come for him to choose between the insignificance
of a King of Navarre and the grandeur of a King of France; if he
pretended to the crown, he must first of all abjure. Henry firmly
rejected these threatening entreaties, and left their camp with an urgent
recommendation, to them to think of it well before bringing dissension
into the royal army and the royal party which were protecting their
privileges, their property, and their lives against the League. On
returning to his quarters, he noticed the arrival of Marshal de Biron,
who pressed him to lay hands without delay upon the crown of France, in
order to guard it and save it. But, in the evening of that day and on
the morrow, at the numerous meetings of the lords to deliberate upon the
situation, the ardent Catholics renewed their demand for the exclusion of
Henry from the throne if he did not at once abjure, and for referring the
election of a king to the states-general. Biron himself proposed not to
declare Henry king, but to recognize him merely as captain-general of the
army pending his abjuration. Harlay de Sancy vigorously maintained the
cause of the Salic law and the hereditary rights of monarchy. Biron took
him aside and said, I had hitherto thought that you had sense; now I
doubt it. If, before securing our own position with the King of Navarre,
we completely establish his, he will no longer care for us. The time is
come for making our terms; if we let the occasion escape us, we shall
never recover it." "What are your terms?" asked Sancy. "If it please
the king to give me the countship of Perigord, I shall be his forever."
Sancy reported this conversation to the king, who promised Biron what he
wanted.

Though King of France for but two days past, Henry IV. had already
perfectly understood and steadily taken the measure of the situation. He
was in a great minority throughout the country as well as the army, and
he would have to deal with public passions, worked by his foes for their
own ends, and with the personal pretensions of his partisans. He made no
mistake about these two facts, and he allowed them great weight; but he
did not take for the ruling principle of his policy and for his first
rule of conduct the plan of alternate concessions to the different
parties and of continually humoring personal interests; he set his
thoughts higher, upon the general and natural interests of France as he
found her and saw her. They resolved themselves, in