s, consisting of Catholics and Protestants,
and he assembled about him, to consider the affairs of the town, a small
council, in which Protestants had the majority. As soon as he knew, on
the 26th of August, that the king was approaching Dieppe, he went with
the principal inhabitants to meet him, and presented to him the keys of
the place, saying, "I come to salute my lord and hand over to him the
government of this city." "Ventre-saint-gris!" answered Henry IV., "I
know nobody more worthy of it than you are!" The Dieppese overflowed
with felicitations. "No fuss, my lads," said Henry: "all I want is your
affections, good bread, good wine, and good hospitable faces." When he
entered the town, "he was received," says a contemporary chronicler,
"with loud cheers by the people; and what was curious, but exhilarating,
was to see the king surrounded by close upon six thousand armed men,
himself having but a few officers at his left hand." He received at
Dieppe assurance of the fidelity of La Verune, governor of Caen,
whither, in 1589, according to Henry III.'s order, that portion of the
Parliament of Normandy which would not submit to the yoke of the League
at Rouen, had removed. Caen having set the example, St. Lo, Coutances,
and Carentan likewise sent deputies to Dieppe to recognize the authority
of Henry IV. But Henry had no idea of shutting himself up inside
Dieppe: after having carefully inspected the castle, citadel, harbor,
fortifications, and outskirts of the town, he left there five hundred
men in garrison, supported by twelve or fifteen hundred well-armed
burgesses, and went and established himself personally in the old castle
of Arques, standing, since the eleventh century, upon a barren hill;
below, in the burgh of Arques, he sent Biron into cantonments with his
regiment of Swiss and the companies of French infantry; and he lost no
time in having large fosses dug ahead of the burgh, in front of all the
approaches, enclosing within an extensive line of circumvallation both
burgh and castle. All the king's soldiers and the peasants that could
be picked up in the environs worked night and day. Whilst they were at
work, Henry wrote to Countess Corisande de Gramont, his favorite at that
time, "My dear heart, it is a wonder I am alive with such work as I
have. God have pity upon me and show me mercy, blessing my labors, as
He does in spite of a many folks! I am well, and my affairs are going
well. I have taken