A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 572 pages of information about A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4.

A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 572 pages of information about A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4.
names; the document written by L’Hospital’s grandson did not appear until 1591, after the death of Henry III. and Henry de Guise, and it remained anonymous for some time.  One cannot be astonished at such timidity; Guise himself was timid before the Leaguers, and he always ended by yielding to them in essentials, after having attempted to resist them upon such and such an incidental point.  His own people accused him of lacking boldness; and his sister, the Duchess of Montpensier, openly patronized the most violent preachers, whilst boasting that she wielded more influence through them than her brother by his armies.  Henry III., under stress of his enemies’ zeal and his own servants’ weakness, Catherine de’ Medici included, after having fled from Paris and taken refuge at Chartres to escape the triumph of the Barricades, once more began to negotiate, that is, to capitulate with the League; he issued at Rouen, on the 19th of July, 1588, an edict in eleven articles, whereby he granted more than had been demanded, and more than he had promised in 1585 by the treaty of Nemours; over and above the measures contained in that treaty against the Huguenots, in respect of the present and the future, he added four fresh surety-towns, amongst others Bourges and Orleans, to those of which the Leaguers were to remain in possession.  He declared, moreover, “that no investigation should be made into any understandings, associations, and other matters into which our Catholic subjects might have entered together; inasmuch as they have given us to understand and have informed us that what they did was but owing to the zeal they felt for the preservation and maintenance of the Catholic religion.”  By thus releasing the League from all responsibility for the past, and by giving this new treaty the name of edict of union, Henry III. flattered himself, it is said, that he was thus putting himself at the head of a new grand Catholic League which would become royalist again, inasmuch as the king was granting it all it had desired.  The edict of union was enregistered at the Parliament of Paris on the 21st of July.  The states-general were convoked for the 15th of October following.  “On Tuesday, August 2, his Majesty,” says L’Estoile, “being entertained by the Duke of Guise during his dinner, asked him for drink, and then said to him, ‘To whom shall we drink?’ ’To whom you please, sir,’ answered the duke; ‘it is for your Majesty to command.’  ‘Cousin,’ said the king, ‘drink we to our good friends the Huguenots.’  ’It is well said, sir,’ answered the duke.  ‘And to our good barricaders,’ said the king; ‘let us not forget them.’  Whereupon the duke began to laugh a little,” adds L’Estoile, “but a sort of laugh that did not go beyond the knot of the throat, being dissatisfied at the novel union the king was pleased to make of the Huguenots with the barricaders.”  What must have to some extent reassured the Duke of Guise was, that a Te Deum was celebrated at Notre-Dame for the King of Navarre’s exclusion from all right to the crown, and that, on the 14th of August Henry de Guise was appointed generalissimo of the royal armies.

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A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.