The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Volume III.

M >> Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre >> The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Volume III.


Henri III., when he heard of his brother's death, was only too eager to
slip away like a culprit from Poland, though he showed no alacrity in
returning to France, and dallied with the pleasures of Italy for months.
An attempt to draw him over to the side of the Politiques failed
completely; he attached himself on the contrary to the Guises, and
plunged into the grossest dissipation, while he posed himself before men
as a good and zealous Catholic. The Politiques and Huguenots therefore
made a compact in 1575, at Milhaud on the Tarn, and chose the Prince de
Conde as their head; Henri of Navarre escaped from Paris, threw off his
forced Catholicism, and joined them. Against them the strict Catholics
seemed powerless; the Queen-mother closed this war with the Peace of
Chastenoy (May, 1576), with terms unusually favourable for both
Politiques and Huguenots: for the latter, free worship throughout France,
except at Paris; for the chiefs of the former, great governments, for
Alencon a large central district, for Conde, Picardy, for Henri of
Navarre, Guienne.

To resist all this the high Catholic party framed the League they had
long been meditating; it is said that the Cardinal de Lorraine had
sketched it years before, at the time of the later sittings of the
Council of Trent. Lesser compacts had already been made from time to
time; now it was proposed to form one great League, towards which all
should gravitate. The head of the League was Henri, Duc de Guise the
second, "Balafre," who had won that title in fighting against the German
reiters the year before, when they entered France under Condo. He
certainly hoped at this time to succeed to the throne of France, either
by deposing the corrupt and feeble Henri III., "as Pippin dealt with
Hilderik," or by seizing the throne, when the King's debaucheries should
have brought him to the grave. The Catholics of the more advanced type,
and specially the Jesuits, now in the first flush of credit and success,
supported him warmly. The headquarters of the movement were in Picardy;
its first object, opposition to the establishment of Conde as governor of
that province. The League was also very popular with the common folk,
especially in the towns of the north. It soon found that Paris was its
natural centre; thence it spread swiftly across the whole natural France;
it was warmly supported by Philip of Spain. The States General, convoked
at Blois in 1576, could bring no rest to France; opinion was just as much
divided there as in the country; and the year 1577 saw another petty war,
counted as the sixth, which was closed by the Peace of Bergerac, another
ineffectual truce which settled nothing. It was a peace made with the
Politiques and Huguenots by the Court; it is significant of the new state
of affairs that the League openly refused to be bound by it, and
continued a harassing, objectless warfare. The Duc d'Anjou (he had taken
that title on his brother Henri's accession to the throne) in 1578
deserted the Court party, towards which his mother had drawn him, and
made friends with the Calvinists in the Netherlands. The southern
provinces named him "Defender of their liberties;" they had hopes he
might wed Elizabeth of England; they quite mistook their man. In 1579
"the Gallants' War" broke out; the Leaguers had it all their own way; but
Henri III., not too friendly to them, and urged by his brother Anjou, to
whom had been offered sovereignty over the seven united provinces in
1580, offered the insurgents easy terms, and the Treaty of Fleix closed
the seventh war. Anjou in the Netherlands could but show his weakness;
nothing went well with him; and at last, having utterly wearied out his
friends, he fled, after the failure of his attempt to secure Antwerp,
into France. There he fell ill of consumption and died in 1584.

This changed at once the complexion of the succession question. Hitherto,
though no children seemed likely to be born to him, Henri III. was young
and might live long, and his brother was there as his heir. Now, Henri
III. was the last Prince of the Valois, and Henri of Navarre in
hereditary succession was heir presumptive to the throne, unless the
Salic law were to be set aside. The fourth son of Saint Louis, Robert,
Comte de Clermont, who married Beatrix, heiress of Bourbon, was the
founder of the House of Bourbon. Of this family the two elder branches
had died out: John, who had been a central figure in the War of the
Public Weal, in 1488; Peter, husband of Anne of France, in 1503; neither
of them leaving heirs male. Of the younger branch Francois died in 1525,
and the famous Constable de Bourbon in 1527. This left as the only
representatives of the family, the Comtes de La Marche; of these the
elder had died out in 1438, and the junior alone survived in the Comtes
de Vendome. The head of this branch, Charles, was made Duc de Vendome by
Francois I. in 1515; he was father of Antoine, Duc de Vendome, who, by
marrying the heroic Jeanne d'Albret, became King of Navarre, and of
Louis, who founded the House of Conde; lastly, Antoine was the father of
Henri IV. He was, therefore, a very distant cousin to Henri III; the
Houses of Capet, of Alencon, of Orleans, of Angouleme, of Maine, and of
Burgundy, as well as the elder Bourbons, had to fall extinct before Henri
of Navarre could become heir to the crown. All this, however, had now
happened; and the Huguenots greatly rejoiced in the prospect of a
Calvinist King. The Politique party showed no ill-will towards him; both
they and the Court party declared that if he would become once more a
Catholic they would rally to him; the Guises and the League were
naturally all the more firmly set against him; and Henri of Navarre saw
that he could not as yet safely endanger his influence with the
Huguenots, while his conversion would not disarm the hostility of the
League. They had before, this put forward as heir to the throne Henri's
uncle, the wretched old Cardinal de Bourbon, who had all the faults and
none of the good qualities of his brother Antoine. Under cover of his
name the Duc de Guise hoped to secure the succession for himself; he also
sold himself and his party to Philip of Spain, who was now in fullest
expectation of a final triumph over his foes. He had assassinated
William the Silent; any day Elizabeth or Henri of Navarre might be found
murdered; the domination of Spain over Europe seemed almost secured. The
pact of Joinville, signed between Philip, Guise, and Mayenne, gives us
the measure of the aims of the high Catholic party. Paris warmly sided
with them; the new development of the League, the "Sixteen of Paris," one
representative for each of the districts of the capital, formed a
vigorous organisation and called for the King's deposition; they invited
Henri, Duc de Guise, to Paris. Soon after this Henri III. humbled
himself, and signed the Treaty of Nemours (1585) with the Leaguers. He
hereby became nominal head of the League and its real slave.

The eighth war, the "War of the Three Henries," that is, of Henri III.
and Henri de Guise against Henri of Navarre, now broke out. The Pope
made his voice heard; Sixtus excommunicated the Bourbons, Henri and
Conde, and blessed the Leaguers.

For the first time there was some real life in one of these civil ware,
for Henri of Navarre rose nobly to the level of his troubles. At first
the balance of successes was somewhat in favour of the Leaguers; the
political atmosphere grew even more threatening, and terrible things,
like lightning flashes, gleamed out now and again. Such, for example,
was the execution of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, in 1586. It was known
that Philip II. was preparing to crush England. Elizabeth did what she
could to support Henri of Navarre; he had the good fortune to win the
battle of Contras, in which the Duc de Joyeuse, one of the favourites of
Henri III., was defeated and killed. The Duc de Guise, on the other
hand, was too strong for the Germans, who had marched into France to join
the Huguenots, and defeated them at Vimroy and Auneau, after which he
marched in triumph to Paris, in spite of the orders and opposition of.
the King, who, finding himself powerless, withdrew to Chartres. Once
more Henri III. was obliged to accept such terms as the Leaguers chose to
impose; and with rage in his heart he signed the "Edict of Union" (1588),
in which he named the Duc de Guise lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and
declared that no heretic could succeed to the throne. Unable to endure
the humiliation, Henri III. that same winter, assassinated the Duc and
the Cardinal de Guise, and seized many leaders of the League, though he
missed the Duc de Mayenne. This scandalous murder of the "King of
Paris," as the capital fondly called the Duke, brought the wretched King
no solace or power. His mother did not live to see the end of her son;
she died in this the darkest period of his career, and must have been
aware that her cunning and her immoral life had brought nothing but
misery to herself and all her race. The power of the League party seemed
as great as ever; the Duc de Mayenne entered Paris, and declared open war
on Henri III., who, after some hesitation, threw himself into the hands
of his cousin Henri of Navarre in the spring of 1589. The old Politique
party now rallied to the King; the Huguenots were stanch for their old
leader; things looked less dark for them since the destruction of the
Spanish Armada in the previous summer. The Swiss, aroused by the threats
of the Duke of Savoy at Geneva, joined the Germans, who once more entered
northeastern France; the leaguers were unable to make head either against
them or against the armies of the two Kings; they fell back on Paris, and
the allies hemmed them in. The defence of the capital was but languid;
the populace missed their idol, the Duc de Guise, and the moderate party,
never extinguished, recovered strength. All looked as if the royalists
would soon reduce the last stronghold of the League, when Henri III. was
suddenly slain by the dagger of a fanatical half-wined priest.

The King had only time to commend Henri of Navarre to his courtiers as
his heir, and to exhort him to become a Catholic, before he closed his
eyes, and ended the long roll of his vices and crimes. And thus in crime
and shame the House of Valois went down. For a few years, the throne
remained practically vacant: the heroism of Henri of Navarre, the loss of
strength in the Catholic powers, the want of a vigorous head to the
League,--these things all sustained the Bourbon in his arduous struggle;
the middle party grew in strength daily, and when once Henri had allowed
himself to be converted, he became the national sovereign, the national
favourite, and the high Catholics fell to the fatal position of an
unpatriotic faction depending on the arm of the foreigner.

4. The civil wars were not over, for the heat of party raged as yet
unslaked; the Politiques could not all at once adopt a Huguenot King, the
League party had pledged itself to resist the heretic, and Henri at first
had little more than the Huguenots at his back. There were also
formidable claimants for the throne. Charles II. Duc de Lorraine, who
had married Claude, younger daughter of Henri IL, and who was therefore
brother-in-law to Henri III., set up a vague claim; the King of Spain,
Philip II., thought that the Salic law had prevailed long enough in
France, and that his own wife, the elder daughter of Henri III. had the
best claim to the throne; the Guises, though their head was gone, still
hoping for the crown, proclaimed their sham-king, the Cardinal de
Bourbon, as Charles X., and intrigued behind the shadow of his name. The
Duc de Mayenne, their present chief, was the most formidable of Henri's
opponents; his party called for a convocation of States General, which
should choose a King to succeed, or to replace, their feeble Charles X.
During this struggle the high Catholic party, inspired by Jesuit advice,
stood forward as the admirers of constitutional principles; they called
on the nation to decide the question as to the succession; their Jesuit
friends wrote books on the sovereignty of the people. They summoned up
troops from every side; the Duc de Lorraine sent his son to resist Henri
and support his own claim; the King of Spain sent a body of men; the
League princes brought what force they could. Henri of Navarre at the
same moment found himself weakened by the silent withdrawal from his camp
of the army of Henri III.; the Politique nobles did not care at first to
throw in their lot with the Huguenot chieftain; they offered to confer on
Henri the post of commander-in-chief, and to reserve the question as to
the succession; they let him know that they recognised his hereditary
rights, and were hindered only by his heretical opinions; if he would but
be converted they were his. Henri temporised; his true strength, for the
time, lay in his Huguenot followers, rugged and faithful fighting men,
whose belief was the motive power of their allegiance and of their
courage. If he joined the Politiques at their price, the price of
declaring himself Catholic, the Huguenots would be offended if not
alienated. So he neither absolutely refused nor said yes; and the chief
Catholic nobles in the main stood aloof, watching the struggle between
Huguenot and Leaguer, as it worked out its course.

Henri, thus weakened, abandoned the siege of Paris, and fell back; with
the bulk of his forces he marched into Normandy, so as to be within reach
of English succour; a considerable army went into Champagne, to be ready
to join any Swiss or German help that might come. These were the great
days in the life of Henri of Navarre. Henri showed himself a hero, who
strove for a great cause--the cause of European freedom--as well as for
his own crown.

The Duc de Mayenne followed the Huguenots down into the west, and found
Henri awaiting him in a strong position at Arques, near Dieppe; here at
bay, the "Bearnais" inflicted a heavy blow on his assailants; Mayenne
fell back into Picardy; the Prince of Lorraine drew off altogether; and
Henri marched triumphantly back to Paris, ravaged the suburbs and then
withdrew to Tours, where he was recognised as King by the Parliament. His
campaign of 1589 had been most successful; he had defeated the League in
a great battle, thanks to his skilful use of his position at Arques, and
the gallantry of his troops, which more than counterbalanced the great
disparity in numbers. He had seen dissension break out among his
enemies; even the Pope, Sixtus, had shown him some favour, and the
Politique nobles were certainly not going against him. Early in 1590
Henri had secured Anjou, Maine, and Normandy, and in March defeated
Mayenne, in a great pitched battle at Ivry, not far from Dreux. The
Leaguers fell back in consternation to Paris. Henri reduced all the
country round the capital, and sat down before it for a stubborn siege.
The Duke of Parma had at that time his hands full in the Low Countries;
young Prince Maurice was beginning to show his great abilities as a
soldier, and had got possession of Breda; all, however, had to be
suspended by the Spaniards on that side, rather than let Henri of Navarre
take Paris. Parma with great skill relieved the capital without striking
a blow, and the campaign of 1590 ended in a failure for Henri. The
success of Parma, however, made Frenchmen feel that Henri's was the
national cause, and that the League flourished only by interference of
the foreigner. Were the King of Navarre but a Catholic, he should be a
King of France of whom they might all be proud. This feeling was
strengthened by the death of the old Cardinal de Bourbon, which reopened
at once the succession question, and compelled Philip of Spain to show
his hand. He now claimed the throne for his daughter Elisabeth, as
eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of Henri II. All the neighbours
of France claimed something; Frenchmen felt that it was either Henri IV.
or dismemberment. The "Bearnais" grew in men's minds to be the champion
of the Salic law, of the hereditary principle of royalty against feudal
weakness, of unity against dismemberment, of the nation against the
foreigner.

The middle party, the Politiques of Europe,--the English, that is, and
the Germans,--sent help to Henri, by means of which he was able to hold
his own in the northwest and southwest throughout 1591. Late in the year
the violence of the Sixteen of Paris drew on them severe punishment from
the Duc de Mayenne; and consequently the Duke ceased to be the recognised
head of the League, which now looked entirely to Philip II. and Parma,
while Paris ceased to be its headquarters; and more moderate counsels
having taken the place of its fierce fanaticism, the capital came under
the authority of the lawyers and citizens, instead of the priesthood and
the bloodthirsty mob. Henri, meanwhile, who was closely beleaguering
Rouen, was again outgeneralled by Parma, and had to raise the siege.
Parma, following him westward, was wounded at Caudebec; and though he
carried his army triumphantly back to the Netherlands, his career was
ended by this trifling wound. He did no more, and died in 1592.

In 1593, Mayenne, having sold his own claims to Philip of Spain, the
opposition to Henri looked more solid and dangerous than ever; he
therefore thought the time was come for the great step which should rally
to him all the moderate Catholics. After a decent period of negotiation
and conferences, he declared himself convinced, and heard mass at St.
Denis. The conversion had immediate effect; it took the heart out of the
opposition; city after city came in; the longing for peace was strong in
every breast, and the conversion seemed to remove the last obstacle. The
Huguenots, little as they liked it, could not oppose the step, and hoped
to profit by their champion's improved position. Their ablest man,
Sully, had even advised Henri to make the plunge. In 1594, Paris opened
her gates to Henri, who had been solemnly crowned, just before, at
Chartres. He was welcomed with immense enthusiasm, and from that day
onwards has ever been the favourite hero of the capital. By 1595 only
one foe remained,--the Spanish Court. The League was now completely
broken up; the Parliament of Paris gladly aided the King to expel the
Jesuits from France. In November, 1595, Henri declared war against
Spain, for anything was better than the existing state of things, in
which Philip's hand secretly supported all opposition: The war in 1596
was far from being successful for Henri; he was comforted, however, by
receiving at last the papal absolution, which swept away the last
scruples of France.

By rewards and kindliness,--for Henri was always willing to give and had
a pleasant word for all, most of the reluctant nobles, headed by the Duc
de Mayenne himself, came in in the course of 1596. Still the war pressed
very heavily, and early in 1597 the capture of Amiens by the Spaniards
alarmed Paris, and roused the King to fresh energies. With help of Sully
(who had not yet received the title by which he is known in history)
Henri recovered Amiens, and checked the Spanish advance. It was noticed
that while the old Leaguers came very heartily to the King's help, the
Huguenots hung back in a discontented and suspicious spirit. After the
fall of Amiens the war languished; the Pope offered to mediate, and Henri
had time to breathe. He felt that his old comrades, the offended
Huguenots, had good cause for complaint; and in April, 1598, he issued
the famous Edict of Nantes, which secured their position for nearly a
century. They got toleration for their opinions; might worship openly in
all places, with the exception of a few towns in which the League had
been strong; were qualified to hold office in financial posts and in the
law; had a Protestant chamber in the Parliaments.

Immediately after the publication of the Edict of Nantes, the Treaty of
Vervins was signed. Though Henri by it broke faith with Queen Elizabeth,
he secured an honourable peace for his country, an undisputed kingship
for himself. It was the last act of Philip II., the confession that his
great schemes were unfulfilled, his policy a failure.




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

From faith to action the bridge is short
Much is forgiven to a king
Parliament aided the King to expel the Jesuits from France
The record of the war is as the smoke of a furnace