need an ally, so
long as it was governed by its present policy. There was but one king
left in Europe since the death of Elizabeth of England.

But Henry was now on the abhorred threshold of old age which he
obstinately refused to cross.

There is something almost pathetic, in spite of the censure which much of
his private life at this period provokes, in the isolation which now
seemed his lot.

Deceived and hated by his wife and his mistresses, who were conspiring
with each other and with his ministers, not only against his policy but
against his life; with a vile Italian adventurer, dishonouring his
household, entirely dominating the queen, counteracting the royal
measures, secretly corresponding, by assumed authority, with Spain, in
direct violation of the King's instructions to his ambassadors, and
gorging himself with wealth and offices at the expense of everything
respectable in France; surrounded by a pack of malignant and greedy
nobles, who begrudged him his fame, his authority, his independence;
without a home, and almost without a friend, the Most Christian King in
these latter days led hardly as merry a life as when fighting years long
for his crown, at the head of his Gascon chivalry, the beloved chieftain
of Huguenots.

Of the triumvirate then constituting his council, Villeroy, Sillery, and
Sully, the two first were ancient Leaguers, and more devoted at heart to
Philip of Spain than to Henry of France and Navarre.

Both silent, laborious, plodding, plotting functionaries, thriftily
gathering riches; skilled in routine and adepts at intrigue; steady
self-seekers, and faithful to office in which their lives had passed,
they might be relied on at any emergency to take part against their
master, if to ruin would prove more profitable than to serve him.

There was one man who was truer to Henry than Henry had been to himself.
The haughty, defiant, austere grandee, brave soldier, sagacious
statesman, thrifty financier, against whom the poisoned arrows of
religious hatred, envious ambition, and petty court intrigue were daily
directed, who watched grimly over the exchequer confided to him, which
was daily growing fuller in despite of the cormorants who trembled at his
frown; hard worker, good hater, conscientious politician, who filled his
own coffers without dishonesty, and those of the state without tyranny;
unsociable, arrogant; pious, very avaricious, and inordinately vain,
Maximilian de Bethune, Duke