expected; and Catharine de Medicis began to tremble in her turn: and indeed, from that time to 1589, his life was nothing elfe but a mixture of battles, negociations, and loveintrigues, which last made no inconfiderable part of his bufinefs. Sully was one of thofe who attended him in his flight, and who continued to attend him to the end of his life, ferving him in the different capacities of foldier and ftatefman, as the different conditions of his affairs required. Henry's wife, whom Catharine had brought to him in the year 1578, was a great impediment to him; yet by his management the was fometimes of ufe to him. There were frequent ruptures between him and the court of France; but at laft Henry III, confederated with him fincerely, and in good carneft, to refift the league, which was more furious than ever, after the death of the duke of Guife and the cardinal his brother. The reconciliation and confede racy of thefe two kings was concluded in April 1589: their interview was at Tours the 30th of that month, attended with great demonftration of mutual fatisfaction. They joined their troops fome time after to lay fiege to Paris: they befieged it in perfon, and were upon the point of fubduing that great city, when the king of France was affaffinated by James Clement, a Dominican friar, the 1ft of August, Henault's at the village of St. Cloud. "The league," fays a good Hiftoire de hiftorian," is perhaps the most extraordinary event in hiftory; and Henry III. may be reckoned the weakest prince in not forefeeing, that he should render himself dependent on that party by becoming their chief. The Proteftants had made war againft him, as an enemy of their fect; and the leaguers murdered him on account of his uniting with the king of Navarre, the chief of the "Huguenots." Franc. ad 1589. Henry III. upon his death-bed declared the king of Navarre his fucceffor; and the king of Navarre did fucceed him, but not without very great difficulties. He was acknowledged king by most of the lords, whether Catholic or Proteftant, who happened then to be at court; but the leaguers refufed abfolutely to acknowledge his title, till he had renounced the Proteftant religion; and the city of Paris perfifted in its revolt till the 22d of March, 1594. He embraced the Catholic religion, as the only method of putting an end to the miferies of France, by the advice of Sully, whom he had long taken into the fincereft confidence; and the celebrated Du Perron, afterwards cradinal, was made the inftrument of his converfion, He attempted, alfo, to convert Sul ly ly, but in vain: "My parents bred me," fays tlie minifter, Memoires de Sully. "in the opinions and doctrines of the Reformed religion, " and I have continued conftant in the profeffion of it; "neither threatenings, promifes, variety of events, nor the "change even of the king my protector, joined to his moft "tender folicitations, have ever been able to make me re"nounce it." This change of religion in Henry IV. though it quieted things for the prefent, did not fecure him from continual plots and troubles; for, being made upon political motives, it was natural to fuppofe it not fincere. Thus, Dec. 26, 1594, a fcholar, named John Chaftel, attempted to See the art. affaffinate the king, but only wounded him in the mouth; and when he was interrogated concerning the crime, readily answered, "That he came from the college of the Je fuits," and then accufed thofe fathers of having inftigated him to it. The king, who was prefent at his examination, faid with much gaiety, that he had heard, from the "mouths of many perfons, that the fociety never loved him, "and he was now convinced of it by his own." Some writers have related, that this affaffination was attempted when he was with the fair Gabrielle, his miftrefs, at the hotel d'Eftrées; but Sully, who was with him, fays that it was at Paris, in his apartments in the Louvre. This Gabrielle was the favourite miftrefs of Henry IV. and it is faid that the king intended to marry her; but he died in 1599, the year that his marriage with Margaret of Valois, fifter of Charles IX. was declared null and void by the pope's commiffioners, with confent of parties. He married Mary of Medicis, at Lyons, the year after, and appointed madame de Guercheville, whom he had made love to without fuccefs, to be one of her ladies of honour; faying, that, "fince "the was a lady of real honour, the fhould be in that poft 66 with the queen his wife." Henry, though he was a great monarch, was not always fuccefsful in his addreffes to the fair; and a noble faying is recorded by many writers of Catharine, fifter to the vifcount de Rohan, who replied to a declaration of gallantry from this prince, that " fhe was too "poor to be his wife, and of too good a family to be his * miftrefs." As to Sully, he was now the firft minifter of Henry; and he performed all the offices of a great and good minifter, while his master performed the offices of a great and good king. He attended to every part of the government; profecuted extortioners, and those who were guilty of em bezzling CHASTEL, Boling- bezzling the public money; and, in short, restored the kingdom, in a few years, from a moft defperate to a most flourishing condition: which, however, he could not have done, if Henry, like a wife prince, had not refolutely fupported him against favourite miftreffes, the cabals of court, and the factions of ftate, which would otherwife have overwhelmed him. We are not writing the hiftory of France, - and, therefore, cannot enter into a detail of Sully's actions: but we are able to give a general idea both of Sully and his mafter, as we find it thus delineated by a fine writer and able politician of our own. "Henry IV." fays he, "turn"ed his whole application to every thing that might be ufeful, or even convenient, to his kingdom, without fuffering things that happened out of it to pafs unobserved by him, as foon as he had put an end to the civil wars of "France, and had concluded a peace with Spain at Vervins," on the ad of May, 1598. "Is there a man, either prince or fubject, who can read, without the most elevated and "the most tender fentiments, the language he held to Sully the fate of the nation. 66 66 66 at this time, when he thought himfelf dying of a great "illnefs he had at Monceaux? My friend, faid he, I have "no fear of death. You, who have feen me expofe my "life fo often, when I might so easily have kept out of danger, know this better than any man: but I muft con"fefs that I am unwilling to die, before I have raised this "kingdom to the fplendor I have proposed to myself, and "before I have fhewn my people that I love them like my "children, by discharging them from a part of the taxes "that have been laid on them, and by governing them with "gentlenefs.' The ftate of France," continues the noble author, "was then even worse than the ftate of Great"Britain is now; the debts as heavy, many of the pro"vinces entirely exhaufted, and none of them in a condi"tion of bearing any new impofition. The ftanding reve"nues brought into the king's coffers no more than thirty "millions, though an hundred and fifty millions were "raised on the people: fo great were the abufes of that "government in raifing of money; and they were not lefs "in the difpenfation of it. The whole fcheme of the ad"ministration was a scheme of fraud, and all who ferved "cheated the public, from the higheft offices down to the "loweft; from the commiffioners of the treasury, down to "the under farmers and under treasurers. Sully beheld this "state of things, when he came to have the fole fuperinten 86 dency of affairs, with horror; he was ready to despair, but but he did not defpair; zeal for his master, zeal for "his country, and this very ftate, feemingly fo defpe rate, animated his endeavours; and the nobleft thought, "that ever entered into the mind of a minfter, entered into "his. He refolved to make, and he made, the reformation "of abufes, the reduction of expences, and a frugal manage"ment, the finking fund for the payment of national debts, " and the fufficient fund for all the great things he intended "to do, without overcharging the people. He fucceeded in all. The people were immediately eafed, trade revived, the king's coffers were filled, a maritime power was "created, and every thing neceffary was prepared to put the "nation in a condition of executing great defigns, whenever great conjunctures fhould offer themselves. Such was the effect of twelve years of wife and honeft admi"niftration: and this effect would have fhewed itself in ἐσ great enterprises againft the houfe of Auftria, more for"midable in thefe days than the houfe of Bourbon has been in ours, if Henry IV. had not been stabbed by one of those affaffins, into whofe hands the intereft of this houfe, and "the frenzy of religion, had put the dagger more than once." 66 This affaffin was Francis Ravillac, born at Angoulême, in 1580, where he followed the profeffion of a schoolmaster. He had entered himfelf as a lay brother among the Feuillans of the Rue St. Honore, who are faid to have difmiffed him, before he had made his monaftic vows, because they had discovered that he was a lunatic: yet it did not appear from any thing in his difcourfe, either during his imprisonment, or at the time of his execution, that he could rerfonably be charged with madness. Henry was murdered the 17th of May, 1610; and, what is infinitely more aftonishing than the murder, are the prefages this unhappy prince had of his cruel deftiny, which, Sully tells us, were indeed Memoires "dreadful and furprifing to the laft degree." The queen de Sully, liv. xxvii. was to be crowned purely to gratify her, for Henry was vehemently against the coronation; and, the nearer the moment approached, the more his terrors increased. "this ftate of overwhelming horror, which," fays Sully, "at first I thought an unpardonable weaknefs, he opened "his whole heart to me; his own words will be more affecting than all I can fay. Oh! my friend,' faid he, this "coronation does not pleafe me: I know not what is the meaning of it, but my heart tells me fome fatal accident will happen.' He fat down, as he fpoke thefe words, upon a chair in my clofet; and, refigning himself fome In Efai fur perale, tom. iv. p. 20. 66 "time to all the horror of his melancholy apprehenfions, he fuddenly started up, and cried out, Par Dieu, I fhall die "in this city; they will murder me here; I. fee plainly "they have made my death their only refource!" for he had then great defigns on foot against Spain and the house of Auftria. He repeated thefe forebodings feveral times, which Sully as often treated as chimeras: but they proved realities. 66 66 64 66 France never had a better, nor a greater king, than Henry IV. He was his own general and minifter; in him were united great franknefs and profound policy; fublimity of fentiments, and a moft engaging fimplicity of manners; the bravery of a foldier, and an inexhauftible fund of humanity; and, what forms the characteristic of great men, he was obliged to furmount many obftacles, to expofe himself to dangers, and efpecially to encounter with adverfaries worthy of himself, Voltaire fays, that "he juftly passed for hitoire ge- the greateft man of his time. The emperor Rodolphus had no reputation but among philofophers and chymifts. Philip II. of Spain had never been in action; "he was, after all, no better than an intriguing, dark, dif fembling tyrant; and his wifdom could not be fet in competition with the opennefs and courage of Henry "IV. who, with all his vivacity and flights, was yet as wife and politic as he. Elizabeth of England acquired a great reputation; but, having never furmounted the fame obftacles, the could not pretend to the fame glory. Add "to this, that her merit, whatever it might be, was obfcured by the farce the acted in the affair of Mary queen "of Scots, whofe blood left fuch a ftain upon it, as nothing can wipe out. Pope Sixtus V. made himself famous by "the obelisks he raifed, and by the monuments with which he embellifhed Rome; but without this merit, which is very far from being of the firft kind, he would not have been known for any thing, excepting the having obtained the papacy by fifteen years of diffimulation and lying, and for having practifed in it a feverity even to cruelty. They who are fo fevere upon Henry IV. for his amours, "do not confider, that infirmities of this fort are often thofe of the beft men, and are no hindrance to governDict. article ing well." Voltaire, a few pages before, had criticifed Bayle for faying, that, "if Henry IV. had been made an eunuch, like Abelard, the first time he debauch"ed his neighbour's wife or daughter, he might have conquered all Europe, and eclipfed the glory of the Alex HENRY 1V. 66 66 ་་ 2 "anders |