It was not until the 28th of March that Henry appeared before the walls of Paris. By this time the Leaguers had made preparations to resist him. Provisions and military stores had been accumulated. Troops had been hurried into the city, and arrangements were made to hold out till Mayenne could bring them succor. Now a siege was necessary, with all its accompaniments of blood and woe. There were now fifty thousand fighting men in the city when Henry commenced the siege with but twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse.
Death of the Cardinal of Bourbon.
In this emergence the energy of Henry returned. He took possession of the river above and below the city. Batteries were reared upon the heights of Montmartre and Montfauçon, and cannon balls, portentous of the rising storm, began to fall in the thronged streets of the metropolis. In the midst of this state of things the old Cardinal of Bourbon died. The Leaguers had pronounced him king under the title of Charles X. The insurgents, discomfited in battle, and with many rival candidates ambitious of the crown, were not in a condition to attempt to elect another monarch. They thought it more prudent to combine and fight for victory, postponing until some future day their choice of a king. The Catholic priests were almost universally on their side, and urged them, by all the most sacred importunities of religion, rather to die than to allow a heretic to ascend the throne of France.
Horrors of famine.
Day after day the siege continued. There were bombardments, and conflagrations, and sallies, and midnight assaults, and all the tumult, and carnage, and woe of horrid war. Three hundred thousand men, women, and children were in the beleaguered city. All supplies were cut off. Famine commenced its ravages. The wheat became exhausted, and they ate bran. The bran was all consumed, and the haggard citizens devoured the dogs and the cats. Starvation came. On parlor floors and on the hard pavement emaciate forms were stretched in the convulsions of death. The shrieks of women and children in their dying agonies fell in tones horrible to hear upon the ears of the besiegers.
Kindness of Henry.
The tender heart of Henry was so moved by the sufferings which he was unwillingly instrumental in inflicting, that he allowed some provisions to be carried into the city, though he thus protracted the siege. He hoped that this humanity would prove to his foes that he did not seek revenge. The Duke of Nemours, who conducted the defense, encouraged by this unmilitary humanity, that he might relieve himself from the encumbrance of useless mouths, drove several thousands out of the city. Henry, with extraordinary clemency, allowed three thousand to pass through the ranks of his army. He nobly said, "I can not bear to think of their sufferings. I had rather conquer my foes by kindness than by arms." But the number still increasing, and the inevitable effect being only to enable the combatants to hold out more stubbornly, Henry reluctantly ordered the soldiers to allow no more to pass.
Murmurs in Paris.
The misery which now desolated the city was awful. Famine bred pestilence. Woe and death were every where. The Duke of Nemours, younger brother of the Duke of Mayenne, hoping that Mayenne might yet bring relief, still continued the defense. The citizens, tortured by the unearthly woes which pressed them on every side, began to murmur. Nemours erected scaffolds, and ordered every murmurer to be promptly hung as a partisan of Henry. Even this harsh remedy could not entirely silence fathers whose wives and children were dying of starvation before their eyes.
The assault.