Part 12 (1/2)

In a skirmish, one day, one of the Catholic chieftains, the Count de Belin, was taken captive. He was led to the head-quarters of the king.

Henry greeted him with perfect cordiality, and, noticing the astonishment of the count in seeing but a few scattered soldiers where he had expected to see a numerous army, he said, playfully, yet with a confident air,

”You do not perceive all that I have with me, M. de Belin, for you do not reckon G.o.d and the right on my side.”

The indomitable energy of Henry, accompanied by a countenance ever serene and cheerful under circ.u.mstances apparently so desperate, inspired the soldiers with the same intrepidity which glowed in the bosom of their chief.

But at last the valiant little band, so bravely repelling overwhelming numbers, saw, to their inexpressible joy, the distant ocean whitened with the sails of the approaching English fleet. Shouts of exultation rolled along their exhausted lines, carrying dismay into the camp of the Leaguers. A favorable wind pressed the fleet rapidly forward, and in a few hours, with streaming banners, and exultant music, and resounding salutes, echoed and re-echoed from English s.h.i.+ps and French batteries, the fleet of Elizabeth, loaded to its utmost capacity with money, military supplies, and men, cast anchor in the little harbor of Dieppe.

Nearly six thousand men, Scotch and English, were speedily disembarked. The Duke of Mayenne, though his army was still double that of Henry IV., did not dare to await the onset of his foes thus recruited. Hastily breaking up his encampment, he retreated to Paris.

Henry IV., in grat.i.tude to G.o.d for the succor which he had thus received from the Protestant Queen of England, directed that thanksgivings should be offered in his own quarters according to the religious rites of the Protestant Church. This so exasperated the Catholics, even in his own camp, that a mutiny was excited, and several of the Protestant soldiers were wounded in the fray. So extreme was the fanaticism at this time that, several Protestants, after a sanguinary fight, having been buried on the battle-field promiscuously in a pit with some Catholics who had fallen by their side, the priests, even of Henry's army, ordered the Protestant bodies to be dug up and thrown out as food for dogs.

While these scenes were transpiring in the vicinity of Dieppe, almost every part of France was scathed and cursed by hateful war. Every province, city, village, had its partisans for the League or for the king. Beautiful France was as a volcano in the world of woe, in whose seething crater flames, and blood, and slaughter, the yell of conflict and the shriek of agony, blended in horrors which no imagination can compa.s.s. There was an end to every earthly joy. Cities were bombarded, fields of grain trampled in the mire, villages burned. Famine rioted over its ghastly victims. Hospitals were filled with miserable mult.i.tudes, mutilated and with festering wounds, longing for death.

Not a ray of light pierced the gloom of this dark, black night of crime and woe. And yet, undeniably, the responsibility before G.o.d must rest with the League. Henry IV. was the lawful king of France. The Catholics had risen in arms to resist his rights, because they feared that he would grant liberty of faith and wors.h.i.+p to the Protestants.

The League adopted the most dishonorable and criminal means to alienate from Henry the affections of the people. They forged letters, in which the king atrociously expressed joy at the murder of Henry III., and declared his determination by dissimulation and fraud to root out Catholicism entirely from France. No efforts of artifice were wanting to render the monarch odious to the Catholic populace. Though the Duke of Mayenne occasionally referred to the old Cardinal of Bourbon as the king whom he acknowledged, he, with the characteristic haughtiness of the family of Guise, a.s.sumed himself the air and the language of a sovereign. It was very evident that he intended to place himself upon the throne.

Henry IV., with the money furnished by Elizabeth, was now able to pay his soldiers their arrears. His army steadily increased, and he soon marched with twenty-three thousand troops and fourteen pieces of artillery to lay siege to Paris. His army had unbounded confidence in his military skill. With enthusiastic acclamations they pursued the retreating insurgents. Henry was now on the offensive, and his troops were posted for the siege of Paris, having driven the foe within its walls. After one sanguinary a.s.sault, the king became convinced that he had not with him sufficient force to carry the city. The Duke of Mayenne stood firmly behind the intrenchments of the capital, with an army much strengthened by re-enforcements of Spanish and Italian troops. Henry accordingly raised the siege, and marched rapidly to Etampes, some forty miles south of Paris, where a large part of his foes had established themselves. He suddenly attacked the town and carried it by a.s.sault. The unhappy inhabitants of this city had, in the course of four months, experienced the horrors of three a.s.saults.

The city, in that short period, had been taken and retaken three times.

While at Etampes, Henry received a letter from the beautiful but disconsolate Louisa of Lorraine, the widow of Henry III., imploring him to avenge the murder of her husband. The letter was so affecting that, when it was read in the king's council, it moved all the members to tears.

Many of the citizens of Paris, weary of the miseries of civil war, were now disposed to rally around their lawful monarch as the only mode of averting the horrible calamities which overwhelmed France. The Duke of Mayenne rigorously arrested all who were suspected of such designs, and four of the most prominent of the citizens were condemned to death. Henry immediately sent a message to the duke, that if the sentence were carried into effect, he would retaliate by putting to death some of the Catholic n.o.bles whom he had in his power. Mayenne defiantly executed two Royalists. Henry immediately suspended upon a gibbet two unfortunate Leaguers who were his captives. This decisive reprisal accomplished its purpose, and compelled Mayenne to be more merciful.

With great energy, Henry now advanced to Tours, about one hundred and twenty miles south of Paris, on the banks of the Loire, taking every town by the way, and sweeping all opposition before him. He seldom slept more than three hours at a time, and seized his meals where he could.

”It takes Mayenne,” said Henry, proudly, ”more time to put on his boots than it does me to win a battle.”

”Henry,” remarked Pope s.e.xtus V., sadly, ”will surely, in the end, gain the day, for he spends less hours in bed than Mayenne spends at the table.”

Though the armies of the League were still superior to the Royalist army, victory every where followed the banner of the king. Every day there was more and more of union and harmony in his ranks, and more and more of discord in the armies of the League. There were various aspirants for the throne in case Henry IV. could be driven from the kingdom, and all these aspirants had their partisans. The more reasonable portion of the Catholic party soon saw that there could be no end to civil war unless the rights of Henry IV. were maintained.

Each day consequently witnessed accessions of powerful n.o.bles to his side. The great ma.s.s of the people also, notwithstanding their hatred of Protestantism and devotion to the Catholic Church, found it difficult to break away from their homage to the ancient law of succession.

It was now manifest to all, that if Henry would but proclaim himself a Catholic, the war would almost instantly terminate, and the people, with almost entire unanimity, would rally around him. Henry IV. was a lawful monarch endeavoring to put down insurrection. Mayenne was a rebel contending against his king. The Pope was so unwilling to see a Protestant sovereign enthroned in France, that he issued a bull of excommunication against all who should advocate the cause of Henry IV.

Many of the Royalist Catholics, however, instead of yielding to these thunders of the Vatican, sent a humble apology to the Pope for their adherence to the king, and still sustained his cause.

Henry now moved on with the strides of a conqueror, and city after city fell into his hands. Wherever he entered a city, the ever vacillating mult.i.tude welcomed him with acclamations. Regardless of the storms of winter, Henry dragged his heavy artillery through the mire and over the frozen ruts, and before the close of the year 1589 his banner waved over fifteen fortified cities and over very many minor towns. The forces of the League were entirely swept from three of the provinces of France.

Still Paris was in the hands of the Duke of Mayenne, and a large part of the kingdom was yet held in subjection by the forces of the League.

At one time, in the face of a fierce cannonade, Henry mounted the tower of a church at Meulun to ascertain the position of the enemy. As he was ascending, cannon ball pa.s.sed between his legs. In returning, the stairs were found so shot away that he was compelled to let himself down by a rope. All the winter long, the storm of battle raged in every part of France, and among all the millions of the ill-fated realm, there could not then, perhaps, have been found one single prosperous and happy home.

CHAPTER X.

WAR AND WOE.

1590-1591