HENRY IV. 



685 



prince did not follow this judicious advice, but gave j 

 fiimself up to the intrigues of his mother, Catharine 

 of Medici, which involved France in a ruinous civil 

 contest. Shut up in his palace, the victor of Jarnac 

 and Montcontour exhibited only the melancholy spec- 

 tacle of a miserable prince, who had forgotten all his 

 duties, and while parties were raging around him, 

 occupied himself with debauchery and intrigues. 

 His marriage with the daughter of the count Vaude- 

 mont, of the house of Lorraine, afforded new mat- 

 ter for dissensions, by giving the generally hated 

 Guises greater influence at court. Now began the 

 civil wars in which Henry of Navarre (afterwards 

 king Henry IV.) obtained so much glory. (See 

 Henry 1^'., Guise (Henry), Conde, and the League.) 

 The weak instrument of the dissensions of his cour- 

 tiers, of his mother and his mistresses, Henry took no 

 personal share in the subsequent events ; and while 

 the reputation of this king was continually sinking in 

 tlie eyes of the people, and even in those of his own 

 adherents, the confusion became greater. The duke 

 of Guise came with troops to Paris, contrary to the 

 express command of the king ; and, when the latter 

 made a feeble attempt to resist this usurpation, and 

 to calm the rebellious citizens, his troops were driven 

 away by the populace (May 12, 1588, called La 

 Journee des Barricades), and he himself was compel- 

 led to flee to Chartres. Too weak and too cowardly 

 to resist his enemies openly, he had recourse to 

 artifice and assassination. At a meeting of the 

 states-general at Blois (October, 1588), where he 

 was apparently reconciled to the Guises, and where 

 he partook of the eucharist with the duke, he order- 

 ed their murder. Henry of Guise was assassinated 

 December 23, while on his way to the royal cabinet, 

 and his brother, the cardinal, was murdered the next 

 day in prison. This murder decided the fate of 

 Henry. Paris and several of the principal cities of 

 the kingdom formally declared against him. Henry 

 III. now saw no other remedy than a union with 

 Henry of Navarre. The two princes besieged the 

 capital, which was defended by the duke of Mayenne 

 (brother of Henry of Guise, and at that time the head 

 of the league). Seventy-one doctors of the Sorbonne 

 there declared the war against Henry of Valois (for 

 so they called the king) justifiable. The pope pro- 

 mised the support of the church, and in Paris the 

 murder of the tyrant was publicly preached. Henry 

 was stabbed Aug. 1, 1589, in the camp at St Cloud, 

 by a Dominican (James Clement by name), a raving 

 fanatic, and died the next day, in the sixteenth year 

 of his reign and the thirty-ninth of his age. His 

 mother died in January of the same year. The first 

 of the Bourbons, Henry IV., succeeded the last of 

 the Valois. This prince restored peace to the king- 

 dom, after a bloody religious and civil war of thirty 

 years' duration; but that system of falsehood, intrigue, 

 and moral corruption, which was introduced by 

 the administration of Catharine of Medici and her 

 three sons, Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry III., 

 into the French court, afterwards brought many evils 

 upon the country. See Davila's Istoria delle Guerre 

 Civili di Francia, 15591598 (History of the Civil 

 Wars of France from 1559 till 1598), (Paris, 1644, in 

 4 volumes), and Charles Lacretelle's History of 

 France during the Religious Wars (Paris, 1814, 5 

 volumes). 



HENRY IV. of France, son of Anthony of Bourbon, 

 duke of Vendome, and of Jeanne d' Albert, daughter 

 of Henry, king of Navarre. He was born 1553, at 

 Pau, in Beam (department of the Lower Pyrenees). 

 In accordance with the wishes of his maternal grand- 

 father, he received an education well suited to the 

 time in which he lived. He was inured to every hard- 

 ship, early accustomed to knightly exercises, and liis 



mind was trained for the labours of his after life. On 

 the death of her husband, his mother left the French 

 court, where she could not be secure from the 

 intrigues of Catharine of Medici ; she retired to 

 Beam, her hereditary principality, and there publicly 

 declared herself in favour of the Huguenots. When 

 the prince was eleven years old, he was compelled to 

 appear in person at the court. The Guises had 

 formed a plot with Philip II. of Spain, to conquer 

 Lower Navarre, the inheritance of Henry, and to 

 deliver him to the Spanish tyrant. But the pene- 

 trating Elizabeth of England discovered and frus- 

 trated the whole design. Before the young prince 

 was sixteen years old, his heroic mother placed him 

 at the head of the Huguenot army, which was 

 beaten in the engagement at Jamac, in 1568. The 

 youth now pledged himself for the defence of his 

 religion and of freedom of conscience, to the last drop 

 of his blood. The forces under the command of the 

 admiral de Coligny, animated by this act, proclaimed 

 the young Henry generalissimo ; and, notwithstand- 

 ing a new defeat at Montcontour, the Huguenots 

 concluded an advantageous peace at St Germaiu-en- 

 Laye. Henry then travelled through his own king- 

 dom, became acquainted with the wants of his sub- 

 jects, saw their grievances, and resolved to exert all 

 his powers to mitigate them. A mind heroic and 

 noble, a temper elevated above little offences and 

 revenge, a gentle and sympathizing heart, with a 

 strong inclination for the fair sex, and an ardent 

 though tractable temperament, marked the early 

 character of the hero, which gradually acquired a 

 firm and resolute tone in the school of misfortune. 

 The horrid plan of exterminating the Huguenots in 

 France at a single blow, was already conceived by 

 the bloody Catharine, and her weak son, king Charles 

 IX., was persuaded to consent to it. For this pur. 

 pose, it was necessary that the chiefs of the Hugue- 

 not party should be assembled at Paris. Under the 

 pretence of uniting both parties, a marriage was pro- 

 posed to queen Jeanne, between Henry and Margaret 

 of Valois, youngest sister of Charles IX. While 

 preparations were making for the marriage festival, 

 Henry's mother died at Paris, not without strong 

 suspicions of poison. Henry now assumed the title 

 of king of Navarre. His marriage took place Aug. 

 18, 1572. Then followed the horrible scenes of St 

 Bartholomew's, August 24. (See Bartholomew' 1 s 

 Day.) Henry and Conde were obliged to make pro- 

 fession of the Catholic faith to save their lives ; but 

 Catharine of Medici endeavoured to dissolve the mar- 

 riage just celebrated. As she was unsuccessful in 

 this, she adopted the plan of corrupting the noble 

 youth by the pleasures of a licentious court ; and 

 Henry did not escape the snare. In 1576, however, 

 lie took advantage of a hunting excursion to escape 

 from the court. He now put himself anew at the 

 head of the Huguenots, and professed himself again 

 of the protestant church. Catharine, who, after the 

 decease of Charles IX., administered the government 

 in the name of his successor, Henry III., now thought 

 it advisable to conclude a treaty of peace with the 

 Huguenots (1576), securing to them religious freedom. 

 Exasperated by this event, the jealous Catholics, in 

 1585, formed the celebrated league, which the king 

 was obliged to confirm, and at the head of which was 

 Henry, duke of Guise. Soon after, the religious war 

 was again kindled with renewed violence. In 1587, 

 Henry, with .an inferior force, defeated the army of 

 the league at Coutras. To the latter Henry III. had 

 now become an object of suspicion ; and, at the as- 

 sembly of the states-general at Blois, in 1588, the 

 Guises used every effort to destroy the royal power. 

 The Sorbonne absolved the subjects of Henry III. 

 from their allegiance, and pope Sixtus V. threatened 



