After his conversion to Catholicism, the capture of Paris was the most decisive of the issues which made Henry IV. really King of France.  The submission of Rouen followed almost immediately upon that of Paris; and the year 1594 brought Henry a series of successes, military and civil, which changed very much to his advantage the position of the kingship as well as the general condition of the kingdom.  In Normandy, in Picardy, in Champagne, in Anjou, in Poitou, in Brittany, in Orleanness, in Auvergne, a multitude of important towns, Havre, Honfleur, Abbeville, Amiens, Peronue, Montdidier, Poitiers, Orleans, Rheims, Chateau-Thierry, Beauvais, Sens, Riom, Morlaix, Laval, Laon, returned to the king’s authority, some after sieges and others by pacific and personal arrangement, more or less burdensome for the public treasury, but very effective in promoting the unity of the nation and of the monarchy.  In the table drawn up by Sully of expenses under that head, he estimated them at thirty-two millions, one hundred and forty-two thousand, nine hundred and eighty-one livres, equivalent at the present day, says M. Poirson, to one hundred and eighteen millions of francs.  The rendition of Paris, “on account of M. de Brissac, the city itself and other individuals employed on his treaty,” figures in this sum total at one million, six hundred and forty-five thousand, four hundred livres.  Territorial acquisitions were not the only political conquests of this epoch; some of the great institutions which had been disjointed by the religious wars, for instance, the Parliaments of Paris and Normandy, recovered their unity and resumed their efficacy to the advantage of order, of the monarchy, and of national independence; their decrees against the League contributed powerfully to its downfall.  Henry IV. did his share in other ways besides warfare; he excelled in the art of winning over or embarrassing his vanquished foes.  After the submission of Paris, the two princesses of the house of Lorraine who had remained there, the Duchesses of Nemours and of Montpensier, one the mother and the other the sister of the Duke of Mayenne, were preparing to go and render homage to the conqueror; Henry anticipated them, and paid them the first visit.  As he was passing through a room where hung a portrait of Henry de Guise, he halted and saluted it very courteously.  The Duchess of Montpensier, who had so often execrated him, did not hesitate to express her regret that “her brother Mayenne had not been there to let down for him the drawbridge of the gate by which he had entered Paris.”  “Ventre-saint-gris,” said the king, “he might have made me wait a long while; I should not have arrived so early.”  He knew that the Duchess of Nemours had desired peace, and when she allowed some signs of vexation to peep out at her not having been able to bring her sons and grandsons to that determination, “Madame,” said he, a there is still time if they please.”  At the close of 1594, he imported disorganization into the household of Lorraine by offering the government of Provence to the young Duke Charles of Guise, son of the Balafre; who eagerly accepted it; and he from that moment paved the way, by the agency of President Jeannin, for his reconciliation with Mayenne, which he brought to accomplishment at the end of 1595.