"Adieu, gentlemen, adieu! Commend me to your master, and go in peace, but do not come back again."
La Noue, one of Henry's chief supporters, as he was entering the city, had his baggage attached for an old debt. Indignantly he hastened to the king to complain of the outrage. The just monarch promptly but pleasantly replied,
Justice of Henry IV.
"We must pay our debts, La Noue. I pay mine." Then drawing his faithful servant aside, he gave him his jewels to pledge for the deliverance of his baggage. The king was so impoverished that he had not money sufficient to pay the debt.
Joy in Paris.
These principles of justice and magnanimity, which were instinctive with the king, and which were daily manifested in multiplied ways, soon won to him nearly all hearts. All France had writhed in anguish through years of war and misery. Peace, the greatest of all earthly blessings, was now beginning to diffuse its joys. The happiness of the Parisians amounted almost to transport. It was difficult for the king to pass through the streets, the crowd so thronged him with their acclamations. Many other important towns soon surrendered. But the haughty Duke of Mayenne refused to accept the proffered clemency, and, strengthened by the tremendous spiritual power of the head of the Church, still endeavored to arouse the energies of Papal fanaticism in Flanders and in Spain.
Reconciliation with the Pope.
Soon, however, the Pope became convinced that all further resistance would be in vain. It was but compromising his dignity to be vanquished, and he accordingly decided to accept reconciliation. In yielding to this, the Pope stooped to the following silly farce, quite characteristic of those days of darkness and delusion. It was deemed necessary that the king should do penance for his sins before he could be received to the bosom of holy mother Church. It was proper that the severe mother should chastise her wayward child. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."
Henry chastised by proxy.
It was the sixteenth of September, 1595. The two embassadors of Henry IV. kneeled upon the vestibule of one of the churches in Rome as unworthy to enter. In strains of affected penitence, they chanted the Miserere– "Have mercy, Lord." At the close of every verse they received, in the name of their master, the blows of a little switch on their shoulders. The king, having thus made expiation for his sins, through the reception of this chastisement by proxy, and having thus emphatically acknowledged the authority of the sacred mother, received the absolution of the vicar of Christ, and was declared to be worthy of the loyalty of the faithful.
The farce.
We have called this a farce. And yet can it be justly called so? The proud spirit of the king must indeed have been humiliated ere he could have consented to such a degradation. The spirit ennobled can bid defiance to any amount of corporeal pain. It is ignominy alone which can punish the soul. The Pope triumphed; the monarch was flogged. It is but just to remark that the friends of Henry deny that he was accessory to this act of humiliation.
Cause of the war.
The Protestants still persecuted.
Scene of massacre.
The atrocious civil war, thus virtually, for a time, terminated, was caused by the Leaguers, who had bound themselves together in a secret society for the persecution of the Protestants. Their demand was inexorable that the Protestants throughout France should be proscribed and exterminated. The Protestants were compelled to unite in self-defense. They only asked for liberty to worship God according to their understanding of the teachings of the Bible. Henry, to conciliate the Catholics, was now compelled to yield to many of their claims which were exceedingly intolerant. He did this very unwillingly, for it was his desire to do every thing in his power to meliorate the condition of his Protestant friends. But, notwithstanding all the kind wishes of the king, the condition of the Protestants was still very deplorable. Public opinion was vehemently against them. The magistrates were every where their foes, and the courts of justice were closed against all their appeals. Petty persecution and tumultuary violence in a thousand forms annoyed them. During the year of Henry's coronation, a Protestant congregation in Chalaigneraie was assailed by a Catholic mob instigated by the Leaguers, and two hundred men, women, and children were massacred. A little boy eight years old, in the simplicity of his heart, offered eight coppers which he had in his pocket to ransom his life; but the merciless fanatics struck him down. Most of these outrages were committed with entire impunity. The king had even felt himself forced to take the oath, "I will endeavor with all my power, in good faith, to drive from my jurisdiction and estates all the heretics denounced by the Church."
Dissatisfaction of both Catholics and Protestants.
The Protestants, finding themselves thus denounced as enemies, and being cut off from all ordinary privileges and from all common justice, decided, for mutual protection, vigorously to maintain their political organization. The king, though he feigned to be displeased, still encouraged them to do so. Though the Protestants were few in numbers, they were powerful in intelligence, rank, and energy; and in their emergencies, the strong arm of England was ever generously extended for their aid. The king was glad to avail himself of their strength to moderate the intolerant demands of the Leaguers. Many of the Protestants complained bitterly that the king had abandoned them. On the other hand, the haughty leaders of the League clamored loudly that the king was not a true son of the Church, and, in multiform conspiracies, they sought his death by assassination.
Complaints of the Reformed Churches of France.
The Protestants held several large assemblies in which they discussed their affairs. They drew up an important document – an address to the king, entitled, "Complaints of the Reformed Churches of France." Many pages were filled with a narrative of the intolerable grievances they endured. This paper contained, in conclusion, the following noble words:
"And yet, sire, we have among us no Jacobins or Jesuits who wish for your life, or Leaguers who aspire to your crown. We have never presented, instead of petitions, the points of our swords. We are rewarded with considerations of state. It is not yet time, they say, to grant us an edict. And yet, after thirty-five years of persecution, ten years of banishment by the edicts of the League, eight years of the king's reign, four years of proscription, we are still under the necessity of imploring from your majesty an edict which shall allow us to enjoy what is common to all your subjects. The sole glory of God, the liberty of our consciences, the repose of the state, the security of our property and our lives – this is the summit of our wishes, and the end of our requests."
Chapter XII
Reign and Death of Henry IV
1596-1610
Mayenne professes reconciliation.
The reconciliation of the king with the Pope presented a favorable opportunity for the Duke of Mayenne, consistently with his pride, to abandon the hopeless conflict. He declared that, as the Pope had accepted the conversion of the king, all his scruples were removed, and that he could now conscientiously accept him as the sovereign of France. But the power of the haughty duke may be seen in the terms he exacted.
Terms exacted by the duke.
The king was compelled to declare, though he knew to the contrary, that, all things considered, it was evident that neither the princes nor the princesses of the League were at all implicated in the assassination of Henry III., and to stop all proceedings in Parliament in reference to that atrocious murder. Three fortified cities were surrendered to the duke, to be held by him and his partisans for six years, in pledge for the faithful observance of the terms of the capitulation. The king also assumed all the debts which Mayenne had contracted during the war, and granted a term of six weeks to all the Leaguers who were still in arms to give in their adhesion and to accept his clemency.
Interview between Henry and the duke.
The king was at this time at Monceaux. The Duke of Mayenne hastened to meet him. He found Henry riding on horseback in the beautiful park of that place with the fair Gabrielle, and accompanied by the Duke of Sully. Mayenne, in compliance with the obsequious etiquette of those days, kneeled humbly before the king, embraced his knees, and, assuring him of his entire devotion for the future, thanked the monarch for having delivered him "from the arrogance of the Spaniards and from the cunning of the Italians."
Henry, who had a vein of waggery about him, immediately raised the duke, embraced him with the utmost cordiality, and, taking his arm, without any allusion whatever to their past difficulties, led him through the park, pointing out to him, with great volubility and cheerfulness, the improvements he was contemplating.
Henry's revenge.
Henry was a well-built, vigorous man, and walked with great rapidity. Mayenne was excessively corpulent, and lame with the gout. With the utmost difficulty he kept up with the king, panting, limping, and his face blazing with the heat. Henry, with sly malice, for some time appeared not to notice the sufferings of his victim; then, with a concealed smile, he whispered to Sully,
"If I walk this great fat body much longer, I shall avenge myself without any further trouble." Then turning to Mayenne, he added, "Tell me the truth, cousin, do I not walk a little too fast for you?"
"Sire," exclaimed the puffing duke, "I am almost dead with fatigue."
"There's my hand," exclaimed the kind-hearted king, again cordially embracing the duke. "Take it, for, on my life, this is all the vengeance I shall ever seek."
Hostility of Spain and Flanders.
There were still parts of the kingdom which held out against Henry, and Spain and Flanders freely supplied men and ammunition to the fragments of the League. Calais was in the hands of the enemy. Queen Elizabeth of England had ceased to take much interest in the conflict since the king had gone over to the Catholics. When Calais was besieged by the foe, before its surrender she offered to send her fleet for its protection if Henry would give the city to her. Henry tartly replied, "I had rather be plundered by my enemies than by my friends."
Calais taken by the Leaguers.
The queen was offended, sent no succor, and Calais passed into the hands of the Leaguers. The king was exceedingly distressed at the loss of this important town. It indicated new and rising energy on the part of his foes. The more fanatical Catholics all over the kingdom, who had never been more than half reconciled to Henry, were encouraged to think that, after all their defeats, resistance might still be successful. The heroic energies of the king were, however, not depressed by this great disaster. When its surrender was announced, turning to the gentlemen of his court, he calmly said,
"My friends, there is no remedy. Calais is taken, but we must not lose our courage. It is in the midst of disasters that bold men grow bolder. Our enemies have had their turn. With God's blessing, who has never abandoned me when I have prayed to him with my whole heart, we shall yet have ours. At any event, I am greatly comforted by the conviction that I have omitted nothing that was possible to save the city. All of its defenders have acquitted themselves loyally and nobly. Let us not reproach them. On the contrary, let us do honor to their generous defense. And now let us rouse our energies to retake the city, that it may remain in the hands of the Spaniards not so many days as our ancestors left it years in the hands of the English."
Movement of the nobles.
A large body of the nobles now combined to extort from the king some of the despotic feudal privileges which existed in the twelfth century. They thought that in this hour of reverse Henry would be glad to purchase their powerful support by surrendering many of the prerogatives of the crown. After holding a meeting, they appointed the Duke of Montpensier, who was very young and self-sufficient, to present their demands to the king. Their plan was this, that the king should consent to the division of France into several large departments, over each of which, as a vassal prince, some distinguished nobleman should reign, collecting his own revenues and maintaining his own army. Each of these vassal nobles was to be bound, when required, to furnish a military contingent to their liege lord the king.
Montpensier entered the presence of the monarch, and in a long discourse urged the insulting proposal. The king listened calmly, and without interrupting him, to the end. Then, in tones unimpassioned, but firm and deliberate, he replied,
Energetic reply of the king.
"My cousin, you must be insane. Such language coming from you, and addressed to me, leads me to think that I am in a dream. Views so full of insult to the sovereign, and ruin to the state, can not have originated in your benevolent and upright mind. Think you that the people, having stripped me of the august prerogatives of royalty, would respect in you the rights of a prince of the blood? Did I believe that you, in heart, desired to see me thus humiliated, I would teach you that such an offense is not to be committed with impunity. My cousin, abandon these follies. Reveal not your accomplices, but reply to them that you yourself have such a horror of these propositions that you will hold him as a deadly enemy who shall ever speak to you of them again."
Dark days.
This firmness crushed the conspiracy; but still darkness and gloom seemed to rest upon unhappy France. The year 1596 was one of famine and of pestilence. "We had," says a writer of the times, "summer in April, autumn in May, and winter in June." In the city and in the country, thousands perished of starvation. Famishing multitudes crowded to the gates of the city in search of food, but in the city the plague had broken forth. The authorities drove the mendicants back into the country. They carried with them the awful pestilence in every direction. At the same time, several attempts were made to assassinate the king. Though he escaped the knife of the assassin, he came near losing his life by a singular accident.
Singular accident.
The Princess of Navarre, sister of the king, had accompanied him, with the rest of the court, into Picardy. She was taken suddenly ill. The king called to see her, carrying in his arms his infant son, the idolized child of the fair Gabrielle. While standing by the bedside of his sister, from some unexplained cause, the flooring gave way beneath them. Henry instinctively sprang upon the bed with his child. Providentially, that portion of the floor remained firm, while all the rest was precipitated with a crash into the rooms below. Neither Henry, his sister, or his child sustained any injury.
Deplorable state of France.
Poverty of the king.
The financial condition of the empire was in a state of utter ruin – a ruin so hopeless that the almost inconceivable story is told that the king actually suffered both for food and raiment. He at times made himself merry with his own ragged appearance. At one time he said gayly, when the Parliament sent the president, Seguier, to remonstrate against a fiscal edict,
"I only ask to be treated as they treat the monks, with food and clothing. Now, Mr. President, I often have not enough to eat. As for my habiliments, look and see how I am accoutred," and he pointed to his faded and thread-bare doublet.
Le Grain, a contemporary, writes, "I have seen the king with a plain doublet of white stuff, all soiled by his cuirass and torn at the sleeve, and with well-worn breeches, unsewn on the side of the sword-belt."
Depression of the king.
While the king was thus destitute, the members of the council of finance were practicing gross extortion, and living in extravagance. The king was naturally light-hearted and gay, but the deplorable condition of the kingdom occasionally plunged him into the deepest of melancholy. A lady of the court one day remarked to him that he looked sad.
"Indeed," he replied, "how can I be otherwise, to see a people so ungrateful toward their king? Though I have done and still do all I can for them, and though for their welfare I would willingly sacrifice a thousand lives had God given me so many, as I have often proved, yet they daily attempt my life."
The council insisted that it was not safe for the king to leave so many of the Leaguers in the city, and urged their banishment. The king refused, saying,
"They are all my subjects, and I wish to love them equally."
The Duke of Sully.
The king now resolved, notwithstanding strong opposition from the Catholics, to place his illustrious Protestant friend, Sully, at the head of the ministry of finance. Sully entered upon his Herculean task with shrewdness which no cunning could baffle, and with integrity which no threat or bribe could bias. All the energies of calumny, malice, and violence were exhausted upon him, but this majestic man moved straight on, heedless of the storm, till he caused order to emerge from apparently inextricable confusion, and, by just and healthy measures, replenished the bankrupt treasury of the state.
Siege of Amiens.
Its capitulation.
The king was now pushing the siege of Amiens, which had for some time been in the hands of his enemies. During this time he wrote to his devoted friend and faithful minister of finance,
"I am very near the enemy, yet I have scarcely a horse upon which I can fight, or a suit of armor to put on. My doublet is in holes at the elbows. My kettle is often empty. For these two last days I have dined with one and another as I could. My purveyors inform me that they have no longer the means of supplying my table."
On the twenty-fifth of June, 1597, Amiens capitulated.
The Edict of Nantes.
Provisions of the edict.
One of the kings of England is said to have remarked to his son, who was eager to ascend the throne, "Thou little knowest, my child, what a heap of cares and sorrows thou graspest at." History does, indeed, prove that "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." New perplexities now burst upon the king. The Protestants, many of them irritated by his conversion, and by the tardy and insufficient concessions they received, violently demanded entire equality with the Catholics. This demand led to the famous Edict of Nantes. This ordinance, which receives its name from the place where it was published, was issued in the month of April, 1598. It granted to the Protestants full private liberty of conscience. It also permitted them to enjoy public worship in all places where the right was already established. Protestant lords of the highest rank could celebrate divine service in their castles with any number of their retainers. Nobles of the second rank might maintain private worship in their mansions, to which thirty persons could be admitted. Protestants were pronounced to be eligible to public office. Their children were to be admitted to the schools, their sick to the hospitals, and their poor to a share of the public charities. In a few specified places they were permitted to print books. Such, in the main, was the celebrated "Edict of Nantes."
Clamors of the Catholics.
The Catholics considered this an enormous and atrocious concession to deadly heresy. New clamors blazed forth against Henry, as in heart false to the Church. The Catholic clergy, in one combined voice, protested against it, and Pope Clement VIII. declared the Edict of Nantes, which permitted liberty of conscience to every one, the most execrable that was ever made.
Toleration slowly learned.
It has required centuries of blood and woe to teach even a few individuals the true principles of religious liberty. Even in Protestant lands, the masses of the people have not yet fully learned that lesson. All over Catholic Europe, and all through the realms of paganism, intolerance still sways her cruel and bloody sceptre. These miserable religious wars in France, the birth of ignorance, fanaticism, and depravity, for seventy years polluted the state with gory scaffolds and blazing stakes. Three thousand millions of dollars were expended in the senseless strife, and two millions of lives were thrown away. At the close of the war, one half of the towns and the majestic castles of beautiful France were but heaps of smouldering ruins. All industry was paralyzed. The fields were abandoned to weeds and barrenness. The heart and the mind of the whole nation was thoroughly demoralized. Poverty, emaciation, and a semi-barbarism deformed the whole kingdom.
Dissatisfaction of both parties.
Neither the Catholics nor Protestants were satisfied with the Edict of Nantes. The Parliament of Paris, composed almost entirely of Catholics, for a long time refused its ratification. Henry called the courts before him, and insisted with kindness, but with firmness, that the edict should be verified.
"Gentlemen," said he, in the long speech which he made upon the occasion, "there must be no more distinction between Catholics and Protestants. All must be good Frenchmen. Let the Catholics convert the Protestants by the example of a good life. I am a shepherd-king, who will not shed the blood of his sheep, but who will seek to bring them all with kindness into the same fold."
Progress of affairs.
The Catholic Parliament, thus constrained, finally adopted the edict. The Protestants also, perceiving clearly that this was the best that the king could do for them, after long discussion in their Consistory, which was, in reality, their Parliament, finally gave in their adhesion. The adjoining hostile powers, having no longer a party in France to join them, were thus disarmed. They sent embassadors to promote peace. Friendly treaties were speedily formed, and Henry was the undisputed monarch of a kingdom in repose.
Prosperity in the kingdom.
Henry now commenced, with great energy, the promotion of the prosperity of his exhausted kingdom. To check the warlike spirit which had so long been dominant, he forbade any of his subjects, except his guards, to carry arms. The army was immediately greatly reduced, and public expenditures so diminished as materially to lighten the weight of taxation. Many of the nobles claimed exemption from the tax, but Henry was inflexible that the public burden should be borne equally by all. The people, enjoying the long unknown blessings of peace, became enthusiastically grateful to their illustrious benefactor.
Henry's illness.
Devotion of his subjects.
In the month of October, 1598, the king was taken dangerously ill. The whole nation was in a panic. The touching demonstrations which Henry then received of the universal love and homage of his subjects affected him deeply. But few men find enough happiness in this world to lead them to cling very tenaciously to life when apparently on a dying bed. Henry at this time said to his attendants,
"I have no fear of death. I do not shrink at all from the great journey to the spirit land. But I greatly regret being removed from my beloved country before I have restored it to complete prosperity."
Happily, the fever was subdued, and he again, with indefatigable diligence, resumed his labors. To discourage the extravagance of the nobles, he set the example of extreme economy in all his personal expenses. He indulged in no gaudy equipage, his table was very frugally served, and his dress was simple in the extreme. No man in the kingdom devoted more hours to labor. He met his council daily, and in all their conferences exhibited a degree of information, shrewdness, and of comprehensive statesmanship which astonished the most experienced politicians who surrounded him.
Hostility of the nobles.
It was a fierce battle which the king and his minister were compelled to fight for many years against the haughty nobles, who had ever regarded the mass of the people but as beasts of burden, made to contribute to their pleasure. The demands of these proud aristocrats were incessant and inexorable. It is a singular fact that, among them all, there was not a more thorough-going aristocrat than Sully himself. He had a perfect contempt for the people as to any power of self-government. They were, in his view, but sheep, to be carefully protected by a kind shepherd. It was as absurd, he thought, to consult them, as it would be for a shepherd to ask the advice of his flock. But Sully wished to take good care of the people, to shield them from all unequal burdens, from all aristocratic usurpations, and to protect them with inflexible justice in person and in property. His government was absolute in the extreme.
The Marchioness of Verneuil.
The Marchioness of Verneuil, in a towering rage, bitterly reproached the duke for preventing her from receiving a monopoly from the king, which would have secured to her an income of some five hundred thousand dollars a year.
"Truly the king will be a great fool," exclaimed the enraged marchioness, "if he continues to follow your advice, and thus alienates so many distinguished families. On whom, pray, should the king confer favors, if not on his relatives and his influential friends?"
Integrity of Sully.
"What you say," replied the unbending minister, "would be reasonable enough if his majesty took the money all out of his own purse. But to assess a new tax upon the merchants, artisans, laborers, and country people will never do. It is by them that the king and all of us are supported, and it is enough that they provide for a master, without having to maintain his cousins and friends."
The slave of love.
The king's greatness.
For twelve years Henry, with his illustrious minister, labored with unintermitted zeal for the good of France. His love of France was an ever-glowing and growing passion for which every thing was to be surrendered. Henry was great in all respects but one. He was a slave to the passion of love. "And no one," says Napoleon, "can surrender himself to the passion of love without forfeiting some palms of glory." This great frailty has left a stain upon his reputation which truth must not conceal, which the genius of history with sorrow regards, and which can never be effaced. He was a great statesman. His heart was warm and generous. His philanthropy was noble and all-embracing, and his devotion to the best welfare of France was sincere and intense. Witness the following memorable prayer as he was just entering upon a great battle:
"O Lord, if thou meanest this day to punish me for my sins, I bow my head to the stroke of thy justice. Spare not the guilty. But, Lord, by thy holy mercy, have pity on this poor realm, and strike not the flock for the fault of the shepherd."
"If God," said he at another time, "shall grant me the ordinary term of human life, I hope to see France in such a condition that every peasant shall be able to have a fowl in the pot on Sunday."
This memorable saying shows both the benevolence of the king and the exceeding poverty, at that time, of the peasantry of France. Sully, in speaking of the corruption which had prevailed and of the measures of reform introduced, says,
Financial skill of Sully.
"The revenue annually paid into the royal treasury was thirty millions. It could not be, I thought, that such a sum could reduce the kingdom of France so low. I resolved to enter upon the immense investigation. To my horror, I found that for these thirty millions given to his majesty there were extorted from the purses of his subjects, I almost blush to say, one hundred and fifty millions. After this I was no longer ignorant whence the misery of the people proceeded. I applied my cares to the authors of this oppression, who were the governors and other officers of the army, who all, even to the meanest, abused, in an enormous manner, their authority over the people. I immediately caused a decree to be issued, by which they were prohibited, under great penalties, to exact any thing from the people, under any title whatever, without a warrant in form."
Co-operation of Henry.
The king co-operated cordially with his minister in these rigorous acts of reform, and shielded him with all the power of the monarchy from the storm of obloquy which these measures drew down upon him. The proud Duke of Epernon, exasperated beyond control, grossly insulted Sully. Henry immediately wrote to his minister, "If Epernon challenges you, I will be your second."
Solicitations of Gabrielle.
The amiable, but sinning and consequently wretched Gabrielle was now importunate for the divorce, that she might be lawfully married to the king. But the children already born could not be legitimated, and Sully so clearly unfolded to the king the confusion which would thus be introduced, and the certainty that, in consequence of it, a disputed succession would deluge France in blood, that the king, ardently as he loved Gabrielle, was compelled to abandon the plan. Gabrielle was inconsolable, and inveighed bitterly against Sully. The king for a moment forgot himself, and cruelly retorted,
"Know, woman, that a minister like Sully must be dearer to me than even such a friend as you."
Her death.
This harshness broke the heart of the unhappy Gabrielle. She immediately left Fontainebleau, where she was at that time with the king, and retired to Paris, saying, as she bade Henry adieu, "We shall never meet again." Her words proved true. On reaching Paris she was seized with convulsions, gave birth to a lifeless child, and died. Poor Gabrielle! Let compassion drop a tear over her grave! She was by nature one of the most lovely and noble of women. She lived in a day of darkness and of almost universal corruption. Yielding to the temptation of a heroic monarch's love, she fell, and a subsequent life of sorrow was terminated by an awful death, probably caused by poison.