History is not bound to be so reserved and so modest as the king was about himself. It was not only as able captain and valiant soldier that Henry IV. distinguished himself at Ivry; there the man was as conspicuous for the strength of his better feelings, as generous and as affectionate as the king was farsighted and bold. When the word was given to march from Dreux, Count Schomberg, colonel of the German auxiliaries called reiters, had asked for the pay of his troops, letting it be understood that they would not fight if their claims were not satisfied. Henry had replied harshly, “People don’t ask for money on the eve of a battle.” At Ivry, just as the battle was on the point of beginning, he went up to Schomberg. “Colonel,” said he, “I hurt your feelings. This may be the last day of my life. I can’t bear to take away the honor of a brave and honest gentleman like you. Pray forgive me and embrace me.” “Sir,” answered Schomberg, “the other day your Majesty wounded me, to-day you kill me.” He gave up the command of the reiters in order to fight in the king’s own squadron, and was killed in action. As he passed along the front of his own squadron, Henry halted; and, “Comrades,” said he, “if you run my risks, I also run yours. I will conquer or die with you. Keep your ranks well, I beg. If the heat of battle disperse you for a while, rally as soon as you can under those three pear trees you see up yonder to my right; and if you lose your standards, do not lose sight of my white plume; you will always find it in the path of honor, and, I hope, of victory too.”
Having galloped along the whole line of his army, he halted again, threw his horse’s reins over his arm, and clasped his hands, exclaiming, “O God, Thou knowest my thoughts, and Thou dost see to the very bottom of my heart; if it be for my people’s good that I keep the crown, favor Thou my cause and uphold my arms. But if Thy holy will have otherwise ordained, at least let me die, O God, in the midst of these brave soldiers who give their lives for me!” When the battle was over and won, he heard that Rosny had been severely wounded in it; and when he was removed to Rosny Castle, the king, going close up to his stretcher, said, “My friend, I am very glad to see you with a much better countenance than I expected; I should feel still greater joy if you assure me that you run no risk of your life or of being disabled forever; the rumor was, that you had two horses killed under you; that you had been borne to earth, rolled over and trampled upon by the horses of several squadrons, bruised and cut up by so many blows that it would be a marvel if you escaped, or if, at the very least, you were not mutilated for life in some limb. I should like to hug you with both arms. I shall never have any good fortune or increase of greatness but you shall share it. Fearing that too much talking may be harmful to your wounds, I am off again to Mantes. Adieu, my friend; fare you well, and be assured that you have a good master.”
Henry IV. had not only a warm but an expansive heart; he could not help expressing and pouring forth his feelings. That was one of his charms, and also one of his sources of power.
The victory of Ivry had a great effect in France and in Europe. But not immediately and as regarded the actual campaign of 1590. The victorious king moved on Paris, and made himself master of the little towns in the neighborhood with a view of investing the capital. When he took possession of St. Denis [on the 9th of July, 1590], he had the relics and all the jewelry of the church shown to him. When he saw the royal crown, from which the principal stones had been detached, he asked what had become of them. He was told that M. de Mayenne had caused them to-be removed. “He has the stones, then,” said the king; “and I have the soil.” He visited the royal tombs, and when he was shown that of Catherine de’ Medici, “Ah!” said he smiling, “how well it suits her!” And, as he stood before Henry III.‘s he said, “Ventre-saint-gris! There is my good brother; I desire that I be laid beside him.” As he thus went on visiting and establishing all his posts around Paris, the investment became more strict; it was kept up for more than three months, from the end of May to the beginning of September, 1590; and the city was reduced to a severe state of famine, which would have been still more severe if Henry IV. had not several times over permitted the entry of some convoys of provisions and the exit of the old men, the women, the children, in fact, the poorest and weakest part of the population. “Paris must not be a cemetery,” he said; “I do not wish to reign over the dead.” “A true king,” says De Thou, “more anxious for the preservation of his kingdom than greedy of conquest, and making no distinction between his own interests and the interests of his people.” Two famous Protestants, Ambrose Pare and Bernard Palissy, preserved, one by his surgical and the other by his artistic genius, from the popular fury, were still living at that time in Paris, both eighty years of age, and both pleading for the liberty of their creed and for peace. “Monseigneur,” said Ambrose Pare one day to the Archbishop of Lyons, whom he met at one end of the bridge of St. Michael, “this poor people that you see here around you is dying of sheer hunger-madness, and demands your compassion. For God’s sake show them some, as you would have God’s shown to you. Think a little on the office to which God hath called you. Give us peace or give us wherewithal to live, for the poor folks can hold out no more.” The Italian Danigarola himself, Bishop of Asti and attache to the embassy of Cardinal Gaetani, having publicly said that peace was necessary, was threatened by the Sixteen with being sewn up in a sack and thrown into the river if he did not alter his tone. Not peace, but a cessation of the investment of Paris, was brought about, on the 23d of August, 1590, by Duke Alexander of Parma, who, in accordance with express orders from Philip II., went from the Low Countries, with his army, to join Mayenne at Meaux and threaten Henry IV. with their united forces if he did not retire from the walls of the capital.
Henry IV. offered the two dukes battle, if they really wished to put a stop to the investment; but “I am not come so far,” answered the Duke of Parma, “to take counsel of my enemy; if my manner of warfare does not please the King of Navarre, let him force me to change it, instead of giving me advice that nobody asks him for.” Henry in vain attempted to make the Duke of Parma accept battle. The able Italian established himself in a strongly intrenched camp, surprised Lagny, and opened to Paris the navigation of the Marne, by which provisions were speedily brought up. Henry decided upon retreating; he dispersed the different divisions of his army into Touraine, Normandy, Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, and himself took up his quarters at Senlis, at Compiegne, in the towns on the banks of the Oise. The Duke of Mayenne arrived on the 18th of September at Paris; the Duke of Parma entered it himself with a few officers, and left it on the 13th of November with his army on his way back to the Low Countries, being a little harassed in his retreat by the royal cavalry, but easy, for the moment, as to the fate of Paris and the issue of the war, which continued during the first six months of the year 1591, but languidly and disconnectedly, with successes and reverses see-sawing between the two parties and without any important results.
Then began to appear the consequences of the victory of Ivry and the progress made by Henry IV., in spite of the check he received before Paris and at some other points in the kingdom. Not only did many moderate Catholics make advances to him, struck with his sympathetic ability and his valor, and hoping that he would end by becoming a Catholic, but patriotic wrath was kindling in France against Philip II. and the Spaniards, those fomenters of civil war in the mere interest of foreign ambition. We quoted but lately the words used by the governor of Dieppe, Aymar de Chastes, when he said to Villars, governor of Rouen, who pressed him to enter the League, “You will yourself find out that the Spaniard is the real head of this League.” On the 5th of August, 1590, during the investment of Paris, a placard was pasted all over the city. “Poor Parisians,” it said, “I deplore your misery, and I feel even greater pity towards you for being still such simpletons. See you not that this son of perdition of a Spanish ambassador [Bernard de Mendoza], who had our good king murdered, is making game of you, cramming you so with pap that he would fain have had you burst before now in order to lay hands on your goods and on France if he could? He alone prevents peace and the repose of desolated France, as well as the reconciliation of the king and the princes in real amity. Why are ye so tardy to cast him in a sack down stream, that he may return the sooner to Spain?” On the 6th of August, there was found written with charcoal, on the gate of St. Anthony, the following eight lines:—