Four months the Parisians endured starvation and all the attendant horrors of a siege, the incidents of which, as described by contemporaries, are so ghastly that the pen recoils from transcribing them. At length, when they were at the last extremity, the Duke of Parma arrived with a Spanish army, forced Henry to raise the siege, and revictualled the city. After war, anarchy. In November 1591 it was discovered that secret letters were passing between Brizard, an officer in the service of the Duke of Mayenne in Paris, and a royalist at St. Denis. The sections demanded Brizard’s instant execution, and on his discharge by the Parlement the curé of St. Jacques fulminated against that body and declared that cold steel must be tried (faut jouer des couteaux). A secret revolutionary committee of ten was appointed, and a papier rouge or list of suspects in all the districts of Paris was drawn up under three categories: P. (pendus), those to be hung; D. (dagués), those to be poignarded; C. (chassés), those to be expelled. On the night of the 15th November a meeting was held at the house of the curé of St. Jacques, and in the morning the president of the Parlement, Brisson, was seized and dragged to the Petit Châtelet, where a revolutionary tribunal, in black cloaks, on which were sewn large red crosses, condemned him to death. Meanwhile two councillors of the Parlement, Larcher and Tardif, had been seized, the latter by the curé of St. Cosme, and haled to the Châtelet. All three were dragged to a room, and the executioner was forced to hang them from a beam. The bodies were then stripped, an inscription was hung about their necks, and they were suspended from the gallows in the Place de Grève. The sections believed that Paris would rise: they only shocked the more orderly citizens. The Duke of Mayenne, who was at Lyons, on the receipt of the news hastened to Paris, temporised a while and, when sure of support, seized four of the most dangerous leaders of the sections and hanged them without trial in the Salle basse of the Louvre. All save the more violent partisans were now weary of the strife. The Leaguers themselves were divided. The sections aimed at a theocratic democracy; another party favoured the Duke of Mayenne; a third, the Duke of Guise; a fourth, the Infanta of Spain. It was decided to convoke the States-General at Paris. They met at the Louvre in 1593, and a conference was arranged with Henry’s supporters at Suresnes. Crowds flocked there, crying, “Peace, peace; blessed be they who bring it; cursed they who prevent it.” Henry knew the supreme moment was come. France was still profoundly Catholic; he must choose between his religion and France. He chose to heal his country’s wounds and perhaps to save her very existence. Learned theologians were deputed to confer with him at Paris, whom he astonished and confounded by his knowledge of Scripture; they declared that they had never met a heretic better able to defend his cause. But on 23rd July 1573, he professed himself convinced, and the same evening wrote to his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, that he had spoken with the bishops, and that a hundred anxieties were making St. Denis hateful to him. “On Sunday,” he adds, “I am to take the perilous leap. Bonjour, my heart; come to me early to-morrow. It seems a year since I saw you. A million times I kiss the fair hands of my angel and the mouth of my dear mistress.”
On Sunday, under the great portal of St. Denis, the archbishop of Bourges sat enthroned in a chair covered with white damask and embroidered with the arms of France and of Navarre. He was attended by many prelates and the prior and monks of St. Denis, and the cross and the book of the Gospels were held before him. Henry drew nigh. “Who are you?” demanded the archbishop. “I am the king.” “What do you ask?” “I wish to be received in the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church.” “Is it your will?” “Yes, I will and desire it.” Henry then knelt and made profession of his faith, kissed the prelate’s ring, received his blessing and was led to the choir, where he knelt before the high altar and repeated his profession of faith on the holy Gospels amid cries of “Vive le roi!”
The clerical extremists in Paris anathematised all concerned. Violent curés again donned their armour, children were baptised and mass was sung by cuirassed priests. The curé of St. Cosme seized a partisan, and with other fanatics of the League hastened to the Latin Quarter to raise the university. But the people were heartsick of the whole business; and when Henry entered Paris after his coronation at Chartres, resplendent in velvet robes embroidered with gold and seated on his dapple grey charger, his famous helmet with its white plumes ever in his hand saluting the ladies at the windows, he was hailed with shouts of joy. Shops were reopened, the artisan took up his tools and the merchant went to his counter with a sigh of relief. A general amnesty was proclaimed, and the Spanish garrison were allowed to depart with their arms. As they filed out of the Porte St. Denis in heavy rain, three thousand strong, the king was sitting at a window above the gates. “Remember me to your master,” he cried, “but do not return.” On the morrow the provost and sheriffs and chief citizens came to the Louvre bearing presents of sweetmeats, sugar-plums and malmsey wine. “Yesterday I received your hearts, to-day I receive your sweets,” the king remarked; all were charmed by his wit, his forbearance and generosity. The stubborn university was last to give way, but when the doctors of theology learnt that Henry had touched for the king’s evil and that many had been cured, they too were convinced. Paris, “well worth a mass,” was wooed and won. The memorable Edict of Nantes established liberty of worship and political equality for the Protestants. The war with Spain was brought to a successful issue, and Henry, with his minister the Duke of Sully, probably the greatest financial genius France has ever known, by wise and firm statesmanship lifted the country from bankruptcy to prosperity and contentment.