interests and views, independently of any religious question.
On the accession of Henry IV., his ambassador, Hurault de Maisse, was
received and very well treated at Venice; he was merely excluded from
religious ceremonies: the Venetian people joined in the policy of their
government; the portrait of the new King of France was everywhere
displayed and purchased throughout Venice. Some Venetians went so far as
to take service in his army against the League. The Holy Inquisition
commenced proceedings against them for heresy; the government stopped the
proceedings, and even, says Count Daru, had the Inquisitor thrown into
prison. The Venetian senate accredited to the court of Henry IV. the
same ambassador who had been at Henry III.'s; and, on returning to Tours,
on the 21st of November, 1589, the king received him to an audience in
state. A little later on he did more; he sent the republic, as a pledge
of his friendship, his sword--the sword, he said in his letter, which he
had used at the battle of Ivry. "The good offices were mutual," adds M.
de Daru; the Venetians lent Henry IV. sums of money which the badness of
the times rendered necessary to him; but their ambassador had orders to
throw into the fire, in the king's presence, the securities for the
loan."

As the government of Henry IV. went on growing in strength and extent,
two facts, both of them natural, though antagonistic, were being
accomplished in France and in Europe. The moderate Catholics were
beginning, not as yet to make approaches towards him, but to see a
glimmering possibility of treating with him and obtaining from him such
concessions as they considered necessary at the same time that they in
their turn made to him such as he might consider sufficient for his party
and himself. It has already been remarked with what sagacity Pope Sixtus
V. had divined the character of Henry IV., at the very moment of
condemning Henry III. for making an alliance with him. When Henry IV.
had become king, Sixtus V. pronounced strongly against a heretic king,
and maintained, in opposition to him, his alliance with Philip II. and
the League. "France," said he, "is a good and noble kingdom, which has
infinity of benefices and is specially dear to us; and so we try to save
her; but religion sits nearer than France to our heart." He chose for
his legate in France Cardinal Gaetani, whom he knew to be agreeable to
Philip II. and gave him instructions in harmony with t