The so-called conversion of the king marks an epoch in human history.  It strengthened the Roman Church and gave it an indefinite renewal of life; but it sapped the foundations of religious faith.  The appearance of Henry the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent was of itself too biting an epigram not to be extensively destructive.  Whether for good or ill, religion was fast ceasing to be the mainspring of political combinations, the motive of great wars and national convulsions.  The age of religion was to be succeeded by the age of commerce.

But the king was now on his throne.  All Paris was in rapture.  There was Te Deum with high mass in Notre Dame, and the populace was howling itself hoarse with rapture in honour of him so lately the object of the general curse.  Even the Sorbonne declared in favour of the reclaimed heretic, and the decision of those sages had vast influence with less enlightened mortals.  There was nothing left for the Duke of Feria but to take himself off and make Latin orations in favour of the Infanta elsewhere, if fit audience elsewhere could be found.  A week after the entrance of Henry, the Spanish garrison accordingly was allowed to leave Paris with the honours of war.

“We marched out at 2 P.M.,” wrote the duke to his master, “with closed ranks, colours displayed, and drums beating.  First came the Italians and then the Spaniards, in the midst of whom was myself on horseback, with the Walloons marching near me.  The Prince of Bearne”—­it was a solace to the duke’s heart, of which he never could be deprived, to call the king by that title—­“was at a window over the gate of St. Denis through which we took our departure.  He was dressed in light grey, with a black hat surmounted by a great white feather.  Our displayed standards rendered him no courteous salute as we passed.”

Here was another solace!

Thus had the game been lost and won, but Philip as usual did not acknowledge himself beaten.  Mayenne, too, continued to make the most fervent promises to all that was left of the confederates.  He betook himself to Brussels, and by the king’s orders was courteously received by the Spanish authorities in the Netherlands.  In the midst of the tempest now rapidly destroying all rational hopes, Philip still clung to Mayenne as to a spar in the shipwreck.  For the king ever possessed the virtue, if it be one, of continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible, when he had been defeated in every quarter, and when his calculations had all proved ridiculous mistakes.

When his famous Armada had been shattered and sunk, have we not seen him peevishly requiring Alexander Farnese to construct a new one immediately and to proceed therewith to conquer England out of hand?  Was it to be expected that he would renounce his conquest of France, although the legitimate king had entered his capital, had reconciled himself to the Church, and was on the point of obtaining forgiveness of the pope?  If the Prince of Bearne had already destroyed the Holy League, why should not the Duke of Mayenne and Archduke Ernest make another for him, and so conquer France without further delay?