40. Henry IV.
CHAPTER XL. Henry IV. (1589-1610)
When Henry III. was dying, he sent for the King of Navarre, and in his last hour called upon all his subjects who were with him to take an oath to Henry, declaring that he should be their next king. They all took the oath, but as soon as the king was dead, it became clear that many of them had ho thoughts of keeping their promise. When Henry went into the room where the dead body of the king was lying, he found the courtiers and servants of Henry III. all standing together in groups, with their fists clenched, and talking to each other in low voices, their sentences often ending with, "Sooner die a thousand deaths." This was not encouraging for him, and what happened afterwards had all the same meaning.
In Paris, the people were filled with joy on hearing of the death of the king; nothing was heard in the streets but songs and laughter, fireworks were let off, and the citizens made feasts for each other in the streets. Clement, the murderer, was spoken of as a saint; pictures and busts of him were put up in the houses of many of the Parisians, and even in the churches and on altars. The people who showed so much delight were all friends of the Guises, who felt that now the death of the great duke was revenged, Henry III. being no longer king, the next thing that the Guises were anxious about was to prevent Henry of Navarre from succeeding him. The head of the family was now a brother of Henry of Guise, called the Duke of Mayenne; Guise had left a son who was still a child, so young as to be of no importance to his party.
Mayenne had some hopes that one of his family might be chosen as king by the Roman Catholics, instead of the heretic Henry, and there were many other people who hoped the same thing for themselves or their friends. The King of Spain, for one, said he had a right to the crown because he had married the sister of the three last kings; and a duke, who had married another sister of the same kings, also claimed the crown, but was said to have less right to it than Philip, because his wife was the younger sister of Philip's wife. The Guises chose out one of their relations who was old and weak, and would do nothing but what pleased them, and called him King Charles X. The King of Spain thought it best for the present to join with the Guises and help them as much as possible, so as to defeat completely the King of Navarre, after which he hoped to be able to arrange everything with the Roman Catholics in his own way. Therefore he sent men and money to the Duke of Mayenne.
From this time, the people who were friends both of the Leaguers and of Philip of Spain were said to belong to the Union, because the two parties were joined or united together. Many Frenchmen, who cared for their country more than for either the old or the new religion, took the side of Henry, because his enemies were the friends of the Spaniards, and they did not like to think of Philip even proposing to be King of France. Some of the Roman Catholic nobles, really wishing to make friends with Henry, sent to ask him again to become a Roman Catholic, or, if he would not do so at once, to allow himself to be taught by some of the Roman Catholic nobles, and see whether he would not come to agree with them as to which was the right religion. Henry replied that they could not expect him to change so suddenly, but that he would at some future time hold a council on the subject, and consider what it was best to do; and that he would always treat the Roman Catholics well.
Some years later Henry made up his mind to change his religion and become a Roman Catholic, as so many of his subjects wished. He was too proud to do it as soon as his subjects chose to ask it of him, but he saw by degrees, as the civil war went on for year after year, that he should never come to be king, and there would never be peace in France, by any other means. There were plenty of reasons to be given for his change. The war was the worst thing there could be for France; no one could live happily or prosperously in the country while it lasted; the poor people were suffering a great deal, and Henry, while he was taken up with fighting, was not able to do anything for the help of any of his subjects, and, while he had no power over the Roman Catholics, was not able to help the Protestants.
But what is wrong can never be made right, however much good may come from it; and it is wrong for a man to say he believes what he does not believe, and to pretend to think good what he really thinks bad. Nothing can ever make such conduct right, and many of the greatest and best men who have lived have died and suffered pain and trouble of every sort (sooner) than make a change such as Henry made. But it is by no means certain what Henry did really believe, and whether it were much more untrue for him to call himself a Roman Catholic than to call himself a Protestant. He would have been a greater and no doubt a better man than he was, if he had thought more about serious matters, made up his mind what he believed, and told the truth about it honestly and openly; but as it was, I do not think that what he did was really so bad as it at first seems to be.
It should be said that several of his Protestant friends and ministers advised him to turn Roman Catholic for his good and the good of the country.
In Henry IV. good and bad qualities were joined together as they are in every other man, but there was far more good in him than there had been for many reigns in the French kings. He had been brought up in a way most unlike that in which young princes are usually treated. He ran about with the village boys bareheaded and barefooted, always out of doors, both in summer and winter; when he grew strong enough he used sometimes to work in the fields as if he had been one of them, and to feed on the coarse bread which they ate. He learned to be bold, active, and vigorous, and grew up strong and healthy. All this was of great use to him when his wars began, and he and his army had to go through many hardships and difficulties. Henry was lively, gay, and very kind and friendly to his soldiers and servants, talking to them, finding out what they wanted, and whether there were anything he could do for them. Every one who met him was delighted by his manners, rich and poor alike.
His first idea, when he found he must resist the Union by war, was to make himself master of Paris; but this he found he was not strong enough to do. The Duke of Mayenne had called together an army of his friends, who were meeting in the capital, and Henry, who had been encamped with his soldiers outside the walls, was obliged to give up all hopes for the present of winning Paris, and led his men into the north of France, hoping that Mayenne would follow him there. He was disappointed, however, when Mayenne arrived with a much larger army than Henry had expected. A great battle was fought between them at a place named Arques, where Henry and his chief general had themselves worked as engineers, blocking up roads by which they could be attacked, and putting up defences on all sides. Their men, seeing them at work themselves, had helped them eagerly.
At the beginning of the battle both armies were partly successful, but at last Henry's soldiers began to give way. Henry in despair cried out — "Are there not fifty gentlemen to be found in France ready to die with their king ?" He then turned to the Protestant minister of the camp, and bade him sing the psalm. The psalm was one which was always sung by the Huguenots in battle, and which had been heard when they won some of their most famous victories. When the Huguenots heard this, and all the soldiers saw Henry at their head, all their usual courage came back, and as Mayenne sent no help to his troops.
Henry soon saw his enemies driven backwards, and at last quite out of the camp. Mayenne was not strong enough to attack him again.
The fighting went on at times all through the end of that year and the beginning of the next. The next year was fought the battle which, of all those gained by Henry, is the one of which people thought and talked most, and where he won the most glory for himself. It was at Ivry, which is, like Arques, in the north part of France. The king, as usual, had many fewer men than his enemies; still he was on this day as cheerful and gay as was usual with him in times of danger, and he went about among the men talking to them, and saying all he could to raise their spirits and give them hope for the battle. There is a story told of him this day, which, shows some of the good qualities for which he was so much beloved by his subjects.
He had with him a German officer, named Schomberg, commanding a body of cavalry. A few days before, this officer had asked the king for money for the troops, and Henry, who had but little money to spare, and was vexed at being asked for more, hastily answered that no man of honour ever asked for money on the eve of a battle. On the day of the battle Henry remembered this speech, which he knew to have been unjust, as well as unkind, and going to Schomberg's tent, he said to him, "M. de Schomberg, I offended you the other day; this may be the last day of my life, and I do not wish to carry away with me the honour of a gentleman. I know your courage and your merit. Forgive me, and embrace me." The colonel answered, "Sire, it is true that your majesty wounded me the other day, and now you kill me, for the honour you do me obliges me to die in your service." A king who knew when he had been wrong, still more, who would own it, was something to which the French in those days had long been unused.
Just before the fight began the king made a short speech to his men. He told them, if their flags should be lost in the battle, to follow the white plume of peacock's feathers in his helmet. His horse was adorned in the same way, that they might be easily seen and known by both friends and enemies. The battle was fierce and short. It ended in the victory of King Henry, who escaped unhurt, though he had plunged so far into the thickest of the fight that, for about a quarter of an hour, no one knew (if) he were alive or dead. Henry received kindly all the French who submitted to him. "Give quarter to the French," he said to his men; "save the French nobles, and down with the foreigners." Soon after this battle Henry marched to Paris. His great wish was to make himself master of the capital, but he soon found that he was still much too weak to have any chance against so strong a city. The people of Paris, who had always been friendly to the Guises, were now (such) bitter enemies to Henry IV., that some of them would (sooner) have given themselves up to Spain than submit to him, and would rather have had Philip II., one of the most cruel and hard-hearted men that ever lived, to reign over them, than the heretic king. Philip seriously hoped at one time to make himself King of France, for now the king whom the Guises had made for themselves, and called Charles X., was dead.
Henry besieged the city closely, and soon the people began to suffer terribly from hunger. When they had finished all the food they had stored up in the town, they began to eat cats, dogs, asses, rats, and at last almost anything that could be swallowed, even little balls of clay and slate mixed up with water. It is said that the only thing to be had cheap in Paris was sermons, for the clergy of the League preached constantly, probably about the virtues of the Guises and all the Roman Catholics, and the sins of Henry. The Spanish Ambassador, who was in Paris, gave away food and money, and did all he could to prevent the people from yielding themselves up to Henry. Once when a crowd of people gathered together outside his palace, and he threw them out some coins, they all cried with one voice, "No more money; give us bread !" After this he had great cauldrons set up at the corners of the streets, and gave away horse and donkey flesh, and broth made of oats and bran.
But even such food as this was used up at last. Six thousand of the old and weak people of Paris were driven out of the town, and Henry allowed them to pass through his army and escape in safety. The Duke of Mayenne, to whom letter after letter was sent from Paris, made many promises of help, and at last the King of Spain sent orders to his general in the Netherlands to go with a large army to the help of the Leaguers. This he did just as the Parisians were coming to the end of the very last food they could by any means provide. He marched up with a large army (outside the army) of Henry, who, knowing that he could not hope to resist successfully, broke up his camp; and one morning the people of Paris found their enemies gone, their city saved, and countless strings of waggons bringing in provisions by every road It is said that a hundred thousand people died of hunger in this siege.
For another year Henry lived in the same kind of way, marching about in the north part of France, taking here and there a town, or losing one; and making himself more and more beloved by the people of the country, and by all his friends, for his courage, kindness, and generosity. Meanwhile his enemies quarrelled among themselves; they did not know whom to set up for their king, now that the man they had called Charles X. was dead.
Their quarrelling made people more and more inclined to wish for Henry to be their king, and it seemed as if, were he only a Roman Catholic, the greater number of the French people would be on his side. He asked advice of many of his chief friends, in particular of one who was a Protestant, the Duke of Sully, of whom I shall speak in the next chapter. They advised him to make the change, thinking that he would never be king at all until he did so. He made up his mind at last; had the Roman Catholic religion fully explained to him by one of his archbishops, wrote a declaration that he believed in the Roman Catholic faith, and the next Sunday heard mass, and was solemnly received into the church by one of his archbishops. The next year he was crowned at Chartres, and from that time was treated by both friends and enemies as the rightful King of France.
