by Catherine. She gave the Protestants the Convention of Amboise. It was through her intervention that Henry and Jean D'Albret were extricated from a plot which had been formed, the design of which was to deliver them up to Philip of Spain. She died shortly after her great enemy Guise had perished by a Protestant dagger; this was on January the 5th, 1589. In the following August her unhappy son, advancing to the siege of Paris, was hastened into eternity by the dagger of the Dominican monk, Jaques Clement. It is one of the many coincidences of this remarkable history, that it was one whose name in after years was painfully identified with that of the greatest monster of the Revolution, who matured and organized the assassination of the last Valois king.

For it was a Duchess of Montpensier who quickened the murderous zeal of the monk by the promise of favours, of which it is said she even granted him a foretaste; whose only regret when the deed was done was that the king had died without knowing that it was she who had prompted it; while his Holiness, in consistory, compared the duchess to Judith or Eleazar, and the exploit itself he placed on a level with the Incarnation and Resurrection of the Redeemer.

Religious animosity ran high in that age, but in France there were two causes which gave it a peculiar vitality and bitterness. In no other country were the two parties-Catholics and Reformers more nearly balanced than they were in France, in the middle of the sixteenth century.

When, in 1560, Coligny presented to the Assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau, a petition from his brother Huguenots, he affirmed

'That he could within a few days have easily procured 50,000 signatures to it; and the Duke de Guise admitted the correctness of his assertion, while professing to see in it only a menace to the King, and a proof of the danger which might arise from the toleration of so numerous a body. Two even of the prelates of the Church, Mordlin, Bishop of Valence, and Marillac, Archbishop of Vienne, were notoriously inclined to the new doctrines, a feeling which was shared by a very large portion of the educated classes throughout the nation,1 for the Reformation in France had this peculiarity also, that it worked downwards; that its first and most numerous adherents were made, not among the humbler classes, but among the rich and fashionable; they, indeed, being those who had suffered most from the exactions of the Catholic priesthood. The Royal Family itself furnished some converts. Queen Margaret, sister of Francis I, had been a zealous protector of the new religion, and had her daughter, the mother of Henry IV, in it; it invaded even the nursery of Henry II, where the youthful Duke d'Anjou, afterwards Henry III, staunch Romanist as he became in his manhood, compelled his brothers and

1 Coligny, on a previous occasion, reckoned them at 2,000,000, capable of bearing arms: Catherine, at even more than half the educated classes.

sisters to use Huguenot prayers, and to sing Marot's psalms. Secondly, among the chief princes and nobles, the contest between the two religions was also a struggle for political power.'—Vol. i. p. 7.

From the eight desolating wars of France, inevitably issuing. from this state of things, it was the happy destiny of Henry IV. to deliver the land. He had already, overborne by the threats of Charles, given a kind of promise of conformity, and on the death of Henry had fully resolved to return to the Church. His own party, interested in his welfare, felt that the preservation of his throne depended on his taking this step. His government has derived additional lustre from the services of the great minister, Sully. Professor Yonge is happy in his personal sketches; here is his delineation of the greatest man in France, after the king:

The Baron de Rosny,-or to give him at once the title by which, as Minister, he is best known, though it was not conferred on him till some years later, the Duke de Sully,-was the second. After the accidental death of his brother Louis, the eldest son of the Baron de Rosny, a nobleman of moderate estate, but of so ancient a family that his son, in describing his descent, and tracing it up to "the Ancient House of Austria,” is at some pains to explain that he does not by that expression allude to the Hapsburgh branch, but to the old house of De Coucy. His father had adopted the doctrines of the Reformers, and having bred up his son in the same opinions, took him, when only twelve years old, to the Court of the Queen of Navarre, and there presented him to Prince Henry, who knowing the esteem which the Queen, his mother, felt for the baron, at once promised him his protection, and took him into his service. As he grew up, the young Rosny seems to have conceived a strong personal attachment to the Prince, which was cordially returned; though, at first sight, it would have seemed that no master and servant could have been more dissimilar in tastes, pursuits, and general character. Henry was jocund; Rosny was grave. Henry was licentious; Ronay, in a libertine court, preserved the strictest morality. Henry was indifferent to religion; Rosny's convictions on that subject were so strong, that no personal consideration, no apprehension of danger, no prospect of advantage, could induce him for a moment to palter with them. They were both brave,1 and both indefatigable men of business, but they had no other points of resemblance; and the constancy with which the King supported a Minister who, far from flattering his foibles, had often the courage to tell him disagreeable truths, and even to thwart his wishes, must be attributed to his deep conviction of Sully's worth, capacity, and fidelity to his own best interests, which is equally honourable to both. Previously to his appointment as Superintendent of Finance, Sully had been chiefly known as an artillery officer, in which employment he had so greatly signalised himself by science and skill, and likewise by indomitable courage, that on the death of M. de St. Luc, who was killed at Amiens, Henry would at once have made him Grand Master of the Artillery, if that post had not been begged by Madame de Liancour for her father. Subsequently, when it seemed essential to put that arm on a better footing, a task quite beyond the capacity and vigour of the old Marquis, Henry arranged that Ronay should

1 It is said that our own great Duke felt much pleased at the likeness observed by the painter between his profile and that of Henry of Navarro.

purchase the offer of him, to which he himself subsequently added the honourable post of Governor of the Bastile. But before this occurrence he had become aware of his still more peculiar talent for finance. We have seen that, when impatient for the recovery of Amiens, it was to Sully he confided the task of providing the necessary funds for the campaign; and when on the establishment of peace he resolved that the very first employment of his undisputed authority should be the placing of his pecuniary affairs on a better footing, he intrusted the whole finance of the kingdom to his superintendence. Having himself a genius for organization, he formed a Council, allotting a separate department to each member, as is done in modern Ministries, of which he then gave the first example. No Prime Minister was made, but it was soon understood that the chief authority belonged to the Minister of Finance: and his colleagues were M. Villeroi, as Secretary for War and Foreign Affairs; M. Bellièvre and Tillery, who divided the Home Department between them; and M. Jeannin, who may be called the Diplomatic Secretary. But Henry himself was very regular in his attendance at these meetings, and reserved to himself the final decision of almost every affair of moment. And in relating the transactions of the remainder of his reign, there will be but little occasion to mention any one but himself and Sully. Sully, who has left us a copious and entertaining account of his life and administration, speaks of himself as endowed with a strong constitution, capable of great toil, as naturally inclined to find his chief pleasure in a steady application to business, and as having made accounts and matters of finance his favourite study. And it was fortunate, indeed, that he had such a disposition, for the task which lay before him was one that nothing but the most indomitable industry, united to the clearest intellect and the most perfect familiarity with economical details, could possibly have brought to a successful conclusion.'-Vol. i. p. 139.

Thus Henry, generous in character and illustrious in wars, and the deliverer of France from the revolutionary violence of Religious Terrorism-a terrorism which in another form was to sweep away the altar and the throne-had the further and singular felicity, unknown to any after prince of his house, of being assisted by an administration which added to consummate ability an incorruptible integrity. All the after Ministers of the crown, the Fleurys, Turgots, and the Neckers, if conscientious, were devoid of true political interest and courage, while the Dubois and the De Briennes, if able, were notoriously corrupt or studious of personal aims, like Richelieu and Mazarin. But all that the heroism of the King-for, measured by the standard of his age, heroical he was, though our author will not say so much -and the wisdom of the minister could accomplish, was in the end rendered nugatory by the vicious self-indulgences of the King. Following the royal precedent, the licentiousness of the court was universal, and exceeded even the worst habits of the previous reigns. In a history like that now under review, the thoughtful reader will ever look onward to the end from the beginning. And Professor Yonge points the true moral of the reign of the Bourbon king in the following judicious sentences:

Henry, adding to sensuality the practice of gambling for enormous

stakes, and selecting as his chosen companions, not his old comrades, nor those who had proved faithful servants to him in time of danger, but either very youthful nobles, or still more frequently, men of low birth and rank, whose position did not entitle them to any admission whatever into the royal circle. The court had been no school of virtue for many generations, but it was Henry who established vice in it as its permanent inhabitant, fixing his mistress in apartments side by side with those of his wife. It is his pernicious example in this respect, followed as it was too faithfully by his grandson and subsequent descendants, that undermined that best safeguard of the throne, the virtue of the people; and the atrocities and wickedness of the Revolution of 1789 are but the consistent crowning consequence of two centuries of profligacy and impiety.'- Vol. i. p. 173.

The wars of Henry IV. had weaned the people from the odious cruelties which Henry III. had practised, but on the return of peace returned the passion for duelling; and in the ten years which followed the peace of Verona, at least 2,000 gentlemen had been slain in combats of this kind. Are we at liberty to see in the peculiarly disastrous form of the death with which Henry III. and Henry IV. were visited, an appropriate visitation for their exceptional criminality in this respect? The longwronged Queen, as well as Henry himself, knew that it was predicted by the astrologers that his life would be imperilled at some public solemnity where he would be found in his carriage. The Queen's coronation was fixed for May 10th, 1610. He was himself oppressed with dire forebodings, which Sully so fully shared that he urged him rather to let the ceremonial proceed without him, or to postpone it, and take care not to enter a carriage for some time. But this he would not consent to do. Driving in his carriage with seven of his chief ministers, at a narrow passage of the street he was twice stabbed by Francis Ravaillac. No motive for the crime is known, although he was of course at first accounted the agent of some influential person, perhaps the Queen. It is another of the curious coincidences in this history, that this Ravaillac is described as a petty lawyer, the almost uniform description under which we are first introduced to Robespierre. The Regency of Mary de Medici deserves no particular notice. She administered her trust with more vigour than might have been expected from what we learn of her during the lifetime of her husband. Her accession to power is noticeable as connected with the convocation of the States-General for the last time till the outbreak of the Revolution. Those who advised the last of the Bourbon kings of France to convene this body, referred to this gathering, and proposed it as their model. Yet it is remarkable,

Especially if the scantiness of our information be compared with the fulness of our own records concerning our Parliaments of the same date that neither the political antiquarians of 1789, nor subsequent historians

have been able to ascertain either what was its composition, what its method of procedure, or even what was the constitutional limits of its authority. We do not even know who the electors were, nor who were qualified to be elected. And the little that on these points is certain would lead us rather to conjecture that there were no settled laws by which these matters, all-important as they practically were, were regulated. The Deputies represented three classes the clergy, the nobility, and the commons, or "Tiers Etat," the representatives of the former being nearly equal in number, 140 for the clergy, 132 for the nobles; but of those of the last class being more numerous, and amounting to 192. But, when we examine the returns from the different provinces, we cannot reconcile the numbers, and much less the proportions, with any conceivable rule or principle. Dauphiné returned no more than 11 members; Provence only 16; but Burgundy sent 39. Again, in Provence, the nobles equalled the representatives of both the other classes put together; in Burgundy the commons outnumbered the clergy and nobles in almost the same proportion. There was another striking contrast: among the representatives of the clergy, nearly half were chief dignitaries of the Church-bishops, archbishops, and cardinals; but the nobles sent scarcely a single great lord, and the representatives of the Commons were equal to theirs in official position, and generally in birth, being commonly the younger brothers of noble families, and being also nearly all employed in the administration of justice, or in departments connected with the finance of the kingdom, a position which must have placed them to a great extent under the influence of the Crown. It should be added that the University of Paris advanced a claim to be specially represented, but could only obtain leave to draw up a cahier, or statement of grievances, such as the different committees, into which the whole assembly was divided for the purpose of work, were also to frame. Since it is certain, as has been pointed out before, that the States had no legislative authority, the whole of their power seems to have been limited to that of remonstrating against abuses, and praying the king for their redress, in much the same manner as the convocation among ourselves is allowed to proceed at this moment; and it was hardly conceivable, that any practical result of importance could ensue from the deliberations of an assembly whose functions were so restricted. But even had they been as little limited as those of the English Parliament, before they could bear any permanently useful fruit, there must have been a certain agreement between the three orders as to their objects, and a certain unity of action in the pursuit of them. But, instead of this, the thing first, and throughout the whole proceedings most visible, was the jealousy that each order entertained of the other. The Nobles disdained the Commons; the Commons, though humble in their language to the nobles, were secretly indignant at their arrogance, and not less at the grasping character which was betrayed in many of their propositions; and both were suspicious of the Clergy. A dispassionate observer of the present day can perceive that these jealousies were justified, since each class sought only its personal interests, and not one took a large or impartial view of those of the State, or carried its aims beyond the present moment. The Clergy demanded the publication and uniform observance of the decrees of the Council of Trent, thinking that this would involve the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and would compel the king to fulfil his coronation oath by a real extermination of heresy. The two orders, from different motives, resisted such an establishment of the authority of Rome in the kingdom; and, pointing out the immorality and grasping character of all ranks of the clergy, bade them rather reform their lives, and renounce their pluralities; and though before the close of the