action by his prior Bourgoin and the rest of hist convent, full of the fpirit of the league, and fanctified, as he thought, by the facrament which he had taken, came to demand an audience of the king in order to affaffinate him, Henry felt a fecret pleafure in feeing him approach, and declared that his heart danced within him every time he faw a monk. I fhall pafs over the detail of what paffed at Paris and Rome on this occafion; with what zeal the inhabitants of the fift of thefe cities placed the picture of the regicide on the altars, how the guns were fired at Rome, and the monk's elogium publicly pronounced. But it will be neceffary to obferve, that in the general opinion of the people, this wretch paffed for a faint and a martyr, who had delivered the people of God from a perfecuting tyrant, on whom they beftowed no other appellation than that of Herod. This man had devoted himfelf to certain death: his fuperiors, and all thofe whom he had confulted, had commanded him in God's name to do this holy deed. His mind was in a state of invincible ignorance, and he had an inward perfuafion that he was going to offer himfelf at facrifice for God, the church, and his country; in fhort, in the opinion of the divines, he was haftening to eternal happinefs, and the king he murdered was eternally damned. This had been the opinion of fome Calviniftical divines concerning Poltrot de Meré, and what the catholics. faid of the murder of the prince of Orange; and I remark the fpirit of the times more than the facts, which are fufficiently known.

CHA P. CXLIV.

OF HENRY IV..

Ither Daniel, we ate Xurprifed at not finding. N reading the hiftory of Henry IV. by fahim the great man. His character is but. half drawn; there are none of thofe fayings which were the lively images of his foul, nor that fpeech which he made in the affembly of the principal citizens of Rouen, and which is worthy of eternal memory; nor yet any notice taken of the great good he did to his country. In fhort, father Daniel's reign of Henry IV. confifts only of a dry narrative of military operations, long fpeeches in parliament in favour of the Jefuits, and the life of father Cotton.

Bayle, who is as erroneous and fuperficial, when he treats of hiftorical and worldly matters, as he is learned and folid in his logical writings, begins his article of Henry IV. by fay-ing, that "Had he been made an eunuch while he was young, he might have eclipfed the glory of Alexander and Cæfar." This is one of thofe things which he ought to have ftruck out of his dictionary; befides, his logic fails him in this ridiculous fuppofition, for Cæfar was much more addicted to debaucheries than Henry IV. was to women, and we can fee no reason why Henry fhould have furpaffed Alexander.

In

fine, it is to be wifhed, for the example of kings, and the fatisfaction of the people, that they would confult fome better historian than Daniel, fuch as Mezeray's great hiftory, Pe

I

refixe,

refixe, and the duke of Sully, for what relates to the reign of this excellent prince.

Let us, for our private ufe, take a fummary view of the life of this glorious prince, a lifewhich was, alas! of too short a date. He was from his infancy brought up in the midst of troubles and misfortunes. He was present at the battle of Moncontour*, when he was but fourteen years old. He was recalled to Paris by Charles IX. and married to that king's fifter only to fee his friends murdered around him, to run the hazard of his own life, and to be detained near three years a prifoner of ftate. He efcaped from his confinement only to undergo all the fatigues and viciffitudes of war; he was frequently in want of the common neceffaries of life, a continual ftranger to reft, expofing his perfon like the meaneft foldier, performing actions which are hardly credible, but by being fo often repeated; witnefs that at the fiege of Cahors in 1599, when he was five days fucceffively under arms, and fighting from street to ftreet, without taking a moment's reft. The victory of Coutras was principally owing to his courage, and his humanity after the victory. was such as gained him every heart.

By the murder of Henry III. he became king of France; but religion ferved as a pretext for one half of the chiefs of his army to defert him, and for the leaguers to refufe to ac

Moncontour fought on the third day of October, in 1 the year 1569, between the army of Charles IX. commanded by his brother the duke of Anjou, afterwards > Henry III. and the Hugueno's, under the admiral de CoKgni; which laft were defeated with great flaughter.

knowledge him. They fet up a phantom of a king in oppofition to him, Vendôme cardinal of Bourbon; and the Spanish monarch, Philip II. who had gotten the mastery of the league by his money, already reckoned France as one of his provinces. The duke of Savoy, Philip's fon-in-law, invades Provence and Dauphiné. The parliament of Languedoc forbid any one to acknowledge him as king under pain of death, and declare him "Incapable of poffeffing the crown of France, agreeable to the bull of our holy father the pope.'

Henry IV. had only the juftice of his cause, his perfonal courage, and a few friends on his fide. He never was in a condition to keep an army on foot for any confiderable time; and what fort of an army was his! It hardly ever amounted to twelve thoufand men complete; a lefs number than a detachment now-a-days. His fervants took their turns to follow him into the field, and left him again after a few months fervice. The Swifs troops, and a few companies of fpearmen, which he could with difficulty keep in pay, formed the standing force of his army. He was obliged to run inceffantly from town to town, fighting and negociating; and there is hardly a province in France where he did not perform fome great exploits, at the head of an handful of men.

At first he fought the battle of Arques near Dieppe, with about five thousand men against the duke of Mayenne's army, which was twentyfive thousand ftrong; after that he carried the fuburbs of Paris, and only wanted more men to make himfelf master of the city itself. He was then obliged to retreat, and to ftorm feveral fortified

fortified villages in order to open a communication with those towns which were in his interest.

While he is thus continually expofed to fatigues and dangers, cardinal Cajetanus arrives as legate from Rome, and in the pontiff's name quietly gives laws to the city of Paris. The Sorbonne conftantly declare against his fovereignty, and the league reigns in the name of the cardinal of Vendôme, to whom they gave the title of Charles X. and coin money in his name, while Henry detains him prifoner at Tours.

The monks and priests ftir up the people, and the Jefuits run from Paris to Rome and Spain, to excite factions against him. Father Matthew, who was called the courier of the league, labours inceffantly to raise bulls and armies to distress him. The king of Spain fends one thoufand five hundred fpearmen, fully accoutred, making in all about four thousand horsemen, and three thousand of the old Walloon infantry, under the command of count Egmont, fon to that Egmont whom this king had beheaded. Then Henry rallies the few forces he could get together, and at length finds himself at the head of no more than ten thousand men. With this little army he fights the famous battle of Ivry*, against the leaguers commanded by the duke of Mayenne, and the

* Henry had actually invested Dreux, when, being informed that the duke de Mayenne was on his march to relieve it, he called a council of war, and told them; Gentlemen, we must raife the fiege; but it will be no difshonourable step, as we do it in order to give battle."

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