Henry IV. has occupied a great place in the memory and love of the French. He redeemed his weaknesses by eminent qualities, and his very faults by the splendid services which he rendered to his people. It is from his reign, as has been remarked, that the end of the Middle Ages really dates; and the Reformers have ever been grateful to a prince, who was the first that sincerely granted them the free exercise of their religion.
II.
The news of the king’s death re-awakened all the fears of the Calvinists. Many families hastily quitted Paris, although the guardianship of the gates had been confided to burghers of both religions, as if they had been threatened with another Saint Bartholomew. The Duke de Sully shut himself up in the Bastille, of which he was the governor. The Huguenots of the southern provinces took arms. It seemed as if the Edict of Nantes had been torn by the same blow that had pierced the heart of Henry.
From the 22nd of May, the court published a declaration, confirming in the most explicit terms all the edicts of toleration, a useless precaution; for the Reformers believed neither in the power of the regent Marie de Medicis, nor in her good faith. They feared they should find in her, and in her son Louis XIII., then but eight years and a half old, a second Queen Catherine, and a new Charles IX.
Marie de Medicis was governed by two Italian adventurers, Concini and Leonora Galigaï. An ignorant, bigoted, and vindictive woman, with all the vices of ambition unmixed with its qualities, she ruled the great affairs of the state upon the predictions of astrologers, and thought, by throwing herself into the petty intrigues of the court, that she was using the means of government.
The public treasury, under her regency, was given up to the pillage of the great lords, and the kingdom to their turbulent factions. The dukes de Nevers, de Mayenne, d’Epernon, de Longueville, de Vendôme, cantoned themselves each in his province, dictating their conditions of obedience to the crown, and offering to the chiefs of the Calvinists the dangerous example of subordinating the general interest to their personal pretensions.
Some of these were too much inclined to follow such an example, particularly the Duke de Bouillon and the Marshal de Lesdiguières, the former, a man of capacity and good counsel, but committing fault upon fault, through his ambition to be the first person in the kingdom; the latter, skilful and brave upon the field of battle, but loose in morals, unscrupulous as to the means of success, and seduced by the prospect of the constable’s sword. Both pretended to feel a great zeal for religion, in order to win the support of the Huguenots; nevertheless they were soon suspected by their old friends, and did not render to the court the services they had let it to expect.
The Duke de Sully, despoiled of all his offices, imported into the affairs of the Reformation the bad humour of a disgraced minister. He did not always retreat before extreme opinions, but at the moment of passing to the execution of them, his solid sense restrained him, and he never forgot that he had been one of the most faithful servants of the crown.
His son-in-law, the Duke Henry de Rohan, then thirty-two years of age, had begun to show himself, and was preparing to take the highest place in the Calvinist party. Young, active, of almost royal birth, as much attached to study as to the trade of arms, he had already travelled through all the different states of Europe to acquaint himself with their powers and their genius. He was simple and austere in his manners, intrepid, generous, naturally inclined to great achievements, and capable of accomplishing them. His oratory was clear, terse, and vigorous—the true eloquence of a party leader. His religious sentiments inspired more confidence than those of other noblemen of his rank; and history testifies that in all his enterprises, devotion to the Reformed cause prevailed over ambition.