en of letters and
Calvinistic divines. She was as beautiful as she was good; at her castle
in Pau, the capital of her hereditary kingdom of Navarre, she diffused a
magnificent hospitality, especially to scholars and the lights of the
reformed doctrines. Her kingdom was small, and was politically
unimportant; but she was a sovereign princess nevertheless. The
management of the young prince, her son, was most admirable, but
unusual. He was delicate and sickly as an infant, and reared with
difficulty; but, though a prince, he was fed on the simplest food, and
exposed to hardships like the sons of peasants; he was allowed to run
bareheaded and barefooted, exposed to heat and rain, in order to
strengthen his constitution. Amid the hills at the base of the Pyrenees,
in the company of peasants' children, he thus acquired simple and
natural manners, and accustomed himself to fatigues and dangers. He was
educated in the reformed doctrines, but was more distinguished as a boy
for his chivalric graces, physical beauty, and manly sports than for
seriousness of character or a religious life. He grew up a Protestant,
from education rather than conviction. At twelve, in the year 1565, he
was intrusted by his mother, the Queen of Navarre, to the care of his
uncle, the Prince of Conde, and, on his death, to Admiral Coligny, the
acknowledged leader of the Protestants. He thus witnessed many bloody
battles before he was old enough to be intrusted with command. At
eighteen he was affianced to Marguerite de Valois, sister of Charles
IX., in spite of differences of religion.

It was amid the nuptial festivities of the young King of Navarre,--his
mother had died the year before,--when all the prominent leaders of the
Protestants were enticed to Paris, that preparations were made for the
blackest crime in the annals of civilized nations,--even the treacherous
and hideous massacre of St. Bartholomew, perpetrated by Charles IX., who
was incited to it by his mother, the ever-infamous Catherine de Medicis,
and the Duke of Guise.

The Protestants, under the Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny, had
fought so bravely and so successfully in defence of their cause that all
hope of subduing them in the field was given up. The bloody battles of
Montcontour, of St. Denis, and of Jarnac had proved how stubbornly the
Huguenots would fight; while their possession of such strong fortresses
as Montauban and La Rochelle, deemed impregnable, showed that they co