The states-general of the League were of a different opinion.  After long and lively discussion, the three orders decided, each separately, on the 25th of February, to consent to the conference demanded by the friends of the King of Navarre.  On the 4th of February, when they resumed session, Cardinal Philip de Sega, Bishop of Placencia (in Spain) and legate of Pope Clement viii., had requested to be present at the deliberation of the assembly, but his request was refused; the states confined themselves to receiving his benediction and hearing him deliver an address.

The different fate of these two proposals was a clear indication of the feelings of the assembly; they were very diverse in the three orders which constituted it; almost all the clergy, prelates, and popular preachers were devoted to the Spanish League; the noblesse were not at all numerous at these states.  “The most brilliant and most active members of it,” says M. Picot correctly, “had ranged themselves behind Henry iv.; and it covered itself with eternal honor by having been the first to discern where to look for the hopes and the salvation of France.”  The third estate was very much divided; it contained the fanatical Leaguers, at the service of Philip ii. and the court of Rome, the partisans, much more numerous, of the French League, who desired peace, and were ready to accept Henry iv., provided that he turned Catholic, and a small band of political spirits, more powerful in talent than number.

Regularly as the deputies arrived, Mayenne went to each of them, saying privately, “Gentlemen, you see what the question is; it is the very chiefest of all matters (res maxima rerum agitur).  I beg you to give your best attention to it, and to so act that the adversaries steal no march on us and get no advantage over us.  Nevertheless, I mean to abide by what I have promised them.”  Mayenne was quite right:  it was certainly the chiefest of all matters.  The head of the Protestants of France, the ally of all the Protestants in Europe—­should he become a Catholic and King of France?  The temporal head of Catholic Europe, the King of Spain —­should he abolish the Salic law in France, by placing upon it his daughter as queen, and dismember France to his own profit and that of the leaders of the League, his hirelings rather than his allies?  Or, peradventure, should one of these Leaguer-chiefs be he who should take the crown of France, and found a new dynasty there?  And which of these Leaguer-chiefs should attain this good fortune?  A half-German or a true Frenchman?  A Lorraine prince or a Bourbon?  And, if a Lorraine prince, which?  The Duke of Mayenne, military head of the League, or his uterine brother, the Duke of Nemours, or his nephew the young Duke of Guise, son of the Balafrc?  All these questions were mooted, all these pretensions were on the cards, all these combinations had their special intrigue.  And in the competition upon