had no other right except that which they
acquired there by their prudence and force, and after them Hugh Capet,
much inferior to them in force and authority, following their example,
had the same good fortune for himself and his posterity, and one which
still endures.

"If the authority of the holy see could support the scheme at the same
time," continued Mayenne and friends, "it would be a great help. But it
being perilous to ask for that assistance before striking the blow, it
would be better to obtain it after the execution."

That these wholesome opinions were not entirely original on the part of
Mayenne, nor produced spontaneously, was plain from the secret
instructions given by Philip to his envoys, Don Bernardino de Mendoza,
John Baptist de Tassis, and the commander Moreo, whom he had sent soon
after the death of Henry III. to confer with Cardinal Gaetano in Paris.

They were told, of course, to do everything in their power to prevent the
election of the Prince of Bearne, "being as he was a heretic, obstinate
and confirmed, who had sucked heresy with his mother's milk." The legate
was warned that "if the Bearnese should make a show of converting
himself, it would be frigid and fabricated."

If they were asked whom Philip desired for king--a question which
certainly seemed probable under the circumstances--they were to reply
that his foremost wish was to establish the Catholic religion in the
kingdom, and that whatever was most conducive to that end would be most
agreeable to him. "As it is however desirable, in order to arrange
matters, that you should be informed of everything," said his Majesty,
"it is proper that you should know that I have two kinds of right to all
that there is over there. Firstly, because the crown of France has been
usurped from me, my ancestors having been unjustly excluded by foreign
occupation of it; and secondly, because I claim the same crown as first
male of the house of Valois."

Here certainly were comprehensive pretensions, and it was obvious that
the king's desire for the establishment of the Catholic religion must
have been very lively to enable him to invent or accept such astonishing
fictions.

But his own claims were but a portion of the case. His daughter and
possible spouse had rights of her own, hard, in his opinion, to be
gainsaid. "Over and above all this," said Philip, "my eldest daughter,
the Infanta, has two other rights; one to all the states which as
dower-