and purchased throughout Venice.  Some Venetians went so far as to take service in his army against the League.  The Holy Inquisition commenced proceedings against them for heresy; the government stopped the proceedings, and even, says Count Daru, had the Inquisitor thrown into prison.  The Venetian senate accredited to the court of Henry iv. the same ambassador who had been at Henry iii.’s; and, on returning to Tours, on the 21st of November, 1589, the king received him to an audience in state.  A little later on he did more; he sent the republic, as a pledge of his friendship, his sword—­the sword, he said in his letter, which he had used at the battle of Ivry.  “The good offices were mutual,” adds M. de Daru; the Venetians lent Henry iv. sums of money which the badness of the times rendered necessary to him; but their ambassador had orders to throw into the fire, in the king’s presence, the securities for the loan.”

As the government of Henry iv. went on growing in strength and extent, two facts, both of them natural, though antagonistic, were being accomplished in France and in Europe.  The moderate Catholics were beginning, not as yet to make approaches towards him, but to see a glimmering possibility of treating with him and obtaining from him such concessions as they considered necessary at the same time that they in their turn made to him such as he might consider sufficient for his party and himself.  It has already been remarked with what sagacity Pope Sixtus V. had divined the character of Henry iv., at the very moment of condemning Henry iii. for making an alliance with him.  When Henry iv. had become king, Sixtus V. pronounced strongly against a heretic king, and maintained, in opposition to him, his alliance with Philip ii. and the League.  “France,” said he, “is a good and noble kingdom, which has infinity of benefices and is specially dear to us; and so we try to save her; but religion sits nearer than France to our heart.”  He chose for his legate in France Cardinal Gaetani, whom he knew to be agreeable to Philip ii. and gave him instructions in harmony with the Spanish policy.  Having started for his post, Gaetani was a long while on the road, halting at Lyons, amongst other places, as if he were in no hurry to enter upon his duties.  At the close of 1589, Henry iv., king for the last five months and already victorious at Arques, appointed as his ambassador at Rome Francis de Luxembourg, Duke of Pinei, to try and enter into official relations with the pope.  On the 6th of January, 1590, Sixtus V., at his reception of the cardinals, announced to them this news.  Badoero, ambassador of Venice at Rome, leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “We must pray God to inspire the King of Navarre.  On the day when your Holiness embraces him, and then only, the affairs of France will be adjusted.  Humanly speaking, there is no other way of bringing