9.  Henry IV.—­The Leaguers proclaimed as king an old uncle of the King of Navarre, the Cardinal of Bourbon, but all the more moderate Catholics rallied round Henry of Navarre, who took the title of Henry IV. At Ivry, in Normandy, Henry met the force of Leaguers, and defeated them by his brilliant courage.  “Follow my white plume,” his last order to his troops, became one of the sayings the French love to remember.  But his cause was still not won—­Paris held out against him, animated by almost fanatical fury, and while he was besieging it France was invaded from the Netherlands.  The old Cardinal of Bourbon was now dead, and Philip II. considered his daughter Isabel, whose mother was the eldest daughter of Henry II., to be rightful Queen of France.  He sent therefore his ablest general, the Duke of Parma, to co-operate with the Leaguers and place her on the throne.  A war of strategy was carried on, during which Henry kept the enemy at bay, but could do no more, since the larger number of his people, though intending to have no king but himself, did not wish him to gain too easy a victory, lest in that case he should remain a Calvinist.  However, he was only waiting to recant till he could do so with a good grace.  He really preferred Catholicism, and had only been a political Huguenot; and his best and most faithful adviser, the Baron of Rosny, better known as Duke of Sully, though a staunch Calvinist himself, recommended the change as the only means of restoring peace to the kingdom.  There was little more resistance to Henry after he had again been received by the Church in 1592.  Paris, weary of the long war, opened its gates in 1593, and the inhabitants crowded round him with ecstasy, so that he said, “Poor people, they are hungry for the sight of a king!” The Leaguers made their peace, and when Philip of Spain again attacked Henry, the young Duke of Guise was one of the first to hasten to the defence.  Philip saw that there were no further hopes for his daughter, and peace was made in 1596.

10.  The Edict of Nantes.—­Two years later, in 1598, Henry put forth what was called the Edict of Nantes, because first registered in that parliament.  It secured to the Huguenots equal civil rights with those of the Catholics, accepted their marriages, gave them, under restrictions, permission to meet for worship and for consultations, and granted them cities for the security of their rights, of which La Rochelle was the chief.  The Calvinists had been nearly exterminated in the north, but there were still a large number in the south of France, and the burghers of the chief southern cities were mostly Huguenot.  The war had been from the first a very horrible one; there had been savage slaughter, and still more savage reprisals on each side.  The young nobles had been trained into making a fashion of ferocity, and practising graceful ways of striking death-blows.  Whole districts had been laid waste, churches and abbeys destroyed, tombs rifled, and the whole population accustomed to every sort of horror and suffering; while nobody but Henry IV. himself, and the Duke of Sully, had any notion either of statesmanship or of religious toleration.