A Popular History of France From the Earliest Times, Volume 5

Volume V.

LIST OF STEEL ENGRAVINGS:

CASTLE OF PAU FRONTISPIECE.

GABRIELLE D’ESTREES 130

MARIE DE MEDICI. 147

RICHELIEU. 180

LOUIS XIV. 344

TURENNE. 444

LIST OF WOOD-CUT ILLUSTRATIONS.

Henry IV. 11

Henry IV. at Ivry 26

“Do not lose Sight of my White Plume.” 30

Rosny Castle 30

Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma 32

Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne 35

Sully 37

Lemaitre, Mayenne, and the Archbishop of Lyons 53

Henry IV.’s Abjuration 56

The Castle of Monceaux 91

The Castle of St. Germain in the Reign of Henry IV. 107

The Castle of Fontainbleau 124

Henry IV. and his Ministers 138

The Arsenal in the Reign of Henry IV. 143

The Louvre 145

Concini, Leonora Galigai, and Mary de’ Medici 149

Louis XIII. and Albert de Luynes 154

Murder of Marshal d’Ancre 155

Double Duel 188

“Tapping with his Finger-tips on the Window-pane.” 191

Henry, Duke of Montmorency, at Castelnaudary 199

The King and the Cardinal 204

Cinq-Mars and De Thou going to Execution 215

The Parliament of Paris reprimanded 217

The Barefoots 221

The Abbot of St. Cyran 234

Demolishing the Fortifications 244

The Harbor of La Rochelle 248

The King and Richelieu at La Rochelle 250

John Guiton’s Oath 254

The Defile of Suza Pass 278

Richelieu and Father Joseph 280

Gustavus Adolphus 282

Death of Gustavus and his Page 290

The Palais-Cardinal 305

The Tomb of Richelieu 308

Descartes at Amsterdam 316

The King’s Press 323

Peter Corneille 334

The Representation of “the Cid.” 335

Corneille at the Hotel Rambouillet 342

The Great Conde 348

Arrest of Broussel 352

Cardinal de Retz 352

“Ah, Wretch, if thy Father saw thee!” 354

President Mole 355

The Great Mademoiselle 373

Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin 394

Death of Mazarin. 399

Fouquet 404

Vaux le Vicomte 405a

Colbert 405

Louis XIV. dismissing Fouquet 407

Louvois 411

William III., Prince of Orange 434

The Brothers Witt 436

Death of Turenne 443

An Exploit of John Bart’s 446

Duquesne victorious over Ruyter 446

Marshal Luxembourg 461a

Heinsius 461

Battle of St. Vincent 465a

The Battle of Neerwinden 465

“Here is the King of Spain.” 475

News for William III. 481

Bivouac of Louis XIV. 503

The Grand Dauphin 505

Marshal Villars and Prince Eugene 512

Marly 525

Colonnade of the Louvre 525a

The Louvre and the Tuileries 525b

Versailles 526

Vauban 534

The Torture of the Huguenots 552

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 556

Death of Roland the Camisard 569

Abbey of Port-Royal 580

Reading the Decree 581

Bossuet 591

Blaise Pascal 597

Fenelon and the Duke of Burgundy 610

La Rochefoucauld and his fair Friends 629

La Bruyere 633

Corneille reading to Louis XIV. 642

Racine 646

Boileau-Despreaux 650

La Fontaine, Boileau, Moliere, and Racine 657

Moliere 664

Death of Moliere 669

Lebrun 674

Le Poussin and Claude Lorrain 675

Lesueur 676

Mignard 677

Perrault 678

A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.

Chapter Xxxv.----Henry Iv., Protestant King. (1589-1593.)

On the 2d of August, 1589, in the morning, upon his arrival in his quarters at Meudon, Henry of Navarre was saluted by the Protestants King of France. They were about five thousand in an army of forty thousand men. When, at ten o’clock, he entered the camp of the Catholics at St. Cloud, three of their principal leaders, Marshal d’Aumont, and Sires d’Humieres and de Givry, immediately acknowledged him unconditionally, as they had done the day before at the death-bed of Henry III., and they at once set to work to conciliate to him the noblesse of Champagne, Picardy, and Ile-de-France. “Sir,” said Givry, “you are the king of the brave; you will be deserted by none but dastards.” But the majority of the Catholic leaders received him with such expressions as, “Better die than endure a Huguenot king!” One of them, Francis d’O, formally declared to him that the time had come for him to choose between the insignificance of a King of Navarre and the grandeur of a King of France; if he pretended to the crown, he must first of all abjure. Henry firmly rejected these threatening entreaties, and left their camp with an urgent recommendation, to them to think of it well before bringing dissension into the royal army and the royal party which were protecting their privileges, their property, and their lives against the League. On returning to his quarters, he noticed the arrival of Marshal de Biron, who pressed him to lay hands without delay upon the crown of France, in order to guard it and save it. But, in the evening of that day and on the morrow, at the numerous meetings of the lords to deliberate upon the situation, the ardent Catholics renewed their demand for the exclusion of Henry from the throne if he did not at once abjure, and for referring the election of a king to the states-general. Biron himself proposed not to declare Henry king, but to recognize him merely as captain-general of the army pending his abjuration. Harlay de Sancy vigorously maintained the cause of the Salic law and the hereditary rights of monarchy. Biron took him aside and said, I had hitherto thought that you had sense; now I doubt it. If, before securing our own position with the King of Navarre, we completely establish his, he will no longer care for us. The time is come for making our terms; if we let the occasion escape us, we shall never recover it.” “What are your terms?” asked Sancy. “If it please the king to give me the countship of Perigord, I shall be his forever.” Sancy reported this conversation to the king, who promised Biron what he wanted.

Though King of France for but two days past, Henry IV. had already perfectly understood and steadily taken the measure of the situation. He was in a great minority throughout the country as well as the army, and he would have to deal with public passions, worked by his foes for their own ends, and with the personal pretensions of his partisans. He made no mistake about these two facts, and he allowed them great weight; but he did not take for the ruling principle of his policy and for his first rule of conduct the plan of alternate concessions to the different parties and of continually humoring personal interests; he set his thoughts higher, upon the general and natural interests of France as he found her and saw her. They resolved themselves, in his eyes, into the following great points: maintenance of the hereditary rights of monarchy, preponderance of Catholics in the government, peace between Catholics and Protestants, and religious liberty for Protestants. With him these points became the law of his policy and his kingly duty, as well as the nation’s right. He proclaimed them in the first words that he addressed to the lords and principal personages of state assembled around him. “You all know,” said he, “what orders the late king my predecessor gave me, and what he enjoined upon me with his dying breath. It was chiefly to maintain my subjects, Catholic or Protestant, in equal freedom, until a council, canonical, general, or national, had decided this great dispute. I promised him to perform faithfully that which he bade me, and I regard it as one of my first duties to be as good as my word. I have heard that some who are in my army feel scruples about remaining in my service unless I embrace the Catholic religon. No doubt they think me weak enough for them to imagine that they can force me thereby to abjure my religion and break my word. I am very glad to inform them here, in presence of you all, that I would rather this were the last day of my life than take any step which might cause me to be suspected of having dreamt of renouncing the religion that I sucked in with my mother’s milk, before I have been better instructed by a lawful council, to whose authority I bow in advance. Let him who thinks so ill of me get him gone as soon as he pleases; I lay more store by a hundred good Frenchmen than by two hundred who could harbor sentiments so unworthy. Besides, though you should abandon me, I should have enough of friends left to enable me, without you and to your shame, with the sole assistance of their strong arms, to maintain the rights of my authority. But were I doomed to see myself deprived of even that assistance, still the God who has preserved me from my infancy, as if by His own hand, to sit upon the throne, will not abandon me. I nothing doubt that He will uphold me where He has placed me, not for love of me, but for the salvation of so many souls who pray, without ceasing, for His aid, and for whose freedom He has deigned to make use of my arm. You know that I am a Frenchman and the foe of all duplicity. For the seventeen years that I have been King of Navarre, I do not think that I have ever departed from my word. I beg you to address your prayers to the Lord on my behalf, that He may enlighten me in my views, direct my purposes, bless my endeavors. And in case I commit any fault or fail in any one of my duties,--for I acknowledge that I am a man like any other,--pray Him to give me grace that I may correct it, and to assist me in all my goings.”

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