Henri III of France

“ Accession of Henri III.—A Journey to Lyons.—Marguerite’s Faith in Supernatural Intelligence.
After this fatal event, which was as unfortunate for France as for me, we went to Lyons to give the meeting to the King of Poland, now Henri III. of France. The new King was as much governed by Le Guast as ever, and had left this intriguing, mischievous man behind in France to keep his party together. Through this man’s insinuations he had conceived the most confirmed jealousy of my brother Alencon. ”

“ Then, indeed, as the vast crowds succeeded each other like the ceaseless waves of an [pg 028] incoming sea, the bitter wail of universal lamentation rang through the halls and galleries of the palace. Henri IV had been essentially the King of the People; and, with few and rare exceptions, it was by the people that he was truly mourned; for his sudden decease had opened so many arenas to ambition, hatred, jealousy, and hope, that the great nobles had no time to waste in tears, but were already busily engaged in the furtherance of their own fortunes. ”

“ The civil wars were not over, for the heat of party raged as yet unslaked; the Politiques could not all at once adopt a Huguenot King, the League party had pledged itself to resist the heretic, and Henri at first had little more than the Huguenots at his back. There were also formidable claimants for the throne. Charles II. Duc de Lorraine, who had married Claude, younger daughter of Henri IL, and who was therefore brother-in-law to Henri III., set up a vague claim ”

“ They summoned up troops from every side; the Duc de Lorraine sent his son to resist Henri and support his own claim; the King of Spain sent a body of men; the League princes brought what force they could. Henri of Navarre at the same moment found himself weakened by the silent withdrawal from his camp of the army of Henri III.; the Politique nobles did not care at first to throw in their lot with the Huguenot chieftain; they offered to confer on Henri the post of commander-in-chief, and to reserve the question as to the succession ”

“ For a few years, the throne remained practically vacant: the heroism of Henri of Navarre, the loss of strength in the Catholic powers, the want of a vigorous head to the League,—these things all sustained the Bourbon in his arduous struggle; the middle party grew in strength daily, and when once Henri had allowed himself to be converted, he became the national sovereign, the national favourite, and the high Catholics fell to the fatal position of an unpatriotic faction depending on the arm of the foreigner. ”

“ But Henri IV. committed two irremediable blunders. He ought neither to have abjured Protestantism nor to have left France Catholic after his own conversion. He alone has ever been in a position to change the face of France without a shock. Either not a single stole, or not a single conventicle! That is what he ought to have seen. To leave two hostile principles at work in a government with nothing to balance them is a crime in a King; it is sowing the seed of revolutions. It belongs to God alone to leave good and evil for ever at odds in the work of His hand. ”

“ They got toleration for their opinions; might worship openly in all places, with the exception of a few towns in which the League had been strong; were qualified to hold office in financial posts and in the law; had a Protestant chamber in the Parliaments.
Immediately after the publication of the Edict of Nantes, the Treaty of Vervins was signed. Though Henri by it broke faith with Queen Elizabeth, he secured an honourable peace for his country, an undisputed kingship for himself. It was the last act of Philip II., the confession that his great schemes were unfulfilled, his policy a failure. ”

“ Be that as it may, it is no less certain that he must have possessed considerable talent, as even during the lifetime of Henri III he was already a rich contractor, and under Henri IV he was esteemed the richest in the kingdom. On the occasion of the marriage of one of his daughters, the notary who was employed to draw up the marriage contract, finding it difficult to define his real rank, inquired by what title he desired to be designated ”

“ The success of Parma, however, made Frenchmen feel that Henri's was the national cause, and that the League flourished only by interference of the foreigner. Were the King of Navarre but a Catholic, he should be a King of France of whom they might all be proud. This feeling was strengthened by the death of the old Cardinal de Bourbon, which reopened at once the succession question, and compelled Philip of Spain to show his hand. He now claimed the throne for his daughter Elisabeth, as eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of Henri II. All the neighbours of France claimed something ”

“ The petty sovereigns thus despoiled protested energetically against such an usurpation, and several among them had even entreated the protection of France, to the great gratification of Henri IV, who thus found himself doubly armed, as his interference on behalf of the aggrieved Princes assured their cooperation in his own project of recovering from the Emperor the provinces of Franche-Comté and Flanders, which had been in the possession of Spain since the time of Charles V, and which had formed, as we have elsewhere stated, the dowry of the Infanta on her marriage with the Archduke Albert. ”

“ May it please God that our hopes may not also have expired with him who was but a few short hours ago the glory and the greatness of his kingdom! The sturdy tree has fallen, and the saplings are still weak and frail. The mission of the great Henry is accomplished, and the weight of sovereignty is transferred to your own brow. ”

“ Henri IV made him a captain of his bodyguard, and Louis XIII, in 1619, bestowed upon him the bâton of marshal of France. He died in 1626, in his sixty-third year.
[190] Mézeray asserts, and with greater probability, that Henry's parting words were: "Since you will not speak out, adieu, Baron" (Hist, de France, vol. x. p. 201) ; while Péréfixe gives a third version, asserting that the King took leave of him by saying: "Well then, the truth must be learnt elsewhere; adieu, Baron de Biron" (Hist, de Henri le Grand, vol. ii. p. 371) .
[191] Sully, Mém. vol. iv. pp. ”

“ The only amusement in which Henri IV indulged freely and earnestly was play; and he was so reckless a gamester, that at no period has the Court of France been so thoroughly demoralized by that frightful vice as throughout his reign. Not only did his own example corrupt those immediately about him, but the rage for gaming gradually pervaded all classes. The nobility staked their estates where money failed; the citizens trafficked in cards and dice when they should have been employed in commerce or in science; the very valets gambled in the halls, and the pages in the ante-chambers. ”

“ Henri temporised; his true strength, for the time, lay in his Huguenot followers, rugged and faithful fighting men, whose belief was the motive power of their allegiance and of their courage. If he joined the Politiques at their price, the price of declaring himself Catholic, the Huguenots would be offended if not alienated. So he neither absolutely refused nor said yes; and the chief Catholic nobles in the main stood aloof, watching the struggle between Huguenot and Leaguer, as it worked out its course. ”

“ According to the promise which Henry of Navarre had obtained from the old Marquis of St. Real on his death-bed, that nobleman's son, as soon as possible after the last rites had been paid to his father's memory, had prepared to take the field in behalf of one of the great contending parties which then struggled for mastery in France. He had applied for and obtained, both from King Henry III. on the one part, and from the Duke of Mayenne on behalf of the League, a safe-conduct to visit the camp and the capital, accompanied by twenty retainers. ”

“ The fortress was one of great importance to Henry, who was aware of the necessity of placing it in the safe keeping of an individual upon whom he could place the fullest and most perfect reliance; and the more so that M. d'Epernon had, during the reign of Henri III, rather assumed in Metz the state of a sovereign prince than fulfilled the functions of its governor, and that he would, as the King at once felt, if not opposed, resist any encroachment upon his self-constituted privileges. ”

“ His brothers having been killed at the States of Blois in 1588, he declared himself chief of the League, and assumed the title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom and crown of France; and by virtue of this self-created authority, caused the Cardinal de Bourbon to be declared King, under the name of Charles X. Having inherited the hatred of his brothers for Henri III, and his successor Henri IV, he marched eighty thousand men against the latter Prince, but was defeated, both at Arques and Ivry. ”

“ The first independent act of the Duc de Vendôme had thus greatly injured him in the estimation of the young monarch and his mother; nor did his afterlife tend to give them cause to alter the opinion which they then formed either as regarded his stability or his capacity. Even the marriage which his father, Henri IV, had with so much difficulty contracted for him with the heiress of the House of [pg 287] Mercoeur, [174] failed to produce the result that had been anticipated, as he squandered her wealth, without increasing his own political importance. ”

“ Henri endeavoured to take advantage of the check in the fortunes of his antagonists; he sent Anne de Montmorency to support Gaspard de Coligny, the Admiral of France, in Picardy, and in harmony with Paul IV., instructed Francois, Duc de Guise, to enter Italy to oppose the Duke of Alva. As of old, the French arms at first carried all before them, and Guise, deeming himself heir to the crown of Naples (for he was the eldest great-grandson of Rene II., titular King of Naples) , pushed eagerly forward as far as the Abruzzi. ”

“ It is scarcely doubtful that the ennui occasioned by the waning passion of Henri IV for Madame de Verneuil at this period induced him, even more than formerly, to seek amusement and occupation at the gaming-table, where he was emulated by his profuse and licentious nobles, while even his Queen and the ladies of the Court entered with avidity into the exciting pastime. ”

“ On the death of Henri III, this ennobled adventurer once more became a partisan of his successor, and commanded the royal forces during the war in Savoy; but throughout the whole of this reign he lived in constant misunderstanding with the Court and the King, and was even suspected of the act of regicide which deprived France of her idolised monarch. It was the Duc d'Epernon who, immediately after that event, convoked the Parliament, caused the recognition of Marie de Medicis as Regent, and formed a privy council over which he presided. ”

“ In 1678, being in his thirty-first year, and Barillon being the accredited ambassador, Henri came over on a secret mission, or rather on two errands, both aimed against the Earl of Danby. This nobleman, to whom all generations owe much for his promotion of the marriage of the Prince of Orange to the Princess Mary, was known in France to be against the French Government, while he was suspected in England to be its tool — a charge which he could not refute consistently with the reserve which official life imposed upon him. ”

“ That was all except the final counsel to "beware of the Guises; they are traitors." After that he spoke no more. Francis I, the gallant, art-loving monarch, the father of the Renaissance in France, was dead.
In 1562, Catherine de Médici, accompanied [Pg 312] by her son Charles IX, here awaited the results of the momentous battle of Dreux. In 1588, Henri III, fleeing Paris after the "journée des barricades" came here to rest, and so fatigued was he on his arrival that he went to bed "tout botté." ”

“ Meanwhile, it having been considered advisable [pg 057] that the King should make a declaration on the Edicts of Pacification, it became previously necessary to form a council, under whose advice the Queen-Regent might proceed to act. When preparing to quit France, Henri IV had drawn up a list of fifteen persons whom he had selected for this purpose, and had decided that every question should be determined by a majority of votes, the Queen herself commanding only one vote ”

“ Governor of Auvergne.
[25] The fortress of Usson, which had been a state prison under Louis XI, was demolished by Louis XIII, in 1634.
[26] Brantôme, Dames Illustres, Marguerite de France, Reine de Navarre, Dis. v. p. 275.
[27] "There are three things," Henri IV was wont to say, "that the world will not believe, and yet they are certainly true: that the Queen of England (Elizabeth) died a maid; that the Archduke (Albert, Cardinal and Archduke of Austria) is a great captain; and that the King of France is a very good Catholic."--L'Etoile, Journ. de Henri IV, vol. i. p. ”

“ Henri IV. was therefore kept waiting till his predecessor's grave was filled. The first ceremony was performed quietly, almost in secret; and then the “good Béarnias” was taken to S. Denis, all [pg 519] France weeping and refusing to be comforted.
Louis XIII. was attracted to Compiègne solely by the pleasures of the chase. We see him watching the meet from a window giving on the Cour d'honneur, and whispering to the Maréchal de Praslin, “You see that man down there? He wants to be one of my council, but I cannot make up my mind to name him.” “That man” was Richelieu. ”

“ To strive ‘gainst Fortune and contend with Fate; Of those I slighted, can I beg relief [10] No; let me die the victim of my grief. And can I then be justly said to live? Dead in estate, do I then yet survive? Last of the name, I carry to the grave All the remains the House of Valois have. 1. Francois I. 2. Henri II. 3. Francois II., Charles IX., and Henri III. 4. Henri, King of Navarre, and Henri, Duc de Guise. 5. Alluding to her divorce from Henri IV.. 6. The castle of Usson 7. Marie de’ Medici, whom Henri married after his divorce from Marguerite. 8. ”