They say that the aged grandfather rubbed the lips of the new-born
child with a clove of garlic, poured into his mouth a few drops of
Jurançon wine, and carried him away in his dressing-gown. The child
was born in the chamber which opens into the lower tower of Mazères,
on the southwest corner.

His mother, a warm and severe Calvinist, when he was fifteen years
old, led him through the Catholic army to La Rochelle, and gave him to
her followers as their general. At sixteen years old, at the combat of
Arnay-le-Duc, he led the first charge of cavalry. What an education
and what men! Their descendants were just now passing in the streets,
going to school to compose Latin verses and recite the pastorals of
Massillon.

Those old wars are the most poetic in French history; they were made
for pleasure rather than interest. It was a chase in which adventures,
dangers, emotions were found, in which men lived in the sunlight, on
horseback, amidst flashes of fire, and where the body, as well as
the soul, had its enjoyment and its exercise. Henry carries it on as
briskly as a dance, with a Gascon's fire and a soldier's ardor, with
abrupt sallies, and pursuing his point against the enemy as with the
ladies.

This is no spectacle of great masses of well-disciplined men, coming
heavily into collision and falling by thousands on the field,
according to the rules of good tactics. The king leaves Pau or Nérac
with a little troop, picks up the neighboring garrisons on his way,
scales a fortress, intercepts a body of arquebusiers as they pass,
extricates himself pistol in hand from the midst of a hostile troop,
and returns to the feet of Mlle. de Tignonville. They arrange their