e same blasting effects which
such experiments in political economy are apt to produce on princes and
peoples. He had been a Royalist, a Guisist, a Leaguer, a Dutch
republican, by turns, and had betrayed all the parties, at whose expense
he had alternately filled his coffers. During the past year he had made
up his mind--like most of the conspicuous politicians and campaigners of
France--that the moribund League was only fit to be trampled upon by its
recent worshippers, and he had made accordingly one of the very best
bargains with Henry IV. that had yet been made, even at that epoch of
self-vending grandees.

Henry, by treaty ratified in August, 1594, had created him Prince of
Cambray and Marshal of France, so that the man who had been receiving up
to that very moment a monthly subsidy of seven thousand two hundred
dollars from the King of Spain was now gratified with a pension to about
the same yearly amount by the King of France. During the autumn Henry had
visited Cambray, and the new prince had made wondrous exhibitions of
loyalty to the sovereign whom he had done his best all his life to
exclude from his kingdom. There had been a ceaseless round of
tournaments, festivals, and masquerades in the city in honour of the
Huguenot chieftain, now changed into the most orthodox and most
legitimate of monarchs, but it was not until midsummer of the present
year that Balagny was called on to defend his old possessions and his new
principality against a well-seasoned army and a vigorous commander.
Meanwhile his new patron was so warmly occupied in other directions that
it might be difficult for him to send assistance to the beleaguered city.

On the 14th August Fuentes began his siege operations. Before the
investment had been completed the young Prince of Rhetelois, only fifteen
years of age, son of the Duke of Nevers, made his entrance into the city
attended by thirty of his father's archers. De Vich, too, an experienced
and faithful commander, succeeded in bringing four or five hundred
dragoons through the enemy's lines. These meagre reinforcements were all
that reached the place; for, although the States-General sent two or
three thousand Scotchmen and Zeelanders, under Justinus of Nassau, to
Henry, that he might be the better enabled to relieve this important
frontier city, the king's movements were not sufficiently prompt to turn
the force to good account Balagny was left with a garrison of three
thousand French and