other tried to dissuade him from peace with Spain, and to get him actively re-engaged in the strife from which they were not disposed to emerge.  He persisted in his purpose whilst setting before them his reasons for it, and binding himself to second faithfully their efforts by all pacific means.  A congress was opened in January, 1598, at Vervins in Picardy, through the mediation of Pope Clement VIII., anxious to become the pacificator of Catholic Europe.  The French plenipotentiaries, Pomponne de Bellievre and Brulart de Silleri, had instructions to obtain the restoration to the king of all towns and places taken by the Spaniards from France since the treaty of peace of Cateau-Cambresis, and to have the Queen of England and the United Provinces, if they testified a desire for it, included in the treaty, or, at any rate, to secure for them a truce.  After three months’ conferences the treaty of peace was concluded at Vervins on the 2d of May, 1598, the principal condition being, that King Philip II. should restore to France the towns of Calais, Ardres, Doullens, Le Catelet, and Blavet; that he should re-enter upon possession of the countship of Charolais; and that, if either of the two sovereigns had any claims to make against one of the states their allies in this treaty, “he should prosecute them only by way of law, before competent judges, and not by force, in any manner whatever.”  The Queen of England took no decisive resolution.  When once the treaty was concluded, Henry IV., on signing it, said to the Duke of Epernon, “With this stroke of my pen I have just done more exploits than I should have done in a long while with the best swords in my kingdom.”

A month before the conclusion of the treaty of peace at Vervins with Philip II., Henry IV. had signed and published at Paris on the 13th of April, 1598, the edict of Nantes, his treaty of peace with the Protestant malcontents.  This treaty, drawn up in ninety-two open and fifty-six secret articles, was a code of old and new laws regulating the civil and religious position of Protestants in France, the conditions and guarantees of their worship, their liberties, and their special obligations in their relations whether with the crown or with their Catholic fellow-countrymen.  By this code Henry IV. added a great deal to the rights of the Protestants and to the duties of the state towards them.  Their worship was authorized not only in the castles of the lords high-justiciary, who numbered thirty-five hundred, but also in the castles of simple noblemen who enjoyed no high-justiciary rights, provided that the number of those present did not exceed thirty.  Two towns or two boroughs, instead of one, had the same religious rights in each bailiwick or seneschalty of the kingdom.  The state was charged with the duty of providing for the salaries of the Protestant ministers and rectors in their colleges or schools, and an annual sum of one hundred and sixty-five thousand livres of those times