 CHAPTER 11 THE CONVERSION OF THE KING, PART III Others still assert that Henry was humanely anxious to arrest the horrors of civil war, to introduce peace to distracted France, and to secure the Protestants from oppression. His acceptance of the Catholic faith was the only apparent way of accomplishing these results. Being a humane man but not a man of established Christian principle, he deemed it his duty to pursue the course which would accomplish such results. The facts, so far as known are before the reader, and each one can form his own judgment. The announcement throughout the kingdom that Henry had become a Catholic almost immediately put an end to the civil war. Insighted by the royal example, many of the leading Protestants, nobles and gentlemen, also renounced Protestantism, and conformed to the religion of the state. The chiefs of the League, many of whom were ambitious political partisans rather than zealous theologians, and whom were clamorous for Catholicism, only as a means of obtaining power, at once relinquished all hope of victory. For a time however they still assumed a hostile attitude, and heaped unmeasured ridicule upon what they styled the feigned conversion of the king. They wished to compel the monarch to purchase their adhesion at as dear a price as possible. Many important cities surrendered to the royal cause under the stipulation that the preaching of the Protestants should be utterly prohibited in their precincts and suburbs. Even the Pope, Clement VIII, a weak and bigoted man, for a time refused to ratify the act of the Archbishop of Bourges in absolving Henry from the pains and penalties of excommunication. He forbade the envoy of Henry to approach the Vatican. The Duke of Nevers, who was the appointed envoy, notwithstanding this prohibition, persisted in his endeavors to obtain an audience, but the Pope was anxious to have the crown of France in the possession of one whose Catholic seal could not be questioned. He would much have preferred to see the fanatic Duke of Mayenne upon the throne, or to have promoted the Spanish succession. He therefore treated the Duke of Nevers with great indignity, and finally gave him an abrupt dismission. But the mass of the French people, longingful repose, gladly accepted the conversion of the king. One after another the leaders of the leak gave in their adhesion to the royal cause. The Duke of Mayenne, however, held out, Paris being still in his possession, and several other important cities and fortresses being garrisoned by his troops. The Pope at length, having vainly done everything in his power to rouse France and Catholic Europe, to resist Henry, condescended to negotiate. His spirit may be seen in the atrocious conditions which he proposed. As the price of his absolution he required that Henry should abrogate every edict of toleration, that he should exclude Protestants from all public offices, and that he should exterminate them from the kingdom as soon as possible. To these demands Henry promptly replied, I should be justly accused of shamelessness and ingratitude, if, after having received such signal services from the Protestants, I should thus persecute them. Henry was fully aware of the influence of forms upon the imaginations of the people. He accordingly made preparations for his coronation. The event was celebrated with great pomp in the city of Chartres on the 27th of February 1594. The Ligres were now disheartened. Every day their ranks were diminishing. The Duke of Mayenne apprehensive that his own partisans might surrender Paris to the king, and that thus he might be taken prisoner, on the 6th of March with his wife and children left the city under the pretense of being called away by important business. Three hours after midnight of the 21st of the month the gates were secretly thrown open and a body of the king's troops entered the metropolis. They marched rapidly along the silent streets, hardly encountering the slightest opposition. Before the morning dawned they had taken possession of the bridges, the squares, and the ramparts, and their cannon were planted so as to sweep all the important streets and avenues. The citizens aroused by the tramp of infantry and of cavalry and by the rumbling of the heavy artillery over the pavements rose from their beds and crowded their windows and thronged the streets. In the early dawn the king accompanied by the officers of his staff entered the capital. He was dressed in the garb of a civilian and was entirely unarmed. All were ready to receive him. Pulse of peace, peace, long lived the king, reverberated in tones of almost delirious joy through the thoroughfares of the metropolis. Henry thus advanced through the ranks of the rejoicing people to the great cathedral of Notre Dame, where mass was performed. He then proceeded to the royal palace of the Louvre, which his officers had already prepared for his reception. All the bells of the city rung their merriest chimes. As of music peeled forth their most exultant strains, and the air was rent with acclamations as the king, after all these long and bloody wars, thus peacefully took possession of the capital of his kingdom. In this hour of triumph Henry manifested the most noble clemency. He issued a decree declaring that no citizen who had been in rebellion against him should be molested. Even the Spanish troops, who were in the city to fight against him, were permitted to depart with their arms in their hands. As they defiled through the gate of Sandini, the king stood by a window and, lifting his hat, respectfully saluted the officers. They immediately approached the magnanimous monarch and, bending the knee, thanked him freely for his great clemency. The king courteously replied, Adieu, gentlemen, adieu. Commend me to your master and go in peace, but do not come back again. Lanu, one of Henry's chief supporters, as he was entering the city, had his baggage attached for an old debt. Indignantly he hastened to the king to complain of the outrage. The just monarch promptly but pleasantly replied, We must pay our debts, Lanu. I pay mine. Then, drawing his faithful servant aside, he gave him his jewels to pledge for the deliverance of his baggage. The king was so impoverished that he had not money sufficient to pay the debt. These principles of justice and magnanimity, which were instinctive with the king and which were daily manifested in multiplied ways, soon won to him nearly all hearts. All France had writhed in anguish through years of war and misery. Peace, the greatest of all earthly blessings, was now beginning to diffuse its joys. The happiness of the Parisians amounted almost to transport. It was difficult for the king to pass through the streets. The crowd so thronged him with their acclamations. Many other important towns soon surrendered, but the haughty duke of Mayenne refused to accept the proffered clemency and strengthened by the tremendous spiritual power of the head of the church, still endeavored to arouse the energies of papal fanaticism in Flanders and in Spain. Soon however, the pope became convinced that all further resistance would be in vain. It was but compromising his dignity to be vanquished and he accordingly decided to accept reconciliation. In yielding to this, the pope stooped to the following silly farce, quite characteristic of those days of darkness and delusion. It was deemed necessary that the king should do penance for his sins before he could be received to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. It was proper that the severe mother should chastise her wayward child, whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth. It was the 16th of September, 1595. The two ambassadors of Henry IV kneeled upon the vestibule of one of the churches in Rome as unworthy to enter. In strains of affected penitents, they chanted the mesurery, have mercy, Lord. At the close of every verse they received, in the name of their master, the blows of a little switch on their shoulders. The king having thus made expiation for his sins through the reception of this chastisement by proxy, and having thus emphatically acknowledged the authority of the sacred mother, received the absolution of the vicar of Christ, and was declared to be worthy of the loyalty of the faithful. We have called this a farce, and yet can it be justly called so? The proud spirit of the king must indeed have been humiliated ere he could have consented to such a degradation. The spirit, ennobled, can bid defiance to any amount of corporeal pain. It is ignominy alone which can punish the soul. The pope triumphed, the monarch was flogged. It is but just to remark that the friends of Henry denied that he was accessory to this act of humiliation. The atrocious civil war thus virtually for a time terminated was caused by the leaguers who had bound themselves together in a secret society for the persecution of the Protestants. Their demand was inexorable that the Protestants throughout France should be proscribed and exterminated. The Protestants were compelled to unite in self-defense. They only asked for liberty to worship God according to their understanding of the teachings of the Bible. Henry, to conciliate the Catholics, was now compelled to yield to many of their claims which were exceedingly intolerant. He did this very unwillingly, for it was his desire to do everything in his power to ameliorate the condition of his Protestant friends. But notwithstanding all the kind wishes of the king, the condition of the Protestants was still very deplorable. Public opinion was vehemently against them. The magistrates were everywhere their foes, and the courts of justice were closed against all their appeals. Petty persecution and tumultuary violence in a thousand forms annoyed them. During the year of Henry's coronation, a Protestant congregation in Châtineret was assailed by a Catholic mob instigated by the Ligors, and 200 men, women, and children were massacred. A little boy, eight years old, in the simplicity of his heart, offered eight coppers which he had in his pocket to ransom his life, but the merciless fanatics struck him down. Most of these outrages were committed with entire impunity. The king had even felt himself forced to take the oath. I will endeavor with all my power and good faith to dry from my jurisdiction in the states all the heretics denounced by the church. The Protestants, finding themselves thus denounced as enemies and being cut off from all ordinary privileges and from all common justice, decided for mutual protection vigorously to maintain their political organization. The king, though he feigned to be displeased, still encouraged them to do so. Though the Protestants were few in numbers, they were powerful in intelligence, rank, and energy, and in their emergencies the strong arm of England was ever generously extended for their aid. The king was glad to avail himself of their strength to moderate the intolerant demands of the Ligards. Many of the Protestants complained bitterly that the king had abandoned them. On the other hand, the haughty leaders of the league clamored loudly that the king was not a true son of the church, and in multi-form conspiracies they sought his death by assassination. The Protestants held several large assemblies in which they discussed their affairs. They drew up an important document and addressed to the king entitled Complaints of the Reformed Churches of France. Many pages were filled with a narrative of the intolerable grievances they endured. This paper contained, in conclusion, the following noble words. And yet, sire, we have among us no Jacobins or Jesuits who wish for your life or Ligards who aspire to your crown. We have never presented, instead of petitions, the points of our swords. We are rewarded with considerations of state. It is not yet time, they say, to grant us an edict. And yet, after thirty-five years of persecution, ten years of banishment by the edicts of the league, eight years of the king's reign, four years of proscription, we are still under the necessity of imploring from your majesty an edict, which shall allow us to enjoy what is common to all your subjects. The soul-glory of God, the liberty of our consciences, the repose of the state, the security of our property and our lives, this is the summit of our wishes and the end of our requests. End of section thirty-one. Section thirty-two of History of Henry IV, King of France and Navarre by John Stevens Cabot Abbott. His LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter twelve, the reign of Henry IV and his death, part one. The reconciliation of the king with the pope presented a favorable opportunity for the Duke of Mayenne, consistently with his pride, to abandon the hopeless conflict. He declared that as the pope had accepted the conversion of the king, all his scruples were removed, and that he could now conscientiously accept him as the sovereign of France. But the power of the haughty Duke may be seen in the terms he exacted. The king was compelled to declare, though he knew to the contrary, that all things considered it was evident that neither the princes nor the princesses of the league were at all implicated in the assassination of Henry III, and to stop all proceedings in parliament in reference to that atrocious murder. Three fortified cities were surrendered to the Duke, to be held by him and his partisans for six years in pledge for the faithful observance of the terms of the capitulation. The king also assumed all the debts which Mayenne had contracted during the war, and granted a term of six weeks to all the leaguers, who were still in arms, to give in their adhesion and to accept his clemency. The king was at this time at Monceau, the Duke of Mayenne hastened to meet him. He found Henry riding on horseback in the beautiful park of that place with the fair Gabrielle, and accompanied by the Duke of Souly. Mayenne, in compliance with the obsequious etiquette of those days, kneeled humbly before the king, embraced his knees, and assuring him of his entire devotion for the future, thanked the monarch for having delivered him from the arrogance of the Spaniards and from the cunning of the Italians. Henry who had a vein of waggery about him immediately raised the Duke, embraced him with the utmost cordiality, and taking his arm without any illusion whatever to their past difficulties led him through the park, pointing out to him with great volubility and cheerfulness the improvements he was contemplating. Henry was a well-built vigorous man, and walked with great rapidity. Mayenne was excessively corpulent and lame with gout. With the utmost difficulty he kept up with the king, panting, limping, and his face blazing with the heat. Henry with slime Alice for some time appeared not to notice the sufferings of his victim, then with a concealed smile he whispered to Souly, If I walk this great fat body much longer I shall avenge myself without any further trouble. Then turning to Mayenne he added, Tell me the truth, cousin, do I not walk a little too fast for you? Sire, exclaimed the puffing Duke, I am almost dead with fatigue. There's my hand, exclaimed the kind-hearted king again cordially embracing the Duke, take it, for on my life this is all the vengeance I shall ever seek. There were still parts of the kingdom which held out against Henry, and Spain and Flanders freely supplied men in ammunition to the fragments of the League. Calais was in the hands of the enemy. Queen Elizabeth of England had ceased to take much interest in the conflict since the king had gone over to the Catholics. When Calais was besieged by the foe, before its surrender she offered to send her fleet for its protection if Henry would give the city to her. Henry tartly replied, I had rather be plundered by my enemies than by my friends. The queen was offended, sent no sucker, and Calais passed into the hands of the Leaguers. The king was exceedingly distressed at the loss of this important town. It indicated new and rising energy on the part of his foes. The more fanatical Catholics, all over the kingdom, who had never been more than half reconciled to Henry, were encouraged to think that after all their defeats resistance might still be successful. The heroic energies of the king were, however, not depressed by this great disaster. When its surrender was announced, turning to the gentleman of his court, he calmly said, My friends, there is no remedy. Calais is taken, but we must not lose our courage. It is in the midst of disasters that bold men grow bolder. Our enemies have had their turn. With God's blessing, who has never abandoned me when I have prayed to him with my whole heart, we shall yet have ours. At any event, I am greatly comforted by the conviction that I have omitted nothing that was possible to save the city. All of its defenders have acquitted themselves loyally and nobly. Let us not reproach them. On the contrary, let us do honor to their generous defense. And now let us rouse our energies to retake the city, that it may remain in the hands of the Spaniards not so many days, as our ancestors left it years in the hands of the English. A large body of the nobles now combined to extort from the king some of the despotic feudal privileges which existed in the twelfth century. They thought that in this hour of reverse, Henry would be glad to purchase their powerful support by surrendering many of the prerogatives of the crown. After holding a meeting, they appointed the Duke of Montpensier, who was very young and self-sufficient, to present their demands to the king. Their plan was this, that the king should consent to the division of France into several large departments over each of which, as a vassal prince, some distinguished nobleman should reign, collecting his own revenues and maintaining his own army. Each of these vassal nobles was to be bound when required to furnish a military contingent to their liege-lord, the king. Montpensier entered the presence of the monarch, and in a long discourse urged the insulting proposal. The king listened calmly and without interrupting him to the end. Then in tones, unimpassioned but firm and deliberate, he replied, My cousin, you must be insane. Such language coming from you and addressed to me leads me to think that I am in a dream. View so full of insult to the sovereign and ruin to the state cannot have originated in your benevolent and upright mind. Think you that the people, having stripped me of the august prerogatives of royalty, would respect in you the rights of a prince of the blood? Did I believe that you in heart desired to see me thus humiliated? I would teach you that such an offence is not to be committed with impunity. My cousin, abandon these follies. Reveal not your accomplices, but reply to them, that you yourself have such a horror of these propositions, that you will hold him as a deadly enemy who shall ever speak to you of them again. This firmness crushed the conspiracy, but still darkness and gloom seemed to rest upon unhappy France. The year 1596 was one of famine and pestilence. We had, says a writer of the Times, summer in April, autumn in May, winter in June. In the city and in the country, thousands perished of starvation, famishing multitudes crowded to the gates of the city in search of food, but in the city the plague had broken forth. The authorities drove the mendicants back into the country. They carried with them the awful pestilence in every direction. At the same time several attempts were made to assassinate the king. Though he escaped the knife of the assassin, he came near losing his life by a singular accident. The Princess of Navarre, sister of the king, had accompanied him with the rest of the court into Picacdie. She was taken suddenly ill. The king called to see her, carrying in his arms his infant son, the idolized child of the fair Gabrielle. While standing by the bedside of his sister, from some unexplained cause, the flooring gave way beneath them, Henry instinctively sprang upon the bed with his child. Providentially that portion of the floor remained firm while all the rest was precipitated with a crash into the rooms below. Whether Henry, his sister, or his child sustained any injury. The financial condition of the empire was in a state of utter ruin, a ruin so hopeless that the almost inconceivable story is told that the king actually suffered both for food and raiment. He at times made himself marry with his own ragged appearance. At one time he said gaily, when the parliament sent the president Seguier to remonstrate against the fiscal edict, I only ask to be treated as they treat the monks with food and clothing. Now, Mr. President, I often have not enough to eat. As for my habiliments, look and see how I am accoutered. And he pointed to his faded and threadbare doublet. Le Grin, a contemporary rites, I have seen the king with a plain doublet of white stuff, all soiled by his cuirass, and torn at the sleeve and with well-worn breeches, unsewn on the side of the sword-belt. While the king was thus destitute the members of the Council of Finance were practicing gross extortion and living in extravagance. The king was naturally light-hearted and gay, but the deplorable condition of the kingdom occasionally plunged him into the deepest of melancholy. A lady of the court one day remarked to him that he looked sad. Indeed, he replied, how can I be otherwise, to see a people so ungrateful toward their king? Though I have done and still do all I can for them, and though for their welfare I would willingly sacrifice a thousand lives had got given me so many, as I have often proved, yet they daily attempt my life. The Council insisted that it was not safe for the king to leave so many of the leaguers in the city and urged their banishment. The king refused, saying, they are all my subjects and I wish to love them equally. The king now resolved, notwithstanding strong opposition from the Catholics, to place his illustrious Protestant friend Sully at the head of the Ministry of Finance. Sully entered upon his Herculean task with shrewdness which no cunning could baffle, and with integrity which no threat or bribe could bias. All the energies of columny, malice, and violence were exhausted upon him. But this majestic man moved straight on, heedless of the storm, till he caused order to emerge from apparently inexplicable confusion, and by just and healthy measures replenished the bankrupt treasury of the state. The king was now pushing the Siege of Amiens, which had for some time been in the hands of his enemies. During this time he wrote to his devoted friend and faithful Ministry of Finance, I am very near the enemy, yet I have scarcely a horse upon which I can fight, or a suit of armor to put on. My doublet is in holes at the elbows, my kettle is often empty. For these last two days I have dined with one and another as I could. My purveyors inform me that they have no longer the means of supplying my table. On the 25th of June, 1597, Amiens capitulated. One of the kings of England is said to have remarked to his son, who was eager to ascend the throne, Thou little-knownst, my child, what a heap of cares and sorrows thou graspest at. History does indeed prove that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. New perplexities now burst upon the king. The Protestants, many of them irritated by his conversion, and by the tardy and insufficient concessions they received, fully demanded entire equality with the Catholics. This demand led to the famous Edict of Nantes. This ordinance, which received its name from the place where it was published, was issued in the month of April 1598. It granted to the Protestants full private liberty of conscience. It also permitted them to enjoy public worship in all places where the rite was already established. Protestant lords of the highest rank could celebrate divine service in their castles with any number of their retainers. Nobles of the second rank might maintain private worship in their mansions to which thirty persons could be admitted. Protestants were pronounced to be eligible to public office. Their children were to be admitted to the schools, their sick to the hospitals, and their poor to a share of the public charities. In a few specified places they were permitted to print books. Such in the main was the celebrated Edict of Nantes. The Catholics considered this an enormous and atrocious concession to deadly heresy. New clambers blazed forth against Henry, as in heartfalls to the church. The Catholic clergy, in one combined voice protested against it, and Pope Clement VIII declared the Edict of Nantes, which permitted liberty of conscience to everyone, the most acesacropole that was ever made. It has required centuries of blood and woe to teach even a few individuals the true principles of religious liberty. Even in Protestant lands, the masses of the people have not yet fully learnt that lesson. All over Catholic Europe, and all through the realms of paganism, intolerance still sways her cruel and bloody scepter. These miserable religious wars in France, the birth of ignorance, fanaticism and depravity, for seventy years polluted the state with gory scaffolds and blazing stakes. Three thousand millions of dollars were expended in the senseless strife, and two millions of lives were thrown away. At the close of the war, one half of the towns and the majestic castles of beautiful France were but heaps of smoldering ruins. All industry was paralyzed. The fields were abandoned to weeds and barrenness. The heart and mind of the whole nation was thoroughly demoralized. Poverty, emaciation and a semi-barbarism deformed the whole kingdom. Neither the Catholics nor Protestants were satisfied with the Edict of Nantes. The Parliament of Paris composed almost entirely of Catholics for a long time refused its ratification. Henry called the courts before him and insisted with kindness but with firmness that the Edict should be verified. Gentlemen said he, in a long speech which he made upon the occasion, there must be no more distinction between Catholics and Protestants, all must be good Frenchmen, let the Catholics convert the Protestants by the example of a good life. I am a shepherd king who will not shed the blood of his sheep, but who will seek to bring them all with kindness into the same fold. The Catholic Parliament thus constrained finally adopted the Edict. The Protestants also perceiving clearly that this was the best that the king could do for them after long discussion in their Consistory, which was in reality their Parliament, finally gave in their Adhesion. The adjoining hostile powers, having no longer a party in France to join them, were thus disarmed. They sent ambassadors to promote peace. Friendly treaties were speedily formed, and Henry was the undisputed monarch of a kingdom in repose. Henry now commenced with great energy the promotion of the prosperity of his exhausted kingdom. To check the warlike spirit which had so long been dominant, he forbade any of his subjects except his guards to carry arms. The army was immediately greatly reduced, and public expenditures so diminished as materially to lighten the weight of taxation. Many of the nobles claimed exemption from the tax, but Henry was inflexible that the public burden should be born equally by all. The people enjoying the long unknown blessings of peace became enthusiastically grateful to their illustrious benefactor. In the month of October 1598 the king was taken dangerously ill. The whole nation was in a panic. The touching demonstrations which Henry then received of the universal love and homage of his subjects affected him deeply. But few men find enough happiness in this world to lead them to cling very tenaciously to life when apparently on a dying bed. Henry at this time said to his attendants, I have no fear of death. I do not shrink at all from the great journey to the spirit land, but I greatly regret being removed from my beloved country before I have restored it to complete prosperity. Happily the fever was subdued and he again with indefatigable diligence resumed his labors. To discourage the extravagance of the nobles he set the example of extreme economy and all his personal expenses. He indulged in no-goddy equipage, his table was very frugally served, and his dress was simple in the extreme. No man in the kingdom devoted more hours to labor. He met his council daily, and in all their conferences exhibited a degree of information, shrewdness, and of comprehensive statesmanship which astonished the most experienced politicians who surrounded him. It was a fierce battle which the king and his minister were compelled to fight for many years against the haughty nobles who had ever regarded the mass of the people but as beasts of burden made to contribute to their pleasure. The demands of these proud aristocrats were incessant and inexorable. It is a singular fact that among them all there was not a more thorough going aristocrat than Suley himself. He had a perfect contempt for the people as to any power of self-government. They were in his view but sheep, to be carefully protected by a kind shepherd. It was as absurd he thought to consult them as it would be for a shepherd to ask the advice of his flock. But Suley wished to take good care of the people, to shield them from all unequal burdens, from all aristocratic usurpations, and to protect them with inflexible justice in person and in property. His government was absolute in the extreme. The Marchioness of Verneuil, in a towering rage, bitterly reproached the duke for preventing her from receiving a monopoly from the king, which would have secured to her an income of some five hundred thousand dollars a year. Truly the king will be a great fool, exclaimed the enraged Marchioness, if he continues to follow your advice, and thus alienates so many distinguished families. On whom, pray, should the king confer favors, if not on his relatives and his influential friends? What you say, replied the unbending minister, would be reasonable enough if his majesty took the money all out of his own purse. But to assess a new tax upon the merchants, artisans, laborers, and country people will never do. It is by them that the king and all of us are supported, and it is enough that they provide for a master without having to maintain his cousins and friends. For twelve years Henry with his illustrious minister labored with uninterrupted zeal for the good of France. His love of France was an ever-glowing and growing passion for which everything was to be surrendered. Henry was great in all respects but one. He was a slave to the passion of love. And no one, says Napoleon, can surrender himself to the passion of love without forfeiting some palms of glory. This great frailty has left a stain upon his reputation which truth must not conceal, which the genius of history with sorrow regards, and which can never be effaced. He was a great statesman, his heart was warm and generous, his philanthropy was noble and all-embracing, and his devotion to the best welfare of France was sincere and intense. Witness the following memorable prayer as he was just entering upon a great battle. O Lord, if Thou meanest this day to punish me from my sins, I bow my head to the stroke of Thy justice, spare not the guilty. But Lord, by Thy holy mercy have pity on this poor realm and strike not the flock for the fault of the shepherd. If God said he at another time, shall grant me the ordinary term of human life, I hope to see France in such a condition that every peasant shall be able to have a fowl in the pot on Sunday. This memorable saying shows both the benevolence of the king and the exceeding poverty at that time of the peasantry of France. Sully, in speaking of the corruption which had prevailed, and of the measures of reform introduced, says, The revenue annually paid into the royal treasury was thirty millions. It could not be, I thought, that such a sum could reduce the kingdom of France so low. I resolved to enter upon the immense investigation. To my horror I found that for these thirty millions given to his majesty there were extorted from the purses of his subjects I almost blushed to say, one hundred and fifty millions. After this I was no longer ignorant once the misery of the people proceeded. I applied my cares to the authors of this oppression who were the governors and other officers of the army, who all even to the meanest abused in an enormous manner their authority over the people. I immediately caused a decree to be issued by which they were prohibited under great penalties to exact anything from the people under any title whatever, without a warrant in form. CHAPTER XII The King cooperated cordially with his minister in these rigorous acts of reform and shielded him with all the power of the monarchy from the storm of Apliqui which these measures drew upon him. The proud Duke of Apernau exasperated beyond control, grossly insulted Sully. Henry immediately wrote to his minister, if Apernau challenges you, I will be your second. The amiable but sinning and consequently wretched Gabrielle was now important it for the divorce that she might be lawfully married to the king. But the children already born could not be legitimized and Sully so clearly unfolded to the king the confusion which would thus be introduced and the certainty that in the consequence of it a disputed succession would deluge France in blood that the king ardently as he loved Gabrielle was compelled to abandon the plan. Gabrielle was inconsolable and invade bitterly against Sully. The king for a moment forgot himself and cruelly retorted, no woman that a minister like Sully must be dearer to me than even such a friend as you. This harshness broke the heart of the unhappy Gabrielle. She immediately left Fontainebleau where she was at that time with the king and retired to Paris saying as she bade Henry adieu, we shall never meet again. Her words proved true. When reaching Paris she was seized with convulsions, gave birth to a lifeless child and died. Poor Gabrielle, let compassion drop a tear over her grave. She was by nature one of the most lovely and noble of women. She lived in a day of darkness and almost universal corruption. Yielding to the temptation of a heroic monarch's love, she fell, the subsequent life of sorrow was terminated by an awful death, probably caused by poison. Henry as soon as informed of her sickness mounted his horse to gallop to Paris. He had proceeded but halfway when he was met by a courier who informed him that Gabrielle was dead. The dreadful blow staggered the king and he would have fallen from his horse had he not been supported by his attendants. He retired to Fontainebleau, shut himself up from all society, and surrendered himself to the most bitter grief. Sully and Vain endeavored to console him. It was long before he could turn his mind to any business, but there is no pain whose anguished time will not diminish. New cares and new loves at length engrossed the heart where Gabrielle had for a few brief years so supremely reigned. The utterly profligate marguerite, now that Gabrielle was dead, whom she, of course, hated, was perfectly willing to assent to a divorce. While arrangements were making to accomplish this end, the king chanced to meet a fascinating yet pert and heartless coquette, Henriette d'Entrages, daughter of Francis Balzac, Lord of Entrages. Though exceedingly beautiful she was a calculating soulless girl who was glad of a chance to sell herself for rank and money, she thus readily bartered her beauty to the king, exacting with the most cool financiering as the price, a written promise that he would marry her as soon as he should obtain a divorce from marguerite of Valois upon condition that she, within the year, should bear him a son. The king, having written the promise, placed it in the hands of Sully. The bold minister read it, then tore it into fragments. The king amazed at such boldness exclaimed in a passion, Sir, I believe that you are mad. True sire I am, replied Sully, but would to God that I were the only madman in France. But Henri, notwithstanding his anger, could not part from a minister whose services were so invaluable. He immediately drew up another promise, which he placed in the hands of the despicable beauty. This rash and guilty pledge was subsequently the cause of great trouble to the king. The king, having obtained a divorce, the nation demanded that he should form a connection which should produce a suitable heir to inherit the throne. Thus urged, and as Henrietta did not give birth to the wished-for son, Henri reluctantly married in the year 1600 Maria of Medici, niece of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Maria was a domineering, crafty, ambitious woman who embittered the life of the king. She was very jealous and with reason enough of the continued influence of Henrietta and the palace was the scene of disgraceful domestic broils. Henri in one of his letters to Sully describes the queen as terribly robust and healthy, but when she gave birth to a son who was undeniably heir to the throne, thus allaying the fears of a disputed succession, the whole nation rejoiced, and Henri became somewhat reconciled to his unattractive spouse. The king was exceedingly fond of this child. One day the Spanish ambassador, a dignified castilian, was rather suddenly ushered into the royal presence at Fontainebleau. The monarch was on all fours on the floor, running about the room with the little dauphin as back. Raising his eyes he said to the ambassador, Are you a father? Yes, sire, was the reply. Then I may finish my place at Henry, and he took another trot around the room. Henrietta and her relatives were greatly exasperated that the king did not fulfill his promise of marriage. The father and daughter, joined by the Count Dovane, plodded against the king's life. They were arrested and condemned to death. The king, however, transmuted their punishment to exile. One of the grandest schemes of Henri deserves particular mention. Reflecting deeply upon the wars with which Europe had ever been desolated, and seeing the occasion for this in the innumerable states and nations into which Europe was divided, of various degrees of power, and each struggling for its own selfish interest, he proposed to unite all the states of Europe into one Christian republic. The whole continent was to be divided into fifteen states as uniform in size and power as possible. These states were to be, according to their choice, monarchical or republican. They were to be associated on a plan somewhat resembling that of the United States of America. Nothing can more conclusively show the entire absence of correct notions of religious toleration prevailing at that day than the plan proposed to prevent religious quarrels. Wherever any one form of faith predominated, that was to be maintained as the national faith. In Catholic states, there were to be no Protestants. In Protestant states, no Catholics. The minority, however, were not to be exterminated. They were only to be compelled to emigrate to the countries where their own form of faith prevailed. All Pagans and Mohammedans were to be driven out of Europe into Asia. To enforce this change, an army of 270,000 infantry, 50,000 cavalry, 200 cannon, and 120 ships of war was deemed amply sufficient. The first step was to secure the cooperation of two or three of the most powerful kings of Europe. This would render success almost certain. Suley examined the plan with the utmost care in all its details. Henry wished first to secure the approval of England, Sweden, and Denmark. But in the midst of these schemes of grandeur, Henry was struck down by the hand of an assassin. On the 14th of May, 1610, the king left the Louvre at four o'clock in the afternoon to visit Suley, who was sick. The preparations were making for the public entry of the queen, who after a long delay had just been crowned. The city was thronged, the day was fine, and the curtains of the coach were drawn up. Several nobles were in the spacious carriage with the king. As the coach was turning out of the street of Honoré into the narrow street Ferronerie, it was stopped by two carts which blocked up the way. Just at that instant a man from the crowd sprang upon a spoke of the wheel and struck a dagger into the king just above the heart. Instantly repeating the blow, the heart was pierced. Blood gushed from the wound and from the mouth of the king and without uttering a word, he sank dead in the arms of his friends. The wretched assassin, a fanatic monk, was immediately seized by the guard. With difficulty they protected him from being torn to pieces by the infuriated people. His name was Francis Ravaillac. According to the savage custom of the times, he was subsequently put to death with the most frightful tortures. The lifeless body of the king was immediately taken to the Tuileries and placed upon a bed. Surgeons and physicians hurried to the room, only to gaze upon his corpse. No language can depict the grief and despair of France at his death. He had won the love of the whole nation and to the present day no one hears the name of Henry IV mentioned in France but with affection. He was truly the father of his people. All conditions, employments and professions were embraced in his comprehensive regard. He spared no toil to make France a happy land. He was a man of genius and of instinctive magnanimity. In conversation he had no rival. His profound and witty sayings which had been transmitted to us are sufficient to form a volume. His one great and almost only fault sadly tarnishes his otherwise fair and honorable fame. In Henry commenced the reign of the House of Bourbon. For nearly two hundred years the family retained the crown. It is now expelled and the members are wandering in exile through foreign lands. There is one great truth which this narrative enforces. It is the doctrine of freedom of conscience. It was the denial of this simple truth which deluged France and blood and woe. The recognition of this one sentiment would have saved for France hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of treasure. Let us take warning. We need it. Let us emblazon upon our banner the noble words toleration, perfect civil and religious toleration. But toleration is not a slave. It is a spirit of light and of liberty. It has much to give, but it has just as much to demand. It bears the olive branch in one hand and the gleaming sword in the other. I grant to you, it says, perfect liberty of opinion and of expression, and I demand of you the same. Let us then inscribe upon the arch which spans our glorious union, making as one in its celestial embrace, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free men. Then shall that arch beam upon us like God's bow of promise in the cloud, proclaiming that this land shall never be deluged by the surges of civil war, that it never shall be inundated by flames and blood. The human mind is now so roused that it will have this liberty, and if there are any institutions of religion or of civil law which can not stand the scrutiny they are doomed to die. The human mind will move with untrammeled sweep through the whole range of religious doctrine and around the whole circumference and into the very center of all political assumptions. If the Catholic bishop have a word to say, let him say it. If someone rising in the spirit and power of Martin Luther has a reply to make, let him make it. Those who wish to listen to the one or the other let them do so. Those who wish to close their ears let them have their way. Our country is one. Our liberty is national. Let us then grant toleration everywhere throughout our wide domain, in Maine and in Georgia, amid the forests of a rustic and upon the plains of Kansas. End of Section 34, Recording by Pamela Nagami M.D. in Encino, California, October 2019. End of History of Henry IV, King of France and Navarre by John Stevens, Cabot Abbot.