quite as embarrassing, if not so provocative of odium, as that in which the Spanish League had lately been; for it had become itself the tool of personal and unlawful ambition.  The Lorraine princes, it is true, were less foreign to France than the King of Spain was; they had even rendered her eminent service; but they had no right to the crown.  Mayenne had opposed to him the native and lawful heir to the throne, already recognized and invested with the kingly power by a large portion of France, and quite capable of disputing his kingship with the ablest competitors.  By himself and with his own party alone, Mayenne was not in a position to maintain such a struggle; in order to have any chance he must have recourse to the prince whose partisans he had just overthrown and chastised.

[Illustration:  Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne——­35]

On the 11th of November, 1591, Henry iv. had laid siege to Rouen with a strong force, and was pushing the operations on vigorously.  In order to obtain the troops and money without which he could not relieve this important place, the leader of the French League treated humbly with the patron of the Spanish League.  “In the conferences held at La Fere and at Lihom-Saintot, between the 10th and the 18th of January, 1592,” says M. Poirson, “the Duke of Parma, acting for the King of Spain, and Mayenne drew up conventions which only awaited. the ratification of Philip ii. to be converted into a treaty.  Mayenne was to receive four millions of crowns a year and a Spanish army, which together would enable him to oppose Henry iv.  He had, besides, a promise of a large establishment for himself, his relatives, and the chiefs of his party.  In exchange, he promised, in his own name and that of the princes of his house and the great lords of the League, that Philip ii.’s daughter, the Infanta Isabella (Clara Eugenia), should be recognized as sovereign and proprietress of the throne of France, and that the states-general, convoked for that purpose, should proclaim her right and confer upon her the throne.  It is true,” adds M. Poirson, “that Mayenne stipulated that the Infanta should take a husband, within the year, at the suggestion of the councillors and great officers of the crown, that the kingdom should be preserved in its entirety, and that its laws and customs should be maintained. . . .  It even appears certain that Mayenne purposed not to keep any of these promises, and to emend his infamy by a breach of faith. . . .  But a conviction generally prevailed that he recognized the rights of the Infanta, and that he would labor to place her on the throne.  The lords of his own party believed it; the legate reported it everywhere; the royal party regarded it as certain.  During the whole course of the year 1592, this opinion gave the most disastrous assistance to the intrigues and ascendency of Philip ii., and added immeasurably to the public dangers.” [Poirson, Histoire du Regne d’Henri IV., t. i. pp. 304-306.]