This then was the third Henry, representative of the third side of the triangle, the reformers of the kingdom.

And before this bubbling cauldron of France, where intrigues, foreign and domestic, conflicting ambitions, stratagems, and hopes, were whirling in never-ceasing tumult, was it strange if the plain Netherland envoys should stand somewhat aghast?

Yet it was necessary that they should ponder well the aspect of affairs; for all their hopes, the very existence of themselves and of their religion, depended upon the organization which should come of this chaos.

It must be remembered, however, that those statesmen—­even the wisest or the best-informed of them—­could not take so correct a view of France and its politics as it is possible for us, after the lapse of three centuries, to do.  The interior leagues, subterranean schemes, conflicting factions, could only be guessed at; nor could the immediate future be predicted, even by such far-seeing politicians as William of Orange; at a distance, or Henry of Navarre, upon the spot.

It was obvious to the Netherlanders that France, although torn by faction, was a great and powerful realm.  There had now been, with the brief exception of the lovers’ war in 1580, a religious peace of eight years’ duration.  The Huguenots had enjoyed tranquil exercise of their worship during that period, and they expressed perfect confidence in the good faith of the King.  That the cities were inordinately taxed to supply the luxury of the court could hardly be unknown to the Netherlanders.  Nevertheless they knew that the kingdom was the richest and most populous of Christendom, after that of Spain.  Its capital, already called by contemporaries the “compendium of the world,” was described by travellers as “stupendous in extent and miraculous for its numbers.”  It was even said to contain eight hundred thousand souls; and although, its actual population did not probably exceed three hundred and twenty thousand, yet this was more than double the number of London’s inhabitants, and thrice as many as Antwerp could then boast, now that a great proportion of its foreign denizens had been scared away.  Paris was at least by one hundred thousand more populous than any city of Europe, except perhaps the remote and barbarous Moscow, while the secondary cities of France, Rouen in the north, Lyons in the centre, and Marseilles in the south, almost equalled in size, business, wealth, and numbers, the capitals of other countries.  In the whole kingdom were probably ten or twelve millions of inhabitants, nearly as many as in Spain, without her colonies, and perhaps three times the number that dwelt in England.