teous
warfare" which either side was said to wage on the other, sparing each
other's nobles and slaughtering the commons.

[Sidenote: 1593]

At this point the States General were convoked at Paris by the League.
So many provinces refused to send deputies that there were only 128
members out of a normal 505. A serial publication by several authors,
called the _Satyre Menippee_, poured ridicule on the pretentious of the
national assembly. Various solutions of the deadlock were proposed.
Philip II of Spain offered to support Mayenne as Lieutenant General of
France if the League would make his daughter, as the heiress through
her mother, Elizabeth of Valois, queen. This being refused, Philip
next proposed that the young Duke of Guise should marry his daughter
{227} and become king. But this proposal also won little support. The
enemies of Henry IV were conscious of his legitimate rights and jealous
of foreign interference; the only thing that stood in the way of their
recognizing him was his heresy.

[Sidenote: Henry's conversion]

Henry, finding that there seemed no other issue to an intolerable
situation, at last resolved, though with much reluctance, to change his
religion. On July 25, 1593, he abjured the Protestant faith, kneeling
to the Archbishop of Bourges, and was received into the bosom of the
Roman church. That his conversion was due entirely to the belief that
"Paris was worth a mass" is, of course, plain. Indeed, he frankly
avowed that he still scrupled at some articles, such as purgatory, the
worship of the saints, and the power of the pope. And it must be
remembered that his motives were not purely selfish. The alternative
seemed to be indefinite civil war with all its horrors, and Henry
deliberately but regretfully sacrificed his confessional convictions on
the altar of his country.

The step was not immediately successful. The Huguenots were naturally
enraged. The Catholics doubted the king's sincerity. At Paris the
preachers of the League ridiculed the conversion from the pulpit. "My
dog," sneered one of them, "were you not at mass last Sunday? Come
here and let us offer you the crown." But the "politiques" rallied to
the throne and the League rapidly melted away. The _Satyre Menippee_,
supporting the interests of Henry, did much to turn public opinion in
his favor.

A further impression was made by his coronation at Chartres in 1594.
When the surrender of Paris followed, the king