hat the kingdom should
be preserved in its entirety, and that its laws and customs should be
maintained. . . . It even appears certain that Mayenne purposed not
to keep any of these promises, and to emend his infamy by a breach of
faith. . . . But a conviction generally prevailed that he recognized
the rights of the Infanta, and that he would labor to place her on the
throne. The lords of his own party believed it; the legate reported it
everywhere; the royal party regarded it as certain. During the whole
course of the year 1592, this opinion gave the most disastrous assistance
to the intrigues and ascendency of Philip II., and added immeasurably to
the public dangers." [Poirson, _Histoire du Regne d'Henri IV.,_ t. i.
pp. 304-306.]

Whilst these two Leagues, one Spanish and the other French, were
conspiring thus persistently, sometimes together and sometimes one
against the other, to promote personal ambition and interests, at the
same time national instinct, respect for traditional rights, weariness of
civil war, and the good sense which is born of long experience, were
bringing France more and more over to the cause and name of Henry IV.
In all the provinces, throughout all ranks of society, the population
non-enrolled amongst the factions were turning their eyes towards him as
the only means of putting an end to war at home and abroad, the only
pledge of national unity, public prosperity, and even freedom of trade, a
hazy idea as yet, but even now prevalent in the great ports of France and
in Paris. Would Henry turn Catholic? That was the question asked
everywhere, amongst Protestants with anxiety, but with keen desire, and
not without hope, amongst the mass of the population. The rumor ran
that, on this point, negotiations were half opened even in the midst of
the League itself, even at the court of Spain, even at Rome, where Pope
Clement VIII., a more moderate man than his predecessor, Gregory XIV.,
"had no desire," says Sully, "to foment the troubles of France, and still
less that the King of Spain should possibly become its undisputed king,
rightly judging that this would be laying open to him the road to the
monarchy of Christendom, and, consequently, reducing the Roman pontiffs
to the position, if it were his good pleasure, of his mere chaplains."
[_OEconomies royales,_ t. ii. p. 106.] Such being the existing state of
facts and minds, it was impossible that Henry IV. should not ask himself
rou