heir Reconciliation.--The
War Breaks Out Afresh.--Affront Received from Marechal de Biron

LETTER XXI

Situation of Affairs in Flanders.--Peace Brought About by Duc
d'Alencon's Negotiation.--Marechal de Biron Apologises for Firing
on Nerac.--Henri Desperately in Love with Fosseuse.--Queen Marguerite
Discovers Fosseuse to Be Pregnant, Which She Denies.--Fosseuse in
Labour.--Marguerite's Generous Behavior to Her.--Marguerite's
Return to Paris

INTRODUCTION

The _Secret Memoirs_ of Henry of Navarre's famous queen possess
a value which the passage of time seems but to heighten. Emanating
as they undoubtedly do from one of the chief actors in a momentous
crisis in French history, and in the religious history of Europe
as well, their importance as first-hand documents can hardly
be overestimated. While the interest which attaches to their
intimate discussions of people and manners of the day will appeal
to the reader at the outset.

Marguerite de Valois was the French contemporary of Queen Elizabeth
of England, and their careers furnish several curious points of
parallel. Marguerite was the daughter of the famous Catherine
de Medicis, and was given in marriage by her scheming mother
to Henry of Navarre, whose ascendant Bourbon star threatened
to eclipse (as afterwards it did) the waning house of Valois.
Catherine had four sons, three of whom successively mounted the
throne of France, but all were childless. Although the king of
the petty state of Navarre was a Protestant, and Catherine was
the most fanatical of Catholics, she made this marriage a pretext
for welding the two houses; but actually it seems to have been
a snare to lure him to Paris, for it was at this precise time
that the bloody Massacre of St. Bartholomew's day was ordered.
Henry himself escaped--it is said, through the protection of
Marguerite, his bride,--but his adherents in the Protestant party
were slain by the thousands. A wedded life begun under such
sanguinary auspices was not destined to end happily. Indeed, their
marriage resembled nothing so much as an armed truce, peaceable,
and allowing both to pursue their several paths, and finally
dissolved by mutual consent, in 1598, when Queen Marguerite was
forty-five. The closing years of her life were spent in strict
seclusion, at the Castle of Usson, in Auvergne, and it was at
this time that she probably wrote her _Memoirs_.

In the original, the _Memoirs_ are written in a clear vigorous
F