A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times | Page 8

so far as to take service in his army against the League.

The Holy Inquisition commenced proceedings against them for heresy;
the government stopped the proceedings, and even, says Count Daru,
had the Inquisitor thrown into prison. The Venetian senate accredited to
the court of Henry IV. the same ambassador who had been at Henry
III.'s; and, on returning to Tours, on the 21st of November, 1589, the
king received him to an audience in state. A little later on he did more;
he sent the republic, as a pledge of his friendship, his sword--the sword,
he said in his letter, which he had used at the battle of Ivry. "The good
offices were mutual," adds M. de Daru; the Venetians lent Henry IV.
sums of money which the badness of the times rendered necessary to
him; but their ambassador had orders to throw into the fire, in the king's
presence, the securities for the loan."
As the government of Henry IV. went on growing in strength and
extent, two facts, both of them natural, though antagonistic, were being
accomplished in France and in Europe. The moderate Catholics were
beginning, not as yet to make approaches towards him, but to see a
glimmering possibility of treating with him and obtaining from him
such concessions as they considered necessary at the same time that
they in their turn made to him such as he might consider sufficient for
his party and himself. It has already been remarked with what sagacity
Pope Sixtus V. had divined the character of Henry IV., at the very
moment of condemning Henry III. for making an alliance with him.
When Henry IV. had become king, Sixtus V. pronounced strongly
against a heretic king, and maintained, in opposition to him, his alliance
with Philip II. and the League. "France," said he, "is a good and noble
kingdom, which has infinity of benefices and is specially dear to us;
and so we try to save her; but religion sits nearer than France to our
heart." He chose for his legate in France Cardinal Gaetani, whom he
knew to be agreeable to Philip II. and gave him instructions in harmony
with the Spanish policy. Having started for his post, Gaetani was a long
while on the road, halting at Lyons, amongst other places, as if he were
in no hurry to enter upon his duties. At the close of 1589, Henry IV.,
king for the last five months and already victorious at Arques,
appointed as his ambassador at Rome Francis de Luxembourg, Duke of
Pinei, to try and enter into official relations with the pope. On the 6th of
January, 1590, Sixtus V., at his reception of the cardinals, announced to

them this news. Badoero, ambassador of Venice at Rome, leaned
forward and whispered in his ear, "We must pray God to inspire the
King of Navarre. On the day when your Holiness embraces him, and
then only, the affairs of France will be adjusted. Humanly speaking,
there is no other way of bringing peace to that kingdom." The pope
confined himself to replying that God would do all for the best, and that,
for his own part, he would wait. On arriving at Rome, "the Duke of
Luxembourg repaired to the Vatican with two and twenty carriages
occupied by French gentlemen; but, at the palace, he found the door of
the pope's apartments closed, the sentries doubled, and the officers on
duty under orders to intimate to the French, the chief of the embassy
excepted, that they must lay aside their swords. At the door of the Holy
Father's closet, the duke and three gentlemen of his train were alone
allowed to enter. The indignation felt by the French was mingled with
apprehensions of an ambush. Luxembourg himself could not banish a
feeling of vague terror; great was his astonishment when, on his
introduction to the pontiff, the latter received him with demonstrations
of affection, asked him news of his journey, said he would have liked
to give him quarters in the palace, made him sit down,--a distinction
reserved for the ambassadors of kings, --and, lastly, listened patiently
to the French envoy's long recital. In fact, the receptions intra et, extra
muros bore very little resemblance one to the other, but the difference
between them corresponded pretty faithfully with the position of Sixtus
V., half engaged to the League by Gaetani's commission and to Philip
II. by the steps he had recently taken, and already regretting that he was
so far gone in the direction of Spain." [Sixtus V, by Baron Hiibner, late
ambassador of Austria at Paris and at Rome, t. ii. pp. 280-282.]
Unhappily Sixtus V. died on the 27th of August, 1590, before having
modified, to any real purpose, his bearing towards the King of France
and