Paris," says De Thou, "were extravagant enough to suppose that this
prince could not escape Mayenne. Already a host of idle and credulous
women had been at the pains of engaging windows, which they let very
dear, and which they had fitted up magnificently, to see the passage of
that fanciful triumph for which their mad hopes had caused them to make
every preparation--before the victory." Henry left some of his
lieutenants to carry on the war in the environs of Paris, and himself
repaired, on the 21st of November, to Tours, where the royalist
Parliament, the exchequer-chamber, the court of taxation, and all the
magisterial bodies which had not felt inclined to submit to the despotism
of the League, lost no time in rendering him homage, as the head and the
representative of the national and the lawful cause. He reigned and
ruled, to real purpose, in the eight principal provinces of the North and
Centre--Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Normandy, Orleanness,
Touraine, Maine, and Anjou; and his authority, although disputed, was
making way in nearly all the other parts of the kingdom. He made war not
like a conqueror, but like a king who wanted to meet with acceptance in
the places which he occupied and which he would soon have to govern. The
inhabitants of Le Mans and of Alencon were able to reopen their shops on
the very day on which their town fell into his hands, and those of
Vendome the day after. He watched to see that respect was paid by his
soldiers, even the Huguenots, to Catholic churches and ceremonies. Two
soldiers, having made their way into Le Mans, contrary to orders, after
the capitulation, and having stolen a chalice, were hanged on the spot,
though they were men of acknowledged bravery. He protected carefully the
bishops and all the ecclesiastics who kept aloof from political strife.
"If minute details are required," says a contemporary pamphleteer, "out
of a hundred or a hundred and twenty archbishops or bishops existing in
the realm of France not a tenth part approve of the counsels of the
League." It was not long before Henry reaped the financial fruits of his