defence
of that tattered reputation. The defiance to mortal combat went for
nothing; and, in the course of the next year, the injured Mayenne turned
his back on Philip and his Spaniards, and concluded his bargain with the
Prince of Bearne. He obtained good terms: the government of Burgundy,
payment of his debts, and a hundred and twenty thousand crowns in hard
cash. It is not on record that the man of his word, of credit, and of
truth, ever restored a penny of the vast sums which he had received from
Philip to carry on the business of the League.

Subsequently the duke came one very hot summer's-day to Monceaux to thank
the king, as he expressed it, for "delivering him from Spanish arrogance
and Italian wiles;" and having got with much difficulty upon his knees,
was allowed to kiss the royal hand. Henry then insisted upon walking
about with him through the park at a prodigious rate, to show him all the
improvements, while the duke panted, groaned, and perspired in his vain
efforts to keep pace with his new sovereign.

"If I keep this fat fellow walking about in the sun much longer,"
whispered the king to De Bethune, who was third in the party, "I shall be
sufficiently avenged for all the mischief he has done us."

At last, when the duke was forced to admit himself to be on the point of
expiring with fatigue, he was dismissed to the palace with orders to
solace himself with a couple of bottles of excellent wine of Arbois,
expressly provided for him by the king's direction. And this was all the
punishment ever inflicted by the good-humoured monarch on the corpulent
conspirator.

The Duke of Guise made his arrangements with the ex-Huguenot on even
better terms and at a still earlier day; while Joyeuse and Mercoeur stood
out a good while and higgled hard for conditions. "These people put such
a high price on themselves," said one of Henry's diplomatists, "that one
loses almost more than one gains in buying them. They strip and plunder
us even in our nakedness, and we are obliged, in order to conciliate such
harpies, to employ all that we can scrape out of our substance and our
blood. I think, however, that we ought to gain them by whatever means and
at whatever price."

Thus Henry IV., the man whom so many contemporary sages had for years
been rebuking or ridiculing for his persistency in a hopeless attempt to
save his country from dismemberment, to restore legitimate authority, and
to resist the "holy confederacy" of