ligious
wars of France. The youthful son of Antony Bourbon and Joan of Albret had
then appeared as the champion and the idol of the Huguenots. In the same
year had come the fatal nuptials with the bride of St. Bartholomew, the
first Catholic conversion of Henry and the massacre at which the world
still shudders.

Now he was chief of the "Politicians," and sworn supporter of the Council
of Trent. Earnest Huguenots were hanging their heads in despair.

He represented the principle of national unity against national
dismemberment by domestic treason and foreign violence. Had that
principle been his real inspiration, as it was in truth his sole support,
history might judge him more leniently. Had he relied upon it entirely it
might have been strong enough to restore him to the throne of his
ancestors, without the famous religious apostacy with which his name is
for ever associated. It is by no means certain that permanent religious
toleration might not have been the result of his mounting the throne,
only when he could do so without renouncing the faith of his fathers. A
day of civilization may come perhaps, sooner or later, when it will be of
no earthly cousequence to their fellow creatures to what creed, what
Christian church, what religious dogma kings or humbler individuals may
be partial; when the relations between man and his Maker shall be
undefiled by political or social intrusion. But the day will never come
when it will be otherwise than damaging to public morality and
humiliating to human dignity to forswear principle for a price, and to
make the most awful of mysteries the subject of political legerdemain and
theatrical buffoonery.

The so-called conversion of the king marks an epoch in human history. It
strengthened the Roman Church and gave it an indefinite renewal of life;
but it sapped the foundations of religious faith. The appearance of Henry
the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent was of itself too
biting an epigram not to be extensively destructive. Whether for good or
ill, religion was fast ceasing to be the mainspring of political
combinations, the motive of great wars and national convulsions. The age
of religion was to be succeeded by the age of commerce.

But the king was now on his throne. All Paris was in rapture. There was
Te Deum with high mass in Notre Dame, and the populace was howling itself
hoarse with rapture in honour of him so lately the object of the general
curse. Even