HENRY III., the third son of Henry II. and Catharine de' Medici, was b. in 1551, and succeeded his brother Charles IX. in 1574. On the death of the constable Mont morency, he received the chief commaml of the =my, and his first campaign. fought in his 16th year, was signalized by two decisive victories, gained over the Protestants at Janne and Moncontour. In 1573 the intrigues of the queen-regent secured to limn the election to the vacant throne of Poland. Ile failed, however, to seetzre the attachment of the Polish nobles; and on receiving the tidings of his brother's death, he fled by night from Cracow, and on his return to France, was proclaimed king of that country. Ilis mother and the Guises had little difficulty in persuading him to continue the reli gious civil war. The union of the Protestants with the party of discontented noble.-.., headed by the king's brother, the duke d' Aiencon, compelled the alarmed sovereign to grant the former the free exercise of their religion, and various other rights. This exas perated the Catholic party, who, headed by llenry of Guise, formed the conftderation known as the Sainte Ligue, the object of which was not merely to assert the undivided supremacy of Catholicism, but also to secure the reversion of the throne to Guise, and civil war again and again burst out with renewed violence.
Henry availed himself of his intervals of quiet to indulge his own vicious propensi ties; an while his mpther ruled the state, and the Guises were undermining his throne, his days and nights were spent in an alternation of the most dissolute excesses, and the wildest outbreaks of fanaticism. One day he might be seen passing, to the of
music, through the streets of Paris, accompanied by a band of young men as effeminate as himself, known as the mignons, and surrounded by parrots, monkeys, and pet dogs, while the next day he and his companions would show themselves clad in a penitent's dress, wearing masks, and carrying in their hands scourges, with which they one another as they sang aloud penitential psalms.
The assassination of the duke of Guise in 1583 finally aroused the hatred of the nation. The doctors of the Sorbonne declared the people to be relieved of the duty of obedience to the king, and the leaguers dissolved the parliament. Henry, who was now, for the first time, thrown on his own resources—his mother had just died—was distracted by the difficulties of his position; and in his perplexity at hearing that Guise's brother, the duke of Mayenne, had been declared lieut.gen. of the kingdom, threw him self under the protection of Henry of Navarre. The newly reconciled kings advanced at the head of 40,000 Huguenots on Paris, which, although gallantly defended by May mine, would probably have had to capitulate, had not the current of events been sud denly checked through the agency of a fanatical young Dominican-brother, named Jacques Clement, who, on Aug. 1, 1539, on pretense of having important tidings to communicate to Henry, killed him by plunging a knife into his body. The murderer was slain on the spot by the royal guard, and his victim died the following day, after having declared his kinsman, Henry Bourbon of _Navarre, his successor.