dified, to any real purpose, his bearing towards the King of France and
his instructions to his legate. After Pope Urban VIII.'s apparition of
thirteen days' duration, Gregory XIV. was elected pope on the 5th of
December, 1590; and, instead of a head of the church able enough and
courageous enough to comprehend and practise a policy European and
Italian as well as Catholic in its scope, there was a pope humbly devoted
to the Spanish policy, meekly subservient to Philip II.; that is, to the
cause of religious persecution and of absolute power, without regard for
anything else. The relations of France with the Holy See at once felt
the effects of this; Cardinal Gaetani received from Rome all the
instructions that the most ardent Leaguers could desire; and he gave his
approval to a resolution of the Sorbonne to the effect that Henry de
Bourbon, heretic and relapsed, was forever excluded from the crown,
whether he became a Catholic or not. Henry IV., had convoked the
states-general at Tours for the month of March, and had summoned to that
city the archbishops and bishops to form a national council, and to
deliberate as to the means of restoring the king to the bosom of the
Catholic church. The legate prohibited this council, declaring,
beforehand, the excommunication and deposition of any bishops who should
be present at it. The Leaguer Parliament of Paris forbade, on pain of
death and confiscation, any connection, any correspondence, with Henry
de Bourbon and his partisans. A solemn procession of the League took
place at Paris, on the 14th of March, and a few days afterwards the
union was sworn afresh by all the municipal chiefs of the population.
In view of such passionate hostility, Henry IV., a stranger to any sort
of illusion at the same time that he was always full of hope, saw that
his successes at Arques were insufficient for him, and that, if he were
to occupy the throne in peace, he must win more victories. He
recommenced the campaign by the siege of Dreux, one of the towns which
it was most important for him to possess in order to put pressure on
Paris, and cause her to feel, even at a distance, the perils and evils
of war.

On Wednesday, the 14th of March, 1590, was fought the battle of Ivry,
a village six leagues from Evreux, on the left bank of the Eure.
"Starting from Dreux on the 12th of March" [Poirson, _Histoire du Regne
d'Henri IV.,__ t. i. p. 180], "the royal army had arrived the same day
at Nona