Part 11 (1/2)
”Yes, sire,” Lorgnac replied, ”he looks like it.”
”Good G.o.d, how tall he is!” said the king. ”He seems taller dead than when he was living.” Then giving the gory body a kick, he exclaimed, ”Venomous beast, thou shalt cast forth no more venom.”
In the same manner the duke had treated the remains of the n.o.ble Admiral Coligni, a solemn comment upon the declaration, ”With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.”
Cardinal Guise, the brother of the duke, was immediately arrested by order of the king, and sent to prison, where he was a.s.sa.s.sinated.
Henry III. soon after repaired to the bedside of Catharine his mother, who was lying sick in one of the chambers of the castle. Nothing can show more clearly the character of the times and of the personages than the following laconic dialogue which ensued:
”How do you do, mother, this morning?” inquired the king.
”I am better than I have been,” she replied.
”So am I,” Henry rejoined, gayly, ”for I have made myself this morning King of France by putting to death the King of Paris.”
”Take care,” this hardened woman exclaimed, ”that you do not soon find yourself _king of nothing_. Diligence and resolution are now absolutely necessary for you.”
She then turned upon her pillow without the slightest apparent emotion. In twelve days from this time, this wretched queen, deformed by every vice, without one single redeeming virtue, breathed her last, seventy years of age. She was despised by the Catholics, and hated by the Protestants.
These acts of violence and crime roused the League to the most intense energy. The murder of the Duke of Guise, and especially the murder of his brother, a cardinal in the Church, were acts of impiety which no atonement could expiate. Though Henry was a Catholic, and all his agents in these atrocious murders were Catholics, the death of the Duke of Guise increased vastly the probability that Protestant influences might become dominant at court. The Pope issued a bull of excommunication against all who should advocate the cause of Henry III. The Sorbonne published a decree declaring that the king had forfeited all right to the obedience of his subjects, and justifying them in taking up arms against him. The clergy, from the pulpit, refused communion, absolution, and burial in holy ground to every one who yielded obedience to ”the perfidious apostate and tyrant; Henry of Valois.”
The League immediately chose the Duke of Mayenne, a surviving brother of the Duke of Guise, as its head. The Pope issued his anathemas against Henry III., and Spain sent her armies to unite with the League. Henry now found it necessary to court the a.s.sistance of the Protestants. He dreaded to take this step, for he was superst.i.tious in the extreme, and he could not endure the thought of any alliance with heretics. He had still quite a formidable force which adhered to him, for many of the highest n.o.bles were disgusted with the arrogance of the Guises, and were well aware that the enthronement of the house of Guise would secure their own banishment from court.
The triumph of the League would be total discomfiture to the Protestants. No freedom of wors.h.i.+p or of conscience whatever would be allowed them. It was therefore for the interest of the Protestants to sustain the more moderate party hostile to the League. It was estimated that about one sixth of the inhabitants of France were at that time Protestants.
Wretched, war-scathed France was now distracted by three parties.
First, there were the Protestants, contending only in self-defense against persecution, and yet earnestly praying that, upon the death of the king, Henry of Navarre, the legitimate successor, might ascend the throne. Next came those Catholics who were friendly to the claims of Henry from their respect for the ancient law of succession. Then came, combined in the League, the bigoted partisans of the Church, resolved to exterminate from Europe, with fire and sword, the detested heresy of Protestantism.
Henry III. was now at the castle of Blois. Paris was hostile to him.
The Duke of Mayenne, younger brother of the Duke of Guise, at the head of five thousand soldiers of the League, marched to the metropolis, where he was received by the Parisians with unbounded joy. He was urged by the populace and the Parliament in Paris to proclaim himself king. But he was not yet prepared for so decisive a step.
No tongue can tell the misery which now pervaded ill-fated France.
Some cities were Protestant, some were Catholic; division, and war, and blood were every where. Armed bands swept to and fro, and conflagration and slaughter deluged the kingdom.
The king immediately sent to Henry of Navarre, promising to confer many political privileges upon the Protestants, and to maintain Henry's right to the throne, if he would aid him in the conflict against the League. The terms of reconciliation were soon effected.
Henry of Navarre, then leaving his army to advance by rapid marches, rode forward with his retinue to meet his brother-in-law, Henry of Valois. He found him at one of the ancient palaces of France, Plessis les Tours. The two monarchs had been friends in childhood, but they had not met for many years. The King of Navarre was urged by his friends not to trust himself in the power of Henry III. ”For,” said they, ”the King of France desires nothing so much as to obtain reconciliation with the Pope, and no offering can be so acceptable to the Pope as the death of a heretic prince.”
Henry hesitated a moment when he arrived upon an eminence which commanded a distant view of the palace. Then exclaiming, ”G.o.d guides me, and He will go with me,” he plunged his spurs into his horse's side, and galloped forward.
The two monarchs met, each surrounded with a gorgeous retinue, in one of the magnificent avenues which conducted to the castle. Forgetting the animosities of years, and remembering only the friends.h.i.+ps of childhood, they cast themselves cordially into each other's arms. The mult.i.tude around rent the air with their acclamations.
Henry of Navarre now addressed a manifesto to all the inhabitants of France in behalf of their woe-stricken country. ”I conjure you all,”
said he, ”Catholics as well as Protestants, to have pity on the state and on yourselves. We have all done and suffered evil enough. We have been four years intoxicate, insensate, and furious. Is not this sufficient? Has not G.o.d smitten us all enough to allay our fury, and to make us wise at last?”
But pa.s.sion was too much aroused to allow such appeals to be heeded.
Battle after battle, with ever-varying success, ensued between the combined forces of the king and Henry of Navarre on one side, and of the League, aided by many of the princes of Catholic Europe, on the other. The storms of winter swept over the freezing armies and the smouldering towns, and the wail of the victims of horrid war blended with the moanings of the gale. Spring came, but it brought no joy to desolate, distracted, wretched France. Summer came, and the bright sun looked down upon barren fields, and upon a bleeding, starving, fighting nation. Henry of Navarre, in command of the royal forces, at the head of thirty thousand troops, was besieging Paris, which was held by the Duke of Mayenne, and boldly and skillfully was conducting his approaches to a successful termination. The cause of the League began to wane. Henry III. had taken possession of the castle of St.
Cloud, and from its elevated windows looked out with joy upon the bold a.s.saults and the advancing works.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE a.s.sa.s.sINATION OF HENRY III.]
The leaders of the League now resolved to resort again to the old weapon of a.s.sa.s.sination. Henry III. was to be killed. But no man could kill him unless he was also willing to sacrifice his own life. The d.u.c.h.ess of Montpensier, sister of the Duke of Guise, for the accomplishment of this purpose, won the love, by caressings and endearments, of Jaques Clement, an ardent, enthusiastic monk of wild and romantic imaginings, and of the most intense fanaticism. The beautiful d.u.c.h.ess surrendered herself without any reserve whatever to the paramour she had enticed to her arms, that she might obtain the entire supremacy over his mind. Clement concealed a dagger in his bosom, and then went out from the gates of the city accompanied by two soldiers and with a flag of truce, ostensibly to take a message to the king. He refused to communicate his message to any one but the monarch himself. Henry III., supposing it to be a communication of importance, perhaps a proposition to surrender, ordered him to be admitted immediately to his cabinet. Two persons only were present with the king. The monk entered, and, kneeling, drew a letter from the sleeve of his gown, presented it to the king, and instantly drawing a large knife from its concealment, plunged it into the entrails of his victim. The king uttered a piercing cry, caught the knife from his body and struck at the head of his murderer, wounding him above the eye. The two gentlemen who were present instantly thrust their swords through the body of the a.s.sa.s.sin, and he fell dead.