Henry VIII. of England, inflamed by the report of the exceeding beauty of Mary, daughter of the Duke of Guise, had solicited her hand; but Claude was unwilling to surrender his daughter to England's burly and brutal old tyrant, and declined the regal alliance. The exasperated monarch, in revenge, declared war against France. Years of violence and blood lingered away. At last Claude, aged and infirm, surrendered to that king of terrors before whom all must bow. In his strong castle of Joinville, on the twelfth of April, 1550, the illustrious, magnanimous, blood-stained duke, after a whole lifetime spent in slaughter, breathed his last. His children and his grandchildren were gathered around the bed of the dying chieftain. In the darkness of that age, he felt that he had been contending, with divine approval, for Christ and his Church. With prayers and thanksgivings, and language expressive of meekness and humility before God, he ascended to that tribunal of final judgment where there is no difference between the peasant and the prince.

The chivalrous and warlike Francis inherited his father's titles, wealth, and power; and now the house of Guise was so influential that the king trembled in view of its rivalry. It was but the kingly office alone which rendered the house of Valois superior to the house of Guise. In illustration of the character of those times, and the hardihood and sufferings through which the renown of these chieftains was obtained, the following anecdote may be narrated.

Francis, Duke of Guise, in one of the skirmishes with the English invaders, received a wound which is described as the most severe from which any one ever recovered. The lance of an English officer "entered above the right eye, declining toward the nose, and piercing through on the other side, between the nape and the ear." The weapon, having thus penetrated the head more than half a foot, was broken off by the violence of the blow, the lance-iron and two fingers' breadth of the staff remaining in the dreadful wound. The surgeons of the army, stupefied by the magnitude of the injury, declined to attempt the extraction of the splinter, saying that it would only expose him to dreadful and unavailing suffering, as he must inevitably die. The king immediately sent his surgeon, with orders to spare no possible efforts to save the life of the hero. The lance-head was broken off so short that it was impossible to grasp it with the hand. The surgeon took the heavy pincers of a blacksmith, and asked the sufferer if he would allow him to make use of so rude an instrument, and would also permit him to place his foot upon his face.

"You may do any thing you consider necessary," said the duke.

The officers standing around looked on with horror as the king's surgeon, aided by an experienced practitioner, tore out thus violently the barbed iron, fracturing the bones, and tearing nerves, veins, and arteries. The hardy soldier bore the anguish without the contraction of a muscle, and was only heard gently to exclaim to himself, "Oh my God!" The sufferer recovered, and ever after regarded the frightful scar which was left as a signal badge of honor. He hence bore the common name of Le Balafré, or The Scarred.

As the duke returned to court, the king hurried forth from his chamber to meet him, embraced him warmly, and said,

"It is fair that I should come out to meet my old friend, who, on his part, is ever so ready to meet my enemies."

Gradually, however, Francis, the king, became very jealous of the boundless popularity and enormous power acquired by this ambitious house. Upon his dying bed he warned his son of the dangerous rivalry to which the Guises had attained, and enjoined it upon him to curb their ambition by admitting none of the princes of that house to a share in the government; but as soon as King Francis was consigned to his tomb, Henry II., his son and successor, rallied the members of this family around him, and made the duke almost the partner of his throne. He needed the support of the strong arm and of the inexhaustible purse of the princes of Lorraine.

The arrogance of the Guises, or the princes of Lorraine, as they were frequently called, in consequence of their descent from Claude of Lorraine, reached such a pitch that on the occasion of a proud pageant, when Henry II. was on a visit of inspection to one of his frontier fortresses, the Duke of Guise claimed equal rank with Henry of Navarre, who was not only King of Navarre, but, as the Duke of Vendôme, was also first prince of the blood in France. An angry dispute immediately arose. The king settled it in favor of the audacious Guise, for he was intimidated by the power of that arrogant house. He thus exasperated Henry of Navarre, and also nurtured the pride of a dangerous rival.

All classes were now courting the Duke of Guise. The first nobles of the land sought his protection and support by flattering letters and costly presents. "From all quarters," says an ancient manuscript, "he received offerings of wine, fruit, confections, ortolans, horses, dogs, hawks, and gerfalcons. The letters accompanying these often contained a second paragraph petitioning for pensions or grants from the king, or for places, even down to that of apothecary or of barber to the Dauphin." The monarchs of foreign countries often wrote to him soliciting his aid. The duke, in the enjoyment of this immense wealth, influence, and power, assumed the splendors of royalty, and his court was hardly inferior to that of the monarch. The King of Poland and the Duke of Guise were rivals for the hand of Anne, the beautiful daughter of the Duke of Ferrara, and Guise was the successful suitor.

Francis of Lorraine was now appointed lieutenant general of the French armies, and the king addressed to all the provincial authorities special injunction to render as prompt and absolute obedience to the orders of the Duke of Guise as if they emanated from himself. "And truly," says one of the writers of those times, "never had monarch in France been obeyed more punctually or with greater zeal." In fact, Guise was now the head of the government, and all the great interests of the nation were ordered by his mind. Henry was a feeble prince, with neither vigor of body nor energy of intellect to resist the encroachments of so imperial a spirit. He gave many indications of uneasiness in view of his own thralldom, but he was entirely unable to dispense with the aid of his sagacious ally.

It will be remembered that one of the daughters of Claude, and a sister of Francis, the second duke of Guise, married the King of Scotland. Her daughter, the niece of Francis, was the celebrated Mary, Queen of Scots. She had been sent to France for her education, and she was married, when very young, to her cousin Francis, son of Henry II. and of the infamous Catharine de Medici. He was heir of the French throne. This wedding was celebrated with the utmost magnificence, and the Guises moved on the occasion through the palaces of royalty with the pride of monarchs. Henry II. was accidentally killed in a tournament; and Francis, his son, under the title of Francis II., with his young and beautiful bride, the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, ascended the throne. Francis was a feeble-minded, consumptive youth of 16, whose thoughts were all centred in his lovely wife. Mary, who was but fifteen years of age, was fascinating in the extreme, and entirely devoted to pleasure. She gladly transferred all the power of the realm to her uncles, the Guises.

About this time the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants began to grow more violent. The Catholics drew the sword for the extirpation of heresy; the Protestants grasped their arms to defend themselves. The Guises consecrated all their energies to the support of the Papal Church and to the suppression of the Reformation. The feeble boy, Francis II., sat languidly upon his throne but seventeen months, when he died, on the 5th of December, 1560, and his brother, Charles IX., equally enervated in mind and with far less moral worth, succeeded to the crown. The death of Francis II. was a heavy blow to the Guises. The Admiral Coligni, one of the most illustrious of the Protestants, and the bosom friend of Henry of Navarre, was standing, with many other nobles, at the bedside of the monarch as he breathed his last.

"Gentlemen," said the admiral, with that gravity which was in accordance with his character and his religious principles, "the king is dead. It is a lesson to teach us all how to live."

The Protestants could not but rejoice that the Guises had thus lost the peculiar influence which they had secured from their near relationship to the queen. Admiral Coligni retired from the death-bed of the monarch to his own mansion, and, sitting down by the fire, became lost in the most profound reverie. He did not observe that his boots were burning until one of his friends called his attention to the fact.

"Ah!" he replied, "not a week ago, you and I would each have given a leg to have things take this turn, and now we get off with a pair of boots."

Antoinette, the widow of Claude of Lorraine, and the mother of Francis, the then Duke of Guise, was still living. She was so rancorous in her hostility to the Protestants that she was designated by them "Mother of the tyrants and enemies of the Gospel." Greatly to her annoyance, a large number of Protestants conducted their worship in the little town of Vassy, just on the frontier of the domains of the Duke of Guise. She was incessantly imploring her son to drive off these obnoxious neighbors. The duke was at one time journeying with his wife. Their route lay through the town of Vassy. His suite consisted of two hundred and sixty men at arms, all showing the warlike temper of their chief, and even far surpassing him in bigoted hatred of the Protestants.

On arriving at Vassy, the duke entered the church to hear high mass. It is said that while engaged in this act of devotion his ears were annoyed by the psalms of the Protestants, who were assembled in the vicinity. He sent an imperious message for the minister and the leading members of the congregation immediately to appear before him. The young men fulfilled their mission in a manner so taunting and insulting that a quarrel ensued, shots were exchanged, and immediately all the vassals of the duke, who were ripe for a fray, commenced an indiscriminate massacre. The Protestants valiantly but unavailingly defended themselves with sticks and stones; but the bullets of their enemies reached them everywhere, in the houses, on the roofs, in the streets. For an hour the carnage continued unchecked, and sixty men and women were killed and two hundred wounded. One only of the men of the duke was killed. Francis was ashamed of this slaughter of the defenseless, and declared that it was a sudden outbreak, for which he was not responsible, and which he had done every thing in his power to check; but ever after this he was called by the Protestants "The Butcher of Vassy."

When the news of this massacre reached Paris, Theodore de Beza was deputed by the Protestants to demand of Catharine, their regent, severe justice on the Duke of Guise; but Catharine feared the princes of Lorraine, and said to Beza,

"Whoever touches so much as the finger-tip of the Duke of Guise, touches me in the middle of my heart."

Beza meekly but courageously replied, "It assuredly behooves that Church of God, in whose name I speak, to endure blows and not to strike them; but may it please your majesty also to remember that it is an anvil which has worn out many hammers."

At the siege of Rouen the Duke of Guise was informed that an assassin had been arrested who had entered the camp with the intention of taking his life. He ordered the man to be brought before him, and calmly inquired,

"Have you not come hither to kill me?"

The intrepid but misguided young man openly avowed his intention.

"And what motive," inquired the duke, "impelled you to such a deed? Have I done you any wrong?"

"No," he replied; "but in removing you from the world I should promote the best interests of the Protestant religion, which I profess."

"My religion, then," generously replied the duke, "is better than yours, for it commands me to pardon, of my own accord, you who are convicted of guilt." And, by his orders, the assassin was safely conducted out of camp.

"A fine example," exclaims his historian, "of truly religious sentiments and magnanimous proselytism very natural to the Duke of Guise, the most moderate and humane of the chiefs of the Catholic army, and whose brilliant generosity had been but temporarily obscured by the occurrence at Vassy."

The war between the Catholics and Protestants was now raging with implacable fury, and Guise, victorious in many battles, had acquired from the Catholic party the name of "Savior of his Country." The duke was now upon the very loftiest summits of power which a subject can attain. In great exaltation of spirits, he one morning left the army over which he was commander-in-chief to visit the duchess, who had come to meet him at the neighboring castle of Corney. The duke very imprudently took with him merely one general officer and a page. It was a beautiful morning in February. As he crossed, in a boat, the mirrored surface of the Loiret, the vegetation of returning spring and the songs of the rejoicing birds strikingly contrasted with the blood, desolation, and misery with which the hateful spirit of war was desolating France. The duke was silent, apparently lost in painful reveries. His companions disturbed not his thoughts. Having crossed the stream, he was slowly walking his horse, with the reins hanging listlessly upon his mane, when a pistol was discharged at him from behind a hedge, at a distance of but six or seven paces. Two bullets pierced his side. On feeling himself wounded, he calmly said,

"They have long had this shot in reserve for me. I deserve it for my want of precaution."

He immediately fell upon his horse's neck, and was caught in the arms of his friends. They conveyed him to the castle, where the duchess received him with cries of anguish. He embraced her tenderly, minutely described the circumstances of his assassination, and expressed himself grieved in view of the stain which such a crime would inflict upon the honor of France. He exhorted his wife to bow in submission to the will of Heaven, and kissing his son Henry, the Duke of Joinville, who was weeping by his side, gently said to him,

"God grant thee grace, my son, to be a good man."

Thus died Francis, the second Duke of Guise, on the twenty-fourth of February, 1563. His murderer was a young Protestant noble, Jean Poltrot, twenty-four years of age. Poltrot, from being an ardent Catholic, had embraced the Protestant faith. This exposed him to persecution, and he was driven from France with the loss of his estates. He was compelled to support himself by manual labor. Soured in disposition, exasperated and half maddened, he insanely felt that he would be doing God service by the assassination of the Butcher of Vassy, the most formidable foe of the Protestant religion. It was a day of general darkness, and of the confusion of all correct ideas of morals.

Henry, the eldest son of the Duke of Guise, a lad of but thirteen years of age, now inherited the titles and the renown which his bold ancestors had accumulated. This was the Duke of Guise who was the bandit chieftain in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

One day Henry II. was holding his little daughter Marguerite, who afterward became the wife of Henry of Navarre, in his lap, when Henry of Guise, then Prince of Joinville, and the Marquis of Beaupreau, were playing together upon the floor, the one being but seven years of age, and the other but nine.

"Which of the two do you like the best?" inquired the king of his child.

"I prefer the marquis," she promptly replied.

"Yes; but the Prince of Joinville is the handsomest," the king rejoined.

"Oh," retorted Marguerite, "he is always in mischief, and he will be master every where."

Francis, the Duke of Guise, had fully apprehended the ambitious, impetuous, and reckless character of his son. He is said to have predicted that Henry, intoxicated by popularity, would perish in the attempt to seat himself upon the throne of France.

"Henry," says a writer of those times, "surpassed all the princes of his house in certain natural gifts, in certain talents, which procured him the respect of the court, the affection of the people, but which, nevertheless, were tarnished by a singular alloy of great faults and unlimited ambition."

"France was mad about that man," writes another, "for it is too little to say that she was in love with him. Her passion approached idolatry. There were persons who invoked him in their prayers. His portrait was every where. Some ran after him in the streets to touch his mantle with their rosaries. One day that he entered Paris on his return from a journey, the multitude not only cried 'Vive Guise!' but many sang, on his passage, 'Hosanna to the son of David!'"

3. The House of Bourbon. The origin of this family fades away in the remoteness of antiquity. Some bold chieftain, far remote in barbarian ages, emerged from obscurity and laid the foundations of the illustrious house. Generation after generation passed away, as the son succeeded the father in baronial pomp, and pride, and power, till the light of history, with its steadily-increasing brilliancy, illumined Europe. The family had often been connected in marriage both with the house of Guise and the royal line, the house of Valois. Antony of Bourbon, a sturdy soldier, united the houses of Bourbon and Navarre by marrying Jeanne d'Albret, the only child of the King of Navarre. Henry came from the union, an only son; and he, by marrying Marguerite, the daughter of the King of France, united the houses of Bourbon, Navarre, and Valois, and became heir to the throne of France should the sons of Henry II. die without issue.

This episode in reference to the condition of France at the time of which we write seems necessary to enable the reader fully to understand the succeeding chapters.

Chapter VII.

Immediately after this event, Henry, the brother of Charles IX., was elected King of Poland, an honor which he attained in consequence of the military prowess he had displayed in the wars against the Protestants of France. Accompanied by his mother, Catharine de Medici, the young monarch set out for his distant dominions. Henry had been a very active agent in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. At Lorraine Catharine took leave of him, and he went on his way in a very melancholy mood. His election had been secured by the greatest efforts of intrigue and bribery on the part of his mother. The melancholy countenances of the Protestants, driven into exile, and bewailing the murder of friends and relatives, whose assassination he had caused, met him at every turn. His reception at the German courts was cold and repulsive. In the palace of the Elector Palatine, Henry beheld the portrait of Coligni, who had been so treacherously slaughtered in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The portrait was suspended in a very conspicuous place of honor, and beneath it were inscribed the words,

"Such was the former countenance of the hero
Coligni, who has been rendered truly illustrious
both by his life and his death."

The Protestant Elector pointed out the picture to the young king, whom he both hated and despised, and coolly asked him if he knew the man. Henry, not a little embarrassed, replied that he did.

"He was," rejoined the German prince, "the most honest man, and the wisest and the greatest captain of Europe, whose children I keep with me, lest the dogs of France should tear them as their father has been torn."

Thus Henry, gloomy through the repulses which he was ever encountering, journeyed along to Poland, where he was crowned king, notwithstanding energetic remonstrances on the part of those who execrated him for his deeds. The two brothers, Charles IX. and Henry, were bitter enemies, and Charles had declared, with many oaths, that one of the two should leave the realm. Henry was the favorite of Catharine, and hence she made such efforts to secure his safety by placing him upon the throne of Poland. She was aware that the feeble Charles would not live long, and when, with tears, she took leave of Henry, she assured him that he would soon return.

The outcry of indignation which the Massacre of St. Bartholomew called forth from combined Europe fell like the knell of death on the ear of the depraved and cowardly Charles. Disease began to ravage, with new violence, his exhausted frame. He became silent, morose, irritable, and gloomy. He secluded himself from all society, and surrendered himself to the dominion of remorse. He was detested by the Protestants, and utterly despised by the Catholics. A bloody sweat, oozing from every pore, crimsoned his bed-clothes. His occasional outcries of remorse and his aspect of misery drove all from his chamber excepting those who were compelled to render him service. He groaned and wept incessantly, exclaiming,

"Oh, what blood! oh, what murders! Alas! why did I follow such evil counsels?"

He saw continually the spectres of the slain, with ghastly, gory wounds, stalking about his bed; and demons of hideous aspect, and with weapons of torture in their hands, with horrid and derisive malice, were impatiently waiting to seize his soul the moment it should pass from the decaying body.

The day before his death he lay for some time upon his bed in perfect silence. Suddenly starting up, he exclaimed,

"Call my brother."

His mother, who was sitting by his side, directed an attendant to call his brother Francis, the Duke of Alençon.

"No, not him," the king replied; "my brother, the King of Navarre, I mean."

Henry of Navarre was then detained in princely imprisonment in the court of Catharine. He had made many efforts to escape, but all had been unavailing.

Catharine directed that Henry should be called. In order to intimidate him, and thus to prevent him from speaking with freedom and boldness to her dying son, she ordered him to be brought through the vaults of the castle, between a double line of armed guards. Henry, as he descended into those gloomy dungeons, and saw the glittering arms of the soldiers, felt that the hour for his assassination had arrived. He, however, passed safely through, and was ushered into the chamber of his brother-in-law and former playfellow, the dying king. Charles IX., subdued by remorse and appalled by approaching death, received him with gentleness and affection, and weeping profusely, embraced him as he knelt by his bedside.

"My brother," said the dying king, "you lose a good master and a good friend. I know that you are not the cause of the troubles which have come upon me. If I had believed all which has been told me, you would not now have been living; but I have always loved you." Then turning his eyes to the queen mother, he said energetically, "Do not trust to—" Here Catharine hastily interrupted him, and prevented the finishing of the sentence with the words "my mother."

Charles designated his brother Henry, the King of Poland, as his successor. He expressed the earnest wish that neither his younger brother, Francis, the Duke of Alençon, nor Henry, would disturb the repose of the realm. The next night, as the Cathedral clock was tolling the hour of twelve, the nurse, who was sitting, with two watchers, at the bedside of the dying monarch, heard him sighing and moaning, and then convulsively weeping. Gently she approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. Charles turned his dimmed and despairing eye upon her, and exclaimed,

"Oh, my nurse! my nurse! what blood have I shed! what murders have I committed! Great God! pardon me—pardon me!"

A convulsive shuddering for a moment agitated his frame, his head fell back upon his pillow, and the wretched man was dead. He died at twenty-four years of age, expressing satisfaction that he left no heir to live and to suffer in a world so full of misery. In reference to this guilty king, Chateaubriand says,

"Should we not have some pity for this monarch of twenty-three years, born with fine talents, a taste for literature and the arts, a character naturally generous, whom an execrable mother had tried to deprave by all the abuses of debauchery and power?"

"Yes," warmly responds G. de Felice, "we will have compassion for him, with the Huguenots themselves, whose fathers he ordered to be slain, and who, with a merciful hand, would wipe away the blood which covers his face to find still something human."

Henry, his brother, who was to succeed him upon the throne, was then in Poland. Catharine was glad to have the pusillanimous Charles out of the way. He was sufficiently depraved to commit any crime, without being sufficiently resolute to brave its penalty. Henry III. had, in early life, displayed great vigor of character. At the age of fifteen he had been placed in the command of armies, and in several combats had defeated the veteran generals of the Protestant forces. His renown had extended through Europe, and had contributed much in placing him on the elective throne of Poland. Catharine, by the will of the king, was appointed regent until the return of Henry. She immediately dispatched messengers to recall the King of Poland. In the mean time, she kept Henry of Navarre and her youngest son, the Duke of Alençon, in close captivity, and watched them with the greatest vigilance, that they might make no movements toward the throne.

Henry was by this time utterly weary of his Polish crown, and sighed for the voluptuous pleasures of Paris. The Poles were not willing that their king should leave the realm, as it might lead to civil war in the choice of a successor. Henry was compelled to resort to stratagem to effect his escape. A large and splendid party was invited to the palace. A wilderness of rooms, brilliantly illuminated, were thrown open to the guests. Masked dancers walked the floor in every variety of costume. Wine and wassail filled the halls with revelry. When all were absorbed in music and mirth, the king, by a private passage, stole from the palace, and mounting a swift horse, which was awaiting him in the court-yard, accompanied by two or three friends, commenced his flight from his crown and his Polish throne. Through the long hours of the night they pressed their horses to their utmost speed, and when the morning dawned, obtaining fresh steeds, they hurried on their way, tarrying not for refreshment or repose until they had passed the frontiers of the kingdom. Henry was afraid to take the direct route through the Protestant states of Germany, for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was still bitterly remembered. He therefore took a circuitous route through Italy, and arrived at Venice in August. In sunny Italy he lingered for some time, surrendering himself to every enervating indulgence, and even bartering the fortresses of France to purchase the luxuries in the midst of which he was reveling. At last, sated with guilty pleasure, he languidly turned his steps toward Paris.

There were now three Henrys, who had been companions in childhood, who were at the head of the three rival houses of Valois, of Bourbon, and of Guise. One of these was King of France. One was King of Navarre. But Henry of Guise was, in wealth and in the attachment of the Catholic population of France, superior to either. The war which ensued is sometimes called The War of the three Henrys.

As soon as his mother learned that he was approaching France, she set out from Paris with a magnificent retinue to meet her pet child, taking with her his brother, the Duke of Alençon, and Henry of Navarre. Dissipation had impaired the mental as well as the physical energies of the king, and a maudlin good-nature had absorbed all his faculties. He greeted his brother and his brother-in-law with much kindness, and upon receiving their oaths of obedience, withdrew much of the restraint to which they previously had been subjected. Henry was now known as Henry III. of France. Soon after his coronation he married Louisa of Lorraine, a daughter of one of the sons of the Duke of Guise. She was a pure-minded and lovely woman, and her mild and gentle virtues contrasted strongly with the vulgarity, coarseness, and vice of her degraded husband.

The Duke of Alençon was, however, by no means appeased by the kindness with which he had been received by his brother the king. He called him the robber of his crown, and formed a conspiracy for attacking the carriage of his brother and putting him to death. The plot was revealed to the king. He called his brother to his presence, reproached him with his perfidy and ingratitude, but generously forgave him. But the heart of Alençon was impervious to any appeals of generosity or of honor. Upon the death of Henry III., the Duke of Alençon, his only surviving brother, would ascend the throne.

The Duke of Guise hated with implacable rancor the Duke of Alençon, and even proffered his aid to place Henry of Navarre upon the throne in the event of the death of the king, that he might thus exclude his detested rival. Francis, the Duke of Alençon, was impatient to reach the crown, and again formed a plot to poison his brother. The king was suddenly taken very ill. He declared his brother had poisoned him. As each succeeding day his illness grew more severe, and the probabilities became stronger of its fatal termination, Francis assumed an air of haughtiness and of authority, as if confident that the crown was already his own. The open exultation which he manifested in view of the apparently dying condition of his brother Henry confirmed all in the suspicion that he had caused poison to be administered.

Henry III., believing his death inevitable, called Henry of Navarre to his bedside, and heaping the bitterest invectives upon his brother Francis, urged Henry of Navarre to procure his assassination, and thus secure for himself the vacant throne. Henry of Navarre was the next heir to the throne after the Duke of Alençon, and the dying king most earnestly urged Henry to put the duke to death, showing him the ease with which it could be done, and assuring him that he would be abundantly supported by all the leading nobles of the kingdom. While this scene was taking place at the sick-bed of the monarch, Francis passed through the chamber of his brother without deigning to notice either him or the King of Navarre. Strongly as Henry of Navarre was desirous of securing for himself the throne of France, he was utterly incapable of meditating even upon such a crime, and he refused to give it a second thought.

To the surprise of all, the king recovered, and Francis made no efforts to conceal his disappointment. There were thousands of armed insurgents ready at any moment to rally around the banner of the Duke of Alençon, for they would thus be brought into positions of emolument and power. The king, who was ready himself to act the assassin, treated his assassin-brother with the most profound contempt. No description can convey an adequate idea of the state of France at this time. Universal anarchy prevailed. Civil war, exasperated by the utmost rancor, was raging in nearly all the provinces. Assassinations were continually occurring. Female virtue was almost unknown, and the most shameful licentiousness filled the capital. The treasury was so utterly exhausted that, in a journey made by the king and his retinue in mid-winter, the pages were obliged to sell their cloaks to obtain a bare subsistence. The king, steeped in pollution, a fanatic and a hypocrite, exhibited himself to his subjects bareheaded, barefooted, and half naked, scourging himself with a whip, reciting his prayers, and preparing the way, by the most ostentatious penances, to plunge anew into every degrading sensual indulgence. He was thoroughly despised by his subjects, and many were anxious to exchange him for the reckless and impetuous, but equally depraved Francis.

The situation of the Duke of Alençon was now not only very uncomfortable, but exceedingly perilous. The king did every thing in his power to expose him to humiliations, and was evidently watching for an opportunity to put him to death, either by the dagger or by a cup of poison. The duke, aided by his profligate sister Marguerite, wife of Henry of Navarre, formed a plan for escape.

One dark evening he wrapped himself in a large cloak, and issued forth alone from the Louvre. Passing through obscure streets, he arrived at the suburbs of the city, where a carriage with trusty attendants was in waiting. Driving as rapidly as possible, he gained the open country, and then mounting a very fleet charger, which by previous appointment was provided for him, he spurred his horse at the utmost speed for many leagues, till he met an escort of three hundred men, with whom he took refuge in a fortified town. His escape was not known in the palace until nine o'clock the next morning. Henry was exceedingly agitated when he received the tidings, for he knew that his energetic and reckless brother would join the Protestant party, carrying with him powerful influence, and thus add immeasurably to the distractions which now crowded upon the king.

For once, imminent peril roused Henry III. to vigorous action. He forgot his spaniels, his parrots, his monkeys, and even his painted concubines, and roused himself to circumvent the plans of his hated rival. Letter after letter was sent to all the provinces, informing the governors of the flight of the prince, and commanding the most vigorous efforts to secure his arrest. Francis issued a proclamation declaring the reasons for his escape, and calling upon the Protestants and all who loved the "public good" to rally around him. Hence the short but merciless war which ensued was called "the war of the public good."

The Duke of Alençon was now at the head of a powerful party, for he had thrown himself into the arms of the Protestants, and many of his Catholic partisans followed him. Henry III. called to his aid the fearless and energetic Duke of Guise, and gave him the command of his armies. In the first terrible conflict which ensued Guise was defeated, and received a hideous gash upon his face, which left a scar of which he was very proud as a signet of valor.

Catharine was now in deep trouble. Her two sons were in open arms against each other, heading powerful forces, and sweeping France with whirlwinds of destruction. Henry of Navarre was still detained a prisoner in the French court, though surrounded by all the luxuries and indulgences of the capital. The dignity of his character, and his great popularity, alarmed Catharine, lest, in the turmoil of the times, he should thrust both of her sons from the throne, and grasp the crown himself. Henry and his friends all became fully convinced that Catharine entertained designs upon his life. Marguerite was fully satisfied that it was so, and, bad as she was, as Henry interfered not in the slightest degree with any of her practices, she felt a certain kind of regard for him. The guards who had been assigned to Henry professedly as a mark of honor, and to add to the splendor of his establishment, were in reality his jailers, who watched him with an eagle eye. They were all zealous Papists, and most of them, in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, had dipped their hands deep in Protestant blood. Catharine watched him with unceasing vigilance, and crowded every temptation upon him which could enervate and ruin. Her depravity did but stimulate her woman's shrewdness and tact.

Henry of Navarre sighed for liberty. He was, however, so closely guarded that escape seemed impossible. At last the following plan was formed for flight. A hunting-party was got up. Henry was to invite persons to attend the chase in whose fidelity he could repose confidence, while one only was to be intrusted with the secret. Others of his friends were secretly to resort to an appointed rendezvous with fresh horses, and all well armed and in sufficient numbers to overpower the guard placed about his person. Henry was to press on in the chase with the utmost eagerness until the horses of the guard were completely exhausted, when his friends with the fresh steeds were to appear, rescue him from the guards, and accompany him in his flight. The guards, being drawn far from the palace, could not speedily obtain fresh horses, neither could they pursue him with their jaded animals.

The Duke of Guise was now in great favor with Henry III. Henry of Navarre, during the few days in which he was making preparation for his flight, blinded the eagle eyes of the duke by affecting great confidence that he should obtain from the king the high office of lieutenant general of France. The duke and Henry III. made themselves very merry over this supposed simplicity of Henry of Navarre, little aware that he was making himself equally merry at their expense.

Two days before the execution of the scheme, a rumor spread through the court that Henry had escaped. For a short time great anxiety and confusion ensued. Henry, being informed of the report and of the agitation which filled the palace, hastened to the apartments where Catharine and the king were in deliberation, and laughingly told them that he had arrested the King of Navarre, and that he now surrendered him to them for safe keeping.

In the morning of the day fixed for his flight, the King of Navarre held a long and familiar conversation with the Duke of Guise, and urged him to accompany him to the hunt. Just as the moment arrived for the execution of the plot, it was betrayed to the king by the treachery of a confederate. Notwithstanding this betrayal, however, matters were so thoroughly arranged that Henry, after several hair-breadth escapes from arrest, accomplished his flight. His apprehension was so great that for sixty miles he rode as rapidly as possible, without speaking a word or stopping for one moment except to mount a fresh horse. He rode over a hundred miles on horseback that day, and took refuge in Alençon, a fortified city held by the Protestants. As soon as his escape was known, thousands of his friends flocked around him.