ent, I am greatly comforted by the
conviction that I have omitted nothing that was possible to save the
city. All of its defenders have acquitted themselves loyally and
nobly. Let us not reproach them. On the contrary, let us do honor to
their generous defense. And now let us rouse our energies to retake
the city, that it may remain in the hands of the Spaniards not so many
days as our ancestors left it years in the hands of the English."

A large body of the nobles now combined to extort from the king some
of the despotic feudal privileges which existed in the twelfth
century. They thought that in this hour of reverse Henry would be glad
to purchase their powerful support by surrendering many of the
prerogatives of the crown. After holding a meeting, they appointed the
Duke of Montpensier, who was very young and self-sufficient, to
present their demands to the king. Their plan was this, that the king
should consent to the division of France into several large
departments, over each of which, as a vassal prince, some
distinguished nobleman should reign, collecting his own revenues and
maintaining his own army. Each of these vassal nobles was to be bound,
when required, to furnish a military contingent to their liege lord
the king.

Montpensier entered the presence of the monarch, and in a long
discourse urged the insulting proposal. The king listened calmly, and
without interrupting him, to the end. Then, in tones unimpassioned,
but firm and deliberate, he replied,

"My cousin, you must be insane. Such language coming from _you_, and
addressed to _me_, leads me to think that I am in a dream. Views so
full of insult to the sovereign, and ruin to the state, can not have
originated in your benevolent and upright mind. Think you that the
people, having stripped me of the august prerogatives of royalty,
would respect in you the rights of a prince of the blood? Did I
believe that you, in heart, desired to see me thus humiliated, I would
teach you that such an offense is not to be committed with impunity.
My cousin, abandon these follies. Reveal not your accomplices, but
reply to them that you yourself have such a horror of these
propositions that you will hold him as a deadly enemy who shall ever
speak to you of them again."

This firmness crushed the conspiracy; but still darkness and gloom
seemed to rest upon unhappy France. The year 1596 was one of famine
and of pestilence. "We had," says a writer of the times, "summe