Mignard 677

Perrault 678





A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.




CHAPTER XXXV.----HENRY IV., PROTESTANT KING. (1589-1593.)

On the 2d of August, 1589, in the morning, upon his arrival in his
quarters at Meudon, Henry of Navarre was saluted by the Protestants King
of France. They were about five thousand in an army of forty thousand
men. When, at ten o'clock, he entered the camp of the Catholics at St.
Cloud, three of their principal leaders, Marshal d'Aumont, and Sires
d'Humieres and de Givry, immediately acknowledged him unconditionally, as
they had done the day before at the death-bed of Henry III., and they at
once set to work to conciliate to him the noblesse of Champagne, Picardy,
and Ile-de-France. "Sir," said Givry, "you are the king of the brave;
you will be deserted by none but dastards." But the majority of the
Catholic leaders received him with such expressions as, "Better die than
endure a Huguenot king!" One of them, Francis d'O, formally declared to
him that the time had come for him to choose between the insignificance
of a King of Navarre and the grandeur of a King of France; if he