Chapter XV: Conclusion (1)

After this, there was no more hope for the prisoner. If to the anger of the Bolognese was added the determined enmity of Romeo de' Pepoli, now resolved on his destruction, from what quarter could a ray of hope proceed? He was even now removed--such was the influence which the new enemy he had provoked possessed over the Podesta--to the common prison, and treated in all respects like a condemned malefactor. The university pleaded its privilege to judge a member of their own body, but the angry feeling of the citizens would not permit them for a moment to listen to this plea. There, was no power on earth to save him--and his fault was so light! A man more honourable did not exist. The purity of Constantia was more safe in his hands than in any others--he loved her so well.

We are not sufficiently in the "tragic vein" to follow the prisoner through the last hours of his confinement, and of his existence. To be struck dead in the flush of life, with all his passions in full bloom upon him, was a hard decree. Sometimes he protested vehemently against the palpable injustice and cruelty of his sentence; but, in general, he found his consolation in the mournful sentiment, that had he lived, he should have been miserable--for the great desire of his life was doomed to be thwarted. "I told you," he said one day to his friend Petrarch, "that this love would work my destruction. It has so; but its great misery has made destruction itself indifferent."

We willingly draw a veil over the last fatal scene, and all the horrors that precede a public death. Throughout this scene his courage never forsook him; but flashes of uncontrollable indignation would occasionally break from him, and occasionally a sigh of more tender despondency would escape. The last tear he shed, the last complaint he murmured, was still to the coldness of Constantia: "We should have been so happy, had she loved--and now!--"

History records that the execution of Giacomo, as well by infringing the supposed privileges of the university as by the indignation it excited in the large circle of his friends and companions, nearly led to the withdrawal of the university from the town of Bologna. The students and the professors seceded in a mass, and retired to Sienna. No entreaties could bring them back; the glory of Bologna might have been extinguished for ever. The Podesta and other magistrates of the town were compelled at length to send a solemn deputation. They promised, in future, to respect their privileges; and, by raising the salaries of the professors, and some other popular measures, they eventually prevailed upon them to return.

Petrarch had not left the city with the rest--he had lingered behind to perform the last rites and honours to the remains of Giacomo--to raise the tomb and inscribe it with his verse.

Upon that tomb the solitary moon was now shining. But who was that figure robed in deepest black that knelt beside it, so sadly, with so desponding a stillness, her forehead pressed against the marble? Was it, too, marble? No. The chisel may create beauty as exquisite, but never combine it with so great a sorrow. It was Constantia. Too late! Too late! She brought her tears where one smile would have given life and happiness. She felt the worth of him who had so passionately loved her, when nothing remained to love but the ashes in that urn. That pleading in the student's chamber seemed vain--and at the moment it _was_ vain; but when she recalled it in her own solitude, her heart had half assented. She remembered how tenderly--with what an ardent and gentle worship--he had pressed her hand; her own hand trembled then to the touch which at the time it had coldly rejected. When, moreover, she heard, through their common friend Petrarch, of the noble manner in which he had refused the aid of Pepoli, and chose death rather than the least dishonour, and thought to herself--this man loved me!--all her heart was won. Alas! too late!

She now knelt at the tomb of Giacomo, afflicted with regret that amounted to remorse. She raised her head--she raised her hand--there was that within it which glittered in the moonbeam. But her hand was suddenly arrested. Petrarch, a frequent visitor at that tomb, had seen and prevented this movement of despair. "No! no!" he cried. "Beautiful creature, and too much beloved--live on--live! And when some other Giacomo appears, make compensation to heaven--by loving him!"

HENRY IV.[18]

So closely united are the arts of history and romance, that they may almost be said to be twin sisters. In both, the subjects are the same: and the objects which the artists have in view in handling them are identical. To impress the mind by the narrative of heroic, or melt it by that of tragic events--to delineate the varieties of character, incident, and catastrophes--to unfold the secret springs which influence the most important changes, and often confound the wisest anticipations--to trace the chain of causes and effects in human transactions from their unobserved origin to their ultimate results, is equally the object of both arts. The delineation of character, passion, and transaction is the great end of both, but to neither is the subordinate aid of description or pictorial embellishment denied. On the contrary, to both they constitute one of the principal charms of this art. The sphere of description is different, but the object and the impressions are the same. The novelist paints individual places, and strives to transfer to the mind of the reader a reflection of the brilliant scenes created in his own imagination. The historian embraces a wider sphere, and aims rather at portraying the general features of whole districts of country, or even quarters of the globe. But a painter's eye, a poet's mind, are equally required by both; and not the least interesting parts of the works of either are those in which the author leaves the busy and checkered scenes of dramatic incident, to dwell amidst the recesses of inanimate beauty,--to traverse the Alps with their shepherds, or the Pampas with their Gauchos, and mingle with the turbid course of human events somewhat of the purity which breathes amidst the works of Nature.

Notwithstanding this identity of object and art, there is nothing more certain than that romance writers in general have not made the best historians. Poets also, whose art so closely resembles that of the novelist, have in general failed when they invoked the historic muse. Smollett was in many respects an admirable romance writer; but the author of "Roderick Random" has left a History of England, which is nothing but a compilation of parliamentary debates and gazettes. Scott's powers as a romance writer were so great and various, and his delineations of historic scenes, characters, and events, so graphic and powerful, that it seemed next to impossible that he should not be equally successful as a historian, especially when the theme was one so varied and animating as the "Life of Napoleon." Voltaire's genius was universal, and seemed equally adapted to every object of human pursuit; but his historical works, though deservedly popular as school books, have never risen to an eminence approaching that justly attained by his tragedies and critical disquisitions.

What is very remarkable, and is just the reverse of what might _a priori_ have been expected, the point in which romance writers in general fail, when they undertake history, is in giving sufficient life and animation to their narrative. Like race-horses, they seem in general incapable of carrying any considerable weight. They would break down under the panoply which a steed of Norman or Flemish extraction can sustain without difficulty. Their imagination is only kindled when it is at liberty to roam at will over a world of their own creation. Confined to the narration of actual events, limited to the delineation of real character, cramped by the description of actual scenes, their powers fail, their ardour is weakened, their fire is lost. A mind comparatively prosaic, subject to such burdens, speedily out-strips them even on their own element; and the scholar with his authorities kindles the imagination to an extent which the poet with his verses can hardly excel. Witness Livy's pictured pages--Gibbon's historical descriptions. Yet minds of the most elevated cast have occasionally, though at long intervals from each other, succeeded in uniting the historic and romantic arts. Homer's Iliad is the annals of the Siege of Troy in verse; his Odyssey, the versified Travels of Ulysses; and in the recent "Histoire des Girondins" by Lamartine, we have convincing proof that it is possible to unite the most ardent and enthusiastic poetical mind with the research, knowledge of character, and dramatic power, requisite to make the most interesting tragic annals.

As a romance writer, Mr James unquestionably is entitled to a high place. He has great historical information, especially of the olden times and their leading characters; an accurate personal knowledge of various countries, more particularly France, Flanders, and England; great acquaintance with the dress, manners, arms, and accoutrements of former days; and a very remarkable power of describing as well the ever-changing events of ancient story as the varied scenes of inanimate nature. His best novels, "Attila," "Philip Augustus," "Mary of Burgundy," "The Robbers," "The Smugglers," "Morley Ernstein," "Henry Masterton," are happy specimens of the historical romance. The great and deserved success which has attended the uniform edition of his novels now in course of publication, sufficiently proves that his reputation rests on a broader and securer basis than the fleeting patronage of fashion or the transient interest of individual satire. The great risk which he runs, is from the _number_ of his works. It is dangerous to write thirty books. The most prolific imagination runs into repetition, when repeatedly tasked with invention. Homer himself could not have written twenty Iliads; Shakspeare's fame has been not a little enhanced by his having left only twenty-seven plays; that of Sophocles, by only seven of his having come down to modern times. Perhaps the best thing that a good fairy could do for James's fame--as was said of Dryden--would be to withdraw two-thirds of his productions from subsequent times.

One of the greatest charms of Mr James's writings is the beautiful ideas, clothed in felicitous language, which are to be found profusely scattered over them. It is not the general opinion that he excels in this respect; on the contrary, nothing is more common in conversation than to hear it remarked, that it is in depth of thought, and knowledge of the human heart, that he is deficient. But this opinion arises from the frequency, sometimes, perhaps, redundancy of his pictures of nature, and the brilliant colours in which he never fails to array her finest scenes. Thoughts the most beautiful are frequently concealed amidst profusion of description, as fruit sometimes amidst luxuriance of leaves. Take for example the following, on one of the most familiar objects in nature--a drop of rain.

"We spoke of the rain, and I foolishly enough, in mentioning all the
annoyance it had occasioned me, loaded it with maledictions.

"'Call it not accursed, my son,' said the monk. 'Oh no! remember that
every drop that falls, bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of
beautiful fertility. Remember that glorious tree, and herb, and
shrub, and flower, owes to those drops its life, its freshness, and
its beauty. Remember that half the loveliness of the green world is
all their gift; and that, without them, we should wander through a
dull desert, as dusty as the grave. Take but a single drop of rain
cloistered in the green fold of a blade of grass, and pour upon it
one ray of the morning sun, where will you get lapidary, with his
utmost skill, to cut a diamond that shall shine like that? Oh no!
blessed for ever be the beautiful drops of the sky, the refreshing
soothers of the seared earth--the nourishers of the flowers--that
calm race of beings, which are all loveliness and tranquillity,
without passion, or pain, or desire, or disappointment--whose life is
beauty, and whose breath is perfume."--_Henry Masterton._

Mr James cannot be considered as a historical writer of the highest class. He gives a spirited and agreeable narrative of the events of the reign or period which he has undertaken to describe, and in many passages the descriptive powers of the romance writer are strikingly conspicuous. He is diligent and worthy in the consultation of authorities, and free from any undue bias in the drawing of characters or narrative of events. But he has neither the philosophic glance of Guizot, nor the military fire of Napier, nor the incomparable descriptive powers of Gibbon. His merit, and it is a very great one, consists in the lucid and spirited telling of the story, interspersed with interesting descriptions of the scenes of the leading incidents, and dramatic portraiture of the principal characters. His greatest fault--no trifling one--is the perplexity produced in the mind of the reader by the want of proper grouping and arrangement, and the introduction of a vast number of characters and events at once into the story, without any preparatory description, to enable him to appreciate the one or understand the other. This is a very natural error for a romance writer to fall into when he undertakes history; because, in novels, where characters are few, and the events only such as happen to them, there is no need of previous preparation of the reader's mind, of such grouping and perspective, for the simplification and illustration of events. But, in history, where the events are so numerous and complicated, and each actor in general occupies only an inconsiderable portion of the canvass, it is indispensable, if the writer would avoid prolixity of details, or achieve that object so well known to artists, which they denominate _breadth_ of effect.

Biography should be, and when properly handled is, the most interesting branch of historical composition. It has the immense advantage--the value of which can only be properly appreciated by those who undertake to write general history--of being limited to the leading characters who have appeared on the theatre of the world, and consequently steering clear of the intermediate periods of uninteresting or tedious occurrence. How to get over these without exhausting the patience of his readers, on the one hand, or incurring the reproach of omitting some events of importance, on the other, is the great difficulty of general history. The biographer seizes the finest points of the story; he dwells only on the exploits of his hero, and casts the rest into the shade. If this style of composition does not afford room for those general and important views on the general march of events, or progress of our species, which constitute the most valuable part of the highest branch of history, it presents much greater opportunities for securing the interest of the general reader, and awakening that sympathy in the breast of others, which it is the great object of the fine arts to produce. It has one immense advantage--it possesses unity of subject, it is characterised by singleness of interest. The virtues or vices, the triumphs or misfortunes, the glories or ruin of one individual, form the main subject of the narrative. It is on them that the attention of the writer is fixed; it is to enhance their interest that his efforts are exhausted. The actions of others, the surrounding events, only require to be displayed in so far as they bear upon, or are connected with the exploits of the hero. But as great men usually appear in, or create by their single efforts, important eras in the annals of mankind, it rarely happens that the characters selected for biography are not surrounded by a cluster of others, which renders their Lives almost a general history of the period during which they communicated their impress to the events of the world; and thus their biography combines unity of interest with the highest importance in event.

This was pre-eminently the case with the history of Henry IV. of France. So important, indeed, were the events crowded into his lifetime, so great and lasting have been the consequences of his triumph, so prodigious the impulse which his genius communicated, not only to his own country, but to Europe, that he may almost be said to have created an era in modern times. The first of the Bourbon family, he was, in truth, the founder of the French monarchy, in one sense of the term. He first gave it unity, consistence, and power; he first rendered it formidable to the liberties of Europe. Before his time, during the reigns of the princes of the House of Valois, it was rather a cluster of separate and almost independent feudatories, than a compact and homogeneous empire. So powerful were these great vassals, so slender the force which the crown could command to control them, that France on many occasions made the narrowest possible escape from sharing the fate of Germany, and seeing in its chief nobles--the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, the Counts of Toulouse--independent monarchs rendering, like the electors of Brandenberg, Saxony, and Bavaria, only a nominal allegiance to their feudal superior. The religious wars, which broke out with the Reformation, still farther increased the divisions, and severed the ties of this distracted kingdom.

The contest of the rural nobility of the south, attached to the new opinions as fervently as the Scottish Covenanters, with the more numerous and concentrated Roman Catholics of the north, who clung with superstitious tenacity to the pomp and ceremonies of the ancient worship, continued through several successive generations, not only drenched the kingdom with blood, but altered the character, and obliterated the virtues of its inhabitants. Revenge became the only passion that retained its sway over the human heart; cruelty so common, that its atrocity was no longer perceived. The massacre of St Bartholomew, that lasting and indelible stain on ancient, as the massacre in the prisons, and the Reign of Terror, are on modern French history, is not to be regarded as the work of a blood-thirsty tyrant, aided by a corrupt and perfidious court. The public crimes of the rulers of men never can exceed, except by a few degrees, those for which the nation is prepared. It is the frenzy of the general mind which suggests and renders practicable the atrocious deeds, by which, happily at long intervals from each other, the annals of mankind are stained. The proscriptions of the Triumvirate, the alternate slaughters of Marius and Sylla, the massacre of St Bartholomew, the _auto-da-fes_ of Castile, the reign of the Duke of Alva in Flanders, the butchery of the wars of the Roses in England, the blood shed by Robespierre in France, all proceeded from a frenzied state of the public mind, which made the great body of the people not only noways revolt at, but cordially support those savage deeds, at which, when recounted in the pages of history, all subsequent ages shudder. Even the massacre of St Bartholomew, perhaps the most atrocious, because the most cold-blooded and perfidious, of all those horrid deeds, excited at the time no feeling of indignation in the Roman Catholic party throughout Europe. On the Contrary, it was universally and cordially approved of by those of that persuasion in every country, as a most effectual and expedient, and withal justifiable way of lopping off a gangrened arm from the body politic, and extinguishing a pestilent heresy. The discharges of the cannon from the castle of St Angelo, and the _Te Deum_ sung in St Peter's, on the arrival of the glorious intelligence, by the Head of the faithful at Rome, were re-echoed by the acclamation--without, so far as appears, a single exception--of the whole Romish world.[19]

It was the cessation of the hideous scenes of bloodshed and massacre which had signalised the civil wars in the reigns of the Valois princes, and the religious dissensions that succeeded them, which gave Henry IV. his great and deserved reputation. Like Napoleon, he calmed, by his acquisition of the throne, the passions of a nation in arms against itself. The hereditary feuds, the dreadful retaliations, the mutual proscriptions, the fierce passions, the frightful revenge of the feudal and Huguenot wars, were stilled as if by the wand of a mighty enchanter.

Henry IV. was the man of his age; and hence it was that he achieved this prodigy. His mental and physical qualities were precisely those which his time demanded; and it was this combination which enabled him to achieve his astonishing success. Bold, active, and enterprising, he presented that mixture of warlike virtues with chivalrous graces which it is the great object of romance to portray, and which may be said to form the ideal of the European character. He possessed that individual gallantry, that personal daring, that spontaneous generosity, which, even more than commanding intellectual qualities, succeed in winning the hearts of mankind. Ever the foremost in attack, the last in retreat, he excelled his boldest knights in personal courage. The battle-field was to him a scene of exultation. He had the true heroic character. Like the youth in Tacitus, he loved danger itself, not the rewards of valour. Nor were the mental qualities and combinations requisite in the general awanting. On the contrary, he possessed them in the very highest degree. Active, enterprising, indefatigable, he was ever in the field with the advanced guard, and often ran the greatest personal danger from his anxiety to see with his own eyes the position or forces of the enemy. His skill in partisan strife, on which so much of success in war then depended--in the surprise of castles, the siege of towns, the capture of convoys, the sudden irruption into territories, equalled all that poetry had conceived of the marvellous. His deeds, as narrated by the cool pen of Sully, resemble rather the fabulous exploits of knight-errantry than the events of real life. It was thus, by slow degrees and painful efforts, that he gradually brought up his inconsiderable party, at first not a fourth part of the forces of the League, to something like a level with his formidable opponents; and at length was enabled to rout them in decisive battles, and establish his fortunes on a permanent foundation in the fields of Arques and Ivry.

The contest at first appeared to be so unequal as to be altogether hopeless. Though the undoubted heir to the crown, his forces, when the succession opened to him by the assassination of Henry III., were so inconsiderable compared to those of the League, that it seemed impossible that he could fight his way to the throne. The Huguenots were only two millions of souls, and the Roman Catholics were eighteen millions. The latter were in possession of the capital, wielded the resources of its rich and ardent population, and had all the principal towns and strongholds of the kingdom in their hands. It was in the distant provinces, especially of the south, that the strength of the Protestants lay: their forces were the lances of the rural nobility, and the stout arms of the peasants in Dauphiny, the Cevennes, and around La Rochelle. But all history, and especially that of France, demonstrates how inadequate in general are the resources of remote and far-severed provinces to maintain a protracted contest with an enemy in possession of the capital, the fortresses, and ruling the standing army of the kingdom. The forces of the Catholics in this instance were the more formidable, that they were warlike and experienced, trained to the practical duties of soldiers in previous civil wars, united in a league which, like the Solemn League and Covenant in Scotland, formed an unseen bond uniting together the most distant parts of the monarchy, and directed by the Duke of Guise, a leader second to none in capacity and daring, and equal to any in ruthless energy and unscrupulous wickedness.

It was the personal qualities, heroic spirit, and individual talents of the King which enabled him to triumph over this formidable combination. Never was evinced in a more striking light the influence of individual gallantry and conduct on national fortunes; or a more convincing illustration of the undoubted truth, that when important changes are about to be made in human affairs, Providence frequently makes use of the agency of individual greatness. But for Henry's capacity and determination, the Protestants would have been crushed, and the civil war terminated in the first campaign. But, like all other illustrious men, he became great in the school of adversity. His energy, resources, and perseverance triumphed over every difficulty, extricated him from every peril, and at length enabled him to triumph over every opposition. It was his wonderful partisan qualities--the secrecy, skill, and daring of his enterprises, which first laid the foundation of his fortune, by drawing to his standard many of those restless spirits, let loose over the country by the former wars, who in every age are attracted by the courage, capacity, and liberality of a leader. He was thus enabled to augment the little army of the Huguenots by a considerable accession of bold and valuable soldiers from the opposite faith, but who cared more for the capacity of their leader than for either the psalms of the Huguenots or the high mass of the Catholics.

By degrees, many even of the Romish nobility, penetrated with admiration at the manner in which the heir of the crown combated for his rights, joined his standard, in the secret hope that when he came to the throne he would revert to the faith of the majority of his subjects. He won all hearts, even in the enemy's ranks, by his generosity, humanity, and heroic spirit. The soldiers worshipped the hero who shared all their hardships, and whose greatest pleasure was ever to be the first in advancing into the enemy's fire; the officers were filled with enthusiasm for the prince who treated them all with the hearty courtesy of the camp, and claimed no distinction save that which all felt to be due to pre-eminent valour and never-failing capacity. Even his weaknesses augmented the general interest in his character; and when it was known that the leader whose exploits riveted the attention of all Europe, not unfrequently stole from the council-board or the tent to pursue some fugitive fair one through a forest, or subdue the obduracy of high-born beauty, by watching all night before her castle walls, the age of romance seemed to have returned to the earth, and all hearts were interested in the hero who appeared to unite the greatness of ancient patriotism with the spirit of modern chivalry.

Nor did Henry's conduct, when he had taken Paris and conquered the throne, belie the expectations formed by this brilliant dawn of his career. He proved not merely a warrior, but the father of his people. Great projects of amelioration were set on foot--greater still were in preparation, when he perished by the hand of Ravaillac. His celebrated saying, that he "hoped to see the time when every peasant should have his fowl in his pot," reveals the paternal spirit of his government. It is vain to say these were the acts of his ministers; that Sully was the real sovereign. The answer of Queen Elizabeth, when the success of her reign was imputed to the capacity of her ministers, "Did you ever know a fool choose a wise one?" affords the decisive reply to all such depreciatory attempts. Under his beneficent rule, industry was protected, commerce revived; canals, roads, and bridges penetrated the country in every direction; and, most marvellous of all, religious schisms were healed and religious fury stilled. The abjuration by the successful monarch of the faith in which he had been bred, and the warriors of which had combated for him, was unquestionably a measure called for, in a temporal view, by the interest of his dominions at the time, not less than by his own tenure of the throne. When it is recollected that the Huguenots did not at that period exceed two millions, among twenty which France contained, it becomes at once apparent, that, in a country so recently convulsed by the passions of religious and civil dissension, conformity with the faith of the great majority was the sole condition on which tranquillity could have been restored, discord appeased, a stable government established, or the crown transmitted to the descendants of the reigning monarch. And, while his biographer must lament the necessity to which he was subjected, of bending religious conviction to political expedience, all must admire the wisdom of the Edict of Nantes, which, without shocking the prejudices of the Catholics, secured liberty of conscience and just immunities to the Protestants; and which, if adhered to by succeeding monarchs, on the equitable spirit in which it had been conceived by its author, would probably have left the direct heirs of Henry IV. still on the throne of France, and averted all the bloodshed and horrors of the Revolution.

Henry IV., however, was not a perfect character; had he been so, he would not have been a child of Adam. He had the usual proportion of the weaknesses, some of the faults, of humanity. They were, for the most part, however, of that kind which are nearly allied to virtues, and to which heroic characters have, in every age, in a peculiar manner been subject. Heroism, love, and poetry, ever have and ever will be found united: they are, in truth, as Lamartine has expressed it, twin sisters of each other; they issued at a single birth from the same parents. We may regret that it is so; but if we do, we had better extend our regrets a little farther, and lament that we are not all immaculate as our First Parents were in the bowers of Paradise. His irregularities are universally known, and have, perhaps, rendered him as celebrated in France as his warlike exploits or pacific virtues; for they fell in with the prevailing passion of the nation, and were felt by all to be some excuse for their own indulgences. They are celebrated even in the well-known air which has become, in a manner, the National Anthem:--

"Vive Henri IV.!
Vive le roi vaillant!
Ce Diable a quatre
A le triple talent
De boire et de battre,
Et d'etre vert galant."

Henry IV., however, had more apology than most men for these frailties. He lived in an age, and had been bred up in a court, in which female virtue was so rare that it had come to pass for a chimera, and licentious indulgence so frequent that it had become a habit, and ceased to be a subject of reproach. Naturally ardent, susceptible, and impetuous, he was immersed in a society in which intrigue with high-born beauty was universally considered as the great object and chief employment of life. The poetry and romances which were in every hand inculcated nothing else. His own Queen, Margaret of Valois, gave him the first example of such irregularities, and while she set no bounds to her jealousy of his mistresses, particularly La Belle Gabrielle, who so long held the monarch captive, she had no hesitation in bestowing her own favours on successive lovers with as little scruple as the King himself. In some instances, however, he was more completely inexcusable. It is remarkable that the attachments of Henry became more violent as he advanced in life, and had attained the period when the passions are usually found to cool. In some instances they impelled him into acts of vehemence and oppression wholly unworthy of his character and heart. His passion, late in years, for the young Princess of Conde--a child of seventeen, who might have been his granddaughter--and which prompted her flight with her husband to the Low Countries, on which he was preparing war for her recovery when cut short by death, was ridiculous in one of his age, and grossly criminal to one in her circumstances. But these passions pursued him to the very last; and when his tomb was broken open, and remained exposed, by the Parisian mob during the fury of the Revolution, the nicely combed and highly perfumed beard, the scent of which filled the air, proved that the dagger of Ravaillac had struck him while still immersed in the frivolities which tarnished his heroic exploits.[20]

In truth, without detracting from the many great and good qualities of the hero of the Bourbon family, it may safely be affirmed that his fame in subsequent times has been to the full as great as he deserved. Many circumstances have contributed to this happy partiality of subsequent times. His reign was filled with great and glorious actions; and that endeared him to the heroic and the brave. His court was the abode of gallantry--his life devotion to beauty; and that won for him the applause of the fair. He did wonders, and designed still greater, for the internal improvement of his dominions and the increase of his people's happiness; and that secured for him the approbation of the philanthropic and thoughtful. He gained for the Protestants religious freedom and immunity from persecution; and that secured their eternal gratitude. He restored to the Church of Rome the religious supremacy which had been so fiercely disputed, and in so many other countries had been lost; and that shut the mouths of the Catholics. He stilled the fury of civil, and pacified the fierceness of religious discord; and that justly won for him the gratitude of all. His reign formed a bright contrast to the frightful civil wars and universal bloodshed which had preceded it. Like Napoleon, he closed the gulf of revolution; and the admiration of subsequent times was the worthy meed of the inestimable service thus rendered to humanity. They have not diminished, perhaps exaggerated, the tribute. He was the first of a race of sovereigns who for two centuries sat in the direct line on the throne of France, and the collateral descendants of whom still hold it. Family partiality, courtly panegyric, thus came to be largely mingled with the just tribute of a nation's gratitude. The writers of other countries, particularly England and Germany, joined in the chorus of applause to the prince who had secured to the Protestant faith its just rights in so important a kingdom as France. The vices or weakness of subsequent sovereigns--the feeble rule of Louis XIII.; the tyrannical conduct, the splendid talents of Louis XIV.; the corruptions of the Regent Orleans; the disgraceful sensuality of Louis XV.; the benevolent heart, but passive resignation of Louis XVI.--rose up successively in striking contrast to his heroic deeds, vigorous government, and equitable administration. But, without disregarding the influence of these circumstances in brightening the halo which still surrounds the memory of Henry IV., the sober voice of distant and subsequent history must pronounce him one of the greatest princes who have adorned modern history, and certainly the greatest, after Charlemagne and Napoleon, who ever sat on the throne of France.

But it is time to put a period to this general disquisition, to give some extracts from the work of our author, in justice both to its own merits and the character of the hero which it is intended to portray.

Mr James gives the following interesting particulars concerning the birth and early years of Henry:--

"The Duchess of Vendome was at this time with her husband in Picardy,
but at her father's summons she set out for the south of France in
the wintry month of November; and, displaying that hardy and vigorous
constitution which she transmitted to her son, she traversed the wide
extent of country which lay between the extreme frontier of France
and her father's territories in the short space of eighteen days,
arriving at Pau not quite a fortnight before the birth of her third
child. There is reason to believe that various motives, besides that
attachment to her parent which she had always displayed, induced
Jeanne d'Albret to undertake so long and fatiguing a journey at so
critical a period. Information had reached her, we find, that the
King of Navarre had fallen under the influence of a lady of Bearn,
who had employed her power over his mind, as is usual in such
connexions, to enrich herself; and also that the Prince, with
weakness not uncommon even in great men, had made a will in favour of
his mistress, which was likely to deprive his daughter and her
husband of a considerable portion of their expected inheritance. The
natural anxiety of Jeanne d'Albret to see this will was communicated
by some of the court to the old King, and he in reply assured her
that he would place it in her hands as soon as he beheld the child
she was about to bear, upon the condition that she should sing him a
song in the pains of labour: 'In order,' he said, 'that thou mayest
not give me a crying and a puny child.'

"The Duchess promised to perform the task, and at the moment of the
birth of her son, as soon as she heard her father's foot in the
chamber, she saluted him with one of the songs of her native country.
When the child was shown to him, Henry d'Albret took him joyfully in
his arms, and remembering the sneer of the Spaniards, he exclaimed,
as if with a foresight of what he would become, 'My sheep has borne
me a lion!' Then giving his will to his daughter, he continued;
'There, my child, that is for thee, but this is for me,'--and
carrying the boy, wrapped in a fold of his dressing gown, into his
own chamber, he rubbed his lips with a piece of garlic, and gave him
from his own golden cup some drops of wine.

"Whether the King of Navarre did or did not imagine, as has been
asserted, that such unusual treatment of a newborn infant would
ensure to his grandson a hardy and a vigorous constitution, it
certainly indicated the course of education which he wished to be
pursued; and nothing was left undone that could strengthen the
corporeal frame of the young prince, and prepare him for the
hardships and exertions of a military career. Though a strong and
powerful child, some difficulty was at first found in rearing him;
and, perhaps, too high a degree of anxiety in regard to his health,
caused the frequent change of nurses, which was of course detrimental
to the infant.

"Great rejoicings took place on the occasion of his baptism; and his
grandfather displayed all the splendour of the little court of
Navarre, which the Emperor Charles V. once declared, had received him
in his passage through France with greater magnificence than any
other court he had visited. His godfathers were Henry II. of France
and Henry d'Albret of Navarre; and the rite, which was performed
according to the usages of the Church of Rome, was administered by
the Cardinal of Armagnac, Vice-legate of Avignon.

"From the castle of Pau the prince was speedily removed to that of
Coarasse, situated nearly at the mouth of the beautiful valley of
Lourdes; and there, under the immediate superintendence of his
grandfather and a distant relation, Susannah de Bourbon, Baroness de
Miossens, commenced that hardy education which lasted till after the
death of the King of Navarre. That monarch, we are told by a
contemporary author, 'reproached his daughter and son-in-law with
having lost several of their children by French delicacies; and in
fact,' the same writer goes on to say, 'he brought up his grandson
after the fashion of Bearn, with naked feet and head, very often with
as little refinement as peasants' children are nurtured.' No rich
clothing, no playthings were given to him; and Henry d'Albret
especially commanded that he should neither be flattered nor treated
as a prince, but fed upon the ordinary diet of the country, and
dressed in the simplest manner. He was allowed to climb the rocks and
mountains, and try his limbs in robust exercises from the earliest
period of life; and all that could be done to invigorate mind or
body, appears to have been strictly attended to in his years of
infancy."

At a subsequent period, when he had attained the era, and was engaged in the studies of youth, his character and pursuits are thus described.

"We learn that he was at this time a very lively, quick, and
beautiful boy, full of vigour and activity of mind and body, apt to
receive instruction, and giving every promise of attaining great
proficiency in letters. La Gaucherie took every pains to render the
study of the learned languages agreeable to him; not teaching him in
the ordinary method, by filling his mind with long and laborious
rules, difficult to remember, and still more difficult to apply, but
following more the common course by which we acquire our maternal
language; and storing his mind with a number of Greek and Latin
sentences, which the Prince afterwards wrote down and analysed. The
first work which he seems to have translated regularly was Caesar's
Commentaries; a version of several books of which was seen by the
biographer of the Duke of Nevers in his own handwriting; and his
familiarity with the Greek was frequently shown in the sports and
pastimes of the court where mottoes in the learned languages were
frequently required.

"It is customary for the historians and eulogists of great men to
point out, after their acts have rendered them famous those slight
indications which sometimes in youth give promise of future eminence;
and thus, we are told the favourite motto, of Henry in his boyhood
was, [Greek: e nikan e apothanein], to conquer or to die. The fact,
however, is worthy of remark, not so much perhaps because it showed
the boy's aspirations for military glory, as because his frequent use
of this sentence seems to have created some uneasiness in the mind of
Catherine de Medicis, who forbade his masters to teach him such
apophthegms for the future, saying that they were only calculated to
render him obstinate.

"It is not probable that the Queen-mother would have taken notice of
such a sentence on the lips of any ordinary child; but it is evident,
not only from the accounts of those biographers, whose works were
composed after the Prince of Bearn had risen into renown as King of
France, but by letters written while he was yet in extreme youth,
that there was something in his whole manner and demeanour which
impressed all those who knew him with a conviction of his future
greatness. We shall have hereafter to cite several of these epistles,
which give an accurate picture of the Prince at the age of thirteen
years; but before that time he had undergone a long course of
desultory instruction. At one period his education was carried on in
the chateau of Vincennes, where he remained for more than a year with
the royal children; and at another we find him studying in the
college of Navarre, together with the Duke of Anjou, who afterwards
became King under the name of Henry III., and with Henry, eldest son
of the Duke of Guise, against whom he was destined to take so
prominent a part in arms. At this early age, however, no enmity or
rivalry was apparent between the three Princes; but on the contrary,
to use the words of the memoirs of Nevers, the three Henrys had the
same affection and the same pleasures, and always displayed for one
another so uncommon a degree of complaisance, that not the slightest
dispute took place between them during the whole time they were at
the college. In regard to the course of instruction pursued with the
Prince of Bearn we have no farther information, and only know that he
acquired a sufficient knowledge of the Latin language to translate
with ease all the best writers of Rome; and that he applied himself,
though apparently with no great perseverance, to the art of drawing,
in which he displayed a considerable degree of talent--the Duke of
Nevers, or his biographer, having seen an antique vase which he had
sketched in pen and ink with a masterly hand, and under which he had
written, _Opus principis otiosi_."

The Massacre of St Bartholomew, which has given an infamous immortality to the name of Charles IX., was unquestionably the great cause of reviving the religious wars which in the early part of his reign seemed to have been in a great measure stilled. Mr James does not add much to the information on the subject already furnished by the French historians, but he sums it up in a dramatic and interesting manner.

Our space will not permit of our quoting the entire passage, and we shall rather proceed to the period when the assassination of Henry III. opened to the King of Navarre the throne of France. The situation of the monarch, when this brilliant but perilous succession opened to him, is thus justly described by Mr James:--

"The situation of Henry IV., on his accession to the throne, was
probably the most perilous in which a new monarch was ever placed.
The whole kingdom was convulsed, from end to end, by factions, the
virulence of which against each other had been nourished during many
years of civil war, and not one element of discord and confusion
seemed wanting to render the state of turbulence and anarchy which
existed of long duration. Not only the fierce and relentless spirit
of religious fanaticism, not only the grasping cupidity of selfish
and unprincipled nobles, not only the ambition of powerful and
distinguished leaders entered as ingredients into the strange mass of
contending passions which the country presented, but the long
indulgence of lawless courses, the habits of strife and bloodshed,
the want of universally recognised tribunals, the annihilation of
external commerce, and the utter destitution of financial resources
on all parts, seemed to place insurmountable obstacles in the way of
any speedy restoration of order and prosperity.

"The capital was in a state of rebellion against its legitimate
sovereign; the large towns were, in many instances, held forcibly by
the party opposed to the great majority of the inhabitants; the small
towns and villages were generally disaffected to the royal cause, or
wavering between opposite factions; and the rural districts were
divided in their affections, sometimes presenting three or four
different shades of opinion within the space of as many leagues. One
province was nearly entirely Protestant, another almost altogether
Catholic, another equally divided between the two religions. The
Parliament of Paris thundered against the Parliament of Tours; the
partisans of the late king looked with scarcely less jealousy upon
their new sovereign than upon their enemies of the League; and many
of those who were indifferent upon the subject of religion, made it
their first inquiry how they could sell their services to the best
advantage.

"The preceding reigns had extinguished all respect for the law; the
vices of the court had banished all notions of morality; and years of
license had left barely the sense of common decency amongst the
higher classes of the kingdom. Complete disorganisation, in short,
existed throughout the whole fabric of society; and no common
principle of action could be found as a permanent bond in uniting the
members of any great party together. The League itself contained most
discordant materials; but it was far more harmonious in its character
than the great body of the Royalists; for community of religion at
least afforded an apparent motive for combination where more
substantial ties were wanting, while difference of faith in the camp
of the King was at all times a pretext for dissensions which at any
moment might produce disorders, if not actual hostility.

"Such was the state of affairs which Henry knew to exist at the
moment when he received the announcement that he had so suddenly
become King of France. The generous devotion, indeed, of a few loyal
and high-minded men tended greatly to encourage him in the
commencement of his career; but apprehension and perplexity must have
been the first emotions by which he was affected on entering the
Hotel de Gondi and learning that Henry III. was dead. He found still
greater alarm, however, reigning amongst the courtiers of the late
King. Everything was confusion and disarray, and his presence did not
tend to produce harmony and order.

"The moment that his arrival was known, the Scotch guard came and
threw themselves at his feet, exclaiming, 'Oh! Sire, you are now our
king and our master;' and the active and energetic character of the
monarch at once displayed itself in a remarkable manner. Without
losing the time of action in thought, he applied himself to take
advantage of the consternation of others, and secure the fidelity of
the troops and of the court as far as possible, in order that the
death of Henry III. might not altogether dissolve the bonds which
held together the Royalist party, and overthrow the monarchy itself.
He sent directly to the quarters of the Swiss and the French guard,
to Marshal D'Aumont, to Biron, and to all in whom he could trust. He
wrote during the same night to England, to Flanders, to Switzerland,
Germany, and Venice, announcing his accession to the throne, stating
his indisputable title, and requesting immediate aid to make it good
against his enemies.

"But on entering the chamber of the deceased King a strange and
fearful scene presented itself. The room was filled with the Catholic
nobility of France; the minions were at the foot of the bed, with
tapers in their hands, singing the service of the dead; and all the
rest, 'amidst howlings of despair, were drawing down their hats, or
casting them on the ground, clenching their fists, plotting together,
giving each other the hand, making vows and promises, of which
nothing was heard but the ending words--"rather die a thousand
deaths."' One voice, however, gave the interpretation of all: a
gentleman exclaiming aloud, at ten paces from the King, that he would
rather give himself up to any enemies than suffer a Huguenot
monarch."

The battle of Arques was the first in which the great martial and heroic qualities of the King were displayed in their full lustre; and there Mr James's animated pen finds a fit subject for description. We pass on, however, to the battle of Ivry, which was, if possible, yet more marvellous and decisive; for the superiority of force on the part of the League was still greater; and Henry's heroic band had dwindled away to little more than one of Napoleon's divisions.

"The numbers of the army of the League it is very difficult to
discover, and, indeed, we can very seldom depend upon the statements
even of contemporaries regarding the forces engaged in any battle. In
one place, Davila reckons the army of Mayenne at four thousand five
hundred horse, and twenty thousand foot; but he evidently greatly
exaggerates the strength of the infantry, while Aubigne states the
numbers at five thousand cavalry, and eight thousand foot, and Cayet
says that Mayenne was accompanied by more than four thousand horse,
and twelve thousand foot. Henry himself, in his despatch to Monsieur
de la Verune, governor of Caen, does not venture even to guess at the
numbers of his adversary, but merely says, that the prisoners state
their army to have consisted of four thousand horse, and twelve
thousand foot, thus confirming the account of Victor Cayet. The
Royalist force did not amount to more than two thousand horse, and
about eight thousand foot. Just as the battle was about to commence,
however, Sully arrived from Pacy, bringing with him his own company,
and two companies of English horse arquebusiers, under Colonel James.
Several other reinforcements joined during the morning; and it cannot
be doubted that the flocking in of zealous friends, while Henry
occupied the plain of Ivry, tended greatly to encourage his forces,
and to make them forget the superiority of the enemy. As at Coutras,
the army of the League appeared covered with glittering trappings,
lace and embroidery, while that of the King displayed nothing but
cold gray steel.