Although the Duke of Guise was admonished that some danger was impending over him, yet his firmness of mind, and his belief that Henry would not dare to attempt his life, induced him to attend the council to which he was summoned. As he entered the cabinet of the king, through a long and dark passage, six poinards were at once plunged into his bosom by Loigniac and his asso ciates ; on which, exclaiming with a deep groan, " My God, have mercy upon me !" he fell breathless on the floor. His brother the Cardinal was also destroyed. As soon as Henry was informed of the death of the Duke, he said to Catherine, " I am now a king, madam, and have no compctitor, for the Duke of Guise is no more." Cathe rine only coolly asked him, if he had reflected on the pro bable consequences ? The death of the Queen soon fol lowed that of the Duke of Guise. In her 70th year, she sunk into the grave, worn out, not merely by age, but by bodily and mental disorders, both of which had been greatly augmented by the reserve which the King for some time had maintained towards her. This her haughty temper could not brook,—her mind became violently agitated, and the pangs of disease were thus increased, while she was less able to bear up under them. On her death-bed, she at last discarded all intrigue and dissimulation, and recommended to her son that line of conduct by which, had he been advised by her to pursue it before, he would have arrived at peace, instead of being entangled in civil war : she exhorted him to be reconciled to the King of .Navarre, on whose constancy she assured him he might depend ; and to restore tranquillity to France, by granting to the Protestants the free exercise of their religion.
The assassination of the Duke of Guise was followed by consequences which the King had not anticipated, but which proved the aptness of the question, which Catherine had put to him when she heard of it, and the necessity of having recourse to her dying advice. The great mass of the people, with whom the Duke was a favourite, ex pressed their abhorrence of the deed in the most undis guised and violent manner ; the majority of the nobles de serted their sovereign, and the clergy publicly reviled him. Even his favourites deserted him. The doctors of the Sorbonne openly absolved his subjects from their alle giance ; and rebellion was preached up as a sacred duty. The Duke of Aurnale was chosen governor of Paris, and the Duke of Mayence, brother to the late Duke of Guise, lieutenant-general of the state royal and crown of France. Rouen, and the greatest part of Normandy, declared for the League ; as well as Lyons, Toulouse, Marseilles, Arles, Toulon, and the provinces of Brittany and Auvergne. The Spanish ambassador openly supported the insurgents, and Pope Sextus V. excommunicated the King and all who were concerned in the assassination of the Duke of Guise.
In this extremity, Henry at last determined to do that which lie ought to have done at the commencement of the troubles ; he entered into a confederacy with the Protes tants and the King of Navarre. Large bodies of Swiss and German cavalry were enlisted ; and the chief nobility and the princes of the blood rallying round their monarch at this critical juncture, he was enabled to assemble an army of 40,000 men. Still, however, the superstitious weakness of his mind broke out ; alarmed at the excom munication which the Pope had pronounced against him, he solicited absolution at Rome. " Let us conquer," said the King of Navarre, " and we shall be absolved ; but if we be beaten, we shall he excommunicated." The King of Navarre, also, strongly insisted on the advantages which would ensue from immediately marching to Paris : His advice was followed ; and on the last day of July 1589, they invested the capital. The Duke of Mayence was
within the walls, with about 4000 regular soldiers ; and by means of these, he hoped to inspirit and assist; the citizens to make a formidable defence. But Henry pushed the siege with uncommon vigour ; and as the number of the royalists in Paris was still great, the city must soon have fallen, had not the desperate resolution of one man given a new turn to the affairs of France.
James Clement, a Dominican friar, filled with that bloody spirit of bigotry which characterised the age, formed the resolution of sacrificing his own life, in order to save the church from the danger to which he conceived it would be exposed, if the King were permitted to live, in con sequence of his alliance with the Protestants. This man had succeeded in getting introduced into the King's pre sence, under the pretence of important and confidential business, and mortally wounded him, while reading some papers which he had put into his hands. The assassin was instantly put to death by the guards. At Paris he was honoured as a saint and a martyr. The Pope ex pressed the highest admiration of this act ; and all the Catholic clergy defended it as necessary for the safety of the church.
As Henry III. died without children, and the house of Valois was extinct in his person, the throne passed to the house of Bourbon, in the person of Henry IV. This prince was born at Pau, in Berne, on the 14th of December 1553, of Antony of Bourbon, Duke of Vendome, and Jane of Albert, Queen of Navarre. He was descended in a right • line from Robert of France, Count of Clermont, sixth son of Saint Louis. When his mother was pregnant with him, her father made her promise, that she would sing during her delivery, in order, as he said, that she might not bring forth a gloomy and unfortunate child. She complied with this whim, and, in spite of the pain which she suffered, sung a song in the provincial dialect of Berne, even at the moment when the child was entering the world. As soon as he was born, his grandfather, taking him into another room, rubbed his lips with garlic and wine, in order, ac cording to his notion, to endow him with a bold and vigo rous temperament. In the chateau of Coarage, situated in the middle of rocks, between Begoire and Berne, the young Henry was brought up ; and his education was superintended and directed by his grandfather, till the death of the latter, which happened very soon afterwards. He was treated in the most plain and simple manner ; his food being confined to brown bread, cheese, and a small quantity of beef; his dress was that of the peasant boys of Berne, composed entirely of coarse stuff, and made with out any ornament. He was accustomed to the most vigo rous exercise in all kinds of weather, and soon became remarkable for the fearless agility with which he clamber ed over the rocks. Often was he seen, during his rambles, with his head and feet uncovered. But the corporeal powers and habits of Henry were not the sole objects of the care and attention of his parents: his mind also was cultivated, hut in the same independent and useful man ner as his body. His mother, who had avowed herself the protector of the Reformed Religion, invited to her all the most distinguished Protestant priests in that part of France, and the young Henry, who exhibited early indications that he united a solid and clear judgment to a lively and quick apprehension, soon made rapid progress. It is said that one of the books in which he took the most delight, and which therefore may justly be regarded as having ma terially contributed to form his character, was Plutarch, a French translation of which had recently been made by A my ot.