heir welfare I would willingly sacrifice
a thousand lives had God given me so many, as I have often proved, yet
they daily attempt my life."

The council insisted that it was not safe for the king to leave so
many of the Leaguers in the city, and urged their banishment. The king
refused, saying,

"They are all my subjects, and I wish to love them equally."

The king now resolved, notwithstanding strong opposition from the
Catholics, to place his illustrious Protestant friend, Sully, at the
head of the ministry of finance. Sully entered upon his Herculean task
with shrewdness which no cunning could baffle, and with integrity
which no threat or bribe could bias. All the energies of calumny,
malice, and violence were exhausted upon him, but this majestic man
moved straight on, heedless of the storm, till he caused order to
emerge from apparently inextricable confusion, and, by just and
healthy measures, replenished the bankrupt treasury of the state.

The king was now pushing the siege of Amiens, which had for some time
been in the hands of his enemies. During this time he wrote to his
devoted friend and faithful minister of finance,

"I am very near the enemy, yet I have scarcely a horse upon
which I can fight, or a suit of armor to put on. My doublet
is in holes at the elbows. My kettle is often empty. For
these two last days I have dined with one and another as I
could. My purveyors inform me that they have no longer the
means of supplying my table."

On the twenty-fifth of June, 1597, Amiens capitulated.

One of the kings of England is said to have remarked to his son, who
was eager to ascend the throne, "Thou little knowest, my child, what a
heap of cares and sorrows thou graspest at." History does, indeed,
prove that "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." New perplexities
now burst upon the king. The Protestants, many of them irritated by
his conversion, and by the tardy and insufficient concessions they
received, violently demanded entire equality with the Catholics. This
demand led to the famous Edict of Nantes. This ordinance, which
receives its name from the place where it was published, was issued in
the month of April, 1598. It granted to the Protestants full private
liberty of conscience. It also permitted them to enjoy public worship
in all places where the right was already established. Protestant
lords of the highest rank could celebrate divine service in their
castles w