[Illustration:  Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma——­32]

Henry iv. offered the two dukes battle, if they really wished to put a stop to the investment; but “I am not come so far,” answered the Duke of Parma, “to take counsel of my enemy; if my manner of warfare does not please the King of Navarre, let him force me to change it, instead of giving me advice that nobody asks him for.”  Henry in vain attempted to make the Duke of Parma accept battle.  The able Italian established himself in a strongly intrenched camp, surprised Lagny, and opened to Paris the navigation of the Marne, by which provisions were speedily brought up.  Henry decided upon retreating; he dispersed the different divisions of his army into Touraine, Normandy, Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, and himself took up his quarters at Senlis, at Compiegne, in the towns on the banks of the Oise.  The Duke of Mayenne arrived on the 18th of September at Paris; the Duke of Parma entered it himself with a few officers, and left it on the 13th of November with his army on his way back to the Low Countries, being a little harassed in his retreat by the royal cavalry, but easy, for the moment, as to the fate of Paris and the issue of the war, which continued during the first six months of the year 1591, but languidly and disconnectedly, with successes and reverses see-sawing between the two parties and without any important results.

Then began to appear the consequences of the victory of Ivry and the progress made by Henry iv., in spite of the check he received before Paris and at some other points in the kingdom.  Not only did many moderate Catholics make advances to him, struck with his sympathetic ability and his valor, and hoping that he would end by becoming a Catholic, but patriotic wrath was kindling in France against Philip ii. and the Spaniards, those fomenters of civil war in the mere interest of foreign ambition.  We quoted but lately the words used by the governor of Dieppe, Aymar de Chastes, when he said to Villars, governor of Rouen, who pressed him to enter the League, “You will yourself find out that the Spaniard is the real head of this League.”  On the 5th of August, 1590, during the investment of Paris, a placard was pasted all over the city.  “Poor Parisians,” it said, “I deplore your misery, and I feel even greater pity towards you for being still such simpletons.  See you not that this son of perdition of a Spanish ambassador [Bernard de Mendoza], who had our good king murdered, is making game of you, cramming you so with pap that he would fain have had you burst before now in order to lay hands on your goods and on France if he could?  He alone prevents peace and the repose of desolated France, as well as the reconciliation of the king and the princes in real amity.  Why are ye so tardy to cast him in a sack down stream, that he may return the sooner to Spain?” On the 6th of August, there was found written with charcoal, on the gate of St. Anthony, the following eight lines:—­