ce to one of the
Officers, that there was a difference in the Impress of their Crown
Pieces, one having at the bottom the Impress of a Cow, and the other
none:

"Sir," reply'd that Officer, "you are much in the right in
your Observation. Those that have the Cow, were not coin'd
here, but at _Paw_, the chief City of _Navarr_; where they
enjoy the Privilege of a Mint, as well as we. And Tradition
tells," says he, "that the Reason of that Addition to the
Impress was this: A certain King of _Navarr_ (when it was a
Kingdom distinct from that of _France_) looking out of a
Window of the Palace, spy'd a Cow, with her Calf standing
aside her, attack'd by a Lyon, which had got loose out of his
Menagery. The Lyon strove to get the young Calf into his Paw;
the Cow bravely defended her Charge; and so well, that the
Lyon at last, tir'd and weary, withdrew, and left her Mistress
of the Field of Battle; and her young one. Ever since which,
concluded that Officer, by Order of that King, the Cow is
plac'd at the bottom of the Impress of all the Money there
coined."

Whether or no my Relator guess'd at the Moral, or whether it was Fact, I
dare not determine; But to me it seem'd apparent, that it was no
otherways intended, than as an emblematical Fable to cover, and preserve
the Memory of the Deliverance of _Henry_ the Fourth, then the young
King of _Navarr_, at that eternally ignominious Slaughter, the Massacre
of _Paris_. Many Historians, their own as well as others, agree, that
the House of _Guise_ had levell'd the Malice of their Design at that
great Prince. They knew him to be the lawful Heir; but as they knew him
bred, what they call'd a _Hugonot_, Barbarity and Injustice was easily
conceal'd under the Cloak of Religion, and the Good of Mother Church,
under the veil of Ambition, was held sufficient to postpone the Laws of
God and Man. Some of those Historians have deliver'd it as Matter of
Fact, that the Conspirators, in searching after that young King, press'd
into the very Apartments of the Queen his Mother; who having, at the
Toll of the Bell, and Cries of the Murder'd, taken the Alarm, on hearing
'em coming, plac'd her self in her Chair, and cover'd the young King her
Son with her Farthingale, till they were gone. By which means she found
an opportunity to convey him to a Place of more Safety; and so preserv'd
him from those bloody Murderers, and