public and his motives understood.  He had for his close confidant and his mouth-piece Philip du Plessis-Mornay, at that time thirty-six years of age, one of the most learned and most hard-working as well as most zealous and most sterling amongst the royalist Protestants of France.  It was his duty to draw up the documents, manifestoes, and letters published by the King of Navarre, when Henry did not himself stamp upon them the seal of his own language, vivid, eloquent, and captivating in its brevity.

Henry III. and the queen-mother were very much struck with this intelligent energy on the part of the King of Navarre, and with the influence he acquired over all that portion of the French noblesse and burgesses which had not fanatically enlisted beneath the banner of the League.  Catherine, accustomed to count upon her skill in the art of seductive conversation, was for putting it to fresh proof in the case of the King of Navarre.  Louis di Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, an Italian, like herself, and one of her confidants, was sent in advance to sound Henry of Navarre.  He wrote to Henry III., “Such, sir, as you have known this prince, such is he even now; nor years nor difficulties change him; he is still agreeable, still merry, still devoted, as he has sworn to me a hundred times, to peace and your Majesty’s service.”  Catherine proposed to him an interview.  Henry hesitated to comply.  From Jarnac, where he was, he sent Viscount de Turenne to Catherine to make an agreement with her for a few days’ truce.  “Catherine gave Turenne to understand that, in order to have peace, the King of Navarre must turn Catholic, and put a stop to the exercise of the Reformed religion in the towns he held.”  When this was reported by his envoy, Henry, who had set out for the interview, was on the point of retracing his steps; he went on, however, as he was curious to see Catherine, to satisfy his mind upon the point and to answer her.”  They met on the 14th of December, 1586, at the castle of St. Brice, near Cognac, both of them with gloomy looks.  Catherine asked Henry whether Turenne had spoken to him about what, she said, was her son’s most express desire.

“I am astounded,” said Henry, “that your Majesty should have taken so much pains to tell me what my ears are split with hearing; and likewise that you, whose judgment is so sound, should delude yourself with the idea of solving the difficulty by means of the difficulty itself.  You propose to me a thing that I cannot do without forfeiture of conscience and honor, and without injury to the king’s service.  I should not carry with me all those of the religion; and they of the League would be so much the more irritated in that they would lose their hope of depriving me of the right which I have to the throne.  They do not want me with you, madame, for they would then be in sorry plight, you better served, and all your good subjects more happy.”  The queen-mother did not dispute the point.