cast themselves one day
into our nets, nor do I know that it would be advisable to pull in the
net if they should throw themselves in."

Henry was full of political schemes and dreams at this moment--as much as
his passion for Mademoiselle d'Entraigues, who had so soon supplanted the
image of the dead Gabrielle in his heart, would permit. He was very well
disposed to obtain possession of the Spanish Netherlands, whenever he
should see his way to such an acquisition, and was even indulging in
visions of the imperial crown.

He was therefore already, and for the time at least, the most intense of
papists. He was determined to sacrifice the Huguenot chiefs, and
introduce the Council of Trent, in order, as he told Du Plessis, that all
might be Christians. If he still retained any remembrance of the ancient
friendship between himself and the heretic republic, it was not likely to
exhibit itself, notwithstanding his promises and his pecuniary
liabilities to her, in anything more solid than words. "I repeat it,"
said the Dutch envoy at Paris; "this court cares nothing for us, for all
its cabals tend to close union with Rome, whence we can expect nothing
but foul weather. The king alone has any memory of our past services."
But imperturbable and self-confident as ever, Henry troubled himself
little with fears in regard to the papal supremacy, even when his
Parliament professed great anxiety in regard to the consequences of the
Council of Trent, if not under him yet under his successors. "I will so
bridle the popes," said he, cheerfully, "that they will never pass my
restrictions. My children will be still more virtuous and valiant than I.
If I have none, then the devil take the hindmost. Nevertheless I choose
that the council shall be enacted. I desire it more ardently than I
pressed the edict for the Protestants." Such being the royal humour at
the moment, it may well be believed that Duplessis Mornay would find but
little sunshine from on high on the occasion of his famous but forgotten
conferences with Du Perron, now archbishop of Evreux, before the king and
all the court at Fontainebleau. It was natural enough that to please the
king the king's old Huguenot friend should be convicted of false
citations from the fathers; but it would seem strange, were the motives
unknown, that Henry should have been so intensely interested in this most
arid and dismal of theological controversies. Yet those who had known and
observed the