CHAPTER XXIII. 1590

Philip's scheme of aggrandizement--Projected invasion of France--

Internal condition of France--Character of Henry of Navarre--

Preparation for action--Battle of Ivry--Victory of the French king

over the League--Reluctance of the King to attack the French

capital--Siege of Paris--The pope indisposed towards the League--

Extraordinary demonstration of ecclesiastics--Influence of the

priests--Extremities of the siege--Attempted negotiation--State of

Philip's army--Difficult position of Farnese--March of the allies to

the relief of Paris--Lagny taken and the city relieved--Desertion of

the king's army--Siege of Corbeil--Death of Pope Sixtus V.--

Re-capture of Lagny and Corbeil--Return of Parma to the Netherlands

--Result of the expedition.

The scene of the narrative shifts to France. The history of the United

Netherlands at this epoch is a world-history. Were it not so, it would

have far less of moral and instruction for all time than it is really

capable of affording. The battle of liberty against despotism was now

fought in the hop-fields of Brabant or the polders of Friesland, now in

the narrow seas which encircle England, and now on the sunny plains of

Dauphiny, among the craggy inlets of Brittany, or along the high roads

and rivers which lead to the gates of Paris. But everywhere a noiseless,

secret, but ubiquitous negotiation was speeding with never an instant's

pause to accomplish the work which lansquenettes and riders, pikemen and

carabineers were contending for on a hundred battle-fields and amid a din

of arms which for a quarter of a century had been the regular hum of

human industry. For nearly a generation of mankind, Germans and

Hollanders, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Spaniards and

Italians seemed to be born into the world mainly to fight for or against

a system of universal monarchy, conceived for his own benefit by a quiet

old man who passed his days at a writing desk in a remote corner of

Europe. It must be confessed that Philip II. gave the world work enough.

Whether--had the peoples governed themselves--their energies might not

have been exerted in a different direction, and on the whole have

produced more of good to the human race than came of all this blood and

awoke, may be questioned.

But the divine right of kings, associating itself with the power supreme

of the Church, was struggling to maintain that old mastery of mankind

which awakening reason was inclined to dispute. Countries and nations

being regarded as private property to be inherited or bequeathed by a few

favoured individuals--provided always that those individuals were

obedient to the chief-priest--it had now become right and proper for the

Spanish monarch to annex Scotland, England, and France to the very

considerable possessions which were already his own. Scotland he claimed

by virtue of the expressed wish of Mary to the exclusion of her heretic

son.

France, which had been unjustly usurped by another family in times past

to his detriment, and which only a mere human invention--a "pleasantry"

as Alva had happily termed it, called the "Salic law"--prevented from

passing quietly to his daughter, as heiress to her mother, daughter of

Henry II., he was now fully bent upon making his own without further loss

of time. England, in consequence of the mishap of the year eighty-eight,

he was inclined to defer appropriating until the possession of the French

coasts, together with those of the Netherlands, should enable him to risk

the adventure with assured chances of success.

The Netherlands were fast slipping beyond his control, to be sure, as he

engaged in these endless schemes; and ill-disposed people of the day said

that the king was like Aesop's dog, lapping the river dry in order to get

at the skins floating on the surface. The Duke of Parma was driven to his

wits' ends for expedients, and beside himself with vexation, when

commanded to withdraw his ill-paid and mutinous army from the Provinces

for the purpose of invading France. Most importunate were the appeals and

potent the arguments by which he attempted to turn Philip from his

purpose. It was in vain. Spain was the great, aggressive, overshadowing

power at that day, before whose plots and whose violence the nations

alternately trembled, and it was France that now stood in danger of being

conquered or dismembered by the common enemy of all. That unhappy

kingdom, torn by intestine conflict, naturally invited the ambition and

the greediness of foreign powers. Civil war had been its condition, with

brief intervals, for a whole generation of mankind. During the last few

years, the sword had been never sheathed, while "the holy Confederacy"

and the Bearnese struggled together for the mastery. Religion was the

mantle under which the chiefs on both sides concealed their real designs

as they led on their followers year after year to the desperate conflict.

And their followers, the masses, were doubtless in earnest. A great

principle--the relation of man to his Maker and his condition in a future

world as laid down by rival priesthoods--has in almost every stage of

history had power to influence the multitude to fury and to deluge the

world in blood. And so long as the superstitious element of human nature

enables individuals or combinations of them to dictate to their

fellow-creatures those relations, or to dogmatize concerning those

conditions--to take possession of their consciences in short, and to

interpose their mummeries between man and his Creator--it is, probable

that such scenes as caused the nations to shudder, throughout so large a

portion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will continue to

repeat themselves at intervals in various parts of the earth. Nothing can

be more sublime than the self-sacrifice, nothing more demoniac than the

crimes, which human creatures have seemed always ready to exhibit under

the name of religion.

It was and had been really civil war in France. In the Netherlands it had

become essentially a struggle for independence against a foreign monarch;

although the germ out of which both conflicts had grown to their enormous

proportions was an effort of the multitude to check the growth of papacy.

In France, accordingly, civil war, attended by that gaunt sisterhood,

murder, pestilence, and famine, had swept from the soil almost everything

that makes life valuable. It had not brought in its train that

extraordinary material prosperity and intellectual development at which

men wondered in the Netherlands, and to which allusion has just been

made. But a fortunate conjunction of circumstances had now placed Henry

of Navarre in a position of vantage. He represented the principle of

nationality, of French unity. It was impossible to deny that he was in

the regular line of succession, now that luckless Henry of Valois slept

with his fathers, and the principle of nationality might perhaps prove as

vital a force as attachment to the Roman Church. Moreover, the adroit and

unscrupulous Bearnese knew well how to shift the mantle of religion from

one shoulder to the other, to serve his purposes or the humours of those

whom he addressed.

"The King of Spain would exclude me from the kingdom and heritage of my

father because of my religion," he said to the Duke of Saxony; "but in

that religion I am determined to persist so long as I shall live." The

hand was the hand of Henry, but it was the voice of Duplessis Mornay.

"Were there thirty crowns to win," said he, at about the same time to the

States of France, "I would not change my religion on compulsion, the

dagger at my throat. Instruct me, instruct me, I am not obstinate." There

spoke the wily freethinker, determined not to be juggled out of what he

considered his property by fanatics or priests of either church. Had

Henry been a real devotee, the fate of Christendom might have been

different. The world has long known how much misery it is in the power of

crowned bigots to inflict.

On the other hand, the Holy League, the sacred Confederacy, was catholic

or nothing. Already it was more papist than the pope, and loudly

denounced Sixtus V. as a Huguenot because he was thought to entertain a

weak admiration both for Henry the heretic and for the Jezebel of

England.

But the holy confederacy was bent on destroying the national government

of France, and dismembering the national domain. To do this the pretext

of trampling out heresy and indefinitely extending the power of Rome, was

most influential with the multitude, and entitled the leaders to enjoy

immense power for the time being, while maturing their schemes for

acquiring permanent possession of large fragments of the national

territory. Mayenne, Nemours, Aumale, Mercoeur longed to convert temporary

governments into independent principalities. The Duke of Lorraine looked

with longing eyes on Verdun, Sedan, and, the other fair cities within the

territories contiguous--to his own domains. The reckless house of Savoy;

with whom freebooting and landrobbery seemed geographical, and hereditary

necessities, was busy on the southern borders, while it seemed easy

enough for Philip, II., in right of his daughter, to secure at least the

duchy of Brittany before entering on the sovereignty of the whole

kingdom.

To the eyes of the world at large: France might well seem in a condition

of hopeless disintegration; the restoration of its unity and former

position among the nations, under the government of a single chief, a

weak and wicked dream. Furious and incessant were the anathemas hurled on

the head of the Bearnese for his persistence in drowning the land in

blood in the hope of recovering a national capital which never could be

his, and of wresting from the control of the confederacy that power.

which, whether usurped or rightful, was considered, at least by the

peaceably inclined, to have become a solid fact.

The poor puppet locked in the tower of Fontenay, and entitled Charles X.;

deceived and scared no one. Such money as there was might be coined, in

its name, but Madam League reigned supreme in Paris. The confederates,

inspired by the eloquence of a cardinal legate, and supplied with funds

by the faithful, were ready to dare a thousand deaths rather than submit

to the rule of a tyrant and heretic.

What was an authority derived from the laws of the land and the history

of the race compared with the dogmas of Rome and the trained veterans of

Spain? It remained to be seen whether nationality or bigotry would

triumph. But in the early days of 1590 the prospects of nationality were

not encouraging.

Francois de Luxembourg, due de Pincey, was in Rome at that moment,

deputed by such catholic nobles of France as were friendly to Henry of

Navarre. Sixtus might perhaps be influenced as to the degree of respect

to be accorded to the envoy's representations by the events of the

campaign about to open. Meantime the legate Gaetano, young, rich,

eloquent, unscrupulous, distinguished alike for the splendour of his

house and the brilliancy of his intellect, had arrived in Paris.

Followed by a great train of adherents he had gone down to the House of

Parliament, and was about to seat himself under the dais reserved for the

king, when Brisson, first President of Parliament, plucked him back by

the arm, and caused him to take a seat immediately below his own.

Deeply was the bold president to expiate this defence of king and law

against the Holy League. For the moment however the legate contented

himself with a long harangue, setting forth the power of Rome, while

Brisson replied by an oration magnifying the grandeur of France.

Soon afterwards the cardinal addressed himself to the counteraction of

Henry's projects of conversion. For, well did the subtle priest

understand that in purging himself of heresy, the Bearnese was about to

cut the ground from beneath his enemies' feet. In a letter to the

archbishops and bishops of France, he argued the matter at length.

Especially he denied the necessity or the legality of an assembly of all

the prelates of France, such as Henry desired to afford him the requisite

"instruction" as to the respective merits of the Roman and the reformed

Church. Certainly, he urged, the Prince of Bearne could hardly require

instruction as to the tenets of either, seeing that at different times he

had faithfully professed both.

But while benches of bishops and doctors of the Sorbonne were burnishing

all the arms in ecclesiastical and legal arsenals for the approaching

fray, the sound of louder if not more potent artillery began to be heard

in the vicinity of Paris. The candid Henry, while seeking ghostly

instruction with eagerness from his papistical patrons, was equally

persevering in applying for the assistance of heretic musketeers and

riders from his protestant friends in England, Holland, Germany, and

Switzerland.

Queen Elizabeth and the States-General vied with each other in generosity

to the great champion of protestantism, who was combating the holy league

so valiantly, and rarely has a great historical figure presented itself

to the world so bizarre of aspect, and under such shifting perplexity of

light and shade, as did the Bearnese in the early spring of 1590.

The hope of a considerable portion of the catholic nobility of his realm,

although himself an excommunicated heretic; the mainstay of Calvinism

while secretly bending all his energies to effect his reconciliation with

the pope; the idol of the austere and grimly puritanical, while himself a

model of profligacy; the leader of the earnest and the true, although

false as water himself in every relation in which human beings can stand

to each other; a standardbearer of both great branches of the Christian

Church in an age when religion was the atmosphere of men's daily lives,

yet finding his sincerest admirer, and one of his most faithful allies,

in the Grand Turk,

[A portion of the magnificently protective letter of Sultan Amurath,

in which he complimented Henry on his religious stedfastness, might

almost have made the king's cheek tingle.]

the representative of national liberty and human rights against regal and

sacerdotal absolutism, while himself a remorseless despot by nature and

education, and a believer in no rights of the people save in their

privilege to be ruled by himself; it seems strange at first view that

Henry of Navarre should have been for centuries so heroic and popular an

image. But he was a soldier, a wit, a consummate politician; above all,

he was a man, at a period when to be a king was often to be something

much less or much worse.

To those accustomed to weigh and analyse popular forces it might well

seem that he was now playing an utterly hopeless game. His capital

garrisoned by the Pope and the King of Spain, with its grandees and its

populace scoffing at his pretence of authority and loathing his name;

with an exchequer consisting of what he could beg or borrow from Queen

Elizabeth--most parsimonious of sovereigns reigning over the half of a

small island--and from the States-General governing a half-born,

half-drowned little republic, engaged in a quarter of a century's warfare

with the greatest monarch in the world; with a wardrobe consisting of a

dozen shirts and five pocket-handkerchiefs, most of them ragged, and with

a commissariat made up of what could be brought in the saddle-bags of his

Huguenot cavaliers who came to the charge with him to-day, and to-morrow

were dispersed again to their mountain fastnesses; it did not seem likely

on any reasonable theory of dynamics that the power of the Bearnese was

capable of outweighing Pope and Spain, and the meaner but massive

populace of France, and the Sorbonne, and the great chiefs of the

confederacy, wealthy, long descended, allied to all the sovereigns of

Christendom, potent in territorial possessions and skilful in wielding

political influences.

"The Bearnese is poor but a gentleman of good family," said the cheerful

Henry, and it remained to-be seen whether nationality, unity, legitimate

authority, history, and law would be able to neutralise the powerful

combination of opposing elements.

The king had been besieging Dreux and had made good progress in reducing

the outposts of the city. As it was known that he was expecting

considerable reinforcements of English ships, Netherlanders, and Germans,

the chiefs of the league issued orders from Paris for an attack before he

should thus be strengthened.

For Parma, unwillingly obeying the stringent commands of his master, had

sent from Flanders eighteen hundred picked cavalry under Count Philip

Egmont to join the army of Mayenne. This force comprised five hundred

Belgian heavy dragoons under the chief nobles of the land, together with

a selection, in even proportions, of Walloon, German, Spanish, and

Italian troopers.

Mayenne accordingly crossed the Seine at Mantes with an army of ten

thousand foot, and, including Egmont's contingent, about four thousand

horse. A force under Marshal d'Aumont, which lay in Ivry at the passage

of the Eure, fell back on his approach and joined the remainder of the

king's army. The siege of Dreux was abandoned; and Henry withdrew to the

neighbourhood of Nonancourt. It was obvious that the duke meant to offer

battle, and it was rare that the king under any circumstances could be

induced to decline a combat.

On the night of the 12th-13th March, Henry occupied Saint Andre, a

village situated on an elevated and extensive plain four leagues from

Nonancourt, in the direction of Ivry, fringed on three sides by villages

and by a wood, and commanding a view of all the approaches from the

country between the Seine and Eure. It would have been better had Mayenne

been beforehand with him, as the sequel proved; but the duke was not

famed for the rapidity of his movements. During the greater part of the

night, Henry was employed in distributing his orders for that conflict

which was inevitable on the following day. His army was drawn up

according to a plan prepared by himself, and submitted to the most

experienced of his generals for their approval. He then personally

visited every portion of the encampment, speaking words of encouragement

to his soldiers, and perfecting his arrangements for the coming conflict.

Attended by Marshals d'Aumont and Biron he remained on horseback during a

portion of the night, having ordered his officers to their tents and

reconnoitred as well as he could the position of the enemy. Towards

morning he retired to his headquarters at Fourainville, where he threw

himself half-dressed on his truckle bed, and although the night was

bitterly cold, with no covering but his cloak. He was startled from his

slumber before the dawn by a movement of lights in the enemy's camp, and

he sprang to his feet supposing that the duke was stealing a march upon

him despite all his precautions. The alarm proved to be a false one, but

Henry lost no time in ordering his battle. His cavalry he divided in

seven troops or squadrons. The first, forming the left wing, was a body

of three hundred under Marshal d'Aumont, supported by two regiments of

French infantry. Next, separated by a short interval, was another troop

of three hundred under the Duke of Montpensier, supported by two other

regiments of foot, one Swiss and one German. In front of Montpensier was

Baron Biron the younger, at the head of still another body of three

hundred. Two troops of cuirassiers, each four hundred strong, were on

Biron's left, the one commanded by the Grand Prior of France, Charles

d'Angouleme, the other by Monsieur de Givry. Between the Prior and Givry

were six pieces of heavy artillery, while the battalia, formed of eight

hundred horse in six squadrons, was commanded by the king in person, and

covered on both sides by English and Swiss infantry, amounting to some

four thousand in all. The right wing was under the charge of old Marshal

Biron, and comprised three troops of horse, numbering one hundred and

fifty each, two companies of German riders, and four regiments of French

infantry. These numbers, which are probably given with as much accuracy

as can be obtained, show a force of about three thousand horse and twelve

thousand foot.

The Duke of Mayenne, seeing too late the advantage of position which he

might have easily secured the day before, led his army forth with the

early light, and arranged it in an order not very different from that

adopted by the king, and within cannon-shot of his lines. The right wing

under Marshal de la Chatre consisted of three regiments of French and one

of Germans, supporting three regiments of Spanish lancers, two cornets of

German riders under the Bastard of Brunswick, and four hundred

cuirassiers. The battalia, which was composed of six hundred splendid

cavalry, all noblemen of France, guarding the white banner of the Holy

League, and supported by a column of three thousand Swiss and two

thousand French infantry, was commanded by Mayenne in person, assisted by

his half-brother, the Duke of Nemours. In front of the infantry was a

battery of six cannon and three culverines. The left wing was commanded

by Marshal de Rene, with six regiments of French and Lorrainers, two

thousand Germans, six hundred French cuirassiers, and the mounted

troopers of Count Egmont. It is probable that Mayenne's whole force,

therefore, amounted to nearly four thousand cavalry and at least thirteen

thousand foot.

Very different was the respective appearance of the two armies, so far,

especially, as regarded the horsemen on both sides. Gay in their gilded

armour and waving plumes, with silken scarves across their shoulders, and

the fluttering favours of fair ladies on their arms or in their helmets,

the brilliant champions of the Holy Catholic Confederacy clustered around

the chieftains of the great house of Guise, impatient for the conflict.

It was like a muster for a brilliant and chivalrous tournament. The

Walloon and Flemish nobles, outrivalling even the self-confidence of

their companions in arms, taunted them with their slowness. The

impetuous Egmont, burning to eclipse the fame of his ill-fated father at

Gravelines and St. Quintin in the same holy cause, urged on the battle

with unseemly haste, loudly proclaiming that if the French were

faint-hearted he would himself give a good account of the Navarrese

prince without any assistance from them.

A cannon-shot away, the grim puritan nobles who had come forth from their

mountain fastnesses to do battle for king and law and for the rights of

conscience against the Holy League--men seasoned in a hundred

battle-fields, clad all in iron, with no dainty ornaments nor holiday

luxury of warfare--knelt on the ground, smiting their mailed breasts with

iron hands, invoking blessings on themselves and curses and confusion on

their enemies in the coming conflict, and chanting a stern psalm of

homage to the God of battles and of wrath. And Henry of France and

Navarre, descendant of Lewis the Holy and of Hugh the Great, beloved

chief of the Calvinist cavaliers, knelt among his heretic brethren, and

prayed and chanted with them. But not the staunchest Huguenot of them

all, not Duplessis, nor D'Aubigne, nor De la Noue with the iron arm, was

more devoted on that day to crown and country than were such papist

supporters of the rightful heir as had sworn to conquer the insolent

foreigner on the soil of France or die.

When this brief prelude was over, Henry made an address to his soldiers,

but its language has not been preserved. It is known, however, that he

wore that day his famous snow-white plume, and that he ordered his

soldiers, should his banner go down in the conflict, to follow wherever

and as long as that plume should be seen waving on any part of the field.

He had taken a position by which his troops had the sun and wind in their

backs, so that the smoke rolled toward the enemy and the light shone in

their eyes. The combat began with the play of artillery, which soon

became so warm that Egmont, whose cavalry--suffering and galled--soon

became impatient, ordered a charge. It was a most brilliant one. The

heavy troopers of Flanders and Hainault, following their spirited

chieftain, dashed upon old Marshal Biron, routing his cavalry, charging

clean up to the Huguenot guns and sabring the cannoneers. The shock was

square, solid, irresistible, and was followed up by the German riders

under Eric of Brunswick, who charged upon the battalia of the royal army,

where the king commanded in person.

There was a panic. The whole royal cavalry wavered, the supporting

infantry recoiled, the day seemed lost before the battle was well begun.

Yells of "Victory! Victory! up with the Holy League, down with the

heretic Bearnese," resounded through the Catholic squadrons. The king and

Marshal Biron, who were near each other, were furious with rage, but

already doubtful of the result. They exerted themselves to rally the

troops under their immediate command, and to reform the shattered ranks.

The German riders and French lancers under Brunswick and Bassompierre

had, however, not done their work as thoroughly as Egmont had done. The

ground was so miry and soft that in the brief space which separated the

hostile lines they had not power to urge their horses to full speed.

Throwing away their useless lances, they came on at a feeble canter,

sword in hand, and were unable to make a very vigorous impression on the

more heavily armed troopers opposed to them. Meeting with a firm

resistance to their career, they wheeled, faltered a little and fell a

short distance back. Many of the riders being of the reformed religion,

refused moreover to fire upon the Huguenots, and discharged their

carbines in the air.

The king, whose glance on the battle-field was like inspiration, saw the

blot and charged upon them in person with his whole battalia of cavalry.

The veteran Biron followed hard upon the snow-white plume. The scene was

changed, victory succeeded to impending defeat, and the enemy was routed.

The riders and cuirassiers, broken into a struggling heap of confusion,

strewed the ground with their dead bodies, or carried dismay into the

ranks of the infantry as they strove to escape. Brunswick went down in

the melee, mortally wounded as it was believed. Egmont renewing the

charge at the head of his victorious Belgian troopers, fell dead with a

musket-ball through his heart. The shattered German and Walloon cavalry,

now pricked forward by the lances of their companions, under the

passionate commands of Mayenne and Aumale, now fading back before the

furious charges of the Huguenots, were completely overthrown and cut to

pieces.

Seven times did Henry of Navarre in person lead his troopers to the

charge; but suddenly, in the midst of the din of battle and the cheers of

victory, a message of despair went from lip to lip throughout the royal

lines. The king had disappeared. He was killed, and the hopes of

Protestantism and of France were fallen for ever with him. The white

standard of his battalia had been seen floating wildly and purposelessly

over the field; for his bannerman, Pot de Rhodes, a young noble of

Dauphiny, wounded mortally in the head, with blood streaming over his

face and blinding his sight, was utterly unable to control his horse, who

gallopped hither and thither at his own caprice, misleading many troopers

who followed in his erratic career. A cavalier, armed in proof, and

wearing the famous snow-white plume, after a hand-to-hand struggle with a

veteran of Count Bossu's regiment, was seen to fall dead by the side of

the bannerman: The Fleming, not used to boast, loudly asserted that he

had slain the Bearnese, and the news spread rapidly over the

battle-field. The defeated Confederates gained new courage, the

victorious Royalists were beginning to waver, when suddenly, between the

hostile lines, in the very midst of the battle, the king gallopped

forward, bareheaded, covered with blood and dust, but entirely unhurt. A

wild shout of "Vive le Roi!" rang through the air. Cheerful as ever, he

addressed a few encouraging words to his soldiers, with a smiling face,

and again led a charge. It was all that was necessary to complete the

victory. The enemy broke and ran away on every side in wildest confusion,

followed by the royalist cavalry, who sabred them as they fled. The panic

gained the foot-soldiers, who should have supported the cavalry, but had

not been at all engaged in the action. The French infantry threw away

their arms as they rushed from the field and sought refuge in the woods.

The Walloons were so expeditious in the race, that they never stopped

till they gained their own frontier. The day was hopelessly lost, and

although Mayenne had conducted himself well in the early part of the day,

it was certain that he was excelled by none in the celerity of his flight

when the rout had fairly begun. Pausing to draw breath as he gained the

wood, he was seen to deal blows with his own sword among the mob of

fugitives, not that he might rally them to their flag and drive them back

to another encounter, but because they encumbered his own retreat.

The Walloon carbineers, the German riders, and the French lancers,

disputing as to the relative blame to be attached to each corps, began

shooting and sabring each other, almost before they were out of the

enemy's sight. Many were thus killed. The lansquenets were all put to the

sword. The Swiss infantry were allowed to depart for their own country on

pledging themselves not again to bear arms against Henry IV.

It is probable that eight hundred of the leaguers were either killed on

the battle-field or drowned in the swollen river in their retreat. About

one-fourth of that number fell in the army of the king. It is certain

that of the contingent from the obedient Netherlands, two hundred and

seventy, including their distinguished general, lost their lives. The

Bastard of Brunswick, crawling from beneath a heap of slain, escaped with

life. Mayenne lost all his standards and all the baggage of his army,

while the army itself was for a time hopelessly dissolved.

Few cavalry actions have attained a wider celebrity in history than the

fight of Ivry. Yet there have been many hard-fought battles, where the

struggle was fiercer and closer, where the issue was for a longer time

doubtful, where far more lives on either side were lost, where the final

victory was immediately productive of very much greater results, and

which, nevertheless, have sunk into hopeless oblivion. The personal

details which remain concerning the part enacted by the adventurous king

at this most critical period of his career, the romantic interest which

must always gather about that ready-witted, ready-sworded Gascon, at the

moment when, to contemporaries, the result of all his struggles seemed so

hopeless or at best so doubtful; above all, the numerous royal and

princely names which embellished the roll-call of that famous passage of

arms, and which were supposed, in those days at least, to add such lustre

to a battle-field, as humbler names, however illustrious by valour or

virtue, could never bestow, have made this combat for ever famous.

Yet it is certain that the most healthy moral, in military affairs, to be

derived from the event, is that the importance of a victory depends less

upon itself than on the use to be made of it. Mayenne fled to Mantes, the

Duke of Nemours to Chartres, other leaders of the League in various

directions, Mayenne told every body he met that the Bearnese was killed,

and that although his own army was defeated, he should soon have another

one on foot. The same intelligence was communicated to the Duke of Parma,

and by him to Philip. Mendoza and the other Spanish agents went about

Paris spreading the news of Henry's death, but the fact seemed woefully

to lack confirmation, while the proofs of the utter overthrow and

shameful defeat of the Leaguers were visible on every side. The

Parisians--many of whom the year before had in vain hired windows in the

principal streets, in order to witness the promised entrance of the

Bearnese, bound hand and foot, and with a gag in his mouth, to swell the

triumph of Madam League--were incredulous as to the death now reported to

them of this very lively heretic, by those who had fled so ignominiously

from his troopers.

De la None and the other Huguenot chieftains, earnestly urged upon Henry

the importance of advancing upon Paris without an instant's delay, and it

seems at least extremely probable that, had he done so, the capital would

have fallen at once into his hands. It is the concurrent testimony of

contemporaries that the panic, the destitution, the confusion would have

made resistance impossible had a determined onslaught been made. And

Henry had a couple of thousand horsemen flushed with victory, and a dozen

thousand foot who had been compelled to look upon a triumph in which they

had no opportunity of sharing: Success and emulation would have easily

triumphed over dissension and despair.

But the king, yielding to the councils of Biron and other Catholics,

declined attacking the capital, and preferred waiting the slow, and in

his circumstances eminently hazardous, operations of a regular siege. Was

it the fear of giving a signal triumph to the cause of Protestantism that

caused the Huguenot leader--so soon to become a renegade--to pause in his

career? Was it anxiety lest his victorious entrance into Paris might undo

the diplomacy of his catholic envoys at Rome? or was it simply the

mutinous condition of his army, especially of the Swiss mercenaries, who

refused to advance a step unless their arrears of pay were at once

furnished them out of the utterly empty exchequer of the king? Whatever

may have been the cause of the delay, it is certain that the golden fruit

of victory was not plucked, and that although the confederate army had

rapidly dissolved, in consequence of their defeat, the king's own forces

manifested as little cohesion.

And now began that slow and painful siege, the details of which are as

terrible, but as universally known, as those of any chapters in the

blood-stained history of the century. Henry seized upon the towns

guarding the rivers Seine and Marne, twin nurses of Paris. By controlling

the course of those streams as well as that of the Yonne and

Oise--especially by taking firm possession of Lagny on the Marne, whence

a bridge led from the Isle of France to the Brie country--great

thoroughfare of wine and corn--and of Corbeil at the junction of the

little river Essonne with the Seine-it was easy in that age to stop the

vital circulation of the imperial city.

By midsummer, Paris, unquestionably the first city of Europe at that day,

was in extremities, and there are few events in history in which our

admiration is more excited by the power of mankind to endure almost

preternatural misery, or our indignation more deeply aroused by the

cruelty with which the sublimest principles of human nature may be made

to serve the purposes of selfish ambition and grovelling superstition,

than this famous leaguer.

Rarely have men at any epoch defended their fatherland against foreign

oppression with more heroism than that which was manifested by the

Parisians of 1590 in resisting religious toleration, and in obeying a

foreign and priestly despotism. Men, women, and children cheerfully laid

down their lives by thousands in order that the papal legate and the king

of Spain might trample upon that legitimate sovereign of France who was

one day to become the idol of Paris and of the whole kingdom.

A census taken at the beginning of the siege had showed a populace of two

hundred thousand souls, with a sufficiency of provisions, it was thought,

to last one month. But before the terrible summer was over--so completely

had the city been invested--the bushel of wheat was worth three hundred

and sixty crowns, rye and oats being but little cheaper. Indeed, grain

might as well have cost three thousand crowns the bushel, for the prices

recorded placed it beyond the reach of all but the extremely wealthy. The

flesh of horses, asses, dogs, cats, rats had become rare luxuries. There

was nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons. And the priests

and monks of every order went daily about the streets, preaching

fortitude in that great resistance to heresy, by which Paris was earning

for itself a crown of glory, and promising the most direct passage to

paradise for the souls of the wretched victims who fell daily, starved to

death, upon the pavements. And the monks and priests did their work

nobly, aiding the general resolution by the example of their own courage.

Better fed than their fellow citizens, they did military work in trench,

guard-house and rampart, as the population became rapidly unfit, from

physical exhaustion, for the defence of the city.

The young Duke of Nemours, governor of the place, manifested as much

resolution and conduct in bringing his countrymen to perdition as if the

work in which he was engaged had been the highest and holiest that ever

tasked human energies. He was sustained in his task by that proud

princess, his own and Mayenne's mother, by Madame Montpensier, by the

resident triumvirate of Spain, Mendoza, Commander Moreo, and John Baptist

Tasais, by the cardinal legate Gaetano, and, more than all, by the

sixteen chiefs of the wards, those municipal tyrants of the unhappy

populace.

Pope Sixtus himself was by no means eager for the success of the League.

After the battle of Ivry, he had most seriously inclined his ear to the

representations of Henry's envoy, and showed much willingness to admit

the victorious heretic once more into the bosom of the Church. Sixtus was

not desirous of contributing to the advancement of Philip's power. He

feared his designs on Italy, being himself most anxious at that time to

annex Naples to the holy see. He had amassed a large treasure, but he

liked best to spend it in splendid architecture, in noble fountains, in

magnificent collections of art, science, and literature, and, above all,

in building up fortunes for the children of his sister the washerwoman,

and in allying them all to the most princely houses of Italy, while never

allowing them even to mention the name of their father, so base was his

degree; but he cared not to disburse from his hoarded dollars to supply

the necessities of the League.

But Gaetano, although he could wring but fifty thousand crowns from his

Holiness after the fatal fight of Ivry, to further the good cause, was

lavish in expenditures from his own purse and from other sources, and

this too at a time when thirty-three per cent. interest was paid to the

usurers of Antwerp for one month's loan of ready money. He was

indefatigable, too, and most successful in his exhortations and ghostly

consolations to the people. Those proud priests and great nobles were

playing a reckless game, and the hopes of mankind beyond the grave were

the counters on their table. For themselves there were rich prizes for

the winning. Should they succeed in dismembering the fair land where they

were enacting their fantastic parts, there were temporal principalities,

great provinces, petty sovereignties, to be carved out of the heritage

which the Bearnese claimed for his own. Obviously then, their consciences

could never permit this shameless heretic, by a simulated conversion at

the critical moment, to block their game and restore the national unity

and laws. And even should it be necessary to give the whole kingdom,

instead of the mere duchy of Brittany, to Philip of Spain, still there

were mighty guerdons to be bestowed on his supporters before the foreign

monarch could seat himself on the throne of Henry's ancestors.

As to the people who were fighting, starving, dying by thousands in this

great cause, there were eternal rewards in another world profusely

promised for their heroism instead of the more substantial bread and

beef, for lack of which they were laying down their lives.

It was estimated that before July twelve thousand human beings in Paris

had died, for want of food, within three months. But as there were no

signs of the promised relief by the army of Parma and Mayenne, and as the

starving people at times appeared faint-hearted, their courage was

strengthened one day by a stirring exhibition.

An astonishing procession marched through the streets of the city, led by

the Bishop of Senlis and the Prior of Chartreux, each holding a halberd

in one hand and a crucifix in the other, and graced by the presence of

the cardinal-legate, and of many prelates from Italy. A lame monk,

adroitly manipulating the staff of a drum major, went hopping and limping

before them, much to the amazement of the crowd. Then came a long file of

monks-Capuchins, Bernardists, Minimes, Franciscans, Jacobins, Carmelites,

and other orders--each with his cowl thrown back, his long robes trussed

up, a helmet on his head, a cuirass on his breast, and a halberd in his

hand. The elder ones marched first, grinding their teeth, rolling their

eyes, and making other ferocious demonstrations. Then came the younger

friars, similarly attired, all armed with arquebusses, which they

occasionally and accidentally discharged to the disadvantage of the

spectators, several of whom were killed or wounded on the spot. Among

others a servant of Cardinal Gaetano was thus slain, and the even caused

much commotion, until the cardinal proclaimed that a man thus killed in

so holy a cause had gone straight to heaven and had taken his place among

the just. It was impossible, thus argued the people in their simplicity,

that so wise and virtuous a man as the cardinal should not know what was

best.

The procession marched to the church of our Lady of Loretto, where they

solemnly promised to the blessed Virgin a lamp and ship of gold--should

she be willing to use her influence in behalf of the suffering city--to

be placed on her shrine as soon as the siege should be raised.

But these demonstrations, however cheering to the souls, had

comparatively little effect upon the bodies of the sufferers. It was

impossible to walk through the streets of Paris without stumbling over

the dead bodies of the citizens. Trustworthy eye-witnesses of those

dreadful days have placed the number of the dead during the summer at

thirty thousand. A tumultuous assemblage of the starving and the forlorn

rushed at last to the municipal palace, demanding peace or bread. The

rebels were soon dispersed however by a charge, headed by the Chevalier

d'Aumale, and assisted by the chiefs of the wards, and so soon as the

riot was quelled, its ringleader, a leading advocate, Renaud by name, was

hanged.

Still, but for the energy of the priests, it is doubtful whether the city

could have been held by the Confederacy. The Duke of Nemours confessed

that there were occasions when they never would have been able to sustain

a determined onslaught, and they were daily expecting to see the Prince

of Bearne battering triumphantly at their gates.

But the eloquence of the preachers, especially of the one-eyed father

Boucher, sustained the fainting spirits of the people, and consoled the

sufferers in their dying agonies by glimpses of paradise. Sublime was

that devotion, superhuman that craft; but it is only by weapons from the

armoury of the Unseen that human creatures can long confront such horrors

in a wicked cause. Superstition, in those days at least, was a political

force absolutely without limitation, and most adroitly did the agents of

Spain and Rome handle its tremendous enginery against unhappy France. For

the hideous details of the most dreadful sieges recorded in ancient or

modern times were now reproduced in Paris. Not a revolutionary

circumstance, at which the world had shuddered in the accounts of the

siege of Jerusalem, was spared. Men devoured such dead vermin as could be

found lying in the streets. They crowded greedily around stalls in the

public squares where the skin, bones, and offal of such dogs, cats and

unclean beasts as still remained for the consumption of the wealthier

classes were sold to the populace. Over the doorways of these flesh

markets might be read "Haec runt munera pro iis qui vitam pro Philippo

profuderunt." Men stood in archways and narrow passages lying in wait for

whatever stray dogs still remained at large, noosed them, strangled them,

and like savage beasts of prey tore them to pieces and devoured them

alive. And it sometimes happened, too, that the equally hungry dog proved

the more successful in the foul encounter, and fed upon the man. A lady

visiting the Duchess of Nemours--called for the high pretensions of her

sons by her two marriages the queen-mother--complained bitterly that

mothers in Paris had been compelled to kill their own children outright

to save them from starving to death in lingering agony. "And if you are

brought to that extremity," replied the duchess, "as for the sake of our

holy religion to be forced to kill your own children, do you think that

so great a matter after all? What are your children made of more than

other people's children? What are we all but dirt and dust?" Such was the

consolation administered by the mother of the man who governed Paris, and

defended its gates against its lawful sovereign at the command of a

foreigner; while the priests in their turn persuaded the populace that it

was far more righteous to kill their own children, if they had no food to

give them, than to obtain food by recognising a heretic king.

It was related too, and believed, that in some instances mothers had

salted the bodies of their dead children and fed upon them, day by day,

until the hideous repast would no longer support their own life. They

died, and the secret was revealed by servants who had partaken of the

food. The Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, advised recourse to an article of

diet which had been used in some of the oriental sieges. The counsel at

first was rejected as coming from the agent of Spain, who wished at all

hazards to save the capital of France from falling out of the hands of

his master into those of the heretic. But dire necessity prevailed, and

the bones of the dead were taken in considerable quantities from the

cemeteries, ground into flour, baked into bread, and consumed. It was

called Madame Montpensier's cake, because the duchess earnestly

proclaimed its merits to the poor Parisians. "She was never known to

taste it herself, however," bitterly observed one who lived in Paris

through that horrible summer. She was right to abstain, for all who ate

of it died, and the Montpensier flour fell into disuse.

Lansquenets and other soldiers, mad with hunger and rage, when they could

no longer find dogs to feed on, chased children through the streets, and

were known in several instances to kill and devour them on the spot. To

those expressing horror at the perpetration of such a crime, a leading

personage, member of the Council of Nine, maintained that there was less

danger to one's soul in satisfying one's hunger with a dead child, in

case of necessity, than in recognizing the heretic Bearnese, and he added

that all the best theologians and doctors of Paris were of his opinion.

As the summer wore on to its close, through all these horrors, and as

there were still no signs of Mayenne and Parma leading their armies to

the relief of the city, it became necessary to deceive the people by a

show of negotiation with the beleaguering army. Accordingly, the Spanish

ambassador, the legate, and the other chiefs of the Holy League appointed

a deputation, consisting of the Cardinal Gondy, the Archbishop of Lyons,

and the Abbe d'Elbene, to Henry. It soon became evident to the king,

however, that these commissioners were but trifling with him in order to

amuse the populace. His attitude was dignified and determined throughout

the interview. The place appointed was St. Anthony's Abbey, before the

gates of Paris. Henry wore a cloak and the order of the Holy Ghost, and

was surrounded by his council, the princes of the blood, and by more than

four hundred of the chief gentlemen of his army. After passing the

barricade, the deputies were received by old Marshal Biron, and conducted

by him to the king's chamber of state. When they had made their

salutations, the king led the way to an inner cabinet, but his progress

was much impeded by the crowding of the nobles about him. Wishing to

excuse this apparent rudeness, he said to the envoys: "Gentlemen, these

men thrust me on as fast to the battle against the foreigner as they now

do to my cabinet. Therefore bear with them." Then turning to the crowd,

he said: "Room, gentlemen, for the love of me," upon which they all

retired.

The deputies then stated that they had been sent by the authorities of

Paris to consult as to the means of obtaining a general peace in France.

They expressed the hope that the king's disposition was favourable to

this end, and that he would likewise permit them to confer with the Duke

of Mayenne. This manner of addressing him excited his choler. He told

Cardinal Gondy, who was spokesman of the deputation, that he had long

since answered such propositions. He alone could deal with his subjects.

He was like the woman before Solomon; he would have all the child or none

of it. Rather than dismember his kingdom he would lose the whole. He

asked them what they considered him to be. They answered that they knew

his rights, but that the Parisians had different opinions. If Paris would

only acknowledge him to be king there could be no more question of war.

He asked them if they desired the King of Spain or the Duke of Mayenne

for their king, and bade them look well to themselves. The King of Spain

could not help them, for he had too much business on hand; while Mayenne

had neither means nor courage, having been within three leagues of them

for three weeks doing nothing. Neither king nor duke should have that

which belonged to him, of that they might be assured. He told them he

loved Paris as his capital, as his eldest daughter. If the Parisians

wished to see the end of their miseries it was to him they should appeal,

not to the Spaniard nor to the Duke of Mayenne. By the grace of God and

the swords of his brave gentlemen he would prevent the King of Spain from

making a colony of France as he had done of Brazil. He told the

commissioners that they ought to die of shame that they, born Frenchmen,

should have so forgotten their love of country and of liberty as thus to

bow the head to the Spaniard, and--while famine was carrying off

thousands of their countrymen before their eyes--to be so cowardly as not

to utter one word for the public welfare from fear of offending Cardinal.

Gaetano, Mendoza, and Moreo. He said that he longed for a combat to

decide the issue, and that he had charged Count de Brissac to tell

Mayenne that he would give a finger of his right hand for a battle, and

two for a general peace. He knew and pitied the sufferings of Paris, but

the horrors now raging there were to please the King of Spain. That

monarch had told the Duke of Parma to trouble himself but little about

the Netherlands so long as he could preserve for him his city of Paris.

But it was to lean on a broken reed to expect support from this old,

decrepit king, whose object was to dismember the flourishing kingdom of

France, and to divide it among as many tyrants as he had sent viceroys to

the Indies. The crown was his own birthright. Were it elective he should

receive the suffrages of the great mass of the electors. He hoped soon to

drive those red-crossed foreigners out of his kingdom. Should he fail,

they would end by expelling the Duke of Mayenne and all the rest who had

called them in, and Paris would become the theatre of the bloodiest

tragedy ever yet enacted. The king then ordered Sir Roger Williams to see

that a collation was prepared for the deputies, and the veteran Welshman

took occasion to indulge in much blunt conversation with the guests. He

informed them that he, Mr. Sackville, and many other strangers were

serving the king from the hatred they bore the Spaniards and Mother

League, and that his royal mistress had always 8000 Englishmen ready to

maintain the cause.

While the conferences were going on, the officers and soldiers of the

besieging army thronged to the gate, and had much talk with the townsmen.

Among others, time-honoured La None with the iron arm stood near the gate

and harangued the Parisians. "We are here," said he, "five thousand

gentlemen; we desire your good, not your ruin. We will make you rich: let

us participate in your labour and industry. Undo not yourselves to serve

the ambition of a few men." The townspeople hearing the old warrior

discoursing thus earnestly, asked who he was. When informed that it was

La Noue they cheered him vociferously, and applauded his speech with the

greatest vehemence. Yet La Noue was the foremost Huguenot that the sun

shone upon, and the Parisians were starving themselves to death out of

hatred to heresy. After the collation the commissioners were permitted to

go from the camp in order to consult Mayenne.

Such then was the condition of Paris during that memorable summer of

tortures. What now were its hopes of deliverance out of this Gehenna? The

trust of Frenchmen was in Philip of Spain, whose legions, under command

of the great Italian chieftain, were daily longed for to save them from

rendering obedience to their lawful prince.

For even the king of straw--the imprisoned cardinal--was now dead, and

there was not even the effigy of any other sovereign than Henry of

Bourbon to claim authority in France. Mayenne, in the course of long

interviews with the Duke of Parma at Conde and Brussels, had expressed

his desire to see Philip king of France, and had promised his best

efforts to bring about such a result. In that case he stipulated for the

second place in the kingdom for himself, together with a good rich

province in perpetual sovereignty, and a large sum of money in hand.

Should this course not run smoothly, he would be willing to take the

crown himself, in which event he would cheerfully cede to Philip the

sovereignty of Brittany and Burgundy, besides a selection of cities to be

arranged for at a later day. Although he spoke of himself with modesty,

said Alexander, it was very plain that he meant to arrive at the crown

himself: Well had the Bearnese alluded to the judgment of Solomon. Were

not children, thus ready to dismember their mother, as foul and unnatural

as the mother who would divide her child?

And what was this dependence on a foreign tyrant really worth? As we look

back upon those dark days with the light of what was then the almost

immediate future turned full and glaring upon them, we find it difficult

to exaggerate the folly of the chief actors in those scenes of crime. Did

not the penniless adventurer, whose keen eyesight and wise recklessness

were passing for hallucination and foolhardiness in the eyes of his

contemporaries, understand the game he was playing better than did that

profound thinker, that mysterious but infallible politician, who sat in

the Escorial and made the world tremble at every hint of his lips, every

stroke of his pen?

The Netherlands--that most advanced portion of Philip's domain, without

the possession of which his conquest of England and his incorporation of

France were but childish visions, even if they were not monstrous

chimeras at best--were to be in a manner left to themselves, while their

consummate governor and general was to go forth and conquer France at the

head of a force with which he had been in vain attempting to hold those

provinces to their obedience. At that very moment the rising young

chieftain of the Netherlands was most successfully inaugurating his

career of military success. His armies well drilled, well disciplined,

well paid, full of heart and of hope, were threatening their ancient

enemy in every quarter, while the veteran legions of Spain and Italy,

heroes of a hundred Flemish and Frisian battle-fields, were disorganised,

starving, and mutinous. The famous ancient legion, the terzo viejo, had

been disbanded for its obstinate and confirmed unruliness. The legion of

Manrique, sixteen hundred strong, was in open mutiny at Courtray. Farnese

had sent the Prince of Ascoli to negotiate with them, but his attempts

were all in vain. Two years' arrearages--to be paid, not in cloth at four

times what the contractors had paid for it, but in solid gold--were their

not unreasonable demands after years of as hard fighting and severe

suffering as the world has often seen. But Philip, instead of ducats or

cloth, had only sent orders to go forth and conquer a new kingdom for

him. Verdugo, too, from Friesland was howling for money, garrotting and

hanging his mutinous veterans every day, and sending complaints and most

dismal forebodings as often as a courier could make his way through the

enemy's lines to Farnese's headquarters. And Farnese, on his part, was

garrotting and hanging the veterans.

Alexander did not of course inform his master that he was a mischievous

lunatic, who upon any healthy principle of human government ought long

ago to have been shut up from all communion with his species. It was very

plain, however, from his letters, that such was his innermost, thought,

had it been safe, loyal, or courteous to express it in plain language.

He was himself stung almost to madness moreover by the presence of

Commander Moreo, who hated him, who was perpetually coming over from

France to visit him, who was a spy upon all his actions, and who was

regularly distilling his calumnies into the ears of Secretary Idiaquez

and of Philip himself. The king was informed that Farnese was working for

his own ends, and was disgusted with his sovereign; that there never had

been a petty prince of Italy that did not wish to become a greater one,

or that was not jealous of Philip's power, and that there was not a

villain in all Christendom but wished for Philip's death. Moreo followed

the prince about to Antwerp, to Brussels, to Spa, whither he had gone to

drink the waters for his failing health, pestered him, lectured him,

pried upon him, counselled him, enraged him. Alexander told him at last

that he cared not if the whole world came to an end so long as Flanders

remained, which alone had been entrusted to him, and that if he was

expected to conquer France it would be as well to give him the means of

performing that exploit. So Moreo told the king that Alexander was

wasting time and wasting money, that he was the cause of Egmont's

overthrow, and that he would be the cause of the loss of Paris and of the

downfall of the whole French scheme; for that he was determined to do

nothing to assist Mayenne, or that did not conduce to his private

advantage.

Yet Farnese had been not long before informed in sufficiently plain

language, and by personages of great influence, that in case he wished to

convert his vice-royalty of the Netherlands into a permanent sovereignty,

he might rely on the assistance of Henry of Navarre, and perhaps of Queen

Elizabeth. The scheme would not have been impracticable, but the duke

never listened to it for a moment.

If he were slow in advancing to the relief of starving, agonising Paris,

there were sufficient reasons for his delay. Most decidedly and bitterly,

but loyally, did he denounce the madness of his master's course in all

his communications to that master's private ear.

He told him that the situation in which he found himself was horrible. He

had no money for his troops, he had not even garrison bread to put in

their mouths. He had not a single stiver to advance them on account. From

Friesland, from the Rhine country, from every quarter, cries of distress

were rising to heaven, and the lamentations were just. He was in absolute

penury. He could not negotiate a bill on the royal account, but had

borrowed on his own private security a few thousand crowns which he had

given to his soldiers. He was pledging his jewels and furniture like a

bankrupt, but all was now in vain to stop the mutiny at Courtray. If that

went on it would be of most pernicious example, for the whole army was

disorganised, malcontent, and of portentous aspect. "These things," said

he, "ought not to surprise people of common understanding, for without

money, without credit, without provisions, and in an exhausted country,

it is impossible to satisfy the claims, or even to support the life of

the army." When he sent the Flemish cavalry to Mayenne in March, it was

under the impression that with it that prince would have maintained his

reputation and checked the progress of the Bearnese until greater

reinforcements could be forwarded. He was now glad that no larger number

had been sent, for all would have been sacrificed on the fatal field of

Ivry.

The country around him was desperate, believed itself abandoned, and was

expecting fresh horrors everyday. He had been obliged to remove portions

of the garrisons at Deventer and Zutphen purely to save them from

starving and desperation. Every day he was informed by his garrisons that

they could feed no longer on fine words or hopes, for in them they found

no sustenance.

But Philip told him that he must proceed forthwith to France, where he

was to raise the siege of Paris, and occupy Calais and Boulogne in order

to prevent the English from sending succour to the Bearnese, and in order

to facilitate his own designs on England. Every effort was to be made

before the Bearnese climbed into the seat. The Duke of Parma was to talk

no more of difficulties, but to conquer them; a noble phrase on the

battle field, but comparatively easy of utterance at the writing-desk!

At last, Philip having made some remittances, miserably inadequate for

the necessities of the case, but sufficient to repress in part the

mutinous demonstrations throughout the army, Farnese addressed himself

with a heavy heart to the work required of him. He confessed the deepest

apprehensions of the result both in the Netherlands and in France. He

intimated a profound distrust of the French, who had, ever been Philip's

enemies, and dwelt on the danger of leaving the provinces, unable to

protect themselves, badly garrisoned, and starving. "It grieves me to the

soul, it cuts me to the heart," he said, "to see that your Majesty

commands things which are impossible, for it is our Lord alone that can

work miracles. Your Majesty supposes that with the little money you have

sent me, I can satisfy all the soldiers serving in these provinces,

settle with the Spanish and the German mutineers--because, if they are to

be used in the expedition, they must at least be quieted--give money to

Mayenne and the Parisians, pay retaining wages (wartgeld) to the German

Riders for the protection of these provinces, and make sure of the

maritime places where the same mutinous language is held as at Courtray.

The poverty, the discontent, and the desperation of this unhappy

country," he added, "have, been so often described to your Majesty that I

have nothing to add. I am hanging and garrotting my veterans everywhere,

only because they have rebelled for want of pay without committing any

excess. Yet under these circumstances I am to march into France with

twenty thousand troops--the least number to effect anything withal. I am

confused and perplexed because the whole world is exclaiming against me,

and protesting that through my desertion the country entrusted to my care

will come to utter perdition. On the other hand, the French cry out upon

me that I am the cause that Paris is going to destruction, and with it

the Catholic cause in France. Every one is pursuing his private ends. It

is impossible to collect a force strong enough for the necessary work.

Paris has reached its extreme unction, and neither Mayenne nor any one of

the confederates has given this invalid the slightest morsel to support

her till your Majesty's forces should arrive."

He reminded his sovereign that the country around Paris was eaten bare of

food and forage, and yet that it was quite out of the question for him to

undertake the transportation of supplies for his army all the

way--supplies from the starving Netherlands to starving France. Since the

king was so peremptory, he had nothing for it but to obey, but he

vehemently disclaimed all responsibility for the expedition, and, in case

of his death, he called on his Majesty to vindicate his honour, which his

enemies were sure to assail.

The messages from Mayenne becoming daily more pressing, Farnese hastened

as much as possible those preparations which at best were so woefully

inadequate, and avowed his determination not to fight the Bearnese if it

were possible to avoid an action. He feared, however, that with totally

insufficient forces he should be obliged to accept the chances of an

engagement.

With twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse Farnese left the

Netherlands in the beginning of August, and arrived on the 3rd of that

month at Valenciennes. His little army, notwithstanding his bitter

complaints, was of imposing appearance. The archers and halberdiers of

his bodyguard were magnificent in taffety and feathers and surcoats of

cramoisy velvet. Four hundred nobles served in the cavalry. Arenberg and

Barlaymont and Chimay, and other grandees of the Netherlands, in company

with Ascoli and the sons of Terranova and Pastrana, and many more great

lords of Italy and Spain were in immediate attendance on the illustrious

captain. The son of Philip's Secretary of State, Idiaquez, and the nephew

of the cardinal-legate, Gaetano, were among the marshals of the camp.

Alexander's own natural authority and consummate powers of organisation

had for the time triumphed over the disintegrating tendencies which, it

had been seen, were everywhere so rapidly destroying the foremost

military establishment of the world. Nearly half his forces, both cavalry

and infantry, were Netherlanders; for--as if there were not graves enough

in their own little territory--those Flemings, Walloons, and Hollanders

were destined to leave their bones on both sides of every well-stricken

field of that age between liberty and despotism. And thus thousands of

them had now gone forth under the banner of Spain to assist their own

tyrant in carrying out his designs upon the capital of France, and to

struggle to the death with thousands of their own countrymen who were

following the fortunes of the Bearnese. Truly in that age it was religion

that drew the boundary line between nations.

The army was divided into three portions. The vanguard was under the

charge of the Netherland General, Marquis of Renty. The battalia was

commanded by Farnese in person, and the rearguard was entrusted to that

veteran Netherlander, La Motte, now called the Count of Everbeck. Twenty

pieces of artillery followed the last division. At Valenciennes Farnese

remained eight days, and from this place Count Charles Mansfeld took his

departure in a great rage--resigning his post as chief of artillery

because La Motte had received the appointment of general-marshal of the

camp--and returned to his father, old Peter Ernest Mansfeld, who was

lieutenant-governor of the Netherlands in Parma's absence.

Leaving Valenciennes on the 11th, the army proceeded by way of Quesney,

Guise, Soissons, Fritemilon to Meaux. At this place, which is ten leagues

from Paris, Farnese made his junction, on the 22nd of August, with

Mayenne, who was at the head of six thousand infantry--one half of them

Germans under Cobalto, and the other half French--and of two thousand

horse.

On arriving at Meaux, Alexander proceeded straightway to the cathedral,

and there, in presence of all, he solemnly swore that he had not come to

France in order to conquer that kingdom or any portion of it, in the

interests of his master, but only to render succour to the Catholic cause

and to free the friends and confederates of his Majesty from violence and

heretic oppression. Time was to show the value of that oath.

Here the deputation from Paris--the Archbishop of Lyons and his

colleagues, whose interview with Henry has just been narrated--were

received by the two dukes. They departed, taking with them promises of

immediate relief for the starving city. The allies remained five days at

Meaux, and leaving that place on the 27th, arrived in the neighbourhood

of Chelles, on the last day but one of the summer. They had a united

force of five thousand cavalry and eighteen thousand foot.

The summer of horrors was over, and thus with the first days of autumn

there had come a ray of hope for the proud city which was lying at its

last gasp. When the allies, came in sight of the monastery of Chellea

they found themselves in the immediate neighbourhood of the Bearnese.

The two great captains of the age had at last met face to face. They were

not only the two first commanders of their time, but there was not a man

in Europe at that day to be at all compared with either of them. The

youth, concerning whose earliest campaign an account will be given in the

following chapter, had hardly yet struck his first blow. Whether that

blow was to reveal the novice or the master was soon to be seen. Meantime

in 1590 it would have been considered a foolish adulation to mention the

name of Maurice of Nassau in the same breath with that of Navarre or of

Farnese.

The scientific duel which was now to take place was likely to task the

genius and to bring into full display the peculiar powers and defects of

the two chieftains of Europe. Each might be considered to be still in the

prime of life, but Alexander, who was turned of forty-five, was already

broken in health, while the vigorous Henry was eight years younger, and

of an iron constitution. Both had passed then lives in the field, but the

king, from nature, education, and the force of circumstances, preferred

pitched battles to scientific combinations, while the duke, having

studied and practised his art in the great Spanish and Italian schools of

warfare, was rather a profound strategist than a professional fighter,

although capable of great promptness and intense personal energy when his

judgment dictated a battle. Both were born with that invaluable gift

which no human being can acquire, authority, and both were adored and

willingly obeyed by their soldiers, so long as those soldiers were paid

and fed.

The prize now to be contended for was a high one. Alexander's complete

success would tear from Henry's grasp the first city of Christendom, now

sinking exhausted into his hands, and would place France in the power of

the Holy League and at the feet of Philip. Another Ivry would shatter the

confederacy, and carry the king in triumph to his capital and his

ancestral throne. On the approach of the combined armies under Parma and

Mayenne, the king had found himself most reluctantly compelled to suspend

the siege of Paris. His army, which consisted of sixteen thousand foot

and five thousand horse, was not sufficiently numerous to confront at the

same time the relieving force and to continue the operations before the

city. So long, however, as he held the towns and bridges on the great

rivers, and especially those keys to the Seine and Marne, Corbeil and

Lagny, he still controlled the life-blood of the capital, which indeed

had almost ceased to flow.

On the 31st August he advanced towards the enemy. Sir Edward Stafford,

Queen Elizabeth's ambassador, arrived at St. Denis in the night of the

30th August. At a very early hour next morning he heard a shout under his

window, and looking down beheld King Henry at the head of his troops,

cheerfully calling out to his English friend as he passed his door.

"Welcoming us after his familiar manner," said Stafford, "he desired us,

in respect of the battle every hour expected, to come as his friends to

see and help him, and not to treat of anything which afore, we meant,

seeing the present state to require it, and the enemy so near that we

might well have been interrupted in half-an-hour's talk, and necessity

constrained the king to be in every corner, where for the most part we

follow him."

That day Henry took up his headquarters at the monastery of Chelles, a

fortified place within six leagues of Paris, on the right bank of the

Marne. His army was drawn up in a wide valley somewhat encumbered with

wood and water, extending through a series of beautiful pastures towards

two hills of moderate elevation. Lagny, on the left bank of the river,

was within less than a league of him on his right hand. On the other side

of the hills, hardly out of cannon-shot, was the camp of the allies.

Henry, whose natural disposition in this respect needed no prompting, was

most eager for a decisive engagement. The circumstances imperatively

required it of him. His infantry consisted of Frenchmen, Netherlanders,

English, Germans, Scotch; but of his cavalry four thousand were French

nobles, serving at their own expense, who came to a battle as to a

banquet, but who were capable of riding off almost as rapidly, should the

feast be denied them. They were volunteers, bringing with them rations

for but a few days, and it could hardly be expected that they would

remain as patiently as did Parma's veterans, who, now that their mutiny

had been appeased by payment of a portion of their arrearages, had become

docile again. All the great chieftains who surrounded Henry, whether

Catholic or Protestant--Montpensier, Nevers, Soissons, Conti, the Birons,

Lavradin, d'Aumont, Tremouille, Turenne, Chatillon, La Noue--were urgent

for the conflict, concerning the expediency of which there could indeed

be no doubt, while the king was in raptures at the opportunity of dealing

a decisive blow at the confederacy of foreigners and rebels who had so

long defied his authority and deprived him of his rights.

Stafford came up with the king, according to his cordial invitation, on

the same day, and saw the army all drawn up in battle array. While Henry

was "eating a morsel in an old house," Turenne joined him with six or

seven hundred horsemen and between four and five thousand infantry. "They

were the likeliest footmen," said Stafford, "the best countenanced, the

best furnished that ever I saw in my life; the best part of them old

soldiers that had served under the king for the Religion all this while."

The envoy was especially enthusiastic, however, in regard to the French

cavalry. "There are near six thousand horse," said he, "whereof gentlemen

above four thousand, about twelve hundred other French, and eight hundred

reiters. I never saw, nor I think never any man saw, in prance such a

company of gentlemen together so well horsed and so well armed."

Henry sent a herald to the camp of the allies, formally challenging them

to a general engagement, and expressing a hope that all differences might

now be settled by the ordeal of battle, rather than that the sufferings

of the innocent people should be longer protracted.

Farnese, on arriving at Meaux, had resolved to seek the enemy and take

the hazards of a stricken field. He had misgivings as to the possible

result, but he expressly announced this intention in his letters to

Philip, and Mayenne confirmed him in his determination. Nevertheless,

finding the enemy so eager and having reflected more maturely, he saw no

reason for accepting the chivalrous cartel. As commanderin-chief--for

Mayenne willingly conceded the supremacy which it would have been absurd

in him to dispute--he accordingly replied that it was his custom to

refuse a combat when a refusal seemed advantageous to himself, and to

offer battle whenever it suited his purposes to fight. When that moment

should arrive the king would find him in the field. And, having sent this

courteous, but unsatisfactory answer to the impatient Bearnese, he gave

orders to fortify his camp, which was already sufficiently strong. Seven

days long the two armies lay face to face--Henry and his chivalry chafing

in vain for the longed-for engagement--and nothing occurred between those

forty or fifty thousand mortal enemies, encamped within a mile or two of

each other, save trifling skirmishes leading to no result.

At last Farnese gave orders for an advance. Renty, commander of the

vanguard, consisting of nearly all the cavalry, was instructed to move

slowly forward over the two hills, and descending on the opposite side,

to deploy his forces in two great wings to the right and left. He was

secretly directed in this movement to magnify as much as possible the

apparent dimensions of his force. Slowly the columns moved over the

hills. Squadron after squadron, nearly all of them lancers, with their

pennons flaunting gaily in the summer wind, displayed themselves

deliberately and ostentatiously in the face of the Royalists. The

splendid light-horse of Basti, the ponderous troopers of the Flemish

bands of ordnance under Chimay and Berlaymont, and the famous Albanian

and Italian cavalry, were mingled with the veteran Leaguers of France who

had fought under the Balafre, and who now followed the fortunes of his

brother Mayenne. It was an imposing demonstration.

Henry could hardly believe his eyes as the much-coveted opportunity, of

which he had been so many days disappointed, at last presented itself,

and he waited with more than his usual caution until the plan of attack

should be developed by his great antagonist. Parma, on his side, pressed

the hand of Mayenne as he watched the movement, saying quietly, "We have

already fought our battle and gained the victory." He then issued orders

for the whole battalia--which, since the junction, had been under command

of Mayenne, Farnese reserving for himself the superintendence of the

entire army--to countermarch rapidly towards the Marne and take up a

position opposite Lagny. La Motte, with the rearguard, was directed

immediately to follow. The battalia had thus become the van, the

rearguard the battalia, while the whole cavalry corps by this movement

had been transformed from the vanguard into the rear. Renty was

instructed to protect his manoeuvres, to restrain the skirmishing as much

as possible, and to keep the commander-in-chief constantly informed of

every occurrence. In the night he was to entrench and fortify himself

rapidly and thoroughly, without changing his position.

Under cover of this feigned attack, Farnese arrived at the river side on

the 15th September, seized an open village directly opposite Lagny, which

was connected with it by a stone bridge, and planted a battery of nine

pieces of heavy artillery directly opposite the town. Lagny was fortified

in the old-fashioned manner, with not very thick walls, and without a

terreplain. Its position, however, and its command of the bridge, seemed

to render an assault impossible, and De la Fin, who lay there with a

garrison of twelve hundred French, had no fear for the security of the

place. But Farnese, with the precision and celerity which characterized

his movements on special occasions, had thrown pontoon bridges across the

river three miles above, and sent a considerable force of Spanish and

Walloon infantry to the other side. These troops were ordered to hold

themselves ready for an assault, so soon as the batteries opposite should

effect a practicable breach. The next day Henry, reconnoitering the

scene, saw, with intense indignation, that he had been completely

out-generalled. Lagny, the key to the Marne, by holding which he had

closed the door on nearly all the food supplies for Paris, was about to

be wrested from him. What should he do? Should he throw himself across

the river and rescue the place before it fell? This was not to be thought

of even by the audacious Bearnese. In the attempt to cross the river,

under the enemy's fire, he was likely to lose a large portion of his

army. Should he fling himself upon Renty's division which had so

ostentatiously offered battle the day before? This at least might be

attempted, although not so advantageously as would have been the case on

the previous afternoon. To undertake this was the result of a rapid

council of generals. It was too late. Renty held the hills so firmly

entrenched and fortified that it was an idle hope to carry them by

assault. He might hurl column after column against those heights, and

pass the day in seeing his men mowed to the earth without result.

His soldiers, magnificent in the open field, could not be relied upon to

carry so strong a position by sudden storm; and there was no time to be

lost. He felt the enemy a little. There was some small skirmishing, and

while it was going on, Farnese opened a tremendous fire across the river

upon Lagny. The weak walls soon crumbled; a breach was effected, the

signal for assault was given, and the troops posted on the other side,

after a brief but sanguinary straggle, overcame all, resistance, and were

masters of the town. The whole garrison, twelve hundred strong, was

butchered, and the city thoroughly sacked; for Farnese had been brought

up in the old-fashioned school of Alva; and Julian Romero and Com-.

wander Requesens.

Thus Lagny was seized before the eyes of Henry, who was forced to look

helplessly on his great antagonist's triumph. He had come forth in full

panoply and abounding confidence to offer battle. He was foiled of his

combat; and he had lost the prize. Never was blow more successfully

parried, a counter-stroke more ingeniously planted. The bridges of

Charenton and St. Maur now fell into Farnese's hands without a contest.

In an incredibly short space of time provisions and munitions were poured

into the starving city; two thousand boat-loads arriving in a single day.

Paris was relieved. Alexander had made his demonstration, and solved the

problem. He had left the Netherlands against his judgment, but he had at

least accomplished his French work as none but he could have done it. The

king was now in worse plight than ever. His army fell to pieces. His

cavaliers, cheated of their battle; and having neither food nor forage,

rode off by hundreds every day. "Our state is such," said Stafford; on

the 16th September, "and so far unexpected and wonderful, that I am

almost ashamed to write, because methinks everybody should think I dream.

Myself seeing of it methinketh that I dream. For, my lord, to see an army

such a one I think as I shall never see again--especially for horsemen

and gentlemen to take a mind to disband upon the taking of such a paltry

thing as Lagny, a town no better indeed than Rochester, it is a thing so

strange to me that seeing of it I can scarce believe it. They make their

excuses of their want, which I know indeed is great--for there were few

left with one penny in their purses--but yet that extremity could not be

such but that they might have tarried ten days or fifteen at the most

that the king desired of them. . . . From six thousand horse that we

were and above, we are come to two thousand and I do not see an end of

our leave-takers, for those be hourly.

"The most I can see we can make account of to tarry are the Viscount

Turenne's troops, and Monsieur de Chatillon's, and our Switzers, and

Lanaquenettes, which make very near five thousand. The first that went

away, though he sent word to the king an hour before he would tarry, was

the Count Soissons, by whose parting on a sudden and without leave-taking

we judge a discontentment."

The king's army seemed fading into air. Making virtue of necessity he

withdrew to St. Denis, and decided to disband his forces, reserving to

himself only a flying camp with which to harass the enemy as often as

opportunity should offer.

It must be confessed that the Bearnese had been thoroughly

out-generalled. "It was not God's will," said Stafford, who had been in

constant attendance upon Henry through the whole business; "we deserved

it not; for the king might as easily have had Paris as drunk, four or

five times. And at the last, if he had not committed those faults that

children would not have done, only with the desire to fight and give the

battle (which the other never meant), he had had it in the Duke of

Parma's eight as he took Lagny in ours." He had been foiled of the battle

on which he had set his heart, and, in which he felt confident of

overthrowing the great captain of the age, and trampling the League under

his feet. His capital just ready to sink exhausted into his hands had

been wrested from his grasp, and was alive with new hope and new

defiance. The League was triumphant, his own army scattering to the four

winds. Even a man of high courage and sagacity might have been in

despair. Yet never were the magnificent hopefulness, the wise audacity of

Henry more signally manifested than now when he seemed most blundering

and most forlorn. His hardy nature ever met disaster with so cheerful a

smile as almost to perplex disaster herself.

Unwilling to relinquish his grip without a last effort, he resolved on a

midnight assault upon Paris. Hoping that the joy at being relieved, the

unwonted feasting which had succeeded the long fasting, and the

consciousness of security from the presence of the combined armies of the

victorious League, would throw garrison and citizens off their guard, he

came into the neighbourhood of the Faubourgs St. Jacques, St. Germain,

St. Marcel, and St. Michel on the night of 9th September. A desperate

effort was made to escalade the walls between St. Jacques and St.

Germain. It was foiled, not by the soldiers nor the citizens, but by the

sleepless Jesuits, who, as often before during this memorable siege, had

kept guard on the ramparts, and who now gave the alarm. The first

assailants were hurled from their ladders, the city was roused, and the

Duke of Nemours was soon on the spot, ordering burning pitch hoops,

atones, and other missiles to be thrown down upon the invaders. The

escalade was baffled; yet once more that night, just before dawn, the

king in person renewed the attack on the Faubourg St. Germain. The

faithful Stafford stood by his side in the trenches, and was witness to

his cool determination, his indomitable hope. La None too was there, and

was wounded in the leg--an accident the results of which were soon to

cause much weeping through Christendom. Had one of those garlands of

blazing tar which all night had been fluttering from the walls of Paris

alighted by chance on the king's head there might have been another

history of France. The ladders, too, proved several feet too short, and

there were too few, of them. Had they been more numerous and longer, the

tale might have been a different one. As it was, the king was forced to

retire with the approaching daylight.

The characteristics of the great commander of the Huguenots and of the

Leaguers' chieftain respectively were well illustrated in several

incidents of this memorable campaign. Farnese had been informed by scouts

and spies of this intended assault by Henry on the walls of Paris. With

his habitual caution he discredited the story. Had he believed it, he

might have followed the king in overwhelming force and taken him captive.

The penalty of Henry's unparalleled boldness was thus remitted by

Alexander's exuberant discretion.

Soon afterwards Farnese laid siege to Corbeil. This little place--owing

to the extraordinary skill and determination of its commandant, Rigaut,

an old Huguenot officer, who had fought with La Noue in

Flanders--resisted for nearly four weeks. It was assaulted at last,

Rigaut killed, the garrison of one thousand French soldiers put to the

sword, and the town sacked. With the fall of Corbeil both the Seine and

Marne were re-opened.

Alexander then made a visit to Paris, where he was received with great

enthusiasm. The legate, whose efforts and whose money had so much

contributed to the successful defence of the capital had returned to

Italy to participate in the election of a new pope. For the "Huguenot

pope," Sixtus V., had died at the end of August, having never bestowed on

the League any of his vast accumulated treasures to help it in its utmost

need. It was not surprising that Philip was indignant, and had resorted

to menace of various kinds against the holy father, when he found him

swaying so perceptibly in the direction of the hated Bearnese. Of course

when he died his complaint was believed to be Spanish poison. In those

days, none but the very obscure were thought capable of dying natural

deaths, and Philip was esteemed too consummate an artist to allow so

formidable an adversary as Sixtus to pass away in God's time only.

Certainly his death was hailed as matter of great rejoicing by the

Spanish party in Rome, and as much ignominy bestowed upon his memory as

if he had been a heretic; while in Paris his decease was celebrated with

bonfires and other marks of popular hilarity.

To circumvent the great Huguenot's reconciliation with the Roman Church

was of course an indispensable portion of Philip's plan; for none could

be so dull as not to perceive that the resistance of Paris to its heretic

sovereign would cease to be very effective, so soon as the sovereign had

ceased to be heretic. It was most important therefore that the successor

of Sixtus should be the tool of Spain. The leading confederates were well

aware of Henry's intentions to renounce the reformed faith, and to return

to the communion of Rome whenever he could formally accomplish that

measure. The crafty Bearnese knew full well that the road to Paris lay

through the gates of Rome. Yet it is proof either of the privacy with

which great public matters were then transacted, or of the extraordinary

powers of deceit with which Henry was gifted, that the leaders of

protestantism were still hoodwinked in regard to his attitude.

Notwithstanding the embassy of Luxembourg, and the many other indications

of the king's intentions, Queen Elizabeth continued to regard him as the

great champion of the reformed faith. She had just sent him an emerald,

which she had herself worn, accompanied by the expression of her wish

that the king in wearing it might never strike a blow without demolishing

an enemy, and that in his farther progress he might put all his enemies

to rout and confusion. "You will remind the king, too," she added, "that

the emerald has this virtue, never to break so long as faith remains

entire and firm."

And the shrewd Stafford, who was in daily attendance upon him, informed

his sovereign that there were no symptoms of wavering on Henry's part.

"The Catholics here," said he, "cry hard upon the king to be a Catholic

or else that he is lost, and they would persuade him that for all their

calling in the Spaniards, both Paris and all other towns will yield to

him, if he will but assure them that he will become a Catholic. For my

part, I think they would laugh at him when he had done so, and so I find

he believeth the same, if he had mind to it, which I find no disposition

in him unto it." The not very distant future was to show what the

disposition of the bold Gascon really was in this great matter, and

whether he was likely to reap nothing but ridicule from his apostasy,

should it indeed become a fact. Meantime it was the opinion of the wisest

sovereign in Europe, and of one of the most adroit among her

diplomatists, that there was really nothing in the rumours as to the

king's contemplated conversion.

It was, of course, unfortunate for Henry that his staunch friend and

admirer Sixtus was no more. But English diplomacy could do but little in

Rome, and men were trembling with apprehension lest that arch-enemy of

Elizabeth, that devoted friend of Philip, the English Cardinal Allen,

should be elected to the papal throne. "Great ado is made in Rome," said

Stafford, "by the Spanish ambassador, by all corruptions and ways that

may be, to make a pope that must needs depend and be altogether at the

King of Spain's devotion. If the princes of Italy put not their hands

unto it, no doubt they will have their wills, and I fear greatly our

villainous Allen, for, in my judgment, I can comprehend no man more with

reason to be tied altogether to the King of Spain's will than he. I pray

God send him either to God or the Devil first. An evil-minded Englishman,

tied to the King of Spain by necessity, finding almost four millions of

money, is a dangerous beast for a pope in this time."

Cardinal Allen was doomed to disappointment. His candidacy was not

successful, and, after the brief reign--thirteen days long--of Urban VII,

Sfondrato wore the triple tiara with the title of Gregory XIV. Before the

year closed, that pontiff had issued a brief urging the necessity of

extirpating heresy in France, and of electing a Catholic king, and

asserting his determination to send to Paris--that bulwark of the

Catholic faith--not empty words alone but troops, to be paid fifteen

thousand crowns of gold each month, so long as the city should need

assistance. It was therefore probable that the great leader of the

Huguenots, now that he had been defeated by Farnese, and that his capital

was still loyal to the League, would obtain less favour--however

conscientiously he might instruct himself--from Gregory XIV. than he had

begun to find in the eyes of Sixtus after the triumph of Ivry.

Parma refreshed his army by a fortnight's repose, and early in November

determined on his return to the Netherlands. The Leaguers were aghast at

his decision, and earnestly besought him to remain. But the duke had

given them back their capital, and although this had been accomplished

without much bloodshed in their army or his own, sickness was now making

sad ravages among his troops, and there was small supply of food or

forage for such large forces as had now been accumulated, in the

neighbourhood of Paris. Moreover, dissensions were breaking out between

the Spaniards, Italians, and Netherlanders of the relieving army with

their French allies. The soldiers and peasants hated the foreigners who

came there as victors, even although to assist the Leaguers in

overthrowing the laws, government, and nationality of France. The

stragglers and wounded on Farnese's march were killed by the country

people in considerable numbers, and it was a pure impossibility for him

longer to delay his return to the provinces which so much against his

will he had deserted.

He marched back by way of Champagne rather than by that of Picardy, in

order to deceive the king. Scarcely had he arrived in Champagne when he

heard of the retaking of Lagny and Corbeil. So soon as his back was

turned, the League thus showed its impotence to retain the advantage

which his genius had won. Corbeil, which had cost him a month of hard

work, was recaptured in two days. Lagny fell almost as quickly. Earnestly

did the confederates implore him to return to their rescue, but he

declined almost contemptuously to retrace his steps. His march was

conducted in the same order and with the same precision which--had marked

his advance. Henry, with his flying camp, hung upon his track, harassing

him now in front, now in rear, now in flank. None of the skirmishes were

of much military importance. A single cavalry combat, however, in which

old Marshal Biron was nearly surrounded and was in imminent danger of

death or capture, until chivalrously rescued by the king in person at the

head of a squadron of lancers, will always possess romantic interest. In

a subsequent encounter, near Baroges on the Yesle, Henry had sent Biron

forward with a few companies of horse to engage some five hundred

carabineers of Farnese on their march towards the frontier, and had

himself followed close upon the track with his usual eagerness to witness

or participate in every battle. Suddenly Alphonse Corse, who rode at

Henry's aide, pointed out to him, not more than a hundred paces off, an

officer wearing a felt hat, a great ruff, and a little furred cassock,

mounted on a horse without armour or caparisons, galloping up and down

and brandishing his sword at the carabineers to compel them to fall back.

This was the Duke of Parma, and thus the two great champions of the

Huguenots and of the Leaguers--the two foremost captains of the age--had

met face to face. At that moment La Noue, riding up, informed the king

that he had seen the whole of the enemy's horse and foot in battle array,

and Henry, suspecting the retreat of Farnese to be a feint for the

purpose of luring him on with his small force to an attack, gave orders

to retire as soon as possible.

At Guise, on the frontier, the duke parted with Mayenne, leaving with him

an auxiliary force of four thousand foot and five hundred horse, which he

could ill spare. He then returned to Brussels, which city he reached on

the 4th December, filling every hotel and hospital with his sick

soldiers, and having left one-third of his numbers behind him. He had

manifested his own military skill in the adroit and successful manner in

which he had accomplished the relief of Paris, while the barrenness of

the result from the whole expedition vindicated the political sagacity

with which he had remonstrated against his sovereign's infatuation.

Paris, with the renewed pressure on its two great arteries at Lagny and

Corbeil, soon fell into as great danger as before; the obedient

Netherlands during the absence of Farnese had been sinking rapidly to

ruin, while; on the other hand, great progress and still greater

preparations in aggressive warfare had been made by the youthful general

and stadtholder of the Republic.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Alexander's exuberant discretion

Divine right of kings

Ever met disaster with so cheerful a smile

Future world as laid down by rival priesthoods

Invaluable gift which no human being can acquire, authority

King was often to be something much less or much worse

Magnificent hopefulness

Myself seeing of it methinketh that I dream

Nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons

Obscure were thought capable of dying natural deaths

Philip II. gave the world work enough

Righteous to kill their own children

Road to Paris lay through the gates of Rome

Shift the mantle of religion from one shoulder to the other

Thirty-three per cent. interest was paid (per month)

Under the name of religion (so many crimes)