At last the Huguenots resolved to organize and arm in their own defence, for there is a time when submission ceases to be a virtue.  If ever a people had cause for resistance it was this persecuted people.  They did not rise up against their persecutors with the hope of overturning the throne, or producing a change of dynasties, or gaining constitutional liberty, or becoming a political power hostile to the crown, like the Puritans under Cromwell or Hampden, but simply to preserve what to them was more precious than life.  All that they demanded was a toleration of their religion; and as their religion was dearer to them than life, they were ready to undergo any sacrifices.  Their resistance was more formidable than was anticipated; they got possession of cities and fortresses, and were able to defy the whole power of the crown.  It was found impossible to suppress a people who fought with so much heroism, and who defied every combination.  So truces and treaties were made with them, by which their religious rights were guaranteed.  But these treaties were perpetually broken, for treachery is no sin with religious persecutors, since “the end justified the means.”

This Huguenotic contest, attended with so much vicissitude, alternate defeat and victory, and stained by horrid atrocities, was at its height when Henry IV. was a boy, and had no thought of ever being King of France.  His father, Antoine de Bourbon, although King of Navarre and a prince of the blood, being a lineal descendant from Saint Louis, was really only a great noble, not so powerful as the Duke of Guise or the Duke of Montmorency; and even he, a leader of the rebellion, was finally won over to the court party by the seductions brought to bear on him by Roman priests.  He was either bribed or intimidated, and disgracefully abjured the cause for which he at first gallantly fought.  He died from a wound he received at the siege of Rouen, while commanding one of the armies of Charles IX., who succeeded his brother Francis II., in 1560.

The mother of the young prince, destined afterwards to be so famous, was one of the most celebrated women of history,—­Jeanne D’Albret, niece of Francis L; a woman who was equally extolled by men of letters and Calvinistic divines.  She was as beautiful as she was good; at her castle in Pau, the capital of her hereditary kingdom of Navarre, she diffused a magnificent hospitality, especially to scholars and the lights of the reformed doctrines.  Her kingdom was small, and was politically unimportant; but she was a sovereign princess nevertheless.  The management of the young prince, her son, was most admirable, but unusual.  He was delicate and sickly as an infant, and reared with difficulty; but, though a prince, he was fed on the simplest food, and exposed to hardships like the sons of peasants; he was allowed to run bareheaded and barefooted, exposed to heat and rain, in order to strengthen his constitution.  Amid the hills at the base of the Pyrenees, in the