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+The Project Gutenberg EBook History of United Netherlands, 1592-94
+#65 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
+
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+Title: History of the United Netherlands, 1592-94
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+Author: John Lothrop Motley
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4865]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 9, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY UNITED NETHERLANDS, 1592-94 ***
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger
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+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 65
+
+History of the United Netherlands, 1592-1594
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+     Influence of the rule and character of Philip II.--Heroism of the
+     sixteenth century--Contest for the French throne--Character and
+     policy of the Duke of Mayenne--Escape of the Duke of Guise from
+     Castle Tours--Propositions for the marriage of the Infanta--Plotting
+     of the Catholic party--Grounds of Philip's pretensions to the crown
+     of France--Motives of the Duke of Parma maligned by Commander Moreo
+     --He justifies himself to the king--View of the private relations
+     between Philip and the Duke of Mayenne and their sentiments towards
+     each other--Disposition of the French politicians and soldiers
+     towards Philip--Peculiar commercial pursuits of Philip--Confused
+     state of affairs in France--Treachery of Philip towards the Duke of
+     Parma--Recall of the duke to Spain--His sufferings and death.
+
+The People--which has been generally regarded as something naturally
+below its rulers, and as born to be protected and governed, paternally or
+otherwise, by an accidental selection from its own species, which by some
+mysterious process has shot up much nearer to heaven than itself--is
+often described as brutal, depraved, self-seeking, ignorant, passionate,
+licentious, and greedy.
+
+It is fitting, therefore, that its protectors should be distinguished, at
+great epochs of the world's history, by an absence of such objectionable
+qualities.
+
+It must be confessed, however, that if the world had waited for heroes--
+during the dreary period which followed the expulsion of something that
+was called Henry III. of France from the gates of his capital, and
+especially during the time that followed hard upon the decease of that
+embodiment of royalty--its axis must have ceased to turn for a long
+succession of years.  The Bearnese was at least alive, and a man. He
+played his part with consummate audacity and skill; but alas for an epoch
+or a country in which such a shape--notwithstanding all its engaging and
+even commanding qualities--looked upon as an incarnation of human
+greatness!
+
+But the chief mover of all things--so far as one man can be prime mover--
+was still the diligent scribe who lived in the Escorial.  It was he whose
+high mission it was to blow the bellows of civil war, and to scatter
+curses over what had once been the smiling abodes of human creatures,
+throughout the leading countries of Christendom.  The throne of France
+was vacant, nominally as well as actually, since--the year 1589.  During
+two-and-twenty years preceding that epoch he had scourged the provinces,
+once constituting the richest and most enlightened portions of his
+hereditary domains, upon the theory that without the Spanish Inquisition
+no material prosperity was possible on earth, nor any entrance permitted
+to the realms of bliss beyond the grave.  Had every Netherlander
+consented to burn his Bible, and to be burned himself should he be found
+listening to its holy precepts if read to him in shop, cottage, farm-
+house, or castle; and had he furthermore consented to renounce all the
+liberal institutions which his ancestors had earned, in the struggle of
+centuries, by the sweat of their brows and the blood of, their hearts;
+his benignant proprietor and master, who lived at the ends of the earth,
+would have consented at almost any moment to peace.  His arms were ever
+open.  Let it not be supposed that this is the language of sarcasm or
+epigram.  Stripped of the decorous sophistication by which human beings
+are so fond of concealing their naked thoughts from each other, this was
+the one simple dogma always propounded by Philip.  Grimace had done its
+worst, however, and it was long since it had exercised any power in the
+Netherlands.  The king and the Dutchmen understood each other; and the
+plain truths with which those republicans answered the imperial proffers
+of mediation, so frequently renewed, were something new, and perhaps not
+entirely unwholesome in diplomacy.
+
+It is not an inviting task to abandon the comparatively healthy
+atmosphere of the battle-field, the blood-stained swamp, the murderous
+trench--where human beings, even if communing only by bullets and push of
+pike, were at least dealing truthfully with each other--and to descend
+into those subterranean regions where the effluvia of falsehood becomes
+almost too foul for ordinary human organisation.
+
+Heroes in those days, in any country, there were few.  William the Silent
+was dead.  De la Noue was dead.  Duplessis-Mornay was living, but his
+influence over his royal master was rapidly diminishing.  Cecil, Hatton,
+Essex, Howard, Raleigh, James Croft, Valentine Dale, John Norris, Roger
+Williams, the "Virgin Queen" herself--does one of these chief agents in
+public affairs, or do all of them together, furnish a thousandth part of
+that heroic whole which the England of the sixteenth century presents to
+every imagination?  Maurice of Nassau-excellent soldier and engineer as
+he had already proved himself--had certainly not developed much of the
+heroic element, although thus far he was walking straightforward like a
+man, in the path of duty, with the pithy and substantial Lewis William
+ever at his side.  Olden-Barneveld--tough burgher-statesman, hard-headed,
+indomitable man of granite--was doing more work, and doing it more
+thoroughly, than any living politician, but he was certainly not of the
+mythological brotherhood who inhabit the serene regions of space beyond
+the moon.  He was not the son of god or goddess, destined, after removal
+from this sphere, to shine with planetary lustre, among other
+constellations, upon the scenes of mortal action.  Those of us who are
+willing to rise-or to descend if the phrase seems wiser--to the idea of
+a self-governing people must content ourselves, for this epoch, with the
+fancy of a hero-people and a people-king.
+
+A plain little republic, thrusting itself uninvited into the great
+political family-party of heaven-anointed sovereigns and long-descended
+nobles, seemed a somewhat repulsive phenomenon.  It became odious and
+dangerous when by the blows it could deal in battle, the logic it could
+chop in council, it indicated a remote future for the world, in which
+right divine and regal paraphernalia might cease to be as effective
+stage-properties as they had always been considered.
+
+Yet it will be difficult for us to find the heroic individualised very
+perceptibly at this period, look where we may.  Already there seemed
+ground for questioning the comfortable fiction that the accidentally
+dominant families and castes were by nature wiser, better, braver than
+that much-contemned entity, the People.  What if the fearful heresy
+should gain ground that the People was at least as wise, honest, and
+brave as its masters?  What if it should become a recognised fact that
+the great individuals and castes, whose wealth and station furnished them
+with ample time and means for perfecting themselves in the science of
+government, were rather devoting their leisure to the systematic filling
+of their own pockets than to the hiving up of knowledge for the good of
+their fellow creatures?  What if the whole theory of hereditary
+superiority should suddenly exhale?  What if it were found out that we
+were all fellow-worms together, and that those which had crawled highest
+were not necessarily the least slimy?
+
+Meantime it will be well for us, in order to understand what is called
+the Past, to scrutinise somewhat closely that which was never meant to be
+revealed.  To know the springs which once controlled the world's
+movements, one must ponder the secret thoughts, purposes, aspirations,
+and baffled attempts of the few dozen individuals who once claimed that
+world in fee-simple.  Such researches are not in a cheerful field; for
+the sources of history are rarely fountains of crystal, bubbling through
+meadows of asphodel.  Vast and noisome are the many sewers which have
+ever run beneath decorous Christendom.
+
+Some of the leading military events in France and Flanders, patent to all
+the world, which grouped themselves about the contest for the French
+throne, as the central point in the history of Philip's proposed world-
+empire, have already been indicated.
+
+It was a species of triangular contest--so far as the chief actors were
+concerned--for that vacant throne.  Philip, Mayenne, Henry of Navarre,
+with all the adroitness which each possessed, were playing for the
+splendid prize.
+
+Of Philip it is not necessary to speak.  The preceding volumes of this
+work have been written in vain, if the reader has not obtained from
+irrefragable testimony--the monarch's own especially--a sufficient
+knowledge of that human fetish before which so much of contemporary
+humanity grovelled.
+
+The figure of Navarre is also one of the most familiar shapes in history.
+
+As for the Duke of Mayenne, he had been, since the death of his brother
+the Balafre, ostensible leader of the League, and was playing, not
+without skill, a triple game.
+
+Firstly, he hoped for the throne for himself.
+
+Secondly, he was assisting the King of Spain to obtain that dignity.
+
+Thirdly, he was manoeuvring in dull, dumb, but not ineffective manner, in
+favour of Navarre.
+
+So comprehensive and self-contradictory a scheme would seem to indicate
+an elasticity of principle and a fertility of resource not often
+vouchsafed to man.
+
+Certainly one of the most pregnant lessons of history is furnished in
+the development of these cabals, nor is it, in this regard, of great
+importance whether the issue was to prove them futile or judicious.  It
+is sufficient for us now, that when those vanished days constituted the
+Present--the vital atmosphere of Christendom--the world's affairs were
+controlled by those plotters and their subordinates, and it is therefore
+desirable for us to know what manner of men they were, and how they
+played their parts.
+
+Nor should it ever be forgotten that the leading motive with all was
+supposed to be religion.  It was to maintain the supremacy of the Roman
+Church, or to vindicate, to a certain extent, liberty of conscience,
+through the establishment of a heterodox organisation, that all these
+human beings of various lineage and language throughout Christendom had
+been cutting each other's throats for a quarter of a century.
+
+Mayenne was not without courage in the field when he found himself there,
+but it was observed of him that he spent more time at table than the
+Bearnese in sleep, and that he was so fat as to require the assistance of
+twelve men to put him in the saddle again whenever he fell from his
+horse.  Yet slow fighter as he was, he was a most nimble intriguer.  As
+for his private character, it was notoriously stained with every vice,
+nor was there enough of natural intelligence or superior acquirement to
+atone for his, crapulous; licentious, shameless life.  His military
+efficiency at important emergencies was impaired and his life endangered
+by vile diseases.  He was covetous and greedy beyond what was considered
+decent even in that cynical age.  He received subsidies and alms with
+both hands from those who distrusted and despised him, but who could not
+eject him from his advantageous position.
+
+He wished to arrive at the throne of France.  As son of Francis of Guise,
+as brother of the great Balafre, he considered himself entitled to the
+homage of the fishwomen and the butchers' halls.  The constitution of the
+country in that age making a People impossible, the subtle connection
+between a high-born intriguer and the dregs of a populace, which can only
+exist in societies of deep chasms and precipitous contrasts, was easily
+established.
+
+The duke's summary dealing with the sixteen tyrants of Paris in the
+matter of the president's murder had, however, loosened his hold on what
+was considered the democracy; but this was at the time when his schemes
+were silently swinging towards the Protestant aristocracy; at the moment
+when Politica was taking the place of Madam League in his secret
+affections.  Nevertheless, so long as there seemed a chance, he was
+disposed to work the mines for his own benefit.  His position as
+lieutenant-general gave him an immense advantage for intriguing with both
+sides, and--in case his aspirations for royalty were baffled--for
+obtaining the highest possible price for himself in that auction in which
+Philip and the Bearnese were likely to strain all their resources in
+outbidding each other.
+
+On one thing his heart was fixed.  His brother's son should at least not
+secure the golden prize if he could prevent it.  The young Duke of Guise,
+who had been immured in Castle Tours since the famous murder of his
+father and uncle, had made his escape by a rather neat stratagem.  Having
+been allowed some liberty for amusing himself in the corridors in the
+neighbourhood of his apartment, he had invented a game of hop, skip, and
+jump up stairs and down, which he was wont to play with the soldiers of
+the guard, as a solace to the tediousness of confinement.  One day he
+hopped and skipped up the staircase with a rapidity which excited the
+admiration of the companions of his sport, slipped into his room, slammed
+and bolted the doors, and when the guard, after in vain waiting a
+considerable tine for him to return and resume the game, at last forced
+an entrance, they found the bird flown out of window.  Rope-ladders,
+confederates, fast-galloping post-horses did the rest, and at last the
+young duke joined his affectionate uncle in camp, much to that eminent
+relative's discomfiture.  Philip gave alternately conflicting
+instructions to Farnese--sometimes that he should encourage the natural
+jealousy between the pair; sometimes that he should cause them to work
+harmoniously together for the common good--that common good being the
+attainment by the King of Spain of the sovereignty of France.
+
+But it was impossible, as already intimated, for Mayenne to work
+harmoniously with his nephew.  The Duke of Guise might marry with the
+infanta and thus become King of France by the grace of God and Philip.
+To such a consummation in the case of his uncle there stood, as we know,
+an insuperable obstacle in the shape of the Duchess of Mayenne.  Should
+it come to this at last, it was certain that the Duke would make any and
+every combination to frustrate such a scheme.  Meantime he kept his own
+counsel, worked amiably with Philip, Parma, and the young duke, and
+received money in overflowing measure, and poured into his bosom from
+that Spanish monarch whose veterans in the Netherlands were maddened by
+starvation into mutiny.
+
+Philip's plans were a series of alternatives.  France he regarded as the
+property of his family.  Of that there could be no doubt at all.  He
+meant to put the crown upon his own head, unless the difficulties in the
+way should prove absolutely insuperable.  In that case he claimed France
+and all its inhabitants as the property of his daughter.  The Salic law
+was simply a pleasantry, a bit of foolish pedantry, an absurdity.  If
+Clara Isabella, as daughter of Isabella of France, as grandchild of Henry
+II., were not manifestly the owner of France--queen-proprietary, as the
+Spanish doctors called it--then there was no such thing, so he thought,
+as inheritance of castle, farm-house, or hovel--no such thing as property
+anywhere in the world.  If the heiress of the Valois could not take that
+kingdom as her private estate, what security could there ever be for any
+possessions public or private?
+
+This was logical reasoning enough for kings and their counsellors.  There
+was much that might be said, however, in regard to special laws.  There
+was no doubt that great countries, with all their livestock--human or
+otherwise--belonged to an individual, but it was not always so clear who
+that individual was.  This doubt gave much work and comfortable fees to
+the lawyers.  There was much learned lore concerning statutes of descent,
+cutting off of entails, actions for ejectment, difficulties of enforcing
+processes, and the like, to occupy the attention of diplomatists,
+politicians and other sages.  It would have caused general hilarity,
+however, could it have been suggested that the live-stock had art or part
+in the matter; that sheep, swine, or men could claim a choice of their
+shepherds and butchers.
+
+Philip--humbly satisfied, as he always expressed himself, so long as the
+purity of the Roman dogmas and the supremacy of the Romish Church over
+the whole earth were maintained--affected a comparative indifference as
+to whether he should put the crown of St. Louis and of Hugh Capet upon
+his own grey head or whether he should govern France through his daughter
+and her husband.  Happy the man who might exchange the symbols of mutual
+affection with Philip's daughter.
+
+The king had various plans in regard to the bestowal of the hand thus
+richly endowed.  First and foremost it was suggested--and the idea was
+not held too monstrous to be even believed in by some conspicuous
+individuals--that he proposed espousing his daughter himself.  The pope
+was to be relied on, in this case, to give a special dispensation.  Such
+a marriage, between parties too closely related to be usually united in
+wedlock, might otherwise shock the prejudices of the orthodox.  His late
+niece and wife was dead, so that there was no inconvenience on that
+score, should the interests of his dynasty, his family, and, above all,
+of the Church, impel him, on mature reflection, to take for his fourth
+marriage one step farther within the forbidden degrees than he had done
+in his third.  Here is the statement, which, if it have no other value,
+serves to show the hideous designs of which the enemies of Philip
+sincerely believed that monarch capable.
+
+"But God is a just God," wrote Sir Edward Stafford, "and if with all
+things past, that be true that the king ('videlicet' Henry IV.) yesterday
+assured me to be true, and that both his ambassador from Venice writ to
+him and Monsieur de Luxembourg from Rome, that the Count Olivarez had
+made a great instance to the pope (Sixtus V.) a little afore his death,
+to permit his master to marry his daughter, no doubt God will not leave
+it long unpunished."
+
+Such was the horrible tale which was circulated and believed in by Henry
+the Great of France and by eminent nobles and ambassadors, and at least
+thought possible by the English envoy.  By such a family arrangement it
+was obvious that the conflicting claims of father and daughter to the
+proprietorship of France would be ingeniously adjusted, and the children
+of so well assorted a marriage might reign in undisputed legitimacy over
+France and Spain, and the rest of the world-monarchy.  Should the king
+decide on the whole against this matrimonial project, should Innocent or
+Clement prove as intractable as Sixtus, then it would be necessary to
+decide among various candidates for the Infanta's hand.
+
+In Mayenne's Opinion the Duke of Guise was likely to be the man; but
+there is little doubt that Philip, in case these more cherished schemes
+should fail, had made up his mind--so far as he ever did make up his mind
+upon anything--to select his nephew the Archduke Ernest, brother of the
+Emperor Rudolph, for his son-in-law.  But it was not necessary to make an
+immediate choice.  His quiver was full of archdukes, any one of whom
+would be an eligible candidate, while not one of them would be likely to
+reject the Infanta with France on her wedding-finger.  Meantime there was
+a lion in the path in the shape of Henry of Navarre.
+
+Those who disbelieve in the influence of the individual on the fate of
+mankind may ponder the possible results to history and humanity, had the
+dagger of Jacques Clement entered the stomach of Henry IV. rather than of
+Henry III. in the summer of 1589, or the perturbations in the world's
+movements that might have puzzled philosophers had there been an
+unsuspected mass of religious conviction revolving unseen in the mental
+depths of the Bearnese.  Conscience, as it has from time to time
+exhibited itself on this planet of ours, is a powerful agent in
+controlling political combinations; but the instances are unfortunately
+not rare, so far as sublunary progress is concerned, in which the absence
+of this dominant influence permits a prosperous rapidity to individual
+careers.  Eternal honour to the noble beings, true chieftains among men,
+who have forfeited worldly power or sacrificed life itself at the dictate
+of religious or moral conviction--even should the basis of such
+conviction appear to some of us unsafe or unreal.  Shame on the tongue
+which would malign or ridicule the martyr or the honest convert to any
+form of Christian faith!  But who can discover aught that is inspiring to
+the sons of men in conversions--whether of princes or of peasants--
+wrought, not at risk of life and pelf, but for the sake of securing and
+increasing the one and the other?
+
+Certainly the Bearnese was the most candid of men.  It was this very
+candour, this freedom from bigotry, this want of conviction, and this
+openness to conviction, that made him so dangerous and caused so much
+anxiety to Philip.  The Roman Church might or might not be strengthened
+by the re-conversion of the legitimate heir of France, but it was certain
+that the claims of Philip and the Infanta to the proprietorship of that
+kingdom would be weakened by the process.  While the Spanish king knew
+himself to be inspired in all his actions by a single motive, the
+maintenance of the supremacy of the Roman Church, he was perfectly aware
+that the Prince of Bearne was not so single-hearted nor so conscientious
+as himself.
+
+The Prince of Bearne--heretic, son of heretics, great chieftain of
+heretics--was supposed capable of becoming orthodox whenever the Pope
+would accept his conversion.  Against this possibility Philip struggled
+with all his strength.
+
+Since Pope Sixtus V., who had a weakness for Henry, there had been
+several popes.  Urban VII., his immediate successor, had reigned but
+thirteen days.  Gregory XIV.  (Sfondrato) had died 15th October, 1591,
+ten months after his election.  Fachinetti, with the title of Innocent
+IX., had reigned two months, from 29th October to 29th December, 1591.
+He died of "Spanish poison," said Envoy Umton, as coolly as if speaking
+of gout, or typhus, or any other recognised disorder.  Clement VIII.
+(Aldobrandini) was elected 30th January, 1592.  He was no lover of Henry,
+and lived in mortal fear of Philip, while it must be conceded that the
+Spanish ambassador at Rome was much given to brow-beating his Holiness.
+Should he dare to grant that absolution which was the secret object of
+the Bearnese, there was no vengeance, hinted the envoy, that Philip would
+not wreak on the holy father.  He would cut off his supplies from Naples
+and Sicily, and starve him and all-his subjects; he would frustrate all
+his family schemes, he would renounce him, he would unpope him, he would
+do anything that man and despot could do, should the great shepherd dare
+to re-admit this lost sheep, and this very black sheep, into the fold of
+the faithful.
+
+As for Henry himself, his game--for in his eyes it was nothing but a
+game--lay every day plainer and plainer before him.  He was indispensable
+to the heretics.  Neither England, nor Holland, nor Protestant Germany,
+could renounce him, even should he renounce "the religion."  Nor could
+the French Huguenots exist without that protection which, even although
+Catholic, he could still extend to them when he should be accepted as
+king by the Catholics.
+
+Hereditary monarch by French law and history, released from his heresy by
+the authority that could bind and loose, purged as with hyssop and washed
+whiter than snow, it should go hard with him if Philip, and Farnese, and
+Mayenne, and all the pikemen and reiters they might muster, could keep
+him very long from the throne of his ancestors.
+
+Nothing could match the ingenuousness with which he demanded the
+instruction whenever the fitting time for it should arrive; as if,
+instead of having been a professor both of the Calvinist and Catholic
+persuasion, and having relapsed from both, he had been some innocent
+Peruvian or Hindoo, who was invited to listen to preachings and to
+examine dogmas for the very first time in his life.
+
+Yet Philip had good grounds for hoping a favourable result from his
+political and military manoeuvre.  He entertained little doubt that
+France belonged to him or to his daughter; that the most powerful party
+in the country was in favour of his claims, provided he would pay the
+voters liberally enough for their support, and that if the worst came to
+the worst it would always be in his power to dismember the kingdom, and
+to reserve the lion's share for himself, while distributing some of the
+provinces to the most prominent of his confederates.
+
+The sixteen tyrants of Paris had already, as we have seen, urged the
+crown upon him, provided he would establish in France the Inquisition,
+the council of Trent, and other acceptable institutions, besides
+distributing judiciously a good many lucrative offices among various
+classes of his adherents.
+
+The Duke of Mayenne, in his own name and that of all the Catholics of
+France, formally demanded of him to maintain two armies, forty thousand
+men in all, to be respectively under command of the duke himself and of
+Alexander Farnese, and regularly to pay for them.  These propositions,
+as has been seen, were carried into effect as nearly as possible, at
+enormous expense to Philip's exchequer, and he naturally expected as good
+faith on the part of Mayenne.
+
+In the same paper in which the demand was made Philip was urged to
+declare himself king of France.  He was assured that the measure could
+be accomplished "by freely bestowing marquisates, baronies, and peerages,
+in order to content the avarice and ambition of many persons, without at
+the same time dissipating the greatness from which all these members
+depended.  Pepin and Charlemagne," said the memorialists, "who were
+foreigners and Saxons by nation, did as much in order to get possession
+of a kingdom to which they had no other right except that which they
+acquired there by their prudence and force, and after them Hugh Capet,
+much inferior to them in force and authority, following their example,
+had the same good fortune for himself and his posterity, and one which
+still endures.
+
+"If the authority of the holy see could support the scheme at the same
+time," continued Mayenne and friends, "it would be a great help.  But it
+being perilous to ask for that assistance before striking the blow, it
+would be better to obtain it after the execution."
+
+That these wholesome opinions were not entirely original on the
+part of Mayenne, nor produced spontaneously, was plain from the secret
+instructions given by Philip to his envoys, Don Bernardino de Mendoza,
+John Baptist de Tassis, and the commander Moreo, whom he had sent soon
+after the death of Henry III. to confer with Cardinal Gaetano in Paris.
+
+They were told, of course, to do everything in their power to prevent the
+election of the Prince of Bearne, "being as he was a heretic, obstinate
+and confirmed, who had sucked heresy with his mother's milk."  The legate
+was warned that "if the Bearnese should make a show of converting
+himself, it would be frigid and fabricated."
+
+If they were asked whom Philip desired for king--a question which
+certainly seemed probable under the circumstances--they were to reply
+that his foremost wish was to establish the Catholic religion in the
+kingdom, and that whatever was most conducive to that end would be most
+agreeable to him.  "As it is however desirable, in order to arrange
+matters, that you should be informed of everything," said his Majesty,
+"it is proper that you should know that I have two kinds of right to all
+that there is over there.  Firstly, because the crown of France has been
+usurped from me, my ancestors having been unjustly excluded by foreign
+occupation of it; and secondly, because I claim the same crown as first
+male of the house of Valois."
+
+Here certainly were comprehensive pretensions, and it was obvious that
+the king's desire for the establishment of the Catholic religion must
+have been very lively to enable him to invent or accept such astonishing
+fictions.
+
+But his own claims were but a portion of the case.  His daughter and
+possible spouse had rights of her own, hard, in his opinion, to be
+gainsaid.  "Over and above all this," said Philip, "my eldest daughter,
+the Infanta, has two other rights; one to all the states which as dower-
+property are joined by matrimony and through females to this crown, which
+now come to her in direct line, and the other to the crown itself, which
+belongs directly to the said Infanta, the matter of the Salic law being a
+mere invention."
+
+Thus it would appear that Philip was the legitimate representative, not
+only of the ancient races of French monarchs--whether Merovingians,
+Carlovingians, or otherwise was not stated but also of the usurping
+houses themselves, by whose intrusion those earlier dynasties had been
+ejected, being the eldest male heir of the extinct line of Valois, while
+his daughter was, if possible, even more legitimately the sovereign and
+proprietor of France than he was himself.
+
+Nevertheless in his magnanimous desire for the peace of the world and
+the advancement of the interests of the Church, he was, if reduced to
+extremities, willing to forego his own individual rights--when it should
+appear that they could by no possibility be enforced--in favour of his
+daughter and of the husband whom he should select for her.
+
+"Thus it may be seen," said the self-denying man, "that I know how, for
+the sake of the public repose, to strip myself of my private property."
+
+Afterwards, when secretly instructing the Duke of Feria, about to proceed
+to Paris for the sake of settling the sovereignty of the kingdom, he
+reviewed the whole subject, setting forth substantially the same
+intentions.  That the Prince of Bearne could ever possibly succeed to the
+throne of his ancestors was an idea to be treated only with sublime scorn
+by all right-minded and sensible men.  "The members of the House of
+Bourbon," said he, "pretend that by right of blood the crown belongs to
+them, and hence is derived the pretension made by the Prince of Bearne;
+but if there were wanting other very sufficient causes to prevent this
+claim--which however are not wanting--it is quite enough that he is
+a relapsed heretic, declared to be such by the Apostolic See, and
+pronounced incompetent, as well as the other members of his house, all
+of them, to say the least, encouragers of heresy; so that not one of them
+can ever be king of France, where there have been such religious princes
+in time past, who have justly merited the name of Most Christian; and so
+there is no possibility of permitting him or any of his house to aspire
+to the throne, or to have the subject even treated of in the estates.
+It should on the contrary be entirely excluded as prejudicial to the
+realm and unworthy to be even mentioned among persons so Catholic as
+those about to meet in that assembly."
+
+The claims of the man whom his supporters already called Henry the
+Fourth of France being thus disposed of, Philip then again alluded with
+his usual minuteness to the various combinations which he had formed for
+the tranquillity and good government of that kingdom and of the other
+provinces of his world-empire.
+
+It must moreover be never forgotten that what he said passed with his
+contemporaries almost for oracular dispensations.  What he did or ordered
+to be done was like the achievements or behests of a superhuman being.
+Time, as it rolls by, leaves the wrecks of many a stranded reputation to
+bleach in the sunshine of after-ages.  It is sometimes as profitable to
+learn what was not done by the great ones of the earth, in spite of all
+their efforts, as to ponder those actual deeds which are patent to
+mankind.  The Past was once the Present, and once the Future, bright with
+rainbows or black with impending storm; for history is a continuous whole
+of which we see only fragments.
+
+He who at the epoch with which we are now occupied was deemed greatest
+and wisest among the sons of earth, at whose threats men quailed, at
+whose vast and intricate schemes men gasped in palefaced awe, has left
+behind him the record of his interior being.  Let us consider whether he
+was so potent as his fellow mortals believed, or whether his greatness
+was merely their littleness; whether it was carved out, of the
+inexhaustible but artificial quarry of human degradation.  Let us see
+whether the execution was consonant with the inordinate plotting; whether
+the price in money and blood--and certainly few human beings have
+squandered so much of either as did Philip the Prudent in his long
+career--was high or low for the work achieved.
+
+Were after generations to learn, only after curious research,
+of a pretender who once called himself, to the amusement of his
+contemporaries, Henry the Fourth of France; or was the world-empire for
+which so many armies were marshalled, so many ducats expended, so many
+falsehoods told, to prove a bubble after all?  Time was to show.
+Meantime wise men of the day who, like the sages of every generation,
+read the future like a printed scroll, were pitying the delusion and
+rebuking the wickedness of Henry the Bearnese; persisting as he did in
+his cruel, sanguinary, hopeless attempt to establish a vanished and
+impossible authority over a land distracted by civil war.
+
+Nothing could be calmer or more reasonable than the language of the great
+champion of the Inquisition.
+
+"And as President Jeannin informs me," he said, "that the Catholics have
+the intention of electing me king, that appearing to them the gentlest
+and safest method to smooth all rivalries likely to arise among the
+princes aspiring to the crown, I reply, as you will see by the copy
+herewith sent.  You will observe that after not refusing myself to that
+which may be the will of our Lord, should there be no other mode of
+serving Him, above all I desire that which concerns my daughter, since to
+her belongs the kingdom.  I desire nothing else nor anything for myself,
+nor for anybody else, except as a means for her to arrive at her right."
+
+He had taken particular pains to secure his daughter's right in Brittany,
+while the Duchess of Mercoeur, by the secret orders of her husband, had
+sent a certain ecclesiastic to Spain to make over the sovereignty of this
+province to the Infanta.  Philip directed that the utmost secrecy should
+be observed in regard to this transaction with the duke and duchess,
+and promised the duke, as his reward for these proposed services in
+dismembering his country, the government of the province for himself and
+his heirs.
+
+For the king was quite determined--in case his efforts to obtain the
+crown for himself or for his daughter were unsuccessful--to dismember
+France, with the assistance of those eminent Frenchmen who were now so
+industriously aiding him in his projects.
+
+"And in the third place," said he, in his secret instructions to Feria,
+"if for the sins of all, we don't manage to make any election, and if
+therefore the kingdom (of France) has to come to separation and to be
+divided into many hands; in this case we must propose to the Duke of
+Mayenne to assist him in getting possession of Normandy for himself, and
+as to the rest of the kingdom, I shall take for myself that which seems
+good to me--all of us assisting each other."
+
+But unfortunately it was difficult for any of these fellow-labourers to
+assist each other very thoroughly, while they detested each other so
+cordially and suspected each other with such good reason.
+
+Moreo, Ybarra, Feria, Parma, all assured their master that Mayenne was
+taking Spanish money as fast as he could get it, but with the sole
+purpose of making himself king.  As to any of the House of Lorraine
+obtaining the hand of the Infanta and the throne with it, Feria assured
+Philip that Mayenne "would sooner give the crown to the Grand Turk."
+
+Nevertheless Philip thought it necessary to continue making use of the
+duke.  Both were indefatigable therefore in expressing feelings of
+boundless confidence each in the other.
+
+It has been seen too how entirely the king relied on the genius and
+devotion of Alexander Farnese to carry out his great schemes; and
+certainly never had monarch a more faithful, unscrupulous, and dexterous
+servant.  Remonstrating, advising, but still obeying--entirely without
+conscience, unless it were conscience to carry out his master's commands,
+even when most puerile or most diabolical--he was nevertheless the object
+of Philip's constant suspicion, and felt himself placed under perpetual
+though secret supervision.
+
+Commander Moreo was unwearied in blackening the duke's character, and in
+maligning his every motive and action, and greedily did the king incline
+his ear to the calumnies steadily instilled by the chivalrous spy.
+
+"He has caused all the evil we are suffering," said Moreo.  "When he sent
+Egmont to France 'twas without infantry, although Egmont begged hard for
+it, as did likewise the Legate, Don Bernardino, and Tassis.  Had he done
+this there is no doubt at all that the Catholic cause in France would
+have been safe, and your Majesty would now have the control over that
+kingdom which you desire.  This is the opinion of friends and foes.  I
+went to the Duke of Parma and made free to tell him that the whole world
+would blame him for the damage done to Christianity, since your Majesty
+had exonerated yourself by ordering him to go to the assistance of the
+French Catholics with all the zeal possible.  Upon this he was so
+disgusted that he has never shown me a civil face since.  I doubt whether
+he will send or go to France at all, and although the Duke of Mayenne
+despatches couriers every day with protestations and words that would
+soften rocks, I see no indications of a movement."
+
+Thus, while the duke was making great military preparations far invading
+France without means; pawning his own property to get bread for his
+starving veterans, and hanging those veterans whom starving had made.
+mutinous, he was depicted, to the most suspicious and unforgiving mortal
+that ever wore a crown, as a traitor and a rebel, and this while he was
+renouncing his own judicious and well-considered policy in obedience to
+the wild schemes of his master.
+
+"I must make bold to remind your Majesty," again whispered the spy, "that
+there never was an Italian prince who failed to pursue his own ends, and
+that there are few in the world that are not wishing to become greater
+than they are.  This man here could strike a greater blow than all the
+rest of them put together.  Remember that there is not a villain anywhere
+that does not desire the death of your Majesty.  Believe me, and send to
+cut off my head if it shall be found that I am speaking from passion, or
+from other motive than pure zeal for your royal service."
+
+The reader will remember into what a paroxysm of rage Alexander was
+thrown on, a former occasion, when secretly invited to listen to
+propositions by which the sovereignty over the Netherlands was to be
+secured to himself, and how near he was to inflicting mortal punishment
+with his own hand on the man who had ventured to broach that treasonable
+matter.
+
+Such projects and propositions were ever floating, as it were, in the
+atmosphere, and it was impossible for the most just men to escape
+suspicion in the mind of a king who fed upon suspicion as his daily
+bread.  Yet nothing could be fouler or falser than the calumny which
+described Alexander as unfaithful to Philip.  Had he served his God as he
+served his master perhaps his record before the highest tribunal would
+have been a clearer one.
+
+And in the same vein in which he wrote to the monarch in person did the
+crafty Moreo write to the principal secretary of state, Idiaquez, whose
+mind, as well as his master's, it was useful to poison, and who was in
+daily communication with Philip.
+
+"Let us make sure of Flanders," said he, "otherwise we shall all of us be
+well cheated.  I will tell you something of that which I have already
+told his Majesty, only not all, referring you to Tassis, who, as a
+personal witness to many things, will have it in his power to undeceive
+his Majesty, I have seen very clearly that the duke is disgusted with his
+Majesty, and one day he told me that he cared not if the whole world went
+to destruction, only not Flanders."
+
+"Another day he told me that there was a report abroad that his Majesty
+was sending to arrest him, by means of the Duke of Pastrana, and looking
+at me he said: 'See here, seignior commander, no threats, as if it were
+in the power of mortal man to arrest me, much less of such fellows as
+these.'"
+
+"But this is but a small part of what I could say," continued the
+detective knight-commander, "for I don't like to trust these ciphers.
+But be certain that nobody in Flanders wishes well to these estates or to
+the Catholic cause, and the associates of the Duke of Parma go about
+saying that it does not suit the Italian potentates to have his Majesty
+as great a monarch as he is trying to be."
+
+This is but a sample of the dangerous stuff with which the royal mind was
+steadily drugged, day after day, by those to whom Farnese was especially
+enjoined to give his confidence.
+
+Later on it will be seen how-much effect was thus produced both upon the
+king and upon the duke.  Moreo, Mendoza, and Tasais were placed about the
+governor-general, nominally as his counsellors, in reality as police-
+officers.
+
+"You are to confer regularly with Mendoza, Tassis, and Moreo," said
+Philip to Farnese.
+
+"You are to assist, correspond, and harmonize in every way with the Duke
+of Parma," wrote Philip to Mendoza, Tassis, and Moreo. And thus cordially
+and harmoniously were the trio assisting and corresponding with the duke.
+
+But Moreo was right in not wishing to trust the ciphers, and indeed he
+had trusted them too much, for Farnese was very well aware of his
+intrigues, and complained bitterly of them to the king and to Idiaquez.
+
+Most eloquently and indignantly did he complain of the calumnies, ever
+renewing themselves, of which he was the subject.  "'Tis this good Moreo
+who is the author of the last falsehoods," said he to the secretary; "and
+this is but poor payment for my having neglected my family, my parents
+and children for so many years in the king's service, and put my life
+ever on the hazard, that these fellows should be allowed to revile me
+and make game of me now, instead of assisting me."
+
+He was at that time, after almost superhuman exertions, engaged in the
+famous relief of Paris.  He had gone there, he said, against his judgment
+and remonstrating with his Majesty on the insufficiency of men and money
+for such an enterprise.  His army was half-mutinous and unprovided with
+food, artillery, or munitions; and then he found himself slandered,
+ridiculed, his life's life lied away.  'Twas poor payment for his
+services, he exclaimed, if his Majesty should give ear to these
+calumniators, and should give him no chance of confronting his accusers
+and clearing his reputation.  Moreo detested him, as he knew, and Prince
+Doria said that the commander once spoke so ill of Farnese in Genoa that
+he was on the point of beating him; while Moreo afterwards told the story
+as if he had been maltreated because of defending Farnese against Doria's
+slanders.
+
+And still more vehemently did he inveigh against Moreo in his direct
+appeals to Philip.  He had intended to pass over his calumnies, of which
+he was well aware, because he did not care to trouble the dead--for Moreo
+meantime had suddenly died, and the gossips, of course, said it was of
+Farnese poison--but he had just discovered by documents that the
+commander had been steadily and constantly pouring these his calumnies
+into the monarch's ears.  He denounced every charge as lies, and demanded
+proof.  Moreo had further been endeavouring to prejudice the Duke of
+Mayenne against the King of Spain and himself, saying that he, Farnese,
+had been commissioned to take Mayenne into custody, with plenty of
+similar lies.
+
+"But what I most feel," said Alexander, with honest wrath, "is to see
+that your Majesty gives ear to them without making the demonstration
+which my services merit, and has not sent to inform me of them, seeing
+that they may involve my reputation and honour.  People have made more
+account of these calumnies than of my actions performed upon the theatre
+of the world.  I complain, after all my toils and dangers in your
+Majesty's service, just when I stood with my soul in my mouth and death
+in my teeth, forgetting children, house, and friends, to be treated thus,
+instead of receiving rewards and honour, and being enabled to leave to my
+children, what was better than all the riches the royal hand could
+bestow, an unsullied and honourable name."
+
+He protested that his reputation had so much suffered that he would
+prefer to retire to some remote corner as a humble servant of the king,
+and leave a post which had made him so odious to all.  Above all, he
+entreated his Majesty to look upon this whole affair "not only like a
+king but like a gentleman."
+
+Philip answered these complaints and reproaches benignantly, expressed
+unbounded confidence in the duke, assured him that the calumnies of his
+supposed enemies could produce no effect upon the royal mind, and coolly
+professed to have entirely forgotten having received any such letter as
+that of which his nephew complained.  "At any rate I have mislaid it," he
+said, "so that you see how much account it was with me."
+
+As the king was in the habit of receiving such letters every week, not
+only from the commander, since deceased, but from Ybarra and others, his
+memory, to say the least, seemed to have grown remarkably feeble.  But
+the sequel will very soon show that he had kept the letters by him and
+pondered them to much purpose.  To expect frankness and sincerity from
+him, however, even in his most intimate communications to his most
+trusted servants, would have been to "swim with fins of lead."
+
+Such being the private relations between the conspirators, it is
+instructive to observe how they dealt with each other in the great game
+they were playing for the first throne in Christendom.  The military
+events have been sufficiently sketched in the preceding pages, but the
+meaning and motives of public affairs can be best understood by
+occasional glances behind the scenes.  It is well for those who would
+maintain their faith in popular Governments to study the workings of the
+secret, irresponsible, arbitrary system; for every Government, as every
+individual, must be judged at last by those moral laws which no man born
+of woman can evade.
+
+During the first French expedition-in the course of which Farnese had
+saved Paris from falling into, the hands of Henry, and had been doing his
+best to convert it prospectively into the capital of his master's empire-
+-it was his duty, of course, to represent as accurately as possible the
+true state of France.  He submitted his actions to his master's will, but
+he never withheld from him the advantage that he might have derived, had
+he so chosen, from his nephew's luminous intelligence and patient
+observation.
+
+With the chief personage he had to deal with he professed himself, at
+first, well satisfied.  "The Duke of Mayenne," said he to Philip,
+"persists in desiring your Majesty only as King of France, and will hear
+of no other candidate, which gives me satisfaction such as can't be
+exaggerated."  Although there were difficulties in the way, Farnese
+thought that the two together with God's help might conquer them.
+"Certainly it is not impossible that your Majesty may succeed," he said,
+"although very problematical; and in case your Majesty does succeed in
+that which we all desire and are struggling for, Mayenne not only demands
+the second place in the kingdom for himself, but the fief of some great
+province for his family."
+
+Should it not be possible for Philip to obtain the crown, Farnese was,
+on the whole, of opinion that Mayenne had better be elected.  In that
+event he would make over Brittany and Burgundy to Philip, together with
+the cities opposite the English coast.  If they were obliged to make the
+duke king, as was to be feared, they should at any rate exclude the
+Prince of Bearne, and secure, what was the chief point, the Catholic
+religion.  "This," said Alexander, "is about what I can gather of
+Mayenne's views, and perhaps he will put them down in a despatch to your
+Majesty."
+
+After all, the duke was explicit enough.  He was for taking all he could
+get--the whole kingdom if possible--but if foiled, then as large a slice
+of it as Philip would give him as the price of his services.  And
+Philip's ideas were not materially different from those of the other
+conspirator.
+
+Both were agreed on one thing.  The true heir must be kept out of his
+rights, and the Catholic religion be maintained in its purity.  As to the
+inclination of the majority of the inhabitants, they could hardly be in
+the dark.  They knew that the Bearnese was instinctively demanded by the
+nation; for his accession to the throne would furnish the only possible
+solution to the entanglements which had so long existed.
+
+As to the true sentiments of the other politicians and soldiers of the
+League with whom Bearnese came in contact in France, he did not disguise
+from his master that they were anything but favourable.
+
+"That you may know, the, humour of this kingdom," said he, "and the
+difficulties in which I am placed, I must tell you that I am by large
+experience much confirmed in that which I have always suspected.  Men
+don't love nor esteem the royal name of your Majesty, and whatever the
+benefits and assistance they get from you they have no idea of anything
+redounding to your benefit and royal service, except so far as implied in
+maintaining the Catholic religion and keeping out the Bearne.  These two
+things, however, they hold to be so entirely to your Majesty's profit,
+that all you are doing appears the fulfilment of a simple obligation.
+They are filled with fear, jealousy, and suspicion of your Majesty.  They
+dread your acquiring power here.  Whatever negotiations they pretend
+in regard to putting the kingdom or any of their cities under your
+protection, they have never had any real intention of doing it, but their
+only object is to keep up our vain hopes while they are carrying out
+their own ends.  If to-day they seem to have agreed upon any measure,
+tomorrow they are sure to get out of it again.  This has always been the
+case, and all your Majesty's ministers that have had dealings here would
+say so, if they chose to tell the truth.  Men are disgusted with the
+entrance of the army, and if they were not expecting a more advantageous
+peace in the kingdom with my assistance than without it, I don't know
+what they would do; for I have heard what I have heard and seen what I
+have seen.  They are afraid of our army, but they want its assistance and
+our money."
+
+Certainly if Philip desired enlightenment as to the real condition of the
+country he had determined to, appropriate; and the true sentiments of its
+most influential inhabitants, here, was the man most competent of all the
+world to advise him; describing the situation for him, day by day, in the
+most faithful manner.  And at every, step the absolutely puerile
+inadequacy of the means, employed by the king to accomplish his gigantic
+purposes became apparent.  If the crime of subjugating or at least
+dismembering the great kingdom of France were to, be attempted with any
+hope of success, at least it might have been expected that the man
+employed to consummate the deed would be furnished with more troops and
+money than would be required to appropriate a savage island off the
+Caribbean, or a German.  principality.  But Philip expected miracles to
+be accomplished by the mere private assertion of his will.  It was so
+easy to conquer realms the writing table.
+
+"I don't say," continued Farnese, "if I could have entered France with a
+competent army, well paid and disciplined, with plenty of artillery, and
+munitions, and with funds enough to enable Mayenne to buy up the nobles
+of his party, and to conciliate the leaders generally with presents and
+promises, that perhaps they might not have softened.  Perhaps interest
+and fear would have made that name agreeable which pleases them so
+little, now that the very reverse of all this has occurred.  My want of
+means is causing a thousand disgusts among the natives of the country,
+and it is this penury that will be the chief cause of the disasters which
+may occur."
+
+Here was sufficiently plain speaking.  To conquer a war-like nation
+without an army; to purchase a rapacious nobility with an empty purse,
+were tasks which might break the stoutest heart.  They were breaking
+Alexander's.
+
+Yet Philip had funds enough, if he had possessed financial ability
+himself, or any talent for selecting good financiers.  The richest
+countries of the old world and the new were under his sceptre; the mines
+of Peru and Mexico; the wealth of farthest Ind, were at his disposition;
+and moreover he drove a lucrative traffic in the sale of papal bulls and
+massbooks, which were furnished to him at a very low figure, and which he
+compelled the wild Indians of America and the savages of the Pacific to
+purchase of him at an enormous advance.  That very year, a Spanish
+carrack had been captured by the English off the Barbary coast, with an
+assorted cargo, the miscellaneous nature of which gives an idea of royal
+commercial pursuits at that period.  Besides wine in large quantities
+there were fourteen hundred chests of quicksilver, an article
+indispensable to the working of the silver mines, and which no one but
+the king could, upon pain of death, send to America.  He received,
+according to contract; for every pound of quicksilver thus delivered a
+pound of pure silver, weight for weight.  The ship likewise contained ten
+cases of gilded mass-books and papal bulls.  The bulls, two million and
+seventy thousand in number, for the dead and the living, were intended
+for the provinces of New Spain, Yucatan, Guatemala, Honduras, and the
+Philippines.  The quicksilver and the bulls cost the king three hundred
+thousand florins, but he sold them for five million.  The .price at,
+which the bulls were to be sold varied-according to the letters of advice
+found in the ships--from two to four reals a piece, and the inhabitants
+of those conquered regions were obliged to buy them.  "From all this,"
+says a contemporary chronicler; "is to be seen what a thrifty trader was
+the king."
+
+The affairs of France were in such confusion that it was impossible for
+them, according to Farnese, to remain in such condition much longer
+without bringing about entire decomposition.  Every man was doing as he
+chose--whether governor of a city, commander of a district, or gentleman
+in his castle.  Many important nobles and prelates followed the Bearnese
+party, and Mayenne was entitled to credit for doing as well as he did.
+There was no pretence, however, that his creditable conduct was due to
+anything but the hope of being well paid.  "If your Majesty should decide
+to keep Mayenne," said Alexander, "you can only do it with large: sums of
+money.  He is a good Catholic and very firm in his purpose, but is so
+much opposed by his own party, that if I had not so stimulated him by
+hopes of his own grandeur, he would have grown desperate--such small
+means has he of maintaining his party--and, it is to be feared, he would
+have made arrangements with Bearne, who offers him carte-blanche."
+
+The disinterested man had expressed his assent to the views of Philip in
+regard to the assembly of the estates and the election of king, but had
+claimed the sum of six hundred thousand dollars as absolutely necessary
+to the support of himself and followers until those events should occur.
+Alexander not having that sum at his disposal was inclined to defer
+matters, but was more and more confirmed in his opinion that the Duke was
+a "man of truth, faith, and his word."  He had distinctly agreed that no
+king should be elected, not satisfactory to Philip, and had "stipulated
+in return that he should have in this case, not only the second place in
+the kingdom, but some very great and special reward in full property."
+
+Thus the man of truth, faith, and his word had no idea of selling himself
+cheap, but manifested as much commercial genius as the Fuggers themselves
+could have displayed, had they been employed as brokers in these
+mercantile transactions.
+
+Above all things, Alexander implored the king to be expeditious,
+resolute, and liberal; for, after all, the Bearnese might prove a more
+formidable competitor than he was deemed.  "These matters must be
+arranged while the iron is hot," he said, "in order that the name and
+memory of the Bearne and of all his family may be excluded at once and
+forever; for your Majesty must not doubt that the whole kingdom inclines
+to him, both because he is natural successor, to the crowns and because
+in this way the civil war would cease.  The only thing that gives trouble
+is the religions defect, so that if this should be remedied in
+appearance, even if falsely, men would spare no pains nor expense in his
+cause."
+
+No human being at that moment, assuredly, could look into the immediate
+future accurately enough to see whether the name and memory of the man,
+whom his adherents called Henry the Fourth of France, and whom Spaniards,
+legitimists and enthusiastic papists, called the Prince of Bearne, were
+to be for ever excluded from the archives of France; whether Henry, after
+spending the whole of his life as a pretender, was destined to bequeath
+the same empty part to his descendants, should they think it worth their
+while to play it.  Meantime the sages smiled superior at his delusion;
+while Alexander Farnese, on the contrary, better understanding the
+chances of the great game which they were all playing, made bold to tell
+his master that all hearts in France were inclining to their natural
+lord.  "Differing from your Majesty," said he, "I am of opinion that
+there is no better means of excluding him than to make choice of the Duke
+of Mayenne, as a person agreeable to the people, and who could only reign
+by your permission and support."
+
+Thus, after much hesitation and circumlocution, the nephew made up his
+mind to chill his uncle's hopes of the crown, and to speak a decided
+opinion in behalf of the man of his word, faith and truth.
+
+And thus through the whole of the two memorable campaigns made by
+Alexander in France, he never failed to give his master the most accurate
+pictures of the country, and an interior view of its politics; urging
+above all the absolute necessity of providing much more liberal supplies
+for the colossal adventure in which he was engaged.  "Money and again
+money is what is required," he said.  "The principal matter is to be
+accomplished with money, and the particular individuals must be bought
+with money.  The good will of every French city must be bought with
+money.  Mayenne must be humoured.  He is getting dissatisfied.  Very
+probably he is intriguing with Bearne.  Everybody is pursuing his private
+ends.  Mayenne has never abandoned his own wish to be king, although he
+sees the difficulties in the way; and while he has not the power to do us
+as much good as is thought, it is certainly in his hands to do us a great
+deal of injury."
+
+When his army was rapidly diminishing by disease, desertion, mutiny, and
+death, he vehemently and perpetually denounced the utter inadequacy of
+the king's means to his vast projects.  He protested that he was not to
+blame for the ruin likely to come upon the whole enterprise.  He had
+besought, remonstrated, reasoned with Philip--in vain.  He assured his
+master that in the condition of weakness in which they found themselves,
+not very triumphant negotiations could be expected, but that he would do
+his best.  "The Frenchmen," he said, "are getting tired of our disorders,
+and scandalized by our weakness, misery, and poverty.  They disbelieve
+the possibility of being liberated through us."
+
+He was also most diligent in setting before the king's eyes the dangerous
+condition of the obedient Netherlands, the poverty of the finances, the
+mutinous degeneration of the once magnificent Spanish army, the misery of
+the country, the ruin of the people, the discontent of the nobles, the
+rapid strides made by the republic, the vast improvement in its military
+organization, the rising fame of its young stadholder, the thrift of its
+exchequer, the rapid development of its commerce, the menacing aspect
+which it assumed towards all that was left of Spanish power in those
+regions.
+
+Moreover, in the midst of the toils and anxieties of war-making and
+negotiation, he had found time to discover and to send to his master
+the left leg of the glorious apostle St. Philip, and the head of the
+glorious martyr St. Lawrence, to enrich his collection of relics; and it
+may be doubted whether these treasures were not as welcome to the king as
+would have been the news of a decisive victory.
+
+During the absence of Farnese in his expeditions against the Bearnese,
+the government of his provinces was temporarily in the hands of Peter
+Ernest Mansfeld.
+
+This grizzled old fighter--testy, choleric, superannuated--was utterly
+incompetent for his post.  He was a mere tool in the hands of his son.
+Count Charles hated Parma very cordially, and old Count Peter was made
+to believe himself in danger of being poisoned or poniarded by the duke.
+He was perpetually wrangling with, importuning and insulting him in
+consequence, and writing malicious letters to the king in regard to him.
+The great nobles, Arschot, Chimay, Berlaymont, Champagny, Arenberg, and
+the rest, were all bickering among themselves, and agreeing in nothing
+save in hatred to Farnese.
+
+A tight rein, a full exchequer, a well-ordered and well-paid army, and
+his own constant patience, were necessary, as Alexander too well knew,
+to make head against the republic, and to hold what was left of the
+Netherlands.  But with a monthly allowance, and a military force not
+equal to his own estimates for the Netherland work, he was ordered to go
+forth from the Netherlands to conquer France--and with it the dominion of
+the world--for the recluse of the Escorial.
+
+Very soon it was his duty to lay bare to his master, still more
+unequivocally than ever, the real heart of Mayenne. No one could surpass
+Alexander in this skilful vivisection of political characters; and he
+soon sent the information that the Duke was in reality very near closing
+his bargain with the Bearnese, while amusing Philip and drawing largely
+from his funds.
+
+Thus, while faithfully doing his master's work with sword and pen, with
+an adroitness such as no other man could have matched, it was a necessary
+consequence that Philip should suspect, should detest, should resolve to
+sacrifice him.  While assuring his nephew, as we have seen, that
+elaborate, slanderous reports and protocols concerning him, sent with
+such regularity by the chivalrous Moreo and the other spies, had been
+totally disregarded, even if they had ever met his eye, he was quietly
+preparing--in the midst of all these most strenuous efforts of Alexander,
+in the field at peril of his life, in the cabinet at the risk of his
+soul--to deprive him of his office, and to bring him, by stratagem if
+possible, but otherwise by main force, from the Netherlands to Spain.
+
+This project, once-resolved upon, the king proceeded to execute with
+that elaborate attention to detail, with that feline stealth which
+distinguished him above all kings or chiefs of police that have ever
+existed.  Had there been a murder at the end of the plot, as perhaps
+there was to be--Philip could not have enjoyed himself more.  Nothing
+surpassed the industry for mischief of this royal invalid.
+
+The first thing to be done was of course the inditing of a most
+affectionate epistle to his nephew.
+
+"Nephew," said he, "you know the confidence which I have always placed in
+you and all that I have put in your hands, and I know how much you are to
+me, and how earnestly you work in my service, and so, if I could have you
+at the same time in several places, it would be a great relief to me.
+Since this cannot be however, I wish to make use of your assistance,
+according to the times and occasions, in order that I may have some
+certainty as to the manner in which all this business is to be managed,
+may see why the settlement of affairs in France is thus delayed, and what
+the state of things in Christendom generally is, and may consult with,
+you about an army which I am getting levied here, and about certain
+schemes now on foot in regard to the remedy for all this; all which makes
+me desire your presence here for some time, even if a short time, in
+order to resolve upon and arrange with the aid of your advice and
+opinion, many affairs concerning the public good and facilitate their
+execution by means of your encouragement and presence, and to obtain the
+repose which I hope for in putting them into your hands.  And so I charge
+and command you that, if you desire to content me, you use all possible
+diligence to let me see you here as soon as possible, and that you start
+at once for Genoa."
+
+He was further directed to leave Count Mansfeld at the head of affairs
+during this temporary absence, as had been the case so often before,
+instructing him to make use of the Marquis of Cerralbo, who was already
+there, to lighten labours that might prove too much for a man of
+Mansfeld's advanced age.
+
+"I am writing to the marquis," continued the king, "telling him that he
+is to obey all your orders.  As to the reasons of your going away, you
+will give out that it is a decision of your own, founded on good cause,
+or that it is a summons of mine, but full of confidence and good will
+towards you, as you see that it is."
+
+The date of this letter was 20th February, 1592.
+
+The secret instructions to the man who was thus to obey all the duke's
+orders were explicit enough upon that point, although they were wrapped
+in the usual closely-twisted phraseology which distinguished Philip's
+style when his purpose was most direct.
+
+Cerralbo was entrusted with general directions as to the French matter,
+and as to peace negotiations with "the Islands;" but the main purport of
+his mission was to remove Alexander Farnese.  This was to be done by fair
+means, if possible; if not, he was to be deposed and sent home by force.
+
+This was to be the reward of all the toil and danger through which he had
+grown grey and broken in the king's service.
+
+"When you get to the Netherlands" (for the instructions were older than
+the letter to Alexander just cited), "you are," said the king, "to treat
+of the other two matters until the exact time arrives for the third,
+taking good care not to, cut the thread of good progress in the affairs
+of France if by chance they are going on well there.
+
+"When the time arrives to treat of commission number three," continued
+his Majesty, "you will take occasion of the arrival of the courier of
+20th February, and will give with much secrecy the letter of that date to
+the duke; showing him at the same time the first of the two which you
+will have received."
+
+If the duke showed the letter addressed to him by his uncle--which the
+reader has already seen--then the marquis was to discuss with him the
+details of the journey, and comment upon the benefits and increased
+reputation which would be the result of his return to Spain.
+
+"But if the duke should not show you the letter," proceeded Philip, "and
+you suspect that he means to conceal and equivocate about the particulars
+of it, you can show him your letter number two, in which it is stated
+that you have received a copy of the letter to the duke.  This will make
+the step easier."
+
+Should the duke declare himself ready to proceed to Spain on the ground
+indicated--that the king had need of his services--the marquis was then
+to hasten his departure as earnestly as possible.  Every pains were to be
+taken to overcome any objections that might be made by the duke on the
+score of ill health, while the great credit which attached to this
+summons to consult with the king in such arduous affairs was to be duly
+enlarged upon.  Should Count Mansfeld meantime die of old age, and should
+Farnese insist the more vehemently, on that account, upon leaving his son
+the Prince Ranuccio in his post as governor, the marquis was authorised
+to accept the proposition for the moment--although secretly instructed
+that such an appointment was really quite out of the question--if by so
+doing the father could be torn from the place immediately.
+
+But if all would not do, and if it should become certain that the duke
+would definitively refuse to take his departure, it would then become
+necessary to tell him clearly, but secretly, that no excuse would be
+accepted, but that go he must; and that if he did not depart voluntarily
+within a fixed time, he would be publicly deprived of office and
+conducted to Spain by force.
+
+But all these things were to be managed with the secrecy and mystery so
+dear to the heart of Philip.  The marquis was instructed to go first to
+the castle of Antwerp, as if upon financial business, and there begin his
+operations.  Should he find at last all his private negotiations and
+coaxings of no avail, he was then to make use of his secret letters from
+the king to the army commanders, the leading nobles of the country, and
+of the neighbouring princes, all of whom were to be undeceived in regard
+to the duke, and to be informed of the will of his majesty.
+
+The real successor of Farnese was to be the Archduke Albert, Cardinal of
+Austria, son of Archduke Ferdinand, and the letters on this subject were
+to be sent by a "decent and confidential person" so soon as it should
+become obvious that force would be necessary in order to compel the
+departure of Alexander.  For if it came to open rupture, it would be
+necessary to have the cardinal ready to take the place.  If the affair
+were arranged amicably, then the new governor might proceed more at
+leisure.  The marquis was especially enjoined, in case the duke should be
+in France, and even if it should be necessary for him to follow him there
+on account of commissions number one and two, not to say a word to him
+then of his recall, for fear of damaging matters in that kingdom.  He was
+to do his best to induce him to return to Flanders, and when they were
+both there, he was to begin his operations.
+
+Thus, with minute and artistic treachery, did Philip provide for the
+disgrace and ruin of the man who was his near blood relation, and who had
+served him most faithfully from earliest youth.  It was not possible to
+carry out the project immediately, for, as it has already been narrated,
+Farnese, after achieving, in spite of great obstacles due to the dulness
+of the king alone, an extraordinary triumph, had been dangerously
+wounded, and was unable for a brief interval to attend to public affairs.
+
+On the conclusion of his Rouen campaign he had returned to the
+Netherlands, almost immediately betaking himself to the waters of Spa.
+The Marquis de Cerralbo meanwhile had been superseded in his important
+secret mission by the Count of Fuentes, who received the same
+instructions as had been provided for the marquis.
+
+But ere long it seemed to become unnecessary to push matters to
+extremities.  Farnese, although nominally the governor, felt himself
+unequal to take the field against the vigorous young commander who was
+carrying everything before him in the north and east.  Upon the Mansfelds
+was the responsibility for saving Steenwyk and Coeworden, and to the
+Mansfelds did Verdugo send piteously, but in vain, for efficient help.
+For the Mansfelds and other leading personages in the obedient
+Netherlands were mainly occupied at that time in annoying Farnese,
+calumniating his actions, laying obstacles in the way of his
+administration, military and civil, and bringing him into contempt with
+the populace. When the weary soldier--broken in health, wounded and
+harassed with obtaining triumphs for his master such as no other living
+man could have gained with the means placed at his disposal--returned
+to drink the waters, previously to setting forth anew upon the task of
+achieving the impossible, he was made the mark of petty insults on the
+part of both the Mansfelds.  Neither of them paid their respects to him;
+ill as he was, until four days after his arrival.  When the duke
+subsequently called a council; Count Peter refused to attend it on
+account of having slept ill the night before.  Champagny; who was one of,
+the chief mischief-makers, had been banished by Parma to his house in
+Burgundy.  He became very much alarmed, and was afraid of losing his
+head.  He tried to conciliate the duke, but finding it difficult he
+resolved to turn monk, and so went to the convent of Capuchins, and
+begged hard to be admitted a member.  They refused him on account of his
+age and infirmities.  He tried a Franciscan monastery with not much
+better success, and then obeyed orders and went to his Burgundy mansion;
+having been assured by Farnese that he was not to lose his head.
+Alexander was satisfied with that arrangement, feeling sure, he said,
+that so soon as his back was turned Champagny would come out of his
+convent before the term of probation had expired, and begin to make
+mischief again.  A once valiant soldier, like Champagny, whose conduct in
+the famous "fury of Antwerp" was so memorable; and whose services both in
+field and-cabinet had, been so distinguished, fallen so low as to, be
+used as a tool by the Mansfelds against a man like Farnese; and to be
+rejected as unfit company by Flemish friars, is not a cheerful spectacle
+to contemplate.
+
+The walls of the Mansfeld house and gardens, too, were decorated by Count
+Charles with caricatures, intending to illustrate the indignities put
+upon his father: and himself.
+
+Among others, one picture represented Count Peter lying tied hand and
+foot, while people were throwing filth upon him; Count Charles being
+pourtrayed as meantime being kicked away from the command of a battery
+of cannon by, De la Motte.  It seemed strange that the Mansfelds should,
+make themselves thus elaborately ridiculous, in order to irritate
+Farnese; but thus it was.  There was so much stir, about these works of
+art that Alexander transmitted copies of them to the king, whereupon
+Charles Mansfeld, being somewhat alarmed, endeavoured to prove that they
+had been entirely misunderstood.  The venerable personage lying on the
+ground, he explained, was not his father, but Socrates.  He found it
+difficult however to account for the appearance of La Motte, with his one
+arm wanting and with artillery by his side, because, as Farnese justly
+remarked, artillery had not been invented in the time of Socrates, nor
+was it recorded that the sage had lost an arm.
+
+Thus passed the autumn of 1592, and Alexander, having as he supposed
+somewhat recruited his failing strength, prepared, according to his
+master's orders for a new campaign in France.  For with almost
+preterhuman malice Philip was employing the man whom he had doomed to
+disgrace, perhaps to death, and whom he kept under constant secret
+supervision, in those laborious efforts to conquer without an army and
+to purchase a kingdom with an empty purse, in which, as it was destined,
+the very last sands of Parma's life were to run away.
+
+Suffering from a badly healed wound, from water on the chest,
+degeneration of the heart, and gout in the limbs, dropsical, enfeebled,
+broken down into an old man before his time, Alexander still confronted
+disease and death with as heroic a front as he had ever manifested in the
+field to embattled Hollanders and Englishmen, or to the still more
+formidable array of learned pedants and diplomatists in the hall of
+negotiation.  This wreck of a man was still fitter to lead armies and
+guide councils than any soldier or statesman that Philip could call into
+his service, yet the king's cruel hand was ready to stab the dying man in
+the dark.
+
+Nothing could surpass the spirit with which the soldier was ready to do
+battle with his best friend, coming in the guise of an enemy.  To the
+last moment, lifted into the saddle, he attended personally as usual to
+the details of his new campaign, and was dead before he would confess
+himself mortal.  On the 3rd of December, 1592, in the city of Arran, he
+fainted after retiring at his usual hour to bed, and thus breathed his
+last.
+
+According to the instructions in his last will, he was laid out barefoot
+in the robe and cowl of a Capuchin monk.  Subsequently his remains were
+taken to Parma, and buried under the pavement of the little Franciscan
+church.  A pompous funeral, in which the Italians and Spaniards
+quarrelled and came to blows for precedence, was celebrated in Brussels,
+and a statue of the hero was erected in the capitol at Rome.
+
+The first soldier and most unscrupulous diplomatist of his age, he died
+when scarcely past his prime, a wearied; broken-hearted old man.  His
+triumphs, military and civil, have been recorded in these pages, and his
+character has been elaborately pourtrayed.  Were it possible to conceive
+of an Italian or Spaniard of illustrious birth in the sixteenth century,
+educated in the school of Machiavelli, at the feet of Philip, as anything
+but the supple slave of a master and the blind instrument of a Church,
+one might for a moment regret that so many gifts of genius and valour had
+been thrown away or at least lost to mankind.  Could the light of truth
+ever pierce the atmosphere in which such men have their being; could the
+sad music of humanity ever penetrate to their ears; could visions of a
+world--on this earth or beyond it--not exclusively the property of kings
+and high-priests be revealed to them, one might lament that one so
+eminent among the sons of women had not been a great man.  But it is a
+weakness to hanker for any possible connection between truth and Italian
+or Spanish statecraft of that day.  The truth was not in it nor in him,
+and high above his heroic achievements, his fortitude, his sagacity, his
+chivalrous self-sacrifice, shines forth the baleful light of his
+perpetual falsehood.
+
+     [I pass over, as beneath the level of history, a great variety of
+     censorious and probably calumnious reports as to the private
+     character of Farnese, with which the secret archives of the times
+     are filled.  Especially Champagny, the man by whom the duke was most
+     hated and feared, made himself busy in compiling the slanderous
+     chronicle in which the enemies of Farnese, both in Spain and the
+     Netherlands, took so much delight.  According to the secret history
+     thus prepared for the enlightenment of the king and his ministers,
+     the whole administration of the Netherlands--especially the
+     financial department, with the distribution of offices--was in the
+     hands of two favourites, a beardless secretary named Cosmo e Massi,
+     and a lady of easy virtue called Franceline, who seems to have had a
+     numerous host of relatives and friends to provide for at the public
+     expense.  Towards the latter end of the duke's life, it was even
+     said that the seal of the finance department was in the hands of his
+     valet-de-chambre, who, in his master's frequent absences, was in the
+     habit of issuing drafts upon the receiver-general.  As the valet-
+     dechambre was described as an idiot who did not know how to read, it
+     may be believed that the finances fell into confusion.  Certainly,
+     if such statements were to be accepted, it would be natural enough
+     that for every million dollars expended by the king in the
+     provinces, not more than one hundred thousand were laid out for the
+     public service; and this is the estimate made by Champagny, who, as
+     a distinguished financier and once chief of the treasury in the
+     provinces, might certainly be thought to know something of the
+     subject.  But Champagny was beside himself with rage, hatred.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+     Effect of the death of Farnese upon Philip's schemes--Priestly
+     flattery and counsel--Assembly of the States-General of France--
+     Meeting of the Leaguers at the Louvre--Conference at Surene between
+     the chiefs of the League and the "political" leaders--Henry convokes
+     an assembly of bishops, theologians, and others--Strong feeling on
+     all sides on the subject of the succession--Philip commands that the
+     Infanta and the Duke of Guise be elected King and Queen of France--
+     Manifesto of the Duke of Mayenne--Formal re-admission of Henry to
+     the Roman faith--The pope refuses to consent to his reconciliation
+     with the Church--His consecration with the sacred oil--Entry of the
+     king into Paris--Departure of the Spanish garrison from the capital
+     --Dissimulation of the Duke of Mayenne--He makes terms with Henry--
+     Grief of Queen Elizabeth on receipt of the communications from
+     France.
+
+During the past quarter of a century there had been tragic scenes enough
+in France, but now the only man who could have conducted Philip's schemes
+to a tragic if not a successful issue was gone.  Friendly death had been
+swifter than Philip, and had removed Alexander from the scene before his
+master had found fitting opportunity to inflict the disgrace on which he
+was resolved.  Meantime, Charles Mansfeld made a feeble attempt to lead
+an army from the Netherlands into France, to support the sinking fortunes
+of the League; but it was not for that general-of-artillery to attempt
+the well-graced part of the all-accomplished Farnese with much hope of
+success.  A considerable force of Spanish infantry, too, had been sent to
+Paris, where they had been received with much enthusiasm; a very violent
+and determined churchman, Sega, archbishop of Piacenza, and cardinal-
+legate, having arrived to check on the part of the holy father any
+attempt by the great wavering heretic to get himself readmitted into the
+fold of the faithful.
+
+The King of Spain considered it his duty, as well as his unquestionable
+right, to interfere in the affairs of France, and to save the cause of
+religion, civilization and humanity, in the manner so dear to the
+civilization-savers, by reducing that distracted country--utterly unable
+to govern itself--under his sceptre.  To achieve this noble end no
+bribery was too wholesale, no violence too brutal, no intrigue too
+paltry.  It was his sacred and special mission to save France from
+herself.  If he should fail, he could at least carve her in pieces, and
+distribute her among himself and friends.  Frenchmen might assist him in
+either of these arrangements, but it was absurd to doubt that on him
+devolved the work and the responsibility.  Yet among his advisers were
+some who doubted whether the purchase of the grandees of France was
+really the most judicious course to pursue.  There was a general and
+uneasy feeling that the grandees were making sport of the Spanish
+monarch, and that they would be inclined to remain his stipendiaries for
+an indefinite period, without doing their share of the work.  A keen
+Jesuit, who had been much in France, often whispered to Philip that he
+was going astray.  "Those who best understand the fit remedy for this
+unfortunate kingdom, and know the tastes and temper of the nation," said
+he, "doubt giving these vast presents and rewards in order that the
+nobles of France may affect your cause and further your schemes.  It is
+the greatest delusion, because they love nothing but their own interest,
+and for this reason wish for no king at all, but prefer that the kingdom
+should remain topsy-turvy in order that they may enjoy the Spanish
+doubloons, as they say themselves almost publicly, dancing and feasting;
+that they may take a castle to-day, and to-morrow a city, and the day,
+after a province, and so on indefinitely.  What matters it to them that
+blood flows, and that the miserable people are destroyed, who alone are
+good for anything?"
+
+"The immediate cause of the ruin of France," continued the Jesuit, "comes
+from two roots which must be torn up; the one is the extreme ignorance
+and scandalous life of the ecclesiastics, the other is the tyranny and
+the abominable life of the nobility, who with sacrilege and insatiable
+avarice have entered upon the property of the Church.  This nobility is
+divided into three factions.  The first, and not the least, is heretic;
+the second and the most pernicious is politic or atheist; the third and
+last is catholic.  All these, although they differ in opinion, are the
+same thing in corruption of life and manners, so that there is no choice
+among them."  He then proceeded to set forth how entirely, the salvation
+of France depended on the King of Spain.  "Morally speaking," he said,
+"it is impossible for any Frenchman to apply the remedy.  For this two
+things are wanting; intense zeal for the honour of God, and power.  I ask
+now what Frenchman: has both these, or either of them.  No one certainly
+that we know.  It is the King of Spain who alone in the world has the
+zeal and the power.  No man who knows the insolence and arrogance of the
+French nature will believe that even if a king should be elected out of
+France he would be obeyed by the others.  The first to oppose him would
+be Mayenne; even if a king were chosen from his family, unless everything
+should be given him that he asked; which would be impossible."
+
+Thus did the wily Priest instil into the ready ears of Philip additional
+reasons for believing himself the incarnate providence of God.  When were
+priestly flatterers ever wanting to pour this poison into the souls of
+tyrants?  It is in vain for us to ask why it is permitted that so much
+power for evil should be within the grasp of one wretched human creature,
+but it is at least always instructive to ponder the career of these
+crowned conspirators, and sometimes consoling to find its conclusion
+different from the goal intended.  So the Jesuit advised the king not to
+be throwing away his money upon particular individuals, but with the
+funds which they were so unprofitably consuming to form a jolly army
+('gallardo egercito') of fifteen thousand foot, and five thousand-horse,
+all Spaniards, under a Spanish general--not a Frenchman being admitted
+into it--and then to march forward, occupy all the chief towns, putting
+Spanish garrisons into them, but sparing the people, who now considered
+the war eternal, and who were eaten up by both armies.  In a short time
+the king might accomplish all he wished, for it was not in the power of
+the Bearnese to make considerable resistance for any length of time.
+
+This was the plan of Father Odo for putting Philip on the throne of
+France, and at the same time lifting up the downtrodden Church, whose
+priests, according to his statement, were so profligate, and whose tenets
+were rejected by all but a small minority of the governing classes of the
+country.  Certainly it did not lack precision, but it remained to be seen
+whether the Bearnese was to prove so very insignificant an antagonist as
+the sanguine priest supposed.
+
+For the third party--the moderate Catholics--had been making immense
+progress in France, while the diplomacy of Philip had thus far steadily
+counteracted their efforts at Rome.  In vain had the Marquis Pisani,
+envoy of the politicians' party, endeavoured to soften the heart of
+Clement towards Henry.  The pope lived in mortal fear of Spain, and the
+Duke of Sessa, Philip's ambassador to the holy see, denouncing all these
+attempts on the part of the heretic, and his friends, and urging that it
+was much better for Rome that the pernicious kingdom of France should be
+dismembered and subdivided, assured his holiness that Rome should be
+starved, occupied, annihilated, if such abominable schemes should be for
+an instant favoured.
+
+Clement took to his bed with sickness brought on by all this violence,
+but had nothing for it but to meet Pisani and other agents of the same
+cause with a peremptory denial, and send most, stringent messages to his
+legate in Paris, who needed no prompting.
+
+There had already been much issuing of bulls by the pope, and much
+burning of bulls by the hangman, according to decrees of the parliament
+of Chalons and other friendly tribunals, and burning of Chalons decrees
+by Paris hangmen, and edicts in favour of Protestants at Nantz and other
+places--measures the enactment, repeal, and reenactment of which were to
+mark the ebb and flow of the great tide of human opinion on the most
+important of subjects, and the traces of which were to be for a long time
+visible on the shores of time.
+
+Early in 1593 Mayenne, yielding to the pressure of the Spanish party,
+reluctantly consented to assemble the States-General of France, in order
+that a king might be chosen.  The duke, who came to be thoroughly known
+to Alexander Farnese before the death of that subtle Italian, relied on
+his capacity to outwit all the other champions of the League and agents
+of Philip now that the master-spirit had been removed.  As firmly opposed
+as ever to the election of any other candidate but himself, or possibly
+his son, according to a secret proposition which he had lately made to
+the pope,  he felt himself obliged to confront the army of Spanish
+diplomatists, Roman prelates, and learned doctors, by whom it was
+proposed to exclude the Prince of Bearne from his pretended rights.  But
+he did not, after all, deceive them as thoroughly as he imagined.  The
+Spaniards shrewdly suspected the French tactics, and the whole business
+was but a round game of deception, in which no one was much deceived, who
+ever might be destined ultimately, to pocket the stakes: "I know from a
+very good source," said Fuentes, "that Mayenne, Guise, and the rest of
+them are struggling hard in order not to submit to Bearne, and will
+suffer everything your Majesty may do to them, even if you kick them in
+the mouth, but still there is no conclusion on the road we are
+travelling, at least not the one which your Majesty desires. They will go
+on procrastinating and gaining time, making authority for themselves out
+of your Majesty's grandeur, until the condition of things comes which
+they are desiring.  Feria tells me that they are still taking your
+Majesty's money, but I warn your Majesty that it is only to fight off
+Bearne, and that they are only pursuing their own ends at your Majesty's
+expense."
+
+Perhaps Mayenne had already a sufficiently clear insight into the not
+far-distant future, but he still presented himself in Spanish cloak and
+most ultramontane physiognomy.  His pockets were indeed full of Spanish
+coin at that moment, for he had just claimed and received eighty-eight
+thousand-nine hundred dollars for back debts, together with one hundred
+and eighty, thousand dollars more to distribute among the deputies of the
+estates.  "All I can say about France," said Fuentes, "is that it is one
+great thirst for money.  The Duke of Feria believes in a good result, but
+I think that Mayenne is only trying to pocket as much money as he can."
+
+Thus fortified, the Duke of Mayenne issued the address to the States-
+General of the kingdom, to meet at an early day in order to make
+arrangements to secure religion and peace, and to throw off the possible
+yoke of the heretic pretender.  The great seal affixed to the document
+represented an empty throne, instead of the usual effigy of a king.
+
+The cardinal-legate issued a thundering manifesto at the same time
+sustaining Mayenne and virulently denouncing the Bearnese.
+
+The politicians' party now seized the opportunity to impress upon Henry
+that the decisive moment was come.
+
+The Spaniard, the priest; and the League, had heated the furnace.
+The iron was at a white heat.  Now was the time to strike.  Secretary
+of State Revol Gaspar de Schomberg, Jacques Auguste de Thou, the eminent
+historian, and other influential personages urged the king to give to
+the great question the only possible solution.
+
+Said the king with much meekness, "If I am in error, let those who attack
+me with so much fury instruct me, and show me the way of salvation.  I
+hate those who act against their conscience.  I pardon all those who are
+inspired by truly religious motives, and I am ready to receive all into
+favour whom the love of peace, not the chagrin of ill-will, has disgusted
+with the war."
+
+There was a great meeting of Leaguers at the Louvre, to listen to
+Mayenne, the cardinal-legate, Cardinal Pelleve, the Duke of Guise, and
+other chieftains.  The Duke of Feria made a long speech in Latin, setting
+forth the Spanish policy, veiled as usual, but already sufficiently well
+known, and assuring the assembly that the King of Spain desired nothing
+so much as the peace of France and of all the world, together with the
+supremacy of the Roman Church.  Whether these objects could best be
+attained by the election of Philip or of his daughter, as sovereign, with
+the Archduke Ernest as king-consort, or with perhaps the Duke of Guise
+or some other eligible husband, were fair subjects for discussion.
+No selfish motive influenced the king, and he placed all his wealth and
+all his armies at the disposal of the League to carry out these great
+projects.
+
+Then there was a conference at Surene between the chiefs the League and
+the "political" leaders; the Archbishop of Lyons, the cardinal-legate,
+Villars, Admiral of France and defender of Rouen, Belin, Governor of
+Paris, President Jeannin, and others upon one side; upon the other, the
+Archbishop of Bourges, Bellievre, Schomberg, Revol, and De Thou.
+
+The Archbishop of Lyons said that their party would do nothing either to
+frustrate or to support the mission of Pisani, and that the pope would,
+as ever, do all that could be done to maintain the interests of the true
+religion.
+
+The Archbishop of Bourges, knowing well the meaning of such fine phrases,
+replied that he had much respect for the holy father, but that popes had
+now, become the slaves and tools of the King of Spain, who, because he
+was powerful, held them subject to his caprice.
+
+At an adjourned meeting at the same place, the Archbishop of Lyons said
+that all questions had been asked and answered.  All now depended on the
+pope, whom the League would always obey.  If the pope would accept the
+reconciliation of the Prince of Bearne it was well.  He, hoped that his
+conversion would be sincere.
+
+The political archbishop (of Bourges) replied to the League's archbishop,
+that there was no time for delays, and for journeys by land and sea to
+Rome.  The least obstruction might prove fatal to both parties.  Let the
+Leaguers now show that the serenity of their faces was but the mirror of
+their minds.
+
+But the Leaguers' archbishop said that he could make no further advances.
+So ended the conference.'
+
+The chiefs of the politicians now went to the king and informed him that
+the decisive moment had arrived.
+
+Henry had preserved: his coolness throughout.  Amid all the hubbub of
+learned doctors of law, archbishops-Leaguer and political-Sorbonne
+pedants, solemn grandees from Spain with Latin orations in their pockets,
+intriguing Guises, huckstering Mayennes, wrathful Huguenots, sanguinary
+cardinal-legates, threatening world-monarchs--heralded by Spanish
+musketeers, Italian lancers, and German reiters--shrill screams of
+warning from the English queen, grim denunciations from Dutch Calvinists,
+scornful repulses from the holy father; he kept his temper and his eye-
+sight, as perfectly as he had ever done through the smoke and din of
+the wildest battle-field.  None knew better than he how to detect the
+weakness of the adversary, and to sound the charge upon his wavering
+line.
+
+He blew the blast--sure that loyal Catholics and Protestants alike would
+now follow him pell-mell.
+
+On the 16th, May, 1593, he gave notice that he consented to get himself
+instructed, and that he summoned an assembly at Mantes on the 15th July,
+of bishops, theologians, princes, lords, and courts of parliament to hold
+council, and to advise him what was best to do for religion and the
+State.
+
+Meantime he returned to the siege of Dreux, made an assault on the place,
+was repulsed, and then hung nine prisoners of war in full sight of the
+garrison as a punishment for their temerity in resisting him.  The place
+soon after capitulated (8th July, 1593).
+
+The interval between the summons and the assembling of the clerical and
+lay notables at Mantes was employed by the Leaguers in frantic and
+contradictory efforts to retrieve a game which the most sagacious knew to
+be lost.  But the politicians were equal to the occasion, and baffled
+them at every point.
+
+The Leaguers' archbishop inveighed bitterly against the abominable edicts
+recently issued in favour of the Protestants.
+
+The political archbishop (of Bourges) replied not by defending; but by
+warmly disapproving, those decrees of toleration, by excusing the king
+for having granted them for a temporary purpose, and by asserting
+positively that, so soon as the king should be converted, he would no
+longer countenance such measures.
+
+It is superfluous to observe that very different language was held on the
+part of Henry to the English and Dutch Protestants, and to the Huguenots
+of his own kingdom.
+
+And there were many meetings of the Leaguers in Paris, many belligerent
+speeches by the cardinal legate, proclaiming war to the knife rather
+than that the name of Henry the heretic should ever be heard of again as
+candidate for the throne, various propositions spasmodically made in full
+assembly by Feria, Ybarra, Tassis, the jurisconsult Mendoza, and other
+Spanish agents in favour of the Infanta as queen of France, with Archduke
+Ernest or the Duke of Guise, or any other eligible prince, for her
+husband.
+
+The League issued a formal and furious invective in answer to Henry's
+announcement; proving by copious citations from Jeremiah, St. Epiphany;
+St. Jerome, St. Cyprian, and St. Bernard, that it was easier for a
+leopard to change his spots or for a blackamoor to be washed white; than
+for a heretic to be converted, and that the king was thinking rather of
+the crown of France than of a heavenly crown, in his approaching
+conversion--an opinion which there were few to gainsay.
+
+And the Duke of Nemours wrote to his half-brother, the Duke of Mayenne;
+offering to use all his influence to bring about Mayenne's election as
+king on condition that if these efforts failed, Mayenne should do his
+best to procure the election of Nemours.
+
+And the Parliament of Paris formally and prospectively proclaimed any
+election of a foreigner null and void, and sent deputies to Mayenne
+urging him never to consent to the election of the Infanta.
+
+What help, said they, can the League expect from the old and broken
+Philip; from a king who in thirty years has not been able, with all the
+resources of his kingdoms, to subdue the revolted provinces of the
+Netherlands?  How can he hope to conquer France?  Pay no further heed
+to the legate, they said, who is laughing in his sleeve at the miseries
+and distractions of our country.  So spake the deputies of the League-
+Parliament to the great captain of the League, the Duke of Mayenne.
+It was obvious that the "great and holy confederacy" was becoming less
+confident of its invincibility.  Madame League was suddenly grown
+decrepit in the eyes of her adorers.
+
+Mayenne was angry at the action of the Parliament, and vehemently swore
+that he would annul their decree.  Parliament met his threats with
+dignity, and resolved to stand by the decree, even if they all died in
+their places.
+
+At the same time the Duke of Feria suddenly produced in full assembly
+of Leaguers a written order from Philip that the Duke of Guise and the
+Infanta should at once be elected king and queen.  Taken by surprise,
+Mayenne dissembled his rage in masterly-fashion, promised Feria to
+support the election, and at once began to higgle for conditions.  He
+stipulated that he should have for himself the governments of Champagne,
+Burgundy, and La Brie, and that they should be hereditary in his family:
+He furthermore demanded that Guise should cede to him the principality
+of Joinville, and that they should pay him on the spot in hard money two
+hundred thousand crowns in gold, six hundred thousand more in different
+payments, together with an annual payment of fifty thousand crowns.
+
+It was obvious that the duke did not undervalue himself; but he had after
+all no intention of falling into the trap set for him.  "He has made
+these promises (as above given) in writing," said the Duke of Savoy's
+envoy to his master, but he will never keep them.  The Duchess of Mayenne
+could not help telling me that her husband will never consent that the
+Duke of Guise should have the throne."  From this resolve he had never
+wavered, and was not likely to do so now.  Accordingly the man "of his
+word, of faith, and truth," whom even the astute Farnese had at times
+half believed in, and who had received millions of Philip's money, now
+thought it time to break with Philip.  He issued a manifesto, in which he
+observed that the States-General of France had desired that Philip should
+be elected King of France, and carry out his design of a universal
+monarchy, as the only-means of ensuring the safety of the Catholic
+religion and the pacification of the world.  It was feared, however, said
+Mayenne; that the king might come to the same misfortunes which befell
+his father, who, when it was supposed that he was inspired only by
+private ambition; and by the hope of placing a hereditary universal crown
+in his family, had excited the animosity of the princes of the empire.
+"If a mere suspicion had caused so great a misfortune in the empire,"
+continued the man of his word, "what will the princes of all Europe do
+when they find his Majesty elected king of France, and grown by increase
+of power so formidable to the world?  Can it be doubted that they will
+fly to arms at once, and give all their support to the King of Navarre,
+heretic though he be?  What motive had so many princes to traverse
+Philip's designs in the Netherlands, but desire to destroy the enormous
+power which they feared?  Therefore had the Queen, of England, although
+refusing the sovereignty, defended the independence of the Netherlands
+these fifteen years.
+
+"However desirable," continued Mayenne, "that this universal monarchy,
+for which the house of Austria has so long been working, should be
+established, yet the king is too prudent not to see the difficulties
+in his way.  Although he has conquered Portugal, he is prevented by the
+fleets of Holland and England from taking possession of the richest of
+the Portuguese possessions, the islands and the Indies.  He will find in
+France insuperable objections to his election as king, for he could in
+this case well reproach the Leaguers with having been changed from
+Frenchmen into Spaniards.  He must see that his case is hopeless in
+France, he who for thirty years has been in vain endeavouring to re-
+establish his authority in the Netherlands.  It would be impossible in
+the present position of affairs to become either the king or the
+protector of France.  The dignity of France allows it not."
+
+Mayenne then insisted on the necessity of a truce with the royalists or
+politicians, and, assembling the estates at the Louvre on the 4th July,
+he read a written paper declining for the moment to hold an election for
+king.
+
+John Baptist Tassis, next day, replied by declaring that in this case
+Philip would send no more succours of men or money; for that the only
+effectual counter-poison to the pretended conversion of the Prince of
+Bearne was the immediate election of a king.
+
+Thus did Mayenne escape from the snare in which the Spaniards thought to
+catch the man who, as they now knew, was changing every day, and was true
+to nothing save his own interests.
+
+And now the great day had come.  The conversion of Henry to the Roman
+faith, fixed long before for--the 23rd July,--1593, formally took place
+at the time appointed.
+
+From six in the morning till the stroke of noon did Henry listen to the
+exhortations and expoundings of the learned prelates and doctors whom he
+had convoked, the politic Archbishop of Bourges taking the lead in this
+long-expected instruction.  After six mortal hours had come to an end,
+the king rose from his knees, somewhat wearied, but entirely instructed
+and convinced.  He thanked the bishops for having taught him that of
+which he was before quite ignorant, and assured them that; after having
+invoked the light, of the Holy Ghost upon his musings, he should think
+seriously over what they had just taught him, in order to come to a
+resolution salutary to himself and to the State.
+
+Nothing could be more candid.  Next day, at eight in the morning, there
+was a great show in the cathedral of Saint Denis, and the population of
+Paris, notwithstanding the prohibition of the League authorities, rushed
+thither in immense crowds to witness the ceremony of the reconciliation
+of the king.  Henry went to the church, clothed as became a freshly
+purified heretic, in white satin doublet and hose, white silk stockings,
+and white silk shoes with white roses in them; but with a black hat and
+a black mantle.  There was a great procession with blare of trumpet and
+beat of drum.  The streets were strewn with flowers.
+
+As Henry entered the great portal of the church, he found the Archbishop
+of Bourges, seated in state, effulgent in mitre and chasuble, and
+surrounded by other magnificent prelates in gorgeous attire.
+
+"Who are you, and what do you want?"  said the arch-bishop.
+
+"I am the king," meekly replied Henry, "and I demand to be received into
+the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church."
+
+"Do you wish it sincerely?"  asked the prelate.
+
+"I wish it with all my heart," said the king.
+
+Then throwing himself on his knees, the Bearne--great champion of the
+Huguenots--protested before God that he would live and die in the
+Catholic faith, and that he renounced all heresy.  A passage was with
+difficulty opened through the crowd, and he was then led to the high
+altar, amid the acclamations of the people.  Here he knelt devoutly and
+repeated his protestations.  His unction and contrition were most
+impressive, and the people, of course, wept piteously.  The king, during
+the progress of the ceremony, with hands clasped together and adoring the
+Eucharist with his eyes, or, as the Host was elevated, smiting himself
+thrice upon the breast, was a model of passionate devotion.
+
+Afterwards he retired to a pavilion behind the altar, where the
+archbishop confessed and absolved him.  Then the Te Deum sounded,
+and high mass was celebrated by the Bishop of Nantes.  Then, amid
+acclamations and blessings, and with largess to the crowd, the king
+returned to the monastery of Saint Denis, where he dined amid a multitude
+of spectators, who thronged so thickly around him that his dinner-table
+was nearly overset.  These were the very Parisians, who, but three years
+before, had been feeding on rats and dogs and dead men's bones, and the
+bodies of their own children, rather than open their gates to this same
+Prince of Bearne.
+
+Now, although Mayenne had set strong guards at those gates, and had most
+strictly prohibited all egress, the city was emptied of its populace,
+which pressed in transports of adoration around the man so lately the
+object of their hate.  Yet few could seriously believe that much change
+had been effected in the inner soul of him, whom the legate, and the
+Spaniard, and the holy father at Rome still continued to denounce as the
+vilest of heretics and the most infamous of impostors.
+
+The comedy was admirably played out and was entirely successful.  It may
+be supposed that the chief actor was, however, somewhat wearied.  In
+private, he mocked at all this ecclesiastical mummery, and described
+himself as heartily sick of the business.  "I arrived here last evening,"
+he wrote to the beautiful Gabrielle, "and was importuned with 'God save
+you' till bed-time.  In regard to the Leaguers I am of the order of St.
+Thomas.  I am beginning to-morrow morning to talk to the bishops, besides
+those I told you about yesterday.  At this moment of writing I have a
+hundred of these importunates on my shoulders, who will make me hate
+Saint Denis as much as you hate Mantes.  'Tis to-morrow that I take the
+perilous leap.  I kiss a million times the beautiful hands of my angel
+and the mouth of my dear mistress."
+
+A truce--renewed at intervals--with the Leaguers lasted till the end of
+the year.  The Duke of Nevers was sent on special mission to Rome to
+procure the holy father's consent to the great heretic's reconciliation
+to the Church, and he was instructed to make the king's submission in
+terms so wholesale and so abject that even some of the life-long papists
+of France were disgusted, while every honest Protestant in Europe shrank
+into himself for shame.  But Clement, overawed by Philip and his
+ambassador, was deaf to all the representations of the French envoy.
+He protested that he would not believe in the sincerity of the Bearne's
+conversion unless an angel from Heaven should reveal it to him.  So
+Nevers left Rome, highly exasperated, and professing that he would rather
+have lost a leg, that he would rather have been sewn in a sack and tossed
+into the Tiber, than bear back such a message.  The pope ordered the
+prelates who had accompanied Nevers to remain in Rome and be tried by
+the Inquisition for misprision of heresy, but the duke placed them by
+his side and marched out of the Porta del Popolo with them, threatening
+to kill any man who should attempt to enforce the command.
+
+Meantime it became necessary to follow up the St. Denis comedy with a
+still more exhilarating popular spectacle.  The heretic had been
+purified, confessed, absolved.  It was time for a consecration.  But
+there was a difficulty.  Although the fever of loyalty to the ancient
+house of Bourbon, now redeemed from its worship of the false gods, was
+spreading contagiously through the provinces; although all the white silk
+in Lyons had been cut into scarves and banners to celebrate the
+reconciliation of the candid king with mother Church; although that
+ancient city was ablaze with bonfires and illuminations, while its
+streets ran red, with blood no longer, but with wine; and although Madam
+League, so lately the object of fondest adoration, was now publicly
+burned in the effigy of a grizzly hag; yet Paris still held for that
+decrepit beldame, and closed its gates to the Bearnese.
+
+The city of Rheims, too, had not acknowledged the former Huguenot,
+and it was at Rheims, in the church of St. Remy, that the Holy Bottle was
+preserved.  With what chrism, by what prelate, should the consecration of
+Henry be performed?  Five years before, the League had proposed in the
+estates of Blois to place among the fundamental laws of the kingdom that
+no king should be considered a legitimate sovereign whose head had not
+been anointed by the bishop at Rheims with oil from that holy bottle.
+But it was now decided that to ascribe a monopoly of sanctity to that
+prelate and to that bottle would be to make a schism in the Church.
+
+Moreover it was discovered that there was a chrism in existence still
+more efficacious than the famous oil of St. Remy.  One hundred and twelve
+years before the baptism of Clovis, St. Martin had accidentally tumbled
+down stairs, and lay desperately bruised and at the point of death.  But,
+according to Sulpicius Severus, an angel had straightway descended from
+heaven, and with a miraculous balsam had anointed the contusions of the
+saint, who next day felt no farther inconveniences from his fall.  The
+balsam had ever since been preserved in the church of Marmoutier near
+Tours.  Here, then, was the most potent of unguents brought directly from
+heaven.  To mix a portion thereof with the chrism of consecration was
+clearly more judicious than to make use of the holy bottle, especially as
+the holy bottle was not within reach.  The monks of Marmoutier consented
+to lend the sacred phial containing the famous oil of St. Martin for the
+grand occasion of the royal consecration.
+
+Accompanied by a strong military escort provided by Giles de Souvri,
+governor of Touraine, a deputation of friars brought the phial to
+Chartres, where the consecration was to take place.  Prayers were offered
+up, without ceasing, in the monastery during their absence that no mishap
+should befal the sacred treasure.  When the monks arrived at Chartres,
+four young barons of the first nobility were assigned to them as hostages
+for the safe restoration of the phial, which was then borne in triumph to
+the cathedral, the streets through which it was carried being covered
+with tapestry.  There was a great ceremony, a splendid consecration; six
+bishops, with mitres on their heads and in gala robes, officiating; after
+which the king knelt before the altar and took the customary oath.
+
+Thus the champion of the fierce Huguenots, the well-beloved of the dead
+La Noue and the living Duplessis Mornay, the devoted knight of the
+heretic Queen Elizabeth, the sworn ally of the stout Dutch Calvinists,
+was pompously reconciled to that Rome which was the object of their
+hatred and their fear.
+
+The admirably arranged spectacles of the instruction at St. Denis and the
+consecration at Chartres were followed on the day of the vernal equinox
+by a third and most conclusive ceremony:
+
+A secret arrangement had been made with De Cosse-Brissac, governor of
+Paris, by the king, according to which the gates of Paris were at last to
+be opened to him.  The governor obtained a high price for his services--
+three hundred thousand livres in hard cash, thirty thousand a year for
+his life, and the truncheon of marshal of France.   Thus purchased,
+Brissac made his preparations with remarkable secrecy and skill.  Envoy
+Ybarra, who had scented something suspicious in the air, had gone
+straight to the governor for information, but the keen Spaniard was
+thrown out by the governor's ingenuous protestations of ignorance.  The
+next morning, March 22nd, was stormy and rainy, and long before daylight
+Ybarra, still uneasy despite the statements of Brissac, was wandering
+about the streets of Paris when he became the involuntary witness of an
+extraordinary spectacle.
+
+Through the wind and the rain came trampling along the dark streets of
+the capital a body of four thousand troopers and lansquenettes.  Many
+torch-bearers attended on the procession, whose flambeaux threw a lurid
+light upon the scene.
+
+There, surrounded by the swart and grizzly bearded visages of these
+strange men-at-arms, who were discharging their arquebuses, as they
+advanced upon any bystanders likely to oppose their progress; in the very
+midst of this sea of helmed heads, the envoy was enabled to recognise the
+martial figure of the Prince of Bearne.  Armed to the teeth, with sword
+in hand and dagger at side, the hero of Ivry rode at last through the
+barriers which had so long kept him from his capital.  "'Twas like
+enchantment," said Ybarra.  The first Bourbon entered the city through
+the same gate out of which the last Valois had, five years before, so
+ignominiously fled.  It was a midnight surprise, although not fully
+accomplished until near the dawn of day.  It was not a triumphal
+entrance; nor did Henry come as the victorious standard-bearer of a great
+principle.  He had defeated the League in many battle-fields, but the
+League still hissed defiance at him from the very hearthstone of his
+ancestral palace.  He had now crept, in order to conquer, even lower
+than the League itself; and casting off his Huguenot skin at last,
+he had soared over the heads of all men, the presiding genius of the
+holy Catholic Church.
+
+Twenty-one years before, he had entered the same city on the conclusion
+of one of the truces which had varied the long monotony of the religious
+wars of France.  The youthful son of Antony Bourbon and Joan of Albret
+had then appeared as the champion and the idol of the Huguenots.  In the
+same year had come the fatal nuptials with the bride of St. Bartholomew,
+the first Catholic conversion of Henry and the massacre at which the
+world still shudders.
+
+Now he was chief of the "Politicians," and sworn supporter of the Council
+of Trent.  Earnest Huguenots were hanging their heads in despair.
+
+He represented the principle of national unity against national
+dismemberment by domestiv, treason and foreign violence.  Had that
+principle been his real inspiration, as it was in truth his sole support,
+history might judge him more leniently.  Had he relied upon it entirely
+it might have been strong enough to restore him to the throne of his
+ancestors, without the famous religious apostacy with which his name is
+for ever associated.  It is by no means certain that permanent religious
+toleration might not have been the result of his mounting the throne,
+only when he could do so without renouncing the faith of his fathers.
+A day of civilization may come perhaps, sooner or later, when it will be
+of no earthly cousequence to their fellow creatures to what creed, what
+Christian church, what religious dogma kings or humbler individuals may
+be partial; when the relations between man and his Maker shall be
+undefiled by political or social intrusion.  But the day will never
+come when it will be otherwise than damaging to public morality and
+humiliating to human dignity to forswear principle for a price, and to
+make the most awful of mysteries the subject of political legerdemain and
+theatrical buffoonery.
+
+The so-called conversion of the king marks an epoch in human history.
+It strengthened the Roman Church and gave it an indefinite renewal of
+life; but it sapped the foundations of religious faith.  The appearance
+of Henry the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent was of
+itself too biting an epigram not to be extensively destructive.  Whether
+for good or ill, religion was fast ceasing to be the mainspring of
+political combinations, the motive of great wars and national
+convulsions.  The age of religion was to be succeeded by the
+age of commerce.
+
+But the king was now on his throne.  All Paris was in rapture.  There was
+Te Deum with high mass in Notre Dame, and the populace was howling itself
+hoarse with rapture in honour of him so lately the object of the general
+curse.  Even the Sorbonne declared in favour of the reclaimed heretic,
+and the decision of those sages had vast influence with less enlightened
+mortals.  There was nothing left for the Duke of Feria but to take
+himself off and make Latin orations in favour of the Infanta elsewhere,
+if fit audience elsewhere could be found.  A week after the entrance of
+Henry, the Spanish garrison accordingly was allowed to leave Paris with
+the honours of war.
+
+"We marched out at 2 P.M.," wrote the duke to his master, "with closed
+ranks, colours displayed, and drums beating.  First came the Italians and
+then the Spaniards, in the midst of whom was myself on horseback, with
+the Walloons marching near me.  The Prince of Bearne"--it was a solace to
+the duke's heart, of which he never could be deprived, to call the king
+by that title--"was at a window over the gate of St. Denis through which
+we took our departure.  He was dressed in light grey, with a black hat
+surmounted by a great white feather.  Our displayed standards rendered
+him no courteous salute as we passed."
+
+Here was another solace!
+
+Thus had the game been lost and won, but Philip as usual did not
+acknowledge himself beaten.  Mayenne, too, continued to make the most
+fervent promises to all that was left of the confederates.  He betook
+himself to Brussels, and by the king's orders was courteously received by
+the Spanish authorities in the Netherlands.  In the midst of the tempest
+now rapidly destroying all rational hopes, Philip still clung to Mayenne
+as to a spar in the shipwreck.  For the king ever possessed the virtue,
+if it be one, of continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible,
+when he had been defeated in every quarter, and when his calculations had
+all proved ridiculous mistakes.
+
+When his famous Armada had been shattered and sunk, have we not seen him
+peevishly requiring Alexander Farnese to construct a new one immediately
+and to proceed therewith to conquer England out of hand?  Was it to be
+expected that he would renounce his conquest of France, although the
+legitimate king had entered his capital, had reconciled himself to the
+Church, and was on the point of obtaining forgiveness of the pope?  If
+the Prince of Bearne had already destroyed the Holy League, why should
+not the Duke of Mayenne and Archduke Ernest make another for him,
+and so conquer France without further delay?
+
+But although it was still possible to deceive the king, who in the
+universality of his deceptive powers was so prone to delude himself,
+it was difficult even for so accomplished an intriguer as Mayenne to
+hoodwink much longer the shrewd Spaniards who were playing so losing a
+game against him.
+
+"Our affairs in France," said Ybarra, "are in such condition that
+we are losing money and character there, and are likely to lose all the
+provinces here, if things are not soon taken up in a large and energetic
+manner.  Money and troops are what is wanted on a great scale for France.
+The king's agents are mightily discontented with Mayenne, and with
+reason; but they are obliged to dissimulate and to hold their tongues.
+We can send them no assistance from these regions, unless from down
+yonder you send us the cloth and the scissors to cut it with."
+
+And the Archduke Ernest, although he invited Mayenne to confer with him
+at Brussels, under the impression that he could still keep him and the
+Duke of Guise from coming to an arrangement with Bearne, hardly felt more
+confidence in the man than did Feria or Ybarra.  "Since the loss of
+Paris," said Ernest, "I have had a letter from Mayenne, in which, deeply
+affected by that event, he makes me great offers, even to the last drop
+of his blood, vowing never to abandon the cause of the League.  But of
+the intentions and inner mind of this man I find such vague information,
+that I don't dare to expect more stability from him than may be founded
+upon his own interest."
+
+And so Mayenne came to Brussels and passed three days with the archduke.
+"He avows himself ready to die in our cause," said Ernest.  "If your
+Majesty will give men and money enough, he will undertake so to deal
+with Bearne that he shall not think himself safe in his own house."
+The archduke expressed his dissatisfaction to Mayenne that with the money
+he had already received, so little had been accomplished, but he still
+affected a confidence which he was far from feeling, "because," said he,
+"it is known that Mayenne is already treating with Bearne.  If he has not
+concluded those arrangements, it is because Bearne now offers him less
+money than before."  The amount of dissimulation, politely so-called,
+practised by the grandees of that age, to say nothing of their infinite
+capacity for pecuniary absorption, makes the brain reel and enlarges
+one's ideas of the human faculties as exerted in certain directions.  It
+is doubtful whether plain Hans Miller or Hans Baker could have risen to
+such level.
+
+Feria wrote a despatch to the king, denouncing Mayenne as false,
+pernicious to the cause of Spain and of catholicism, thoroughly self-
+seeking and vile, and as now most traitorous to the cause of the
+confederacy, engaged in surrendering its strong places to the enemy,
+and preparing to go over to the Prince of Bearne.
+
+"If," said he, "I were to recount all his base tricks, I should go on
+till midnight, and perhaps till to-morrow morning."
+
+This letter, being intercepted, was sent with great glee by Henry IV.,
+not to the royal hands for which it was destined, but to the Duke of
+Mayenne.  Great was the wrath of that injured personage as he read such
+libellous truths.  He forthwith fulminated a scathing reply, addressed
+to Philip II., in which he denounced the Duke of Feria as "a dirty
+ignoramus, an impudent coward, an impostor, and a blind thief;" adding,
+after many other unsavoury epithets, "but I will do him an honour which
+he has not merited, proving him a liar with my sword; and I humbly pray
+your Majesty to grant me this favour and to pardon my just grief, which
+causes me to depart from the respect due to your Majesty, when I speak of
+this impostor who has thus wickedly torn my reputation."
+
+His invectives were, however, much stronger than his arguments in defence
+of that tattered reputation.  The defiance to mortal combat went for
+nothing; and, in the course of the next year, the injured Mayenne turned
+his back on Philip and his Spaniards, and concluded his bargain with the
+Prince of Bearne.  He obtained good terms: the government of Burgundy,
+payment of his debts, and a hundred and twenty thousand crowns in hard
+cash.  It is not on record that the man of his word, of credit, and of
+truth, ever restored a penny of the vast sums which he had received from
+Philip to carry on the business of the League.
+
+Subsequently the duke came one very hot summer's-day to Monceaux to thank
+the king, as he expressed it, for "delivering him from Spanish arrogance
+and Italian wiles;" and having got with much difficulty upon his knees,
+was allowed to kiss the royal hand.  Henry then insisted upon walking
+about with him through the park at a prodigious rate, to show him all the
+improvements, while the duke panted, groaned, and perspired in his vain
+efforts to keep pace with his new sovereign.
+
+"If I keep this fat fellow walking about in the sun much longer,"
+whispered the king to De Bethune, who was third in the party, "I shall be
+sufficiently avenged for all the mischief he has done us."
+
+At last, when the duke was forced to admit himself to be on the point of
+expiring with fatigue, he was dismissed to the palace with orders to
+solace himself with a couple of bottles of excellent wine of Arbois,
+expressly provided for him by the king's direction.  And this was all the
+punishment ever inflicted by the good-humoured monarch on the corpulent
+conspirator.
+
+The Duke of Guise made his arrangements with the ex-Huguenot on even
+better terms and at a still earlier day; while Joyeuse and Mercoeur stood
+out a good while and higgled hard for conditions.  "These people put such
+a high price on themselves," said one of Henry's diplomatists, "that one
+loses almost more than one gains in buying them.  They strip and plunder
+us even in our nakedness, and we are obliged, in order to conciliate such
+harpies, to employ all that we can scrape out of our substance and our
+blood.  I think, however, that we ought to gain them by whatever means
+and at whatever price."
+
+Thus Henry IV., the man whom so many contemporary sages had for years
+been rebuking or ridiculing for his persistency in a hopeless attempt to
+save his country from dismemberment, to restore legitimate authority, and
+to resist the "holy confederacy" of domestic traitors, aided by foreign
+despots and sympathizers, was at last successful, and the fratricidal war
+in France was approaching its only possible conclusion.
+
+But, alas! the hopes of those who loved the reformed Church as well as
+they loved their country were sadly blasted by the apostasy of their
+leader.  From the most eminent leaders of the Huguenots there came a
+wail, which must have penetrated even to the well-steeled heart of the
+cheerful Gascon.  "It will be difficult," they said, "to efface very soon
+from your memory the names of the men whom the sentiment of a common
+religion, association in the same perils and persecutions, a common joy
+in the same deliverance, and the long experience of so many faithful
+services, have engraved there with a pencil of diamond.  The remembrance
+of these things pursues you and accompanies you everywhere; it interrupts
+your most important affairs, your most ardent pleasures, your most
+profound slumber, to represent to you, as in a picture, yourself to
+yourself: yourself not as you are to-day, but such as you were when,
+pursued to the death by the greatest princes of Europe, you went on
+conducting to the harbour of safety the little vessel against which so
+many tempests were beating."
+
+The States of the Dutch republic, where the affair of Henry's conversion
+was as much a matter of domestic personal interest as it could be in
+France--for religion up to that epoch was the true frontier between
+nation and nation--debated the question most earnestly while it was yet
+doubtful.  It was proposed to send a formal deputation to the king, in
+order to divert him, if possible, from the fatal step which he was about
+to take.  After ripe deliberation however, it was decided to leave the
+matter "in the hands of God Almighty, and to pray Him earnestly to guide
+the issue to His glory and the welfare of the Churches."
+
+The Queen of England was, as might be supposed, beside herself with
+indignation, and, in consequence of the great apostasy, and of her
+chronic dissatisfaction with the manner in which her contingent of
+troops had been handled in France, she determined to withdraw every
+English soldier from the support of Henry's cause.  The unfortunate
+French ambassador in London was at his wits' ends.  He vowed that he
+could not sleep of nights, and that the gout and the cholic, to which
+he was always a martyr, were nothing to the anguish which had now come
+upon his soul and brain, such as he had never suffered since the bloody
+day of St. Bartholomew.
+
+"Ah, my God!"  said he to Burghley, "is it possible that her just choler
+has so suddenly passed over the great glory which she has acquired by so
+many benefits and liberalities?"  But he persuaded himself that her
+majesty would after all not persist in her fell resolution.  To do so,
+he vowed, would only be boiling milk for the French papists, who would be
+sure to make the most of the occasion in order to precipitate the king
+into the, abyss, to the border of which they had already brought him.
+He so dreaded the ire of the queen that he protested he was trembling
+all over merely to see the pen of his secretary wagging as he dictated
+his despatches.  Nevertheless it was his terrible duty to face her in her
+wrath, and he implored the lord treasurer to accompany him and to shield
+him at the approaching interview.  "Protect me," he cried, "by your
+wisdom from the ire of this great princess; for by the living God,
+when I see her enraged against any person whatever I wish myself
+in Calcutta, fearing her anger like death itself."
+
+When all was over, Henry sent De Morlans as special envoy to communicate
+the issue to the Governments of England and of Holland.  But the queen,
+although no longer so violent, was less phlegmatic than the States-
+General, and refused to be comforted.  She subsequently receded,
+however, from her determination to withdraw her troops from France.
+
+"Ah! what grief; ah! what regrets; ah! what groans, have I felt in my
+soul," she wrote, "at the sound of the news brought to me by Morlans!
+My God! Is it possible that any wordly respect can efface the terror
+of Divine wrath?  Can we by reason even expect a good sequel to such
+iniquitous acts?  He who has maintained and preserved you by His mercy,
+can you imagine that he permits you to walk alone in your utmost need?
+'Tis bad to do evil that good may come of it.  Meantime I shall not cease
+to put you in the first rank of my devotions, in order that the hands of
+Esau may not spoil the blessings of Jacob.  As to your promises to me of
+friendship and fidelity, I confess to have dearly deserved them, nor do I
+repent, provided you do not change your Father--otherwise I shall be your
+bastard sister by the father's side--for I shall ever love a natural
+better than an adopted one.  I desire that God may guide you in a
+straight road and a better path.  Your most sincere sister in the old
+fashion.  As to the new, I have nothing to do with it.   ELIZABETH R."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+All fellow-worms together
+Continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible
+He spent more time at table than the Bearnese in sleep
+Henry the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent
+Highest were not necessarily the least slimy
+His invectives were, however, much stronger than his arguments
+History is a continuous whole of which we see only fragments
+Infinite capacity for pecuniary absorption
+Leading motive with all was supposed to be religion
+Past was once the Present, and once the Future
+Sages of every generation, read the future like a printed scroll
+Sewers which have ever run beneath decorous Christendom
+Wrath of that injured personage as he read such libellous truths
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY UNITED NETHERLANDS, 1592-94 ***
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