And what was Henry III., King of France, doing whilst two great parties and two great men were thus carrying on, around his throne and in his name, so passionate a war, on the one side to maintain the despotic unity of Catholic Christianism, and on the other to win religious liberty for Christian Protestantism?  We will borrow here the words of the most enlightened and most impartial historian of the sixteenth century, M. de Thou; if we acted upon our own personal impressions alone, there would be danger of appearing too severe towards a king whom we profoundly despise.

“After having staid some time in Bourbonness, Henry III. went to Lyons in order to be within hail of his two favorites, Joyeuse and Epernon, who were each on the march with an army.  Whilst he was at Lyons as unconcerned as if all the realm were enjoying perfect peace, he took to collecting those little dogs which are thought so much of in that town.  Everybody was greatly surprised to see a King of France, in the midst of so terrible a war and in extreme want of money, expending upon such pleasures all the time he had at disposal and all the sums he could scrape together.  How lavish soever this prince may have been, yet, if comparison be made between the expenditure upon the royal household and that incurred at Lyons for dogs, the latter will be found infinitely higher than the former; without counting expenses for hunting-dogs and birds, which always come to a considerable sum in the households of kings, it cost him, every year, more than a hundred thousand gold crowns for little Lyonnese dogs; and he maintained at his court, with large salaries, a multitude of men and women who had nothing to do but to feed them.  He also spent large sums in monkeys, parrots, and other creatures from foreign countries, of which he always kept a great number.  Sometimes he got tired of them, and gave them all away then his passion for such creatures returned, and they had to be found for him at no matter what cost.  Since I am upon the subject of this prince’s attachment to matters anything but worthy of the kingly majesty, I will say a word about his passion for those miniatures which were to be found in manuscript prayer-books, and which, before the practice of printing, were done by the most skilful painters.  Henry III. seemed to buy such works, intended for princes and laid by in cabinets of curiosities, only to spoil them; as soon as he had them, he cut them out, and then pasted them upon the walls of his chapels, as children do.  An incomprehensible character of mind:  in certain things, capable of upholding his rank; in some, rising above his position; in others, sinking below childishness.” [Histoire universelle de F. A. de Thou, t. ix. p. 599.]