, we shall all worship him, and he alone will restore France; I said so six years ago, and Villandry was of my opinion.’”
Thus was the way paved and the beginning made, between the two kings, of an alliance demanded by their mutual interests, and still more strongly by the interests of France, ravaged and desolated, for nearly thirty years past, by religious civil wars. Henry of Navarre had profound sympathy for his country’s sufferings, an ardent desire to put a stop to them, and at the same time the instinct to see clearly that the day had come when the re-establishment of harmony and common action between himself and Henry de Valois was the necessary and at the same time possible means of attaining that great result. On the 4th of March, 1589, soon after the states of Blois had been dismissed, he set before France, in an eloquent manifesto, the expression of his anxieties and his counsels: “I will speak freely,” said he, “to myself first and then to others, that we may be all of us without excuse. Let us not be puffed up with pride on one side or another. As for me, although I have received more favors from God in this than in all past wars, and, whilst the two other parties (how sad that they must be so called!) are enfeebled, mine, to all appearance, has been strengthened, nevertheless I well know that, whenever I go beyond my duty, God will no longer bless me; and I shall do so whenever, without reason and in sheer lightness of heart, I attack my king and trouble the repose of his kingdom. . . . I declare, then, first of all to those who belong to the party of the king my lord, that if they do not counsel him to make use of me, and of the means which God hath given me, for to make war, not on them of Lorraine, not on Paris, Orleans, or Toulouse, but on those who shall hinder the peace and the obedience owed to this crown, they alone will be answerable for the woes which will come upon the king and the kingdom. . . . And as to those who still adhere to the name and party of the League, I, as a Frenchman, conjure them to put up with their losses as I do with mine, and to sacrifice their quarrels, vengeance, and ambition to the welfare of France, their mother, to the service of their king, to their own repose and ours. If they do otherwise, I hope that God will not abandon the king, and will put it into his heart to call around him his servants, myself the first, who wish for no other title, and who shall have sufficient might and good right to help him wipe out their memory from the world and their party from France. . . . I wish these written words to go proclaiming for me throughout the world that I am ready to ask my lord the king for peace, for the repose of his kingdom and for my own. . . . And finally, if I find one or another so sleepy-headed or so ill-disposed that none is moved thereby, I will call God to my aid, and, true servant of my king, worthy of the honor that belongs to me as premier prince of this realm, though all the world should have conspired for its ruin, I protest, before God and before man, that, at the risk of ten thousand lives, I will essay—all alone—to prevent it.”
It is pleasing to think that this patriotic step and these powerful words were not without influence over the result which was attained. The King of Navarre set to work, at the same time with Rosny, one, of the most eminent, and with Philip du Plessis-Mornay, the most sterling of his servants; and a month after the publication of his manifesto, on the 3d of April, 1589, a truce for a year was concluded between the two kings. It set forth that the King of Navarre should serve the King of France with all his might and main; that he should have, for the movements of his troops on both banks of the Loire, the place of Saumur; that the places of which he made himself master should be handed over to Henry III., and that he might not anywhere do anything to the prejudice of the Catholic religion; that the Protestants should be no more disquieted throughout the whole of France, and that, before the expiration of the truce, King Henry III. should give them assurance of peace. This negotiation was not concluded without difficulty, especially as regarded the town of Saumur; there was a general desire to cede to the King of Navarre only some place of less importance on the Loire; and when, on the 15th of April, Du Plessis-Mornay, who had been appointed governor of it, presented himself for admittance at the head of his garrison, the royalist commandant, who had to deliver the keys to him, limited himself to letting them drop at his feet. Mornay showed alacrity in picking them up.
On the 29th of April, the two kings had, each on his own behalf, made their treaty public. Henry III. sent word to the King of Navarre that he wished to see him and have some conversation with him. Many of the King of Navarre’s friends dissuaded him from this interview, saying, “They are traitors; do not put yourself in their power; remember the St. Bartholomew.” This counsel was repeated to him on the 30th of April, at the very moment when he was stepping aboard the boat to cross the Loire and go to pay Henry III. a visit at the castle of Plessis-les- Tours. The King of Navarre made no account of it. “God hath bidden me to cross and see him,” he answered: “it is not in the power of man to keep me back, for God is guiding me and crossing with me. Of that I am certain;” and he crossed the river. “It is incredible,” says L’Estoile, “what joy everybody felt at this interview; there was such a throng of people that, notwithstanding all efforts to preserve order, the two kings were a full quarter of an hour in the roadway of Plessis park holding out their hands to one another without being able to join them; people climbed trees to see them; all shouted with great vigor and exultation, Hurrah for the king! hurrah for the King of Navarre! hurrah for the kings! At last, having joined hands, they embraced very lovingly, even to tears. The King of Navarre, on retiring in the evening, said, ‘I shall now die happy, since God hath given me grace to look upon the face of my king and make him an offer of my services.’ I know not if those were his own words; but what is certain is, that everybody at this time, both kings and people, except fanatical Leaguers, regarded peace as a great public blessing, and were rejoiced to have a prospect of it before their eyes. The very day of the interview, the King of Navarre wrote to Du Plessis-Mornay, ‘M. du Plessis, the ice is broken; not without numbers of warnings that if I went I was a dead man. I crossed the water, commending myself to God, who, by His goodness, not only preserved me, but caused extreme joy to appear on the king’s countenance, and the people to cheer so that never was the like, even shouting, Hurrah for the kings! whereat I was much vexed.’”
Some days afterwards, during the night of May 8, the Duke of Mayenne made an attack upon Tours, and carried for the moment the Faubourg St. Symphorien, which gave Henry III. such a fright that he was on the point of leaving the city and betaking himself to a distance. But the King of Navarre, warned in time, entered Tours; and at his approach the Leaguers fell back. “When the white scarfs appeared, coming to the king’s rescue, the Duke of Mayenne and his troops began shouting to them, ‘Back! white scarfs; back! Chatillon: we are not set against you, but against the murderers of your father!’ meaning thereby that they were set against King Henry de Valois only, and not against the Huguenots. But Chatillon, amongst the rest, answered them, ‘You are all of you traitors to your country: I trample under foot all vengeance and all private interests when the service of my prince and of the state is concerned; ‘which he said so loudly that even his Majesty heard it, and praised him for it, and loved him for it.” The two kings determined to move on Paris and besiege it; and towards the end of July their camp was pitched before the walls.
Great was the excitement throughout Europe as well as France, at the courts of Madrid and Rome as well as in the park of Plessis-les-Tours. A very serious blow for Philip II., and a very bad omen for the future of his policy, was this alliance between Henry de Valois and Henry of Navarre, between a great portion of the Catholics of France and the Protestants. Philip II. had plumed himself upon being the patron of absolute power in religious as well as political matters, and the dominant power throughout Europe in the name of Catholicism and Spain. In both these respects he ran great risk of being beaten by a King of France who was a Protestant or an ally of Protestants and supported by the Protestant influence of England, Holland, and Germany. In Italy itself and in Catholic Europe Philip did not find the harmony and support for which he looked. The republic of Venice was quietly but certainly well disposed towards France, and determined to live on good terms with a King of France, a friend of Protestants or even himself Protestant. And what hurt Philip II. still more was, that Pope Sixtus V. himself, though all the while upholding the unity and authority of the Roman church, was bent upon not submitting to the yoke of Spain, and upon showing a favorable disposition towards France. “France is a very noble kingdom,” he said to the Venetian ambassador Gritti; “the church has always obtained great advantages from her. We love her beyond measure, and we are pleased to find that the Signiory shares our affection.” Another day he expressed to him his disapprobation of the League. “We cannot praise, indeed we must blame, the first act committed by the Duke of Guise, which was to take up arms and unite with other princes against the king; though he made religion a pretext, he had no right to take up arms against his sovereign.” And again: “The union of the King of France with the heretics is no longer a matter of doubt; but, after all, Henry of Navarre is worth a great many of Henry III.; this latter will have the measure he meted to the Guises.” So much equity and mental breadth on the pope’s part was better suited for the republic of Venice than for the King of Spain. “We have but one desire,” wrote the Doge Cicogna to Badoero, his ambassador at Rome, “and that is to keep the European peace. We cannot believe that Sixtus V., that great pontiff, is untrue to his charge, which is to ward off from the Christian world the dangers that threaten it; in imitation of Him whom he represents on earth, he will show mercy, and not proceed to acts which would drive the King of France to despair.” During the great struggle with which Europe was engaged in the sixteenth century, the independence of states, religious tolerance, and political liberty thus sometimes found, besides their regular and declared champions, protectors, useful on occasion although they were timid, even amongst the habitual allies of Charles V.‘s despotic and persecuting successor.
On arriving before Paris towards the end of July, 1589, the two kings besieged it with an army of forty-two thousand men, the strongest and the best they had ever had under their orders. “The affairs of Henry III.,” says De Thou, “had changed face; fortune was pronouncing for him.” Quartered in the house of Count de Retz, at St. Cloud, he could thence see quite at his ease his city of Paris. “Yonder,” said he, “is the heart of the League; it is there that the blow must be struck. It was great pity to lay in ruins so beautiful and goodly a city. Still, I must settle accounts with the rebels who are in it, and who ignominiously drove me away.” “On Tuesday, August 1, at eight A. M., he was told,” says L’Estoile, “that a monk desired to speak with him, but that his guards made a difficulty about letting him in. ‘Let him in,’ said the king: ‘if he is refused, it will be said that I drive monks away and will not see them.’ Incontinently entered the monk, having in his sleeve a knife unsheathed. He made a profound reverence to the king, who had just got up and had nothing on but a dressing-gown about his shoulders, and presented to him despatches from Count de Brienne, saying that he had further orders to tell the king privately something of importance. Then the king ordered those who were present to retire, and began reading the letter which the monk had brought asking for a private audience afterwards; the monk, seeing the king’s attention taken up with reading, drew his knife from his sleeve and drove it right into the king’s small gut, below the navel, so home that he left the knife in the hole; the which the king having drawn out with great exertion struck the monk a blow with the point of it on his left eyebrow, crying, ‘Ah! wicked monk! he has killed me; kill him!’ At which cry running quickly up, the guards and others, such as happened to be nearest, massacred this assassin of a Jacobin who, as D’Aubigne says, stretched out his two arms against the wall, counterfeiting the crucifix, whilst the blows were dealt him. Having been dragged out dead from the king’s chamber, he was stripped naked to the waist, covered with his gown and exposed to the public.”
Whilst Henry de Valois was thus struck down at St. Cloud, Henry of Navarre had moved with a good number of troops to the Pre-aux-Clercs; and seeing Rosny, who was darting along, pistol in hand, amongst the foremost, he called one of his gentlemen and said, “Maignan, go and tell M. de Rosny to come back; he will get taken or wounded in that rash style.” “I should not care to speak so to him,” answered Maignan. “I will tell him that your Majesty wants him.” Meanwhile up came a gentleman at a gallop, who said three or four words in the King of Navarre’s ear. “My friend,” said Henry to Rosny, “the king has just been wounded with a knife in the stomach; let us go and see about it; come with me.” Henry took with him five and twenty gentlemen. The king received him affectionately, exhorted him to change his religion for his salvation’s sake in another world and his fortunes in this; and, addressing the people of quality who thronged his chamber, he said, “I do pray you as my friends, and as your king I order you, to recognize after my death my brother here. For my satisfaction and as your bounden duty, I pray you to swear it to him in my presence.” All present took the oath. Henry III. spoke in a firm voice; and his wound was not believed to be mortal. Letters were sent in his name to the queen, to the governors of the provinces and to the princes allied to the crown, to inform them of the accident that had happened to the king, “which, please God, will turn out to be nothing.” The King of Navarre asked for some details as to the assassin. James Clement was a young Dominican who, according to report, had been a soldier before he became a monk. He was always talking of waging war against Henry de Valois, and he was called “Captain Clement.” He told a story about a vision he had of an angel, who had bidden him “to put to death the tyrant of France, in return for which he would have the crown of martyrdom.” Royalist writers report that he had been placed in personal communication with the friends of Henry de Guise, even with his sister the Duchess of Montpensier, and his brother the Duke of Mayenne. When well informed of the facts, the King of Navarre returned to his quarters at Meudon, and Rosny to his lodging at the foot of the castle. Whilst Rosny was at supper, his secretary came and said to him, “Sir, the King of Navarre, peradventure the King of France, wants you. M. d’Orthoman writes to him to make haste and come to St. Cloud if he would see the king alive.” The King of Navarre at once departed. Just as he arrived at St. Cloud, he heard in the street cries of “Ah! my God, we are lost!” He was told that the king was dead. Henry III., in fact, expired on the 2d of August, 1589, between two and three in the morning. The first persons Henry of Navarre encountered as he entered the Hotel de Retz were the officers of the Scottish guard, who threw themselves at his feet, saying, “Ah! sir, you are now our king and our master.”