were to make into Brittany against the Duke of Mercoeur, not yet reduced
to submission.  As he was passing along the street with only three or
four of his men, he was unexpectedly attacked by one Sieur de Saint-Phal,
who, after calling upon him to give some explanation as to a disagreement
that had taken place between them five months before, brutally struck him
a blow on the head with a stick, knocked him down, immediately mounted a
horse that was held all ready on the spot, and fled in haste, leaving
Mornay in the hands of ten or a dozen accomplices, who dealt him several
sword-thrusts as he was rising to defend himself, and who, in their turn,
fled.  Some passers-by hurried up; Mornay's wounds were found to be
slight; but the affair, which nobody hesitated to call murder, made a
great noise; there was general indignation; the king was at once informed
of it; and whilst the question was being discussed at Saumur whether
Mornay ought to seek reparation by way of arms or by that of law, Henry
IV. wrote to him in his own hand on the 8th of November, 1597:--

"M. du Plessis: I am extremely displeased at the outrage you have met
with, wherein I participate both as king and as your friend.  As the
former I will do you justice and myself too.  If I bore only the second
title, you have none whose sword would be more ready to leap from its
scabbard than mine, or who would put his life at your service more
cheerfully than I.  Take this for granted, that, in effect, I will render
you the offices of king, master, and friend.  And on this truthful
assurance, I conclude, praying God to have you in His holy keeping."

Saint-Phal remained for a long while concealed in the very district,
amongst his relatives; but on the 12th of January, 1599, he was arrested
and put in the Bastille; and, according to the desire of Mornay himself,
the king decided that he should be brought before him, unarmed, should
place one knee on the ground, should ask his pardon, and then, assuming
his arms, should accordingly receive that pardon, first of all from
Mornay, whom the king had not permitted to exact in another way the
reparation due to him, and afterwards from the mouth of the king himself,
together with a severe admonition to take heed to himself for the future.
The affair having thus terminated, there was no more heard of Saint-Phal,
and Mornay returned to Saumur with a striking mark of the king's
sympathy, who, in his own words, had felt pleasure "in avenging him as
king and as friend."

The second incident was of more political consequence, and neither the
king nor Mornay conducted themselves with sufficient discretion and
dignity.  In July, 1598, Mornay published a treatise on the institution
of the eucharist in the Christian church, how and by what degrees the
mass was introduced in its place.  It was not only an attack upon the
fundamental dogma and cult of the Catholic church; the pope was expressly
styled Antichrist in it.  Clement VIII. wrote several times about it to
Henry IV., complaining that a man of such high standing in the government
and in the king's regard should treat so insultingly a sovereign in
alliance with the king, and head of the church to which the king
belonged.  The pope's complaint came opportunely.  Henry IV. was at this
time desirous of obtaining from the court of Rome annulment of his
marriage with Marguerite de Valois, that he might be enabled to contract
another; he did not as yet say with whom.  Mornay's book was vigorously
attacked, not only in point of doctrine, but in point of fact; he was
charged with having built his foundation upon a large number of
misquotations; and the Bishop of Evreux, M. du Perron, a great friend of
the king's, whom he had always supported and served, said that he was
prepared to point out as such nearly five hundred.  The dispute grew warm
between the two theologians; Mornay demanded leave to prove the falsehood
of the accusation; the bishop accepted the challenge.  For all his
defence of his book and his erudition, Mornay did not show any great
hurry to enter upon the contest; and, on the other hand, the bishop
reduced the number of the quotations against which he objected.  The sum
total of the quotations found fault with was fixed at sixty.  A
conference was summoned to look into them, and six commissioners, three
Catholic and three Protestant, were appointed to give judgment; De Thou
and Pithou amongst the former, Dufresne la Canaye and Casaubon amongst
the latter.  Erudition was worthily represented there, and there was
every probability of justice.  The conference met on the 4th of May,
1600, at Fontainebleau, in presence of the king and many great lords,
magistrates, ecclesiastics, and distinguished spectators.

[Illustration: The Castle of Fontainbleau----124]

Mornay began by owning that "out of four thousand quotations made by him
it was unlikely that some would not be found wherein he might have erred,
as he was human, but he was quite sure that it was never in bad faith."
He then said that, being pressed for time, he had not yet been able to
collate more than nineteen out of the sixty quotations specially
attacked.  Of these nineteen nine only were examined at this first
conference, and nearly all were found to be incorrect.  Next day, Mornay
was taken "with a violent seizure and repeated attacks of vomiting, which
M. de la Riviere, the king's premier physician, came and deposed to."
The conference was broken off, and not resumed afterwards.  The king
congratulated himself beyond measure at the result, and even on the part
which he had taken.  "Tell the truth," said he to the Bishop of Evreux,
"the good right had good need of aid;" and he wrote, on the 6th of May to
the Duke of Epernon, "The diocese of Evreux has beaten that of Saumur.
The bearer was present, and will tell you that I did wonders.  Assuredly
it is one of the greatest hits for the church of God that have been made
for some time."  He evidently had it very much at heart that the pope
should be well informed of what had taken place, and feel obliged to him
for it.  "Haven't you wits to see that the king, in order to gratify the
pope, has been pleased to sacrifice my father's honor at his feet?"  said
young Philip de Mornay to some courtiers who were speaking to him about
this sad affair.  This language was reported to the king, who showed
himself much hurt by it.  "He is a young man beside himself with grief,"
they said, "and it is his own father's case."  "Young he is not," replied
the king; "he is forty years old, twenty in age and twenty from his
father's teaching."  The king's own circle and his most distinguished
servants gladly joined in his self-congratulation.  "Well," he said to
Sully, "what think you of your pope?"  "I think, sir," answered Sully,
"that he is more pope than you suppose; cannot you see that he gives a
red hat to M. d'Evreux?  Really, I never saw a man so dumbfounded, or one
who defended himself so ill.  If our religion had no better foundation
than his crosswise legs and arms (Mornay habitually kept them so), I
would abandon it rather to-day than to-morrow."  [_OEconomies royales,_
t. iii.  p. 346.]

Sully desired nothing better than to find Mornay at fault, and to see the
king fully convinced of it.  Jealousy is nowhere more wide-awake and more
implacable than at courts.  However, amongst the grandees present at the
conference of Fontainebleau there were some who did not share the general
impression.  "I saw there," said the Duke of Mayenne as he went away from
it, "only a very old and very faithful servant very badly paid for so
many services;" and, in spite of the king's letter, the Duke of Epernon
sent word to Mornay that he still took him for a gentleman of honor, and
still remained his friend.  Henry IV. himself, with his delicate and
ready tact, was not slow to perceive that he had gone too far and had
behaved badly.  Being informed that Mornay was in deep suffering, he sent
to him M. de LomLnie, his cabinet-secretary, to fully assure him that the
king would ever be his good master and friend.  "As for master," said
Mornay, "I am only too sensible of it; as for friend, he belongs not to
me: I have known men to make attempts upon the king's life, honor, and
state, nay, upon his very bed; against them, the whole of them, he never
displayed so much severity as against me alone, who have done him service
all my life."  And he set out on his way back to Saumur without seeing
the king again.

He returned thither with all he had dearest in the world, his wife,
Charlotte Arbaleste de la Borde, his worthy partner in all his trials--
trials of prosperity as well as adversity.  She has full right to a few
lines in this History, for it was she who preserved to us, in her
_Memoires,_ the picture, so salutary to contemplate, of the life and
character of Mornay, in the midst of his friends' outbursts of passion
and his adversaries' brutal exhibitions of hatred.  As intelligent as she
was devoted, she gave him aid in his theological studies and labors as
well as in the confronting of public events.  "During this expedition to
Fontainebleau, I had remained," she says, "at Paris, in extreme
apprehension, recently recovered from a severe illness, harassed by the
deadlock in our domestic affairs.  And, as for all that, I felt it not in
comparison with the inevitable mishap of this expedition.  I had found
for M. du Plessis all the books of which he might possibly have need,
hunted up, with great diligence considering the short time, in the
libraries of all our friends, and I got them into his hands, but somewhat
late in the day, because it was too late in the day when he gave me the
commission."  The private correspondence of these two noble persons is a
fine example of conjugal and Christian union, virtue, and affection.  In
1605, their only son, Philip de Mornay, a very distinguished young man,
then twenty-six years of age, obtained Henry IV.'s authority to go and
serve in the army of the Prince of Orange, Maurice of Nassau, at deadly
war with Spain.  He was killed in it on the 23d of October, at the
assault upon the town of Gueldres.  On receiving news of his death,
"I have now no son," said his father; "therefore I have now no wife."
His sorrowful prediction was no delusion; six mouths after her son's
death Madame de Mornay succumbed, unable any longer to bear the burden
she was supporting without a murmur.  Her Memoires concludes with this
expression: "It is but reasonable that this my book should end with him,
as it was only undertaken to describe to him our pilgrimage in this life.
And, since it hath pleased God, he hath sooner gone through, and more
easily ended his own.  Wherefore, indeed, if I feared not to cause
affliction to M. du Plessis, who, the more mine grows upon me, makes me
the more clearly perceive his affection, it would vex me extremely to
survive him."

On learning by letter from Prince Maurice that the young man was dead,
Henry IV. said, with emotion, to those present, "I have lost the fairest
hope of a gentleman in my kingdom.  I am grieved for the father.  I must
send and comfort him.  No father but he could have such a loss."  "He
despatched on the instant," says Madame de Mornay herself, "Sieur
Bruneau, one of his secretaries, with very gracious letters to comfort
us; with orders, nevertheless, not to present himself unless he were sure
that we already knew of it otherwise, not wishing to be the first to tell
us such sad news."  [_Memoires,_ t. ii.  p. 107.] This touching evidence
of a king's sympathy for a father's grief effaced, no doubt, to some
extent in Mornay's mind his reminiscences of the conference at
Fontainebleau; one thing is quite certain, that he continued to render
Henry IV., in the synods and political assemblies of the Protestants, his
usual good offices for the maintenance or re-establishment of peace and
good understanding between the Catholic king and his malcontent former
friends.

A third Protestant, Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, grandfather of Madame de
Maintenon, has been reckoned here amongst not the councillors, certainly,
but the familiar and still celebrated servants of Henry IV.  He held no
great post, and had no great influence with the king; he was, on every
occasion, a valiant soldier, a zealous Protestant, an indefatigable lover
and seeker of adventure, sometimes an independent thinker, frequently an
eloquent and bold speaker, always a very sprightly companion.  Henry IV.
at one time employed him, at another held aloof from him, or forgot him,
or considered him a mischief-maker, a faction-monger who must be put in
the Bastille, and against whom, if it seemed good, there would be enough
to put him on his trial.  Madame de Chatillon, who took an interest in
D'Aubigne, warned him of the danger, and urged him to depart that very
evening.  "I will think about it, madame," said he; "I will implore God's
assistance, and I will see what I have to do."  .  .  .  "The inspiration
that came to me," says he, "was to go next morning very early to see his
Majesty, and, after having briefly set before him my past services, to
ask him for a pension, which up to that time I had not felt inclined to
do.  The king, surprised, and at the same time well pleased to observe a
something mercenary behind all my proud spirit, embraced me, and granted
on the spot what I asked of him."  The next day D'Aubigne went to the
Arsenal; Sully invited him to dinner, and took him to see the Bastille,
assuring him that there was no longer any danger for him, but only since
the last twenty-four hours.  [_La France Protestante,_ by MM. Haag,
t. i.  p. 170.]  If D'Aubigne had not been a writer, he would be
completely forgotten by this time, like so many other intriguing and
turbulent adventurers, who make a great deal of fuss themselves, and try
to bring everything about them into a fuss as long as they live, and who
die without leaving any trace of their career.  But D'Aubigne wrote a
great deal both in prose and in verse; he wrote the _Histoire
universelle_ of his times, personal _Memoires,_ tales, tragedies, and
theological and satirical essays; and he wrote with sagacious,
penetrating, unpremeditated wit, rare vigor, and original and almost
profound talent for discerning and depicting situations and characters.
It is the writer which has caused the man to live, and has assigned him a
place in French literature even more than in French history.  We purpose
to quote two fragments of his, which will make us properly understand and
appreciate both the writer and the man.  During the civil war, in the
reign of Henry III., D'Aubigne had made himself master of the Island of
Oleron, had fortified it, and considered himself insufficiently rewarded
by the King of Navarre, to whom he had meant to render, and had, in fact,
rendered service.  After the battle of Coutras, in 1587, he was sleeping
with a comrade named Jacques de Caumont la Force, in the wardrobe of the
chamber in which the King of Navarre slept.  "La Force," said D'Aubigne
to his bed-fellow, "our master is a regular miser, and the most
ungrateful mortal on the face of the earth."  "What dost say, D'Aubigne?"
asked La Force, half asleep.  "He says," repeated the King of Navarre,
who had heard all, that I am a regular miser, and the most ungrateful
mortal on the face of the earth."  D'Aubigne, somewhat disconcerted, was
mum.  "But," he adds, "when daylight appeared, this prince, who liked
neither rewarding nor punishing, did not for all that look any the more
black at me, or give me a quarter-crown more."  Thirty years later, in
1617, after the collapse of the League and after the reign of Henry IV.,
D'Aubigne, wishing to describe the two leaders of the two great parties,
sums them up in these terms: "The Duke of Mayenne had such probity as is
human, a good nature and a liberality which made him most pleasant to
those about him; his was a judicious mind, which made good use of
experience, took the measure of everything by the card; a courage rather
steady than dashing; take him for all in all, he might be called an
excellent captain.  King Henry IV. had all this, save the liberality; but
to make up for that item, his rank caused expectations as to the future
to blossom, which made the hardships of the present go down.  He had,
amongst his points of superiority to the Duke of Mayenne, a marvellous
gift of promptitude and vivacity, and far beyond the average.  We have
seen him, a thousand times in his life, make pat replies without hearing
the purport of a request, and forestall questions without committing
himself.  The Duke of Mayenne was incommoded by his great bodily bulk,
which could not support the burden either of arms or of fatigue duty.
The other, having worked all his men to a stand-still, would send for
hounds and horses for to begin a hunt; and when his horses could go no
farther, he would run down the game afoot.  The former communicated his
heaviness and his maladies to his army, undertaking no enterprise that he
could not support in person; the other communicated his own liveliness to
those about him, and his captains imitated him from complaisance and from
emulation."

[Illustration: GABRIELLE D'ESTREES--130]

These politicians, these Christians, these warriors had, in 1600, a grave
question to solve for Henry IV., and grave counsel to give him.  He was
anxious to separate from his wife, Marguerite de Valois, who had, in
fact, been separated from him for the last fifteen years, was leading a
very irregular life, and had not brought him any children.  But, in order
to obtain from the pope annulment of the marriage, it was first necessary
that Marguerite should consent to it, and at no price would she consent
so long as the king's favorite continued to be Gabrielle d'Estrees, whom
she detested, and by whom Henry already had several children.  The
question arose in in 1598, in connection with a son lately born to
Gabrielle, who was constantly spreading reports that she would be the
king's wife.  To give consistency to this report she took it into her
head to have her son presented at baptism as a child of France, and an
order was brought to Sully "to pay what was right to the heralds,
trumpeters, and hautbois players who had performed at the baptism of
Alexander, Monsieur, child of France."  After looking at the order, Sully
detained it, and had another made out, which made no mention of
Alexander.  The men complained, saying, "Sir, the sum we ought to have
for our attendance at the baptism of children of France has for a long
while been fixed."  " Away, away!" said Sully, in a rage; "I'll do
nothing of the sort; there are no children of France."  And he told the
king about it, who said, "There's malice in that, but I will certainly
stop it; tear up that order."  And turning to some of his courtiers, "See
the tricks that people play, and the traps they lay for those who serve
me well and after my own heart.  An order hath been sent to M. de Rosny,
with the design of offending me if he honored it, or of offending the
Duchess of Beaufort if he repudiated it.  I will see to it.  Go to her,
my friend," he said to Rosny; "tell her what has taken place; satisfy her
in so far as you can.  If that is not sufficient, I will speak like the
master, and not like the man."  Sully went to the cloister of St.
Germain, where the Duchess of Beaufort was lodged, and told her that he
came by the king's command to inform her of what was going on.  "I am
aware of all," said Gabrielle, "and do not care to know any more; I am
not made as the king is, whom you persuade that black is white."  "Ho!
ho! madame," replied Sully, "since you take it in that way, I kiss your
hands, and shall not fail to do my duty for all your furies."  He
returned to the Louvre and told the king.  "Here, come with me," said
Henry; "I will let you see that women have not possession of me, as
certain malignant spirits spread about that they have."  He got into
Sully's carriage, went with him to the Duchess of Beaufort's, and, taking
her by the hand, said, "Now, madame, let us go into your room, and let
nobody else enter except you, and Rosny, and me.  I want to speak to you
both, and teach you to be good friends together."  Then, having shut the
door quite close, and holding Gabrielle with one hand and Rosny
with the other, he said, "Good God! madame, what is the meaning of this?
So you would vex me for sheer wantonness of heart in order to try my
patience?  By God, I swear to you that, if you continue these fashions of
going on, you will find yourself very much out in your expectations.  I
see quite well that you have been put up to all this pleasantry in order
to make me dismiss a servant whom I cannot do without, and who has always
served me loyally for five and twenty years.  By God, I will do nothing
of the kind, and I declare to you that if I were reduced to such a
necessity as to choose between losing one or the other, I could better do
without ten mistresses like you than one servant like him."

Gabrielle stormed, was disconsolate, wept, threw herself at the king's
feet, and, "seeing him more strong-minded than had been supposed by those
who had counselled her to this escapade, began to calm herself," says
Sully, "and everything was set right again on every side."

But Sully was not at the end of his embarrassments or of the sometimes
feeble and sometimes sturdy fancies of his king.  On the 10th of April,
1599, Gabrielle d'Estrees died so suddenly that, according to the bias of
the times, when, in the highest ranks, crimes were so common that they
were always considered possible and almost probable, she was at first
supposed to have been poisoned; but there seemed to be no likelihood of
this.  The consent of Marguerite de Valois to the annulment of her
marriage was obtained; and negotiations were opened at Rome by Arnold
d'Ossat, who was made a cardinal, and by Brulart de Sillery, ambassador
ad hoc.  But a new difficulty supervened; not for the negotiators, who
knew, or appeared to know, nothing about it, but for Sully.  In three or
four weeks after the death of Gabrielle d'Estrees Henry IV. was paying
court to a new favorite.  One morning, at Fontainebleau, just as he was
going out hunting, he took Sully by the hand, led him into the first
gallery, gave him a paper, and, turning the other way as if he were
ashamed to see it read by Sully, "Read that," said he, "and then tell me
your opinion of it."  Sully found that it was a promise of marriage given
to Mdlle. Henriette d'Entraigues, daughter of Francis de Balzac, Lord of
Entraigues, and Marie Touchet, favorite of Charles IX.  Sully went up to
the king, holding in his hand the paper folded up.

"What do you think of it?" said the king.  "Now, now, speak freely; your
silence offends me far more than your most adverse expressions could.  I
misdoubt me much that you will not give me your approval, if it were only
for the hundred thousand crowns that I made you hand over with so much
regret; I promise you not to be vexed at anything you can possibly say to
me."  "You mean it, sir, and you promise not to be angry with me,
whatever I may say or do?"  "Yes, yes; I promise all you desire, since
for anything you say it will be all the same, neither more nor less."
Thereupon, taking that written promise as if he would have given it back
to the king, Sully, instead of that, tore it in two, saying, a "There,
sir, as you wish to know, is what I think about such a promise."  "Ha!
morbleu, what are you at?  Are you mad?"  "It is true, sir; I am a madman
and fool; and I wish I were so much thereof as to be the only one in
France."  "Very well, very well: I understand you," said the king, "and
will say no more, in order to keep my word to you; but give me back that
paper."  "Sir," replied Sully, "I have no doubt your Majesty is aware
that you are destroying all the preparatives for your dismarriage, for,
this promise once divulged,--and it is demanded of you for no other
purpose,--never will the queen, your wife, do the things necessary to
make your dismarriage valid, nor indeed will the pope bestow upon it his
Apostolic blessing; that I know of my own knowledge."

The king made no answer, went out of the gallery, entered his closet,
asked for pen and ink, remained there a quarter of an hour, wrote out a
second paper like that which had just been torn up, mounted his horse
without saying a word to Sully whom he met, went hunting, and, during the
day, deposited the new promise of marriage with Henriette d'Entraigues,
who kept it or had it kept in perfect secrecy till the 2d of July, the
time at which her father, the Count of Entiaigues, gave her up to, the
king in consideration of twenty thousand crowns cash.

In the teeth of all these incidents, known or voluntarily ignored, the
negotiations for the annulment of the marriage of Henry IV.  and
Marguerite de Valois were proceeded with at Rome by consent of the two
parties.  Clement VIII. had pronounced on the 17th of December, 1599,
and transmitted to Paris by Cardinal de Joyeuse the decree of annulment.
On the 6th of January, 1600, Henry IV. gave his ambassador, Brulart de
Sillery, powers to conclude at Florence his marriage with Mary
de' Medici, daughter of Francis I. de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany,
and Joan, Archduchess of Austria and niece of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I.
de' Medici, who had often rendered Henry IV. pecuniary services dearly
paid for.  As early as the year 1592 there had been something said about
this project of alliance; it was resumed and carried out on the 5th of
October, 1600, at Florence with lavish magnificence.  Mary embarked at
Leghorn on the 17th with a fleet of seventeen galleys; that of which she
was aboard, the _General,_ was all covered over with jewels, inside and
out; she arrived at Marseilles on the 3d of November, and at Lyons on the
2d of December, where she waited till the 9th for the king, who was
detained by the war with Savoy.  He entered her chamber in the middle of
the night, booted and armed, and next day, in the cathedral-church of
St. John, re-celebrated his marriage, more rich in wealth than it was
destined to be in happiness.  Mary de' Medici was beautiful in 1592, when
she had first been talked about, and her portrait at that time had
charmed the king; but in 1600 she was twenty-seven, tall, fat, with
round, staring eyes and a forbidding air, and ill dressed.  She knew
hardly a word of French; and Henriette d'Entraigues, whom the king had
made Marquise do Verneuil, could not help exclaiming when she saw her,
"So that is the fat bankeress from Florence!"

Henry IV. seemed to have attained in his public and in his domestic life
the pinnacle of earthly fortune and ambition.  He was, at one and the
same time, Catholic king and the head of the Protestant polity in Europe,
accepted by the Catholics as the best, the only possible, king for them
in France.  He was at peace with all Europe, except one petty prince, the
Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I., from whom he demanded back the
marquisate of Saluzzo, or a territorial compensation in France itself on
the French side of the Alps.  After a short campaign, and thanks to
Rosny's ordnance, he obtained what he desired, and by a treaty of January
17, 1601, he added to French territory La Bresse, Le Bugey, the district
of Gex, and the citadel of Bourg, which still held out after the capture
of the town.  He was more and more dear to France, to which he had
restored peace at home as well as abroad, and industrial, commercial,
financial, monumental, and scientific prosperity, until lately unknown.
Sully covered the country with roads, bridges, canals, buildings, and
works of public utility.  The moment the king, after the annulment of his
marriage with Marguerite de Valois, saw his new wife, Mary de' Medici, at
Lyons, she had disgusted him, and she disgusted him more every day by her
cantankerous and headstrong temper; but on the 27th of September, 1601,
she brought him a son, who was to be Louis XIII.  Henry used to go for
distraction from his wife's temper to his favorite, Henriette
d'Entraigues, who knew how to please him at the same time that she was
haughty and exacting towards him.  He set less store upon the peace of
his household than upon that of his kingdom; he had established his
favorite at the Louvre itself, close beside his wife; and, his new
marriage once contracted, he considered his domestic life settled, as
well as his political position.

He was mistaken on both points; he was not at the end of either his
political dangers or his amorous fancies.  Since 1595, his principal
companion in arms, or rather his camp-favorite, Charles de Gontaut, Baron
de Biron, whom he had made admiral, duke, and marshal of France, was, all
the while continuing to serve him in the field, becoming day by day a
determined conspirator against him.  He had begun by being a reckless
gamester; and in that way he lost fifteen hundred thousand crowns, about
six millions (of francs) of our day.  "I don't know," said he, "whether I
shall die on the scaffold or not; but I will never come to the
poorhouse."  He added, "When peace is concluded, the king's love-affairs,
the scarcity of his largesses, and the discontent of many will lead to
plenty of splits, more than are necessary to embroil the most peaceful
kingdoms in the world.  And, should that fail, we shall find in religion
more than we want to put the most lukewarm Huguenots in a passion and the
most penitent Leaguers in a fury."  Henry IV. regarded Biron with tender
affection.  I never loved anybody as I loved him," he used to say;
"I would have trusted my son and my kingdom to him.  He has done me good
service; but he cannot say that I did not save his life three times.  I
pulled him out of the enemy's hands at Fontaine-Francaise so wounded and
so dazed with blows, that, as I had acted soldier in saving him, I also
acted marshal as regarded the retreat."  Biron nevertheless prosecuted
his ambitious designs; the independent sovereignty of Burgundy was what
he aspired to, and any alliance, any plot, was welcome as a
stepping-stone.  "Caesar or nothing," he would say.  "I will not die
without seeing my head on a quarter-crown piece."  He entered into
flagrant conspiracy with the King of Spain, with the Duke of Savoy, with
the French malcontents, the Duke of Bouillon, and the Count of Auvergne.
Henry IV. knew it, and made every effort to appear ignorant of it, to win
Biron back to him; he paid his debts; he sent him on an embassy he
tempted him to confessions which should entitle him to a full pardon.
"Let him weep," he would say, "and I will weep with him; let him remember
what he owes me, and I will not forget what I owe him.  I were loath that
Marshal de Biron should be the first example of my just severity, and
that my reign, which has hitherto been calm and serene, should be charged
all at once with thunder and lightning."  He employed Rosily to bring
Biron to confess.  "My friend," said he, "here is an unhappy man, the
marshal.  It is a serious case.  I am anxious to spare him.  I cannot
bring myself to harm a man who has courage, who has served me so long and
been so familiar with me.  My fear is that, though I spare him, he will
not spare me or my children, or my kingdom.  He would never confess
anything to me; he behaves to me like a man who has some mischief in his
heart.  I beg you to see him.  If he is open with you, assure him that he
may come to me and I will forgive him with all my heart."  Rosny tried
and failed.  "It is not I who want to destroy this man," said the king;
"it is he who wants to destroy himself.  I will myself tell him that, if
he lets himself be brought to justice, he has no mercy whatever to expect
from me."  He saw Biron at Fontainebleau, received him after dinner,
spoke to him with his usual familiarity, and pointing to his own
equestrian statue in marble which was on the mantelpiece, said, "What
would the King cf Spain say if he saw me like that, eh?"  "He would not
be much afraid of you," answered Biron.  Henry gave him a stern look.
The marshal tried to take back his words: "I mean, sir, if he were to see
you in that statue yonder, and not in your own person."  The retreat was
not successful; the shot had taken effect; Henry left the room, went back
into his closet, and gave orders to his captain of the guard to arrest
him.  Then he returned to the room and said, "Marshal, reflect upon what
I have said to you."  Biron preserved a frigid silence.  "Adieu, Baron de
Biron!" said the king, thus by a single word annulling all his dignities,
and sending him before his proper judges to answer for his treasons.  On
the 18th of June, 1602, he brought the marshal before the court of
Parliament.  The inquiry lasted three weeks.  Biron was unanimously
condemned to death by a hundred and twenty-seven judges "for conspiracies
against the king's person, attempts upon his kingdom, and treasons and
treaties with the enemies of the kingdom."  The king gave to this
sentence all the alleviations compatible with public interests.  He
allowed Biron to make his will, remitted the confiscation of his
property, and ordered that the execution should take place at the
Bastille, in the presence of certain functionaries, and not on the Place
de Greve and before the mob.  When Biron found himself convicted and
sentenced, he burst into a fury, loaded his judges with insults, and
roared out that "if he were driven to despair and frenzy, he would
strangle half of those present and force the other half to kill him."
The executioner was obliged to strike him unawares.  Those present
withdrew dumbfounded at the crime, the prisoner's rage, the execution,
and the scene.

When the question of conspiracies and conspirators--with Spain against
France and her king had thus been publicly raised and decided, it
entailed another: had the Spanish monks, the Jesuits, to call them by
their own name, taken part therein?  Should proceedings accordingly be
taken against them?  They were no longer in France; they had been
banished on the 29th of December, 1594, by a solemn decree of Parliament,
after John Chatel's attempt.  They were demanding their return.  The pope
was demanding it for them.  If at other times," they said, "the society
had shown hostility to France and her king, it was because, though well
received everywhere else, especially in the dominions of the King of
Spain, they had met in France with nothing but persecutions and insults.
If Henry would be pleased to testify good will towards them, he would
soon find them devoted to his person and his throne."  The question was
debated at the king's council, and especially between Henry IV. and Sully
when they were together.

[Illustration: Henry IV. and his Ministers----138]

Sully did not like the return of the Jesuits.  "They are away," said he;
"let them remain so.  If they return, it will be all very fine for them
to wish, and all very fine for them to act; their presence, their
discourse, their influence, involuntary though it be, will be opposed to
you, will heat your enemies, will irritate your friends; hatred and
mistrust will go on increasing."  The king was of a different opinion.
"Of necessity," he said to Sully, "I must now do one of two things: admit
the Jesuits purely and simply, relieve them from the defamation and
insults with which they have been blasted, and put to the proof all their
fine sentiments and excellent promises, or use against them all
severities that can be imagined to keep them from ever coming near me and
my dominions.  In which latter case, there is no doubt it would be enough
to reduce them to utter despair, and to thoughts of attempting my life;
which would render me miserable or listless, living constantly in
suspicion of being poisoned or assassinated, for these gentry have
communications and correspondence everywhere, and great dexterity in
disposing men's minds as it seems good to them.  It were better for me to
be dead, being therein of Caesar's opinion that the pleasantest death is
that which is least foreseen and apprehended."  The king then called to
remembrance the eight projected or attempted assassinations which, since
the failure of John Chatel, from 1596 to 1603, had been, and clearly
established to have been, directed against him.  Upon this, Sully at once
went over to the king's opinion.  In September, 1603, letters for the
restoration of the Jesuits were issued and referred to the Parliament of
Paris.  They there met, on the 24th of December, with strong opposition
and remonstrances that have remained celebrated, the mouthpiece being the
premier president Achille de Harlay, the same who had courageously
withstood the Duke of Guise.  He conjured the king to withdraw his
letters patent, and to leave intact the decree which had banished the
Jesuits.  This was not, he said, the feeling of the Parliament of Paris
only, but also of the Parliaments of Normandy and Burgundy; that is, of
two thirds of the magistrates throughout the king dom.  Henry was touched
and staggered.  He thanked the Parliament most affectionately; but, "We
must not reproach the, Jesuits for the League," said he; "it was the
fault of the times.  Leave me to deal with this business.  I have managed
others far more difficult."  The Parliament obeyed, though with regret,
and on the 2d of January, 1604, the king's letters patent were
enregistered.

This was not the only business that Henry had at heart; he had another of
another sort, and, for him, more difficult to manage.  In February, 1609,
he saw, for the first time, at the court of France, Charlotte Marguerite,
third daughter of the Constable de Montmorency, only sixteen years old.
"There was at that time," say all contemporaries, "nothing so beautiful
under heaven, or more graceful, or more perfect."  Before presenting her
at court, her father had promised her to Francis de Bassompierre,
descended from a branch of the house of Cloves, thirty years old, and
already famous for his wit, his magnificence, and his gallantry.  He was
one of the principal gentlemen of the chamber to the king.  Henry IV.
sent for him one morning, made him kneel on a hassock in front of his
bed, and said that, obtaining no sleep, he had been thinking of him the
night before, and of getting him married.  "As for me," says
Bassompierre, "who was thinking of nothing so little as of what he wanted
to say to me, I answered that, if it were not for the constable's gout,
it would have already been done.  'No,' said he to me, 'I thought of
getting you married to Mlle. d'Aumale, and, in consequence of that
marriage, of renewing the Duchy of Aumale in your person.'  I asked him
if he wanted me to have two wives.  Then he said to me with a deep sigh,
'Bassompierre, I will speak to thee as a friend.  I have become not only
enamoured, but mad, beside myself, about Mlle. de Montmorency.  If thou
wed her and she love thee, I shall hate thee; if she loved me, thou
wouldst hate me.  It is better that this should not be the cause of
destroying our good understanding, for I love thee affectionately and
sincerely.  I am resolved to marry her to my nephew the Prince of Conde,
and keep her near my family.  That shall be the consolation and the
support of the old age which is coming upon me.  I shall give my nephew,
who is young and loves hunting ten thousand times better than women, a
hundred thousand francs a year to pass his time, and I want no other
favor from her but her affection, without looking for anything more."

Thoroughly astounded and put out as he was, Bassompierre reflected that
it was, so far as he was concerned, "an amour modified by marriage," and
that it would be better to give way to the king with a good grace: and,
"I withdraw, sir," he said, on very good terms as regarded Mdlle. de
Montmorency as well as himself.  The king embraced him, wept, promised to
love him dearly, saw him again in the evening in company with Mdlle. de
Montmorency, who knew nothing, and conversed a long while with the young
princess.  When she retired, perceiving that Bassompierre was watching
her, she shrugged her shoulders, as if to hint to him what the king had
said to her.  "I lie not," says Bassompierre: "that single action pierced
me to the heart; I spent two days in tormenting myself like one
possessed, without sleeping, drinking, or eating."  Two or three days
afterwards the Prince of Conde, announced that he intended to marry
Mdlle.  de Montmorency.  The court and the city talked of nothing but
this romance and the betrothal which immediately followed.

Henry IV. was fifty-six.  He had been given to gallantry all his life;
and he had never been faithful or exacting in his attachments.  He was
not one of those on whom ridicule fastens as fair prey; but he was so
under the dominion of his new passion that the young Princess of Conde,
who had at first exclaimed, "Jesus, my God, he is mad!"  began to fancy
to herself that she would be queen before long.  Mary de Medici became
jealous and uneasy.  She determined to take her precautions, and demanded
to be crowned before the king set out on the campaign which, it was said,
he was about to commence against Austria in accordance with his grand
design and in concert with the Protestant princes of Germany, his allies.
The Prince of Conde had a fit of jealousy; he carried off his wife first
into Picardy; and then to Brussels, where he left her.  Henry IV., in
respect, first, of going to see her, then of getting her to come back,
then of threatening to go after her out of France, took some wild and
puerile steps, which, being coincident with his warlike announcements and
preparations, caused some strange language to be used, and were injurious
to his personal weight as well as to his government's character for
steadiness.  Sully grew impatient and uneasy.  Mary de' Medici was
insisting strongly upon being crowned.  The prospect of this coronation
was displeasing to Henry IV., and he did not conceal it.  "Hey! my
friend," he said to Sully: "I know not what is the meaning of it, but my
heart tells me that some misfortune will happen to me."  He was sitting
on a low chair which had been made for him by Sully's orders at the
Arsenal, thinking and beating his fingers on his spectacle-case; then all
on a sudden he jumped up, and slapping his hands upon his thighs, "By
God," he said, "I shall die in this city, and shall never go out of it.
They will kill me; I see quite well that they have no other remedy in
their dangers but my death.  Ah! accursed coronation!  Thou wilt be the
cause of my death."  "Jesus! Sir," cried Sully, "what fancy of yours is
this?  If it continue, I am of opinion that you should break off this
anointment and coronation, and expedition and war; if you please to give
me orders, it shall soon be done."  "Yes, break off the coronation," said
the king: "let me hear no more about it; I shall have my mind at rest
from divers fancies which certain warnings have put into it.  To bide
nothing from you, I have been told that I was to be killed at the first
grand ceremony I should undertake, and that I should die in a carriage."
"You never told me that, sir; and so have I often been astounded to see
you cry out when in a carriage, as if you had dreaded this petty peril,
after having so many times seen you amidst cannon-balls, musketry,
lance-thrusts, pike-thrusts, and sword-thrusts; without being a bit
afraid.  Since your mind is so exercised thereby, if I were you, I would
go away to-morrow, let the coronation take place without you, or put it
off to another time, and not enter Paris for a long while, or in a
carriage.  If you please, I will send word to Notre-Dame and St. Denis
to stop everything and to withdraw the workmen."  "I am very much
inclined," said the king; " but what will my wife say?  For she hath
gotten this coronation marvellously into her head."  "She may say what
she likes; but I cannot think that, when she knows your opinion about it,
she will persist any longer."

Whatever Sully might say, Mary de' Medici "took infinite offence at the
king for his alarms: the matter was disputed for three days, with high
words on all sides, and at last the laborers were sent back to work
again."

Henry, in spite of his presentiments, made no change in his plans; he did
not go away; he did not defer the queen's coronation; on the contrary, he
had it proclaimed on the 12th of May, 1610, that she would be crowned
next day, the 13th, at St. Denis, and that on Sunday, the 16th, she would
make her entry into Paris.  On Friday, the 14th, he had an idea of going
to the Arsenal to see Sully, who was ill; we have the account of this
visit and of the king's assassination given by Malherbe, at that time
attached to the service of Henry IV., in a letter written on the 19th of
May, from the reports of eye-witnesses, and it is here reproduced, word
for word.

[Illustration: The Arsenal in the Reign of Henry IV.----143]

"The king set out soon after dinner to go to the Arsenal.  He deliberated
a long while whether he should go out, and several times said to the
queen, 'My dear, shall I go or not?'  He even went out two or three
times, and then all on a sudden returned, and said to the queen, 'My
dear, shall I really go?' and again he had doubts about going or
remaining.  At last he made up his mind to go, and, having kissed the
queen several times, bade her adieu.  Amongst other things that were
remarked he said to her, 'I shall only go there and back; I shall be here
again almost directly.'  When he got to the bottom of the steps, where
his carriage was waiting for him, M. de Praslin, his captain of the
guard, would have attended him, but said to him, 'Get you gone; I want
nobody; go about your business.'

"Thus having about him only a few gentlemen and some footmen, he got into
his carriage, took his place on the back seat at the left hand side, and
made M. d'Epernon sit at the right.  Next to him, by the door, were M. de
Montbazon and M. de la Force; and by the door on M. d'Epernon's side were
Marshal de Lavardin and M. de Crsqui; on the front seat the Marquis of
Mirabeau and the first equerry.  When he came to the Croix-du-Tiroir he
was asked whither it was his pleasure to go; he gave orders to go towards
St. Innocent.  On arriving at Rue de la Ferronnerie, which is at the end
of that of St. Honors on the way to that of St. Denis, opposite the
Salamandre he met a cart, which obliged the king's carriage to go nearer
to the ironmongers' shops which are on the St. Innocent side, and even to
proceed somewhat more slowly, without stopping, however, though somebody,
who was in a hurry to get the gossip printed, has written to that effect.
Here it was that an abominable assassin, who had posted himself against
the nearest shop, which is that with the _Coeur couronng perce d'une
fleche,_ darted upon the king, and dealt him, one after the other, two
blows with a knife in the left side; one, catching him between the armpit
and the nipple, went upwards without doing more than graze; the other
catches him between the fifth and sixth ribs, and, taking a downward
direction, cuts a large artery of those called venous.  The king, by
mishap, and as if to further tempt this monster, had his left hand on the
shoulder of M. de Montbazon, and with the other was leaning on M.
d'Epernon, to whom he was speaking.  He uttered a low cry and made a few
movements.  M. de Montbazon having asked, 'What is the matter, sir?' he
answered, 'It is nothing,' twice; but the second time so low that there
was no making sure.  These are the only words he spoke after he was
wounded.

"In a moment the carriage turned towards the Louvre.  When he was at the
steps where he had got into the carriage, which are those of the queen's
room, some wine was given him.  Of course some one had already run
forward to bear the news.  Sieur de Csrisy, lieutenant of M. de Praslin's
company, having raised his head, he made a few movements with his eyes,
then closed them immediately, without opening them again any more.  He
was carried up stairs by M. de Montbazon and Count de Curzon en Quercy,
and laid on the bed in his closet, and at two o'clock carried to the bed
in his chamber, where he was all the next day and Sunday.  Somebody went
and gave him holy water.  I tell you nothing about the queen's tears; all
that must be imagined.  As for the people of Paris, I think they never
wept so much as on this occasion."

The grief was deep and general, at the court as well as amongst the
people, in the provinces as well as at Paris; and with the grief were
mingled surprise and alarm, and an idea, also, that the king had died
unhappy and uneasy.  On the 14th of May, in the morning, before starting
upon his visit to the Arsenal, he had gone to hear mass at the
Feuillants' [order of St.  Bernard]; and on his return he said to the
Duke of Guise and to Bassompierre, who were in attendance, "You do not
understand me now, you and the rest; but I shall die one of these days,
and, when you have lost me, you will know my worth and the difference
there is between me and other kings."  "My God, sir," said Bassompierre,
"will you never cease vexing us by telling us that you will soon die?
You will live, please God, some good, long years.  You are only in the
flower of your age, in perfect bodily health and strength, full of honor
more than any mortal man, in the most flourishing kingdom in the world,
loved and adored by your subjects, with fine houses, fine women, fine
children who are growing up."  Henry sighed as he said, "My friend, all
that must be left."

These are the last words that are to be found of his in contemporary
accounts; a few hours afterwards he was smitten to death in his carriage,
brought back to the Louvre, laid out on his bed; one of his councillors
of state, M. de Vie, seated on the same bed, had put to his mouth his
cross of the order, and directed his thoughts to God; Milon, his chief
physician, was at the bedside, weeping: his surgeons wanted to dress his
wounds; a sigh died away on his lips, and "It is all over," said the
physician; "he is gone."  Guise and Bassompierre went out to look after
what was passing out of doors; they met "M. de Sully with some forty
horse, who, when he came up to us, said to us in tearful wise,
'Gentlemen, if the service ye vowed to the king is impressed upon your
souls as deeply as it ought to be with all good Frenchmen, swear all of
ye this moment to keep towards the king his son and successor the same
allegiance that ye showed him, and to spend your lives and your blood in
avenging his death?'   'Sir,' said Bassompierre, 'it is for us to cause
this oath to be taken by others; we have no need to be exhorted thereto;'
Sully turned his eyes upon him, he adds, and then went and shut himself
up in the Bastille, sending out to 'seize and carry off all the bread
that could be found in the market and at the bakers'.  He also despatched
a message in haste to M. de Rohan, his son-in-law, bidding him face about
with six thousand Swiss, whose colonel-general he was, and march on