e of contending one against another,
and the abasement of the house of Austria, which, even after the death of
Charles V. and of Philip II., remained the real and the formidable rival
of France. The external policy of Henry from the treaty of Vervins to
his death, was religious peace in Europe and the alliance of Catholic
France with Protestant England and Germany against Spain and Austria. He
showed constant respect and deference towards the papacy, a power highly
regarded in both the rival camps, though much fallen from the substantial
importance it had possessed in Europe during the middle ages. French
policy striving against Spanish policy, such was the true and the only
serious characteristic of the grand design.

Four men, very unequal in influence as well as merit, Sully, Villeroi,
Du Plessis-Mornay, and D'Aubigne, did Henry IV. effective service, by
very different processes and in very different degrees, towards
establishing and rendering successful this internal and external policy.
Three were Protestants; Villeroi alone was a Catholic. Sully is beyond
comparison with the other three. He is the only one whom Henry IV.
called my friend; the only one who had participated in all the life and
all the government of Henry IV., his evil as well as his exalted
fortunes, his most painful embarrassments at home as well as his greatest
political acts; the only one whose name has remained inseparably
connected with that of a master whom he served without servility as well
as without any attempt to domineer. There is no idea of entering here
upon his personal history; we would only indicate his place in that of
his king. Maximilian de Bethune-Rosny, born in 1559, and six years
younger than Henry of Navarre, was barely seventeen when in 1576 he
attended Henry on his flight from the court of France to go and recover
in Navarre his independence of position and character. Rosny was content
at first to serve him as a volunteer, "in order," he said, "to learn the
profession of arms from its first rudiments." He speedily did himself
honor in several actions. In 1580 the King of Navarre took him as
chamberlain and counsellor. On becoming King of France, Henry IV., in
1594, made him secretary of state; in 1596, put him on the council of
finance; in 1597, appointed him grand surveyor of France, and, in 1599,
superintendent-general of finance and master of the ordnance. In 1602 he
was made Marquis de Rosny and councillor of