ains
moraux than by his courtly adventures, Pibrac rejoined King Henry at
Vienna, where the Emperor Maximilian II. received him with great
splendor. Delivered from fatigue and danger, Henry appeared to think of
nothing but resting and diverting himself; he tarried to his heart's
content at Vienna, Venice, Ferrara, Mantua, and Turin. He was everywhere
welcomed with brilliant entertainments, which the Emperor Maximilian and
the senators of Venice accompanied with good advice touching the
government of France in her religious troubles; and the nominal sovereign
of two kingdoms took nearly three months in going from that whence he had
fled to that of which he was about to take possession. Having started
from Cracow on the 18th of June, 1574, he did not arrive until the 5th of
September at Lyons, whither the queen-mother had sent his brother, the
Duke of Alencon, and his brother-in-law, the King of Navarre, to receive
him, going herself as far as Bourgoin in Dauphiny, in order to be the
first to see her darling son again.

The king's entry into France caused, says De Thou, a strange revulsion in
all minds. "During the lifetime of Charles IX., none had seemed more
worthy of the throne than Henry, and everybody desired to have him for
master. But scarcely had he arrived when disgust set in to the extent of
auguring very ill of his reign. There was no longer any trace in this
prince, who had been nursed, so to speak, in the lap of war, of that
manly and warlike courage which had been so much admired. He no longer
rode on horseback; he did not show himself amongst his people, as his
predecessors had been wont to do; he was only to be seen shut up with a
few favorites in a little painted boat which went up and down the Saone
he no longer took his meals without a balustrade, which did not allow him
to be approached any Hearer; and if anybody had any petitions to present
to him, they had to wait for him as he came out from dinner, when he took
them as he hurried by. For the greater part of the day he remained
closeted with some young folks, who alone had the prince's ear, without
any body's knowing how they had arrived at this distinction, whilst the
great, and those whose services were known, could scarcely get speech of
him. Showiness and effeminacy had taken the place of the grandeur and
majesty which had formerly distinguished our kings." [De Thou, _Histoire
universelle,_ t. vii. p. 134.]

[Illustration: Indolence o