mperial sceptre, and every heretic, without forswearing
his heresy, should be purged with hyssop and become whiter than snow.

Charles IX., too, although it was not possible for him to recal to life
the countless victims of the Parisian wedding, was yet ready to explain
those murders to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced mind. This had
become strictly necessary. Although the accession of either his Most
Christian or Most Catholic Majesty to the throne of the Caesars was a
most improbable event, yet the humbler elective, throne actually vacant
was indirectly in the gift of the same powers. It was possible that the
crown of Poland might be secured for the Duke of Anjou. That key unlocks
the complicated policy of this and the succeeding year. The Polish
election is the clue to the labyrinthian intrigues and royal
tergiversations during the period of the interregnum. Sigismund Augustus,
last of the Jagellons, had died on the 7th July; 1572. The prominent
candidates to succeed him were the Archduke Ernest, son of the Emperor,
and Henry of Anjou. The Prince of Orange was not forgotten. A strong
party were in favor of compassing his election, as the most signal
triumph which Protestantism could gain, but his ambition had not been
excited by the prospect of such a prize. His own work required all the
energies of all his life. His influence, however, was powerful, and
eagerly sought by the partisans of Anjou. The Lutherans and Moravians in
Poland were numerous, the Protestant party there and in Germany holding
the whole balance of the election in their hands.

It was difficult for the Prince to overcome his repugnance to the very
name of the man whose crime had at once made France desolate, and
blighted the fair prospects under which he and his brother had, the year
before, entered the Netherlands. Nevertheless; he was willing to listen
to the statements by which the King and his ministers endeavoured, not
entirely without success, to remove from their reputations, if not from
their souls; the guilt of deep design. It was something, that the
murderers now affected to expiate their offence in sackcloth and
ashes--it was something that, by favoring the pretensions of Anjou, and
by listening with indulgence to the repentance of Charles, the siege of
Rochelle could be terminated, the Huguenots restored to freedom of
conscience, and an alliance with a powerful nation established, by aid of
which the Netherlands might once more li