peace to that kingdom.”  The pope confined himself to replying that God would do all for the best, and that, for his own part, he would wait.  On arriving at Rome, “the Duke of Luxembourg repaired to the Vatican with two and twenty carriages occupied by French gentlemen; but, at the palace, he found the door of the pope’s apartments closed, the sentries doubled, and the officers on duty under orders to intimate to the French, the chief of the embassy excepted, that they must lay aside their swords.  At the door of the Holy Father’s closet, the duke and three gentlemen of his train were alone allowed to enter.  The indignation felt by the French was mingled with apprehensions of an ambush.  Luxembourg himself could not banish a feeling of vague terror; great was his astonishment when, on his introduction to the pontiff, the latter received him with demonstrations of affection, asked him news of his journey, said he would have liked to give him quarters in the palace, made him sit down,—­a distinction reserved for the ambassadors of kings, —­and, lastly, listened patiently to the French envoy’s long recital.  In fact, the receptions intra et, extra muros bore very little resemblance one to the other, but the difference between them corresponded pretty faithfully with the position of Sixtus V., half engaged to the League by Gaetani’s commission and to Philip ii. by the steps he had recently taken, and already regretting that he was so far gone in the direction of Spain.” [Sixtus V, by Baron Hiibner, late ambassador of Austria at Paris and at Rome, t. ii. pp. 280-282.]

Unhappily Sixtus V. died on the 27th of August, 1590, before having modified, to any real purpose, his bearing towards the King of France and his instructions to his legate.  After Pope Urban viii.’s apparition of thirteen days’ duration, Gregory XIV. was elected pope on the 5th of December, 1590; and, instead of a head of the church able enough and courageous enough to comprehend and practise a policy European and Italian as well as Catholic in its scope, there was a pope humbly devoted to the Spanish policy, meekly subservient to Philip ii.; that is, to the cause of religious persecution and of absolute power, without regard for anything else.  The relations of France with the Holy See at once felt the effects of this; Cardinal Gaetani received from Rome all the instructions that the most ardent Leaguers could desire; and he gave his approval to a resolution of the Sorbonne to the effect that Henry de Bourbon, heretic and relapsed, was forever excluded from the crown, whether he became a Catholic or not.  Henry iv., had convoked the states-general at Tours for the month of March, and had summoned to that city the archbishops and bishops to form a national council, and to deliberate as to the means of restoring the king to the bosom of the Catholic church.  The legate prohibited this council, declaring, beforehand, the excommunication and deposition of any bishops who