bishops. It was the condition of his credit amongst the numerous
Catholic population who were inclined to rally to him, but required to
know that he was at peace with the head of their church. He began by
sending to Rome non-official agents, instructed to quietly sound the
pope, amongst others Arnold d'Ossat, a learned professor in the
University of Paris, who became, at a later period, the celebrated
cardinal and diplomat of that name. Clement VIII. [Hippolytus
Aldobrandini] was a clever man, moderate and prudent to the verge of
timidity, and, one who was disinclined to take decisive steps as to
difficult questions or positions until after they had been decided by
events. He refused to have any communication with him whom he still
called the Prince of Bearn, and only received the agents of Henry IV.
privately in his closet. But whilst he was personally severe and
exacting in his behavior to then, he had a hint given them by one of his
confidants not to allow themselves to be rebuffed by any obstacle, for
the pope would, sooner or later, welcome back the lost child who returned
to him. At this report, and by the advice of the Grand Duke of Tuscany,
Ferdinand de' Medici, Henry IV. determined to send a solemn embassy to
Rome, and to put it under the charge of a prince of Italian origin, Peter
di Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers. But either through the pope's stubborn
resolve or the ambassador's somewhat impatient temper, devoted as he was,
however, to the Holy See, the embassy had no success. The Duke of Nevers
could not obtain an official reception as ambassador of the King of
France. It was in vain that he had five confidential audiences of the
pope; in vain that he represented energetically to him all the progress
Henry IV. had already made, all the chances he had of definitive success,
all the perils to which the papacy exposed itself by rejecting his
advances; Clement VIII. persisted in his determination. Philip II. and
Mayenne still reigned in his ideas, and he dismissed the Duke of Nevers
on the 13th of January, 1594, declaring once more that he refused to the