Henry IV, Makers of History

by John S. C. Abbott

Others still assert that Henry was humanely anxious to arrest the horrors of civil war; to introduce peace to distracted France, and to secure the Protestants from oppression. His acceptance of the Catholic faith was the only apparent way of accomplishing these results. Being a humane man, but not a man of established Christian principle, he deemed it his duty to pursue the course which would accomplish such results. The facts, so far as known, are before the reader, and each one can form his own judgment.

Political effects of Henry's conversion.

The announcement throughout the kingdom that Henry had become a Catholic almost immediately put an end to the civil war. Incited by the royal example, many of the leading Protestants, nobles and gentlemen, also renounced Protestantism, and conformed to the religion of the state. The chiefs of the League, many of whom were ambitious political partisans rather than zealous theologians, and who were clamorous for Catholicism only as the means of obtaining power, at once relinquished all hope of victory. For a time, however, they still assumed a hostile attitude, and heaped unmeasured ridicule upon what they styled the feigned conversion of the king. They wished to compel the monarch to purchase their adhesion at as dear a price as possible.

Many important cities surrendered to the royal cause under the stipulation that the preaching of the Protestants should be utterly prohibited in their precincts and suburbs. Even the Pope, Clement VIII., a weak and bigoted man, for a time refused to ratify the act of the Archbishop of Bourges in absolving Henry from the pains and penalties of excommunication. He forbade the envoy of Henry to approach the Vatican. The Duke of Nevers, who was the appointed envoy, notwithstanding this prohibition, persisted in his endeavors to obtain an audience; but the Pope was anxious to have the crown of France in the possession of one whose Catholic zeal could not be questioned. He would much have preferred to see the fanatic Duke of Mayenne upon the throne, or to have promoted the Spanish succession. He therefore treated the Duke of Nevers with great indignity, and finally gave him an abrupt dismission.

Satisfaction of the people.
Ferocity of the Pope.

But the mass of the French people, longing for repose, gladly accepted the conversion of the king. One after another the leaders of the League gave in their adhesion to the royal cause. The Duke of Mayenne, however, held out, Paris being still in his possession, and several other important cities and fortresses being garrisoned by his troops. The Pope, at length, having vainly done every thing in his power to rouse France and Catholic Europe to resist Henry, condescended to negotiate. His spirit may be seen in the atrocious conditions which he proposed. As the price of his absolution, he required that Henry should abrogate every edict of toleration, that he should exclude Protestants from all public offices, and that he should exterminate them from the kingdom as soon as possible.

To these demands Henry promptly replied, "I should be justly accused of shamelessness and ingratitude if, after having received such signal services from the Protestants, I should thus persecute them."

Coronation of the king.

Henry was fully aware of the influence of forms upon the imaginations of the people. He accordingly made preparations for his coronation. The event was celebrated with great pomp, in the city of Chartres, on the 27th of February, 1594. The Leaguers were now quite disheartened. Every day their ranks were diminishing. The Duke of Mayenne, apprehensive that his own partisans might surrender Paris to the king, and that thus he might be taken prisoner, on the 6th of March, with his wife and children, left the city, under the pretense of being called away by important business.