oweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust."

Europe was manifestly preparing for another dreadful religious
conflict. The foreboding cloud blackened the skies. The young Prince
of Navarre had not yet taken his side. Both Catholics and Protestants
left no exertions untried to win to their cause so important an
auxiliary. Henry had warm friends in the court of Navarre and in the
court of St. Cloud. He was bound by many ties to both Catholics and
Protestants. Love of pleasure, of self-indulgence, of power, urged him
to cast in his lot with the Catholics. Reverence for his mother
inclined him to adopt the weaker party, who were struggling for purity
of morals and of faith. To be popular with his subjects in his own
kingdom of Navarre, he must be a Protestant. To be popular in France,
to whose throne he was already casting a wistful eye, it was necessary
for him to be a Catholic. He vacillated between these views of
self-interest. His conscience and his heart were untouched. Both
parties were aware of the magnitude of the weight he could place in
either scale, while each deemed it quite uncertain which cause he
would espouse. His father had died contending for the Catholic faith,
and all knew that the throne of Catholic France was one of the prizes
which the young Prince of Navarre had a fair chance of obtaining. His
mother was the most illustrious leader of the Protestant forces on the
Continent, and the crown of Henry's hereditary domain could not repose
quietly upon any brow but that of a Protestant.

Such was the state of affairs when the clangor of arms again burst
upon the ear of Europe. France was the arena of woe upon which the
Catholics and the Protestants of England and of the Continent hurled
themselves against each other. Catharine, breathing vengeance, headed
the Catholic armies. Jeanne, calm yet inflexible, was recognized as at
the head of the Protestant leaders, and was alike the idol of the
common soldiers and of their generals. The two contending armies,
after various marchings and countermarchings, met at Rochelle. The
whole country around, for many leagues, was illuminated at night by
the camp-fires of the hostile hosts. The Protestants, inferior in
numbers, with hymns and prayers calmly awaited an attack. The
Catholics, divided in council, were fearful of hazarding a decisive
engagement. Day after day thus passed, with occasional skirmishes,
when, one sunny morning, the sound of trumpets was heard