A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times | Page 3

for the salvation of so many souls
who pray, without ceasing, for His aid, and for whose freedom He has
deigned to make use of my arm. You know that I am a Frenchman and
the foe of all duplicity. For the seventeen years that I have been King of
Navarre, I do not think that I have ever departed from my word. I beg
you to address your prayers to the Lord on my behalf, that He may
enlighten me in my views, direct my purposes, bless my endeavors.
And in case I commit any fault or fail in any one of my duties,--for I
acknowledge that I am a man like any other,--pray Him to give me
grace that I may correct it, and to assist me in all my goings."

[Illustration: Henry IV.----11]
On the 4th of August, 1589, an official manifesto of Henry IV.'s
confirmed the ideas and words of this address. On the same day, in the
camp at St. Cloud, the majority of the princes, dukes, lords, and
gentlemen present in the camp expressed their full adhesion to the
accession and the manifesto of the king, promising him "service and
obedience against rebels and enemies who would usurp the kingdom."
Two notable leaders, the Duke of Epernon amongst the Catholics, and
the Duke of La Tremoille amongst the Protestants, refused to join in
this adhesion; the former saying that his conscience would not permit
him to serve a heretic king, the latter alleging that his conscience
forbade him to serve a prince who engaged to protect Catholic idolatry.
They withdrew, D'Epernon into Angoumois and Saintonge, taking with
him six thousand foot and twelve thousand horse; and La Tremoille
into Poitou, with nine battalions of Reformers. They had an idea of
attempting, both of them, to set up for themselves independent
principalities. Three contemporaries, Sully, La Force, and the bastard of
Angouleme, bear witness that Henry IV. was deserted by as many
Huguenots as Catholics. The French royal army was reduced, it is said,
to one half. As a make-weight, Saucy prevailed upon the Swiss, to the
number of twelve thousand, and two thousand German auxiliaries, not
only to continue in the service of the new king, but to wait six months
for their pay, as he was at the moment unable to pay them. From the
14th to the 20th of August, in Ile-de-France, in Picardy, in Normandy,
in Auvergne, in Champagne, in Burgundy, in Anjou, in Poitou, in
Languedoc, in Orleanness, and in Touraine, a great number of towns
and districts joined in the determination of the royal army. The last
instance of such adherence had a special importance. At the time of
Henry III.'s rupture with the League, the Parliament of Paris had been
split in two; the royalists had followed the king to Tours, the partisans
of the League had remained at Paris. After the accession of Henry IV.,
the Parliament of Tours, with the president, Achille de Harlay, as its
head, increased from day to day, and soon reached two hundred
members, whilst the Parliament of Paris, or Brisson Parliament, as it
was called from its leader's name, had only sixty-eight left. Brisson, on
undertaking the post, actually thought it right to take the precaution of

protesting privately, making a declaration in the presence of notaries
"that he so acted by constraint only, and that he shrank from any
rebellion against his king and sovereign lord." It was, indeed, on the
ground of the heredity of the monarchy and by virtue of his own proper
rights that Henry IV. had ascended the throne; and M. Poirson says
quite correctly, in his learned Histoire du Regne d'Henri IV. [t. i. p. 29,
second edition, 1862], "The manifesto of Henry IV., as its very name
indicates, was not a contract settled between the noblesse in camp at St.
Cloud and the claimant; it was a solemn and reciprocal
acknowledgment by the noblesse of Henry's rights to the crown, and by
Henry of the nation's political, civil, and religious rights. The
engagements entered into by Henry were only what were necessary to
complete the guarantees given for the security of the rights of Catholics.
As touching the succession to the throne, the signataries themselves say
that all they do is to maintain and continue the law of the land."
There was, in 1589, an unlawful pretender to the throne of France; and
that was Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, younger brother of Anthony de
Bourbon, King of Navarre, and consequently uncle of Henry IV., sole
representative of the elder branch. Under Henry III., the cardinal had
thrown in his lot with the League; and, after the murder of Guise,
Henry III. had, by way of precaution, ordered him to be arrested and
detained him in confinement