e, and nephew of the
distinguished Marshal Monluci was one of the most fortunate and the most
ignoble of all the soldiers of fortune who had played their part at this
epoch in the Netherlands. A poor creature himself, he had a heroine for a
wife. Renee, the sister of Bussy d'Amboise, had vowed to unite herself to
a man who would avenge the assassination of her brother by the Count
Montsoreau? Balagny readily agreed to perform the deed, and accordingly
espoused the high-born dame, but it does not appear that he ever wreaked
her vengeance on the murderer. He had now governed Cambray until the
citizens and the whole countryside were galled and exhausted by his
grinding tyranny, his inordinate pride, and his infamous extortions. His
latest achievement had been to force upon his subjects a copper currency
bearing the nominal value of silver, with the same blasting effects which
such experiments in political economy are apt to produce on princes and
peoples. He had been a Royalist, a Guisist, a Leaguer, a Dutch
republican, by turns, and had betrayed all the parties, at whose expense
he had alternately filled his coffers. During the past year he had made
up his mind--like most of the conspicuous politicians and campaigners of
France--that the moribund League was only fit to be trampled upon by its
recent worshippers, and he had made accordingly one of the very best
bargains with Henry IV. that had yet been made, even at that epoch of
self-vending grandees.

Henry, by treaty ratified in August, 1594, had created him Prince of
Cambray and Marshal of France, so that the man who had been receiving up
to that very moment a monthly subsidy of seven thousand two hundred
dollars from the King of Spain was now gratified with a pension to about
the same yearly amount by the King of France. During the autumn Henry had
visited Cambray, and the new prince had made wondrous exhibitions of
loyalty to the sovereign whom he had done his best all his life to
exclude from his kingdom. There had been a ceaseless round of
tournaments, festivals, and masquerades in the city in honour of the
Huguenot chieftain, now changed into the most orthodox and most
legitimate of monarchs, but it was not until midsummer of the present
year that Balagny was called on to defend his old possessions and his new
principality against a well-seasoned army and a vigorous commander.
Meanwhile his new patron was so warmly occupied in other directions that
it might be dif