e raises the
siege--Skirmish between Maurice and Mondragon--Death of Philip of
Nassau--Death of Mondragon--Bombardment and surrender of Weerd
Castle--Maurice retires into winter quarters--Campaign of Henry IV.
--He besieges Dijon--Surrender of Dijon--Absolution granted to Henry
by the pope--Career of Balagny at Cambray--Progress of the siege--
Capitulation of the town--Suicide of the Princess of Cambray, wife
of Balagny

The year 1595 Opened with a formal declaration of war by the King of
France against the King of Spain. It would be difficult to say for
exactly how many years the war now declared had already been waged, but
it was a considerable advantage to the United Netherlands that the
manifesto had been at last regularly issued. And the manifesto was
certainly not deficient in bitterness. Not often in Christian history has
a monarch been solemnly and officially accused by a brother sovereign of
suborning assassins against his life. Bribery, stratagem, and murder,
were, however, so entirely the commonplace machinery of Philip's
administration as to make an allusion to the late attempt of Chastel
appear quite natural in Henry's declaration of war. The king further
stigmatized in energetic language the long succession of intrigues by
which the monarch of Spain, as chief of the Holy League, had been making
war upon him by means of his own subjects, for the last half dozen years.
Certainly there was hardly need of an elaborate statement of grievances.
The deeds of Philip required no herald, unless Henry was prepared to
abdicate his hardly-earned title to the throne of France.

Nevertheless the politic Gascon subsequently regretted the fierce style
in which he had fulminated his challenge. He was accustomed to observe
that no state paper required so much careful pondering as a declaration
of war, and that it was scarcely possible to draw up such a document
without committing many errors in the phraseology. The man who never knew
fear, despondency, nor resentment, was already instinctively acting on
the principle that a king should deal with his enemy as if sure to become
his friend, and with his friends as if they might easily change to foes.

The answer to the declaration was delayed for two months. When the reply
came it of course breathed nothing but the most benignant sentiments in
regard to France, while it expressed regret that it was necessary to
carry fire and sword through that country in