In the mean time, the intrigues of the court of Spain gave him great uneasiness and alarm. His ancient and inveterate enemy, Philip, was indeed no more, but his suc cessor inherited his designs of molesting the throne of Henry, and incited the Duke of Savoy to make war against him. The Duke, however, soon experienced the evil con sequences of his proceedings. Bresse, Savoy, and Nice, were immediately subdued by the armies of France ; and in a very short time, finding himself not supported, as he expected, by Spain, he implored the mediation of the Pope to extricate him out of a war into which he had thus rashly plunged. In 1601, therefore, a treaty was accordingly formed, on condition that the Duke should cede to henry the country of Bresse, an extensive territory on the banks of the Rhine, and pay 100,000 crowns to defray the expell ees of the war. The Duke, during the Ivar, had engaged in a secret correspondence with the Marshal Biron, who, boast ing that he had placed Henry on the throne of France, did not conceive himself suffici cntly rewarded for his ser vices, and felt himself humbled, during peace, by his total ignorance even of the lowest branches of learning. These motives and feelings operated to make him wish again for tear ; and even at the time when he was leading the French armies into the territories of the Duke of Savoy, he was engaged in a correspondence V: ith that prince. This correspondence had not escaped the vigilant attention of the king, who, when at Lyons, reproached him with his seditious designs. The marshal acknowledged his crime ; professed his repentance ; protested future fidelity ; and thus succeeded in obtaining the forgiveness of his sove reign, who endeavoured still farther to awaken his grati tude, by the grant of a large sum of money ; and to keep him out of the way of future guilt, by appointing him am bassador first to the court of England, and afterwards to the Swiss cantons. But the Marshal had no sooner return ed from these embassies, than he resumed his ambitious projects ; entered into an alliance with the courts of Spain and Turin ; and succeeded in drawing over the Duke of Bouillon, and the Count d'Auvergne, natural son to Charles IX. Circumstances seemed favourable to the plans of the conspirators ; disaffection was widely spread through France, in consequence of Henry's yielding to the influ ence of his mistress in the improper nomination to eccle siastical dignities ; his neglect of the Protestants ; and the numerous imposts which it was necessary to lay on, in or der to support the state. These complaints in some re spects well-grounded, in other respects without foundation, were listened to and encouraged by the Marshal and his associates; and as the counties of Anjou, Poitou, Sain tonge, Auvergne, Guienne and Languedoc, were in a state of revolt, they already anticipated the overthrow of the power of Henry. But their hopes and plans were disap pointed. They had employed a person of the name of La Fin in their most secret intrigues, who, in a moment of disgust, revealed to Henry the whole of the conspiracy. Henry did not hesitate for the shortest period, in what man ner he ought to act ; but first went into the seditious pro vinces, and having overawed the people by his firmness, or brought them back to their duty by his popular man ners, and by the recollection of what he had done and suffered for France, he returned to Fontainbleau, determin ed to bring the principal conspirators to the block, before they were strengthened by the troops of Spain and Savoy. Biron was at this time in his government of Burgundy, strengthening the most important cities in that province, when he received an order from Sully, as master general of the ordnance, to send back the cannon of Burgundy, under pretence of new casting them. No sooner, how ever, were they transported beyond the government of Biron, than Sully stopped the new ones, with which he had promised to replace them. This first excited the sus picions of Biron, which were confirmed by his learning that La Fin had had a private conference with the king. He now lost all his courage and presence of mind; and though he could not hope for the royal clemency, yet such was his agitation, that he obeyed the summons of llen•y, and along with the Cemit D'Auvergne, repaired to Fontainbleau. Henry still wished, if possible, to Xlye him; and, for this purpose, endeavoured to lead him to a full confession of his guilt, in order that he might justify his clemency ; but the Marshal was obstinate ; and Ifenry was at length compell ed to give way to the regular proceedings of justice. The proofs being clear and positive, the judges unanimously pronounced the sentence of death. At the place of exe cution, Biron behaved in a manner by no means becoming his situation, or agreeably to his former conduct; for he was seized by alternate fits of terror and rage, and thus disgraced in his last moments, the character of Intrepid, which he had acquired amidst the dangers of war.
The Duke of Bouillon was yet in arms, and refused to obey the royal summons for his appearance at court. Henry, therefore, determined by his presence to reduce this rebellious subject. Accordingly he directed his course through the provinces of Auvergne and Limousin, and approached where Bouillon was, before that nobleman sus pected he had left Fontainbleau.. Astonished, therefore,
and unprepared for resistance, he ordered the governors of the towns which belonged to him to open their gates, and thus by his apparent sincerity succeeded in disarming the resentment of his sovereign. Scarcely, however, had Henry returned to Paris, when the restless and discontent ed disposition of the Duke again broke out into acts of se dition; and he found it absolutely necessary to crush him at once and effectually. \Vith a small, but well-appointed body of infantry, supported by a train of artillery, under the command of the Duke of Sully, he pressed forward to Sedan; and Bouillon again began to consider his situation dangerous. On Spain he could not rely ; the Protestants, with whom he had been a great favourite, were shocked at his disloyalty, and flocked to the standard of the King. Ile therefore again threw himself on the royal mercy, and, however unworthy, obtained it.
Henry about this period, experienced a greater share of domestic unhappiness than ever. The temper and habits of the Queen were utterly at variance with his. She was cold, indifferent, and reserved ; blindly attached to her Ita lian favourites, and regardless of the wishes or interests of the King. Such a temper and conduct were ill calculated to draw him from those amours, to which he was so much addicted. The Queen complained of them, at the very time when she was rendering her own society repelling and disagreeable to her husband. Hence the inmost re cesses of the palace were disturbed by their mutual and incessant complaints ; and Sully, whose good offices were always required on these occasions, often found the utmost difficulty in accommodating these quarrels. The King, wearied out with the arrogance of the Marchioness of Verneuil, sought a new mistress ; and was captivated by the wit and sprightliness of the daughter of the constable, Charlotte de Montmorency. So ardent was his passion for this lady, and so completely did it obscure his good sense, and pollute the purity and honour of his mind, that he formed the disgraceful resolution of marrying her to the Prince of Conde, that thus he might introduce her into his own family. The Prince, soon after his marriage, dis covered that Henry was still attached to his wife, and he desired leave to quit the court. This the King positively refused, and thus confirmed the suspicions of the Prince, who immediately formed the plan of secretly escaping with his wife beyond the limits of the kingdom. He reached Landrecy in safety, when the King, hearing of his flight, and transported with rage and grief, dispatched the captain of his guards to demand the fugitives from the Archduke ; but Albert replied, 66 that he had never violated the laws of nations on any occasion whatever, and that he could not begin with a prince of the blood royal of France." The Prince and his wife afterwards took up their abode at Brussels; but Henry, instead of being recalled to a sense of duty and respect for his own character by the reply of the Archduke, first ineffectually attempted to carry off the Princess, and then commanded the parliament to pass an arret against the Prince, and to condemn him to suffer whatever punishment he might chose to inflict.
In 1609, a dispute arose concerning the succession to the duchies of Cleves and Julicrs, which afforded Henry a pretext for taking up arms, and with the real view of humbling the House of Austria, and circumscribing its power in Italy and Germany. On the death of John Ham, of Cleves, a number of competitors arose ; and it appearing to two of them, who were Protestant princes, that the Emperor meant to take possession of the vacant territory, they applied first to the Evangelical Union, a confederacy of Protestants, which had been recently formed in Germany, and, as the Emperor was in alliance with the Pope and the King of Spain, afterwards to France. Henry now had a sufficient excuse for breaking openly with the House of Austria; and the refusal of the Archduke to deliver up the Prince and Princess of Cond6 happening at the same time, private revenge united with public policy in inducing him to receive the Protestant envoys most fa vourably for their wishes. He therefore renewed his an cient alliance with the United Provinces, and cultivated the friendship of England ; while the Protestant princes of Germany readily united with him in his•plan for humbling the House of Austria. Even the Duke of Savoy, induced by the expectation of acquiring the duchy of Milan, if it could be wrested from Austria, agreed to join the confede racy, and to give up Savoy to France ; and the Italian states, long worn out by continued warfare, and constantly exposed to irruptions from Germany, Spain, and France, associated in the design, in the hope of possessing undis turbed tranquillity and national independence for the future. But it is highly probable, that the design of Henry went much farther, than merely to humble the pride, and reduce the resources and strength of the House of Austria. This might have been the immediate and primary object, but there is good reason to believe that the plan of a Christian commonwealth, as it is exhibited in Sully's Memoirs, was seriously entertained by Henry.