o was there, and
was wounded in the leg--an accident the results of which were soon to
cause much weeping through Christendom. Had one of those garlands of
blazing tar which all night had been fluttering from the walls of Paris
alighted by chance on the king's head there might have been another
history of France. The ladders, too, proved several feet too short, and
there were too few, of them. Had they been more numerous and longer, the
tale might have been a different one. As it was, the king was forced to
retire with the approaching daylight.

The characteristics of the great commander of the Huguenots and of the
Leaguers' chieftain respectively were well illustrated in several
incidents of this memorable campaign. Farnese had been informed by scouts
and spies of this intended assault by Henry on the walls of Paris. With
his habitual caution he discredited the story. Had he believed it, he
might have followed the king in overwhelming force and taken him captive.
The penalty of Henry's unparalleled boldness was thus remitted by
Alexander's exuberant discretion.

Soon afterwards Farnese laid siege to Corbeil. This little place--owing
to the extraordinary skill and determination of its commandant, Rigaut,
an old Huguenot officer, who had fought with La Noue in
Flanders--resisted for nearly four weeks. It was assaulted at last,
Rigaut killed, the garrison of one thousand French soldiers put to the
sword, and the town sacked. With the fall of Corbeil both the Seine and
Marne were re-opened.

Alexander then made a visit to Paris, where he was received with great
enthusiasm. The legate, whose efforts and whose money had so much
contributed to the successful defence of the capital had returned to
Italy to participate in the election of a new pope. For the "Huguenot
pope," Sixtus V., had died at the end of August, having never bestowed on
the League any of his vast accumulated treasures to help it in its utmost
need. It was not surprising that Philip was indignant, and had resorted
to menace of various kinds against the holy father, when he found him
swaying so perceptibly in the direction of the hated Bearnese. Of course
when he died his complaint was believed to be Spanish poison. In those
days, none but the very obscure were thought capable of dying natural
deaths, and Philip was esteemed too consummate an artist to allow so
formidable an adversary as Sixtus to pass away in God's time only.
Certainly his death was hailed