rquebuses, as they
advanced upon any bystanders likely to oppose their progress; in the very
midst of this sea of helmed heads, the envoy was enabled to recognise the
martial figure of the Prince of Bearne. Armed to the teeth, with sword in
hand and dagger at side, the hero of Ivry rode at last through the
barriers which had so long kept him from his capital. "'Twas like
enchantment," said Ybarra. The first Bourbon entered the city through the
same gate out of which the last Valois had, five years before, so
ignominiously fled. It was a midnight surprise, although not fully
accomplished until near the dawn of day. It was not a triumphal entrance;
nor did Henry come as the victorious standard-bearer of a great
principle. He had defeated the League in many battle-fields, but the
League still hissed defiance at him from the very hearthstone of his
ancestral palace. He had now crept, in order to conquer, even lower than
the League itself; and casting off his Huguenot skin at last, he had
soared over the heads of all men, the presiding genius of the holy
Catholic Church.

Twenty-one years before, he had entered the same city on the conclusion
of one of the truces which had varied the long monotony of the religious
wars of France. The youthful son of Antony Bourbon and Joan of Albret had
then appeared as the champion and the idol of the Huguenots. In the same
year had come the fatal nuptials with the bride of St. Bartholomew, the
first Catholic conversion of Henry and the massacre at which the world
still shudders.

Now he was chief of the "Politicians," and sworn supporter of the Council
of Trent. Earnest Huguenots were hanging their heads in despair.

He represented the principle of national unity against national
dismemberment by domestic treason and foreign violence. Had that
principle been his real inspiration, as it was in truth his sole support,
history might judge him more leniently. Had he relied upon it entirely it
might have been strong enough to restore him to the throne of his
ancestors, without the famous religious apostacy with which his name is
for ever associated. It is by no means certain that permanent religious
toleration might not have been the result of his mounting the throne,
only when he could do so without renouncing the faith of his fathers. A
day of civilization may come perhaps, sooner or later, when it will be of
no earthly consequence to their fellow creatures to what creed, what
Christian ch