s.

Henry of Navarre now addressed a manifesto to all the inhabitants of
France in behalf of their woe-stricken country. "I conjure you all,"
said he, "Catholics as well as Protestants, to have pity on the state
and on yourselves. We have all done and suffered evil enough. We have
been four years intoxicate, insensate, and furious. Is not this
sufficient? Has not God smitten us all enough to allay our fury, and
to make us wise at last?"

But passion was too much aroused to allow such appeals to be heeded.
Battle after battle, with ever-varying success, ensued between the
combined forces of the king and Henry of Navarre on one side, and of
the League, aided by many of the princes of Catholic Europe, on the
other. The storms of winter swept over the freezing armies and the
smouldering towns, and the wail of the victims of horrid war blended
with the moanings of the gale. Spring came, but it brought no joy to
desolate, distracted, wretched France. Summer came, and the bright sun
looked down upon barren fields, and upon a bleeding, starving,
fighting nation. Henry of Navarre, in command of the royal forces, at
the head of thirty thousand troops, was besieging Paris, which was
held by the Duke of Mayenne, and boldly and skillfully was conducting
his approaches to a successful termination. The cause of the League
began to wane. Henry III. had taken possession of the castle of St.
Cloud, and from its elevated windows looked out with joy upon the bold
assaults and the advancing works.

[Illustration: THE ASSASSINATION OF HENRY III.]

The leaders of the League now resolved to resort again to the old
weapon of assassination. Henry III. was to be killed. But no man could
kill him unless he was also willing to sacrifice his own life. The
Duchess of Montpensier, sister of the Duke of Guise, for the
accomplishment of this purpose, won the love, by caressings and
endearments, of Jaques Clement, an ardent, enthusiastic monk of wild
and romantic imaginings, and of the most intense fanaticism. The
beautiful duchess surrendered herself without any reserve whatever to
the paramour she had enticed to her arms, that she might obtain the
entire supremacy over his mind. Clement concealed a dagger in his
bosom, and then went out from the gates of the city accompanied by two
soldiers and with a flag of truce, ostensibly to take a message to the
king. He refused to communicate his message to any one but the monarch
himself. Henry III., suppo